business puzzles me, though you and your friends here seem to find it
devilish amusing. When I told the Chief Constable, the manager of the
shipyard, and the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Work that you were
the guilty party, they all roared. For some reason the Admiral and the
shipyard manager kept winking at one another and gurgling till I
thought they would have choked. What _is_ the joke?"

"If you are good, Dawson, I will tell you some day. This is November,
and the _Rampagious_--the ship described on your paper--left for
Portsmouth in August. In July--" I broke off hurriedly, lest I should
tell my visitor too much. "It has taken our friend who put the paper
in the sardine tin three months to find out details of her. I could
have done better than that, Dawson."

"That is just what the Admiral said, though he wouldn't explain why."

"The truth is, Dawson, that the Admiral and I both come from Devon,
the land of pirates, smugglers, and buccaneers. We are law breakers by
instinct and family tradition. When we get an officer of the law on
toast, we like to make the most of him. It is a playful little way of
ours which I am sure you will understand and pardon."

"You know, of course, that I am justified in arresting you. I have a
warrant and handcuffs in my pocket."

"Admirable man!" I cried, with enthusiasm. "You are, Dawson, the
perfect detective. As a criminal I should be mightily afraid of you.
But, as in my buttonhole I always wear the white flower which
proclaims to the world my blameless life, I am thoroughly enjoying
this visit and our cosy chat beside the fire. Shall I telephone to my
office and say that I shall be unavoidably detained from duty for an
indefinite time? 'Detained' would be the strict truth and the _mot
juste_. If you would kindly lock me up, say, for three years or the
duration of the war I should be your debtor. I have often thought that
a prison, provided that one were allowed unlimited paper and the use
of a typewriter, would be the most charming of holidays--a perfect
rest cure. There are three books in my head which I should like to
write. Arrest me, Dawson, I implore you! Put on the handcuffs--I have
never been handcuffed--ring up a taxi, and let us be off to jail. You
will, I hope, do me the honour of lunching with me first and meeting
my wife. She will be immensely gratified to be quit of me. It cannot
often have happened in your lurid career, Dawson, to be welcomed with
genuine enthusiasm."

"Why did that man say that he prepared the description of the ship for
you?"

"That is what we are going to find out, and I will help you all I can.
My reputation is like the bloom upon the peach--touch it, and it is
gone for ever. There is a faint glimmer of the truth at the back of my
mind which may become a clear light. Did he say that he had given it
to me personally, into my own hand?"

"No. He said that he was approached by a man whom he had known off and
on for years, a man who was employed by you in connection with
shipyard inquiries. He was informed that this man was still employed
by you for the same purpose now as in the past."

"Your case against me is thinning out, Dawson. At its best it is
second-hand; at its worst, the mere conjecture of a rather careless
draughtsman. I have two things to do: first to find out the real
seducer, who is probably also the despatcher of the parcels to the
late lieutenant of Northumberland Fusiliers, and second, to save if I
can this poor fool of a shipyard draughtsman from punishment for his
folly. I don't doubt that he honestly thought he was dealing with me."

"He will have to be punished. The Admiral will insist upon that."

"We must make the punishment as light as we can. You shall help me
with all the discretionary authority with which you are equipped. I
can see, Dawson, from the tactful skill with which you have dealt with
me that discretion is among your most distinguished characteristics.
If you had been a stupid, bull-headed policeman, you would have been
up against pretty serious trouble."

"That was quite my own view," replied Dawson drily.

"Who is the man described by our erring draughtsman?"

"He won't say. We have put on every allowable method of pressure, and
some that are not in ordinary times permitted. We have had over this
spy hunt business to shed most of our tender English regard for
suspected persons, and to adopt the French system of fishing
inquiries. In France the police try to make a man incriminate himself;
in England we try our hardest to prevent him. That may be very right
and just in peace time against ordinary law breakers; but war is war,
and spies are too dangerous to be treated tenderly. We have
cross-examined the man, and bully-ragged him, but he won't give up the
name of his accomplice. It may be a relation. One thing seems sure.
The man is, or was, a member of your staff, engaged in shipyard
inquiries. Can you give me a list of the men who are or have been on
this sort of work during the past few years?"

"I will get it for you. But please use it carefully. My present men
are precious jewels, the few left to me by zealous military
authorities. What I must look for is some one over military age who
has left me or been dismissed--probably dismissed. When a British
subject, of decent education and once respectable surroundings, gets
into the hands of German agents, you may be certain of one thing,
Dawson, that he has become a rotter through drink."

"That's it," cried Dawson. "You have hit it. Crime and drink are twin
brothers as no one knows better than the police. Look out for the name
and address of a man dismissed for drunkenness and we shall have our
bird."

"The name I can no doubt give you, but not the address."

"Give us any address where he lived, even if it were ten years ago,
and we will track him down in three days. That is just routine police
work."

"I never presume to teach an expert his business--and you, Dawson, are
a super-expert, a director-general of those of common qualities--but
would it not be well to warn all the Post Offices, so that when
another parcel is brought in addressed to the lieutenant the bearer
may be arrested?"

Dawson sniffed. "Police work; common police work. It was done at once
for this city and fifty miles round. No parcel was put in last week.
The warning has since been extended to the whole of the United
Kingdom. We may get our man this week, or at least a messenger of his,
but no news has yet come to me. I will lunch with you, as you so
kindly suggest, and afterwards I want you to come with me to see the
draughtsman in the lockup. You may be able to shake his confounded
obstinacy. Run the pathetic stunt. Say if he keeps silent that you
will be arrested, your home broken up, your family driven into the
workhouse, and you yourself probably shot. Pitch it strong and rich.
He is a bit of a softy from the look of him. That tender-hearted lot
are always the most obstinate when asked to give away their pals."

"Do you know, Dawson," I said, as he went upstairs with me to have a
lick and a polish, as he put it--"I am inclined to agree with Cary
that you are rather an inhuman beast."

My wife, with whom I could exchange no more than a dozen words and a
wink or two, gripped the situation and played up to it in the fashion
which compels the admiration and terror of mere men. Do they humbug
us, their husbands, as they do the rest of the world on our behalf?
She met Dawson as if he were an old family friend, heaped hospitality
upon him, and chaffed him blandly as if to entertain a police officer
with a warrant and handcuffs in his pocket were the best joke in the
world. "My husband, Mr. Dawson, needs a holiday very badly, but won't
take one. He thinks that the war cannot be pursued successfully unless
he looks after it himself. If you would carry him off and keep him
quiet for a bit, I should be deeply grateful." She then fell into a
discussion with Dawson of the most conveniently situated prisons. Mrs.
Copplestone dismissed Dartmoor and Portland as too bleakly situated,
but was pleased to approve of Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight--which I
rather fancy is a House of Detention for women. She insisted that the
climate of the Island was suited to my health, and wrung a promise
from Dawson that I should, if possible, be interned there. Dawson's
manners and conversation surprised me. His homespun origin was
evident, yet he had developed an easy social style which was neither
familiar nor aggressive. We were in his eyes eccentrics, possibly what
he would call among his friends "a bit off," and he bore himself
towards us accordingly. My small daughter, Jane, to whom he had been
presented as a colonel of police--little Jane is deeply versed in
military ranks--took to him at once, and his manner towards her
confirmed my impression that some vestiges of humanity may still be
discovered in him by the patient searcher. She insisted upon sitting
next to him and in holding his hand when it was not employed in
conveying food to his mouth. She was startled at first by the
discussion upon the prisons most suitable for me, but quickly became
reconciled to the idea of a temporary separation.

"Colonel Dawson," she asked. "When daddy is in prison, may I come and
see him sometimes. Mother and me?" Dawson gripped his hair--we were
the maddest crew!--and replied. "Of course you shall, Miss Jane, as
often as you like."

"Thank you, Colonel Dawson; you are a nice man. I love you. Now show
me the handcuffs in your pocket."

For the second time that day poor Dawson blushed. He must have
regretted many times that he had mentioned to me those unfortunate
darbies. Now amid much laughter he was compelled to draw forth a
pretty shining pair of steel wristlets and permit Jane to put them on.
They were much too large for her; she could slip them on and off
without unlocking; but as toys they were a delight. "I shouldn't mind
being a prisoner," she declared, "if dear Colonel Dawson took me up."

We were sitting upon the fire-guard after luncheon, dallying over our
coffee, when Jane demanded to be shown a real arrest. "Show me how you
take up a great big man like Daddy."

Then came a surprise, which for a moment had so much in it of bitter
realism that it drove the blood from my wife's cheeks. I could not
follow Dawson's movements; his hands flickered like those of a
conjurer, there came a sharp click, and the handcuffs were upon my
wrists! I stared at them speechless, wondering how they got there,
and, looking up, met the coldly triumphant eyes of the detective. I
realised then exactly how the professional manhunter glares at the
prey into whom, after many days, he has set his claws. My wife gasped
and clutched at my elbow, little Jane screamed, and for a few seconds
even I thought that the game had been played and that serious business
was about to begin. Dawson gave us a few seconds of apprehension, and
then laughed grimly. From his waistcoat pocket he drew a key, and the
fetters were removed almost as quickly as they had been clapped on.
"Tit for tat," said he. "You have had your fun with me. Fair play is a
jewel."

Little Jane was the first to recover speech. "I knew that dear Colonel
Dawson was only playing," she cried. "He only did it to please me.
Thank you, Colonel, though you did frighten me just a weeny bit at
first." And pulling him down towards her she kissed him heartily upon
his prickly cheek. It was a queer scene.

The door bell rang loudly, and we were informed that a policeman stood
without who was inquiring for Chief Inspector Dawson. "Show him in
here," said I. The constable entered, and his manner of addressing my
guest--that of a raw second lieutenant towards a general of
division--shed a new light upon Dawson's pre-eminence in his Service.
"A telegram for you, sir." Dawson seized it, was about to tear it
open, remembered suddenly his hostess, and bowed towards her. "Have I
your permission, madam?" he asked. She smiled and nodded; I turned
away to conceal a laugh. "Good," cried Dawson, poring over the
message. "I think, Mr. Copplestone, that you had better telephone to
your office and say that you are unavoidably detained."

"What--what is it?" cried my wife, who had again become white with
sudden fear.

"Something which will occupy the attention of your husband and myself
to the exclusion of all other duties. This telegram informs me that a
parcel has been handed in at Carlisle and the bearer arrested."

"Excellent!" I cried. "My time is at your disposal, Dawson. We shall
now get full light."

He sat down and scribbled a reply wire directing the parcel and its
bearer to be brought to him with all speed. "They should arrive in two
or three hours," said he, "and in the meantime we will tackle the
draughtsman who made that plan of the battleship. Good-bye Mrs.
Copplestone, and thank you very much for your hospitality. Your
husband goes with me." My wife shook hands with Dawson, and politely
saw him off the premises. She has said little to me since about his
visit, but I do not think that she wishes ever to meet with him again.
Little Jane, who kissed him once more at parting, is still attached to
the memory of her colonel.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dawson led me to the private office at the Central Police Station,
which was his temporary headquarters, and sent for the dossier of the
locked up draughtsman. "I have here full particulars of him," said he,
"and a verbatim note of my examination." I examined the photograph
attached, which represented a bearded citizen of harmless aspect; over
his features had spread a scared, puzzled look, with a suggestion in
it of pathetic appeal. He looked like a human rabbit caught in an
unexpected and uncomprehended trap. It was a police photograph. Then I
began to read the dossier, but got no farther than the first
paragraph. In it was set out the man's name, those of his wife and
children, his employment, record of service, and so on. What arrested
my researches was the maiden name of the wife, which, in accordance
with the northern custom, had been entered as a part of her legal
description. The name awoke in me a recollection of a painful incident
within my experience. I saw before me the puffed, degraded face of one
to whom I had given chance after chance of redeeming himself from
thraldom to the whisky bottle, one who had promised again and again to
amend his ways. At last, wearied, I had cast him out. He had been
looking after an important shipbuilding district, had conspicuous
ability and knowledge, the support of a faithful wife. But nothing
availed to save him from himself. "Give me five minutes alone with
your prisoner," I said to Dawson, "and I will give you the spy you
seek."

I had asked for five minutes, but two were sufficient for my purpose.
The draughtsman had been obstinate with Dawson, seeking loyally to
shield his wretched brother-in-law, but when he found that I had the
missing thread in my hands, he gave in at once. "What relation is ----
to your wife?" I asked. He had risen at my entrance, but the question
went through him like a bullet; his pale face flushed, he staggered
pitifully, and, sitting down, buried his face in his hands. "You may
tell the truth now," I said gently. "We can easily find out what we
must know, but the information will come better from you."

"He is my wife's brother," murmured the man.

"You knew that he was no longer in my service?"

"Yes, I knew."

I might fairly have asked why he had used my name, but refrained. One
can readily pardon the lapses of an honest man, terrified at finding
himself in the coils of the police, clinging to the good name of his
wife and her family, clutching at any device to throw the
sleuth-hounds of the law off the real scent. He had given his
brother-in-law forbidden information from a loyal desire to help him
and with no knowledge of the base use to which it would be put. When
detected, he had sought at any cost to shield him.

"I will do my best to help you," I said.

His head drooped down till it rested upon his bent arms, and he
groaned and panted under the torture of tears. His was not the stuff
of which criminals are made.

I found Dawson's chuckling joy rather repulsive. I felt that, being
successful, he might at least have had the decency to dissemble his
satisfaction. He might also have given me some credit for the rapid
clearing up of the problem in detection. But he took the whole thing
to himself, and gloated like a child over his own cleverness. I
neither obtained from him thanks for my assistance nor apologies for
his suspicions. It was Dawson, Dawson, all the time. Yet I found his
egotism and unrelieved vanity extraordinarily interesting. As we sat
together in his room waiting for the Carlisle train to come in he
discoursed freely to me of his triumphs in detection, his wide-spread
system of spying upon spies, his long delayed "sport" with some, and
his ruthless rapid trapping of others. Men are never so interesting as
when they talk shop, and as a talker of shop Dawson was sublime.

"If," said Dawson, as the time approached for the closing scene, "our
much-wanted friend has himself handed in the parcel at Carlisle--he
would be afraid to trust an accomplice--our job will be done. If not,
I will pull a drag net through this place which will bring him up
within a day or two. What a fool the man is to think that he could
escape the eye of Bill Dawson."

A policeman entered, laid a packet upon the table before us, and
announced that the prisoner had been placed in cell No. 2. Dawson
sprang up. "We will have a look at him through the peephole, and if it
is our man--" One glance was enough. Before me I saw him whom I had
expected to see. He and his cargo of whisky bottles had reached the
last stage of their long journey; at one end had been peace, reasonable
prosperity, and a happy home; at the other was, perhaps, a rope or a
bullet.

Dawson began once more to descant upon his own astuteness, but I was
too sick at heart to listen. I remembered only the visit years before
which that man's wife had paid to me. "Will you not open the parcel?"
I interposed. He fell upon it, exposed its contents of bread,
chocolate, and sardine tins, and called for a can opener. He shook the
tins one by one beside his ear, and then, selecting that which gave
out no "flop" of oil, stripped it open, plunged his fingers inside,
and pulled forth a clammy mess of putty and sawdust. In a moment he
had come upon a paper which after reading he handed to me. It bore the
words in English, "Informant arrested: dare not send more."

"What a fool!" cried Dawson. "As if the evidence against him were not
sufficient already he must give us this."

"You will let that poor devil of a draughtsman down easily?" I
murmured.

"We want him as a witness," replied Dawson. "Tit for tat. If he helps
us, we will help him. And now we will cut along to the Admiral. He is
eager for news."

We broke in upon the Admiral in his office near the shipyards, and he
greeted me with cheerful badinage. "So you are in the hands of the
police at last, Copplestone. I always told you what would be the end
of your naval inquisitiveness."

Dawson told his story, and the naval officer's keen kindly face grew
stern and hard. "Germans I can respect," said he, "even those that
pretend to be our friends. But one of our own folk--to sell us like
this--ugh! Take the vermin away; Dawson, and stamp upon it."

We stood talking for a few moments, and then Dawson broke in with a
question. "I have never understood, Admiral, why you were so very
confident that Mr. Copplestone here had no hand in this business. The
case against him looked pretty ugly, yet you laughed at it all the
time. Why were you so sure?"

The Admiral surveyed Dawson as if he were some strange creature from
an unknown world. "Mr. Copplestone is a friend of mine," said he
drily.

"Very likely," snapped the detective. "But is a man a white angel
because he has the honour to be your friend?"

"A fair retort," commented the Admiral. It happens that I had other
and better reasons. For in July I myself showed Mr. Copplestone over
the new battleship _Rampagious_, and after our inspection we both
lunched with the builders and discussed her design and armament in
every detail. So as Mr. Copplestone knew all about her in July, he was
not likely to suborn a draughtsman in November. See?"

"You should have told me this before. It was your duty."

"My good Dawson," said the Admiral gently, "you are an excellent
officer of police, but even you have a few things yet to learn. I had
in my mind to give you a lesson, especially as I owed you some
punishment for your impertinence in opening my friend Copplestone's
private letters. You have had the lesson; profit by it."

Dawson flushed angrily. "Punishment! Impertinence! This to me!"

"Yes," returned the Admiral stiffly, "beastly impertinence."




CHAPTER IV


SABOTAGE

Dawson showed no malice towards the Admiral or myself for our
treatment of him. I do not think that he felt any; he was too fully
occupied in collecting the spoils of victory to trouble his head about
what a Scribbler or a Salt Horse might think of him. He gathered to
himself every scrap of credit which the affair could be induced to
yield, and received--I admit quite deservedly--the most handsome
encomiums from his superiors in office. During the two weeks he passed
in my city after the capture--weeks occupied in tracing out the
threads connecting his wretch of a prisoner with the German agents
upon what Dawson called his "little list"--he paid several visits both
to my house and my office. His happiness demanded that he should read
to me the many letters which poured in from high officials of the
C.I.D., from the Chief Commissioner, and on one day--a day of days in
the chronicles of Dawson--from the Home Secretary himself. To me it
seemed that all these astute potentates knew their Dawson very
thoroughly, and lubricated, as it were, with judicious flattery the
machinery of his energies. I could not but admire Dawson's truly royal
faculty for absorbing butter. The stomachs of most men, really good at
their business, would have revolted at the diet which his superiors
shovelled into Dawson, but he visibly expanded and blossomed. Yes,
Scotland Yard knew its Dawson, and exactly how to stimulate the best
that was in him. He never bored me; I enjoyed him too thoroughly.

One day in my club I chanced upon the Admiral.

"Have you met our friend Dawson lately?" I asked.

"Met him?" shouted he, with a roar of laughter. "Met him? He is in my
office every day--he almost lives with me; goodness knows when he does
his work. He has a pocket full of letters which he has read to me till
I know them by heart. If I did not know that he was a first-class man
I should set him down as a colossal ass. Yet, I rather wish that the
Admiralty would sometimes write to me as the severe but very human
Scotland Yard does to Dawson."

"Does he ever come to you in disguise?" I asked.

"Not that I know of. I see vast numbers of people; some of them may be
Dawson in his various incarnations, but he has not given himself
away."

Then I explained to my naval friend my own experience. "He tried," I
said, "to play the disguise game on me, and clean bowled me the first
time. While he was laughing over my discomfiture I studied his face
more closely than a lover does that of his mistress. I tried to
penetrate his methods. He never wears a wig or false hair; he is too
wise for that folly. Yet he seems able to change his hair from light
to dark, to make it lank or curly, short or long. He does it; how I
don't know. He alters the shape of his nose, his cheeks, and his chin.
I suppose that he pads them out with little rubber insets. He alters
his voice, and his figure, and even his height. He can be stiff and
upright like a drilled soldier, or loose-jointed and shambling like a
tramp. He is a finished artist, and employs the very simplest means.
He could, I truly believe, deceive his wife or his mother, but he will
never again deceive me. I am not a specially observant man; still one
can make a shot at most things when driven to it, and I object to
being the subject of Dawson's ribaldry. If you will take my tip, you
will be able to spot him as readily as I do now."

"Good. I should love to score off Dawson. He is an aggravating beast."

"Study his ears," said I. "He cannot alter their chief characters. The
lobes of his ears are not loose, like yours or mine or those of most
men and women; his are attached to the back of his cheekbones. My
mother had lobes like those, so had the real Roger Tichborne; I
noticed Dawson's at once. Also at the top fold of his ears he has
rather a pronounced blob of flesh. This blob, more prominent in some
men than in others, is, I believe, a surviving relic of the sharp
point which adorned the ears of our animal ancestors. Dawson's
ancestor must have been a wolf or a bloodhound. Whenever now I have a
strange caller who is not far too tall or far too short to be Dawson,
if a stranger stops me in the street to ask for a direction, if a
porter at a station dashes up to help me with my bag, I go for his
ears. If the lobes are attached to the cheekbones and there is a
pronounced blob in the fold at the top, I address the man instantly as
Dawson, however impossibly unlike Dawson he may be. I have spotted him
twice now since he bowled me out, and he is frightfully savage--especially
as I won't tell him how the trick is done. He says that it is my duty to
tell him, and that he will compel me under some of his beloved Defence of
the Realm Regulations. But the rack could not force me to give away my
precious secret. Cherish it and use it. You will not tell, for you love
to mystify the ruffian as much as I do."

"I will watch for his ears when he next calls, which, I expect, will
be to-morrow. Thank you very much. I won't sneak."

"Remember that nothing else in the way of identification is of any
use, for I doubt if either of us has ever seen the real, undisguised
Dawson as he is known to God. We know a man whom we think is the
genuine article--but is he? Cary's description of him is most unlike
the man whom we see here. I expect that he has a different identity
for every place which he visits. If he told me that at any moment he
was wholly undisguised, I should be quite sure that he was lying. The
man wallows in deception for the very sport of the thing. But he can't
change his ears. Study them, and you will be safe."

Our club was the only place in which we could be sure that Dawson did
not penetrate, though I should not have been surprised to learn that
one or two of the waitresses were in his pay. Dawson is an ardent
feminist; he says that as secret agents women beat men to a frazzle.

Shortly before Dawson left for his headquarters on the north-east
coast he dropped in upon me. He had finished his researches, and
revealed the results to me with immense satisfaction.

"I have fixed up Menteith," he began, "and know exactly how he came
into communication with the German Secret Service." The contemptuous
emphasis which he laid on the word "Secret" would have annoyed the
Central Office at Potsdam. I have given the detected British spy the
name of Menteith after that of the most famous traitor in Scottish
history; if I called him, say, Campbell or Macdonald, nothing could
save me from the righteous vengeance of the outraged Clans.

"It was all very simple," he went on, "like most things in my business
when one gets to the bottom of them. He was seduced by a man whom the
local police have had on their string for a long time, but who will
now be put securely away. Menteith was a frequenter of a certain
public house down the river, where he posed as an authority on the
Navy, and hinted darkly at his stores of hidden information. Our
German agent made friends with him, gave him small sums for drinks,
and flattered his vanity. It is strange how easily some men are
deceived by flattery. The agent got from Menteith one or two bits of
news by pretending a disbelief in his sources of intelligence, and
then, when the fool had committed himself, threatened to denounce him
to the police unless he took service with him altogether. Money, of
course, passed, but not very much. The Germans who employ spies so
extensively pay them extraordinarily little. They treat them like
scurvy dogs, for whom any old bone is good enough, and I'm not sure
they are not right. They go on the principle that the white trash who
will sell their country need only to be paid with kicks and coppers.
Menteith swears that he did not receive more than four pounds for the
plans and description of the _Rampagious_. Fancy selling one's country
and risking one's neck for four measly pounds sterling! If he had got
four thousand, I should have had some respect for him. His home is in
a wretched state, and his wife--a pretty woman, though almost a
skeleton, and a very nicely mannered, honest woman--says that her
husband unexpectedly gave her four pounds a month ago. He had kept
none of the blood money for drink! Curious, isn't it?"

"It shows that the man had some good in him. It shows that he was
ashamed to use the money upon himself. We must do something for the
poor wife, Dawson."

"She will easily get work, and she will be far better without her sot
of a husband. She did not cry when I told her everything. 'I ought to
have left him long ago,' she said, 'but I tried to save him. Thank God
we have no children,' That seemed to be her most insistent thought,
for she repeated it over and over again. 'Thank God that we have no
children.'"

"I hope that you were gentle with her, Dawson," said I, deeply moved.
Long ago the wife had come to me and pleaded for her husband. She had
shed no tear; she had admitted the justice, the necessity, of my
sentence. "Can you not give him another chance?" she had asked. "No,"
I had answered sadly. "He has exhausted all the chances." When she had
risen to go and I had pressed her hand, she had said, still dry-eyed,
"You are right, sir, it is no use, no use at all. Thank God that we
have no children."

"I hope that you were gentle with her, Dawson," I repeated.

He astonished me by the suddenness of his explosion. "Damn," roared
he--"damn and blast! Do you think that I am a brute. Gentle! It was as
much as I could do not to kiss the woman, as your little daughter
kissed me, and to promise that I would get her husband off somehow.
But I should not be a friend to her if I tried to save that man."

So Dawson had soft spots in his armour of callousness, and little
Jane's instinct was far surer than mine. She had taken to him at
sight. When I tried to get from her why, why he had so marked an
attraction for her, her replies baffled me more than the central fact.
"I love Colonel Dawson. He is a nice man. He has a little girl like
me. Her name is Clara. Her birthday is next month. I shall save up my
pocket money and send Clara a present. I like Colonel Dawson better
even than dear Bailey." I tore my hair, for "Bailey" is a wholly
imaginary friend of little Jane, whom I invented one evening at her
bedside and who has grown gradually into a personage of clearly
defined attributes--like the "Putois" of Anatole France. Dawson and
"Bailey"; they are both "nice men" and little Jane's friends; she is
sure of them, and I expect that she is right. Children always are
right.

Dawson, after his outburst, glowered at me for a moment and then
laughed. "I am a man," said he, "though you may not think it, and I
have my weaknesses. But I never give way to them when they interfere
with business. Menteith is in my grip, and he won't get out of it. But
he is a poor creature. He handed over the description of the
_Rampagious_, saw it hidden in the sardine tin, and was ordered to
take the food parcel to the Post Office. The German agent who used him
had no notion of risking his own skin. Then followed the discovery and
the arrest of the draughtsman who had drawn the plan. Those who had
seduced Menteith forbade him to come near them. They slipped away into
hiding--which profited them little since all of them were on our
string--after threatening Menteith that he would be murdered if he
gave himself up to the police, as in his terror he seemed to want to
do. When nothing happened for two weeks, the vermin came out of their
holes, made up the last parcel, and forced Menteith to go to Carlisle
in order to post it. All through he has been the most abject of tools,
and received nothing except the four pounds and various small sums
spent in drinks."

"You have the principal all right?"

"Yes, I have him tight. The others associated with him I shall leave
free; they will be most useful in future. They don't know that we know
them; when they do know, their number will go up, for they will be
then of no further use to us. It is a beautiful system, Mr. Copplestone,
and you have had the unusual privilege of seeing it at work."

"What will your prisoners get by way of punishment?"

"I am not sure, but I can guess pretty closely. The principal will go
out suddenly early some morning. He is a Jew of uncertain Central
European origin, Pole or Czech, a natural born British subject, a
shining light of a local anti-German society, an 'indispensable' in
his job and exempted from military service. He will give no more
trouble. Menteith will spend anything from seven to ten years in p.s.,
learn to do without his daily whisky bottle, and possibly come out a
decent citizen. The draughtsman, I expect, will be let off with
eighteen months of the Jug. We are just, but not harsh. My birds don't
interest me much once they have been caught; it is the catching that I
enjoy. Down in the south, where I have a home of my own--which I
haven't seen during the past year except occasionally for an hour or
two--I used to grow big show chrysanthemums. All through the processes
of rooting the cuttings, repotting, taking the buds, feeding up the
plants, I never could endure any one to touch them. But once the
flowers were fully developed, my wife could cut them as much as she
pleased and fill the house with them. My job was done when I had got
the flowers perfect. It is just the same with my business. I cultivate
the little dears I am after, and hate any one to interfere with me; I
humour them and water them and feed them with opportunities till they
are ripe, and then I stick out my hand and grab them. After that the
law can do what it likes with them; they ain't my concern any more."

By this time it had become apparent even to my slow intelligence why
Dawson told me so much about himself and his methods. He had formed
the central figure in a real story in print, and the glory of it
possessed him. He had tasted of the rich sweet wine of fame, and he
thirsted for more of the same vintage. He never in so many words asked
me to write this book, but his eagerness to play Dr. Johnson to my
Boswell appeared in all our relations. He was communicative far beyond
the limits of official discretion. If I now disclosed half, or a
quarter, of what he told me of the inner working of the Secret
Service, Scotland Yard, which admires and loves him, would cast him
out, lock him up securely in gaol, and prepare for me a safe
harbourage in a contiguous cell. So for both our sakes I must be very,
very careful.

"You have been most helpful to me," he said handsomely at parting,
"and if anything good turns up on the North-East coast, I will let you
know. Could you come if I sent for you?"

"I would contrive to manage it," said I.

Dawson went away, and the pressure of daily work and interests thrust
him from my mind. For a month I heard nothing of him or of Cary, and
then one morning came a letter and a telegram. The letter was from
Richard Cary, and read as follows: "A queer thing has happened here.
A cruiser which had come in for repair was due to go out this morning.
She was ready for sea the night before, the officers and crew had all
come back from short leave, and the working parties had cleared out.
Then in the middle watch, when the torpedo lieutenant was testing the
circuits, it was discovered that all the cables leading to the guns
had been cut. Dawson has been called in, and bids me say that, if you
can come down, now is the chance of your life. I will put you up."

The telegram was from Dawson himself. It ran: "They say I'm beaten.
But I'm not. Come and see."

"The deuce," said I. "Sabotage! I am off."




CHAPTER V


BAFFLED

When at last I arrived at Cary's flat it was very late, and I was
exceedingly tired and out of temper. A squadron of Zeppelins had been
reported from the sea, the air-defence control at Newcastle had sent
out the preliminary warning "F.M.W.," and the speed of my train had
been reduced to about fifteen miles an hour. I had expected to get in
to dinner, but it was eleven o'clock before I reached my destination.
I had not even the satisfaction of seeing a raid, for the Zepps, made
cautious by recent heavy losses, had turned back before crossing the
line of the coast. Cary and his wife fell upon my neck, for we were
old friends, condoled with me, fed me, and prescribed a tall glass of
mulled port flavoured with cloves. My stern views upon the need for
Prohibition in time of war became lamentably weakened.

By midnight I had recovered my philosophic outlook upon life, and Cary
began to enlighten me upon the details of the grave problem which had
brought me eagerly curious to his city.

"I expect that Dawson will drop in some time to-night," he said. "All
hours are the same to him. I told him that you were on the way, and he
wants to give you the latest news himself. He is dead set upon you,
Copplestone. I can't imagine why."

"Am I then so very unattractive?" I inquired drily. "It seems to me
that Dawson is a man of sound judgment."

"I confess that I do not understand why he lavishes so much attention
upon you."

"Your remarks, Cary," I observed, "are deficient in tact. You might,
at least, pretend to believe that my personal charm has won for me
Dawson's affection. As a matter of fact, he cares not a straw for my
_beaux yeux_; his motives are crudely selfish. He thinks that it is in
my power to contribute to the greater glory of Dawson, and he
cultivates me just as he would one of his show chrysanthemums. He has
done me the honour to appoint me his biographer extraordinary."

"I am sure you are wrong," cried Cary. "He was most frightfully angry
about that story of ours in _Cornhill_. He demanded from me your name
and address, and swore that if I ever again disclosed to you official
secrets he would proceed against me under the Defence of the Realm
Act. He was a perfect terror, I can assure you."

"And yet he always carries that story about with him in his
breast-pocket; he has summoned me here to see him at his work; and you
have been commanded to tell me everything which you know! My dear
Cary, do not be an ass. You are too simple a soul for this rather
grubby world. In your eyes every politician is an ardent,
disinterested patriot, and every soldier or sailor a knightly hero of
romance. Human beings, Cary, are made in streaks, like bacon; we have
our fat streaks and our lean ones; we can be big and bold, and also
very small and mean. Your great man and your national hero can become
very poor worms when, so to speak, they are off duty. But I didn't
come here, at great inconvenience, to talk this sort of stuff at
midnight. Go ahead; give me the details of this sabotage case which is
baffling Dawson and the naval authorities; let me hear about the
cutting of those electric wires."

"It is, as I told you, in my note, a queer business. The _Antinous_, a
fast light cruiser, came in about a fortnight ago to have some defects
made good in her high-speed geared-turbines. There was not much wrong,
but her engineer commander recommended a renewal of some of the spur
wheels. The officers and crew went on short leave in rotation, a care
and maintenance party was put in charge, and the builders placed a
working gang on board which was occupied in shifts, by night and by
day, in making good the defects. When a ship is under repair in a
river basin, it is practically impossible to keep up the beautiful
order and discipline of a ship at sea. Men of all kinds are constantly
coming and going, life on board is stripped of the most ordinary
comforts and conveniences, there is inevitably some falling off in
strict supervision. Lack of space, lack of facilities for moving about
the ship, lack of any regular routine. You will understand. Just as
the expansion in the New Army and the New Navy has made it possible
for unknown enemy agents to take service in the Army and the Navy, so
the dilution of labour in the shipyards has made it possible for
workmen--whose sympathies are with the enemy--to get employment about
the warships. The danger is fully recognised, and that is where
Dawson's widespread system of counter-espionage comes in. There is not
a trade union, among all the eighteen or twenty engaged in shipyard
work--riveters, fitters, platers, joiners, and all the rest of
them--in which he has not police officers enrolled as skilled
tradesmen, members of the unions, working as ordinary hands or as
foremen, sometimes even in office as "shop stewards" representing the
interest of the unions and acting as their spokesmen in disputes with
the employers. Dawson claims that there has never yet been a secret
Strike Committee, since the war began, upon which at least one of his
own men was not serving. He is a wonderful man. I don't like him; he
is too unscrupulous and merciless for my simple tastes; but his value
to the country is beyond payment."

"But where in the world does he raise these men? One can't turn a
policeman into a skilled worker at a moment's notice. How is it done?"

"He begins at the other end. All his skilled workmen are the best he
can pick out of their various trades. They have served their full time
as apprentices and journeymen. They are recommended to him by their
employers after careful testing and sounding. Most of them, I believe,
come from the Government dockyards and ordnance factories. They are
given a course of police training at Scotland Yard, and then dropped
down wherever they may be wanted. Dawson, and inspectors like him,
have these men everywhere--in shipyards, in shell shops, in gun
factories, in aeroplane sheds, everywhere. They take a leading part in
the councils of the unions wherever they go, for they add to their
skill as workmen a pronounced, even blatant parade of loyalty to the
interests of trade unions and a tasty flavour of socialist principles.
Dawson is perfectly cynically outspoken to me over the business which,
I confess, appals me. In his female agents--of which he has many--he
favours what he calls a 'judicious frailty'; in his male agents he
favours a subtle skill in the verbal technique of anarchism. And this
man Dawson is by religion a Peculiar Baptist, in private life a
faithful husband and a loving father, and in politics a strict Liberal
of the Manchester School! As a man he is good, honest, and rather
narrow; as a professional detective he is base and mean, utterly
without scruple, and a Jesuit of Jesuits. With him the end justifies
the means, whatever the means may be."

"And yet you admit that his value to the country is beyond payment.
Dawson--our remarkable Dawson of the double life in the two
compartments, professional and private, which never are allowed to
overlap--Dawson is an instrument of war. We do not like using gas or
liquid fire, but we are compelled to use them. We do not like
espionage, but we must employ it. As one who loves this fair land of
England beyond everything in the world, and as one who would do
anything, risk anything, and suffer anything to shield her from the
filthy Germans, I rejoice that she has in her service such supremely
efficient guardians as this most wickedly unscrupulous Dawson. There
is, at any rate, not a trace of our English muddle about him."

"Ours is a righteous cause," cried poor Cary desperately. "We are
fighting for right against wrong, for defence against aggression, for
civilisation against utter barbarism. We are by instinct clean
fighters. If in the stress of conflict we stoop to foul methods, can
we ever wash away the filth of them from our souls? We shall stand
before the world nakedly confessed as the nation of hypocrites we have
always been declared to be."

"Cary," I said, "you make me tired. We cannot be too thankful that we
possess Dawsons to counterplot against the Germans, and that
personally we are in no way responsible for the morality of their
methods. Come off the roof and get back to this most interesting
affair of the _Antinous_. I presume one of Dawson's men was working,
unknown to his fellows, with the care and maintenance party, and
another, equally unknown, with the engineers who were busy upon the
gearing of the turbines. Many of the regular ship's officers and men
would also have been on board. Had our remarkable friend his agents
among them too? Everything is possible with Dawson; I should not be
surprised to hear that he had police officers in the Fleet flagship."

"You are almost right. One of his men, a temporary petty officer of
R.N.V.R., was certainly on board, and he tells me that down in the
engine room was another--a civilian fitter. They were both first-class
men. The electric wires, as you know, are carried about the ship under
the deck beams, where they are accessible for examination and repairs.
They are coiled in cables from which wires are led to the switch room,
and thence to all parts of the ship. There are thousands of wires, and
no one who did not know intimately their purpose and disposition could
venture to tamper with them, for great numbers are always in use. If
any one cut the lighting wires, for instance, the defects would be
obvious at once; so with the heating or telephone wires. Nothing was
touched except the lines to the guns, of which there are eight
disposed upon the deck. From the guns connections run to the switch
room, the conning tower, the gunnery control platform aloft, and to
the gunnery officer's bridge. It was the main cable between the switch
room and the conning tower which was cut, and it was one cable laid
alongside a dozen others. Now who could know that this was the gun
cable, and the only one in which damage might escape detection while
the ship was in harbour? At sea there is constant gun drill, during
which the electrical controls and the firing-tubes are always tested,
but in harbour the guns are lying idle most of the time. It was
evidently the intention of the enemy, who cut these wires, that the
_Antinous_ should go to sea before the defect was discovered, and that
her fire control should be out of action till the wiring system could
be repaired. That very serious disaster was prevented by the
preliminary testing during the night before sailing, but the enemy has
been successful in delaying the departure of an invaluable light
cruiser for two days. In these days, when the war of observation is
more important even than the war of fighting, the services of light
cruisers cannot be dispensed with for an hour without grave
inconvenience and risk. Yet here was one delayed for forty-eight hours
after her ordinary repairs had been completed. The naval authorities
are in a frightful stew. For what has happened to the _Antinous_ may
happen to other cruisers, even to battleships. If there is sabotage
among the workmen in the shipyards, it must be discovered and stamped
out without a moment's delay. This time it is the cutting of a wire
cable; at another time it may be some wilful injury far more serious.
A warship is a mass of delicate machinery to which a highly skilled
enemy agent might do almost infinite damage. Dawson has been run off
his feet during the past two days; I don't know what he has
discovered; but if he does not get to the bottom of the business in
double-quick time we shall have the whole Board of Admiralty, Scotland
Yard, and possibly the War Cabinet down upon us. Think, too, of the
disgrace to this shipbuilding city of which we are all so proud."

"We shall know something soon," I said, "for, if I mistake not, here
comes Dawson." The electric bell at the front door had buzzed, and
Cary, slipping from the room, presently returned with a man who to me,
at the first glance, was a complete stranger. I sprang up, moved round
to a position whence I could see clearly the visitor's ears, and
gasped. It was Dawson beyond a doubt, but it was not the Dawson whom I
had known in the north. So what I had vaguely surmised was
true--Cary's Dawson and Copplestone's Dawson were utterly unlike.
Dawson winked at me, glanced towards Cary, and shook his head; from
which I gathered that he did not desire his appearance to be the
subject of comment. I therefore greeted him without remark, and, as he
sat down under the electric lights, examined him in detail. This
Dawson was ten years older than the man whom I had known and fenced
with. The hair of this one was lank and grey, while that of mine was
brown and curly; the face of this one was white and thin, while the
face of mine was rather full and ruddy. The teeth were different--I
found out afterwards that Dawson, who had few teeth of his own,
possessed several artificial sets of varied patterns--the shape of the
mouth was different, the nose was different. I could never have
recognised the man before me had I not possessed that clue to identity
furnished by his unchanging ears.

"So, Dawson," said I slowly, "we meet again. Permit me to say that I
congratulate you. It is very well done."

He grinned and glanced at the unconscious Cary. "You are learning.
Bill Dawson takes a bit of knowing."

"Have you any news, Mr. Dawson?" asked Cary eagerly.

"Not much. The wires of the _Antinous_ have all been renewed--the
Admiralty won't allow cables to be patched except at sea--but I
haven't found out who played hanky-panky with them. It could not have
been any one in the engine-room party, as none of them went near the
place where the wires were cut. Besides, they were engineers, not
electricians, and could have known nothing of the arrangements and
disposition of the ship's wires. My man who worked with them is
positive that they are a sound, good lot without a sea-lawyer or a
pacifist among them; a gang of plain, honest tykes. So we are thrown
back on the maintenance party, included in which were all sorts of
ratings. Some of them are skilled in the electrical fittings--my own
man with them is, for one--but we get the best accounts of all of
them. They are long service men, cast for sea owing to various medical
reasons, but perfectly efficient for harbour work. Among the officers
of the ship is a R.N.R. lieutenant with a German name. I jumped to
him, but the captain laughed. The man's father and grandfather were in
the English merchant service, and though his people originally came
from Saxony, he is no more German than we are ourselves. Besides, my
experience is that an Englishman with an inherited German name is the
very last man to have any truck with the enemy. He is too much ashamed
of his forbears for one thing; and for another he is too dead set on
living down his beastly name. So we will rule out the Lieutenant
R.N.R. My own man, who is a petty officer R.N.V.R., and has worked on
a lot of ships which have come in for repairs, says that the temper
among the workmen in the yards is good now. It was ugly when dilution
of labour first came in, but the wages are so high that all that
trouble has settled down. I have had what you call sabotage in the
shell and gun shops, but never yet in the King's ships. We have had
every possible cutter of the wires on the mat before the Captain and
me. We have looked into all their records, had their homes visited and
their people questioned, inquired of their habits--Mr. Copplestone,
here, knows what comes of drink--and found out how they spend their
wages. Yet we have discovered nothing. It is the worst puzzle that
I've struck. When and how the gun cable was cut I can't tell you, but
whoever did it is much too clever to be about. He must have been
exactly informed of the lie and use of the cables, had with him the
proper tools, and used them in some fraction of a minute when he
wasn't under the eye of my own man whose business it was to watch
everybody and suspect everybody. I thought that I had schemed out a
pretty thorough system; up to now it has worked fine. Whenever we have
had the slightest reason to suspect any man, we have had him kept off
the ship and watched. We have run down a lot of footling spies, too
stupid to give us a minute's anxiety, but this man who cut the
_Antinous_'s wires is of a different calibre altogether. He is AI, and
when I catch him, as I certainly shall, I will take off my hat to
him."

"You say that the _Antinous_ is all right now?" I observed.

"Yes. I saw her towed out of the repair basin an hour ago, and she
must be away down the river by this time. It is not of her that I'm
thinking, but of the other ships which are constantly in and out for
repairs. There are always a dozen here of various craft, usually small
stuff. While the man who cut those wires is unknown I shall be in a
perfect fever, and so will the Admiral-Superintendent. We'll get the
beauty sooner or later, but if it is later, there may be had mischief
done. If he can cut wires in one ship, he may do much worse things in
some other. The responsibility rests on me, and it is rather
crushing."

Dawson spoke with less than his usual cheery confidence. I fancy that
the thinness and whiteness of his face were not wholly due to
disguise. He had not been to bed since he had been called up in the
middle watch of the night before last, and the man was worn out.

"If you take my poor advice, Dawson," I said, "you will cut off now
and get some sleep. Even your brain cannot work continuously without
rest. The country needs you at your best, and needs you very badly
indeed."

His dull, weary eyes lighted as if under the stimulus of champagne,
and he turned upon me a look which was almost affectionate. I really
began to believe that Dawson likes me, that he sees in me a kindred
spirit as patriotically unscrupulous as himself.

He jumped up and gripped my hand. "You are right. I will put in a few
hours' sleep and then to work once more. This time I am up against a
man who is nearly as smart as I am myself, and I can't afford to carry
any handicap."

I led him to the door and put him out, and then turned to Cary with a
laugh. "And I, too, will follow Dawson's example. It is past one, and
my head is buzzing with queer ideas. Perhaps, after all, the Germans
have more imagination than we usually credit them with. I wonder--"
But I did not tell to Cary what I wondered.

       *       *       *       *       *

We were sitting after breakfast in Cary's study, enjoying the first
sweet pipe of the day, when the telephone bell rang. Cary took off the
earpiece and I listened to a one-sided conversation somewhat as
follows:--

"What! Is that you, Mr. Dawson? Yes, Copplestone is here. The
_Antigone_? What about her? She is a sister ship of the _Antinous_,
and was in with damage to her forefoot, which had been ripped up when
she ran down that big German submarine north of the Orkneys--Yes, I
know; she was due to go out some time to-day. What do you say? Wires
cut? Whose wires have been cut? The _Antigone's?_ Oh, the devil! Yes,
we will both come down to your office this afternoon. Whenever you
like."

Cary hung up the receiver and glared at me. "It has happened again,"
he groaned. "The _Antigone_ this time. She has been in dry dock for
the past fortnight and was floated out yesterday. Her full complement
joined her last night. Dawson says that he was called up at
eight-o'clock by the news that her gun-wires have been cut exactly
like those of the _Antinous_ and in the same incomprehensible way. He
seems, curiously enough, to be quite cheerful about it."

"He has had a few hours sleep. And, besides, he sees that this second
case, so exactly like the first, makes the solution of his problem
very much more easy. I am glad that he is cheerful, for I feel
exuberantly happy myself. I was kept awake half the night by a
persistent notion which seemed the more idiotic the more I thought all
round it. But now--now, there may be something in it."

"What is your idea? Tell me quick."

"No, thank you, Dr. Watson. We amateur masters of intuition don't work
our thrilling effects in that way. We keep our notions to ourselves
until they turn out to be right, and then we declare that we saw
through the problem from the first. When we have been wrong, we say
nothing. So you observe, Cary, that whatever happens our reputations
do not suffer."




CHAPTER VI


GUESSWORK

Cary tried to shake my resolution, but I was obdurately silent. While
he canvassed the whole position, bringing to bear his really profound
knowledge of naval equipment and routine--and incidentally helping me
greatly to realise the improbability of my own guesswork solution--I
was able to maintain an air of lofty superiority. I must have
aggravated him intensely, unpardonably, for I was his guest. He ought
to have kicked me out. Yet he bore with me like the sweet-blooded
kindly angel that he is, and when at the end it appeared that I was
right after all, Cary was the first to pour congratulations and honest
admiration upon me. If he reads this book he will know that I am
repentant--though I must confess that I should behave in just the same
abominable way if the incident were to occur again. There is no great
value in repentance such as this.

We reached Dawson's office in the early afternoon, and found his chief
assistant there, but no Dawson. "The old man," remarked that officer,
a typical, stolid, faithful detective sergeant, "is out on the
rampage. He ought by rights to sit here directing the staff and leave
the outside investigations to me. He is a high-up man, almost a deputy
assistant commissioner, and has no call to be always disguising
himself and playing his tricks on everybody. I suppose you know that
white-haired old gent down here ain't a bit like Bill Dawson, who's
not a day over forty?"

"I have given up wondering where the real Dawson ends and where the
disguises begin. The man I met up north wasn't the least bit like the
one down here."

"A deal younger, I expect," said the chief assistant, grinning. "He
shifts about between thirty and sixty. The old man is no end of a
cure, and tries to take us in the same as he does you. There's an
inspector at the Yard who was at school with him down Hampshire way,
and ought to know what he is really like, but even he has given Dawson
up. He says that the old man does not know his own self in the
looking-glass; and as for Mrs. Dawson, I expect she has to take any
one who comes along claiming to be her husband, for she can't,
possibly tell t'other from which."

"One might make a good story out of that," I observed to Cary.

"I don't understand," said he. "Mr. Dawson told me once that I knew
the real Dawson, but that few other people did."

"If he told you that," calmly observed the assistant, "you may bet
your last shirt he was humbugging you. He couldn't tell the truth, not
if he tried ever so."

"What is he at now?" I asked.

"I don't know, sir. And if he told me, I shouldn't believe him. I
don't take no account of a word that man says. But he's the most
successful detective we've got in the whole Force. He's sure to be
head of the C.I.D. one day, and then he will have to stay in his
office and give us others a chance."

"I don't believe he will," I observed, laughing. "There will be a sham
Dawson in the office and the genuine article will be out on the
rampage. He is a man who couldn't sit still, not even if you tied him
in his chair and sealed the knots."

We spent a pleasant hour pulling Dawson to pieces and leaving to him
not a rag of virtue, except intense professional zeal. We exchanged
experiences of him, those of the chief assistant being particularly
rich and highly flavoured. It appeared that Dawson when off duty loved
to occupy the platform at meetings of his religious connection and to
hold forth to the elect. The privilege of "sitting under him" had been
enjoyed more than once by the assistant, who retailed to us extracts
from Dawson's favourite sermon on "Truth." His views upon Truth were
unbending as armour plate. "Under no circumstances, not to save
oneself from imminent death, not to shield a wife or a child from the
penalties for a lapse from virtue, not even to preserve one's country
from the attacks of an enemy, was it permissible to a Peculiar Baptist
to diverge by the breadth of a hair from the straight path of Truth.
Hell yawned on either hand; only along the knife edge of Truth could
salvation be reached."

"He made me shiver," said the chief assistant, "and he drove me to
thinking of one or two little deceptions of my own. When Dawson
preaches, his eyes blaze, his voice breaks, and he will fall on his
knees and pray for the souls of those who heed not his words. You
can't look at him then and not believe that he means every word he
says. Yet it's all humbug."

"No, it is not," said I. "Dawson in the pulpit, or on the tub--or
whatever platform he uses--is absolutely genuine. He is the finest
example that I have ever met of the dual personality. He is in dead
earnest when he preaches on Truth, and he is in just as dead earnest
when, stripped of every moral scruple, he pursues a spy or a criminal.
In pursuit he is ruthless as a Prussian, but towards the captured
victim he can be strangely tender. I should not be surprised to learn
that he hates capital punishment and is a strong advocate of gentle
methods in prison discipline."

The chief assistant stared, opened a drawer, and pulled forth a slim
grey pamphlet. It was marked "For Office Use Only," and was entitled,
"Some Notes on Prison Reform," by Chief Inspector William Dawson.

I had begun to read the pamphlet, when a step sounded outside; the
assistant snatched it from my hand, flashed it back into its place,
and jumped to attention as Dawson entered. He surveyed us with those
searching, unwinking eyes of his--for we had the air of
conspirators--and said brusquely: "Clear out, Wilson. You talk too
much. And don't admit any one except Petty Officer Trehayne."

"The _Antigone_!" cried Cary, who thought only of ships. "The
_Antigone_! Is she much damaged?"

"No. Whoever tried to cut her wires was disturbed, or in too great a
hurry to do his work well. The main gun-cable was nipped, but not cut
through. She will be delayed till to-morrow, not longer. I am not
worrying about the _Antigone_, but about the new battleship
_Malplaquet_, which was commissioned last month, is nearly filled up
with stores, and is expected to leave the river on Saturday. We can't
have her delayed by any hanky tricks, not even if we have to put the
whole detective force on board of her. Still, I'm not so anxious as I
was. This _Antigone_ business has cleared things up a lot, and one can
sift out the impossible from the possible. To begin with, the
_Antinous_ was in for repairs to her geared turbines, and the
_Antigone_ for damage to her forefoot. Engineers were on one job, and
platers and riveters on the other. Different trades. So not a workman
who was in the _Antinous_ was also in the _Antigone_. We can rule out
all the workmen. We can also rule out my lieutenant R.N.R. with the
German name who has gone to sea in the _Antinous_. The care and
maintenance party in the _Antigone_ was not the same as the one in the
_Antinous_, not a man the same."

"You are sure of that?" cried I, for it seemed that my daring theory
had gone to wreck. "You are quite sure."

"Quite. I have all the names and have examined all the men. They were
all off the ship by eleven o'clock last night. I hadn't one of my own
men among them, but, to make sure, I sent Petty Officer Trehayne on
board at eight o'clock to keep a sharp look-out and to see all the
harbour party off the vessel. He reported a little after eleven that
they were all gone and the ship taken over by her own crew. The damage
was discovered at four bells in the morning watch."

"Six o'clock a.m.," interpreted Cary.

"It looks now as if there might be a traitor among her own crew, which
is her officers' job, not mine. I wash my hands of the _Antigone_, but
it is very much up to me to see that nothing hurtful happens to the
_Malplaquet_. The Admiral has orders to support me with all the force
under his command; the General of the District has the same orders.
But it isn't force we want so much as brains--Dawson's brains. I have
been beaten twice, but not the third time. I've told the Yard that if
the _Malplaquet_ is touched I shall resign, and if they send any one
to help me I shall resign. Between to-day, Thursday, and Saturday I am
going to catch the wily josser who has a fancy for cutting gun cables
or Dawson will say good-bye to the Force. That's a fair stake."

The man swelled with determination and pride. He had no thought of
failure, and drew inspiration and joy from the heaviness of the bet
which he had made with Fortune. He took the born gambler's delight in
a big risk.

"Then you think that the _Antinous_ and the _Antigone_ were both
damaged by the same man, and that he may have designs upon the
_Malplaquet_?" said I.

"I don't propose to tell you what I think," replied Dawson stiffly.

"Still," I persisted, passing over the snub, "you have a theory?"

"No, thanks," said Dawson contemptuously. "I have no use for theories.
When they are wrong they mislead you, and when they are right they are
no help. I believe in facts--facts brought out by constant vigilance.
Unsleeping watchfulness and universal suspicion, those are the
principles I work on. The theory business makes pretty story books,
but the Force does not waste good time over them."

"What are you going to do?"

"This is Thursday afternoon. I am going to join the _Malplaquet_
presently, and I'm not going to sleep till she is safely down the
river. I'm going to be my own watchman this time."

"How? In what capacity?"

Dawson gave a shrug of impatience, for his nerves were on edge. For a
moment he hesitated, and then, recollecting the high post to which I
had tacitly been appointed in his household, he replied:

"I am going as one of the Marine sentries."

"It's no use, Dawson," protested I emphatically. "You are a wonder at
disguise, and will look, I do not doubt, the very spit of a Marine.
But you can't pass among the men for half an hour without discovery.
They are a class apart, they talk their own language, cherish their
own secret traditions, live in a world to which no stranger ever
penetrates. You could pass as a naval officer more easily than you
could as a Pongo. It is sheer madness, Dawson."

He gave a short laugh. "Much you know about it. I have served in the
Red Corps myself. I was a recruit at Deal, passed two years at
Plymouth, and served afloat for three years. I was then drafted into
the Naval Police. Afterwards I was recommended for detective work in
the dockyards, and at the end of my Marine service joined the Yard. My
good man, I was a sergeant before I left the Corps."

"I give up, Dawson," said I. "Nothing about you will ever surprise me
again. Not even if you claim to have been a Cabinet Minister."

A queer smile stole over his face. "No, I have not been a minister,
but I have attended a meeting of the Cabinet."

Cary interposed at this point. "Yours is a fine idea, Mr. Dawson. As a
Marine sentry you can get yourself posted by the Major wherever you
please, and the Guard will not talk even though they may wonder that
any man should want to do twenty-four hours of duty per day. The
Marines are the closest, faith-fullest, and best disciplined force in
the wide world. Bluejackets will gossip; Marines never. You will be
able to watch more closely than even Trehayne, who, I suppose, will
also be on board."

"Yes. He is coming up soon for instructions. It's his last chance, as
it is mine. He sees that he must be held responsible for the wire
cutting in the _Antinous_, and to some slight extent also in the
_Antigone_, and that if anything goes wrong with the _Malplaquet_ he
will be dismissed. I shall be sorry to lose him, for he is an
exceptionally good man, but we can't allow failures in petty officer
detectives any more than we can in chief inspectors."

"Where does Trehayne come from? His name sounds Cornish," I asked.

"Falmouth, I believe. He is quite young, but he has had nearly three
years in the _Vernon_ at Portsmouth and in the torpedo factory at
Greenock. A first-class engineer and electrician and a sound
detective. He has been with me for some twelve months. You will see
him if he calls soon."

I had been thinking hard over the details of Dawson's plans while the
talk went on, and then ventured to offer some comments.

"It is fortunate that you have grown a moustache since you were in the
north; you could not have been a Marine as a clean-shaven man."

"I often have to shave it," said Dawson, "but I always grow it again
between whiles. One can take it off quicker than one can put it on
again. False hair is the devil; I have never used it yet and never
will. So whenever I have a spell of leisure I grow a moustache against
emergencies--like this one."

My next comment was rather difficult to make, for I did not wish
either Cary or Dawson to divine its purpose. "If I may make a
suggestion to a man of your experience it would be that none of your
men here, not even your chief assistant or Trehayne, should know that
you are joining the _Malplaquet_ as a Marine. Two independent strings
are in this case better than a double-jointed string."

"I never tell anything to any one, least of all to Pudden-Headed
Wilson. He is loyal, but a stupid ass with a flapping tongue. Trehayne
is close as wax, but, on general principles, I keep my movements
strictly to myself. He will be in the ship, but he won't know that I
am there too. The Commander must know and the Major of Marines, for I
shall want a uniform and the free run of the ship, so as to be posted
where I like. The Marine Sergeants of the Guard may guess, but, as Mr.
Cary says, they won't talk. You two gentlemen are safe," added Dawson
pleasantly, "for I've got you tight in my hand and could lock either
of you up in a minute if I chose."

A peculiar knock came upon the door, a word passed between Dawson and
the police sentry outside, and a young man in the uniform of a naval
petty officer entered the room. He was clean-shaven, looked about
twenty-five years old, was dark and slim of the Latin type which is
not uncommon in Cornwall, and impressed me at once with his air of
intelligence and refinement. His voice, too, was rather striking. It
was that of the wardroom rather than of the mess deck. I liked the
look of Petty Officer Trehayne. Dawson presented him to us and then
took him aside for instructions. When he had finished, both men
rejoined us, and the conversation became light and general. Trehayne,
though clearly suffering from nervous strain after his recent
professional failures, talked with the ease and detachment of a highly
cultivated man. It appeared that he had been educated at Blundell's
School, had lost his parents at about sixteen, had done a course in
some electrical engineering shops at Plymouth, and when twenty years
old had secured a good berth on the engineering staff of the _Vernon_.
He could speak both French and German, which he had learned partly at
school and partly on the Continent during leave. Dawson, who was
evidently very proud of his young pupil and assistant, paraded his
accomplishments before us rather to Trehayne's embarrassment. "Try him
with French and German," urged Dawson. "He can chatter them as well as
English. But he is as close as wax in all three languages. Some men
can't keep their tongues still in one."

I turned to Trehayne and spoke in French: "German I can't abide, but
French I love. My vocabulary is extensive, but my accent
abominable--incurably British. You can hear it for yourself how it
gives me away."

"It is not quite of Paris," replied Trehayne. "Mais vous parlez
francais tres bien, tres correctement. Beaucoup mieux que moi."

"Non, non, monsieur," I protested, and then reverted to English.

"Now," said Dawson, when Trehayne had left us, "I must get along, see
the Commander of the _Malplaquet_, and draw a uniform and rifle out of
the marine stores. It will be quite like old times. You won't see me
until Saturday, when I shall be either a triumphant or a broken man.
What is the betting, Mr. Copplestone?"

I could not understand the quizzical little smile that Dawson gave me,
nor the humorous twitch of his lips. He had contemptuously disclaimed
all use of theories, yet there was more moving behind that big
forehead of his than he chose to give away. Did his ideas run on
parallel lines with mine; did he even suspect that I had formed any
idea at all? I could not inquire, for I dislike being laughed at,
especially by this man Dawson. I had nothing to go upon, at least so
little that was palpable that anything which I might say would be
dismissed as the merest guesswork, for which, as Dawson proclaimed, he
had no use. Yet, yet--my original guess stuck firmly in my mind,
improbable though it might be, and had just been nailed down
tightly--I scorn to mystify the reader--by a few simple sentences
spoken in French.




CHAPTER VII


THE MARINE SENTRY

We had a whole day to fill in before we could get any news of Dawson's
vigil in the _Malplaquet_, and I have never known a day as drearily
long. Cary and I were both restless as peas on a hot girdle, and could
not settle down to talk or to read or to write. Cary sought vainly to
persuade me to read and pass judgment upon his Navy Book. In spite of
my interest in the subject my soul revolted at the forbidding pile of
manuscript. I promised to read the proofs and criticise them with
severity, but as for the M.S.--no, thanks. Poor Cary needed all his
sweet patience to put up with me. By eleven o'clock we had become
unendurable to one another, and I gladly welcomed his suggestion to
adjourn to his club, have lunch there, and try to inveigle the
Commander of the _Malplaquet_ into our net. "I know him," said Cary.
"He is a fine fellow; and though he must be pretty busy, he will be
glad to lunch somewhere away from the ship. If we have luck we will go
back with him and look over the _Malplaquet_ ourselves."

"If you can manage that, Cary, you will have my blessing."

He did manage to work the luncheon part by telephoning to the yard
where the _Malplaquet_ was fitting out, and we left the rest to our
personal charms.

Cary was right. The Commander was a very fine fellow, an English naval
officer of the best type. He confirmed the views I had frequently
heard expressed by others of his profession that no hatred exists
between English and German sailors. They leave that to middle-aged
civilians who write for newspapers. The German Navy, in his opinion,
was "a jolly fine Service," worthy in high courage and skill to
contest with us the supremacy of the seas. He had been through the
China troubles as a lieutenant in the _Monmouth_--afterwards sunk by
German shot off Coronel--knew von Spee, von Mueller, and other officers
of the Pacific Squadron, and spoke of them with enthusiasm. "They sunk
some of our ships and we wiped out theirs. That was all in the way of
business. We loved them in peace and we loved them in war. They were
splendidly loyal to us out in China--von Spee actually transferred
some of his ships to the command of our own senior officer so as to
avoid any clash of control--and when it came to fighting, they fought
like gentlemen. I grant you that their submarine work against merchant
ships has been pretty putrid, but I don't believe that was the choice
of their Navy. They got their orders from rotten civilians like Kaiser
Bill." Imagine if you can the bristling moustache of the Supreme War
Lord could he have heard himself described as a civilian!

Our guest had commanded a destroyer in the Jutland battle, and assured
us that the handling of the German battle squadrons had been masterly.
"They punished us heavily for just so long as they were superior in
strength, and then they slipped away before Jellicoe could get his
blow in. They kept fending us off with torpedo attacks until the night
came down, and then clean vanished. We got in some return smacks after
dark at stragglers, but it was very difficult to say how much damage
we did. Not much, I expect. Still it was a good battle, as decisive in
its way as Trafalgar. It proved that the whole German Fleet could not
fight out an action against our full force and have the smallest hope
of success. I am just praying for the chance of a whack at them in the
_Malplaquet_. My destroyer was a bonny ship, the best in the flotilla,
but the _Malplaquet_ is a real peach. You should see her."

"We mean to," said Cary. "This very afternoon. You shall take us back
with you."

The Commander opened his eyes at this cool proposal, but we prevailed
upon him to seek the permission of the Admiral-Superintendent, who, a
good deal to my surprise, proved to be quite pliable. Cary's
reputation for discretion must be very high in the little village
where he lives if it is able to guarantee so disreputable a scribbler
as Bennet Copplestone! The Admiral, fortunately, had not read any of
my Works before they had been censored. When printed in _Cornhill_
they were comparatively harmless.

I must not describe the _Malplaquet_. Her design was not new to me--I
had seen more than one of her type--but as she is now a unit in
Beatty's Fleet her existence is not admitted to the world. As we went
up and down her many steep narrow ladders, and peered into dark
corners, I looked everywhere for a Marine sentry whom I could identify
by mark of ear as Dawson. I never saw him, but Trehayne passed me
twice, and I found myself again admiring his splendid young manhood.
He was not big, being rather slim and wiry than strongly built, but in
sheer beauty of face and form he was almost perfectly fashioned. "Do
you know that man?" I asked of our commander, indicating Trehayne.
"No," said he. "He is one of the shore party. But I should like to
have him with me. He is one of the smartest looking petty officers
that I have ever seen."

We were shown everything that we desired to see except the
transmission room and the upper conning tower--the twin holy of holies
in a commissioned ship--and slipped away, escaping the Captain by a
bare two minutes. Which was lucky, as he would probably have had us
thrown into the "ditch."

The end of the day was as weariful as the beginning, and we were all
glad--especially, I expect, Mrs. Cary--to go early to bed. That
ill-used lady, to whom we could disclose nothing of our anxieties,
must have found us wretched company.

We had finished breakfast the next morning--the Saturday of Dawson's
gamble--and were sitting on Cary's big fireguard talking of every
subject, except the one which had kept us awake at night, when a
servant entered and announced that a soldier was at the door with a
message from Mr. Dawson. "Show him in," almost shouted Cary, and I
jumped to my feet, stirred for once into a visible display of
eagerness.

A Marine came in, dressed in the smart blue sea kit that I love; upon
his head the low flat cap of his Corps. He gave us a full swinging
salute, and jumped to attention with a click of his heels. He looked
about thirty-five, and wore a neatly trimmed dark moustache. His hair,
also very dark, was cropped close to his head. Standing there with his
hands upon the red seams of his trousers, his chest well filled out,
and his face weather tanned, he looked a proper figure of a sea-going
soldier. "Mr. Cary, sir," he said, in a flat, monotonous orderly's
voice, "Major Boyle's compliments, and could you and your friend come
down to the Police Station to meet him and Chief Inspector Dawson. I
have a taxi-cab at the door, sir."

"Certainly," cried Cary; "in two minutes we shall be ready."

"Oh, no, we shan't," I remarked calmly, for I had moved to a position
of tactical advantage on the Marine's port beam. "We will have the
story here, if you don't mind, Dawson."

He stamped pettishly on the floor, whipped off his cap, and spun it
across the room. "Confound you, Mr. Copplestone!" he growled. "How
the--how the--do you do it?" He could not think of an expletive mild
enough for Mrs. Cary's ears. "There's something about me that I can't
hide. What is it? If you don't tell, I will get you on the Regulation
compelling all British subjects to answer questions addressed to them
by a competent naval or military authority."

"You don't happen to be either, Dawson," said I unkindly. "And,
beside, there was never yet a law made which could compel a man to
speak or a woman to hold her tongue. Some day perhaps, if you are
good, I will show you how the trick is done. But not yet. I want to
have something to bargain with when you cast me into jail. Out with
the story; we are impatient. If I mistake not, you come to us Dawson
triumphant. You haven't the air of a broken man."

"I have been successful," he answered gravely, "but I am a long, long
way from feeling triumphant. No, thank you, Mrs. Cary, I have had my
breakfast, but if I might trouble you for a cup of coffee? Many
thanks."

Dawson sat down, and Cary moved about inspecting him from every angle.
"No," declared he at last, "I cannot see the smallest resemblance, not
the smallest. You were thin; now you are distinctly plump. Your hair
was nearly white. Your cheeks had fallen in as if your back teeth were
missing. Your lower lip stuck out." Dawson smiled, highly gratified.
"I took in all my people at the office this morning," he said. "They
all thought, and think still, that I was a messenger from the
_Malplaquet_, which, by the way, is well down the river safe and
sound. Just wait a minute." He walked into a corner of the room, moved
his hands quickly between his side pockets and his face, and then
returned. Except for the dark hair and moustache and the brown skin,
he had become the Dawson of the Thursday afternoon. "It is as simple
for me to change," said the artist, with a nasty look in my direction,
"as it seems to be for Mr. Copplestone here to spot me. It will take a
day or two to get the dye out of my hair and the tan off my skin. I am
going to have a sharp touch of influenza, which is a useful disease
when one wants to lie in. Since Sunday I have only been twice to bed."

We filled him up with coffee and flattery--as one fills a motor car
with petrol and oil--but asked him no questions until we were safely
in Cary's study and Mrs. Cary had gone about her household duties.
"Your good lady," remarked Dawson to Cary, "is as little curious as
any woman I have met, and we will leave her at that if you don't mind.
The best thing about our women is that they don't care tuppence about
naval and military details. If they did, and once started prying with
that keen scent and indomitable persistence of theirs, we might as
well chuck up. Even my own bright team of charmers never know and
never ask the meaning of the information that they ferret out for me.
Their curiosity is all personal--about men and women, never about
things. Women--"

I cut Dawson short. He tended to become tedious.

"Quite so," I observed politely. "And to revert to one big female
creature, let us hear something of the _Malplaquet_."

"You at any rate are curious enough for a dozen. It would serve you
right to keep you hopping a bit longer. But I have a kindly eye for
human weakness, though you might not think it. I joined the ship on
Thursday afternoon, slipping in as one of a detachment of fifty
R.M.L.I. who had been wired for from Chatham. They were an emergency
lot; we hadn't enough in the ship for the double sentry go that I
wanted. All my plans were made with the Commander and Major Boyle, and
they both did exactly what I told them. It isn't often that a private
of Marines has the ordering about of two officers. But Dawson is
Dawson; no common man. They did as I told them, and were glad to do
it. I had extra light bulbs put on all over the lower decks and every
dark corner lit up--except one. Just one. And this one was where the
four gun-cables ran out of the switch-room and lay alongside one
another before they branched off to the fore and after turrets and to
the port and starboard side batteries. That was the most likely spot
which any one wanting to cut the gun-wires would mark down, and I
meant to watch it pretty closely myself. We had double sentries at the
magazines. The _Malplaquet_ is an oil-fired ship, so we hadn't any
bothering coal bunkers to attract fancy bombs. I was pretty sure that
after the _Antinous_ and the _Antigone_ we had mostly wire-cutting to
fear. When a man has done one job successfully, and repeated it almost
successfully, he is pretty certain to have a third shot. Besides, if
one is out to delay a ship, cutting wires is as good a way as any. I
had an idea that my man was not a bomber."

"I thought that you scorned theories," I put in dryly. "When they are
wrong they mislead you, and when they are right they are no help."

Dawson frowned. "Shut up, Copplestone," snapped Cary.

"We were in no danger from the lighting, heating, and telephone wires,
for any defect would have been visible at once. It was the gun and
gunnery control cables that were the weak spots. So I had L.T.O.'s
posted in the spotting top, the conning tower, the transmission room,
the four turrets, and at the side batteries. Every few minutes they
put through tests which would have shown up at once any wires that had
been tampered with. After the shore party had cleared out about nine
o'clock on the Thursday, no officer or man was allowed to leave the
ship without a special permit from the Commander. This was all dead
against the sanitary regulations of the harbour, but I had the
Admiral's authority to break any rules I pleased. By the way, you two
ought never to have been allowed on board yesterday afternoon--I saw
you, though you didn't see me; it was contrary to my orders. I spoke
to the Admiral pretty sharp last night. 'Who is responsible for the
ship?' says I. 'You or me?' 'You,' says he. 'I leave it at that,' says
I."

"One moment, Dawson," I put in. "If the shore party had all gone, how
was it that I saw Petty Officer Trehayne in the ship?"

"He had orders to stay and keep watch--though he didn't know I was on
board myself. Two pairs of police eyes are better than one pair, and
fifty times better than all the Navy eyes in the ship. Of all the
simple-minded, unsuspicious beggars in the world, give me a pack of
naval ratings! I wouldn't have one of them for sentries--that is why
the fifty emergency Marines were sent for." Dawson's limitless pride
in his old Service, and deep contempt for the mere sailor, had come
back in full flood with the uniform of his Corps.

"I started my own sentry duty in the dark corner I told you of as soon
as I had seen to the arrangements all over the _Malplaquet_, and I was
there, with very few breaks of not more than five minutes each for a
bite of food, for twenty-six hours. Two Marine sentries took my place
whenever I was away. I had my rifle and bayonet, and stood back in a
corner of a bulkhead where I couldn't be seen. The hours were awful
long; I stood without hardly moving. All the pins and needles out of
Redditch seemed to dance up and down me, but I stuck it out--and I had
my reward, I had my reward. I did my duty, but it's a sick and sorry
man that I am this day."

"There was nothing else to be done," I said. "What you feel now is a
nervous reaction."

"That's about it. I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like
sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet--they were
lumps of prickly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a
stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open
alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pass frequently,
but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I
heard six bells go in the first watch ('Eleven p.m.,' whispered Cary)
on Friday evening, though there was a good bit of noise of getting
ready to go out in the early morning, and I was beginning to think
that all my trouble might go for naught, when a man in a Navy cap and
overalls stopped just opposite my dark hole between two bulkheads. His
face was turned from me, as he looked carefully up and down the
lighted way. He stood there quite still for some seconds, and then
stepped backwards towards me. I could see him plain against the light
beyond. He listened for another minute or so, and, satisfied that no
one was near, spun on his heels, whipped a tool from his dungaree
overalls, and reached up to the wires which ran under the deck beams
overhead. In spite of my aching joints and sore feet I was out in a
flash and had my bayonet up against his chest. He didn't move till my
point was through his clothes and into his flesh. I just shoved till
he gave ground, and so, step by step, I pushed him with the point of
my bayonet till he was under the lights. His arms had come down, he
dropped the big shears with insulated handles which he had drawn from
his pocket, but he didn't speak a word to me and I did not speak to
him. I just held him there under the lights, and we looked at one
another without a word spoken. There was no sign of surprise or fear
in his face, just a queer little smile. Suddenly he moved, made a
snatch at the front of his overalls, and put something into his mouth.
I guessed what it was, but did not try to stop him; it was the best
thing that he could do."

Dawson stopped and pulled savagely at his cigar. He jabbed the end
with his knife, though the cigar was drawing perfectly well, and gave
forth a deep growl which might have been a curse or a sob.

"Have you ever watched an electric bulb fade away when the current is
failing?" he asked. "The film pales down from glowing white to dull
red, which gets fainter and fainter, little by little, till nothing
but the memory of it lingers on your retina. His eyes went out exactly
like that bulb. They faded and faded out of his face, which still kept
up that queer, twisted smile. I've seen them ever since; wherever I
turn. I shall be glad of that bout of influenza, and shall begin it
with a stiff dose of veronal.... When the light had nearly gone out of
his eyes and he was rocking on his feet, I spoke for the first time. I
spoke loud too. 'Good-bye,' I called out; 'I'm Dawson.' He heard me,
for his eyes answered with a last flash; then they faded right out and
he fell flat on the steel deck. He had died on his feet; his will kept
him upright to the end; that was a Man. He lived a Man's life, doing
what he thought his duty, and he died a Man's death.... I blew my
whistle twice; up clattered a Sergeant with the Marine Guard and
stopped where that figure on the deck barred their way. 'Get a
stretcher,' I said, 'and send for the doctor. But it won't be any use.
The man's dead.' The Sergeant asked sharply for my report, and sent
off a couple of men for a stretcher. 'Excuse me, Sergeant,' I said, in
my best detective officer voice, 'I will report direct to your Major
and the Commander. I am Chief Inspector Dawson.' He showed no surprise
nor doubt of my word--if you want to understand discipline, gentlemen,
get the Marines to teach you--he asked no questions. With one word he
called the guard to attention, and himself saluted me--me a private! I
handed him my rifle--there was an inch of blood at the point of the
bayonet--and hobbled off to the nearest ladder. My word, I could
scarcely walk, and as for climbing a ship's ladder--I could never have
done if some one hadn't given me a boost behind and some one else a
hand at the top. The Commander and the Major of Marines were both in
the wardroom; I walked in, saluted them as a self-respecting private
should do, and told them the whole story."

"It was Petty Officer Trehayne," said I calmly--and waited for a
sensation.

"Of course," replied Dawson, greatly to my annoyance. He might have
shown some astonishment at my wonderful intuition; but he didn't, not
a scrap. Even Cary was at first disappointing, though he warmed up
later, and did me full justice. "Trehayne a spy!" cried Cary. "He
looked a smart good man."

"I am not saying that he wasn't," snapped Dawson, whose nerves were
very badly on edge. "He was obeying the orders of his superiors as we
all have to do. He gave his life, and it was for his country's
service. Nobody can do more than that. Don't you go for to slander
Trehayne. I watched him die--on his feet."

Cary turned to me. "What made you think it was Trehayne?" he asked.
This was better. I looked at Dawson, who was brooding in his chair
with his thoughts far away. He was still seeing those eyes fading out
under the glare of the electrics between the steel decks of the
_Malplaquet_!

"It was a sheer guess at first," said I, preserving a decent show of
modesty. "When I heard how the enemy plotted and Dawson
counter-plotted with all those skilled workmen in his detective
service, it occurred to me that an enemy with imagination might
counter-counterplot by getting men inside Dawson's defences. I
couldn't see how one would work it, but if German agents, say, could
manage to become trusted servants of Dawson himself, they would have
the time of their lives. So far I was guessing at a possibility,
however improbable it might seem. Then when Dawson told us that he had
sent Trehayne into the _Antigone_ and that he was the one factor
common to both vessels--the workmen and the maintenance part were all
different--I began to feel that my wild theory might have something in
it. I didn't say anything to you, Cary, or to Dawson--he despises
theories. Afterwards Trehayne came in and I spoke to him, and he to
me, in French. He did not utter a dozen words altogether, but I was
absolutely certain that his French had not been learned at an English
public school and during short trips on the Continent. I know too much
of English school French and of one's opportunities to learn upon
Continental trips. It took me three years of hard work to recover from
the sort of French which I learned at school, and I am not well yet.
The French spoken by Trehayne was the French of the nursery. It was
almost, if not quite, his mother tongue, just as his English was.
Trehayne's French accent did not fit into Trehayne's history as
retailed to us by Dawson. From that moment I plumped for Trehayne as
the cutter of gun wires."

Dawson had been listening, though he showed no interest in my speech.
When I had quite finished, and was basking in the respectful
admiration emanating from dear old Cary, he upset over me a bucket of
very cold water.

"Very pretty," said he. "But answer one question. Why did I send
Trehayne to the _Antigone_?"

"Why? How can I tell? You said it was to make sure that the shore
party were all off the ship."

"I said! What does it matter what I say! What I do matters a heap, but
what I say--pouf! I sent Trehayne to the _Antigone_ to test him. I
sent him expecting that he would try to cut her wires, and he did.
Then when I was sure, though I had no evidence for a law court, I sent
him to the _Malplaquet_, and I set my trap there for him to walk into.
How did I guess? I don't guess; I watch. The more valuable a man is to
me, the more I watch him, for he might be even more valuable to
somebody else. Trehayne was an excellent man, but he had not been with
me a month before I was watching him as closely as any cat. I hadn't
been a Marine and served ashore and afloat without knowing a born
gentleman when I see one, and knowing, too, the naval stamp. Trehayne
was too much of a gentleman to have become a workman in the _Vernon_
and at Greenock without some very good reason. He said that he was an
orphan--yes; he said his parents left him penniless, and he had to
earn his living the best way he could--yes. Quite good reasons, but
they didn't convince me. I was certain sure that somewhere, some time,
Trehayne had been a naval officer. I had seen too many during my
service to make any mistake about that. So when I stood there waiting
in that damned cold corner behind that bulkhead, it was for Trehayne
that I was waiting. I meant to take him or to kill him. When he killed
himself, I was glad. As I watched his eyes fade out, it was as if my
own son was dying on his feet in front of me. But it was better so
than to die in front of a firing party. For I--I loved him, and I
wished him 'Good-bye,'"

Dawson pitched his cigar into the fire, got up, and walked away to the
far side of the room. I had never till that moment completely
reverenced the penetrative, infallible judgment of Little Jane.

Dawson came back after a few minutes, picked up another cigar from
Cary's box, and sat down. "You see, I have a letter from him. I found
it in his quarters where I went straight from the _Malplaquet_."

"May we read it?" I asked gently. "I was greatly taken with Trehayne
myself. He was a clean, beautiful boy. He was an enemy officer on
Secret Service; there is no dishonour in that. If he were alive, I
could shake his hand as the officer of the firing party shook the hand
of Lody before he gave the last order."

Dawson took a paper from his pocket, and handed it to me. "Read it
out," said he; "I can't."




CHAPTER VIII


TREHAYNE'S LETTER

I took the letter from Dawson and glanced through it. The first sheet
and the last had been written very recently--just before the boy had
left his quarters for the last time to go on board the _Malplaquet_;
the remainder had been set down at various times; and the whole had
been connected up, put together, and paged after the completion of the
last sheet. Trehayne wrote a pretty hand, firm and clear, the writing
of an artist who was also a trained engineer. There was no trace in
the script of nervousness or of hesitation. He had carried out his
Orders, he saw clearly that the path which he had trod was leading him
to the end of his journey, but he made no complaint. He was a Latin,
and to the last possessed that loftiness of spirit wedded to sombre
fatalism which is the heritage of the Latins. He was at war with his
kindred of Italy and France, and with the English among whom he had
been brought up, and whom he loved. He was their enemy by accident of
birth, but though he might and did love his foes better than his
German friends of Austria and Prussia, yet he had taken the oath of
faithful service, and kept it to the end. I could understand why
Dawson--that strange human bloodhound, in whom the ruthless will
continually struggled with and kept under the very tender heart--would
allow no one to slander Trehayne.

Cary was watching me eagerly, waiting for me to read the letter.

Dawson's head was resting on one hand, and his face was turned away,
so that I could not see it. He could not wholly conceal his emotion,
but he would not let us see more of it than he could help. He did not
move once during my reading.

       *       *       *       *       *

_To Chief Inspector William Dawson, C.I.D._

SIR,

Will you be surprised, my friend, when you read this that I have left
for you, to learn that I, your right-hand man in the unending spy
hunt, I whom you have called your bright jewel of a pupil, Petty
Officer John Trehayne, R.N.V.R., am at this moment upon the books of
the Austrian Navy as a sub-lieutenant, seconded for Secret Service?
Have you ever been surprised by anything? I don't know. You have said
often in my hearing that you suspect every one. Have you suspected me?
Sometimes when I have caught that sidelong squint of yours, that
studied accidental glance which sees so much, I have felt almost sure
that you were far from satisfied that Trehayne was the man he gave
himself out to be. I have been useful to you. I have eaten your salt,
and have served you as faithfully as was consistent with the supreme
Orders by which I direct my action. With you I have run down and
captured German agents, wretched lumps of dirt, whom I loathe as much
as you do. Those who have sworn fidelity to this fair country of
England, and have accepted of her citizenship--things which I have
never done--and then in fancied security have spied upon their adopted
Mother, I loathe and spit upon. I have taken the police oath of
obedience to my superiors, and I have kept it, but I have never sworn
allegiance to His Majesty your King, whom I pray that God may preserve
though I am his enemy. To your blunt English mind, untrained in logic,
my sentiments and actions may lack consistency. But no. Those agents
whom we have run down, you and I, were traitors--traitors to England.
Of all traitors for whom Hell is hungry the German-born traitor is the
most devilish. I would not have you think, my friend, that I am at one
with them. Never while I have been in your pay and service have I had
any communication direct or indirect with any of the naturalised-
British Prussian scum, who have betrayed your noble generosity. I have
taken my Orders from Vienna, I have communicated always direct with
Vienna. I am an Austrian naval officer. I am no traitor to England.

       *       *       *       *       *

I spring from an old Italian family which has long been settled in
Trieste. For many generations we have served in the Austrian Navy.
With modern Italy, with the Italy above all which has thrown the Holy
Father into captivity and stripped the Holy See of the dominions
bestowed upon it by God, we have no part or lot. Yet when I have met
Italian officers, and those too of France, as I have frequently done
during my cruises afloat, I have felt with them a harmony of spirit
which I have never experienced in association with German-Austrians
and with Prussians. I do not wish to speak evil of our Allies, the
Prussians, but to one of my blood they are the most detestable people
whom God ever had the ill-judgment to create.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was born in Trieste, and lived there with my parents until I was
eight years old. In our private life we always spoke Italian or
French, German was our official language. I know that language well,
of course, but it is not my mother tongue. Italian or French, and
afterwards English--I speak and write all three equally well; which of
the three I shall use when I come to die and one reverts to the speech
of the nursery and schoolroom, I cannot say; it will depend upon whom
those are that stand about my deathbed.

When I was eight years old, my father, Captain ---- (no, I will not
tell you my name; it is not Trehayne though somewhat similar in
sound), was appointed Austrian Consul at Plymouth, and we all moved to
that great Devonshire seaport. I was young enough to absorb the rich
English atmosphere, nowhere so rich as in that county which is the
home and breeding-ground of your most splendid Navy. I was born again,
a young Elizabethan Englishman. My story to you of my origin was true
in one particular--I really was educated at Blundell's School at
Tiverton. Whenever--and it has happened more than once--I have met as
Trehayne old schoolfellows of Blundell's they have accepted without
comment or inquiry my tale that I had become an Englishman, and had
anglicised my name. Among the peoples which exist on earth to-day, you
English are the most nobly generous and unsuspicious. The Prussians
laugh at you; I, an Austrian-Italian, love and respect you.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I was sixteen, after I had spent eight years in Devon, and four
of those years at an English public school, I was in speech and almost
in the inner fibres of my mind an Englishman. Your naval authorities
at Plymouth and Devonport, as serenely trustful and heedless of
espionage as the mass of your kindly people, allowed my father--whom I
often accompanied--to see the dockyards, the engine shops, the
training schools, and the barracks. They knew that he was an Austrian
naval officer, and they took him to their hearts as a brother, of the
common universal brotherhood of the sea. I think that your Navy holds
those of a foreign naval service as more nearly of kin to themselves
than civilians of their own blood. The bond of a common profession is
more close than the bond of a common nationality. I do not doubt that
my father sent much information to our Embassy in London--it was what
he was employed to do--but I am sure that he did not basely betray the
wonderful confidence of his hosts. Our countries were at peace. My
father is no Prussian; he is a chivalrous gentleman. I am sure that he
did not send more than his English naval friends were content at the
time that he should send. For in those years your newspapers and your
books upon the Royal Navy of England concealed little from the world.
I have visited Dartmouth; I have dined in the Naval College there with
bright sailor boys of my own age. It was then my one dream, had I
remained in England, to have become an Englishman, and to have myself
served in your Navy. It was a vain dream, but I knew no better. Fate
and my birth made me afterwards your enemy. I would have fought you
gladly face to face on land or sea, but never, never, would I have
stabbed the meanest of Englishmen in the back.

When I was sixteen years old I left England with my parents and
returned to Triest. I was a good mathematician with a keen taste for
mechanics. I spent two years in the naval engineering shops at Pola,
and I was gazetted as a sub-lieutenant in the engineering branch of
the Austrian Navy. My next two years were spent afloat. Although I did
not know it, I had already been marked out by my superiors for the
Secret Service. My perfect acquaintance with English, my education at
Blundell's, my knowledge of your thoughts and your queer ways, and
twists of mind, had equipped me conspicuously for Secret Service work
in your midst.

As a youth of twenty, in the first flush of manhood, I was seconded
for service here, and I returned to England. That was five years ago.

       *       *       *       *       *

[I paused, for my throat was dry, and looked up. Cary was leaning
forward intent upon every word. Dawson's face was still turned away;
he had not moved. It seemed to me that to our party of three had been
added a fourth, the spirit of Trehayne, and that he anxiously waited
there yonder in the shadows for the deliverance of our judgment. Had
he, an English public school boy, played the game according to the
immemorial English rules? I went on.]

       *       *       *       *       *

It was extraordinarily easy for me to obtain employment in the heart
of your naval mysteries. Few questions were asked; you admitted me as
one of yourselves. I took the broad open path of full acceptance of
your conditions. I first obtained employment in a marine engineering
shop at Southampton, joined a trade union, attended Socialist
meetings--I, a member of one of the oldest families in Trieste. Though
a Catholic, I bent my knee in the English Church, and this was not
difficult, for I had always attended service in the chapel at
Blundell's. To you, my friend, I can say this, for you are of some
strange sect which consigns to the lowest Hell both Catholics and
Anglicans alike. Your Heaven will be a small place. From Southampton I
went to the torpedo training-ship _Vernon_. Again I had no difficulty.
I was a workman of skill and intelligence. I was there for more than
two years, learning all your secrets, and storing them in my mind for
the benefit of my own Service at home.

It was at Portsmouth that there came to me the great temptation of my
life, for I fell in love, not as you colder people do, but as a
Latin of the warm South. She was an English girl of good, if
undistinguished, family. Though in my hours of duty I belonged to that
you call the 'working classes,' I was well off, and lived in private
the life of my own class. I had double the pay of my rank, an
allowance from my father, and my wages, which were not small. There
were many English families in Portsmouth and Southsea who were
graciously pleased to recognise that John Trehayne, trade unionist,
and weekly wage-earning workman, was a gentleman by birth and
breeding. In any foreign port I should have been under police
supervision as a person eminently to be suspected; in Portsmouth I was
accepted without question for what I gave myself out to be--a
gentleman who wished to learn his business from the bottom upwards. I
will say nothing of the lady of my heart except that I loved her
passionately, and should have married her--aye, and become an
Englishman in fact, casting off my own, country--if War had not blown
my ignoble plans to shatters. There was nothing ignoble in my love,
for she was a queen among women, but in myself for permitting the hot
blood of youth to blind my eyes to the duty claimed of me by my
country. When war became imminent, I was not recalled, as I had hoped
to be, since I wished to fight afloat as became my rank and family. I
was ordered to take such steps as most effectively aided me to observe
the English plans and preparations, and to report when possible to
Vienna. In other words, I was ordered to act in your midst as a
special intelligence officer--what you would call a Spy. It was an
honourable and dangerous service which I had no choice but to accept.
My dreams of love had gone to wreck. I could have deceived the woman
whom I loved, for she would have trusted me and believed any story of
me that I had chosen to tell. But could I, an officer, a gentleman by
birth and I hope by practice, a secret enemy of England and a spy upon
her in the hour of her sorest trial, could I remain the lover of an
English girl without telling her fully and frankly exactly what I was?
Could I have committed this frightful treason to love and remained
other than an object of scorn and loathing to honest men? I could not.
In soul and heart she was mine; I was her man, and she was my woman.
With her there were no reserves in love. She was mine, yet I fled from
her with never a word, even of good-bye. I made my plans, obtained
certificates of my proficiency in the _Vernon_, kissed my dear love
quietly, almost coldly, without a trace of the passion that I felt,
and fled. It was the one thing left me to do. My friend, that was two
years ago. She knows not whether I am alive or am dead; I know not
permission to spend the night with her father, and Baron Clyde called
about four o'clock to escort her. Was not that the hour, baron?"

"Yes, your Grace," I answered, bowing. "I accompanied my cousin to
her father's house, returned later to fetch her back to the palace,
but she did not care to face the storm, so I remained till ten o'clock,
returned to Whitehall, and slept till morning. Here is another witness,"
I continued, laughing, as I turned to John Churchill, who was standing
near the king. "Step forward, Churchill, and testify. I left him making
his suit to one of the most interesting ladies in London."

The king turned with an inquiring look, and Churchill answered: "Yes,
your Majesty, it is all true. I was making my suit until near the hour
of eleven, when Mistress Jennings, who was ill, told me it was time to
go home. If she was kidnapped Sunday night, it was before five o'clock
or after eleven."

I flattered myself that we had all done a neat bit of convincing lying in
a good cause.

"Odds fish!" mumbled the king, pulling his chin beard, evidently puzzled.

"Odds fish!" exclaimed Frances, mimicking the king's tone of voice and
twisting an imaginary beard. "Some one has been hoaxing Jacob Hall's
friend."

It was a bold speech, but Frances carried it off splendidly by turning to
the king and speaking in mock seriousness:--

"Your Majesty should put a check on Rochester and the wags. It is a shame
to permit them to work upon the credulity of one who is growing weak in
mind by reason of age."

The country girl had vanquished the terror of the court, and all who had
witnessed the battle rejoiced; that is, all save the king and Castlemain.
She glared at Frances, and her face, usually beautiful despite the lack
of youth, became hideous with rage. She was making ready for another
attack of words, if not of finger nails, when the duchess interposed,
saying:--

"Evidently some one has been hoaxing you, Lady Castlemain. Mistress
Jennings was not kidnapped Sunday nor any other day. She has been with
me constantly of late, excepting Sunday after four o'clock, and she has
accounted for herself from that time till her return to my closet."

Castlemain was whipped out, so she turned the whole matter off with a
forced laugh, saying:--

"It was that fool Rochester who set the rumor afloat."

After standing through an awkward minute or two, Castlemain bowed stiffly
to the king and the duchess, turned away from our group, and soon left
the ballroom.

When Castlemain was gone, we all laughed save the king. Presently he left
us, and I saw him beckon Wentworth and Berkeley to his side. I followed
him as though going to the other side of the gallery, but walked slowly
when I approached him and the two worthy villains. I was rewarded by
hearing his Majesty say:--

"Odds fish! But you made a mess of it! You got the wrong woman! Who in
the devil's name did you pick up?"

I could not stop to hear the rest of this interesting conversation, but
two days later I heard from Rochester, who had it from Wentworth, that
the following occurred:--

"We thought we had her," answered Berkeley, nodding towards Frances, "but
the woman wore a full vizard and was wrapped in furs to her ears, so that
we did not see her face."

"Do you suppose we could have made a mistake?" asked Wentworth.

"You surely did," answered the king. "She has established an alibi. At
what hour did you leave Baynard's Castle?"

"Near one o'clock," returned Berkeley.

"One o'clock! She was playing cards with the duchess till four,"
exclaimed the king, impatiently. "You picked up the wrong woman. But
I'm glad you did. I suppose the lampooners will get hold of the story
and will set every one laughing at me. Kidnapped the wrong woman and
lost her! Odds fish! But you're a pair of wise ones. I see I shall have
to find me a new Lord High Kidnapper."

The king was right concerning the lampooners, for soon they had the
story, and he became the laughing-stock of London, though Frances's name
was not mentioned.

It is a significant index to the morals of our time that the king's
attempt to kidnap a woman in the streets of London should have aroused
laughter rather than indignation.

As it was, the kidnapping episode brought no harm to my cousin, but she
did not want it to happen again, and so was careful to take a trusted
escort with her when she went abroad thereafter.




CHAPTER X

AT THE MAID'S GARTER


Betty was confined to her room during the greater part of the next month,
and Frances visited her frequently. Notwithstanding my vows not to see
Betty, I was compelled to go with Frances as her body-guard. I even went
so far in my feeble effort to keep my resolution as to suggest Churchill
as a body-guard, but Frances objected, and the quality of my good intent
was not enduring. So I went with my cousin, and the joy in Betty's eyes
whenever we entered her room was not the sort that would come because she
was glad to see Frances.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the first week of Bettina's illness she was too sick to talk,
therefore we did not remain long with her. But as she grew better our
visits lengthened, and my poor resolutions grew weaker day by day because
my love for the girl was growing stronger and stronger hour by hour.

On one occasion while Frances's back was turned, Betty impulsively
snatched up my hand and kissed it, dropping it instantly, blushing
intensely and covering her tracks by humming the refrain of a French
lullaby. I longed to return the caress, but did not, and took great
credit to myself because of my self-denial. Betty understood my sacrifice
and appreciated it, feeling sure that she need not thereafter restrain
herself for the purpose of restraining me.

During those times I was making an honest effort to do the right by this
beautiful child-woman and to save my own honor unsullied from the sin of
making her unhappy for life through winning her love beyond her power to
recall; and my effort toward the right, like all such efforts, achieved
at least a part of the good for which I strove.

One day after our visit to Betty's room, Frances asked me to take her to
see George. I suspected that she had seen him frequently, but was not
sure. I objected, but changed my mind when she said:--

"Very well. I prefer going alone."

I shall not try to describe the scene between them. We found George
alone, and she sprang to him as the iron springs to the magnet.

I knew then, if never before, that there could be no happiness in this
world for her away from him. Whether she would find it with him was
impossible for me to know, but I saw that she was in the grip of a mighty
passion, and I could only hope that a way would open to save her.

Hamilton's fortunes would need to mend a great deal before he could
or would ask her to be his wife, for now he was at the bottom of the
ladder. He lost no opportunity to impress this disagreeable truth upon
her, but his honest efforts to hold himself aloof only increased her
respect and love for him. It not only convinced her that notwithstanding
his past life, he was a man of honor capable of resisting himself and of
protecting her, but it gave him the quality so irresistible to a
woman--unattainability.

Taking it all in all, my poor beautiful cousin was falling day by
day deeper into an abyss of love from which she could in no way
extricate herself. In short, level-headed Frances had got far out
of plumb, and, though she struggled desperately, she could not right
herself, nor could any one help her. I fully realized that the small
amount of self-restraint and passivity she still retained would give
way to disastrous activity when the time should come for her to part
with George and lose him forever. But I could see no way to save her
unless I could induce George to leave England at once, for good and
all.

At times the fates seem to fly to a man's help, and in this instance they
came to me most graciously that same day in Whitehall, in the person of
my friend the Count de Grammont.

Soon after leaving Frances in the maids' apartments, I met that most
interesting gentleman roué, his Grace de Grammont, coming from the king's
closet. As already stated, he had been banished from the French court by
Louis XIV because of a too great friendliness for one of the king's
sweethearts, and was living in exile in London till Louis should forgive
his interference. The French king really liked De Grammont and trusted
him when his Majesty's lady-loves were not concerned, so the count had
been sent to England in honorable exile, and was employed in certain
cases as a spy and in others as a means of secret communication between
the French king and persons connected with the court of Charles II.

When De Grammont saw me, he came forward, holding out both hands in his
effusive French manner, apparently overjoyed at finding a long-lost
brother.

"Come with me, my dear baron," he cried, bending so close to me that I
feared he was going to kiss me. "Come with me! You are the very man of
all the world I want, I need, I must have!"

"You have me, my dear count," said I, "but I cannot go with you. I am
engaged elsewhere."

"No, no, let me whisper!" He brought his lips close to my ear and
continued almost inaudibly: "You may please me. You may help a friend.
You may oblige--a king."

The last, of course, was the _ne plus ultra_ of inducement according to
the count's way of thinking, and he supposed the mere suggestion would
vanquish me. Still I pleaded my engagement. He insisted, however,
repeating in my ear:--

"Oblige a king! A real king! Not a flimsy fool of bourgeois, who makes of
himself the laughing-stock of his people, but a real king. I cannot name
him now, but you must know."

We were in a narrow passage leading to the Stone Gallery in Whitehall. He
looked about him a moment, then taking me by the arm, led me to the Stone
Gallery and thence to the garden. I wanted to stop, but he kept his grasp
on my arm, repeating now and then the word "Come" in whispers, till we
reached a lonely spot in St. James Park. There he halted, and though
there was not a living creature in sight, he brought his lips to my ear
and breathed the name, "'Sieur George Hamilton."

I tried not to show that I was startled, but the quickwitted, sharp-eyed
Frenchman read me as though I were an open book, and grasping my hand,
cried out:--

"Ah, I knew you could tell me. It is to rejoice! I knew it!"

"Tell you what, count?" I asked.

"Tell me where your friend and mine is, or if you will not tell me, take
to him a letter. I have been trying to find him this fortnight."

"I cannot tell you where he is, my dear count--"

"Of course not! I do not ask," he interrupted.

"--But I may be able to forward your letter to him. I heard only the
other day that he was in France."

"Of course, of course, he is in France! Not in England at all! Good,
good! I see you are to be trusted. But I must have your word of honor
that the letter will be delivered."

"I shall send it by none but a trusted messenger," I answered, "and shall
return it to you unopened unless I am convinced beyond a doubt that it
will reach our friend."

"Good, good! Come to my hotel. I will trust you."

We went to De Grammont's house, and after taking great precautions
against discovery, he gave me a small wooden box wound with yards of tape
and sealed with quantities of wax. I put the box in my pocket, saying:--

"I accept the trust on my honor, dear count, and though the package bears
no name nor address, I shall deliver it to the person for whom it is
intended."

De Grammont said he knew nothing of the contents of the box except that
it contained a message for a friend, and I believed him.

When I left his house he came to the door with me, murmuring: "My
gratitude! My gratitude! Also the gratitude of my king, which I hope may
prove of far greater value to your friend than my poor offering of
words."

I lost no time in seeking George, except to make sure that I was not
followed. I trusted De Grammont and felt sure that the box he had given
me contained a personal communication from no less a person than Louis
XIV of France, but I wanted to take no risk of betraying Hamilton by
leading De Grammont or any one else to his hiding-place.

Since Frances's providential escape, the king had suspected the right
persons of her rescue. At least he suspected Hamilton, and was seeking
him more diligently than ever before. His Majesty had not shown me any
mark of disfavor, but I feared he suspected me, and was sure he was not
convinced that Frances's alibi had been proved by unsuborned testimony.
If he was sure that she was the one who had been kidnapped, his
suspicious nature would connect George with the rescue, and would lead
him to conclude that Hamilton must be in England.

A maid of Lady Castlemain's told Rochester, who in turn told me, that the
king had again set his men to work searching for Hamilton. That being the
case, George was in danger, and should he be found by the king's secret
agents, who, I understood, were prowling all over England in the hope of
obtaining a reward, his life would not be worth a week's purchase.

George knew the risk he ran by remaining in England, but it was a part of
his reckless courage to take delight in it. Later on this recklessness of
disposition induced him to take a far greater risk. But of that in its
turn.

       *       *       *       *       *

After supper, I found Hamilton in his bedroom, which was connected
by a hidden stairway with the room of the sinking floor. He wore his
Quaker's disguise, and on the table beside him were the Bible and a few
theological works dear to the hearts of his sect. I gave him the box,
telling him its history. The letter was brief and was written in cipher.

George translated it thus:--

"MASTER GEORGE HAMILTON:

"Monsieur le Grand wishes you to pay him a visit immediately.

"DE CATANET."

"You probably know Monsieur le Grand?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered, "and I shall visit him without delay."

"In Paris?" I asked, not quite sure that Monsieur le Grand was King Louis
of France, and not desiring to know certainly.

"In Paris," he answered, giving me to understand by his manner that he
must tell me nothing more definite of Le Grand's identity.

"Don't tell me what you know of the business this letter refers to, but
tell me whether you know," I said, hoping that George might at least tell
me it meant good fortune for him.

"I cannot even conjecture the business upon which I am wanted," he said,
"but I hope that it may give me an opportunity to be of service to the
writer."

Thus I was relieved of the disagreeable task of trying to induce George
to leave England, and was very thankful to escape it.

After a long silence, during which he read the one-line letter many
times, he asked:--

"Are you willing to bring Frances to me early to-morrow morning, if she
will come?"

"Doubtless I can," I answered. "Her willingness to come has been shown
all too plainly of late; but ought I bring her?"

"Yes. It will be the last time I shall ever see her unless good fortune
lies in this letter, and for that I hardly dare hope. You know that when
a man's luck has been against him for a long time, it kills the very
roots of hope and brings him almost to doubt certainty. Soon after I have
seen my friend, Le Grand, I shall write to you in cipher, of which I
shall leave you the key. If I see a prospect of fortune worthy of
Frances, I shall ask her to wait a time for me, but if my ill fortune
pursues me, I shall never again be heard from by any one in England. Are
you satisfied with the conditions?"

I gave him my hand for answer, and told him I would bring Frances to him
early the following morning.

I hastened back to Whitehall, and coming upon Frances unengaged, asked
her to go to her parlor with me. When she had closed the door, she turned
to me, asking:--

"What is it, Baron Ned? Tell me quickly. I know there is something wrong
with George."

"Will you go with me early to-morrow morning to see Betty--very early?"
I asked.

Her eyes opened in wonder, and she answered, somewhat amused: "You have
been acting as my guardian for a long time, cousin Ned, and now I think I
owe it to you to return the favor. You should not see so much of Betty. I
know you mean no wrong to her, but you will cause her great suffering if
you continue to see her, for you must know that already the girl is
almost mad with love of you. Yet you cannot marry her."

"Nor can you marry some one else," I retorted, almost angrily, for a man
dislikes to be prodded by a painful truth.

"Ah, well, I suppose we are a pair of fools," she said.

"You're right, Frances," I answered philosophically, "and the only
consolation we can find lies in the fact that we know it."

"Most fools lack that flattering unction," returned Frances, musingly.

"Perhaps you will take more interest in this matter when I tell you
that it is not Betty I propose to see," I answered. "I am deliberately
offering to take you to see some one else who is about to leave England."

She stood on tiptoe and kissed my lips for answer, then sank into a
chair, covering her face with her hands to hide the sudden tears.

I went to the window and waited till she was calm. I longed to comfort
her by telling of the faint prospect of good fortune that lay in Le
Grand's letter, but I hesitated raising a hope which might never be
realized.

At the end of five minutes I went to her and said: "Let me ask the
duchess to excuse you for to-night, and in the morning I'll meet you on
Bowling Green stairs, at, say, seven o'clock."

"I'll be there," she answered, smiling through her tears.

The next morning we took boat, and the tide running out, made good speed
to the Bridge, hastened to the Old Swan, and found George in his printing
shop awaiting us. I remained in the old tapestried room, leaving Frances
and George to say their farewells. In the course of a few minutes he
called me in. He had donned his Quaker disguise, and on the floor near
him was a small bundle of linen. Frances was weeping, and George's voice
was choked with emotion.

"Well, at last, Baron Ned, you are to be rid of me," he said, glancing
toward the bundle at his feet.

"What are your plans of escape?" I asked.

"I shall work my way down to Sheerness, where I hope to find a boat
for The Hague or the French coast. Lilly, who seems to know everything,
past, present and future, came last night to tell me that the king has
fifty men seeking me in various parts of England, especially the
seaports, and has offered a reward of two hundred pounds for me, dead
or alive, preferably dead, I suppose. If I go direct to Sheerness and try
to take a boat, I am sure to be examined, and I'm not prepared for the
ordeal. So I intend to preach my way down the river and induce the king's
officers to send me abroad by force."

"How are you off for money, George?" I asked.

"I borrowed ten guineas from Lilly," he answered.

"I thought you might be in need of money, so I brought fifty guineas from
the strong box under my bed," I said, offering him the little bag of
gold.

He hesitated, saying: "If I take the money, you may never again see a
farthing of it."

"In that case, I'll take my pay in abusing you," I replied.

"Do you believe he would, Frances?" asked George, turning to my cousin.
Then continuing thoughtfully:

"It is strange that I should have found such a friend at the bottom of a
quarrel, all because I allowed him to abuse me. Truly forbearance is a
profitable virtue. The 'other cheek' is the better of the two."

Upon my insistence, he accepted the gold and gave me the ten guineas he
had borrowed from Lilly, asking me to return them.

Frances was making an entire failure of her effort to hold herself in
check, and George was having difficulty in restraining himself, so, to
bring the interview to an end, he gave me his hand, saying:--

"Thank you, Ned, and good-by. I wish I could hope ever to see you again,
but if Le Grand fails me, I shall go to the new world and lose myself in
the Canadian woods."

"No, no!" cried Frances, imploringly.

"I hope not," began George, but he could not finish, so he took Frances
in his arms for a moment, and when he released her, thrust us both out
the door, saying: "Please leave me at once. If you do not, I fear I shall
never let her go. Take care of her, Ned. Good-by!"

The door closed on us, and when Frances had put on her vizard, she
followed me upstairs to see Betty.

I was not admitted to Betty's room, so I went back to the printing shop
for a moment, and George gave me the key to the cipher, in which we were
to write to each other. His letters were to be sent under cover to Lilly,
and mine were to go to an address in Paris which George would send to me.

Long afterwards George told me of his adventures in making his escape,
but I shall give them now in the order of their happening rather than in
the order of time in which I learned them.

Leaving the Old Swan within ten minutes after I had said good-by to him,
George crossed London Bridge, attired in his Quaker disguise, and made
his way to Deptford, where he preached in the streets. From Deptford
he followed the river by easy stages to Sheerness, where he lodged nearly
a week, awaiting a boat that would answer his purpose. Had he attempted
to board a vessel, he would have been seized and examined; therefore his
plan was to grow violent in his preaching, and, if possible, provoke the
authorities to place him on board one of the outgoing crafts; that being
a favorite method of the king's men in getting rid of the too blatant
fanatics in Sheerness.

The Dutch sea captains were fanatics almost to a man, and the exiled
exhorters found them always willing to help their persecuted brethren of
the faith.

And so it happened with George in Sheerness. He was on the dock exhorting
vehemently against the evils of the time, laying great stress on the
wickedness of the king and denouncing the vileness of the court. Two of
the king's officers tried to silence him, but failing, ordered him to
leave England by a certain Dutch boat then waiting in the harbor with its
pennant up. He protested and struggled, but at last was forced aboard,
raving against those godless Balaamites, the clergy of the Established
Church, who, with the devil, he declared, were behind his persecution.

So well did George play his part that a collection was taken up among the
passengers of the Dutch boat to help the good man so vilely put upon.
There was a sweet bit of irony in the fact, learned afterwards, that the
officers who forced George aboard the Dutch ship were at Sheerness for
the purpose of winning the two hundred pounds reward offered for his
capture.

The goodness of God occasionally takes a whimsical form.

A month later I received a letter from George, written in cipher, which I
here give translated:--

"DEAR FRIEND:

"I reached Paris three weeks ago and was received by Monsieur Le G.
most graciously. Although I cannot give definite news, I hope for great
improvement in my fortune soon, and perhaps may write you more fully
thereof before the week is spent.

"Good fortune has but one meaning for me, of which you already know. I
beg you to say to one that a letter from her hand would give me greater
joy than she can know, and that I would now send one to her if I felt
safe in so doing. Please send all letters in cipher, addressed: 'Monsieur
le Blanc, in care of 'Sieur de Catanet, at the sign of the Double Arrow
on the Rue St. Antoine, counting nine doors from the street corner
nearest the Bastile.'

"Your friend,

"LE BLANC."

When George wrote that he hoped for good fortune, I knew he had
sound reason to expect it, for he was one who never permitted a mere
possibility to take the form of hope, nor hope, however assuring, to
take the aspect of certainty. Knowing this to be true, I found great
joy in the letter, and when I told Frances, she did not pause even to
give me one smile of thanks, but broke into a flood of tears and seemed
to take great happiness in her tribulation.

I told Frances that we should answer the letter at once, and suggested
that she have hers ready in my hands the following day, if she wished to
write one. I also suggested that we meet in Bettina's parlor, where
Frances's letter could be rewritten in cipher. We trusted Bettina as we
trusted ourselves, and when we told her the good news, she clapped her
hands for joy, laughing, yet ready to weep, and was as happy as even she
could be, which was very happy indeed.

After we had talked, laughed, and cried a reasonable time in Betty's
parlor, Frances handed me her letter, which was a bulky document, well
taped and waxed.

"It will require a week for me to translate this," I remarked, weighing
the letter in my hand.

"What do you mean by translating it?" she asked in surprise.

"I must write it out in cipher. Hamilton directed that all letters should
be sent in that form," I answered, amused at her alarm.

"No, no!" she cried, snatching the letter from me, pressing it to her
breast and blushing to her ears. "You shall not see my letter!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Because," she answered.

"That is no reason," I replied. "Of course you have written nothing that
you would not want me or your father to see?"

"Well, yes, I have," she returned emphatically. "A great deal. Would you,
Betty, want any one to see such a letter written by yourself?"

"I suppose I could write a letter which I should want but one person in
all the world to see," returned Betty, arching her eyebrows.

"To whom would it be directed, Betty?" I asked, to tease her.

A faint expression of reproach came to her eyes, but after a moment of
pretty hesitancy, she answered boldly:--

"Since you are so unwise as to ask, I'll answer in like folly. The letter
could be directed to but one person in the world--you."

I had received more than I had expected, and though I longed to make a
suitable return, I dared not for the sake of my vows, so we all remained
silent, and somewhat embarrassed, for a minute or two.

Turning to Frances, I said: "If you don't want me to read your letter,
I'll give you the key, and you may make it into cipher." But after
examining the key, she declared that she could never learn to use it, and
I suggested that she write a shorter letter in terms fit for a modest man
to read.

The next day she handed me a shorter letter, saying that she had cut and
pruned it till there was nothing left worth sending, but I assured her
that George would think otherwise.

When I read the letter, my eyes were opened to the fact that there was
more fire in Frances's heart than I had supposed any woman capable of
holding in subjection. But that is a mistake often made by men.

This was my cousin's "cut and pruned" letter:--

"DEAR ONE:

"Baron Ned says my letter must be short, so I smother what remnant of
modesty I have, covering nothing with the veil of circumlocution, but
telling you plainly what I know you want to hear. I love only you and am
true to you in every thought, word, and deed. I long for you, yearn for
you, pray for you, and be your fortune good or ill, I would share it and
give you a part of the bliss of life which you would give to me.

"So I pray you, do not desert me in case your present hope of good
fortune fails you, but let me know at any time, and I will go to you, and
will go with you wherever you will take me.

"You will say, I fear, that none but a crazy woman would write such a
letter as this, but if that be true, the world doubtless is and always
has been populated by maniacs, and I pray God always will be. I pray you,
remember, in judging me, that you are you and that I am but a woman
by whom the good or evil of life is reckoned in the measure of her love;
her joy or misery being only a matter of down weight or light weight more
in the love she gives than in that which she receives. Remember, also,
that in this letter I must condense when I might easily be prolix, and
that after all is written, probably I shall have left unsaid the very
thing I most wished to say. But these three words will tell it all and
bear repeating: I love you.

"FRANCES."

And this from my sensible cousin! What would it be if her heart were not
balanced by a wise head?

Our letters being written, I became alarmed about posting them in London,
not knowing when a messenger would start for France, nor who he would be.
The next day Frances and I talked it over, and she suggested that as the
king and most of the court were about to visit Bath for a season, and as
neither she nor I cared to go, we should take the letters to Dover, cross
to Calais, and post them in France.

I sprang at the idea, but immediately sprang back, saying: "But it is not
entirely proper for us to travel to Calais together, even though you are
my sister-cousin."

"We may take father," she suggested. "Sarah wants to visit Lady St.
Albans, and she can go if we take father with us. And, Baron Ned; I have
another suggestion to offer. Let us take Bettina."

I sprang at that proposal and did not spring back. So we went first to my
uncle, who said he would go with us, and then we went to see Bettina. She
had recovered from her sprains and bruises, although she was still pale
and not quite strong.

When Frances asked her to go with us, she answered, "Ay, gladly, if
father consents."

Pickering, who was sitting with us at the time in Bettina's cozy parlor,
turned to me, laughing, and said:--

"You would suppose, from Betty's remark, that I am master here, but the
truth is my soul is not my own, and now her modest request for permission
is made for effect on the company."

Betty ran to her father, sat on his knee, twined her arm about his neck,
and kissed him as a protest against the unjust insinuation.

"You see how she does it," said Pickering. "No hammer and tongs for
Betty; just oil and honey."

"And lots and lots of love, father," interrupted Betty.

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, our journey was soon arranged on a grand scale. Pickering lent us
his new coach, just home from the makers in Cow Street. It was cushioned
and curtained and had springs in place of thorough-braces. It also had
glass in the windows and doors; a luxury then little known in England
even among the nobles. There was a prejudice against its use in coach
windows because of the fact that two or three old ladies had cut their
faces in trying to thrust their heads through it.

The new coach was a wonderful vehicle, and Frances and I, as well as
Betty, were very proud of our grandeur. Pickering sent along with the
coach and horses two lusty fellows as drivers, and gave us a hamper
almost large enough to feed a company of soldiers. I was to pay all
expenses on the road.

Almost at the last hour Sir Richard concluded not to go, but insisted
that Frances, Bettina, and I take the journey by ourselves. As Pickering
offered no objection, Frances shrugged her shoulders in assent, I
shrugged mine, and Betty laughed, whereby we all, in our own way, agreed
to the new arrangement, and preparations went forward rapidly.

By the time we were ready to start, the king, the duke, the duchess, and
many ladies and gentlemen of the court circle had gone to Bath, thus
giving us an opportunity to make our journey without the knowledge of any
one in Whitehall; a consideration of vast importance to us under the
circumstances. Some of our grand friends at court might have laughed at
our taking the journey with an innkeeper's daughter, in an innkeeper's
coach, but Frances and I laughed because we were happy.

There are distinct periods of good and bad luck in every man's life,
which may be felt in advance by one sensitive to occult influences,
if one will but keep good watch on one's intuitions and leave them
untrammelled by will or reason. At this time "I felt it in my bones,"
as Betty would have said, that the day of our good luck was at hand.

All conditions seemed to combine to our pleasure when, on a certain
bright spring morning, Betty, Frances, and I went down to the courtyard
of the Old Swan, where we found the coach, the horses, and even the
drivers all glittering in the sunshine.

There was ample room in the back seat of the coach for the three of us,
so Betty took one corner, Frances made herself comfortable in another,
and I took what was left, the pleasant place between them.

After Betty had kissed her father at least a dozen times, and had shed a
few tears just to make her happiness complete, the driver cracked his
whip and away we went, out through the courtyard gate, down Gracious Hill
and across London Bridge before a sleepy man could have winked his eyes.

At first we thought we were in haste, but when we got out of Southwark
and into the country, the dark green grass, the flowering hedges, the
whispering leaves of the half-fledged trees, the violets by the roadside,
and the smiling sun in the blue above, all invited us to linger. So we
told the driver to slow his pace, and we lowered every window in the
coach, there being no one in the country whose wonder and envy we cared
to arouse by a display of our glass.

There was not room in Betty's little heart for all the great flood of
happiness that had poured into it, so presently, to give it vent, she
began to sing the little French lullaby we had so often heard, whereupon
Frances and I ceased listening to the birds, and I was more thoroughly
convinced than ever before that there were at least distinct periods of
_good_ fortune in every man's life.

Before reaching Gravesend, we halted at a grassy spot near the river
bank, where we ate our dinner. When the horses had rested, we set off for
Rochester, in which place we expected to spend the night at the Maid's
Garter, a famous old inn kept by a friend of Pickerings.

I had noticed a twinkle in Pickering's eyes when he directed us to go to
this tavern, but did not understand the cause of his merriment until I
learned that by a curious old custom, a maid seeking entrance for the
first time must contribute one of her garters before being admitted. The
worst feature of the usage was that the garter must be taken off at the
door, and then and there presented to the porter, who received it on the
point of his official staff.

After entering Rochester, we went to the Maid's Garter and at once drove
into the courtyard, as the custom is with travellers intending to remain
all night.

When we left the coach and started to climb the steps to the great door,
we found the landlord and his retinue waiting to receive us. Frances was
in the lead, and when we reached the broad, flat stone in front of the
door, the head porter stepped before her, bowed, and asked humbly:--

"Is my lady maid or madam?"

Frances looked up in surprise, and he repeated his question.

"What is that to you, fellow?" asked Frances.

"It is this, my lady," returned the porter. "If my lady be a maid, she
must pay me one of her garters as her admission fee to this inn. If she
be madam, she enters free. It is a privilege conferred on the Maid's
Garter by good St. Augustine when he was Bishop of Canterbury, so long
ago that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

"What nonsense is this?" asked Frances, turning to me, and Bettina asked
the same question with her eyes. I explained the matter, and Frances,
turning to the porter, said:--

"I'll buy you off with a jacobus or a guinea."

"Not a hundred guineas would buy me off, my lady," answered the porter,
bowing, "though I might say that a shilling usually goes with the
garter."

"Well, I'll send you both the shilling and the garter from my room," said
Frances, moving toward the inn door.

"The garter must be paid here, my lady. The shilling may be paid at any
time," returned the porter, with polite insistence.

Frances was about to protest, but Betty, more in sympathy with the
eccentric customs of inns, modestly lifted her skirts, untied her garter
and offered it to the porter, telling him very seriously:--

"I am a maid."

The porter thanked her gravely, whereupon Frances, turning her back on
the audience in the doorway, brought forth her garter, gave it to the
porter, and we were admitted.

Our supper, beds, and breakfast were all so good that they reconciled
Frances and Bettina to the payment of the extraordinary admission fee,
and when we left the next morning, curiosity prompted them to pass near
the garter rack in the tap-room, where garters were hanging which had
been taken from maids whose great granddaughters had become great
grandmothers. The garters that had belonged to Frances and Bettina, being
the latest contributions, hung at the bottom of the rack, neatly dated
and labelled, and, as I left the room, I overheard Bettina whisper to
Frances:--

"I'm glad mine was of silk."

We made a short drive to Maidstone, where we stopped over night. The next
day a longer journey brought us to Canterbury, where we spent two nights
and a day, visiting the cathedral both by sunlight and moonlight; the
combination of moonlight and Bettina being very trying to me.

From Canterbury we drove in the rain to Dover, where we lodged at that
good inn, the Three Anchors, to await a fair wind for Calais.

During the next three days the wind was fair, but it was blowing half a
gale, and therefore the passage was not to be attempted. Though I was
enjoying myself, I was anxious to post our letters, as mine gave a full
account of several matters at court concerning which I knew George ought
to be informed.

Among other news, I told him that King Charles had sent a messenger
into France carrying a personal letter to King Louis, asking his help
in finding the man Hamilton, who had threatened Charles's life. I also
suggested in my letter that the king of France was trying to buy the
city of Dunkirk from King Charles, and that because of the friendly
negotiations then pending, Louis might give heed to our king's request.
In that case, it might be well, I thought, for Hamilton to leave France
at once.

With this urgency in mind, I suggested to Frances and Betty that I
cross to Calais alone, regardless of the weather, leaving them at Dover
till my return. But they would not be left behind, so we all set sail on
a blustery morning and paid for our temerity with a day of suffering. In
Calais we posted our letters, having learned that a messenger would leave
that same day for Paris, and two days later we returned to Dover.

Our journey home was made in the rain, Bettina sleeping with her head on
my shoulder a great part of the way. And I enjoyed the rain even more
than I had enjoyed the sunshine.

We reached London nearly a week before the king's return, so that nothing
was known of our journey at court.




CHAPTER XI

"ALL SUNSHINE MAKES THE DESERT"


Whatever faults Whitehall may have had as a place of residence, dulness
was not among them. There were balls, games with high stakes, theatres,
gossip, scandals, and once in a long while an affair of state to interest
us. In order to interest the court thoroughly, an affair of state must
have involved the getting of money for the privy purse; that is, for the
king's personal use, for out of it the courtesans were fed and gambling
debts were paid.

The time of our Dover journey was one of extreme depletion in the privy
purse. The king had borrowed from every person and every city within the
realm who, by threats or cajolery, could be induced to part with money.
But now he had reached the end of his tether.

When matters were thus in extremis, some one, probably Castlemain,
suggested the sale of England's possessions on the continent, chief of
which was the rich city of Dunkirk, situate on the French side of the
Straits of Dover. This fortified city, within a few leagues of Calais,
had cost the English nation heavily in blood and gold to gain, and still
more heavily to hold, but its value to England commercially and
politically was beyond measure.

Since Queen Mary had lost Calais, Dunkirk was the only important foothold
England had on continental soil; therefore it was almost as dear to the
English people as the city of London itself. Because of its importance,
it was greatly coveted by the French king, who shortly before the time
of our journey to Dover had made overtures to buy it.

Charles turned a deaf ear to King Louis's first proposal to buy Dunkirk,
not because he loved the city, or cared a farthing for its value to his
people, but because he feared the storm of indignation its sale would
raise. The Lord Chancellor objected to the sale of Dunkirk, and tried
to show Charles the great folly of entertaining the offer. He was the
only wise, honest man in the king's council, and, by reason of his
wonderful knowledge of mankind, was called "the Chancellor of Human
Nature." But the king needed money, so after a time he listened to
Berkeley, Crofts, Castlemain, and others of like character, whose
strongest argument consisted in accusing the king, most offensively,
of being afraid of his people.

"Are you not king?" asked Castlemain. "Does not Dunkirk belong to you,
and may you not sell that which is your property? Are not these dogs,
the people, your slaves, your property? Yet you stand in cowardly fear
of a rabble which quakes if you but crook your finger. A like fear of his
subjects cost your father his head. The people will crawl before you if
you kick them, but let them see that you fear them, and you will learn
that there is no cruelty like that of the good people."

De Grammont, the French exile, called attention to the French king's
successful tyranny, declaring that his master would sell Paris if he
chose. De Grammont was acting secretly in the French king's interest.

A weak man easily finds logic to justify the course he desires to take,
so Charles turned a deaf ear to Clarendon, and, listening to Castlemain,
announced that Dunkirk was for sale. As expected, a strong protest came
from the people, but no one is so stubborn as a fool in the wrong, so
Charles remained firm in his determination.

Finding that protest would avail nothing, the people of London offered to
buy Dunkirk, and began to bid for it against the French king. Louis,
knowing that London was a rich city, and believing that its people would
run up the price of Dunkirk to an exorbitant figure, took counsel with
himself--his only adviser--and determined to employ other means than gold
alone to obtain the coveted city.

My first definite knowledge of the French king's new plan to buy Dunkirk
at his own price came in a letter from Hamilton, which reached me at
Lilly's house two or three weeks after my return from Dover. Like the
others, it was written in cipher, but, translated, was as follows:--

DEAR FRIEND:

"Your warning letter reached me nearly a week ago, and I thank you for
your watchfulness. I had full information of King Charles's design upon
my life from no less a person than Monsieur le Grand himself, who showed
me the letter asking that I be returned to England.

"I explained to Monsieur le Grand that the English king sought my life,
not because he is in fear of me, but because he thought I stood between
him and a lady who despises him. While Monsieur le Grand was much in
sympathy with the English king's grievance, his contempt for Charles,
his regard for me, which seems to be sincere, and his longing to possess
Dunkirk all induced him to laugh at the request, the nature of which he
had imparted to no one save me.

"My account of the lady who despised King Charles's love gave Monsieur le
Grand a new idea, and suggested a method of purchasing Dunkirk which he
hopes will save the heavy cost of bidding against the citizens of London.
I had no hint of what he intended till one day he took me to his closet
and began to question me.

"'Do you possess the love of the lady who despises King Charles?' he
asked.

"'I do, your Majesty,' I answered.

"'Do you know you possess it?' he asked.

"'As well as a man who is not a king may know,' I returned.

"'Tush, tush! Kings are no more certain than other men.'

"'I know I possess this woman's love,' I said.

"'Would she be willing to make a great sacrifice to help you?'

"'Anything that I should ask,' I replied.

"'Ah, I see, I see! Should ask? I take it there are certain sacrifices
you would not ask,' returned the king. 'We here in France would say that
your position was Quixotic. However, your King Charles is a weak fool,
easily imposed upon. Is the lady quick and resourceful in expedients,
calm and thoughtful in emergencies, and silent on great occasions?'

"To all of which I answered, 'Yes.'

"'Surely the lady is not La Belle Jennings?' asked the king.

"'Yes,' I replied.

"'In that case you are the very man I want, and your lady-love can help
me buy Dunkirk. It is easy to lead a fool to do the wrong thing, and I'm
sure La Belle Jennings will find a way to gain her end and ours. If,
through her, you induce King Charles to sell Dunkirk to me on my own
terms, I'll make you its governor and a rich man. I'll put you in a
position to marry this paragon, Mam'selle Jennings, if, as I take it,
lack of fortune is all that stands between you. I do not mind telling you
now that De Grammont had given me full information concerning the king's
view of La Belle Jennings and your relations to her before I wrote my
first letter, inviting you to visit me.'

"I am loath to undertake so mean an office as that of inducing King
Charles to sell an English city, but I cannot save Dunkirk, and I may
profit by helping what I cannot prevent. So I beg you broach the subject
to Frances, cautioning her for me to take no risk, and if she is willing
to use and to hoodwink the man who would not hesitate to take her life,
let me know, and I shall write to you again with further instructions.

"With gratitude,

"Your friend,

"LE BLANC."

I sought Frances, and when I told her the substance of George's letter,
she was almost wild with joy.

"Am I willing to try?" she exclaimed, laughing while tears were hanging
in her eyes. "I am not only willing to try, but am determined to succeed.
Ay, I'd sell England itself in the same cause. Of all the men I have ever
known, this king of ours is the greatest dupe. Since the return of the
court to Whitehall, he has been growing more importunate every day. He
seems to have lost what little wits he had, and does and says the
silliest things one can imagine."

"And you do not fear attempting to lead him on to sell Dunkirk? You do
not fear going too near the precipice?" I asked, wishing to weigh her
self-confidence more by the manner of her reply than by her words.

She laughed and answered: "There is no precipice, cousin Ned; nothing to
fear save kidnapping, and I am always guarded against that danger;
nothing to do of which I need feel ashamed, save the acting of a lie, and
surely one may lie to the father of lies without sin."

"But the lie may be recognized," I suggested, "if one be too bold about
it."

"My lie will go little beyond a smile or two. The king's vanity will do
the rest. He will make himself believe that I mean more than I say."

Frances and I felt that we were traitors to our country in helping the
French king, but we knew that in the end he would buy Dunkirk from our
spendthrift monarch, and that out country's loss would be no greater by
reason of our gain. Therefore I wrote George as follows:--

"DEAR FRIEND:

"The Duchess of Hearts is eager and confident. Write at once, giving full
directions.

"YOUR FRIEND."

Frances added a postscript in cipher, but I shall not translate it.

One morning, some three weeks after sending my letter, Frances came to me
in my closet in the Wardrobe, and I saw at once she was in great trouble.
Her eyes were red with weeping, and the woebegone expression of her face
would have been amusing had I not known that some good cause was back of
it. As soon as she entered I saw that she was going to speak, but closets
in Whitehall have ears, so I placed my finger on my lips to enjoin
silence, and spoke loud enough to be heard if any one was listening:--

"Ah, Frances, I forgot that I had promised to go with you to your
father's this morning. Wait for me at Holbein's Gate. I'll be there in
ten minutes."

Within the promised time I found Frances at Holbein's Gate, and we walked
up to Charing Cross, thence down the Strand toward Temple Bar.

"What is the trouble, Frances?" I asked, anxious to hear her news, which
I feared was bad. She was in great distress, and I saw that a flood of
tears was ready to accompany her tale of woe, so I said hurriedly: "Don't
cry. Laugh while you speak. You will attract less attention."

She tried to laugh, but the effort was piteous and became a failure, as
she said:--

"George Hamilton has sailed for Canada, and my heart is broken."

Again she tried to smile, but the smile never reached her eyes, for they
were full of tears.

"How do you know?" I asked, almost stunned by the news.

She tried to stay her tears, but failed, and answered between sobs: "Last
night at the queen's ball, the king showed me a letter sent by order of
the French king, saying that George had sailed from Bordeaux for Canada
nearly a fortnight ago. I could not help showing my grief, and the king,
who was boisterously happy, said: 'Now you will forget him and listen to
me.' I smiled, but it was a poor effort, and he smiled, showing his
yellow fangs as he left me. I pray God that I may never be called upon to
hate another man as I hate him."

"I can hardly believe that George has gone to Canada without notifying
us," I said.

"Yes, I fear it is true," she returned. "But if I am ever so fortunate
as to find him again, I intend to go with him whether he consents or no,
regardless of father and all the world. Just as soon as I learn where he
is in Canada, I will go to him. You will take me, won't you, Baron Ned?"

"I'll not give that promise," I answered. "But I am sure there is
something back of King Louis's letter of which we do not know. Surely
George would not have sailed without notifying us."

"He may have feared to betray himself by writing," she suggested, "since
King Charles had asked King Louis to detain him."

"That is true," I returned. "But the occasion must have been urgent
indeed if he could not have sent us word in some manner."

But I could find no comfort for her, for I really believed that George
had gone to Canada, and there was a certain relief to me in knowing that
he had passed out of Frances's life.

After along silence this feeling of relief found unintentional expression
when I said:--

"Time heals all wounds, Frances. One of these days you will find a man
who will make amends for your present loss, and then--"

"No, no, Baron Ned. Your words are spoken in kindness, but what you
suggest is impossible. Perhaps if there had been fewer obstacles between
us, or if I had not misjudged him so cruelly, I might have found my heart
more obedient to my will."

The only comfort I could give my beautiful cousin was that a letter would
soon come explaining everything. In default of a letter, I promised to go
to Paris and learn the truth from George's friends, if possible.

Frances did not go back to Whitehall that day, but remained at home,
pretending to be ill of an ague.

At the end of a week, Frances not having returned to Whitehall, Sir
Richard was honored by a visit from no less a person than the king,
accompanied by the duchess and a gentleman in waiting. The visit was made
incognito.

As a result of this royal visit, which was made for the purpose of seeing
Frances, a part of Sir Richard's estates near St. Albans were restored to
him, and from poverty he rose at once to a comfortable income of, say, a
thousand or twelve hundred pounds a year.

Immediately all of Sir Richard's hatred of Charles II fell away, and once
more the king shone in the resplendent light of his divine appointment.

While Frances estimated the king's generosity at its true value, she was
glad her father had received even a small part of what was his just due,
and although she knew the restoration had been made to please, and, if
possible, to win her, she was glad to have spoiled the royal Philistine,
and despised him more than ever before, if that were possible.

Sir Richard's good fortune brought a gleam of joy to Frances, but it also
brought a pang of regret, because it had come too late. Her only purpose
in going to Whitehall had been to marry a rich nobleman and thereby raise
the fallen fortunes of her house. Now that reason existed no longer, and
if George were here, she could throw herself away upon him with injury to
no one but herself. But George was not here, and liberty to throw herself
away had come too late to be of any value.

Every day during the fortnight that Frances remained at home, she asked
if I had any news from court, meaning the French court, but using the
form of inquiry to avoid acquainting her father and Sarah with the real
cause of her solicitude.

But my answers were always, "Oh, nothing but Castlemain's new tantrum,"
or "The duke's defeat at pall-mall."

Frances was the last girl in the world, save, perhaps Sarah, who I should
have supposed capable of languishing and dying of love, but the former
she did before my eyes, and the latter I almost began to fear if news did
not reach us soon from George.

Betty came up to see Frances nearly every day, and the kissing and
embracing that ensued disgusted Sarah.

"Now, if Frances were a man, I could understand it," said Sarah. "The
little barmaid must be tempting to a man, being pretty and--"

"Beautiful, Sarah!" I interrupted.

"Yes, beautiful, if you will."

"Her eyes--" I began, again interrupting Sarah.

"Oh, yes!" cried Sarah, impatiently. "Her eyes are fine enough, but their
expression comes from their color, their size, and their preposterously
long eyelashes. Black long lashes often give a radiance to the eyes which
passes for expressiveness, and I doubt not--"

"Nonsense, Sarah!" I cried, half angrily. "Bettina's eyes are expressive
in themselves. As you say, their soft dark brown is the perfection of
color, and they certainly are large. But aside from all that, their
expression is--"

"There is no intellect in them!" cried Sarah.

"There is tenderness, gentleness, love, and truth in them," I answered,
with as careless an air as I could assume.

"Yes, there may be for a man, but I insist there is no real intellect."

"Well, Sarah," I answered, showing irritation despite an effort to appear
indifferent, "it is my opinion that the possession of great intellectual
power by a woman is the one virtue with which men, as a rule, find
themselves most willing to dispense. It gives her too great an
advantage."

"Yes, a soft, plump figure like Betty's, long lashes and red lips,
surrounded by dimples, are apt to please a fool."

"But they're good in their way, Sarah, you'll admit--excellent!"
I retorted sharply, caring little if she saw that I was angry.

"And men are fools, so there! Not another word about the barmaid!" cried
Sarah, dismissing the subject with a wave of her hand.

But men, too, sometimes like to have the last word, so I remarked: "The
mother of the Duchess of York was a barmaid, at least, a barmistress."

"Yes, but is that any reason why Frances should be kissing this one?
Doubtless your friend Betty finds men enough to do the office."

"Sarah!" I cried, springing to my feet, now thoroughly angry. "If you
were a man, I'd give you the lie direct!"

Sarah began to laugh and clapped her hands, saying: "I was leading you
on. I suspected you were fond of her. Now I know it."

But Sarah's remark, being so near the truth, did nothing to allay my
anger, so I told her she was a fool, and went into an adjoining room,
where I found Frances and Bettina luxuriating in tearful sympathy.

I walked home with Bettina, and she invited me to go to her parlor to
have a cup of tea. To see Bettina boil the tea (steep it or draw it, she
said was the proper phrase) was as pretty a sight as one could wish to
behold, and when she poured it out in thin china cups, handing one to
me and taking one herself, her pride in following the fashion of modish
ladies was as touching as it was simple and beautiful. It was almost more
than my feeble resolutions could withstand, so when I was about to leave
I had a great battle with myself and was defeated, for I seized her
hands, and although I said nothing, she knew what was in my mind, so she
hung her head, murmuring:--

"If you are willing to make me more unhappy than I am."

"Not for the world, Bettina," I answered, rallying against myself.
"Goodnight."

"Good night. Now I know you are my friend," she answered softly, holding
my hands for a moment, then dropping them suddenly and turning from me.

I have refrained from speaking of Mary Hamilton of late, partly because
I did not see her frequently at this time, and partly because the shame I
felt at the time of which I am now writing comes surging over me whenever
I touch upon the subject. Not that I did anything of which I need be
ashamed, but because I remember so vividly my motives and desires that
the old sensations return, even at this distant day, as a perfume, a
strain of music, the soft balminess of spring, or the sharp bite of
winter's frost may recall a moment of the past, and set the heart
throbbing or still it as of yore.

After leaving Bettina, I went back to Whitehall and dressed for a ball
which the queen was giving that night. It was an unfortunate time for me
to see Mary. My heart was full, not to overflowing, but to sinking, with
my love of Bettina and her love of me. There was nothing I would not have
given at that time to be able to take her as my wife. I should have been
glad to give my title, estates, and position--everything--to be a simple
tradesman or an innkeeper so that I might take Bettina with happiness to
her and without the damning sin of losing caste to me.

It was true the king's brother had made a marriage of comparatively the
same sort, but it is almost as impossible for a prince to lose caste as
it is difficult for a mere baron to keep it. Bettina would not be happy
in my sphere of life, nor could I live in hers, so what was there for me
to do but to keep my engagement with Mary Hamilton and, if I could, lose
my love for Bettina.

       *        *        *        *        *

The queen's ball was to be held that night at St. James's Palace, and
I was glad to have the walk from Whitehall across the park. The night was
perfect. A slim moon hung in the west, considerately withholding a part
of her light that the stars might twinkle the brighter in their vain
effort to rival Bettina's eyes. The night wind came to me, odor-laden
from the roses, only to show me how poor a thing it was compared with
Bettina's breath upon my cheek and its sweetness in my nostrils. Now and
then a belated bird sang its sleepy song, only to remind me of the melody
of her lullabies, and the cooing dove moaned out its plaintive call lest
I forget the pain in her breast while selfishly remembering the ache in
my own. Then I thought of what the Good Book says about "bright clouds,"
and I prayed that my pain might make me a better man and might lead me to
help Bettina in the days of her sorrowing, which I knew were at hand.

Soon after I had kissed the hands of the king and the queen, I met
George's brother, Count Anthony Hamilton. He had never been friendly to
his younger brother, and had ceased to look upon him as a brother at all
after his disgraceful reformation. Then when the king turned against
George, Anthony, good courtier that he was, turned likewise, and there is
no bitterness that may be compared with that of an apostate brother.

After we had talked for a minute or two, Count Anthony asked if I knew
anything of "the fool," as he was pleased to call his brother.

"I know nothing of your brother George, my lord, if it is him you mean."

"He is no brother of mine, and if you wish to become a member of our
family, you will cease to consider him your friend," returned his
Lordship, making an effort to conceal his anger.

I was not in the mood to take his remark kindly, therefore I answered
warmly:--

"Shall my entering the ranks of your noble family curtail my privilege of
choosing my own friends?"

"No, with one exception," he replied.

"The honor of the alliance is great, my lord, but I shall not consent to
even one exception at your dictation. Your sister, my future wife, loves
her brother, and if she does not object to my friendship for him, your
Lordship oversteps your authority, as head of your house, by protesting."

He turned angrily upon me, saying: "You have been paying your court with
lukewarm ardor of late, Baron Clyde. Perhaps you would not grieve if your
friendship for a family outcast were to bar you from the family."

"If your Lordship means to say that I wish to withdraw dishonorably from
my engagement with your sister, I crave the privilege of telling you that
you lie!"

I never was more calm in my life, and my words brought a cold smile to
Hamilton's lips.

"My friend De Grammont will have the honor of waiting on you to-morrow
morning," he answered, bowing politely.

"I shall be delighted to see his Grace," I answered. "Good night, my
lord!"

Here was a solution of my problem in so far as it concerned my engagement
with Mary Hamilton, for if I killed her brother, she would not marry
me, and if he killed me, I could not marry her. The fact that a gleam
of joy came to me because of my unexpected release caused me to feel
that I was a coward not to have broken the engagement in an honorable,
straightforward manner rather than to have seized this opportunity to
force a duel upon her brother. It is true I had not sought the duel
deliberately and had not thought it possible one second before uttering
the word that made it necessary. Still it was my act that brought it
about, and I felt that I had taken an unmanly course.

After leaving Count Anthony I walked across the room to where Mary
was standing at the outer edge of a circle of ladies and gentlemen who
surrounded De Grammont, listening to a narrative in broken English, of
his adventures, fancied or real, I know not which, but interesting,
and all of a questionable character.

When I spoke to Mary, she turned and gave me her hand. I had not
expected the least display of emotion on her part; therefore I was not
disappointed when the smile with which she greeted me was the same she
would have given to any other man. But Mary was Mary. Nature and art had
made her what she was--charming, quiescent, and calm, not cold, simply
lukewarm.

"I have seen little of you this last month," said Mary, taking my arm and
walking with me away from De Grammont's group. She might have remarked
with equal emotion that Cromwell was dead or the weather fine. She did
not wait for an explanation of my absence, but continued with a touch of
eager hesitancy and a fluttering show of anxiety, "Have you had news
recently of my brother George?"

Of course I could not tell her the truth, so I answered evasively: "I
suppose you have heard the news spread throughout the court that he has
gone to Canada? Doubtless you can tell me more than I know."

"That is all I know," she answered. "When he went, or where, I have been
unable to learn, for George is a forbidden topic in our household and
seems to be the same at court. What has he done, baron? I have heard it
hinted that he threatened to take the king's life. Surely he did nothing
of the sort."

"If he did, it was in a delirium of fever," I answered, hoping that she
would cease speaking of George and would ask a question or two concerning
myself.

But no. She turned again to me, asking, "Did you hear him?"

"I have been told that the accusation comes from his physician, and
perhaps from one who was listening at his door," I answered, avoiding a
direct reply.

"I suspect the informant is a wretched little hussy of whom I have
heard--the daughter of the innkeeper," remarked Mary, looking up to
me for confirmation.

"Suspect no longer," I answered, with sharper emphasis than I should have
used.

"Do you know her?" she asked.

"I do not know a 'wretched hussy' who is the daughter of the innkeeper,"
I answered sullenly. "I know a beautiful girl who watched devotedly at
your brother's bedside, day and night, and probably saved his life at a
time when he was deserted by his sisters and his mother."

"We often find that sort of kindness in those low creatures," she
answered, unaware of the tender spot she was touching, and ignoring
my reference to George's sisters and his mother.

Naturally Mary was kind of heart, but her mother was a hard, painted
old Jezebel, whose teachings would have led her daughter away from every
gentle truth and up to all that was hard, cruel, and selfish in life. A
woman in the higher walks of life is liable to become enamelled before
her twentieth year.

While I did not blame Mary for what she had said relating to Bettina,
still I was angry and longed to do battle with any one who could fight.

After we had been together perhaps ten minutes, some one claimed her for
a dance, and she left me, saying hurriedly in my ear:--

"I'll see you soon again. I want to ask you further about George." She
had not a question to ask about me.

She was not to see me again, for I asked permission of the queen to
withdraw, and immediately left the ball.

While I was crossing the park on my way back to Whitehall, the wind
moaned and groaned--it did not breathe. The stars did not twinkle--they
glared. The nightingales did not sing--they screamed. And the roses were
odorless. Perhaps all this change to gloom was within me rather than
without, but it existed just the same, and I went home and to bed, hating
all the world save Bettina, whom I vowed for the hundredth time never to
see again.

The next day at noon De Grammont came to my closet, where I had waited
for him all morning.

"Welcome to you, dear count!" I cried, leading him by the hand to a
chair.

"Perhaps you will not so warmly welcome me," he returned, "when you learn
my errand."

"I already know your errand, Count Grammont, and it makes you doubly
welcome," I answered, drawing a chair for myself and sitting down in
front of him.

"Ah, that is of good," he returned, rubbing his hands. "You already know
the purpose of my visit?"

"Yes, I do, my dear count, but any purpose would delight me which brings
the pleasure of your company."

"Ah, it is said like a civilized man," he returned, complimenting
me by speaking English, though I shall not attempt to reproduce his
pronunciation. "How far better it is to say: 'Monsieur, permit to me,'
before one runs a man through than to do it as though one were sticking
a mere pig. Is it not so?"

"True as sunshine, my dear count," I returned. "There's a vast difference
between the trade of butchering and the gentle art of murder."

De Grammont threw back his head, laughing softly. "Ah, good, good! Very
good, dear baron! The sentiment is beau-ti-ful and could not be better
expressed--in English. You should have been born across the channel."

"I wish I had been born any place, not excepting hell, rather than in
England," I answered.

"True, true, what a hole it is," returned the count, regretfully. "The
Englishman is one pig."

He saw by the expression of my face that while I might abuse my own
countrymen, I did not relish hearing it from others, so with true French
tact he held up his hand to keep me from speaking till he could correct
himself.

"Pardon, baron, I forgot the 'r,' The Englishman's affectation of a
virtue he despises makes of him a prig--not a pig. Non, non! Mon Dieu!
Not a pig--a prig! Is it not so?"

"True, true, count," I returned, unable to restrain a laugh. "It is the
affectation of virtue that makes frank vice attractive by comparison."

"Ah, true, true, my dear baron. May I proceed with my errand?"

"Proceed, count."

"Monsieur le Comte Hamilton begs me to say that he was called away from
London early to-day on the king's business, but that he will return
in four weeks. When he returns he will do himself the honor to send
me again, asking you to name a friend, unless you prefer to apologize,
which no gentleman would do in a case of this sort. You said, I am told,
that Monsieur le Comte lied. If you admit that he did not lie, of course
you admit that you did. So, im-pos-si-ble! There must be to fight!"

"Do you know, count, the cause of my having given Count Hamilton the
lie?" I asked.

"I did not inquire," he answered smilingly. "To me it was to carry the
message."

"George Hamilton is your friend, is he not?" I asked.

"Yes, but far more, he is the friend of my king, and will make entreaty
with my monarch for my return to France," answered De Grammont.

"It was because of Count Hamilton's insulting reference to his brother
that I used the ugly word," I returned.

"A-ah, that is different!" Then recovering himself quickly: "But I
undertook the mission. It is to finish. Monsieur George Hamilton? My
friend? My king's friend? If it had been known to me! But you have the
message of 'Sieur le Comte."

After a short silence he said, "When Monsieur le Comte Hamilton returns,
I shall ask him to relieve me of this duty."

As De Grammont was leaving my closet, he paused at the door, and, after a
moment's hesitancy, whispered:--

"You may expect a letter from France soon. It will come from M. l'Abbé du
Boise, who I hope will come soon to London on the business of my king.
You know him not--M. l'Abbé?" The eyebrows lifted questioningly. "No? You
soon will know him, yet you will not know him. You and perhaps a lady may
help him in his mission. I, too, shall help him, but I, too, know him
not. Yet I know him. If he succeed in his mission, he will be rich, he
will be powerful. And I? Mon Dieu, my friend! If he succeed, my decree of
banishment from Paris--it will be to revoke. I may return once more to
bask in the smile of my king. You must not speak; the lady must not
speak; I must not speak when Monsieur l'Abbé comes, nor before. It is to
silence. Stone walls have one ear."


"Two, sometimes, count," I suggested, laughing.

"Yes, I should have said one ears! Non, non! I forget this damnable
tongue of yours! When I arrive to great interest, it is to talk faster
than it is to think, and--" A shrug of the shoulders finished the
sentence.

"Let us speak French hereafter, my dear count," I suggested.

"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! It is to me more of pain to hear my sweet language
murdered than to murder yours," answered Grammont, seriously.

"Ah, but I speak French quite as well as I speak English. Perhaps I shall
not murder it," I replied.

"Perhaps? We shall try," he said, though with little show of faith.

I began speaking French, but when I paused for his verdict, he shrugged
his shoulders, saying:--

"Ah, _oui, oui!_ It may be better than my English." But notwithstanding
his scant praise, we spoke the French language thereafter.

The count bowed himself out and left me to decipher, if I could, the
problem of M. l'Abbé du Boise. Presently I discovered the cue. The
Abbé was George Hamilton, and for the moment my heart almost stopped
beating. If he should come to England on the French king's business,
which could be nothing more nor less than the Dunkirk affair, and
should be discovered, there would be a public entertainment on Tyburn
Hill, with George as the central figure.

When I found a spare hour, I hastened to see Lilly and came upon the
good Doctor among the stars, as usual. There was a letter for me from
Hamilton. It was short and in cipher:--

"DEAR FRIEND:

"This is to tell you that M. l'Abbé du Boise will soon be in London. He
will be the guest of M. Comte de Grammont.

"You do not know him. Please call on him when he arrives. Tell the
Duchess of Hearts that he will want to see her. Ask her to be ready to
help him. He goes to buy Dunkirk for the French king, and his success
will mean good fortune for me.

"Your friend,

"LE BLANC."

After reading the letter, I felt sure that the Abbé du Boise was George
Hamilton. I could hardly bring myself to believe that he would be so
foolhardy as to visit Whitehall, though I knew the adventure was of a
nature likely to appeal to his reckless disregard of consequences. I
knew also that, if successful, he would win the reward without which
life had little value to him.

I was sure that Hamilton had fully weighed the danger of his perilous
mission, and that he was deliberately staking his life on a last
desperate chance to win fortune and Frances Jennings.

Though perhaps Lilly was a charlatan in many respects, he was to be
trusted; still I did not feel that it was my place to impart George's
secret to him, though I had in mind a plan whereby he might be of great
help to the Abbé du Boise in influencing King Charles. The king consulted
him secretly in many important affairs, and I was sure that if the good
Doctor should be called in by his Majesty in the Dunkirk affair, the
stars would tell a story in accord with our desires if we made it to
Lilly's interest.

However, all of that must wait for the Abbé du Boise. Of one thing I was
sure; I must tell Frances at once so that she might be paving the way to
the king with her smiles. It would be a disagreeable task, but I knew she
would do it gladly, and I also knew that no woman could do it better.

While I had expressed my doubts to Frances concerning Hamilton's
emigration to Canada, I had not felt entirely sure there was nothing in
it, and she, womanlike, taking the worst for granted, had accepted it as
true. But the coming of the Abbé du Boise changed everything, and when I
saw her at her father's house and told her of my suspicions, and showed
her Le Blanc's letter, she was so greatly alarmed that she said she would
rather know that George had gone to Canada than to fear his return to
England under the circumstances.

"The dastardly king will take his life if he comes," she said.

"I admit the danger," I answered, as hopefully as possible, "but I
believe, if George comes, he will be able to take care of himself."

"Danger!" she exclaimed. "It is certain death! George will find no
mercy."

"If he is caught," I answered. "But the letter from King Louis will
convince King Charles that Hamilton is in Canada and will throw our
jealous monarch off his guard. Perhaps Hamilton will be safer than we
suppose. He speaks French like a Parisian, but, above all, he is cool,
calm, and thoughtful in danger. The London merchants will be far more
dangerous than the king."

"It does seem that we are guilty of treason to our country in thus
helping France," she said. Then laughingly, "But I'll go back to the
palace at once and begin my task of wheedling the king." She paused for a
moment, then continued hesitatingly, "Do you suppose it possible that
George would doubt me afterwards?"

"Impossible," I answered, with emphasis that seemed to reassure her.

"I am doing it for him," she continued with a sigh. "God knows I would
do almost anything in the same cause. But I do not know men, and I fear
it is possible that he will doubt me after I have succeeded. Let us go
to see Betty. She is restful to me, and always soothes my nerves. But
besides, I want to have her help. I'll introduce her to the king--"

"No, by God, you'll not introduce her to the king! I'll explode the whole
affair, and Dunkirk may go to the devil before you shall introduce Betty
to the king," I answered.

"Yet you are willing that I should meddle in the dangerous affair?
Evidently you love her more than you love me?"

"Only a few hundred million times more," I answered sullenly.

"Is it that way with you, my dear brother?" she asked, coming to me as I
stood gazing out the window, seeing nothing save Bettina's face. Frances
put her hand on my shoulder and said coaxingly: "Forgive me. No harm
shall come to her through me."

Of course I was sorry that I had allowed myself to become angry, and at
once made my apology as well as I could.

"Let us go to see Betty, anyway," said Frances. And I assenting, she went
to fetch her cloak, hat, and vizard.

But when she returned, I had changed my mind and declined to go, telling
Frances that I must see Bettina no more.

"Why?" asked Frances.

"Because I would not win a love from her which I cannot accept."

"Baron Ned, there are few men who would be so considerate."

But I required little coaxing, and when Frances had made ready for the
journey, I buckled on my sword, which I had left standing in the corner,
took my hat from the floor, and started out with her.

While walking from the Bridge to the Old Swan, I remarked to Frances, "My
engagement with Mary Hamilton is likely to be broken by her family."

"Why, Baron Ned?" she asked in surprise.

"Count Hamilton has challenged me to a duel, to be fought when he
returns, and you see, if I kill him or if he kills me, well--" I
answered, shrugging my shoulders.

She was much alarmed at my disclosure, but was reassured when I made
light of the affair, probably because there was no danger in it to George
Hamilton, and, perhaps, because if I should kill Count Hamilton, George
would inherit the title and estates.

"But poor Mary! She will grieve," said Frances.

"I think you need waste no tears for her sake," I answered. "She is a
fine, pretty little creature, who will take what comes her way without
excess of pain or joy. She is incapable of feeling keenly. God has been
good to her in giving her numbness."

"No, no, cousin Ned, you are wrong!" she returned. "Life without pain
is not worth living. I have heard that the Arabs have a saying, 'All
sunshine makes the desert.' God is good to us when he darkens the sun
now and then and gives us the sunshine afterwards."

"Perhaps you are right, Frances," I returned. "But you and I are in the
cloud now, and a little sunshine would be most welcome."

"Not enough sunshine to make a desert," she answered.

"Ay! But enough to make a garden," I returned, as we climbed the narrow
flight of steps leading to the private entrance to the Old Swan.

When we paused at the door, Frances said, "Your garden is at hand." And
when she opened the door, there stood Betty, and I was in Eden. The moist
glow of her eyes, the faint blush of her cheeks, the nervous fluttering
of her voice, spoke more eloquently than all the tongues of Babel could
have spoken, and I could not help comparing her welcome with that which
Maxy Hamilton had given me at the queen's ball.

Bettina led us to the parlor, and while we were drinking a cup of tea,
we had the great pleasure of asking and answering questions of which we
always had a large supply in reserve.

When it was time to go, Bettina walked down to the Bridge with us. As it
was growing dark, Frances suggested that I walk back to the Old Swan with
Betty, which I did, she taking my arm of her own accord, and both of us
very happy, though we spoke not a word, for fear of saying too much, save
"good night" at the door.

"Good night at the door!" God gave its sweetness to youth right out of
the core of His infinite love.




CHAPTER XII

A PERILOUS EMBASSY


Four or five days after our visit to Bettina, I met De Grammont at
Charing Cross, and he surprised me with an invitation to his house
that night to meet Monsieur l'Abbé du Boise at supper.

"The king and a dozen other gentlemen will be present," he said, "but
there will be no ladies. Monsieur l'Abbé, being of the church, is not a
ladies' man, and besides, ladies have sharper eyes than men, and might
see much that is intended to remain unseen."

The count's remark seemed to settle the question of the Abbé's identity,
and I hastened to Frances with the news. She assured me that she was
ready to die of fright, but showed no outward sign of dissolution, and
when I complimented her on her power of self-control, said:--

"Fortunately, I am part hypocrite, and can easily act a part."

"You have a hard one ahead of you," I returned, "and will need all your
strength before it is played to the end."

       *       *       *       *       *

I was on hand early at De Grammont's supper, but found several gentlemen
ahead of me, awaiting, with the count in his parlor, the arrival of the
king. Soon after I entered the room, De Grammont presented me to the
Abbé. I was convinced at once that he was not George Hamilton. His beard,
worn à la Richelieu,--a mustache and a tuft on the chin,--was snow white,
and his hair, which was thin, hung in long white waves almost to his
shoulders. He walked with a stoop and wore spectacles, the glasses of
which were slightly colored. Being an ecclesiastic, though not a priest,
he wore no wig; but he was of the Order of the Cordon Bleu, and wore, in
addition to his badge and blue ribbon, a sword beneath his long coat. It
was the first time I had ever seen an ecclesiastic wearing a sword,
though it has since become common in France, where there are many "Abbés"
who are neither priests nor in orders.

The Abbé spoke poor English, therefore the conversation was carried on in
French, much to the annoyance of some of our guests, who pretended to a
greater knowledge of that language than they possessed.

Soon after my presentation to the Abbé, the king arrived, and we all went
out to the supper table, where the Abbé's chair was on the king's right,
with De Grammont on his Majesty's left. After the king had been seated a
moment, he rose and asked us to be seated; so we took our places, all
save the king dropping our hats beside us on the floor because of his
Majesty's presence.

I sat next to De Grammont, almost opposite the Abbé, and had a good
opportunity to observe the French emissary. The king's French was
excellent, and the dinner conversation was carried on largely between him
and the Abbé. All subjects were discussed, but the Abbé adroitly avoided
Dunkirk and seemed to prefer talking on religious and philosophical
topics, in which he took the liberty to disagree with the king in many
respects, politely though positively.

I listened attentively, hoping that some tone of the Abbé's voice, a pose
or a gesture, might reveal George Hamilton, if it were he, in the most
excellent disguise I had ever seen. But nothing of the sort occurred, and
before the dinner was over, I was still more convinced that whoever the
Abbé du Boise might be, he was not Hamilton.

After dinner came the heavy wines, of which the Abbé did not partake, and
of which De Grammont and I drank sparingly. All the others, including the
king, were gloriously drunk long before the night was over.

While smoking our pipes, the king, who was eager to get his hands
on French money, told the Abbé that he hoped to see him, with his
credentials, at Whitehall on the second morning following at ten o'clock,
and the Abbé said he would leave his credentials with my Lord Clarendon,
and would be at Whitehall at the hour suggested by the king, for the
purpose of making the French king's offer.

Most of the guests went home between two men, very late at night, but
fortunately I was able to walk home by myself.

I was both glad and disappointed not to find George in the gown of the
Abbé. I was glad because of the risk he would have taken had he come to
England, yet disappointed in missing what would have been the most
picturesque, daring personal exploit of English court history. But on the
whole it was better as it was.

The next morning the king sent for me to come to his closet, and asked if
I knew one Lilly, an astrologer. I answered that I knew little of him
personally, but had heard much of his wisdom and learning.

"Yes, yes, but you know where he lives, do you not? On the Strand, a
dozen houses this side of Temple Bar?" asked the king.

"I have seen the house often, your Majesty," I replied.

"Good! Now listen attentively to what I have to say," returned the king,
graciously taking my arm and leading me to a window overlooking the
river. "I hear from De Grammont that the Abbé du Boise is a firm believer
in the teachings of astrology. I want you to arrange, without letting any
one know that my finger is in the pie, to take Lilly to see the Abbé, or
the Abbé to see Lilly. I'll whisper a word in your ear. The stars will
tell our friend, the Abbé, a story to suit our purposes. The French king
and his ambassadors will find their match in me, I warrant you. I have
bought Lilly, body and soul--with promises." The king shrugged his
shoulders and whispered: "With promises, you understand, Baron Ned, with
promises. Now give him a chance at the Abbé."

Charles laughed and chuckled in self-gratulation, not the least
suspecting that he was talking to the wrong man and playing into the
French king's hand. I bore in mind the fact that the king had bought
Lilly with promises, and I determined to buy the good Doctor with ready
gold.

"I'll try to carry out your Majesty's commands," I answered, apparently
doubtful of my ability. "But of course you would not have me insist, if
the Abbé seems disinclined to consult Lilly."

"No, no! Odds fish, man, no! But find a way to bring them together,
and your reward will come later. I choose, you for this little piece of
business because you are in no way connected with the affair between the
French king and me, and because I know you are to be trusted."

I to be trusted! So was Brutus!

"I shall do my best, your Majesty, and if I fail, I shall notify you at
once," I said, taking my leave.

I hastened to De Grammont's house, which at that time was over near the
Mall, and told the count what the king had said.

"Ah, that is good!" cried De Grammont. "A fool, who knows himself to be a
fool, is likely to be wary, but one who deems himself wise is the easiest
dupe in the world. I'll see Monsieur l'Abbé. Wait."

De Grammont returned in a few minutes, saying that the Abbé would go with
me to see Doctor Lilly, and I suggested that I return for him in three
hours.

I went back to Whitehall, where I found Frances, and told her to be at
Lilly's house on the Strand within three hours, to meet the French king's
ambassador, and to receive the instructions which George's letter had
intimated the Abbé would give. I told her, also, that the Abbé was not
the person we had expected to see.

The evening before, she was ready to die of fright because we believed
that the Abbé was George Hamilton, and now, since I had found he was not,
she was ready to die of disappointment--so she assured me.

At the appointed time, De Grammont, the Abbé, and I took the count's
barge and went down to the water stairs nearest Temple Bar, where the
Abbé and I left De Grammont and walked up through the crowded streets to
Lilly's house. Owing to the crowded condition of the street, the Abbé and
I found no opportunity to exchange words until we were before Lilly's
house.

Lilly was at home, I having sent word of our coming, so when we knocked,
the servant opened and directed us to the waiting parlor, saying that the
Doctor would soon come down.

We started upstairs, I in the lead, the Abbé following ten paces behind.
When I entered the room, I found Bettina and Frances sitting by the
street window. They came to me quickly, and Frances explained Bettina's
presence.

"I did not like to come here alone, so I asked Betty to come with me. She
is to be trusted."

"You need not assure me of that," I answered, taking Betty's hand. "I
already know it. I am glad you--"

But here I was interrupted by a soft cry from Bettina, and by a
half-smothered scream from Frances, both of whom deserted me suddenly
and ran toward the door I had just entered. Turning, I saw Frances with
her arms about the Abbé's neck, and Bettina clasping one of his hands.
I thought the two had gone mad, but when Bettina saw my look of surprise
and inquiry, she dropped his hand, came to me, and asked:--

"Did you want us to pretend that we did not know him? If so, you should
have told us."

"But you don't know him," I declared.

"Perhaps I don't," she returned, laughing softly and shrugging her
shoulders, "but evidently your cousin does. If not, she should take her
arms from around his neck."

"But she is mistaken," I insisted.

"She seems to be convinced," answered Bettina, with a curious little
glance up to me, half laughing, half inquiring. Evidently she was
doubtful whether I spoke in jest or in earnest.

Frances still clung to the Abbé, her head resting on his shoulder, so I
started toward her, intending to correct her mistake. Bettina, seeing my
purpose, caught me by the arm, saying:--

"Don't you really know?"

The Abbé turned his face toward me, and when I caught a glimpse of his
eyes without spectacles, I recognized George Hamilton, and almost choked
myself in smothering a cry.

Frances turned to me, asking indignantly, "Why did not you tell me?"

"Because I did not know," I answered, hardly able to believe the truth.

But we had important business before us, and I knew that we should
prepare for it before Lilly came in. So George, Bettina, Frances, and
I went to a window at the far end of the room to hold a consultation.

"Since I did not recognize you, perhaps Lilly will not," I suggested. "I
trust the Doctor, but perhaps we had better leave him under the
impression that you are Monsieur l'Abbé du Boise and give no intimation
of the truth."

"I had not hoped that my disguise would deceive you, Baron Ned," said
George, "but since it has, it is just as well that we leave Lilly in the
dark if we can."

"But he will know. The stars will tell him," suggested Bettina, opening
her eyes very wide.

"The stars will tell him what he is paid to hear," I remarked. Then
turning to Frances, I asked, "How is it that you were able to recognize
him?"

"By his eyes!" exclaimed Frances and Bettina in concert.

"That gives me a valuable hint," said George, hastily adjusting his
colored spectacles. "Now, how about it?"

"I still should know you," answered Frances.

"Not I!" exclaimed Bettina.

Presently Lilly came in, and I presented him to Monsieur l'Abbé du Boise
and explained the presence of Frances and Bettina by saying:--

"A friend of ours in France has asked Mistress Jennings to render what
aid she can to Monsieur l'Abbé, and she is here at my request to receive
his commands."

"It is good!" exclaimed Lilly. "She has the king's ear if any one has,
and the ear is very close to the mind. What may I do to serve Monsieur
l'Abbé?"

"If I may see you privately---the baron and me--I shall tell you how you
may serve me," answered the Abbé.

The Abbé and I excused ourselves to Frances and Bettina, and went with
the Doctor to the room which he called his observatory, where we came to
the point very quickly:--

"I want to buy Dunkirk for my master for the sum of one hundred thousand
pounds," said the Abbé, by way of starting the consultation.

"But London has already offered that sum," returned Lilly, "and stands
ready to pay more."

"In payments," suggested the Abbé.

"Yes," returned Lilly. "But I see no way of bringing the king to accept
the sum you offer unless--unless Mistress Jennings can persuade him."

"She may be able to do so," answered the Abbé, shrugging his shoulders.
He spoke very bad English throughout the consultation. "But the stars,
too, may be very persuasive with King Charles. To be plain, he will
probably consult you, and if--"

"I am to see him to-night. That is why your visit was postponed until
to-morrow," interrupted Lilly.

"That is as I supposed," remarked the Abbé. "Now, if I buy Dunkirk for
one hundred thousand pounds, you shall receive two thousand pounds within
ten days after signing the treaty, and Baron Clyde will be my surety."

"Two thousand pounds?" mused Lilly. "That is rather a small sum in so
great a transaction."

"I doubt not the purchase may be made without the help of the stars if
you feel that two thousand pounds is too small a sum to be considered,"
returned the Abbé.

"No, no," said Lilly. "I understand that you wish me to set a figure and
work out the solution of this affair, and if I learn from the stars that
it is to King Charles's interest to accept your offer of one hundred
thousand pounds for the city of Dunkirk, I am to receive--"

"If King Charles accepts!" interrupted the Abbé.

"Ah, I see! Yes, yes, of course," returned Lilly. "I shall go to work
immediately and set my figure. Of course I do not know what I shall
learn, but I shall be glad to learn from the stars that which will enable
me to advise the king according to your wishes. Two thousand pounds are
two thousand pounds, and the word of a king is but a breath."

"A man always says, 'who was the first one?' but the girl says, 'who'll
be the next one?'" she returned, as she carefully laid the roses in her
bureau drawer.

"But the time comes when there never will be a next one."

"No?"

"No."

"I'd hate to stake my pile on that," observed the Girl, drily. She blew
up each glove as it came off and likewise carefully laid them away in
the bureau drawer.

By this time Wowkle's soft tread had ceased, her duties for the night
were over, and she stood at the table waiting to be dismissed.

"Wowkle, git to your wigwam!" suddenly ordered her mistress, watching
her until she disappeared into the cupboard; but she did not see the
Indian woman's lips draw back in a half-grin as she closed the door
behind her.

"Oh, you're sending her away! Must I go, too?" asked Johnson, dismally.

"No--not jest yet; you can stay a--a hour or two longer," the Girl
informed him with a smile; and turning once more to the bureau she
busied herself there for a few minutes longer.

Johnson's joy knew no bounds; he burst out delightedly:

"Why, I'm like Dante! I want the world in that hour, because, you see,
I'm afraid the door of this little paradise might be shut to me after--
Let's say this is my one hour--the hour that gave me--that kiss I want."

"Go long! You go to grass!" returned the Girl with a nervous little
laugh.

Johnson made one more effort and won out; that is, he succeeded, at
last, in getting her in his grasp.

"Listen," said the determined lover, pleading for a kiss as he would
have pleaded for his very life.

It was at this juncture that Wowkle, silently, stealthily, emerged from
the cupboard and made her way over to the door. Her feet were heavily
moccasined and she was blanketed in a stout blanket of gay colouring.

"Ugh--some snow!" she muttered, as a gust of wind beat against her face
and drove great snow-flakes into the room, fairly taking her breath
away. But her words fell on deaf ears. For, oblivious to the storm that
was now raging outside, the youthful pair of lovers continued to
concentrate their thoughts upon the storm that was raging within their
own breasts, the Girl keeping up the struggle with herself, while the
man urged her on as only he knew how.

"Why, if I let you take one you'd take two," denied the Girl,
half-yielding by her very words, if she but knew it.

"No, I wouldn't--I swear I wouldn't," promised the man with great
earnestness.

"Ugh--very bad!" was the Indian woman's muffled ejaculation as she
peered out into the night. But she had promised her lover to come to him
when supper was over, and she would not break faith with him even if it
were at the peril of her life. The next moment she went out, as did the
red light in the Girl's lantern hanging on a peg of the outer door.

"Oh, please, please," said the Girl, half-protestingly, half-willingly.

But the man was no longer to be denied; he kept on urging:

"One kiss, only one."

Here was an appeal which could no longer be resisted, and though
half-frightened by the tone of his voice and the look in his eye, the
Girl let herself be taken into his arms as she murmured:

"'Tain't no use, I lay down my hands to you."

And so it was that, unconscious of the great havoc that was being
wrought by the storm, unconscious of the danger that momentarily
threatened their lives, they remained locked in each other's arms. The
Girl made no attempt to silence him now or withdraw her hands from his.
Why should she? Had he not come to Cloudy Mountain to woo her? Was she
not awaiting his coming? To her it seemed but natural that the
conventions should be as nothing in the face of love. His voice, low and
musical, charged with passion, thrilled through her.

"I love you," said the man, with a note of possession that frightened
her while it filled her with strange, sweet joy. For months she had
dreamed of him and loved him; no wonder that she looked upon him as her
hero and yielded herself entirely to her fate.

She lifted her eyes and he saw the love in them. She freed her hands
from his grasp, and then gave them back to him in a little gesture of
surrender.

"Yes, you're mine, an' I'm yours," she said with trembling lips.

"I have lived but for this from the moment that I first saw you," he
told her, softly.

"Me, too--seein' that I've prayed for it day an' night," she
acknowledged, her eyes seeking his.

"Our destinies have brought us together; whatever happens now I am
content," he said, pressing his lips once more to hers. A little while
later he added: "My darkest hour will be lightened by the memory of you,
to-night."




XII.


The clock, striking the hour of two, filled in a lull that might
otherwise have seemed to require conversation. For some minutes,
Johnson, raised to a higher level of exaltation, even, than was the
Girl, had been secretly rejoicing in the Fate that had brought them
together.

"It's wonderful that I should have found her at last and won her love,"
he soliloquised. "We must be Fortune's children--she and I."

The minutes ticked away and still they were silent. Then, of a sudden,
with infinite tenderness in his voice, Johnson asked:

"What is your name, Girl--your real name?"

"Min--Minnie; my father's name was Smith," she told him, her eyes cast
down under delicately tremulous lids.

"Oh, Minnie Sm--"

"But 'twa'n't his right name," quickly corrected the Girl, and
unconsciously both rose to their feet. "His right name was Falconer."

"Minnie Falconer--well, that is a pretty name," commented Johnson; and
raising her hand to his lips he pressed them against it.

"I ain't sure that's what he said it was--I ain't sure o' anythin' only
jest you," she said coyly, burying her face in his neck.

"You may well be sure of me since I've loved--" Johnson's sentence was
cut short, a wave of remorse sweeping over him. "Turn your head away,
Girl, and don't listen to me," he went on, gently putting her away from
him. "I'm not worthy of you. Don't listen but just say no, no, no, no."

The Girl, puzzled, was even more so when Johnson began to pace the
floor.

"Oh, I know--I ain't good enough for you !" she cried with a little
tremour in her voice. "But I'll try hard, hard . . . If you see
anythin' better in me, why don't you bring it out, 'cause I've loved you
ever since I saw you first, 'cause I knowed that you--that you were the
right man."

"The right man," repeated Johnson, dismally, for his conscience was
beginning to smite him hard.

"Don't laugh!"

"I'm not laughing," as indeed he was not.

"O' course every girl kind o' looks ahead," went on the Girl in
explanation.

"Yes, I suppose," he observed seriously.

"An' figgers about bein'--well, Oh, you know--about bein' settled. An'
when the right man comes, why, she knows 'im, you bet! Jest as we both
knowed each other standin' on the road to Monterey. I said that day,
he's good, he's gran' an' he can have me."

"I could have you," murmured Johnson, meditatively.

The Girl nodded eagerly.

There was a long silence in which Johnson was trying to make up his mind
to tear himself away from her,--the one woman whom he loved in the
world,--for it had been slowly borne in upon him that he was not a fit
mate for this pure young girl. Nor was his unhappiness lessened when he
recalled how she had struggled against yielding to him. At last,
difficult though it was, he took his courage in both hands, and said:

"Girl, I have looked into your heart and my own and now I realise what
this means for us both--for you, Girl--and knowing that, it seems hard
to say good-bye as I should, must and will . . ."

At those clear words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide his
misery, the Girl's face turned pale.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Johnson coloured, hesitated, and finally with a swift glance at the
clock, he briefly explained:

"I mean it's hard to go and leave you here. The clock reminded me that
long before this I should have been on my way. I shouldn't have come up
here at all. God bless you, dear," and here their eyes came together and
seemed unable to part,--"I love you as I never thought I could . . ."

But at Johnson's queer look she hastened to inquire:

"But it ain't for long you're goin'?"

For long! Then she had not understood that he meant to go for all time.
How tell her the truth? While he pondered over the situation there came
to him with great suddenness the thought that, perhaps, after all, Life
never intended that she should be given to him only to be taken away
almost as suddenly; and seized with a desire to hold on to her at any
cost, he sprang forward as if to take her in his arms, but before he
reached her, he stopped short.

"Such happiness is not for me," he muttered under his breath; and then
aloud he added: "No, no, I've got to go now while I have the courage, I
mean." He broke off as suddenly as he had begun, and taking her face in
his hands he kissed her good-bye.

Now, accustomed as was the Girl to the strange comings and goings of the
men at the camp, it did not occur to her to question him further when he
told her that he should have been away before now. Moreover, she trusted
and loved him. And so it was without the slightest feeling of misgiving
that she watched her lover quickly take down his coat and hat from the
peg on the wall and start for the door. On the other hand, it must have
required not a little courage on the man's part to have torn himself
away from this lovely, if unconventional, creature, just as he was
beginning to love truly and appreciate her. But, then, Johnson was a man
of no mean determination!

Not daring to trust himself to words, Johnson paused to look back over
his shoulder at the Girl before plunging forth into the night. But on
opening the door all the multitudinous wild noises of the forests
reached his ears: Sounds of whispering and rocking storm-tossed pines,
sounds of the wind making the rounds of the deep canyon below them,
sounds that would have made the blood run cold of a man more daring,
even, than himself. Like one petrified he stood blinded, almost, by the
great drifts of snow that were being driven into the room, while the
cabin rocked and shook and the roof cracked and snapped, the lights
flickered, smoked, or sent their tongues of fire upward towards the
ceiling, the curtains swayed like pendants in the air, and while
baskets, boxes, and other small furnishings of the cabin were blown in
every direction.

But it was the Girl's quick presence of mind that saved them from being
buried, literally, under the snow. In an instant she had rushed past him
and closed both the outer and inner doors of the cabin; then, going over
to the window, she tried to look through the heavily frosted panes; but
the falling of the sleet and snow, striking the window like fine shot,
made it impossible for her to see more than a few inches away.

"Why, it's the first time I knew that it--" She cut her sentence short
and ended with: "That's the way we git it up here! Look! Look!"

Whereupon, Johnson went over to the window and put his face close to
hers on the frosted panes; a great sea of white snow met his gaze!

"This means--" he said, turning away from the window and meeting her
glance--"surely it doesn't mean that I can't leave Cloudy to-night?"

"It means you can't get off the mountain to-night," calmly answered the
Girl.

"Good Lord!" fell from the man's lips.

"You can't leave this room to-night," went on the Girl, decidedly. "Why,
you couldn't find your way three feet from this door--you a stranger!
You don't know the trail anyway unless you can see it."

"But I can't stay here?" incredulously.

"Why not? Why, that's all right! The boys'll come up an' dig us out
to-morrow or day after. There's plenty o' wood an' you can have my bed."
And with no more ado than that, the Girl went over to the bed to remove
the covers and make it ready for his occupancy.

"I wouldn't think of taking that," protested the man, stoutly, while his
face clouded over.

The Girl felt a thrill at the note of regard in his voice and hastened
to explain:

"I never use it cold nights; I always roll up in my rug in front of the
fire." All of a sudden she broke out into a merry little laugh. "Jest
think of it stormin' all this time an' we didn't know it!"

But Johnson was not in a laughing mood. Indeed, he looked very grave and
serious when presently he said:

"But people coming up here and finding me might--"

The Girl looked up at him in blank amazement.

"Might what?" And then, while she waited for his answer, two shots in
close succession rang out in the night with great distinctness.

There was no mistaking the nearness of the sound. Instantly scenting
trouble and alert at the possibility of danger, Johnson inquired:

"What's that? What's that?"

"Wait! Wait!" came back from the Girl, unconsciously in the same tone,
while she strained her ears for other sounds. She did not have long to
wait, however, before other shots followed, the last ones coming from
further away, so it seemed, and at greater intervals.

"They've got a road agent--it's the posse--p'r'aps they've got Ramerrez
or one o' his band!" suddenly declared the Girl, at the same time
rushing over to the window for some verification of her words. But, as
before, the wind was beating with great force against the frosted panes,
and only a vast stretch of snow met her gaze. Turning away from the
window she now came towards him with: "You see, whoever it is, they're
snowed in--they can't get away."

Johnson knitted his brows and muttered something under his breath which
the Girl did not catch.

Again a shot was fired.

"Another thief crep' into camp," coldly observed the Girl almost
simultaneously with the report.

Johnson winced.

"Poor devil!" he muttered. "But of course, as you say, he's only a
thief."

In reply to which the Girl uttered words to the effect that she was glad
he had been caught.

"Well, you're right," said Johnson, thoughtfully, after a short silence;
then determinedly and in short jerky sentences, he went on: "I've been
thinking that I must go--tear myself away. I have very important
business at dawn--imperative business . . ."

The Girl, who now stood by the table folding up the white cloth cover,
watched him out of the corner of her eye, take down his coat from the
peg on the wall.

"Ever sample one o' our mountain blizzards?" she asked as he slipped on
his coat. "In five minutes you wouldn't know where you was. Your
important business would land you at the bottom of a canyon 'bout twenty
feet from here."

Johnson cleared his throat as if to speak but said nothing; whereupon
the Girl continued:

"You say you believe in Fate. Well, Fate has caught up with you--you got
to stay here."

Johnson was strangely silent. He was wondering how his coming there
to-night had really come about. But he could find no solution to the
problem unless it was in response to that perverse instinct which
prompts us all at times to do the very thing which in our hearts we know
to be wrong. The Girl, meanwhile, after a final creasing of the
neatly-folded cover, started for the cupboard, stopping on the way to
pick up various articles which the wind had strewn about the room.
Flinging them quickly into the cupboard she now went over to the window
and once more attempted to peer out into the night. But as before, it
was of no avail. With a shrug she straightened the curtains at the
windows and started for the door. Her action seemed to quicken his
decision, for, presently, with a gesture of resignation, he threw down
his hat and coat on the table and said as if speaking to himself:

"Well, it is Fate--my Fate that has always made the thing I shouldn't do
so easy." And then, turning to the Girl, he added: "Come, Girl, as you
say, if I can't go, I can't. But I know as I stand here that I'll never
give you up."

The Girl looked puzzled.

"Why, what do you mean?"

"I mean," began Johnson, pacing the floor slowly. Now he stopped by a
chair and pointed as though to the falling snow. "Suppose we say that's
an omen--that the old trail is blotted out and there is a fresh road.
Would you take it with me a stranger, who says: From this day I mean to
be all you'd have me. Would you take it with me far away from here and
forever?"

It did not take the Girl long to frame an answer. Taking Johnson's hand
she said with great feeling:

"Well, show me the girl that would want to go to Heaven alone! I'll sell
out the saloon--I'll go anywhere with you, you bet!"

Johnson bent low over her hand and kissed it. The Girl's straightforward
answer had filled his heart to overflowing with joy.

"You know what that means, don't you?" a moment later he asked.

Sudden joy leapt to her blue eyes.

"Oh, yes," she told him with a world of understanding in her voice.
There was a silence; then she went on reminiscently: "There's a little
Spanish Mission church--I pass it 'most every day. I can look in an' see
the light burnin' before the Virgin an' see the saints standin' round
with glassy eyes an' faded satin slippers. An' I often tho't what they'd
think if I was to walk right in to be made--well, some man's wife. It
makes your blood like pin-points thinkin' about it. There's somethin'
kind o' holy about love, ain't they?"

Johnson nodded. He had never regarded love in that light before, much
less known it. For many moments he stood motionless, a new problem of
right and wrong throbbing in his bosom.

At last, it being settled that Johnson was to pass the night in the
Girl's cabin, she went over to the bed and, once more, began to make it
ready for his occupancy. Meanwhile, Johnson, seated in the barrel rocker
before the fire, watched her with a new interest. The Girl had not gone
very far with her duties, however, when she suddenly came over to him,
plumping herself down on the floor at his feet.

"Say, did you ever ask any other woman to marry you?" she asked as she
leaned far back in his arms.

"No," was the man's truthful answer.

"Oh, how glad I am! Take me--ah, take me I don't care where as long as
it is with you!" cried the Girl in an ecstasy of delight.

"So help me, God, I'm going to . . .!" promised Johnson, his voice
strained, tense. "You're worth something better than me, Girl," he
added, a moment later, "but they say love works miracles every hour,
that it weakens the strong and strengthens the weak. With all my soul I
love you, with all my soul I--" The man let his voice die out, leaving
his sentence unfinished. Suddenly he called: "Why, Min-Minnie!"

"I wasn't really asleep," spoke up the Girl, blinking sleepily. "I'm
jest so happy an' let down, that's all." The next moment, however, she
was forced to acknowledge that she was awfully sleepy and would have to
say good-night.

"All right," said Johnson, rising, and kissed her good-night.

"That's your bed over there," she told him, pointing in the direction of
the curtains.

"But hadn't you better take the bed and let me sleep over here?"

"Not much!"

"You're sure you would be more comfortable by the fire--sure, now?"

"Yes, you bet!"

And so it was that Johnson decided to pass the night in the Girl's
canopied bed while she herself, rolled up in a blanket rug before the
fire, slept on the floor.

"This beats a bed any time," remarked the Girl, spreading out the rug
smoothly; and then, reaching up for the old patchwork, silk quilt that
hung from the loft, she added: "There's one thing--you don't have to
make it up in the mornin'."

"You're splendid, Girl!" laughed Johnson. Presently, he saw her quietly
closet herself in the cupboard, only to emerge a few minutes later
dressed for the night. Over her white cambric gown with its coarse lace
trimming showing at the throat, she wore a red woollen blanket robe held
in at the waist by a heavy, twisted, red cord which, to the man who got
a glimpse of her as she crossed the room, made her prettier, even, than
she had seemed at any time yet.

Quietly, now, the Girl began to put her house in order. All the lights,
save the quaintly-shaded lamp that was suspended over the table, were
extinguished; that one, after many unsuccessful attempts, was turned
down so as to give the right minimum of light which would not interfere
with her lover's sleep. Then she went over to the door to make sure that
it was bolted. Outside the wind howled and shrieked and moaned; but
inside the cabin it had never seemed more cosey and secure and peaceful
to her.

"Now you can talk to me from your bunk an' I'll talk to you from mine,"
she said in a sleepy, lazy voice.

Except for a prodigious yawn which came from the Girl there was an
ominous quiet hanging over the place that chilled the man. Sudden sounds
startled him, and he found it impossible to make any progress with his
preparations for the night. He was about to make some remark, however,
when to his well-attuned ears there came the sound of approaching
footsteps. In an instant he was standing in the parting made by the
curtains, his face eager, animated, tense.

"What's that?" he whispered.

"That's snow slidin'," the Girl informed him without the slightest trace
of anxiety in her voice.

"God bless you, Girl," he murmured, and retreated back of the curtains.
It was only an instant before he was back again with: "Why, there is
something out there--sounded like people calling," he again whispered.

"That's only the wind," she said, adding as she drew her robe tightly
about her: "Gettin' cold, ain't it?"

But, notwithstanding her assurances, Johnson did not feel secure, and it
was with many misgivings that he now directed his footsteps towards the
bed behind the curtains.

"Good-night!" he said uneasily.

"Good-night!" unconsciously returned the Girl in the same tone.

Taking off her slippers the Girl now put on a pair of moccasins and
quietly went over to her bed, where she knelt down and made a silent
prayer.

"Good-night!" presently came from a little voice in the rug.

"Good-night!" answered the man now settled in the centre of the
much-befrilled bed.

There was a silence; then the little voice in the rug called out:

"Say, what's your name?"

"Dick," whispered the man behind the curtains.

"So long, Dick!" drowsily.

"So long, Girl!" dreamily.

There was a brief silence; then, of a sudden, the Girl bolted upright in
bed, and asked:

"Say, Dick, are you sure you don't know that Nina Micheltoreña?"

"Sure," prevaricated the man, not without some compunction.

Whereupon the Girl fell back on her pillows and called out contentedly a
final "Good-night!"




XIII.


There was no mistaking then--no need to contrast her feeling of anxiety
of a few moments ago lest some other woman had preceded her in his
affections, with her indifference on former occasions when her admirers
had proved faithless, to make the Girl realise that she was experiencing
love and was dominated by a passion for this man.

So that, with no reason whatever in her mind to question the sincerity
of Johnson's love for her, it would seem as if nothing were wanting to
make the Girl perfectly happy; that there could be no room in her heart
for any feeling other than elation. And yet, curiously enough, the Girl
could not doze off to sleep. Some mysterious force--a vague foreboding
of something about to happen--impelled her to open her eyes again and
again.

It was an odd and wholly new sensation, this conjuring up of distressing
spectres, for no girl was given less to that sort of thing; all the
same, it was with difficulty that she checked an impulse to cry out to
her lover--whom she believed to be asleep--and make him dissipate, by
renewed assurances, the mysterious barrier which she felt was hemming
her in.

As for Johnson, the moment that his head had touched the pillows, he
fell to thinking of the awkward situation in which he was placed, the
many complications in which his heart had involved him and, finally, he
found himself wondering whether the woman whom he loved so dearly was
also lying sleepless in her rug on the floor.

And so it was not surprising that he should spring up the moment that he
heard cries from outside.

"Who's that knockin', I wonder?"

Although her voice showed no signs of distress or annoyance, the
question coming from her in a calm tone, the Girl was upon her feet
almost before she knew it. In a trice she removed all evidences that she
had been lying upon the floor, flinging the pillows and silk coverlet to
the wardrobe top.

In that same moment Johnson was standing in the parting of the curtains,
his hand raised warningly. In another moment he was over to the door
where, after taking his pistols from his overcoat pockets, he stood in a
cool, determined attitude, fingering his weapons.

"But some one's ben callin'," the Girl was saying, at the very moment
when above the loud roaring of the wind another knock was heard on the
cabin door. "Who can it be?" she asked as if to herself, and calmly went
over to the table, where she took up the candle and lit it.

Springing to her side, Johnson whispered tensely:

"Don't answer--you can't let anyone in--they wouldn't understand."

The Girl eyed him quizzically.

"Understand what?" And before he had time to explain, much less to check
her, she was standing at the window, candle in hand, peering out into
the night.

"Why, it's the posse!" she cried, wheeling round suddenly. "How did they
ever risk it in this storm?"

At these words a crushed expression appeared on Johnson's countenance;
an uncanny sense of insecurity seized him. Once more the loud, insistent
pounding was repeated, and as before, the outlaw, his hands on his guns,
commanded her not to answer.

"But what on earth do the boys want?" inquired the Girl, seemingly
oblivious to what he was saying. Indeed, so much so that as the voice of
Nick rose high above the other sounds of the night, calling,
"Min-Minnie-Girl, let us in!" she hurriedly brushed past him and yelled
through the door:

"What do you want?"

Again Johnson's hand went up imperatively.

"Don't let him come in!" he whispered.

But even then she heard not his warning, but silently, tremulously
listened to Sonora, who shouted through the door: "Say, Girl, you all
right?" And not until her answering voice had called back her assurance
that she was safe did she turn to the man at her side and whisper in a
voice that showed plainly her agitation and fear:

"Jack Rance is there! If he was to see you here--he's that jealous I'd
be afraid--" She checked her words and quickly put her ear close to the
door, the voices outside having become louder and more distinct.
Presently she spun round on her heel and announced excitedly: "Ashby's
there, too!" And again she put her ear to the door.

"Ashby!" The exclamation fell from Johnson's lips before he was aware of
it. It was impossible to deceive himself any longer--the posse had
tracked him!

"We want to come in, Girl!" suddenly rang out from the well-known voice
of Nick.

"But you can't come in!" shouted back the Girl above the noise of the
storm; then, taking advantage of a particularly loud howl of the blast,
she turned to Johnson and inquired: "What will I say? What reason will I
give?"

Serious as was Johnson's predicament, he could not suppress a smile. In
a surprisedly calm voice he told her to say that she had gone to bed.

The Girl's eyes flooded with admiration.

"Why, o' course--that's it," she said, and turned back to the door and
called through it: "I've gone to bed, Nick! I'm in bed now!"

The barkeeper's answer was lost in another loud howl of the blast. Soon
afterwards, however, the Girl made out that Nick was endeavouring to
convey to her a warning of some kind.

"You say you've come to warn me?" she cried.

"Yes, Ramerrez . . .!"

"What? Say that again?"

"Ramerrez is on the trail--"

"Ramerrez's on the trail!" repeated the Girl in tones of alarm; and not
waiting to hear further she motioned to Johnson to conceal himself
behind the curtains of the bed, muttering the while:

"I got to let 'em in--I can't keep 'em out there on such a night . . ."
He had barely reached his place of concealment when the Girl slid back
the bolts and bade the boys to come in.

Headed by Rance, the men quickly filed in and deposited their lanterns
on the floor. It was evident that they had found the storm most severe,
for their boots were soaked through and their heavy buffalo overcoats,
caps and ear-muffs were covered with snow, which all, save Rance,
proceeded to remove by shaking their shoulders and stamping their feet.
The latter, however, calmly took off his gloves, pulled out a
beautifully-creased handkerchief from his pocket, and began slowly to
flick off the snow from his elegant mink overcoat before hanging it
carefully upon a peg on the wall. After that he went over to the table
and warmed his hands over the lighted candle there. Meanwhile, Sonora,
his nose, as well as his hands which with difficulty he removed from his
heavy fur mittens, showing red and swollen from the effects of the
biting cold, had gone over to the fire, where he ejaculated:

"Ouf, I'm cold! Glad you're safe, Girl!"

"Yes, Girl, The Polka's had a narrow squeak," observed Nick, stamping
his feet which, as well as his legs, were wrapped with pieces of
blankets for added warmth.

Unconsciously, at his words, the Girl's eyes travelled to the bed; then,
drawing her robe snugly about her, and seating herself, she asked with
suppressed excitement:

"Why, Nick, what's the matter? What's--"

Rance took it upon himself to do the answering. Sauntering over to the
Girl, he drawled out:

"It takes you a long time to get up, seems to me. You haven't so much
on, either," he went on, piercing her with his eyes.

Smilingly and not in the least disconcerted by the Sheriff's remark, the
Girl picked up a rug from the floor and wound it about her knees.

"Well?" she interrogated.

"Well, we was sure that you was in trouble," put in Sonora. "My breath
jest stopped."

"Me? Me in trouble, Sonora?" A little laugh that was half-gay,
half-derisive, accompanied her words.

"See here, that man Ramerrez--" followed up Rance with a grim look.

"--feller you was dancin' with," interposed Sonora, but checked himself
instantly lest he wound the Girl's feelings.

Whereupon, Rance, with no such compunctions, became the spokesman, a
grimace of pleasure spreading over his countenance as he thought of the
unpleasant surprise he was about to impart. Stretching out his stiffened
fingers over the blaze, he said in his most brutal tones:

"Your polkying friend is none other than Ramerrez."

The Girl's eyes opened wide, but they did not look at the Sheriff. They
looked straight before her.

"I warned you, girl," spoke up Ashby, "that you should bank with us
oftener."

The Girl gave no sign of having heard him. Her slender figure seemed to
have shrunken perceptibly as she stared stupidly, uncomprehendingly,
into space.

"We say that Johnson was--" repeated Rance, impatiently.

"--what?" fell from the Girl's lips, her face pale and set.

"Are you deaf?" demanded Rance; and then, emphasising every word, he
rasped out: "The fellow you've been polkying with is the man that has
been asking people to hold up their hands."

"Oh, go on--you can't hand me out that!" Nevertheless the Girl looked
wildly about the room.

Angrily Rance strode over to her and sneered bitingly:

"You don't believe it yet, eh?"

"No, I don't believe it yet!" rapped out the Girl, laying great stress
upon the last word. "I know he isn't."

"Well, he _is_ Ramerrez, and he _did_ come to The Polka to rob it,"
retorted the Sheriff.

All at once the note of resentment in the Girl's voice became positive;
she flared back at him, though she flushed in spite of herself.

"But he didn't rob it!"

"That's what gits me," fretted Sonora. "He didn't."

"I should think it would git you," snapped back the Girl, both in her
look and voice rebuking him for his words.

It was left to Ashby to spring another surprise.

"We've got his horse," he said pointedly.

"An' I never knowed one o' these men to separate from his horse,"
commented Sonora, still smarting under the Girl's reprimand.

"Right you are! And now that we've got his horse and this storm is on,
we've got him," said Rance, triumphantly. "But the last seen of
Johnson," he went on with a hasty movement towards the Girl and eyeing
her critically, "he was heading this way. You seen anything of him?"

The Girl struggled hard to appear composed.

"Heading this way?" she inquired, reddening.

"So Nick said," declared Sonora, looking towards that individual for
proof of his words.

But Nick had caught the Girl's lightning glance imposing silence upon
him; in some embarrassment he stammered out:

"That is, he was--Sid said he saw 'im take the trail, too."

"But the trail ends here," pointed out Rance, at the same time looking
hard at the Girl. "And if she hasn't seen him, where was he going?"

At this juncture Nick espied a cigar butt on the floor; unseen by the
others, he hurriedly picked it up and threw it in the fire.

"One o' our dollar Havanas! Good Lord, he's here!" he muttered to
himself.

"Rance is right. Where was he goin'?" was the question with which he was
confronted by Sonora when about to return to the others.

"Well, I tho't I seen him," evaded Nick with considerable uneasiness. "I
couldn't swear to it. You see it was dark, an'--Moses but the Sidney
Duck's a liar!"

At length, Ashby decided that the man had in all probability been snowed
under, ending confidently with:

"Something scared him off and he lit out without his horse." Which
remark brought temporary relief to the Girl, for Nick, watching her, saw
the colour return to her face.

Unconsciously, during this discussion, the Girl had risen to her feet,
but only to fall back in her chair again almost as suddenly, a sign of
nervousness which did not escape the sharp eye of the Sheriff.

"How do you know the man's a road agent?" A shade almost of contempt was
in the Girl's question.

Sonora breathed on his badly nipped fingers before answering:

"Well, two greasers jest now were pretty positive before they quit."

Instantly the Girl's head went up in the air.

"Greasers!" she ejaculated scornfully, while her eyes unfalteringly met
Rance's steady gaze.

"But the woman knew him," was the Sheriff's vindictive thrust.

The Girl started; her face went white.

"The woman--the woman d'you say?"

"Why, yes, it was a woman that first tol' them that Ramerrez was in the
camp to rob The Polka," Sonora informed her, though his tone showed
plainly his surprise at being compelled to repeat a thing which, he
wrongly believed, she already knew.

"We saw her at The Palmetto," leered Rance.

"And we missed the reward," frowned Ashby; at which Rance quickly turned
upon the speaker with:

"But Ramerrez is trapped."

There was a moment's startled pause in which the Girl struggled with her
passions; at last, she ventured:

"Who's this woman?"

The Sheriff laughed discordantly.

"Why, the woman of the back trail," he sneered.

"Nina Micheltoreña! Then she does know 'im--it's true--it goes through
me!" unwittingly burst from the Girl's lips.

The Sheriff, evidently, found the Situation amusing, for he laughed
outright.

"He's the sort of a man who polkas with you first and then cuts your
throat," was his next stab.

The Girl turned upon him with eyes flashing and retorted:

"Well, it's my throat, ain't it?"

"Well I'll be!--" The Sheriff's sentence was left unfinished, for Nick,
quickly pulling him to one side, whispered:

"Say, Rance, the Girl's cut up because she vouched for 'im. Don't rub it
in."

Notwithstanding, Rance, to the Girl's query of "How did this Nina
Micheltoreña know it?" took a keen delight in telling her:

"She's his girl."

"His girl?" repeated the Girl, mechanically.

"Yes. She gave us his picture," went on Rance; and taking the photograph
out of his pocket, he added maliciously, "with love written on the back
of it."

A glance at the photograph, which she fairly snatched out of his hands,
convinced the Girl of the truthfulness of his assertion. With a movement
of pain she threw it upon the floor, crying out bitterly:

"Nina Micheltoreña! Nina Micheltoreña!" Turning to Ashby with an abrupt
change of manner she said contritely: "I'm sorry, Mr. Ashby, I vouched
for 'im."

The Wells Fargo Agent softened at the note in the Girl's voice; he was
about to utter some comforting words to her when suddenly she spoke
again.

"I s'pose they had one o' them little lovers' quarrels an' that made 'er
tell you, eh?" She laughed a forced little laugh, though her heart was
beating strangely as she kept on: "He's the kind o' man who sort o'
polkas with every girl he meets." And at this she began to laugh almost
hysterically.

Rance, who resented her apologising to anyone but himself, stood
scowling at her.

"What are you laughing at?" he questioned.

"Oh, nothin', Jack, nothin'," half-cried, half-laughed the Girl. "Only
it's kind o' funny how things come out, ain't it? Took in! Nina
Micheltoreña! Nice company he keeps--one o' them Cachuca girls with
eyelashes at half-mast!"

Once more, she broke out into a fit of laughter.

"Well, well," she resumed, "an' she sold 'im out for money! Ah, Jack
Rance, you're a better guesser'n I am!" And with these words she sank
down at the table in an apathy of misery. Horror and hatred and
hopelessness had possession of her. A fierce look was in her eyes when a
moment later she raised her head and abruptly dismissed the boys,
saying:

"Well, boys, it's gittin' late--good-night!"

Sonora was the first to make a movement towards the door.

"Come on, boys," he growled in his deep bass voice; "don't you intend to
let a lady go to bed?"

One by one the men filed through the door which Nick held open for them;
but when all but himself had left, the devoted little barkeeper turned
to the Girl with a look full of meaning, and whispered:

"Do you want me to stay?"

"Me? Oh, no, Nick!" And with a "Good-night, all! Good-night, Sonora, an'
thank you! Good-night, Nick!" the Girl closed the door upon them. The
last that she heard from them was the muffled ejaculation:

"Oh, Lordy, we'll never git down to Cloudy to-night!"

Now the Girl slid the bolts and stood with her back against the door as
if to take extra precautions to bar out any intrusion, and with eyes
that blazed she yelled out:

"Come out o' that, now! Step out there, Mr. Johnson!"

Slowly the road agent parted the curtains and came forward in an
attitude of dejection.

"You came here to rob me," at once began the Girl, but her anger made it
impossible for her to continue.

"I didn't," denied the road agent, quietly, his countenance reflecting
how deeply hurt he was by her words.

"You lie!" insisted the Girl, beside herself with rage.

"I don't--"

"You do!"

"I admit that every circumstance points to--"

"Stop! Don't you give me any more o' that Webster Unabridged. You git to
cases. If you didn't come here to steal you came to The Polka to rob it,
didn't you?"

Johnson, his eyes lowered, was forced to admit that such were his
intentions, adding swiftly:

"But when I knew about you--" He broke off and took a step towards her.

"Wait! Wait! Wait where you are! Don't you take a step further or
I'll--" She made a significant gesture towards her bosom, and then,
laughing harshly, went on denouncingly: "A road agent! A road agent!
Well, ain't it my luck! Wouldn't anybody know to look at me that a
gentleman wouldn't fall my way! A road agent! A road agent!" And again
she laughed bitterly before going on: "But now you can git--git, you
thief, you imposer on a decent woman! I ought to have tol' 'em all, but
I wa'n't goin' to be the joke o' the world with you behind the curtains
an' me eatin' charlotte rusks an' lemming turnovers an' a-polkyin' with
a road agent! But now you can git--git, do you hear me?"

Johnson heard her to the end with bowed head; and so scathing had been
her denunciations of his actions that the fact that pride alone kept her
from breaking down completely escaped his notice. With his eyes still
downcast be said in painful fragments:

"One word only--only a word and I'm not going to say anything in defence
of myself. For it's all true--everything is true except that I would
have stolen from you. I _am_ called Ramerrez; I _have_ robbed; I _am_ a
road agent--an outlaw by profession. Yes, I'm all that--and my father
was that before me. I was brought up, educated, thrived on thieves'
money, I suppose, but until six months ago when my father died, I did
not know it. I lived much in Monterey--I lived there as a gentleman.
When we met that day I wasn't the thing I am to-day. I only learned the
truth when my father died and left me with a rancho and a band of
thieves--nothing else--nothing for us all, and I--but what's the good of
going into it--the circumstances. You wouldn't understand if I did. I
was my father's son; I have no excuse; I guess, perhaps, it was in
me--in the blood. Anyhow, I took to the road, and I didn't mind it much
after the first time. But I drew the line at killing--I wouldn't have
that. That's the man that I am, the blackguard that I am. But--" here he
raised his eyes and said with a voice that was charged with feeling--"I
swear to you that from the moment I kissed you to-night I meant to
change, I meant to--"

"The devil you did!" broke from the Girl's lips, but with a sound that
was not unlike a sob.

"I did, believe me, I did," insisted the man. "I meant to go straight
and take you with me--but only honestly--when I could honestly. I meant
to work for you. Why, every word you said to me to-night about being a
thief cut into me like a knife. Over and over again I have said to
myself, she must never know. And now--well, it's all over--I have
finished."

"An' that's all?" questioned the Girl with averted face.

"No--yes--what's the use . . .?"

The Girl's anger blazed forth again.

"But there's jest one thing you've overlooked explainin', Mr. Johnson.
It shows exactly what you are. It wasn't so much your bein' a road agent
I got against you. It's this:" And here she stamped her foot excitedly.
"You kissed me--you got my first kiss."

Johnson hung his head.

"You said," kept on the Girl, hotly, "you'd ben thinkin' o' me ever
since you saw me at Monterey, an' all the time you walked straight off
an' ben kissin' that other woman." She shrugged her shoulder and laughed
grimly. "You've got a girl," she continued, growing more and more
indignant. "It's that I've got against you. It's my first kiss I've got
against you. It's that Nina Micheltoreña that I can't forgive. So now
you can git--git!" And with these words she unbolted the door and
concluded tensely:

"If they kill you I don't care. Do you hear, I don't care . . ."

At those bitter words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide
their misery, the Girl's face became colourless.

With the instinct of a brave man to sell his life as dearly as possible,
Johnson took a couple of guns from his pocket; but the next moment, as
if coming to the conclusion that death without the Girl would be
preferable, he put them back, saying:

"You're right, Girl."

The next instant he had passed out of the door which she held wide open
for him.

"That's the end o' that--that's the end o' that," she wound up, slamming
the door after him. But all the way from the threshold to the bureau she
kept murmuring to herself: "I don't care, I don't care . . . I'll be
like the rest o' the women I've seen. I'll give that Nina Micheltoreña
cards an' spades. There'll be another hussy around here. There'll be--"
The threat was never finished. Instead, with eyes that fairly started
out of their sockets, she listened to the sound of a couple of shots,
the last one exploding so loud and distinct that there was no mistaking
its nearness to the cabin.

"They've got 'im!" she cried. "Well, I don't care--I don't--" But again
she did not finish what she intended to say. For at the sound of a heavy
body falling against the cabin door she flew to it, opened it and,
throwing her arms about the sorely-wounded man, dragged him into the
cabin and placed him in a chair. Quick as lightning she was back at the
door bolting it.

With his eyes Johnson followed her action.

"Don't lock that door--I'm going out again--out there. Don't bar that
door," he commanded feebly, struggling to his feet and attempting to
walk towards it; but he lurched forward and would have fallen to the
floor had she not caught him. Vainly he strove to break away from her,
all the time crying out: "Don't you see, don't you see, Girl--open the
door." And then again with almost a sob: "Do you think me a man to hide
behind a woman?" He would have collapsed except for the strong arms that
held him.

"I love you an' I'm goin' to save you," the Girl murmured while
struggling with him. "You asked me to go away with you; I will when you
git out o' this. If you can't save your own soul--" She stopped and
quickly went over to the mantel where she took down a bottle of whisky
and a glass; but in the act of pouring out a drink for him there came a
loud rap on the window, and quickly looking round she saw Rance's
piercing eyes peering into the room. For an instant she paled, but then
there flashed through her mind the comforting thought that the Sheriff
could not possibly see Johnson from his position. So, after giving the
latter his drink, she waited quietly until a rap at the door told her
that Rance had left the window when, her eye having lit on the ladder
that was held in place on the ceiling, she quickly ran over to it and
let it down, saying:

"Go up the ladder! Climb up there to the loft You're the man that's got
my first kiss an' I'm goin' to save you . . ."

"Oh, no, not here," protested Johnson, stubbornly.

"Do you want them to see you in my cabin?" she cried reproachfully,
trying to lift him to his feet.

"Oh, hurry, hurry . . .!"

With the utmost difficulty Johnson rose to his feet and catching the
rounds of the ladder he began to ascend. But after going up a few rounds
he reeled and almost fell off, gasping:

"I can't make it--no, I can't . . ."

"Yes, you can," encouraged the Girl; and then, simultaneously with
another loud knock on the door: "You're the man I love an' you
must--you've got to show me the man that's in you. Oh, go on, go on,
jest a step an' you'll git there."

"But I can't," came feebly from the voice above. Nevertheless, the next
instant he fell full length on the boarded floor of the loft with the
hand outstretched in which was the handkerchief he had been staunching
the blood from the wound in his side.

With a whispered injunction that he was all right and was not to move on
any account, the Girl put the ladder back in its place. But no sooner
was this done than on looking up she caught sight of the stained
handkerchief. She called softly up to him to take it away, explaining
that the cracks between the boards were wide and it could plainly be
seen from below.

"That's it!" she exclaimed on observing that he had changed the position
of his hand. "Now, don't move!"

Finally, with the lighted candle in her hand, the Girl made a quick
survey of the room to see that nothing was in sight that would betray
her lover's presence there, and then throwing open the door she took up
such a position by it that it made it impossible for anyone to get past
her without using force.

"You can't come in here, Jack Rance," she said in a resolute voice. "You
can tell me what you want from where you are."

Roughly, almost brutally, Rance shoved her to one side and entered.

"No more Jack Rance. It's the Sheriff coming after Mr. Johnson," he
said, emphasizing each word.

The Girl eyed him defiantly.

"Yes, I said Mr. Johnson," reiterated the Sheriff, cocking the gun that
he held in his hand. "I saw him coming in here."

"It's more 'n I did," returned the Girl, evenly, and bolted the door.
"Do you think I'd want to shield a man who tried to rob me?" she asked,
facing him.

Ignoring the question, Rance removed the glove of his weaponless hand
and strode to the curtains that enclosed the Girl's bed and parted them.
When he turned back he was met by a scornful look and the words:

"So, you doubt me, do you? Well, go on--search the place. But this ends
your acquaintance with The Polka. Don't you ever speak to me again.
We're through."

Suddenly there came a smothered groan from the man in the loft; Rance
wheeled round quickly and brought up his gun, demanding:

"What's that? What's that?"

Leaning against the bureau the Girl laughed outright and declared that
the Sheriff was becoming as nervous as an old woman. Her ridicule was
not without its effect, and, presently, Rance uncocked his gun and
replaced it in its holster. Advancing now to the table where the Girl
was standing, he took off his cap and shook it before laying it down;
then, pointing to the door, his eyes never leaving the Girl's face, he
went on accusingly:

"I saw someone standing out there against the snow. I fired. I could
have sworn it was a man."

The Girl winced. But as she stood watching him calmly remove his coat
and shake it with the air of one determined to make himself at home, she
cried out tauntingly:

"Why do you stop? Why don't you go on--finish your search--only don't
ever speak to me again."

At that, Rance became conciliatory.

"Say, Min, I don't want to quarrel with you."

Turning her back on him the Girl moved over to the bureau where she
snapped out over her shoulder:

"Go on with your search, then p'r'aps you'll leave a lady to herself to
go to bed."

The Sheriff followed her up with the declaration:

"I'm plumb crazy about you, Min."

The Girl shrugged her shoulder.

"I could have sworn I saw--I--Oh, you know it's just you for me--just
you, and curse the man you like better. I--I--even yet I can't get over
the queer look in your face when I told you who that man really was." He
stopped and flung his overcoat down on the floor, and fixing her with a
look he demanded: "You don't love him, do you?"

Again the Girl sent over her shoulder a forced little laugh.

"Who--me?"

The Sheriff's face brightened. Taking a few steps nearer to her, he
hazarded:

"Say, Girl, was your answer final to-night about marrying me?"

Without turning round the Girl answered coyly:

"I might think it over, Jack."

Instantly the man's passion was aroused. He strode over to her, put his
arms around her and kissed her forcibly.

"I love you, I love you, Minnie!" he cried passionately.

In the struggle that followed, the Girl's eyes fell on the bottle on the
mantel. With a cry she seized it and raised it threateningly over her
head. Another second, however, she sank down upon a chair and began to
sob, her face buried in her hands.

Rance regarded her coldly; at last he gave vent to a mirthless laugh,
the nasty laugh of a man whose vanity is hurt.

"So, it's as bad as that," he sneered. "I didn't quite realise it. I'm
much obliged to you. Good-night." He snatched up his coat, hesitated,
then repeated a little less angrily than before: "Good-night!"

But the Girl, with her face still hidden, made no answer. For a moment
he watched the crouching form, the quivering shoulders, then asked, with
sudden and unwonted gentleness:

"Can't you say good-night to me, Girl!"

Slowly the Girl rose to her feet and faced him, aversion and pity
struggling for mastery. Then, as she noted the spot where he was now
standing, his great height bringing him so near to the low boards of the
loft where her lover was lying that it seemed as though he must hear the
wounded man's breathing, all other feelings were swept away by
overwhelming fear. With the one thought that she must get rid of
him,--do anything, say anything, but get rid of him quickly, she forced
herself forward, with extended hand, and said in a voice that held out
new promise:

"Good-night. Jack Rance,--good-night!"

Rance seized the hand with an almost fierce gladness in both his own,
his keen glance hungrily striving to read her face. Then, suddenly, he
released her, drawing back his hand with a quick sharpness.

"Why, look at my hand! There's blood on it!" he said.

And even as he spoke, under the yellow flare of the lamp, the Girl saw a
second drop of blood fall at her feet. Like a flash, the terrible
significance of it came upon her. Only by self-violence could she keep
her glance from rising, tell-tale, to the boards above.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she heard herself saying contritely, all the time
desperately groping to invent a reason; at length, she added futilely:
"I must have scratched you."

Rance looked puzzled, staring at the spatter of red as though
hypnotised.

"No, there's no scratch there," he contended, wiping off the blood with
his handkerchief.

"Oh, yes, there is," insisted the Girl tremulously; "that is, there will
be in the mornin'. You'll see in the mornin' that there'll be--" She
stopped and stared in frozen terror at the sinister face of the Sheriff,
who was coolly watching his handkerchief turn from white to red under
the slow rain of blood from the loft above.

"Oho!" he emitted sardonically, stepping back and pointing his gun
towards the loft. "So, he's up there!"

The Girl's fingers clutched his arm, dragging desperately.

"No, he isn't, Jack--no, he isn't!" she iterated in blind, mechanical
denial.

With an abrupt movement, Rance flung her violently from him, made a grab
at the suspended ladder and lowered it into position; then, deaf to the
Girl's pleadings, harshly ordered Johnson to come down, meanwhile
covering the source of the blood-drops with his gun.

"Oh, wait,--wait a minute!" begged the Girl helplessly. What would
happen if he couldn't obey the summons? He had spent himself in his
climb to safety. Perhaps he was unconscious, slowly bleeding to death!
But even as she tortured herself with fears, the boards above creaked as
though a heavy body was dragging itself slowly across them. Johnson was
evidently doing his best to reach the top of the ladder; but he did not
move quickly enough to suit the Sheriff.

"Come down, or I'll--"

"Oh, just a minute, Jack, just a minute!" broke in the Girl frantically.
"Don't shoot!--Don't you see he's tryin' to--?"

"Come down here, Mr. Johnson!" reiterated the Sheriff, with a face
inhuman as a fiend.

The Girl clenched her hands, heedless of the nails cutting into her
palms: "Won't you wait a moment,--please, wait, Jack!"

"Wait? What for?" the Sheriff flung at her brutally, his finger
twitching on the trigger.

The Girl's lips parted to answer, then closed again dumbly,--for it was
then that she saw the boots, then the legs of the road agent slide
uncertainly through the open trap, fumble clumsily for the rungs of the
ladder, then slip and stumble as the weight of the following body came
upon them while the weak fingers strained desperately for a hold. The
whole heart and soul and mind of the Girl seemed to be reaching out
impotently to give her lover strength, to hurry him down fast enough to
forestall a shot from the Sheriff. It seemed hours until the road agent
reached the bottom of the ladder, then lurched with unseeing eyes to a
chair and, finally, fell forward limply, with his arms and head resting
on the table. Still dumb with dread, the Girl watched Rance slowly
circle round the wounded man; it was not until the Sheriff returned his
pistol to its holster that she breathed freely again.

"So, you dropped into The Polka to-night to play a little game of poker?
Funny how things change about in an hour or two!" Rance chuckled
mirthlessly; it seemed to suit his sardonic humour to taunt his helpless
rival. "You think you can play poker,--that's your conviction, is it?
Well, you can play freeze-out as to your chances, Mr. Johnson of
Sacramento. Come, speak up,--it's shooting or the tree,--which shall it
be?"

Goaded beyond endurance by Rance's taunting of the unconscious man, the
Girl, fumbling in her bosom for her pistol, turned upon him in a sudden,
cold fury:

"You better stop that laughin', Jack Rance, or I'll send you to finish
it in some place where things ain't so funny."

Something in the Girl's altered tone so struck the Sheriff that he
obeyed her. He said nothing, but on his lips were the words, "By Heaven,
the Girl means it!" and his eyes showed a smouldering admiration.

"He doesn't hear you,--he's out of it. But me--me--I hear you--I ain't
out of it," the Girl went on in compelling tones. "You're a gambler; he
was, too; well, so am I." She crossed deliberately to the bureau, and
laid her pistol away in the drawer, Rance meanwhile eyeing her with
puzzled interest. Returning, she went on, incisively as a whip lash:
"I live on chance money, drink money, card money, saloon money. We're
gamblers,--we're all gamblers!" She paused, an odd expression coming
over her face,--an expression that baffled Rance's power to read.
Presently she resumed: "Now, you asked me to-night if my answer was
final,--well, here's your chance. I'll play you the game,--straight
poker. It's two out o' three for me. Hatin' the sight o' you, it's the
nearest chance you'll ever get for me."

"Do you mean--" began Rance, his hands resting on the table, his
hawk-like glance burning into her very thoughts.

"Yes, with a wife in Noo Orleans all right," she interrupted him
feverishly. "If you're lucky,--you'll git 'im an' me. But if you
lose,--this man settin' between us is mine--mine to do with as I please,
an' you shut up an' lose like a gentleman."

"You must be crazy about him!" The words seemed wrung from the Sheriff
against his will.

"That's my business!" came like a knife-cut from the Girl.

"Do you know you're talkin' to the Sheriff?"

"I'm talkin' to Jack Rance, the gambler," she amended evenly.

"You're right,--and he's just fool enough to take you up," returned
Rance with sudden decision. He looked around him for a chair; there was
one near the table, and the Girl handed it to him. With one hand he
swung it into place before the table, while with the other he jerked off
the table-cover, and flung it across the room. Johnson neither moved nor
groaned, as the edge slid from beneath his nerveless arms.

"You and the cyards have got into my blood. I'll take you up," he said,
seating himself.

"Your word," demanded the Girl, leaning over the table, but still
standing.

"I can lose like a gentleman," returned Rance curtly; then, with a swift
seizure of her hand, he continued tensely, in tones that made the Girl
shrink and whiten, "I'm hungry for you, Min, and if I win, I'll take it
out on you as long as I have breath."

A moment later, the Girl had freed her hand from his clasp, and was
saying evenly, "Fix the lamp." And while the Sheriff was adjusting the
wick that had begun to flare up smokily, she swiftly left the room,
saying casually over her shoulder that she was going to fetch something
from the closet.

"What you goin' to get?" he called after her suspiciously. The Girl made
no reply. Rance made no movement to follow her, but instead drew a pack
of cards from his pocket and began to shuffle them with practiced
carelessness. But when a minute had passed and the girl had not
returned, he called once more, with growing impatience, to know what was
keeping her.

"I'm jest gettin' the cards an' kind o' steadyin' my nerves," she
answered somewhat queerly through the doorway. The next moment she had
returned, quickly closing the closet door behind her, blew out her
candle, and laying a pack of cards upon the table, said significantly:

"We'll use a fresh deck. There's a good deal depends on this, Jack." She
seated herself opposite the Sheriff and so close to the unconscious form
of the man she loved that from time to time her left arm brushed his
shoulder.

Rance, without protest other than a shrug, took up his own deck of
cards, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and stowed them away in his
pocket. It was the Girl who spoke first:

"Are you ready?"

"Ready? Yes. I'm ready. Cut for deal."

With unfaltering fingers, the Girl cut. Of the man beside her, dead or
dying, she must not, dared not think. For the moment she had become one
incarnate purpose: to win, to win at any cost,--nothing else mattered.

Rance won the deal; and taking up the pack he asked, as he shuffled:

"A case of show-down?"

"Show-down."

"Cut!" once more peremptorily from Rance; and then, when she had cut,
one question more: "Best two out of three?"

"Best two out of three." Swift, staccato sentences, like the rapid
crossing of swords, the first preliminary interchange of strokes before
the true duel begins.

Rance dealt the cards. Before either looked at them, he glanced across
at the Girl and asked scornfully, perhaps enviously:

"What do you see in him?"

"What do you see in me?" she flashed back instantly, as she picked up
her cards; and then: "What have you got?"

"King high," declared the gambler.

"King high here," echoed the Girl.

"Jack next," and he showed his hand.

"Queen next," and the Girl showed hers.

"You've got it," conceded the gambler, easily. Then, in another tone,
"but you're making a mistake--"

"If I am, it's my mistake! Cut!"

Rance cut the cards. The Girl dealt them steadily. Then,

"What have you got?" she asked.

"One pair,--aces. What have you?"

"Nothing," throwing her cards upon the table.

With just a flicker of a smile, the Sheriff once more gathered up the
pack, saying smoothly:

"Even now,--we're even."

"It's the next hand that tells, Jack, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"It's the next hand that tells me,--I'm awfully sorry,--" the words
seemed to come awkwardly; her glance was troubled, almost contrite, "at
any rate, I want to say jest now that no matter how it comes out--"

"Cut!" interjected Rance mechanically.

"--that I'll always think of you the best I can," completed the Girl
with much feeling. "An' I want you to do the same for me."

Silently, inscrutably, the gambler dealt the ten cards, one by one. But
as the Girl started to draw hers toward her, his long, thin fingers
reached across once more and closed not ungently upon hand and cards.

"The last hand, Girl!" he reminded her. "And I've a feeling that I
win,--that in one minute I'll hold you in my arms." And still covering
her fingers with his own, he stole a glance at his cards.

"I win," he announced, briefly, his eyes alone betraying the inward
fever. He dropped the cards before her on the table. "Three kings,--and
the _last hand_!"

Suddenly, as though some inward cord had snapped under the strain, the
Girl collapsed. Limply she slid downward in her chair, one groping hand
straying aimlessly to her forehead, then dropping of its own weight.
"Quick, Jack,--I'm ill,--git me somethin'!" The voice trailed off to
nothingness as the drooping eyelids closed.

In real consternation, the Sheriff sprang to his feet. In one sweeping
glance his alert eye caught the whisky bottle upon the mantel. "All
right, Girl, I'll fix you in no time," he said cheeringly over his
shoulder. But where the deuce did she keep her tumblers? The next minute
he was groping for them in the dark of the adjoining closet and softly
cursing himself for his own slowness.

Instantaneously, the Girl came to life. The unturned cards upon the
table vanished with one lightning movement; the Girl's hand disappeared
beneath her skirts, raised for the moment knee-high; then the same,
swift reverse motion, and the cards were back in place, while the Girl's
eyes trembled shut again, to hide the light of triumph in them. A smile
flickered on her lips as the Sheriff returned with the glass and bottle.

"Never mind,--I'm better now," her lips shaped weakly.

The Sheriff set down the bottle, and put his arm around the Girl with a
rough tenderness.

"Oh, you only fainted because you lost," he told her.

Averting her gaze, the Girl quietly disengaged herself, rose to her feet
and turned her five cards face upwards.

"No, Jack, it's because I've won,--three aces and a pair."

The Sheriff shot one glance at the girl, keen, searching. Then, without
so much as the twitch of an eyelid, he accepted his defeat, took a cigar
from his pocket and lit it, the flame of the match revealing no
expression other than the nonchalance for which he was noted; then,
picking up his hat and coat he walked slowly to the door. Here he halted
and wished her a polite good-night--so ceremoniously polite that at any
other time it would have compelled her admiration.

Pale as death and almost on the point of collapse, the Girl staggered
back to the table where the wounded road agent was half-sitting,
half-lying.

Thrusting her hand now into the stocking from which she had obtained the
winning, if incriminating, cards, she drew forth those that remained and
scattered them in the air, crying out hysterically:

"Three aces an' a pair an' a stockin' full o' pictures--but his life
belongs to me!"




XIV.


Conscious-stricken at the fraud that she had imposed upon the gambler,
the Girl lived a lifetime in the moments that followed his departure.
With her face buried in her hands she stood lost in contemplation of her
shameful secret.

A sound--the sound of a man in great pain checked her hysterical sobs.
Dazed, she passed her hand over her face as if to clear away the dark
shades that were obstructing her vision. Another groan--and like a flash
she was down on her knees lavishing endearments upon the road agent.

Never before, it is true, had the Girl had any experience in gun-shot
wounds. She had played the part of nurse, however, more than once when
the boys met with accidents at the mines. For the women of the
California camps at that time had endless calls upon them. It was a
period for sacrifices innumerable, and help and sympathy were never
asked that they were not freely given. So, if the Girl did not know the
very best thing to do, she knew, at least, what not to do, and it was
only a few minutes before she had cut the coat from his back.

The next thing to be done--the dragging of the unconscious man to the
bed--was hard work, of course, but being strong of arm, as well as stout
of heart, she at last accomplished it.

Now she cut away his shirt in order to find the wound, which proved to
be in his breast. Quickly then she felt with her fingers in an endeavour
to find the ball, but in this she was unsuccessful. So after a moment's
deliberation she made up her mind that the wound was a flesh one and
that the ball was anywhere but in the man's body--a diagnosis that was
largely due to the cheerful optimism of her nature and which,
fortunately, proved to be true.

Presently she went to a corner of the room and soon returned with a
basin of water and some hastily torn bandages. For a good fifteen
minutes after that she washed the gash and, finally, bandaged it as well
as she knew how. And now, having done all that her knowledge or instinct
prompted, she drew up a chair and prepared to pass the rest of the night
in watching by his side.

For an hour or so he slept the sleep of unconsciousness. In the room not
a sound could be heard, but outside the storm still roared and raged. It
was anything but an easy or cheerful situation: Here she was alone with
a wounded, if not dying, man; and she well knew that, unless there came
an abatement in the fury of the storm, it might be days before anyone
could climb the mountain. True, the Indians were not far off, but like
as not they would remain in their wigwam until the sun came forth again.
In the matter of food there was a scant supply, but probably enough to
tide them over until communication could be had with The Polka.

For three days she watched over him, and all the time the storm
continued. On the third day he became delirious, and that was the night
of her torture. Despite a feeling that she was taking an unfair
advantage of him, the Girl strained her ears to catch a name which, in
his delirium, was constantly on his lips; but she could not make it out.
All that she knew was that it was not her name that he spoke, and it
pained her. She had given him absolute faith and trust and, already, she
was overwhelmed with the fierce flames of jealousy. It was a new
sensation, this being jealous of anyone, and it called forth a
passionate resentment. In such moments she would rise and flee to the
other end of the room until the whispered endearments had ceased. Then
she would draw near again with flushes of shame on her cheeks for having
heeded the sayings of an irresponsible person, and she would take his
head in her lap and, caressing him the while, would put cold towels on
his heated brow.

Dawn of the fourth day saw the Girl still pale and anxious, though
despair had entirely left her; for the storm was over and colour and
speech had come back to the man early that morning. Love and good
nursing, not to speak of some excellent whisky that she happened to have
stored away in her cabin, had pulled him through. With a sigh of relief
she threw herself down on the rug for a much-needed rest.

The man woke just before the sun rose. His first thought, that he was
home in the foothills, was dissipated by the sight of the snow ranges.
Through the window of the cabin, as far as the eye could see, nothing of
green was visible. Snow was everywhere; everything was white, save at
the eastern horizon where silver was fast changing into rose and rose to
a fiery red as the fast-rising sun sent its shafts over the snow-coated
mountains.

And now there came to him a full realisation of what had happened and
where he was. To his amazement, though, he was almost without pain. That
his wound had been dressed he was, of course, well aware for when he
attempted to draw back still further the curtain at the window the
movement strained the tight bandage, and he was instantly made conscious
of a twinge of pain.

Nevertheless, he persevered, for he wisely decided that it would be well
to reconnoitre, to familiarise himself, as much as possible, with the
lay of the land and find out whether the trail that he had followed to
reach the cabin which, he recalled, was perched high up above a ravine,
was the only means of communication with the valley below. It was a
useless precaution, for the snow would have wholly obliterated any such
trail had there been one and, soon realising the fact, he fell back
exhausted by his effort on the pillows.

A half hour passed and the man began to grow restless. He had, of
course, no idea whatever of the length of time he had been in the cabin,
and he knew that he must be thinking of an immediate escape. In
desperation, he tried to get out of bed, but the task was beyond his
power. At that a terrible feeling of hopelessness assailed him. His only
chance was to reach the valley where he had little fear of capture; but
wounded, as he was, that seemed out of the question, and he saw himself
caught like a rat in a trap. In an access of rage at the situation in
which he was placed he made another effort to raise himself up on his
elbow and peer through the window at the Sierras. The noise that he
made, slight though it was, awoke the Girl. In an instant she was at his
bedside drawing the curtain over the window.

"What you thinkin' of?" she asked. "At any moment--jest as soon as the
trail can be cleared--there'll be someone of the boys up here to see how
I've pulled through. They mustn't see you . . ."

Forcibly, but with loving tenderness, she put him back among his pillows
and seated herself by the bed. An awkward silence followed. For now that
the man was in his right senses it was borne in upon her that he might
remember that she had fed him, given him drink and fondled him. It was a
situation embarrassing to both. Neither knew just what to say or how to
begin. At length, the voice from the bed spoke:

"How long have I been here?"

"Three days."

"And you have nursed me all that--"

"You mustn't talk," warned the girl. "It's dangerous in more ways than
one. But if you keep still no one'll suspect that you're here."

"But I must know what happened," he insisted with increasing excitement.
"I remember nothing after I came down the ladder. The Sheriff--Rance--
what's become . . .?"

The Girl chided him with gentle authority.

"You keep perfectly still--you mustn't say nothin' 'til you've rested.
Everythin's all right an' you needn't worry a bit." But then seeing that
he chafed at this, she added: "Well, then, I'll tell you all there is to
know." And then followed an account of the happenings of that night. It
was not a thoroughly truthful tale, for in her narrative she told him
only what she thought was necessary and good for him to know, keeping
the rest to herself. And when she had related all that there was to tell
she insisted upon his going to sleep again, giving him no opportunity
whatsoever to speak, since she left his bedside after drawing the
curtains.

Unwillingly the man lay back and tried to force himself to be patient;
but he fretted at the enforced quietude and, as a result, sleep refused
to come to him. From time to time he could hear the Girl moving
noiselessly about the room. The knowledge that she was there gave him a
sense of security, and he began to let his thoughts dwell upon her. No
longer did he doubt but what she was a real influence now; and the
thought had the effect of making him keenly alive to what his life had
been. It was not a pleasant picture that he looked back upon, now that
he had caught a glimpse of what life might mean with the Girl at his
side. From the moment that he had taken her in his arms he realised to
the full that his cherished dream had come true; he realised, also, that
there was now but one answer to the question of keeping to the oath
given to his father, and that was that gratitude--for he had guessed
rightly, though she had not told him, that she had saved him from
capture by the Sheriff and his posse--demanded that he should put an end
to his vocation and devote his life henceforth to making her happy.

Once or twice while thus communing with himself he fancied that he heard
voices. It seemed to him that he recognised Nick's voice. But whoever it
was, he spoke in whispers, and though the wounded man strove to hear, he
was unsuccessful.

After a while he heard the door close and then the tension was somewhat
relaxed, for he knew that she was keeping his presence in her cabin a
secret with all the wiles of a clever and loving woman. And more and
more he determined to gain an honoured place for her in some
community--an honoured place for himself and her. Vague, very vague, of
course, were the new purposes and plans that had so suddenly sprang up
because of her influence, but the desire to lead a clean life had
touched his heart, and since his old calling had never been pleasing to
him, he did not for a moment doubt his ability to succeed.

The morning was half gone when the Girl returned to her patient. Then,
in tones that did her best to make her appear free from anxiety, she
told him that it was the barkeeper, as he had surmised, with whom she
had been talking and that she had been obliged to take him into her
confidence. The man made no comment, for the situation necessarily was
in her hands, and he felt that she could be relied upon not to make any
mistake. Four people, he was told, knew of his presence in the cabin. So
far as Rance was concerned she had absolute faith in his honour, gambler
though he was; there was nothing that Nick would not do for her; and as
for the Indians, the secret was sure to be kept by them, unless
Jackrabbit got hold of some whisky--a contingency not at all likely, for
Nick had promised to see to that. In fact, all could be trusted to be as
silent as the grave.

The invalid had listened intently; nevertheless, he sighed:

"It's hard to lie here. I don't want to be caught _now_."

The Girl smiled at the emphasis on the last word, for she knew that it
referred to her. Furthermore, she had divined pretty well what had been
his thoughts concerning his old life; but, being essentially a woman of
action and not words, she said nothing.

A moment or so later he asked her to read to him. The Girl looked as she
might have looked if he had asked her to go to the moon.
Notwithstanding, she got up and, presently, returned with a lot of old
school-books, which she solemnly handed over for his inspection.

The invalid smiled at the look of earnestness on the Girl's face.

"Not these?" he gently inquired. "Where is the Dante you were telling me
about?"

Once more the Girl went over to the book-shelf; when she came back she
handed him a volume, which he glanced over carefully before showing her
the place where he wished her to begin to read to him.

At first the Girl was embarrassed and stumbled badly. But on seeing that
he seemed not to notice it she gained courage and acquitted herself
creditably, at least, so she flattered herself, for she could detect, as
she looked up from time to time, no expression other than pleasure on
his face. It may be surmised, though, that Johnson had not merely chosen
a page at random; on the contrary, when the book was in his hand he had
quickly found the lines which the Girl had, so to say, paraphrased, and
he was intensely curious to see how they would appeal to her. But now,
apparently, she saw nothing in the least amusing in them, nor in other
passages fully as sentimental. In fact, no comment of any kind was
forthcoming from her--though Johnson was looking for it and, to tell the
truth, was somewhat disappointed--when she read that Dante had probably
never spoken more than twice to Beatrice and his passion had no other
food than the mists of his own dreaming. However, it was different
when,--pausing before each word after the manner of a child,--she came
to a passage of the poet's, and read:

"'In that moment I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath
its dwelling in the most secret chambers of the heart, began to tremble
so violently that the least pulse of my body shook herewith, and in the
trembling it said these words: "Here is a deity stronger than I who,
coming shall rule over me."'"

At that the Girl let the book fall and, going down on her knees and
taking both his hands in hers, she raised to him a look so full of
adoring worship that he felt himself awed before it.

"That 'ere Dante ain't so far off after all. I know jest how he feels.
Oh, I ain't fit to read to you, to talk to you, to kiss you."

Nevertheless, he saw to it that she did.

After this he told her about the Inferno, and she listened eagerly to
his description of the unfortunate characters, though she declared, when
he explained some of the crimes that they had committed, that they "Got
only what was rightly comin' to them."

The patient could hardly suppress his amusement. Dante was discarded and
instead they told each other how much love there was in that little
cabin on Cloudy Mountain.

The days that followed were all much like this one. Food was brought up
from The Polka and, by degrees, the patient's strength came back. And it
was but natural that he became so absorbed in his newly-found happiness
that he gradually was losing all sense of danger. Late one night,
however, when he was asleep, an incident happened that warned the Girl
that it was necessary to get her lover away just as soon as he was able
to ride a horse.

Lying on the rug in front of the fire she had been thinking of him when,
suddenly, her quick ear, more than ever alert in these days, caught the
sound of a stealthy footstep outside the cabin. With no fear whatever
except in relation to the discovery of her lover, the Girl went
noiselessly to the window and peered out into the darkness. A man was
making signs that he wished to speak with her. For a moment she stood
watching in perplexity, but almost instantly her instinct told her that
one of that race, for she believed the man to be a Mexican, would never
dare to come to her cabin at that time of night unless it was on a
friendly errand. So putting her face close to the pane to reassure
herself that she had not been mistaken in regard to his nationality, she
then went to the door and held it wide open for the man to enter, at the
same time putting her finger to her lips as a sign that he should be
very still.

"What are you doin' here? What do you want?" she asked in a low voice,
at the same time leading him to the side of the room further away from
her lover.

Jose Castro's first words were in Spanish, but immediately perceiving
that he failed to make her understand, he nodded comprehendingly, and
said:

"All righta--I espeak Engleesh--I am Jose Castro too well known to the
_Maestro_. I want to see 'im."

The Girl's intuition told her that a member of the band stood before
her, and she regarded him suspiciously. Not that she believed that he
was disloyal and had come there with hostile intent, but because she
felt that she must be absolutely sure of her ground before she revealed
the fact that Johnson was in the cabin. She let some moments pass before
she replied:

"I don't know nothin' about your master. Who is he?"

An indulgent smile crossed the Mexican's face.

"That ver' good to tella other peoples; but I know 'im here too much.
You trusta me--me quita safe."

All this was said with many gestures and an air that convinced the Girl
that he was speaking the truth. But since she deemed it best that the
invalid should be kept from any excitement, she resolved to make the
Mexican divulge to her the nature of his important errand.

"How do you know he's here?" she began warily. "What do you want 'im
for?"

The Mexican's shifty eyes wandered all over the room as if to make
certain that no inimical ears were listening; then he whispered:

"I tella you something--you lika the _Maestro_?"

Unconsciously the Girl nodded, which evidently satisfied the Mexican,
for he went on:

"You thinka well of him--yees. Now I tella you something. The man Pedro
'e no good. 'E wisha the reward--the money for Ramerrez. 'E and the
woman--woman no good--tell Meester Ashby they thinka 'im 'ere."

The Girl felt the colour leave her cheeks, though she made a gesture for
him to proceed.

"Pedro not 'ere any longer," smiled the Mexican. "Me senda 'im to the
devil. Serva 'im right."

"An' the woman?" gasped the Girl.

"She gone--got away--Monterey by this time," replied Castro with evident
disappointment. "But Meester Ashby 'e know too much--'ees men everywhere
searched the camp--no safa 'ere now. To-norrow--" Castro stopped short;
the next instant with a joyful gleam in his eyes he cried out:
"_Maestro_!"

"Castro's right, Girl," said Johnson, who had waked and heard the
Mexican's last words; "it is not safe a moment more here, and I must
go."

With a little cry of loving protest the Girl abruptly left the men to
talk over the situation and sought the opposite side of the room. There,
her eyes half-closed and her lips pressed tightly together she gave
herself up to her distressing fears. After a while it was made plain to
her that she was being brought into the conversation, for every now and
then Castro would look curiously at her; at length, as if it had been
determined by them that nothing should be undertaken without her advice,
Johnson, followed by his subordinate, came over to her and related in
detail all the startling information that Castro had brought.

Quietly the Girl listened and, in the end, it was agreed between them
that it would be safer for the men not to leave the cabin together, but
that Castro should go at once with the understanding that he should
procure horses and wait for the master at a given point across the
ravine. It was decided, too, that there was not a moment to be lost in
putting their plan into execution. In consequence, Castro immediately
took his departure.

The hour that passed before the time set for Johnson to leave the cabin
was a most trying one for both of them. It was not so hard on the man,
of course, for he was excited over the prospect of escaping; but the
Girl, whose mind was filled with the dread of what might happen to him,
had nothing to sustain her. Despite his objection, she had stipulated
that, with Jackrabbit as a companion, she should accompany him to the
outskirts of the camp. And so, at the moment of departure, throwing
about her a cloak of some rough material, she went up to her lover and
said with a quiver in her voice:

"I'm ready, Dick, but I'm a-figurin' that I can't let you go alone--you
jest got to take me below with you, an' that's all there is to it."

The man shook his head.

"There's very little risk, believe me. I'll join Castro and ride all
through the night. I'll be down below in no time at all. But we must be
going, dear."

The man passed through the door first. But when it came the Girl's turn
she hesitated, for she had seen a dark shadow flit by the window. It was
as if someone had been stealthily watching there. In another moment,
however, it turned out to be Jackrabbit and, greatly relieved, the Girl
whispered to Johnson that he was to descend the trail between the Indian
and herself, and that on no account was he to utter a word until she
gave him permission.

For another moment or so they stood in silence; Johnson, appreciating
fully what were the Girl's feelings, did not dare to whisper even a word
of encouragement to her. At last, she ordered the Indian to lead the
way, and they started.

The trail curved and twisted around the mountain, and in places they had
to use the greatest care lest a misstep should carry them over a
precipice with a drop of hundreds of feet. It was a perilous descent,
inasmuch as the path was covered with snow. Moreover, it was necessary
that as little noise as possible should be made while they were making
their way past the buildings of the camp below, for the Mexican had not
been wrong when he stated that Ashby's men were quartered at, or in the
immediate vicinity of, The Palmetto. Fortunately, they passed through
without meeting anyone, and before long they came to the edge of the
plateau beneath which was the ravine which Johnson had to cross to reach
the spot where it had been agreed that Castro should be waiting with
horses for his master. It was also the place where the Girl was to leave
her lover to go on alone, and so they halted. A few moments passed
without either of them speaking; at length, the man said in as cheery a
voice as he could summon:

"I must leave you here. I remember the way well. All danger is past."

The Girl's lips were quivering; she asked:

"An' when will you be back?"

The man noted her emotion, and though he himself was conscious of a
choking sensation he contrived to say in a most optimistic tone:

"In two weeks--not more than two weeks. It will take all that time to
arrange things at the rancho. As it is, I hardly see my way clear to
dismissing my men--you see, they belong to me, almost, and--but I'll do
so, never fear. No power on earth could make me take up the old life
again."

The Girl said nothing in reply; instead she put both her arms around his
neck and remained a long time in his embrace. At last, summoning up all
her fortitude she put him resolutely from her, and whispered:

"When you are ready, come. You must leave me now." And with a curt
command to the Indian she fled back into the darkness.

For an instant the road agent's eyes followed the direction that she had
taken; then, his spirits rising at the thought that his escape was now
well-nigh assured, he turned and plunged down the ravine.



    As a strong David, at the voice of verity,
    Great Goliah, the pope, he struck down with his sling,
    Restoring again to a Christian liberty
    His land and people, like a most victorious king;
    To his first beauty intending the Church to bring
    From ceremonies dead to the living word of the Lord.
    This the second act will plenteously record.

As put into the mouth of the king himself, these other lines are hard to
beat for deliberate partisan misrepresentation. The king feels himself
about to die.

    I have sore hungered and thirsted righteousness
    For the office sake that God hath me appointed,
    But now I perceive that sin and wickedness
    In this wretched world, like as Christ prophesied,
    Have the overhand: in me it is verified.
    Pray for me, good people, I beseech you heartily,
    That the Lord above on my poor soul have mercy.
    Farewell noblemen, with the clergy spiritual,
    Farewell men of law, with the whole commonalty.
    Your disobedience I do forgive you all,
    And desire God to pardon your iniquity.
    Farewell, sweet England, now last of all to thee:
    I am right sorry I could do for thee no more.
    Farewell once again, yea, farewell for evermore.

Prompted by a different motive, yet not far removed in actual effect
from the politico-religious class of play represented by _New Custom_,
are the early Interludes of John Heywood. It is quite impossible to read
such a play as _The Pardoner and the Friar_ and believe that its author
wrote under any such earnest and sober inspiration as did the author of
_New Custom_. His intention was frankly to amuse, and to paint life as
he saw it without the intrusion of unreal personages of highly virtuous
but dull ideas. Yet he swung the lash of satire as cuttingly and as
merrily about the flanks of ecclesiastical superstition as ever did the
creator of Perverse Doctrine.[47]

The simplest plot sufficed Heywood, and the minimum of characters. _The
Pardoner and the Friar_ (possibly as early as 1520) demands only four
persons, while the plot may be summed up in a few sentences, thus: A
Pardoner and a Friar, from closely adjoining platforms, are endeavouring
to address the same crowd, the one to sell relics, the other to beg
money for his order. By a sort of stichomythic alternation each for a
time is supposed to carry on his speech regardless of the other, so that
to follow either connectedly the alternate lines must be read in
sequence. But every now and then they break off for abuse, and finally
they fight. A Parson and neighbour Prat interfere to convey them to jail
for the disturbance, but are themselves badly mauled. Then the Pardoner
and the Friar go off amicably together. There is no allegory, no moral;
merely satire on the fraudulent and hypocritical practices of pardoners
and friars, together with some horseplay to raise a louder laugh. The
fashion of that satire may be judged from the following exchange of home
truths by the rival orators.

    _Friar._ What, should ye give ought to parting pardoners?--

    _Pardoner._ What, should ye spend on these flattering liars,--

    _Friar._ What, should ye give ought to these bold beggars?--

    _Pardoner._ As be these babbling monks and these friars,--

    _Friar._ Let them hardly labour for their living;--

    _Pardoner._ Which do nought daily but babble and lie--

    _Friar._ It much hurteth them good men's giving,--

    _Pardoner._ And tell you fables dear enough at a fly,--

    _Friar._ For that maketh them idle and slothful to wark,--

    _Pardoner._ As doth this babbling friar here to-day?--

    _Friar._ That for none other thing they will cark.--

    _Pardoner._ Drive him hence, therefore, in the twenty-devil way!--

_The Four P.P._ (? 1540), similarly, requires no more than a palmer, a
pardoner, a 'pothecary and a pedlar, and for plot only a single
conversation, devoid even of the rough play which usually enlivened
discussions on the stage. In the debate arises a contest as to who can
tell the biggest lie--won by the palmer's statement that he has never
seen a woman out of patience--and that is the sole dramatic element.
Nevertheless, by sheer wit interest is maintained to the end, every one
smiling over the rival claims of such veteran humbugs as the old-time
pardoner and apothecary; scant reverence does 'Pothecary vouchsafe to
Pardoner's potent relics, his 'of All Hallows the blessed jaw-bone', his
'great toe of the Trinity', his 'buttock-bone of Pentecost', and the
rest. One of the raciest passages occurs in the Pardoner's relation of
the wonders he has performed in the execution of his office. Amongst
other deeds of note is the bringing back of a certain woman from hell to
earth. For this purpose the Pardoner visited the lower regions in
person--so he says--and brought her out in triumph with the full and
joyful consent of Lucifer.

     [_The_ PARDONER _has entered hell and secured a guide._]

    _Pardoner._ This devil and I walked arm in arm
        So far, till he had brought me thither,
        Where all the devils of hell together
        Stood in array in such apparel
        As for that day there meetly fell.
        Their horns well-gilt, their claws full clean,
        Their tails well-kempt, and, as I ween,
        With sothery[48] butter their bodies anointed;
        I never saw devils so well appointed.
        The master-devil sat in his jacket,
        And all the souls were playing at racket.
        None other rackets they had in hand,
        Save every soul a good firebrand,
        Wherewith they played so prettily
        That Lucifer laughed merrily,
        And all the residue of the fiends
        Did laugh thereat full well like friends.

     [_He interviews_ LUCIFER _and asks if he may take away_ MARGERY
     CORSON.]

        Now, by our honour, said Lucifer,
        No devil in hell shall withhold her;
        And if thou wouldest have twenty mo,
        Wert not for justice, they should go.
        For all we devils within this den
        Have more to-do with two women
        Than with all the charge we have beside;
        Wherefore, if thou our friend will be tried,
        Apply thy pardons to women so
        That unto us there come no mo.

_Johan Johan_, or, at greater length, _The Merry Play between Johan
Johan the Husband, Tyb his Wife, and Sir Jhon the Priest_ (printed
1533), contains only the three characters mentioned, but possesses a
theme more nearly deserving the name of plot than do the other two,
namely, the contriving and carrying out of a plan by Tyb for exposing
her boastful husband's real and absolute subjection to her rule. Yet,
even so, it is extremely simple. Johan Johan is first heard alone,
declaring how he will beat his wife for not being at home. The tuggings
of fear and valour in his heart, however, give his monologue an
argumentative form, in which first one motive and then the other gains
the upper hand, very similar to the conflict between Launcelot Gobbo's
conscience and the Devil. He closes in favour of the beating and
then--Tyb comes home. Oh the difference! Johan Johan suspects his wife
of undue friendliness with Sir Jhon the Priest, but he dare not say so.
Tyb guesses his doubts, and in her turn suspects that he is inclined to
rebel. So she makes the yoke heavier. Johan Johan has to invite Sir Jhon
to eat a most desirable pie with them; but throughout the meal, with
jealousy at his heart and the still greater pangs of unsatisfied hunger
a little lower, he is kept busy by his wife, trying to mend a leaky
bucket with wax. Surely never did a scene contain more 'asides' than are
uttered and explained away by the crushed husband! Finally overtaxed
endurance asserts itself, and wife and priest are driven out of doors;
but the play closes with a very pronounced note of uncertainty from the
victor as to what new game the vanquished may shortly be at if he be not
there to see.

The all-important feature to be noticed in Heywood's work is that here
we have the drama escaping from its alliance with religion into the
region of pure comedy. Here is no well planned moral, no sententious
mouthpiece of abstract excellence, no ruin of sinners and crowning of
saints. Here, too, is no Vice, no Devil, although they are the chief
media for comedy in other Interludes, nor is there any buffoonery; even
of its near cousins, scuffling and fighting, only one of the three plays
has more than a trace. Hence the earlier remark, that Heywood was before
his time. It is not devils in bearskins and wooden-sworded vices that
create true comedy; they belong to the realm of farce. Yet they
continued to flourish long after Heywood had set another example, and
with them the cuffing of ears and drunken gambolling which we may see,
in the works of other men, trying to rescue prosy scenes from dullness.
In _Johan Johan_ is simple comedy, the comedy of laughter-raising
dialogue and 'asides'. We do not say it is perfect comedy, far from it;
but it is comedy cleared of its former alloys. It is the comedy which
Shakespeare refined for his own use in _Twelfth Night_ and elsewhere.

[Footnote 34: Translation by W.C. Robinson, Ph.D. (Bohn's Standard
Library).]

[Footnote 35: aright.]

[Footnote 36: world's.]

[Footnote 37: company.]

[Footnote 38: wealth.]

[Footnote 39: know.]

[Footnote 40: know not.]

[Footnote 41: solace.]

[Footnote 42: stealing.]

[Footnote 43: lying.]

[Footnote 44: fright.]

[Footnote 45: glad.]

[Footnote 46: alehouse sign.]

[Footnote 47: The reader is warned against chronological confusion. In
order to follow out the various dramatic contributions of the Interludes
one must sometimes pass over plays at one point to return to them at
another. Care has been taken to place approximate dates against the
plays, and these should be duly regarded. The treatment of so early an
Interlude writer as Heywood (his three best known productions may be
dated between 1520 and 1540) thus late is justified by the fact that he
is in some ways 'before his time', notably in his rejection of the
Morality abstractions.]

[Footnote 48: sweet.]




CHAPTER IV

RISE OF COMEDY AND TRAGEDY


No great discernment is required to see that, after the appearance of
_Johan Johan_, all that was needed for the complete development of
comedy was the invention of a well-contrived plot. For reasons already
indicated, Interludes were naturally deficient in this respect. Nor were
the Moralities and Bible Miracles much better: their length and
comprehensive themes were against them. There were the Saint Plays, of
which some still lingered upon the stage; these offered greater
possibilities. But here, again, originality was limited; the
_dénouement_ was more or less a foregone conclusion. Clearly, one of two
things was wanted: either a man of genius to perceive the need and to
supply it, or the study of new models outside the field of English
drama. The man of genius was not then forthcoming, but by good fortune
the models were stumbled upon.

We say stumbled upon, because the absence of tentative predecessors and
of anything approaching an eager band of successors, suggests an
unpreparedness for the discovery when it came. Thus _Calisto and
Melibaea_ (1530), an imitation of a Spanish comedy of the same name,
though it contained a definitely evolved plot, sent barely a ripple over
the surface of succeeding authorship. It represents the steadfastness of
the maiden Melibaea against the entreaties of her lover Calisto and the
much more crafty, indeed almost successful, wiles of the procuress,
Celestine. True, the play is dull enough. But if dramatists had been
awake to their defects, the value of the new importation from a foreign
literature would have been noticed. The years passed, however, without
producing imitators, until some time in the years between 1544 and 1551
a Latin scholar, reading the plays of Plautus, decided to write a comedy
like them. Latin Comedies, both in the original tongue and in
translation, had appeared in England in previous years, but only as
strayed foreigners. Nicholas Udall, the head master of Eton School,
proposed a very different thing, namely, an English comedy which should
rival in technique the comedies of the Latins. The result was _Ralph
Roister Doister_. He called it an Interlude. Posterity has given it the
title of 'the first regular English comedy'.

Divided into five acts, with subordinate scenes, this play develops its
story with deliberate calculated steps. Acts I and II are occupied by
Ralph's vain attempts to soften the heart of Dame Christian Custance by
gifts and messages. In Act III come complications, double-dealings.
Matthew Merrygreek plays Ralph false, tortures his love, misreads--by
the simple trick of mispunctuation--his letter to the Dame, and thus,
under a mask of friendship, sets him further than ever from success.
Still deeper complexities appear with Act IV, for now arrives, with
greetings from Gawin Goodluck, long betrothed to Dame Custance, a
certain sea-captain, who, misled by Ralph's confident assurance,
misunderstands the relations between the Dame and him, suspects
disloyalty, and changes from friendliness to cold aloofness. This, by
vexing the lady, brings disaster upon Ralph, whose bold attempt, on the
suggestion of Merrygreek, to carry his love off by force is repulsed by
that Dame's Amazonian band of maid-servants with scuttles and brooms. In
this extraordinary conflict Ralph is horribly belaboured by the
malicious Matthew under pretence of blows aimed at Dame Custance. Act
V, however, brings Goodluck himself and explanations. That worthy man
finds his lady true, friendship is established all round, and Ralph and
Merrygreek join the happy couple in a closing feast.

This bald outline perhaps makes sufficiently clear the great advance in
plot structure. Within the play, however, are many other good things.
The character of Ralph Roister Doister, 'a vain-glorious, cowardly
blockhead', as the list of dramatis personae has it, is thoroughly well
done: his heavy love-sighs, his confident elation, his distrust, his
gullibility, his ups and downs and contradictions, are all in the best
comic vein. Only second in fullness of portraiture, and truer to Nature,
is Dame Custance, who--if we exclude Melibaea as not native to English
shores--may be said to bring into English secular drama honourable
womanhood. Her amused indifference at first, her sharp reproof of her
maids who have allowed themselves to act as Ralph's messengers, her
gathering vexation at Ralph's tiresome wooing, her genuine alarm when
she sees that his boastful words are accepted by the sea-captain as
truth--these are sentiments and emotions copied from a healthy and
worthy model. Matthew Merrygreek, an unmistakable 'Vice' ever at Ralph's
elbow, is of all Vices the shrewdest striker of laughter out of a block
of stupidity: it is from his ingenious brain that almost every absurd
scene is evolved for the ridiculing of Ralph. Thoroughly human, and
quite assertive, are the lower characters, the maid-servants and
men-servants, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, Truepenny, Dobinet
Doughty and the rest. Need it be added that the battle in Act IV is pure
fooling? or that jolly songs enliven the scenes with their rousing
choruses (e.g. 'I mun be married a Sunday')? _Ralph Roister Doister_ is
an English comedy with English notions of the best way of amusing
English folk of the sixteenth century. With all its improvements it has
no suggestion of the alien about it, as has the classically-flavoured
_Thersites_ (also based, like Udall's play, on Plautus's _Miles
Gloriosus_), or _Calisto and Melibaea_ with its un-English names.
Perhaps that is why it had to wait fifteen years for a successor. Quite
possibly its spectators regarded it as merely a better Interlude than
usual, without recognizing the precise qualities which made it different
from _Johan Johan_.

Two quotations will be sufficient to illustrate the opposing characters.

     (1)

    _Merrygreek_ (_alone_). But now of Roister Doister somewhat to express,
        That ye may esteem him after his worthiness,
        In these twenty towns, and seek them throughout,
        Is not the like stock whereon to graff a lout.
        All the day long is he facing and craking[49]
        Of his great acts in fighting and fray-making;
        But when Roister Doister is put to his proof,
        To keep the Queen's peace is more for his behoof.
        If any woman smile, or cast on him an eye,
        Up is he to the hard ears in love by and by:
        And in all the hot haste must she be his wife,
        Else farewell his good days, and farewell his life!


     (2)

     [TRISTRAM TRUSTY, _a good friend and counsellor to_ DAME CUSTANCE,
     _is consulted by her on the matter of the sea-captain's_
     (SURESBY'S) _misunderstanding of her attitude towards_ RALPH
     ROISTER DOISTER.]

    _T. Trusty._ Nay, weep not, woman, but tell me what your cause is.
        As concerning my friend is anything amiss?

    _C. Custance._ No, not on my part; but here was Sim. Suresby--

    _T. Trusty._ He was with me, and told me so.

    _C. Custance._ And he stood by
        While Ralph Roister Doister, with help of Merrygreek,
        For promise of marriage did unto me seek.

    _T. Trusty._ And had ye made any promise before them twain?

    _C. Custance._ No, I had rather be torn in pieces and slain.
        No man hath my faith and troth but Gawin Goodluck,
        And that before Suresby did I say, and there stuck;
        But of certain letters there were such words spoken--

    _T. Trusty._ He told me that too.

    _C. Custance._ And of a ring and token,
        That Suresby, I spied, did more than half suspect
        That I my faith to Gawin Goodluck did reject.

    _T. Trusty._ But was there no such matter, Dame Custance, indeed?

    _C. Custance._ If ever my head thought it, God send me ill speed!
        Wherefore I beseech you with me to be a witness
        That in all my life I never intended thing less.
        And what a brainsick fool Ralph Roister Doister is
        Yourself knows well enough.

    _T. Trusty._ Ye say full true, i-wis.

In 1566 was acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, 'A Ryght Pithy,
Pleasaunt, and merie Comedie, intytuled _Gammer Gurton's Needle_.' The
authorship is uncertain, recent investigation having exalted a certain
Stevenson into rivalry with the Bishop Still to whom former scholars
were content to assign it. Possibly as the result of a perusal of
Plautus, possibly under the influence of the last play--for in subject
matter it is even more perfectly English than _Ralph Roister
Doister_--this comedy is also built on a well-arranged plan, the plot
developing regularly through five acts with subsidiary scenes. Let us
glance through it.

Gammer Gurton and her goodman Hodge lose their one and only needle, an
article not easily renewed, nor easily done without, seeing that Hodge's
garments stand in need of instant repair. Gib, the cat, is strongly
suspected of having swallowed it. Into this confusion steps Diccon, a
bedlam beggar, whose quick eye promptly detects opportunities for
mischief. After scaring Hodge with offers of magic art, he goes to Dame
Chat, an honest but somewhat jealous neighbour, unaware of what has
happened, with a tale that Gammer Gurton accuses her of stealing her
best cock. To Gammer Gurton he announces that he has seen Dame Chat pick
up the needle and make off with it. Between the two dames ensues a
meeting, the nature of which may be guessed, the whole trouble lying in
the fact that neither thinks it necessary to name the article under
dispute. No wonder that discussion under the disadvantage of so great a
misunderstanding ends in violence. Doctor Rat, the curate, is now called
in; but again Diccon is equal to the occasion. Having warned Dame Chat
that Hodge, to balance the matter of the cock, is about to creep in
through a breach in the wall and kill her chickens, he persuades Doctor
Rat that if he will creep through this same opening he will see the
needle lying on Dame Chat's table. The consequences for the curate are
severe. Master Bailey's assistance is next requisitioned, and him friend
Diccon cannot overreach. The whole truth coming out, Diccon is required
to kneel and apologize. In doing so he gives Hodge a slap which elicits
from that worthy a yell of pain. But it is a wholesome pang, for it
finds the needle no further away than in the seat of Hodge's breeches.

If we compare this play with _Ralph Roister Doister_ three ideas will
occur: first, that we have made no advance; second, that, in giving the
preference to rough country folk, the author has deliberately abandoned
the higher standard of refinement in language and action set in Udall's
major scenes; third, that whereas the earlier work bases its comedy on
character, educing the amusing scenes from the clash of vanity,
constancy and mischief, the later play relies for its comic effects on
situations brought about by mischief alone. These are three rather heavy
counts against the younger rival. But in the other scale may be placed a
very fair claim to greater naturalness. Taking the scenes and characters
in turn, mischief-maker, churchman and all, there is none so open to the
charge of being impossible, and therefore farcical, as the battle
between the forces of Ralph and Dame Custance, or the incredibly
self-deceived Ralph himself. In accompanying Ralph through his
adventures we seem to be moving through a fantastic world in which Sir
Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio might feel at home; but with Dame Chat,
Gammer Gurton and Hodge we feel the solid earth beneath our feet and
around us the strong air which nourished the peasantry and yeomen of
Tudor England.

The first extract is a verse from this comedy's one and famous song; the
second is taken from Act I, Scene 4.

     (1)

    I cannot eat but little meat,
      My stomach is not good;
    But sure I think that I can drink
      With him that wears a hood.
    Though I go bare, take ye no care,
      I am nothing a-cold;
    I stuff my skin so full within
      Of jolly good ale and old.
    Back and side go bare, go bare,
      Both foot and hand go cold:
    But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
      Whether it be new or old.

     (2)

     [HODGE _hears of the loss of the needle on his return home from the
     fields._]

    _Hodge._ Your nee'le lost? it is pity you should lack care and
            endless sorrow.
        Gog's death, how shall my breeches be sewed? Shall I go thus
            to-morrow?

    _Gammer._ Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that ich could find my nee'le, by
            the reed,
        Ch'ould sew thy breeches, ich promise thee, with full good
            double thread,
        And set a patch on either knee should last this moneths twain.
        Now God and good Saint Sithe, I pray to send it home again.

    _Hodge._ Whereto served your hands and eyes, but this your nee'le
            to keep?
        What devil had you else to do? ye keep, ich wot, no sheep.
        Cham[50] fain abroad to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,
        Sossing and possing in the dirt still from day to day.
        A hundred things that be abroad cham set to see them well:
        And four of you sit idle at home and cannot keep a nee'le!

    _Gammer._ My nee'le, alas, ich lost it, Hodge, what time ich me up
            hasted
        To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted.

    _Hodge._ The devil he burst both Gib and Tib, with all the rest;
        Cham always sure of the worst end, whoever have the best.
        Where ha' you been fidging abroad, since you your nee'le lost?

    _Gammer._ Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same
            post;
        Where I was looking a long hour, before these folks came here.
        But, wellaway! all was in vain; my nee'le is never the near.

    _Hodge._ Set me a candle, let me seek, and grope wherever it be.
        Gog's heart, ye be foolish (ich think), you know it not when you
            it see.

    _Gammer._ Come hither, Cock: what, Cock, I say!

    _Cock._ How, Gammer?

    _Gammer._ Go, hie thee soon, and grope behind the old brass pan,
        Which thing when thou hast done,
        There shalt thou find an old shoe, wherein, if thou look well,
        Thou shalt find lying an inch of white tallow candle:
        Light it, and bring it tite away.

    _Cock._ That shall be done anon.

    _Gammer._ Nay, tarry, Hodge, till thou hast light, and then we'll
        seek each one.

_Ralph Roister Doister_ and _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ mark the end of the
Interlude stage and the commencement of Comedy proper. Leaving the
latter at this point for the present, we shall return in the next
chapter to study its fortunes at the hands of Lyly.

       *       *       *       *       *

Morality Plays, though theoretically quite as suitable for tragic effect
as for comic, since the former only required that Mankind should
sometimes fail to reach heaven, seem nevertheless to have developed
mainly the lighter side, setting the hero right at the finish and in the
meantime discovering, to the relief of otherwise bored spectators, that
wickedness, in some unexplained way, was funny. As long as propriety
forbade that good should be overcome by evil it is hard to see how
tragedy could appear. Had Humankind, in _The Castell of Perseverance_,
been fought for in vain by the Virtues, or had Everyman found no
companion to go with him and intercede for him, there had been tragedy
indeed. But religious optimism was against any conclusion so
discouraging to repentance. The lingering Miracles, it is true, still
presented the sublimest of all tragedies in the Fall of Man and the
apparent triumph of the Pharisees over Jesus. Between them, however, and
the kind of drama that succeeded the Moralities, too great a gulf was
fixed. Contemporaries of those original spirits, Heywood and Udall,
could hardly revert for inspiration to the discredited performances of
villages and of a few provincial towns. Tragedy had to wait until there
was matured and made popular an Interlude from which the conflict of
Virtues and Vices, with the orthodox triumph of the former, had been
purged away, leaving to the author complete liberty alike in character
and action. When that came, Tragedy returned to the stage, a stranger
with strange stories to tell. Persia and Ancient Rome sent their tyrants
and their heroines to contest for public favour with home-born knaves
and fools. Nor were the newcomers above borrowing the services of those
same knaves and fools. The Vice was given a place, low clownish fellows
were admitted to relieve the harrowed feelings, and our old
acquaintance, Herod, was summoned from the Miracles to lend his aid.

Yet even so--and probably because it was so--Tragedy was ill at ease.
She had called in low comedy and rant to please the foolish, only to
find herself infected and degraded by their company. Moreover, the
bustle of incident, the abrupt changes from grave to gay and to grave
again, jangled her sad majestic harmonies with shrill interrupting
discords. It had not been so in Greece. It had not been so even in
Italy, where Roman Seneca, fearing the least decline to a lower plane of
dignity and impressiveness, had disciplined tragedy by an imposition of
artificial but not unskilful restraints. In place of the strong
unbroken sweep of a resistless current, which characterized the
evolution of an Aeschylean drama, he had insisted on an orderly division
of a plot into acts and scenes, as though one should break up the sheer
plunge of a single waterfall into a well-balanced group of cascades. Yet
he was wise in his generation, securing by this means a carefully
proportioned development which, in the absence of that genius which
inspired the Greek dramatists, might otherwise have been lost. Once
strong and free in the plays of Aeschylus and his compeers, hampered and
constantly under guidance but still dignified and noble in the Senecan
drama, Tragedy now found herself debased and almost caricatured in the
English Interlude stage. Fortunately the danger was seen in time.
English writers, face to face with self-conscious tragedy, realized that
here at least was more than unaided native art could compass. Despairing
of success if they persisted in the old methods, they fell back
awkwardly upon classical imitation and, by assiduous study tempered by a
wise criticism, achieved success.

Only two plays with any claim to the designation of tragedies have
survived to us from the Interludes, neither of them of much interest.
_Cambyses_ (1561), by Thomas Preston, has all the qualities of an
imperfect Interlude. There are the base fellows and the clowns, Huff,
Ruff, Snuff, Hob and Lob; the abstractions, Diligence, Shame, Common's
Complaint, Small Hability, and the like; the Vice, Ambidexter, who
enters 'with an old capcase on his head, an old pail about his hips for
harness, a scummer and a potlid by his side, and a rake on his
shoulder'; and the same scuffling and horseplay when the comic element
is uppermost. Incident follows incident as rapidly and with as trifling
motives as before. In the course of a short play we see Cambyses, king
of Persia, set off for his conquests in Egypt; return; execute
Sisamnes, his unjust deputy; prove a far worse ruler himself; shoot
through the heart the young son of Praxaspes, to prove to that too-frank
counsellor that he is not as drunk as was supposed; murder his own
brother, Smirdis, on the lying report of Ambidexter; marry, contrary to
the law of the Church and her own wish, a lovely lady, his cousin, and
then have her executed for reproaching him with the death of his
brother; and finally die, accidentally pierced by his own sword when
mounting a horse. All these horrors, except the death of the lady, take
place on the stage. Thus we have such stage-directions as, 'Smite him in
the neck with a sword to signify his death', 'Flay him with a false
skin', 'A little bladder of vinegar pricked', 'Enter the King without a
gown, a sword thrust up into his side, bleeding.' Of real tragedy there
is little, the hustle of crime upon crime obliterating the impression
which any one singly might produce. Yet even in this crude orgy of
bloodshed the melancholy voice of unaffected pathos can be heard
mourning the loss of dear ones. It speaks in the farewells of Sisamnes
and his son Otian, and of Praxaspes (the honest minister) and his little
boy; throughout the whole incident of the gentle lady whose fate melts
even the Vice to tears; and in the outburst of a mother's grief over her
child's corpse. We quote the last.

    O blissful babe, O joy of womb, heart's comfort and delight,
    For counsel given unto the king, is this thy just requite?
    O heavy day and doleful time, these mourning tunes to make!
    With blubb'red eyes into my arms from earth I will thee take,
    And wrap thee in my apron white: but O my heavy heart!
    The spiteful pangs that it sustains would make it in two to part,
    The death of this my son to see: O heavy mother now,
    That from thy sweet and sug'red joy to sorrow so shouldst bow!
    What grief in womb did I retain before I did thee see;
    Yet at the last, when smart was gone, what joy wert thou to me!
    How tender was I of thy food, for to preserve thy state!
    How stilled I thy tender heart at times early and late!
    With velvet paps I gave thee suck, with issue from my breast,
    And danced thee upon my knee to bring thee unto rest.
    Is this the joy of thee I reap? O king of tiger's brood,
    O tiger's whelp, hadst thou the heart to see this child's heart-blood?
    Nature enforceth me, alas, in this wise to deplore,
    To wring my hands, O wel-away, that I should see this hour.
    Thy mother yet will kiss thy lips, silk-soft and pleasant white,
    With wringing hands lamenting for to see thee in this plight.
    My lording dear, let us go home, our mourning to augment.

The second play, _Appius and Virginia_ (1563), by R.B. (not further
identified), is, in some respects, weaker; though, by avoiding the
crowded plot which spoilt _Cambyses_, it attains more nearly to tragedy.
The low characters, Mansipulus and Mansipula, the Vice (Haphazard), and
the abstractions, Conscience, Comfort and their brethren, reappear with
as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that
elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which
tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems
to have been obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod
was peculiarly suited to his subject. In such a notion there lay, of
course, the half-truth that lofty thoughts and impassioned speech are
more befitting the sombre muse than the foolish chatter of clowns. But,
except where his own deliberately introduced mirth-makers are speaking,
he will have nothing but pompous rhetoric from the lips of his
characters. His prologue begins his speech with the sounding line:

    Who doth desire the trump of fame to sound unto the skies--

Virginius's wife makes her début upon the stage with this encouraging
remark to her companion:

    The pert and prickly prime of youth ought chastisement to have,
    But thou, dear daughter, needest not, thyself doth show thee grave.

To which Virginia most becomingly answers:

    Refell your mind of mournful plaints, dear mother, rest your mind.

After this every one feels that the wicked judge, Appius, has done no
more than his duty when he exclaims, at his entrance:

    The furrowed face of fortune's force my pinching pain doth move.

Virginius slays his daughter on the stage and serves her head up in a
charger before Appius, who promptly bursts into a cataclysm of C's ('O
curst and cruel cankered churl, O carl unnatural'); but there is not a
suggestion of the pathos noticed in _Cambyses_. Instead there is in one
place a sort of frantic agitation, which the author doubtless thought
was the pure voice of tragic sorrow. It is in the terrible moment when,
after the heroic strain of the sacrifice is over, Virginius realizes the
meaning of what he has done. Presumably wild with grief, he raves in
language so startlingly akin to the ludicrous despairs of Pyramus and
Thisbe that the modern reader, acquainted with the latter, is almost
jarred into laughter.

    O cruel hands, O bloody knife, O man, what hast thou done?
    Thy daughter dear and only heir her vital end hath won.
    Come, fatal blade, make like despatch: come, Atropos: come, aid!
    Strike home, thou careless arm, with speed; of death be not afraid.

Of such eloquence we might truly say with Theseus, 'This passion, and
the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.'

In 1562 Tragedy, as we have said, took refuge in an imitation of the
Senecan stage: translations of Seneca's tragedies had begun to appear in
1559. _The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex_, or _Gorboduc_, as it was
originally and is now most commonly named, marks a new departure for
English drama. To understand this we ought perhaps to say something
about the essential features of a Greek tragedy (Seneca's own model),
and make a note of any special Senecan additions. What strikes one most
in reading a play of Aeschylus is the prominence given to a composite
and almost colourless character known as the Chorus (for though it
consists of a body of persons, it speaks, for the most part, as one),
the absence of any effective action from the stage, the limited number
of actors, and the tendency of any speaker to expand his remarks into a
set speech of considerable length. This tendency, especially noticeable
in the Chorus, whose speeches commonly take the form of chants,
encouraged the faculty of generalizing philosophically, so that one is
constantly treated to general reflections expressive rather of broad
wisdom and piety than of feelings directly and dramatically aroused;
much also is made of retrospection and relation, whether the topic is
ancient history, the events of a recent voyage, or a barely completed
crime. The sage backward glance of the Chorus is quick to discover in
present ruin a punishment for past crime; so that the plot becomes in a
manner a picture of the resistless laws of moral justice. Speeches, a
moralizing Chorus, actions not performed but reported in detail, a sense
of divine retribution for sin, these are perhaps the qualities which,
apart from the poetry itself, we recall most readily as typical of a
Greek tragedy. These Seneca modified by the introduction of acts and
scenes, a subordination of the Chorus, and an exaggerated predilection
for long sententious speeches; he also added a new stage character known
as the Ghost. Seneca's elevation, to the dogmatic position of laws, of
the unities of Time, Place and Action, rules by no means invariable
among his older and greater masters, has been the subject of much
debate, but, on the whole, the verdict has been hostile. According to
these unities, the time represented in the play should not greatly
exceed the time occupied in acting it, the scene of the action should
not vary, and the plot should be concerned only with one event. This
last law was generally accepted, by Elizabethans, in Tragedy at least.
The other two, though much insisted on by English theorists, such as Sir
Philip Sidney, met with so much neglect in practice that we need devote
no space to the discussion of them.

Having thus hastily summarized the larger superficial characteristics of
classical drama, we may return to _Gorboduc_ and inquire which of these
were adopted in it and with what modifications. We find it divided into
five acts and nine scenes. A Chorus, though it takes no other part,
sings its moralizing lyrics at the end of each act except the last.
Speeches of inordinate length are made--three consecutive speeches in
Act I, Scene 2, occupy two hundred and sixty lines--the subject-matter
being commonly argumentative. Only through the reports of messengers and
eye-witnesses do we learn of the cold-blooded murder and many violent
deaths that take place. Everywhere hurried action and unreasoning
instinct give place to deliberation and debate. Between this play and
its predecessors no change can be more sweeping or more abrupt. In an
instant, as it were, we pass from the unpolished _Cambyses_, savage and
reeking with blood, to the equally violent events of _Gorboduc_, cold
beneath a formal restraint which, regulating their setting in the
general framework, robs them of more than half their force. Had this
severe discipline of the emotions been accepted as for ever binding upon
the tragic stage Elizabethan drama would have been forgotten. The truth
is that the germ of dissension was sown in _Gorboduc_ itself. Conscious
that the banishment of action from the stage, while natural enough in
Greece, must meet with an overwhelming resistance from the popular
custom in England, the authors, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton,
invented a compromise. Before each act they provided a symbolical Dumb
Show which, by its external position, infringed no classical law, yet
satisfied the demand of an English audience for real deeds and
melodramatic spectacles. It was an ingenious idea, the effect of which
was to keep intact the close link between stage and action until the
native genius should be strong enough to cast aside its swaddling
clothes and follow its own bent without hurt. As illustrating this
innovation--the reader will not have forgotten that both Dumb Show and
Chorus are to be found in _Pericles_--we may quote the directions for
the Dumb Show before the second act.

     First, the music of cornets began to play, during which came in
     upon the stage a king accompanied with a number of his nobility and
     gentlemen. And after he had placed himself in a chair of estate
     prepared for him, there came and kneeled before him a grave and
     aged gentleman, and offered up unto him a cup of wine in a glass,
     which the king refused. After him comes a brave and lusty young
     gentleman, and presents the king with a cup of gold filled with
     poison, which the king accepted, and drinking the same, immediately
     fell down dead upon the stage, and so was carried thence away by
     his lords and gentlemen, and then the music ceased. Hereby was
     signified, that as glass by nature holdeth no poison, but is clear
     and may easily be seen through, ne boweth by any art; so a faithful
     counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain and open, ne yieldeth
     to any indiscreet affection, but giveth wholesome counsel, which
     the ill advised prince refuseth. The delightful gold filled with
     poison betokeneth flattery, which under fair seeming of pleasant
     words beareth deadly poison, which destroyeth the prince that
     receiveth it. As befel in the two brethren, Ferrex and Porrex, who,
     refusing the wholesome advice of grave counsellors, credited these
     young parasites, and brought to themselves death and destruction
     thereby.

But it is time to set forth the plot in more detail. The importance of
_Gorboduc_ as an example of English 'classical' tragedy prompts us to
follow it through, scene by scene.

_Act I, Scene 1._--Queen Videna discovers to her favourite and elder
son, Ferrex, the king's intention, grievous in her eyes, of dividing his
kingdom equally between his two sons. _Scene 2._--King Gorboduc submits
his plan to the consideration of his three counsellors, whose wise and
lengthy reasonings he listens to but elects to disregard.

_Act II, Scene 1._--The division having been carried out, Ferrex, in his
part of the kingdom, is prompted by evil counsel to suspect aggressive
rivalry from his brother, and decides to collect forces for his own
defence. _Scene 2._--Ferrex's misguided precautions having been
maliciously represented to Porrex as directed against his power, that
prince resolves upon an immediate invasion of his brother's realm.

_Act III._--The news of these counter-moves and of the imminent
probability of bloodshed is reported to the king. To restore the courage
of the despairing Gorboduc is now the labour of his counsellors, but the
later announcement of the death of Ferrex casts him lower than before.
At this point the Chorus, recalling the murder of a cousin in an earlier
generation of the royal race, points, in true Aeschylean fashion, to the
hatred of an unsated revenge behind this latest blow:

    Thus fatal plagues pursue the guilty race,
      Whose murderous hand, imbru'd with guiltless blood,
    Asks vengeance still before the heaven's face,
      With endless mischiefs on the cursed brood.

_Act IV, Scene 1._--Videna alone, in words of passionate vehemence,
laments that she has lived so long to see the death of Ferrex, renounces
his brother as no child of hers, and concludes with a threat of
vengeance. _Scene 2._--Bowed down with remorse, Porrex makes his defence
before the king, pleading the latter's own act, in dividing the kingdom,
as the initial cause of the ensuing disaster. Before he has been long
gone from his father's presence, Marcella, a lady-in-waiting, rushes
into the room, in wild disorder and grief, to report his murder at his
mother's hand. In anguished words she tells how, stabbed by Videna in
his sleep, he started up and, spying the queen by his side, called to
her for help, not crediting that she, his mother, could be his
murderess. Again, in tones of solemn warning, the Chorus reminds the
audience that

    Blood asketh blood, and death must death requite:
      Jove, by his just and everlasting doom,
    Justly hath ever so requited it.

_Act V, Scene 1._--This warning is proved true by a report of the death
of the king and queen at the hands of their subjects in revolt against
the blood-stained House. Certain of the nobles, gathered together,
resolve upon an alliance for the purpose of restoring a strong
government. The Duke of Albany, however, thinks to snatch power to
himself from this opportunity. _Scene 2._--Report is made of the
suppression of the rebellion, but this news is immediately followed by a
report of Albany's attempted usurpation of the throne. Coalition for his
defeat is agreed upon, and the play ends with the mournful soliloquy of
that aged counsellor who first opposed the division of the throne and
now sees, as the consequence of that fatal act, his country, torn to
pieces by civil strife, left an easy prize for an ambitious conqueror.

    Hereto it comes when kings will not consent
    To grave advice, but follow wilful will.
    This is the end, when in fond princes' hearts
    Flattery prevails, and sage rede[51] hath no place:
    These are the plagues, when murder is the mean
    To make new heirs unto the royal crown....
    And this doth grow, when lo, unto the prince,
    Whom death or sudden hap of life bereaves,
    No certain heir remains, such certain heir,
    As not all only is the rightful heir,
    But to the realm is so made known to be;
    And troth thereby vested in subjects' hearts,
    To owe faith there where right is known to rest.

This last quotation, interesting in itself as containing a
recommendation to Queen Elizabeth to marry, or at least name her
successor, will also serve as a specimen of the new verse, Blank Verse,
which here, for the first time, finds its way into English drama.
Meeting with small favour from writers skilful in the stringing together
of rhymes, it suffered comparative neglect for some years until Marlowe
taught its capacities to his own and future ages. With Sackville's stiff
lines before us we shall be better able to appreciate the later
playwright's genius. But we shall also be reminded that the credit of
introducing blank verse must lie with the older man.

The chief question of all remains to be asked. Does _Gorboduc_, with all
its borrowed devices, _and because of them_, rise to a higher level of
tragedy than _Cambyses_ and _Appius and Virginia_? To answer this
question we must examine the effect of those devices, and understand
what is precisely meant by the term tragedy. Let it be first understood
that the arrangement of acts and scenes is comparatively unimportant in
this connexion, though most helpful in giving clearness to the action.
Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_ (in the earlier edition) dispenses with it;
so does Milton's _Samson Agonistes_; and we have just seen that the
great Greek dramatists knew nothing of it. What is important is the
exclusion of that comic element which, in some form or another, had
hitherto found a place in almost every English play; the removal of all
action from the stage--for the Dumb Shows stand apart from the play--;
and the substitution of stately speeches for natural conversation and
dialogue. Of all three the purpose is the same, namely, to impress the
audience with a sense of greater dignity and awe than would be imparted
by a more familiar style. The long speeches give importance to the
decisions, and compel a belief that momentous events are about to
happen or have happened. In harmony with this effect is the absence of
all comic relief--although Shakespeare was to prove later that this has
a useful place in tragedy. A smile, a jest would be sacrilege in the
prevailing gloom. Two effects alone are aimed at; an impression of
loftiness in the theme, and a profound melancholy. Not warm gushing
tears. Those are the outcome of a personal sorrow, small and ignoble
beside an abstract grief at 'the falls of princes', 'the tumbling down
of crowns', 'the ruin of proud realms'. What does the reader or
spectator know of Ferrex that he should mingle his cries with Videna's
lamentations? The account of Porrex appealing, with childlike faith in
his mother, to the very woman who has murdered him, may, for the moment,
bring tears to the eyes. But it is an accidental touch. The tragedy lies
not there but in the great fact that with him dies the last heir to the
throne, the last hope of avoiding the miseries of a disputed succession;
and that in her revengeful fury the queen, as a woman, has committed the
blackest of all crimes, a mother's slaughter of her child. We are not
asked to weep but to gasp at the horror of it. It is in order to protect
the loftier, broader aspects of the catastrophe from the influence of
the particular that action is excluded. This cautions us against
confusing tragedy and pathos. To perceive the difference is to recognize
that English Tragedy really begins with _Gorboduc_. Until its advent the
stress laid on the pathetic partially obscured the tragic. This may be
seen at once in the Miracles, though a little thought will reveal the
intensely tragic nature of the complete Miracle Play. In _Cambyses_ we
find the same obscuration: there is tragedy in the sudden ending of
those young lives, but the pathos of the mother's anguish and the sweet
girl's pleadings prevent us from thinking of it. _Appius and Virginia_
maintains a much truer tragic detachment, the effect being heightened by
its opening picture of virtuous happiness destined to abrupt and
tyrannous ruin. But it expresses itself so ill, shatters our hearing so
unmercifully with its alliterative mouthing, and hurls us down so
steeply with its low comedy, that we refuse to give its characters the
grandeur or excellence claimed for them by the author. _Gorboduc_ alone
presents tragedy unspoiled by extraneous additions. In its triple
catastrophe of princes, crown and realm we perceive the awful figure of
the Tragic Muse and shrink back in reverent fear of what more may lie
hid from us in the folds of her black robe. Darker, much darker and more
terrible things have come since from that gloomy spirit. What has been
written here should not be misinterpreted as an exaggerated appreciation
of _Gorboduc_. We wish only to insist that this play did give to English
drama for the first time (if we exclude translations) an example,
however weak in execution, of pure tragedy; and was able to do so
largely, if not entirely, by reason of its reversion to classical
principles and devices.

We have insisted on the difference between Tragedy and Pathos, and
criticized the weakening effect of the latter upon the former. To escape
the penalty that awaits general criticism we may add here that Tragedy
is never greater than when her handmaid is ready to do her _modest_
service. Sophocles puts into the mouth of Oedipus, at the moment of his
departure into blind and desolate exile, tender injunctions regarding
the care of his young daughters:

    But my poor maidens, hapless and forlorn,
    Who never had a meal apart from mine,
    But ever shared my table, yea, for them
    Take heedful care; and grant me, though but once,
    Yea, I beseech thee, with these hands to feel,
    Thou noble heart! the forms I love so well,
    And weep with them our common misery.
    Oh, if my arms were round them, I might seem
    To have them as of old when I could see.[52]

Shakespeare, too, knew well how to kindle the soft radiance which,
fading again, makes the ensuing darkness darker still. Ophelia, the
sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the
famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the greatest
scene in _Gorboduc_ is precisely that scene where pathos softens by a
momentary dimness of vision our horror at a mother's crime.

_The Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1587), by Thomas Hughes, though twenty-five
years later, may be placed next to _Gorboduc_ in our discussion of the
rise of tragedy. It will serve as an illustration of the kind of tragedy
that was being evolved from Senecan models by plodding uninspired
Englishmen before Marlowe flung his flaming torch amongst them. To
understand the story a slight introduction is necessary. Igerna, the
wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, was loved by King Uther, who foully
slew her husband and so won her for himself. As a result of this union
were born Arthur and Anne, who, in their youth, perpetuated the
inherited taint of sin by becoming the parents of a boy, Mordred.
Afterwards Arthur married Guenevera, and some years later went to France
on a long campaign of conquest. In his absence Mordred gained the love
of Guenevera. The play begins with the contemplated return of Arthur,
glorious from victory, the object being to concentrate attention upon
the swift fall from glory and power to ruin and death. Guenevera, having
learnt to hate her husband, debates in her mind his death or hers,
finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her interview with Mordred
ends in his resolving to resist Arthur's landing. Unsuccessful in this
attempt, and defeated in battle, he spurns all thought of submission,
challenging his father to a second conflict, in Cornwall. Arthur,
feeling that his sins have found him out, would gladly make peace; but,
stung by Mordred's defiance, he follows him into Cornwall. There both
armies are destroyed and Mordred is slain, though in his death he
mortally wounds his father. After the battle his body is brought before
Arthur, in whom the sight awakens yet more fiercely the pangs of
remorse. The play closes immediately before Arthur's own mysterious
departure.

Here is all the material for a great tragedy. The point for beginning
the story is well chosen, though in obvious imitation of _Agamemnon_.
Attention is concentrated on the catastrophe, no alien element being
admitted to detract from the melancholy effect. It is sought to
intensify the gloom by recourse to Seneca's stage Ghost; thus, the
departed spirit of the wronged Gorlois opens the play with horrid
imprecations of evil upon the house of Uther, and, at the close, exults
in the fullness of his revenge. From his mouth, as well as from the lips
of Arthur, and again from the Chorus (which closes the acts, as in
_Gorboduc_) we learn the great purpose beneath this overwhelming ruin of
a king and kingdom--to show that the day and the hour do come, however
long deferred, when

    Wrong hath his wreak, and guilt his guerdon bears.

As before, all action is rigorously excluded from the stage, to be
reported, at great length and with tremendous striving after vividness
and effect, by one who was present. Dumb Shows before each act continue
the attempt to balance matters spectacularly. Clearly the only hope of
dramatic advance for disciples of the Senecan school lay in improved
dialogue. This was possible in four directions, namely, in more stirring
topics, in more personal feeling, in shorter speeches, and in a change
in the style of language and verse. Unfortunately for Thomas Hughes, it
is just here that he fails, and fails lamentably. What is more, he fails
because of his methods. The dominant desire of the English 'classical'
school was to be impressive. Hence the adoption by Hughes of a ghostly
introduction and conclusion. His conversations, therefore, must reflect
the same idea. He saw, indeed, that long speeches, except at rare
intervals, were tedious, and reduced his to reasonable proportions, even
making extensive use--as, we shall see, the author of _Damon and
Pythias_ did before him--of the Greek device of stichomythia. He was
most anxious, also, to provide stirring topics for his characters to

MONTENEGRO.

A Columbian. One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the pirate schooner _Panda_.
Hanged at Boston in 1835.


DE MONT, FRANCIS.

Captured in South Carolina in 1717. Tried at Charleston, and convicted of
taking the _Turtle Dove_ and other vessels in the previous July. Hanged in
June, 1717.


MOODY, CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER.

A notorious pirate. Very active off the coast of Carolina, 1717, with two
ships under his command. In 1722 was with Roberts on board the _Royal
Fortune_, being one of his chief men or "Lords." Taken prisoner, and tried
at Cape Coast Castle, and hanged in chains at the age of 28.


MOORE. Gunner.

A gunner aboard Captain Kidd's ship the _Adventure_. When Kidd's mutinous
crew were all for attacking a Dutch ship, Kidd refused to allow them to,
and Moore threatened the captain, who seized a bucket and struck Moore on
the head with it, the blow killing him. Kidd was perfectly justified in
killing this mutinous sailor, but eventually it was for this act that he
was hanged in London.


MORGAN, CAPTAIN.

This pirate must not be confused with the buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan.
Little is known about him except that he was with Hamlin, the French
pirate, in 1683, off the coast of West Africa, and helped to take several
Danish and English ships. Soon the pirates quarrelled over the division of
their plunder and separated into two companies, the English following
Captain Morgan in one of the prizes.


MORGAN, COLONEL BLODRE, or BLEDRY.

This buccaneer was probably a relation of Sir Henry Morgan. He was an
important person in Jamaica between 1660 and 1670. At the taking of Panama
by Henry Morgan in 1670 the Colonel commanded the rearguard of 300 men. In
May, 1671, he was appointed to act as Deputy Governor of Providence Island
by Sir James Modyford.


MORGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL EDWARD. Buccaneer.

Uncle and father-in-law of Sir Henry Morgan.

In 1665, when war had been declared on Holland, the Governor of Jamaica
issued commissions to several pirates and buccaneers to sail to and attack
the Dutch islands of St. Eustatius, Saba, and Curacao. Morgan was put in
command of ten ships and some 500 men; most of them were "reformed
prisoners," while some were condemned pirates who had been pardoned in
order to let them join the expedition.

Before leaving Jamaica the crews mutinied, but were pacified by the
promise of an equal share of all the spoils that should be taken. Three
ships out of the fleet slipped away on the voyage, but the rest arrived at
St. Kitts, landed, and took the fort. Colonel Morgan, who was an old and
corpulent man, died of the heat and exertion during the campaign.


MORGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL THOMAS.

Sailed with Colonel Edward Morgan to attack St. Eustatius and Saba
Islands, and after these were surrendered by the Dutch, Thomas Morgan was
left in charge.

In 1686 he sailed in command of a company of buccaneers to assist Governor
Wells, of St. Kitts, against the French. The defence of the island was
disgraceful, and Morgan's company was the only one which displayed any
courage or discipline, and most of them were killed or wounded, Colonel
Morgan himself being shot in both legs.

Often these buccaneer leaders altered their titles from colonel to
captain, to suit the particular enterprise on which they were engaged,
according if it took place on sea or land.


MORGAN, SIR HENRY. Buccaneer.

This, the greatest of all the "brethren of the coast," was a Welshman,
born at Llanrhymmy in Monmouthshire in the year 1635. The son of a
well-to-do farmer, Robert Morgan, he early took to the seafaring life.
When quite a young man Morgan went to Barbadoes, but afterwards he
settled at Jamaica, which was his home for the rest of his life.

Morgan may have been induced to go to the West Indies by his uncle,
Colonel Morgan, who was for a time Deputy Governor of Jamaica, a post Sir
Henry Morgan afterwards held.

Morgan was a man of great energy, and must have possessed great power of
winning his own way with people. That he could be absolutely unscrupulous
when it suited his ends there can be little doubt. He was cruel at times,
but was not the inhuman monster that he is made out to be by Esquemeling
in his "History of the Bucaniers." This was largely proved by the evidence
given in the suit for libel brought and won by Morgan against the
publishers, although Morgan was, if possible, more indignant over the
statement in the same book that he had been kidnapped in Wales and sold,
as a boy, and sent to be a slave in Barbadoes. That he could descend to
rank dishonesty was shown when, returning from his extraordinary and
successful assault on the city of Panama in 1670, to Chagres, he left most
of his faithful followers behind, without ships or food, while he slipped
off in the night with most of the booty to Jamaica. No doubt, young Morgan
came to Jamaica with good credentials from his uncle, the Colonel, for the
latter was held in high esteem by Modyford, then Governor of Barbadoes,
who describes Colonel Morgan as "that honest privateer."

Colonel Morgan did not live to see his nephew reach the pinnacle of his
success, for in the year 1665 he was sent at the head of an expedition to
attack the Dutch stronghold at St. Eustatius Island, but he was too old to
stand the hardships of such an expedition and died shortly afterwards.

By this time Morgan had made his name as a successful and resolute
buccaneer by returning to Port Royal from a raiding expedition in Central
America with a huge booty.

In 1665 Morgan, with two other buccaneers, Jackman and Morris, plundered
the province of Campeachy, and then, acting as Vice-Admiral to the most
famous buccaneer of the day, Captain Mansfield, plundered Cuba, captured
Providence Island, sacked Granada, burnt and plundered the coast of Costa
Rica, bringing back another booty of almost fabulous wealth to Jamaica. In
this year Morgan married a daughter of his uncle, Colonel Morgan.

In 1668, when 33 years of age, Morgan was commissioned by the Jamaican
Government to collect together the privateers, and by 1669 he was in
command of a big fleet, when he was almost killed by a great explosion in
the _Oxford_, which happened while Morgan was giving a banquet to his
captains. About this time Morgan calmly took a fine ship, the _Cour
Volant_, from a French pirate, and made her his own flagship, christening
her the _Satisfaction_.

In 1670 the greatest event of Morgan's life took place--the sacking of
Panama. First landing a party which took the Castle of San Lorenzo at the
mouth of the Chagres River, Morgan left a strong garrison there to cover
his retreat and pushed on with 1,400 men in a fleet of canoes up the river
on January 9th, 1671. The journey across the isthmus, through the tropical
jungle, was very hard on the men, particularly as they had depended on
finding provisions to supply their wants on the way, and carried no food
with them. They practically starved until the sixth day, when they found a
barn full of maize, which the fleeing Spaniards had neglected to destroy.
On the evening of the ninth day a scout reported he had seen the steeple
of a church in Panama. Morgan, with that touch of genius which so often
brought him success, attacked the city from a direction the Spaniards had
not thought possible, so that their guns were all placed where they were
useless, and they were compelled to do just what the buccaneer leader
wanted them to do--namely, to come out of their fortifications and fight
him in the open. The battle raged fiercely for two hours between the brave
Spanish defenders and the equally brave but almost exhausted buccaneers.
When at last the Spaniards turned and ran, the buccaneers were too tired
to immediately follow up their success, but after resting they advanced,
and at the end of three hours' street fighting the city was theirs. The
first thing Morgan now did was to assemble all his men and strictly forbid
them to drink any wine, telling them that he had secret information that
the wine had been poisoned by the Spaniards before they left the city.
This was, of course, a scheme of Morgan's to stop his men from becoming
drunk, when they would be at the mercy of the enemy, as had happened in
many a previous buccaneer assault.

Morgan now set about plundering the city, a large part of which was burnt
to the ground, though whether this was done by his orders or by the
Spanish Governor has never been decided. After three weeks the buccaneers
started back on their journey to San Lorenzo, with a troop of 200
pack-mules laden with gold, silver, and goods of all sorts, together with
a large number of prisoners. The rearguard on the march was under the
command of a kinsman of the Admiral, Colonel Bledry Morgan.

On their arrival at Chagres the spoils were divided, amidst a great deal
of quarrelling, and in March, 1671, Morgan sailed off to Port Royal with a
few friends and the greater part of the plunder, leaving his faithful
followers behind without ships or provisions, and with but £10 apiece as
their share of the spoils.

On May 31st, 1671, the Council of Jamaica passed a vote of thanks to
Morgan for his successful expedition, and this in spite of the fact that
in July, a year before, a treaty had been concluded at Madrid between
Spain and England for "restraining depredations and establishing peace" in
the New World.

In April, 1672, Morgan was carried to England as a prisoner in the
_Welcome_ frigate. But he was too popular to be convicted, and after being
acquitted was appointed Deputy Governor of Jamaica, and in November, 1674,
he was knighted and returned to the West Indies. In 1672 Major-General
Banister, who was Commander-in-Chief of the troops in Jamaica, writing to
Lord Arlington about Morgan, said: "He (Morgan) is a well deserving
person, and one of great courage and conduct, who may, with His Majesty's
pleasure, perform good public service at home, or be very advantageous to
this island if war should again break forth with the Spaniards."

While Morgan was in England he brought an action for libel against William
Crooke, the publisher of the "History of the Bucaniers of America." The
result of this trial was that Crooke paid £200 damages to Morgan and
published a long and grovelling apology.

Morgan was essentially a man of action, and a regular life on shore proved
irksome to him, for we learn from a report sent home by Lord Vaughan in
1674 that Morgan "frequented the taverns of Port Royal, drinking and
gambling in unseemly fashion," but nevertheless the Jamaican Assembly had
voted the Lieutenant-Governor a sum of £600 special salary. In 1676
Vaughan brought definite charges against Morgan and another member of the
Council, Robert Byndloss, of giving aid to certain Jamaica pirates.

Morgan made a spirited defence and, no doubt largely owing to his
popularity, got off, and in 1678 was granted a commission to be a captain
of a company of 100 men.

The Governor to succeed Vaughan was Lord Carlisle, who seems to have liked
Morgan, in spite of his jovial "goings on" with his old buccaneer friends
in the taverns of Port Royal, and in some of his letters speaks of
Morgan's "generous manner," and hints that whatever allowances are made to
him "he will be a beggar."

In 1681 Sir Thomas Lynch was appointed to be Governor, and trouble at once
began between him and his deputy. Amongst the charges the former brought
against Morgan was one of his having been overheard to say, "God damn the
Assembly!" for which he was suspended from that body.

In April, 1688, the King, at the urgent request of the Duke of Albemarle,
ordered Morgan to be reinstated in the Assembly, but Morgan did not live
long to enjoy his restored honours, for he died on August 25th, 1688.

An extract from the journal of Captain Lawrence Wright, commander of
H.M.S. _Assistance_, dated August, 1688, describes the ceremonies held at
Port Royal at the burial of Morgan, and shows how important and popular a
man he was thought to be. It runs:

"Saturday 25. This day about eleven hours noone Sir Henry Morgan died, &
the 26th was brought over from Passage-fort to the King's house at Port
Royall, from thence to the Church, & after a sermon was carried to the
Pallisadoes & there buried. All the forts fired an equal number of guns,
wee fired two & twenty & after wee & the Drake had fired, all the merchant
men fired."

Morgan was buried in Jamaica, and his will, which was filed in the Record
Office at Spanish Town, makes provision for his wife and near relations.


MORRICE, HUMPHREY.

Of New Providence, Bahama Islands.

Hanged at New Providence in 1718 by his lately reformed fellow-pirates,
and on the gallows taxed them with "pusillanimity and cowardice" because
they did not rescue him and his fellow-sufferers.


MORRIS, CAPTAIN JOHN.

Of Jamaica.

A privateer until 1665, he afterwards became a buccaneer with Mansfield.
Took part in successful raids in Central America, plundering Vildemo in
the Bay of Campeachy; he also sacked Truxillo, and then, after a journey
by canoe up the San Juan River to take Nicaragua, surprised and plundered
the city of Granada in March, 1666.


MORRIS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.

One of the pirates of New Providence, Bahamas, who, on pardon being
offered by King George in 1717, escaped, and for a while carried on piracy
in the West Indian Islands. Caught and hanged a few years afterwards.


MORRIS, JOHN.

One of Captain Bartholomew Roberts's crew. When the _Royal Fortune_
surrendered to H.M.S. _Swallow_, Morris fired his pistol into the
gunpowder in the steerage and caused an explosion that killed or maimed
many of the pirates.


MORRISON, CAPTAIN.

A Scotch pirate, who lived on Prince Edward Island.

For an account of his career, see Captain NELSON.


MORRISON, WILLIAM.

Of Jamaica.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, South
Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water
mark.


MORTON, PHILIP.

Gunner on board "Blackbeard's" ship, the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Killed on
November 22nd, 1718, in North Carolina, during the fight with Lieutenant
Maynard.


MULLET, JAMES, _alias_ MILLET.

Of London.

One of the crew of the _Royal James_, in which vessel Major Stede Bonnet
played havoc with the shipping along the coasts of South Carolina and New
England. Hanged at Charleston in 1718.


MULLINS, DARBY.

This Irish pirate was born in the north of Ireland, not many miles from
Londonderry. Being left an orphan at the age of 18, he was sold to a
planter in the West Indies for a term of four years.

After the great earthquake at Jamaica in 1691, Mullins built himself a
house at Kingston and ran it as a punch-house--often a very profitable
business when the buccaneers returned to Port Royal with good plunder.
This business failing, he went to New York, where he met Captain Kidd, and
was, according to his own story, persuaded to engage in piracy, it being
urged that the robbing only of infidels, the enemies of Christianity, was
an act, not only lawful, but one highly meritorious.

At his trial later on in London his judges did not agree with this view of
the rights of property, and Mullins was hanged at Execution Dock on May
23rd, 1701.


MUMPER, THOMAS.

An Indian of Mather's Vineyard, New England.

Tried for piracy with Captain Charles Harris and his men, but found to be
"not guilty."


MUNDON, STEPHEN.

Of London.

Hanged for piracy at Newport, Rhode Island, on July 19th, 1723, at the age
of 20.


MUSTAPHA. Turkish pirate.

In 1558 he sailed, with a fleet of 140 vessels, to the Island of Minorca.
Landed, and besieged the fortified town of Ciudadda, which at length
surrendered. The Turks slew great numbers of the inhabitants, taking the
rest away as slaves.


NAU, CAPTAIN JEAN DAVID, _alias_ FRANCIS L'OLLONAIS.

A Frenchman born at Les Sables d'Ollone.

In his youth he was transported as an indented labourer to the French
Island of Dominica in the West Indies. Having served his time L'Ollonais
went to the Island of Hispaniola, and joined the buccaneers there, living
by hunting wild cattle and drying the flesh or boucan.

He then sailed for a few voyages as a sailor before the mast, and acted
with such ability and courage that the Governor of Tortuga Island,
Monsieur de la Place, gave him the command of a vessel and sent him out
to seek his fortune.

At first the young buccaneer was very successful, and he took many Spanish
ships, but owing to his ferocious treatment of his prisoners he soon won a
name for cruelty which has never been surpassed. But at the height of this
success his ship was wrecked in a storm, and, although most of the pirates
got ashore, they were at once attacked by a party of Spaniards, and all
but L'Ollonais were killed. The captain escaped, after being wounded, by
smearing blood and sand over his face and hiding himself amongst his dead
companions. Disguised as a Spaniard he entered the city of Campeachy,
where bonfires and other manifestations of public relief were being held,
to express the joy of the citizens at the news of the death of their
terror, L'Ollonais.

Meeting with some French slaves, the fugitive planned with them to escape
in the night in a canoe, this being successfully carried out, they
eventually arrived back at Tortuga, the pirate stronghold. Here the
enterprising captain stole a small vessel, and again started off "on the
account," plundering a village called De los Cagos in Cuba. The Governor
of Havana receiving word of the notorious and apparently resurrected
pirate's arrival sent a well-armed ship to take him, adding to the ship's
company a negro executioner, with orders to hang all the pirate crew with
the exception of L'Ollonais, who was to be brought back to Havana alive
and in chains.

Instead of the Spaniards taking the Frenchman, the opposite happened, and
everyone of them was murdered, including the negro hangman, with the
exception of one man, who was sent with a written message to the Governor
to tell him that in future L'Ollonais would kill every Spaniard he met
with.

Joining with a famous filibuster, Michael de Basco, L'Ollonais soon
organized a more important expedition, consisting of a fleet of eight
vessels and 400 men. Sailing to the Gulf of Venezuela in 1667, they
entered the lake, destroying the fort that stood to guard the entrance.
Thence sailing to the city of Maracaibo they found all the inhabitants had
fled in terror. The filibusters caught many of the inhabitants hiding in
the neighbouring woods, and killed numbers of them in their attempts to
force from the rest the hiding-places of their treasure. They next marched
upon and attacked the town of Gibraltar, which was valiantly defended by
the Spaniards, until the evening, when, having lost 500 men killed, they
surrendered. For four weeks this town was pillaged, the inhabitants
murdered, while torture and rape were daily occurrences. At last, to the
relief of the wretched inhabitants, the buccaneers, with a huge booty,
sailed away to Corso Island, a place of rendezvous of the French
buccaneers. Here they divided their spoil, which totalled the great sum of
260,000 pieces of eight, which, when divided amongst them, gave each man
above one hundred pieces of eight, as well as his share of plate, silk,
and jewels.

Also, a share was allotted for the next-of-kin of each man killed, and
extra rewards for those pirates who had lost a limb or an eye. L'Ollonais
had now become most famous amongst the "Brethren of the Coast," and began
to make arrangements for an even more daring expedition to attack and
plunder the coast of Nicaragua. Here he burnt and pillaged ruthlessly,
committing the most revolting cruelties on the Spanish inhabitants. One
example of this monster's inhuman deeds will more than suffice to tell of.
It happened that during an attack on the town of San Pedros the buccaneers
had been caught in an ambuscade and many of them killed, although the
Spaniards had at last turned and fled. The pirates killed most of their
prisoners, but kept a few to be questioned by L'Ollonais so as to find
some other way to the town. As he could get no information out of these
men, the Frenchman drew his cutlass and with it cut open the breast of one
of the Spaniards, and pulling out his still beating heart he began to bite
and gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous wolf, saying to the other
prisoners, "I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way."

Shortly after this, many of the buccaneers broke away from L'Ollonais and
sailed under the command of Moses van Vin, the second in command.
L'Ollonais, in his big ship, sailed to the coast of Honduras, but ran his
vessel on a sand-bank and lost her. While building a new but small craft
on one of the Las Pertas Islands, they cultivated beans and other
vegetables, and also wheat, for which they baked bread in portable ovens
which these French buccaneers carried about with them. It took them six
months to build their long-boat, and when it was finished it would not
carry more than half the number of buccaneers. Lots were drawn to settle
who should sail and who remain behind. L'Ollonais steered the boat towards
Cartagena, but was caught by the Indians, as described by Esquemeling.
"Here suddenly his ill-fortune assailed him, which of a long time had been
reserved for him as a punishment due to the multitude of horrible crimes,
which in his licentious and wicked life he had committed. For God
Almighty, the time of His divine justice being now already come, had
appointed the Indians of Darien to be the instruments and executioners
thereof."

These "instruments of God," having caught L'Ollonais, tore him in pieces
alive, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the
air, to the intent "no trace nor memory might remain of such an infamous
inhuman creature."

Thus died a monster of cruelty, who would, had he lived to-day, have been
confined in an asylum for lunatics.


NEAL.

A fisherman of Cork.

Mutinied in a French ship sailing from Cork to Nantes in 1721, and, under
the leadership of Philip Roche, murdered the captain and many of the crew
and became a pirate.


NEFF, WILLIAM.

Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1667.

A soldier, one of the guard at Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Deserted in
1689 and went to sea with the pirate Captain Pound.


NELSON, CAPTAIN.

Born on Prince Edward Island, where his father had a grant of land for
services rendered in the American war. He was a wealthy man, a member of
the Council and a Colonel of the Militia. In order to set his son up in
life he bought him a captaincy in the Militia and a fine farm, where young
Nelson married and settled down. Buying a schooner, he used to sail to
Halifax with cargoes of potatoes and fruit. He seems to have liked these
trips in which he combined business with pleasure, for we learn that on
these visits to Halifax he "was very wild, and drank and intrigued with
the girls in an extravagant manner." Getting into disgrace on Prince
Edward Island, and losing his commission, he went to live near Halifax,
and became a lieutenant in the Nova Scotia Fencibles, while his wife
remained on the island to look after his estates, which brought him in
£300 a year. Meeting with a Scotchman called Morrison, together they
bought a "pretty little New York battleship," mounting ten guns. Manning
this dangerous toy with a crew of ninety desperate characters, the
partners went "on the account," and began well by taking a brig belonging
to Mr. Hill, of Rotherhithe, which they took to New York, and there sold
both ship and cargo.

They next cruised in the West Indies, taking several English and Dutch
ships, the crews of which they treated with the greatest brutality.

Landing on St. Kitts Island, they burnt and plundered two Dutch
plantations, murdering the owners and slaves. Sailing north to
Newfoundland they took ten more vessels, which they sold in New York.
After further successful voyages in the West Indies and off the coast of
Brazil, Nelson felt the call of home ties becoming so strong that he
ventured to return to Prince Edward Island to visit his wife and family,
where no one dared to molest him.

By this time Nelson had been a pirate for three years and had, by his
industry, won for himself a fortune worth £150,000, but his Scotch
partner, Morrison, being a frugal soul, had in the meantime saved an even
larger sum. Eventually their ship was wrecked in a fog on a small barren
island near Prince Edward Island, and Morrison and most of the crew were
drowned, but Nelson and a few others were saved. At last he reached New
York, where he lived the rest of his life in peaceful happiness with his
wife and family.


NICHOLLS, THOMAS, _alias_ NICHOLAS.

Of London.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy at
Charleston on November 8th, 1718, and found "not guilty."


NONDRE, PEDRO.

Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in February, 1823. At the time of execution
it was observed that he was covered with the marks of deep wounds. On the
scaffold he wept bitterly. An immensely heavy man, he broke the rope, and
had to be hanged a second time.


NORMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

Served under Morgan in 1670, and after the fall of Chagres Fort, Norman
was left in charge with 500 men to hold it, while Morgan crossed the
isthmus to attack Panama. Norman soon "sent forth to sea two boats to
exercise piracy." These hoisted Spanish colours and met a big Spanish
merchant ship on the same day. They chased the ship, which fled for safety
into the Chagres River, only to be caught there by Norman. She proved a
valuable prize, being loaded with all kinds of provisions, of which the
garrison was in sore need.


NORTH, CAPTAIN NATHANIEL.

Born in Bermuda, and by profession a lawyer, Captain North was a man of
remarkable ability, and in his later calling of piracy he gained great
notoriety, and was a born leader of men. His history has been written
fully, and is well worth reading. He had many ups and downs in his early
seafaring life in the West Indies; being no less than three times taken by
the pressgang, each time escaping. He served in Dutch and Spanish
privateers, and eventually rose to being a pirate captain, making his
headquarters in Madagascar. From here he sailed out to the East Indies,
and preyed on the ships of the East India Company. Several times he was
wrecked, once he was the only survivor, and swam ashore at Madagascar
stark naked. The unusual sight of a naked Englishman spread terror amongst
the natives who were on the beach, and they all fled into the jungle
except one, a woman, who from previous personal experience knew that this
was but a human being and not a sea devil. She supplied him with clothes,
of a sort, and led him to the nearest pirate settlement, some six miles
away. On another occasion when the pirates were having a jollification
ashore, having left their Moorish prisoners on the ship at anchor, North
gave the prisoners a hint to clear off in the night with the ship,
otherwise they would all be made slaves. This friendly hint was acted
upon, and in the morning both ship and prisoners had vanished. The pirates
having lost their ship took to the peaceful and harmless life of planters,
with North as their ruler. He won the confidence of the natives, who
abided by his decision in all quarrels and misunderstandings. Occasionally
North and his men would join forces with a neighbouring friendly tribe and
go to war, North leading the combined army, and victory always resulted.
The call of piracy was too strong in his bones to resist, and after three
years planting he was back to sea and the Jolly Roger once more. On one
occasion he seized the opportunity, when in the neighbourhood of the
Mascarenhas Islands, to go ashore and visit the Catholic priest and
confess, and at the same time made suitable arrangements for his children
to be educated by the Church. North evidently truly repented his former
sins, for he returned to resume his simple life on his plantation. On
arriving home he found the settlement in an uproar. He soon settled all
the disputes, appeased the natives, and before long had this garden-city
of pirates back in its previous peaceful and happy state. Beyond an
occasional little voyage, taking a ship or two, or burning an Arab
village, North's career as a pirate may be considered to have terminated,
as, indeed, his life was shortly afterwards, being murdered in his bed by
a treacherous native. North's friends the pirates, shocked at this
cold-blooded murder, waged a ruthless war on the natives for seven years:
thus in their simple way thinking to revenge the loss of this estimable
man, who had always been the natives' best friend.


NORTON, GEORGE.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy in June, 1704, at the
Star Tavern at Boston.


NUTT, JOHN.

One of Captain John Phillip's original crew of five pirates in the
_Revenge_ in 1723. Nutt was made master or navigator.


OCHALI. Barbary renegade.

In 1511 he sailed from Algiers with a fleet of twenty-two vessels and
1,700 men to raid Majorca. The Moors landed at Soller and pillaged it.
Before they could get back to their ship, the pirates were attacked by the
Majorcans, headed by Miguel Angelats, and completely routed, 500 of them
being killed.


ODELL, SAMUEL.

Taken prisoner by the pirate Captain Teach on November 21st, 1718, and on
the very next day retaken by Lieutenant Maynard. Odell received no less
than seventy wounds in the fight, but recovered, and was carried to
Virginia to stand his trial for piracy, and was acquitted.


OUGHTERLAUNEY, THOMAS.

Acted as pilot in the _Royal Fortune_. Took an active part in taking and
plundering the _King Solomon_ on the West Coast of Africa in 1721.

Was tried for piracy with the rest of Roberts's crew, when one witness,
Captain Trahern, deposed that the prisoner dressed himself up in the
captain's best suit of clothes, his new tye wig, and called loudly for a
bottle of wine, and then, very arrogantly, gave orders as to the steering
of the captured ship.

Hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722.


PAIN, CAPTAIN.

A Bahaman privateer who in 1683 turned pirate and attacked St. Augustine
in Florida under French colours. Being driven off by the Spaniards, he had
to content himself with looting some neighbouring settlements. On
returning to New Providence, the Governor attempted, but without success,
to arrest Pain and his crew. Pain afterwards appeared in Rhode Island, and
when the authorities tried to seize him and his ship, he got off by
exhibiting an old commission to hunt for pirates given him a long while
before by Sir Thomas Lynch. When the West Indies became too hot for him,
Pain made the coast of Carolina his headquarters.


PAINE, CAPTAIN PETER, _alias_ LE PAIN. A French buccaneer.

He brought into Port Royal in 1684 a merchant ship, _La Trompeuse_.
Pretending to be the owner, he sold both ship and cargo, which brought
about great trouble afterwards between the French and English Governments,
because he had stolen the ship on the high seas. He was sent from Jamaica
under arrest to France the same year, to answer for his crimes.


PAINTER, PETER.

This Carolina pirate retired and lived at Charleston. In August, 1710, he
was recommended for the position of public powder-receiver, but was
rejected by the Upper House. "Mr. Painter Having committed Piracy, and
not having his Majesties Pardon for the same, Its resolved he is not fit
for that Trust." Which only goes to show how hard it was for a man to live
down a thing like piracy.


PARDAL, CAPTAIN MANUEL RIVERO.

Known to the Jamaicans as "the vapouring admiral of St. Jago," because in
July, 1670, he had nailed a piece of canvas to a tree on the Jamaican
coast with this curious challenge written both in English and Spanish:

"I, Captain Manuel Rivero Pardal, to the chief of the squadron of
privateers in Jamaica. I am he who this year have done that which follows.
I went on shore at Caimanos, and burnt 20 houses and fought with Captain
Ary, and took from him a catch laden with provisions and a canoe. And I am
he who took Captain Baines and did carry the prize to Cartagena, and now
am arrived to this coast, and have burnt it. And I come to seek General
Morgan, with 2 ships of 20 guns, and having seen this, I crave he would
come out upon the coast and seek me, that he might see the valour of the
Spaniards. And because I had no time I did not come to the mouth of Port
Royal to speak by word of mouth in the name of my king, whom God preserve.
Dated the 5th of July, 1670."


PARKER, CAPTAIN WILLIAM. Buccaneer.

Just after the city of Porto Bello had been made, as the Spanish thought,
impregnable, by the building of the massive stone fort of San Jerome, the
daring Parker, with but 200 English desperadoes, took the place by storm,
burning part of the town and getting quickly and safely away with a huge
amount of booty.


PARKINS, BENJAMIN.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew in the brigantine _Charles_. Tried at
Boston for piracy in 1704.


PARROT, JAMES.

One of Quelch's crew, who turned King's evidence at the trial at Boston in
1704, and thus escaped hanging.


PATTERSON, NEAL.

Of Aberdeen.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Hanged at
Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the
marsh.


PATTISON, JAMES.

Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.


PEASE, CAPTAIN.

A low down, latter-day South Sea pirate. Arrived in an armed ship with a
Malay crew at Apia in Samoa in June, 1870, and rescued the pirate Bully
Hayes, who was under arrest of the English Consul. He pleased the British
inhabitants of the island by his display of loyalty to Queen Victoria by
firing a salute of twenty-one guns on her Majesty's birthday.


PELL, IGNATIUS.

Boatswain of the _Royal James_, Major Stede Bonnet's ship. Turned King's
evidence at trial of Bonnet and his crew at Charleston, Carolina, in 1718.


PENNER, MAJOR.

We have been able to find out nothing of this pirate except that he was at
New Providence Island in 1718 and took the King's pardon for pirates. He
seems to have returned to the old life and was killed soon after, though
how this came about is not recorded.


PERKINS, BENJAMIN.

One of Quelch's crew. Captured at Marblehead in 1704.


PERRY, DANIEL.

Of Guernsey.

Tried for piracy in 1718 at Charleston, South Carolina, and found guilty.
Hanged on November 8th at White Point. Buried in the marsh below low-water
mark.


PETERSON, CAPTAIN.

Of Newport, Rhode Island.

In 1688 he arrived at Newport in a "barkalonga" armed with ten guns and
seventy men. The Governor prosecuted him for piracy, but the grand jury,
which consisted of friends and neighbours of Peterson, threw out the bill.
Among other charges, Peterson was accused of selling some hides and
elephants' teeth to a Boston merchant for £57, being part of the booty he
had previously taken out of prizes in the West Indies.


PETERSON, ERASMUS.

Tried for piracy with the rest of Captain Quelch's crew at Boston. Was
hanged there on June 30th, 1704. When standing on the gallows "He cryed of
injustice done him and said, 'It is very hard for so many lives to be
taken away for a little Gold.' He said his peace was made with God, yet he
found it extremely hard to forgive those who had wronged him. He told the
Executioner 'he was a strong man and Prayed to be put out of his misery
as soon as possible.'"


PETERSON, JOHN.

A Swedish pirate, one of Gow's crew. He was hanged at Wapping in June,
1725.


PETIT, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.

Of San Domingo.

In 1634 was in command of _Le Ruze_, crew of forty men and four guns.


PETTY, WILLIAM.

Born at Deptford.

A sailmaker in Captain Roberts's _Royal Fortune_ when the _King Solomon_
was taken and plundered in West Africa. Petty, as sailmaker, had to see
that all the sails and canvas aboard the prizes were removed to the pirate
ship. Hanged at the age of 30.


PHELIPP, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.

In 1533 a Portuguese merchant, Peter Alves, engaged Phelipp to pilot his
ship, the _Santa Maria Desaie_, from Tenby to Bastabill Haven. Off the
Welsh coast the ship was attacked by a pirate vessel called the
_Furtuskewys_, with a crew of thirty-five pirates. Alves was put ashore on
the Welsh coast, and the two ships then sailed to Cork, where the ship and
her cargo were sold to the mayor for 1,524 crowns.

Alves complained to the King of England, and orders were sent to the Mayor
of Cork, Richard Gowllys, to give up the ship, which he refused to do, but
by way of excusing his actions he explained that he thought the ship was a
Scotch one and not a Portuguese.


PHILLIPS, CAPTAIN.

In 1723 this noted pirate took a sloop, the _Dolphin_, of Cape Ann, on the
Banks of Newfoundland. The crew of the _Dolphin_ were compelled by
Phillips to join the pirates. Amongst the prisoners was a fisherman, John
Fillmore. Finding no opportunity to escape, Fillmore with another sailor,
Edward Cheesman, and an Indian, suddenly seized and killed Phillips and
the two other chief pirates. The rest of the crew agreeing, the ship was
taken to Boston.


PHILIPS, JAMES.

Of the Island of Antigua.

Formerly of the _Revenge_, and afterwards in the _Royal Fortune_ (Captain
Roberts). When the _Royal Fortune_ surrendered in 1722 to H.M.S.
_Swallow_, Philips seized a lighted match and attempted to blow up the
ship, swearing he would "send them all to Hell together," but was
prevented by the master, Glasby. Hanged at the age of 35.


PHILLIPS, JOHN.

A carpenter by trade, he sailed from the West Country for Newfoundland in
a ship that was captured by the pirate Anstis in the _Good Fortune_.
Phillips soon became reconciled to the life of a pirate, and, being a
brisk fellow, he was appointed carpenter to the ship. Returning to England
he soon found it necessary to quit the country again, and he shipped
himself on board a vessel at Topsham for Newfoundland. On arriving at
Peter Harbour he ran away, and hired himself as a splitter to the
Newfoundland cod fishery.

On the night of August 29th, 1723, with four others, he stole a vessel in
the harbour and sailed away. Phillips was chosen captain. Articles were
now drawn up and were sworn to upon a hatchet, because no Bible could be
found on board. Amongst other laws was the punishment of "40 stripes
lacking one, known as Moses's law, to be afflicted for striking a
fellow-pirate." The last law of the nine casts a curious light on these
murderers; it runs: "If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that
Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer
present Death." The pirates, fortified by these laws, met with instant
success, taking several fishing vessels, from which they augmented their
small crew by the addition of several likely and brisk seamen. Amongst
these they had the good fortune to take prisoner an old pirate called John
Rose Archer, who had served his pirate apprenticeship under the able
tuition of the famous Blackbeard, and who they at once promoted to be
quartermaster. This quick promotion caused trouble afterwards, for some of
the original crew, particularly carpenter Fern, resented it. The pirates
next sailed to Barbadoes, that happy hunting ground, but for three months
never a sail did they meet with, so that they were almost starving for
want of provisions, being reduced to a pound of dried meat a day amongst
ten of them.

At last they met with a French vessel, a Martinico ship, of twelve guns,
and hunger drove them to attack even so big a ship as this, but the sight
of the Black flag so terrified the French crew that they surrendered
without firing a shot. After this, they took several vessels, and matters
began to look much brighter. Phillips quickly developed into a most
accomplished and bloody pirate, butchering his prisoners on very little or
on no provocation whatever. But even this desperate pirate had an
occasional "qualm of conscience come athwart his stomach," for when he
captured a Newfoundland vessel and was about to scuttle her, he found out
that she was the property of a Mr. Minors of that island, from whom they
stole the original vessel in which they went a-pirating, so Phillips,
telling his companions "We have done him enough injury already," ordered
the vessel to be repaired and returned to the owner. On another occasion,
they took a ship, the master of which was a "Saint" of New England, by
name Dependance Ellery, who gave them a pretty chase before being
overhauled, and so, as a punishment, the "Saint" was compelled to dance
the deck until he fell down exhausted.

This pirate's career ended with a mutiny of his unruly crew, Phillips
being tripped up and then thrown overboard to drown off Newfoundland in
April, 1724.

During the nine months of Phillips's command as a pirate captain, he
accounted for more than thirty ships.


PHILLIPS, JOSEPH.

One of Teach's crew. Hanged in Virginia in 1718.


PHILLIPS, WILLIAM.

Born at Lower Shadwell.

Boatswain in the _King Solomon_, a Guinea merchant ship. This ship, while
lying at anchor in January, 1721, was attacked by a boatful of pirates
from Bartholomew Roberts's ship, the _Royal Fortune_. The captain of the
_King Solomon_ fired a musket at the approaching boat, and called upon his
crew to do the same, but Phillips called for quarter and persuaded the
rest of the crew to lay down their arms and surrender the ship. Phillips
eagerly joined the pirates and signed the articles, and was "very forward
and brisk" in helping to rob his own ship of provisions and stores.

At his trial at Cape Coast Castle, he pleaded, as nearly all the prisoners
did, that he was compelled to sign the pirates' articles, which were
offered to him on a dish, on which lay a loaded pistol beside the copy of
the articles.

Found guilty and hanged in April, 1722, within the flood marks at Cape
Coast Castle, in his 29th year.


PHIPS, RICHARD.

An English soldier who deserted from Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine, in 1689.
Wounded by a bullet in the head at Tarpaulin Cove. Taken to Boston Prison,
where he died.


PICKERING, CAPTAIN CHARLES.

Commanded the _Cinque Ports_ galley, sixteen guns, crew of sixty-three
men, and accompanied Dampier on his voyage in 1703. Died off the coast of
Brazil in the same year.


PIERSE, GEORGE.

Tried for piracy along with the rest of the crew of the brigantine
_Charles_, at Boston, in 1704.


PITMAN, JOHN.

One of Captain Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.


POLEAS, PEDRO. Spanish pirate.

Co-commander with Captain Johnson of a pirate sloop, the _Two Brothers_.
In March, 1731, took a ship, the _John and Jane_ (Edward Burt, master),
south of Jamaica, on board of which was a passenger, John Cockburn, who
afterwards wrote a book relating his adventures on a journey on foot of
240 miles on the mainland of America.


PORTER, CAPTAIN.

A West Indian pirate, who commanded a sloop, and, in company with a
Captain Tuckerman in another sloop, came one day into Bennet's Key in
Hispaniola. The two captains were but beginners at piracy, and finding
the great Bartholomew Roberts in the bay, paid him a polite visit, hoping
to pick up a few wrinkles from the "master." This scene is described by
Captain Johnson, in his "Lives of the Pirates," when Porter and his friend
"addressed the Pyrate, as the Queen of Sheba did Solomon, to wit, That
having heard of his Fame and Achievements, they had put in there to learn
his Art and Wisdom in the Business of pyrating, being Vessels on the same
honourable Design with himself; and hoped with the Communication of his
Knowledge, they should also receive his Charity, being in want of
Necessaries for such Adventures. Roberts was won upon by the Peculiarity
and Bluntness of these two Men and gave them Powder, Arms, and what ever
else they had Occasion for, spent two or three merry Nights with them, and
at parting, said, he hoped the L---- would Prosper their handy Works."


POUND, CAPTAIN THOMAS.

On August 8th, 1689, this pirate, with five men and a boy, sailed out of
Boston Harbour as passengers in a small vessel. When off Lovell's Island,
five other armed men joined them. Pound now seized the craft and took
command, and declared his intention of going on a piratical cruise. The
first vessel they met with they decided to take. It was a fishing boat.
Pound ran his craft alongside, but at the last moment his heart failed
him, and he merely bought eight penn'o'th of mackerel from the surprised
fishermen.

He then sailed to Falmouth, Maine, where the corporal and soldiers of the
guard at the fort deserted in the night and sailed off with Pound and his
crew. Fortified by this addition to his crew, the pirate attacked a sloop,
the _Good Speed_, off Cape Cod, and a brigantine, the _Merrimack_, and
several other prizes. By this time, the Governor at Boston had heard of
Pound's escapades, and sent an armed sloop, the _Mary_, to search for him.
The pirate was discovered in Tarpaulin Cove, and a fierce and bloody fight
took place before the pirates struck their "Red flagg." The prisoners were
cast into Boston Gaol to await their trial. Pound had been wounded, being
shot in the arm and side. The trial took place on January 13th, 1690.
Pound was found guilty, but reprieved, and was sent to England, but was
later on liberated. Afterwards he got command of a ship. He died in
England in 1703.


POWELL, THOMAS.

Of Connecticut, New England.

One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, on
July 19th, 1723, at the age of 21.


POWER, JOHN.

Born in the West of England.

Served in a slave vessel, the _Polly_ (Captain Fox, commander), on a
voyage to the coast of West Africa. While the captain was on shore, the
crew ran away with the ship, turned pirates, called their vessel the
_Bravo_, and elected Power to be captain and sailed to the West Indies.
Arrived there, he tried to sell his cargo of slaves, but being suspected
of having stolen them, he thought it best to sail to New York. Here the
pirates got ashore, but the ship's surgeon informed the authorities, and
Power was arrested and sent to England, where he was tried, and hanged at
Execution Dock on March 10th, 1768.


PRICE, THOMAS.

Of Bristol.

Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. One of Major
Stede Bonnet's crew.


PRIMER, MATTHEW.

One of Captain Quelch's crew. Turned King's evidence at the trial for
piracy held at the Star Tavern, Boston, in June, 1704.


PRINCE, CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.

In 1760 this buccaneer sacked the city of Granada in company with Captains
Harris and Ludbury. Late in the same year, Prince, with the rank of
Lieut.-Colonel, led the vanguard in the attack on Panama.


PRO, CAPTAIN.

This Dutch South Sea pirate owned a small plantation in Madagascar, and
was joined there by the pirate Williams after he had escaped from slavery.
Both were taken prisoner by an English frigate. In a fight with the
natives, the pirate crew was defeated, but Pro and Williams managed to
escape and to reach some friendly natives. Procuring a boat, they sailed
away to join some other pirates at Methulage in Madagascar.


PROWSE, CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.

A Devon man, a noted sea captain, and a terror to the Spaniards. Was
imprisoned by King James I. at the instance of the King of Spain for
piracy and was to have been executed, but English public feeling ran so
high that Prowse was discharged.


PULLING, CAPTAIN JOHN.

Commanded the _Fame_, which set out in 1703 in company with Dampier in the
_St. George_ on a plundering expedition to the South Seas. Their
commissions were to attack only Spanish and French ships. The two
captains quarrelled at the very beginning of the voyage, while lying off
the Downs, and Pulling slipped away by himself to go a-pirating amongst
the Canary Islands.


PURSSER, CAPTAIN.

In the sixteenth century this pirate became notorious for his piracies off
the coast of Wales, and with Calles and Clinton, two other pirates, "grew
famous, till Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged them at Wapping."


QUELCH, CAPTAIN JOHN.

A native of Massachusetts Colony.

In 1703 was one of the crew of the brigantine _Charles_, eighty tons,
owned by some leading citizens of Boston, and fitted out to go
privateering off the coasts of Arcadia and Newfoundland. On leaving
Marblehead the crew mutinied, locked the captain in his cabin, and elected
Quelch their commander. They sailed to the south, and shortly afterwards
threw the captain overboard. They hoisted a flag, the "Old Roger,"
described as having "in the middle of it an Anatomy with an Hourglars in
one hand and a dart in the Heart with three drops of Blood proceeding from
it in the other." They took nine Portuguese vessels off the coast of
Brazil, out of which they took plunder of very great value.

Quelch now had the audacity to sail back to Marblehead, where his crew
landed and quickly scattered with their plunder. Within a week Quelch was
in gaol, and was taken to Boston, where his trial began on June 17th,
1704, and he was found guilty. The days between the sentence and the
execution must have, indeed, been trying for the prisoner. We read in a
pamphlet published at the time: "The Ministers of the Town used more than
ordinary Endeavours to Instruct the Prisoners and bring them to
Repentance. There were Sermons Preached in their hearing Every Day, and
Prayer daily made with them. And they were Catechised, and they had many
occasional Exhortations. And nothing was left that could be done for their
Good."

On Friday, June 30th, 1704, Quelch and his companions marched on foot
through the town of Boston to Scarlil's Wharf with a strong armed guard of
musketeers, accompanied by various officials and two ministers, while in
front was carried a silver oar, the emblem of a pirate's execution. Before
the last act the minister gave a long and fervent harangue to the wretched
culprits, in all of whom were observed suitable signs of repentance except
Quelch, who, stepping forward on the platform, his hat in his hand, and
bowing left and right to the spectators, gave a short address, in which he
warned them "They should take care how they brought Money into New England
to be Hanged for it."


QUITTANCE, JOHN.

One of Captain Quelch's crew of the brigantine _Charles_. Tried with the
rest of that crew at the Star Tavern at Boston in June, 1704.


RACKAM, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ CALICO JACK.

Served as quartermaster in Captain Vane's company. On one occasion Vane
refused to fight a big French ship, and in consequence was dismissed his
ship and marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of America, while
the crew elected Rackam to be their captain in his place. This was on
November 24th, 1718, and on the very first day of his command he had the
good fortune to take and plunder several small vessels.

Off the Island of Jamaica they took a Madeira ship, and found an old
friend on board as a passenger--a Mr. Hosea Tisdell, who kept a tavern in
the island, and they treated him with great respect.

Christmas Day coming, the pirates landed on a small island to celebrate
this festival in a thorough manner, carousing and drinking as long as the
liquor lasted, when they sailed away to seek more. Their next prize was a
strange one. On coming alongside a ship, she surrendered, and the pirates
boarding her to examine her cargo, found it to consist of thieves from
Newgate on their way to the plantations. Taking two more vessels, Rackam
sailed to the Bahama Islands, but the Governor, Captain Woodes Rogers,
sent a sloop, which took away their prizes.

Rackam now sailed his ship to a snug little cove he knew of in Cuba, where
he had more than one lady acquaintance. Here the pirates were very happy
until all their provisions and money was spent. Just as they were about to
sail, in comes a Spanish Guarda del Costa with a small English sloop which
they had recently taken. Rackam was now in a very awkward position, being
unable to get past the Spaniard, and all he could do was to hide behind a
small island. Night came on, and when it was dark Rackam put all his crew
into a boat, rowed quietly up to the sloop, clambered aboard, threatening
instant death to the Spanish guards if they cried out, then cut the cables
and sailed out of the bay. As soon as it was light the Spanish ship
commenced a furious bombardment of Rackam's empty vessel, thinking he was
still aboard her.

In the summer of 1720 he took numbers of small vessels and fishing boats,
but nothing very rich, and was not above stealing the fishermen's nets and
landing and taking cattle. In October Rackam was chased near Nigril Bay by
a Government sloop commanded by a Captain Barret. After a short fight
Rackam surrendered, and was carried a prisoner to Port Royal.

On November 16th Rackam and his crew were tried at St. Jago de la Vega,
convicted and sentenced to death. Amongst the crew were two women dressed
as men, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The former was married, in pirate
fashion, to Rackam.

On the morning of his execution Rackam was allowed, as a special favour,
to visit his Anne, but all the comfort he got from her was "that she was
sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a man, he need not have
been hanged like a Dog."

Rackam was hanged on November 17th, 1720, at Gallows Point, at Port Royal,
Jamaica.


RAPHAELINA, CAPTAIN.

Much dreaded by the merchant sailors navigating the South Atlantic. In
1822 he controlled a fleet of pirate vessels in the vicinity of Cape
Antonio.


RAYNER, CAPTAIN.

In a letter to the Lords of Trade, dated from Philadelphia, February 28th,
1701, William Penn mentions that several of Captain Kidd's men had settled
as planters in Carolina with Rayner as their captain.


RAYNOR, WILLIAM.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried at Boston in 1704.


READ, CAPTAIN.

Commanded a brigantine which had its headquarters at Madagascar. Rescued
the pirate Thomas White. Read died at sea.


READ, MARY. Woman pirate.

Born in London of obscure parentage; all that is known for certain is that
her mother was a "young and airy widow." Mary was brought up as a boy, and
at the age of 13 was engaged as a footboy to wait on a French lady. Having
a roving spirit, Mary ran away and entered herself on board a man-of-war.
Deserting a few years later, she enlisted in a regiment of foot and fought
in Flanders, showing on all occasions great bravery, but quitted the
service to enlist in a regiment of horse. Her particular comrade in this
regiment was a Fleming, with whom she fell in love and disclosed to him
the secret of her sex. She now dressed as a woman, and the two troopers
were married, "which made a great noise," and several of her officers
attended the nuptials. She and her husband got their discharge and kept an
eating house or ordinary, the Three Horseshoes, near the Castle of Breda.
The husband died, and Mary once again donned male attire and enlisted in a
regiment in Holland. Soon tiring of this, she deserted, and shipped
herself aboard a vessel bound for the West Indies. This ship was taken by
an English pirate, Captain Rackam, and Mary joined his crew as a seaman.

She was at New Providence Island, Bahama, when Woodes Rogers came there
with the royal pardon to all pirates, and she shipped herself aboard a
privateer sent out by Rogers to cruise against the Spaniards. The crew
mutinied and again became pirates. She now sailed under Captain Rackam,
who had with him another woman pirate, Anne Bonny. They took a large
number of ships belonging to Jamaica, and out of one of these took
prisoner "a young fellow of engaging behaviour" with whom Mary fell deeply
in love. This young fellow had a quarrel with one of the pirates, and as
the ship lay at anchor they were to go to fight it out on shore according
to pirate law. Mary, to save her lover, picked a quarrel with the same
pirate, and managed to have her duel at once, and fighting with sword and
pistol killed him on the spot.

She now married the young man "of engaging behaviour," and not long after
was taken prisoner with Captain Rackam and the rest of the crew to
Jamaica. She was tried at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica, and on November
28th, 1720, was convicted, but died in prison soon after of a violent
fever.

That Mary Read was a woman of great spirit is shown by her reply to
Captain Rackam, who had asked her (thinking she was a young man) what
pleasure she could find in a life continually in danger of death by fire,
sword, or else by hanging; to which Mary replied "that as to hanging, she
thought it no great Hardship, for were it not for that, every cowardly
Fellow would turn Pirate and so unfit the Seas, that Men of Courage must
starve."


READ, ROBERT.

Tried for piracy with Gow's crew at Newgate in 1725, and acquitted.


READ, WILLIAM.

Of Londonderry, Ireland.

One of Captain Harris's crew. Was hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in
1723, at the age of 35.


READHEAD, PHILIP.

One of Captain Heidon's crew of the pirate ship _John of Sandwich_,
wrecked on Alderney Island in 1564. Was arrested and hanged at St.
Martin's Point, Guernsey, in the same year.

[Illustration: ANN BONNY AND MARY READ, CONVICTED OF PIRACY, NOVEMBER 28,
1720, AT A COURT OF VICE-ADMIRALTY HELD AT ST. JAGO DE LA VEGA IN THE
ISLAND OF JAMAICA.

To face p. 256.]


RHOADE, CAPTAIN JOHN.

A Dutch coasting pilot of Boston.

In 1674 appointed chief pilot to the Curacao privateer _Flying Horse_, and
sailed along the coast of Maine and as far north as the St. John River.
Afterwards attacked and plundered several small English craft occupied in
bartering furs with the Indians. Condemned to be hanged at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, in June, 1675.


RICE, DAVID. Welsh pirate.

Of Bristol.

Taken out of the Cornwall galley by Captain Roberts, he served in the
_Royal Fortune_. Tried and found guilty of piracy and condemned to death,
but was reprieved and sold to the Royal African Company to serve for seven
years in their plantations.


RICE, OWEN. Welsh pirate.

Of South Wales.

Hanged at the age of 27 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Captain Charles
Harris's crew.


RICHARDS, LIEUTENANT.

Lieutenant to Blackbeard on board the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Cruised in
the West Indies and along the coast of Carolina and Virginia.

In 1717 Teach blockaded the harbour at Charleston and sent Richards with a
party of pirates to the Governor to demand a medicine chest and all
necessary medical supplies, with a threat that if these were not
forthcoming he would cut the throats of all his prisoners, many of them
the leading merchants of the town. While waiting for the Governor's reply,
Richards and his companions scandalized the towns-folk of Charleston by
their outrageous and swaggering conduct.


RICHARDSON, JOHN.

His father was a goldsmith at New York. John, tiring of the trade of
cooper, to which he was apprenticed, ran away to sea. For many years he
served both in men-of-war and in merchant ships. Although an unmitigated
blackguard, he did not commit piracy nor murder until some years later,
when, being at Ancona, he met a Captain Benjamin Hartley, who had come
there with a loading of pilchards. Richardson was taken on board to serve
as ship's carpenter, and sailed for Leghorn. With another sailor called
Coyle, Richardson concocted a mutiny, murdered the captain in the most
brutal manner, and was appointed mate in the pirate ship. As a pirate
Richardson was beneath contempt. His life ended on the gallows at
Execution Dock on January 25th, 1738.


RICHARDSON, NICHOLAS.

One of Captain Quelch's crew. Taken out of the brigantine _Charles_, and
tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.


RIDGE, JOHN.

Of London.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
Carolina.


RINGROSE, BASIL. Buccaneer, pirate, and author.

Sailed in 1679 to the West Indies. A year later Ringrose had joined the
buccaneers at their rendezvous in the Gulf of Darien, where they were
preparing for a bold enterprise on the Spanish Main. They landed and
marched to the town of Santa Maria, which they plundered and burnt.
Thence they travelled in canoes down the river to the Bay of Panama. After
attacking the Spanish fleet and laying siege to the city, the buccaneers
cruised up and down the West Coast of South America for eighteen months,
sacking towns and attacking Spanish ships. All this while Ringrose kept a
very full and graphic journal, in which he recorded not only their
exploits, but also their hardships and quarrels, and gave descriptions as
well of the various natives and their customs, and drew charts and
sketches.

In 1681 Ringrose was still with Captain Sharp, and sailed through the
Straits of Magellan, and on January 30th of the same year anchored off
Antigua. Here he got a passage in a ship to England, landing safely at
Dartmouth on March 26th.

A year later he published an account of his voyage, as a second volume to
Esquemeling's, "Bucaniers of America." In 1684 he went to sea again in the
_Cygnet_ (Captain Swan), to traffic with the Spanish colonies. But the
Spaniards refused to trade with them. In October, 1684, they met the
famous Captain Edward Davis at that favourite haunt of the buccaneers, the
Isle of Plate. The two captains agreed to join forces and to go together
"on the account," so all the cargo was thrown overboard the _Cygnet_, and
the ships set out to make war on any Spanish ships they might meet with.

In February, 1686, Ringrose with one hundred men took the town of Santiago
in Mexico, but while returning with the plunder to their ship were caught
by the Spaniards in an ambush, and Ringrose was killed.

Ringrose never attained any rank among the buccaneers beyond occasionally
being put in charge of a boat or a small company on shore, but as a
recorder of the doings of his companions he proved both careful and
painstaking. Dampier had a great regard for him, and in his book he
writes: "My ingenious friend Ringrose had no mind to this voyage, but was
necessitated to engage in it or starve."

The title of Ringrose's book, first published in 1685, is "The Dangerous
Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others."

Written by Mr. Basil Ringrose.

Printed for William Crooke, 1685.


ROACH, PETER.

When Captain Quelch was captured with his crew, Roach escaped near the
Cape by Snake Island. He was afterwards captured and thrown into the gaol
at Salem. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at Boston, and on June 30th,
1704, was hanged. At the place of execution Roach disappointed the
onlooking crowd, as, instead of the expected and hoped-for repentant
speech, "he seemed little concerned, and said but little or nothing at
all."


ROB, ALEXANDER.

One of Captain Gow's crew. Hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping, in June,
1724. He was not one of the original crew of the _George_ galley, but was
taken out of a prize and joined the pirates of his own free-will.


ROBBINS, JAMES.

Hanged in Virginia in 1718 along with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.


ROBBINS, JAMES.

Of London.

One of the crew of the _Royal James_. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
Carolina.


ROBERTS, CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW. Welsh pirate.

Born 1682. Died 1722.

If a pirate is to be reckoned by the amount of damage he does and the
number of ships he takes there can be no doubt that Captain Roberts should
be placed at the very head of his profession, for he is said to have taken
over 400 vessels. The only man who can be said to rival him is Sir Henry
Morgan, but Morgan, although in some ways an unmitigated blackguard, was a
man of much greater breadth of outlook than Roberts ever was, and,
moreover, was a buccaneer rather than a pirate.

Roberts, like many other successful pirates, was born in Wales, not far
from Haverfordwest. He is described as being "a tall black man," and was
about 40 years of age at the time of his death. He was remarkable, even
among his remarkable companions, for several things. First of all, he only
drank tea--thus being the only total abstainer known to the fraternity.
Also he was a strict disciplinarian, and on board his ships all lights had
to be extinguished by 8 p.m., any of the crew who wished to continue
drinking after that hour had to do so on the open deck. But try as he
would this ardent apostle of abstemiousness was unable to put down
drinking. If Roberts had lived to-day, no doubt he would have been on the
council of the local vigilance committee. He would allow no women aboard
his ships, in fact he made it a law that any man who brought a woman on
board disguised as a man was to suffer death. Roberts allowed no games at
cards or dice to be played for money, as he strongly disapproved of
gambling. He was a strict Sabbatarian, and allowed the musicians to have a
rest on the seventh day. This was as well, for the post of musician on a
pirate ship was no sinecure, as every pirate had the right to demand a
tune at any hour of the day or night. He used to place a guard to protect
all his women prisoners, and it is sadly suspicious that there was always
the greatest competition amongst the worst characters in the ship to be
appointed sentinel over a good-looking woman prisoner. All quarrels had to
be settled on shore, pirate fashion, the duellists standing back to back
armed with pistol and cutlass. Roberts would have no fighting among the
crew on board his ship.

Bartholomew must have looked the very part of a pirate when dressed for
action. A tall, dark man, he used to wear a rich damask waistcoat and
breeches, a red feather in his cap, a gold chain round his neck with a
large diamond cross dangling from it, a sword in his hand, and two pairs
of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulders.

We first hear of Roberts as sailing, in honest employ, as master of the
_Princess_ (Captain Plumb), from London in November, 1719, bound for the
coast of Guinea to pick up a cargo of "black ivory" at Anamaboe. Here his
ship was taken by the Welsh pirate Howel Davis. At first Roberts was
disinclined for the pirate life, but soon changed his mind.

On the death of Davis there were several candidates for the post of
commander, all brisk and lively men, distinguished by the title of
"Lords," such as Sympson, Ashplant, Anstis, and others. One of these
"Lords," Dennis, concluded an eloquent harangue over a bowl of punch with
a strong appeal for Roberts to be the new chief. This proposal was
acclaimed with but one dissenting voice, that of "Lord" Sympson, who had
hopes of being elected himself, and who sullenly left the meeting swearing
"he did not care who they chose captain so it was not a papist." So
Roberts was elected after being a pirate only six weeks; thus was true
merit quickly appreciated and rewarded amongst them.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS.

To face p. 262.]

Roberts's speech to his fellow-pirates was short but to the point, saying
"that since he had dipped his hands in muddy water, and must be a pyrate,
it was better being a commander than a common man," not perhaps a graceful
nor grateful way of expressing his thanks, but one which was no doubt
understood by his audience.

Roberts began his career in a bright manner, for to revenge the perfectly
justifiable death of their late captain he seized and razed the fort,
bombarded the town, and setting on fire two Portuguese ships so as to act
as torches, sailed away the same night. Sailing to Brazil they found in
the Bay of Bahia a fleet of forty-two Portuguese ships ready laden and on
the point of leaving for Lisbon, and Roberts, with the most astounding
boldness, sailed right in amongst them until he found the deepest laden,
which he attacked and boarded, although his was a much smaller ship. He
sailed away with his prize from the harbour. This prize, amongst the
merchandise, contained 40,000 moidors and a cross of diamonds designed for
the King of Portugal.

He then took a Dutch ship, and two days later an English one, and sailed
back to Brazil, refitting and cleaning at the Island of Ferdinando.

In a work such as this is, it is impossible to recount all, or even a few,
of the daring adventures, or the piratical ups and downs of one pirate.
Roberts sailed to the West Indies devastating the commerce of Jamaica and
Barbadoes. When things grew too hot there, he went north to Newfoundland,
and played the very devil with the English and French fishing fleets and
settlements.

His first ship he called the _Fortune_, his next, a bigger ship, the
_Royal Fortune_, another the _Good Fortune_.

On two occasions Roberts had been very roughly handled, once by a ship
from Barbadoes and once by the inhabitants of Martinica, so when he
designed his new flag, he portrayed on it a huge figure of himself
standing sword in hand upon two skulls, and under these were the letters
A.B.H. and A.M.H., signifying a Barbadian's and a Martinican's head.

In April, 1721, Roberts was back again on the Guinea Coast, burning and
plundering. Amongst the prisoners he took out of one of his prizes was a
clergyman. The captain dearly wished to have a chaplain on board his ship
to administer to the spiritual welfare of his crew, and tried all he could
to persuade the parson to sign on, promising him that his only duties
should be to say prayers and make punch. But the prelate begged to be
excused, and was at length allowed to go with all his belongings, except
three prayer-books and a corkscrew--articles which were sorely needed
aboard the _Royal Fortune_.

The end of Roberts's career was now in sight. A King's ship, the _Swallow_
(Captain Chaloner Ogle), discovered Roberts's ships at Parrot Island, and,
pretending to fly from them, was followed out to sea by one of the
pirates. A fight took place, and after two hours the pirates struck,
flinging overboard their black flag "that it might not rise in Judgement
over them." The _Swallow_ returned in a few days to Parrot Island to look
for Roberts in the _Royal Fortune_. Roberts being at breakfast, enjoying a
savoury dish of solomongundy, was informed of the approach of the ship,
but refused to take any notice of it. At last, thoroughly alarmed, he cut
his cables and sailed out, but most of his crew being drunk, even at this
early hour, the pirates did not make as good a resistance as if they had
been sober. Early in the engagement Roberts was hit in the throat by a
grape-shot and killed; this being on February 10th, 1722. His body, fully
dressed, with his arms and ornaments, was thrown overboard according to
his repeated request made during his lifetime. Thus the arch-pirate died,
as he always said he wished to die, fighting. His motto had always been "A
short life and a merry one." One good word can be said for Roberts, that
he never forced a man to become a pirate against his wish.


ROBERTS, OWEN. Welsh pirate.

Carpenter in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_, and killed on November 22nd, 1718,
off the North Carolina Coast.


ROBINSON, EDWARD.

Of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.


ROCHE, CAPTAIN PHILIP, _alias_ JOHN EUSTACE.

In company with three other mariners--Cullen, Wife, and Neale--this Irish
pirate shipped himself on board a French snow at Cork in November, 1721,
for a passage to Nantes. Owing to Roche's briskness, genteel manners, and
knowledge of navigation, the master used occasionally to place him in
charge of the vessel. One night a few days out a pre-arranged mutiny took
place, the French crew being butchered and thrown overboard. The captain,
who pleaded for mercy, was also thrown into the sea. Driven by bad weather
to Dartmouth, the new captain, Roche, had the ship repainted and
disguised, and renamed her the _Mary_. Then sailing to Rotterdam he sold
the cargo of beef and took on a fresh cargo with the owner, Mr. Annesly.
The first night out of port they threw Mr. Annesly overboard, and he swam
alongside for some while pleading to be taken in. On going into a French
port, and hearing that an enquiry was being made about his ship, Roche ran
away. The crew took the ship to Scotland, and there landed and
disappeared, and the ship was seized and taken to the Thames.

Later on Roche was arrested in London and committed to Newgate Prison,
found guilty of piracy, and hanged on August 5th, 1723, at Execution Dock,
at the age of 30. The hanging was not, from the public spectators point of
view, a complete success, for the culprit "was so ill at the time that he
could not make any public declaration of his abhorrence of the crime for
which he suffered."


RODERIGO, PETER.

A "Flanderkin."

Commanded a Dutch vessel, the _Edward and Thomas_, that sailed from Boston
in 1674, and took several small English vessels along the coast of Maine.
Tried for piracy at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and condemned to be hanged,
but was afterwards pardoned.


ROGERS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.

Commanded a ship, the _Forlorn_. Routed the Spaniards at Venta Cruz in
1671. One of Morgan's captains in his attack on Panama.


ROGERS, CAPTAIN WOODES.

As the life of this famous navigator and privateer is, very justly,
treated fully in the "Dictionary of National Biography" it is unnecessary
to mention more than a few incidents in his adventurous career. Woodes
Rogers was not only a good navigator, for on many occasions he showed a
remarkable gift for commanding mutinous crews in spite of having many
officers on whom he could place little reliance. On leaving Cork in 1708,
after an incompetent pilot had almost run his ship on two rocks off
Kinsale called "The Sovereigne's Bollacks," Rogers describes his crew
thus: "A third were foreigners, while of Her Majestie's subjects many were
taylors, tinkers, pedlars, fiddlers, and hay-makers, with ten boys and one
negro." It was with crews such as these that many of the boldest and most
remarkable early voyages were made, and they required a man of Woodes
Rogers stamp to knock them into sailors. Rogers had a gift for inspiring
friendship wherever he went. On arriving at the coast of Brazil, his boat
was fired on when trying to land at Angre de Reys. This settlement had but
lately received several hostile visitors in the way of French pirates. But
before a week was passed Woodes Rogers had so won the hearts of the
Portuguese Governor and the settlers that he and his "musick" were invited
to take part in an important religious function, or "entertainment," as
Rogers calls it, "where," he says, "we waited on the Governour, Signior
Raphael de Silva Lagos, in a body, being ten of us, with two trumpets and
a hautboy, which he desir'd might play us to church, where our musick did
the office of an organ, but separate from the singing, which was by the
fathers well perform'd. Our musick played 'Hey, boys, up go we!' and all
manner of noisy paltry tunes. And after service, our musicians, who were
by that time more than half drunk, march'd at the head of the company;
next to them an old father and two fryars carrying lamps of incense, then
an image dressed with flowers and wax candles, then about forty priests,
fryars, etc., followed by the Governor of the town, myself, and Capt.
Courtney, with each of us a long wax candle lighted. The ceremony held
about two hours; after which we were splendidly entertained by the
fathers of the Convent, and then by the Governour. They unanimously told
us they expected nothing from us but our Company, and they had no more but
our musick."

What a delightful picture this calls to the mind--the little Brazilian
town, the tropical foliage, the Holy Procession, "wax figure" and priests,
followed by the Governor with an English buccaneer on either side, and
headed by a crew of drunken Protestant English sailors playing "Hey, boys,
up go we!"

Rogers, not to be outdone in hospitality, next day entertained the
Governor and fathers on board the _Duke_, "when," he says, "they were very
merry, and in their cups propos'd the Pope's health to us. But we were
quits with 'em by toasting the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to keep up
the humour, we also proposed William Pen's health, and they liked the
liquor so well, that they refused neither." Alas! the good Governor and
the fathers were not in a fit state to leave the ship when the end came to
the entertainment, so slept on board, being put ashore in the morning,
"when we saluted 'em with a huzza from each ship, because," as Rogers
says, "we were not overstocked with powder."

It was in March, 1710, that Rogers brought his little fleet into the
harbour of Guam, one of the Ladrone Islands. Although at war with Spain,
the captain soon became on his usual friendly terms with the Governor of
this Spanish colony, and gave an entertainment on board his ship to him
and four other Spanish gentlemen, making them "as welcome as time and
place would afford, with musick and our sailors dancing." The Governor
gave a return party on shore, to which Rogers and all his brother officers
were invited, partaking of "sixty dishes of various sorts." After this
feast Rogers gave his host a present, consisting of "two negro boys
dress'd in liveries." One other instance of Woodes Rogers adaptability
must suffice. In the year 1717 he was appointed Governor to the Bahama
Islands, at New Providence, now called Nassau. His chief duty was to stamp
out the West India pirates who had made this island their headquarters for
many years, and were in complete power there, and numbered more than 2,000
desperadoes, including such famous men as Vane and Teach. Rogers's only
weapon, besides the man-of-war he arrived in, was a royal proclamation
from King George offering free pardon to all pirates or buccaneers who
would surrender at once to the new Governor. At first the pirates were
inclined to resist his landing, but in the end the tactful Rogers got his
own way, and not only landed, but was received by an armed guard of
honour, and passed between two lines of pirates who fired salutes with
their muskets.

Most of the pirates surrendered and received their pardons, but some, who
reverted shortly afterwards to piracy and were captured and brought back
to New Providence, were tried and actually hanged by Rogers's late
buccaneer subjects.

Woodes Rogers eventually died in Nassau in the year 1729.

He was the author of a delightful book entitled "A Cruising Voyage Round
the World, begun in 1708 and finish'd in 1711, by Captain Woodes Rogers,
Commander-in-Chief on this Expedition, with the ships _Duke_ and _Duchess_
of Bristol."

This was published in London in 1712.


ROLLSON, PETER.

Captain Gow's gunner in the _Revenge_. Hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping,
in June, 1725.


ROSS, GEORGE, or ROSE.

Of Glasgow.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal James_. Was hanged at
Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh
below low-water mark.


ROSSOE, FRANCIS.

In June, 1717, in company with four other Carolina pirates, was placed on
trial for his life. Convicted with De Cossey, De Mont, and Ernandos, of
piratically taking the vessels the _Turtle Dove_, the _Penelope_, and the
_Virgin Queen_ in July of the previous year, and, after being sentenced to
death by Judge Trott, Rossoe and his fellow-pirates were promptly
executed.


ROUNDSIVEL, CAPTAIN GEORGE.

Of the Bahama Islands.

He refused to avail himself of King George's pardon to all pirates in
1717, and went off again on the "main chance" till captured.


ROW, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

In 1679, at the Boca del Toro, was with the buccaneer fleet that attacked
and sacked Santa Maria. Row commanded a small vessel of twenty tons, a
crew of twenty-five men, and no guns.


RUIZ.

One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the pirate schooner _Panda_, which
plundered the Salem brig _Mexican_ in 1834. Tried in Boston and condemned
to be hanged. Pleading insanity, he was respited for sixty days and then
hanged on September 12th, 1835.


RUPERT. Prince of the Rhine.

After an adventurous life as a soldier on the Continent, he sailed from
Ireland in 1648 with seven ships. His own ship was the _Swallow_. He was a
man of boundless energy, who was never happy if not engaged in some
enterprise, and as legitimate warfare gave him few opportunities he turned
pirate. He spent five years at sea, largely in the West Indies, meeting
with every kind of adventure.

In 1653 he was caught in a storm in the Virgin Islands, and his fleet was
wrecked. His brother, Prince Maurice, was lost with his ship, the
_Defiance_, the only ship saved being the _Swallow_. Prince Rupert
returned in the _Swallow_ to France in the same year. Hitherto the prince
had been a restless, clever man, "very sparkish in his dress," but this
catastrophe to his fleet and the loss of his brother broke his spirit, and
he retired to England, where he died in his bed in 1682 at Spring Gardens.


LE SAGE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.

In 1684 was at San Domingo, in command of the _Tigre_, carrying thirty
guns and a crew of 130 men.


SALTER, EDWARD.

Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.


SAMPLE, CAPTAIN RICHARD. Buccaneer.

Was at New Providence Island in 1718, and received the royal pardon from
King George, offered to those pirates who surrendered themselves to
Governor Woodes Rogers. Like many another, he fell again into his former
wicked ways, and ended his life by being hanged.


SAMPLE, CAPTAIN ROBERT.

One of England's crew in the _Royal James_. In 1720 they took a prize, the
_Elizabeth and Katherine_, off the coast of West Africa. Fitting her out
for a pirate, they named her the _Flying King_, and Sample was put in
command. In company with Captain Low, he sailed to Brazil and did much
mischief amongst the Portuguese shipping. In November of the same year the
two pirate ships were attacked by a very powerful man-of-war. Lane got
away, but Sample was compelled to run his ship ashore on the coast. Of his
crew of seventy men, twelve were killed and the rest taken prisoners, of
whom the Portuguese hanged thirty-eight. Of these, thirty-two were
English, three Dutch, two French, and one Portuguese.


SANDERS, THOMAS.

An Elizabethan mariner who was taken prisoner by the Moors. He wrote a
narrative of his life as a slave on a Barbary pirate galley.

"I and sixe more of my fellowes," he wrote, "together with four-score
Italians and Spaniards, were sent foorth in a Galeot to take a Greekish
Carmosell, which came into Africa to steale Negroes. We were chained three
and three to an oare, and we rowed naked above the girdle, and the
Boteswaine of the Galley walked abaft the masts, and his Mate afore the
maste ... and when their develish choller rose, they would strike the
Christians for no cause. And they allowed us but halfe a pound of bread a
man in a day without any other kind of sustenance, water excepted.... We
were then so cruelly manackled in such sort, that we could not put our
hands the length of one foote asunder the one from the other, and every
night they searched our chains three times, to see if they were fast
riveted."


SAWKINS, CAPTAIN RICHARD. Buccaneer.

We know little of the early career of this remarkable buccaneer. He was
loved by his crew, and had great influence over them. It is recorded that
one Sunday morning, finding some of his men gambling, he threw the dice
overboard, saying "he would have no gambling aboard his ship."

We know that on one occasion he was caught in his vessel by H.M.S.
_Success_ and brought to Port Royal, Jamaica, and that on December 1st,
1679, he was in prison awaiting trial for piracy. Apparently he got off,
for this brilliant young buccaneer is soon afterwards heard of as
commanding a small vessel of sixteen tons, armed with but one gun and a
crew of thirty-five men. He was one of a party of 330 buccaneers who,
under the leadership of Coxon and Sharp, landed on the coast of Darien and
marched through the jungle to attack and plunder the town of Santa Maria.
The remainder of the journey across the isthmus was done in canoes, in
which the pirates travelled down the Santa Maria River until they found
themselves in the Pacific. On this expedition each captain had his company
and had his own colours, Sawkins's flag being a red one with yellow
stripes. Arrived at the sea, they captured two small Spanish vessels, and,
the rest of the company being in the canoes, they boldly sailed towards
Panama City. Meeting with the Spanish fleet of eight ships, the buccaneers
attacked it, and, after a most furious battle, came off victorious. This
was one of the most gallant episodes in the whole history of the "brethren
of the coast," and was afterwards known as the Battle of Perico. Sawkins
fought in the most brave and desperate manner, and took a large share in
the successful enterprise. After this action some quarrelling took place,
which ended by Captain Coxon going off with some seventy men, to return
across the isthmus on foot. The company that remained in the Pacific
elected Sawkins to be their leader, as Captain Sharp, a much older man,
was away in his ship.

The buccaneers, ever since they defeated the Spanish fleet, had blockaded
the harbour, and a correspondence took place between the Governor of
Panama and Sawkins, the former wishing to know what the pirates had come
there for. To this message Sawkins sent back answer "that we came to
assist the King of Darien, who was the true Lord of Panama and all the
country thereabouts. And that since we were come so far, there was no
reason but that we should have some satisfaction. So that if he pleased to
send us five hundred pieces of eight for each man, and one thousand for
each commander, and not any farther to annoy the Indians, but suffer them
to use their own power and liberty, as became the true and natural lords
of the country, that then we would desist from all further hostilities,
and go away peaceably; otherwise that we should stay there, and get what
we could, causing to them what damage was possible."

This message was just bluff on Sawkins's part, but having heard that the
Bishop of Santa Martha was in the city, Sawkins sent him two loaves of
sugar as a present, and reminded the prelate that he had been his prisoner
five years before, when Sawkins took that town. Further messengers
returned from Panama next day, bringing a gold ring for Sawkins from the
well-disposed Bishop, and a message from the Governor, in which he
inquired "from whom we had our commission and to whom he ought to complain
for the damage we had already done them?" To this Sawkins sent back answer
"that as yet all his company were not come together; but that when they
were come up we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our
commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read them
as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them."

After lying off Panama for some while without meeting with any plunder,
and their victuals running short, the crews began to grumble, and
persuaded Sawkins to sail south along the coast. This he did, and,
arriving off the town of Puebla Nueva on May 22nd, 1679, Sawkins landed a
party of sixty men and led them against the town. But the Spaniards had
been warned in time, and had built up three strong breastworks.

Sawkins, who never knew what fear meant, stormed the town at the head of
his men, but was killed by a musket-ball.

Basil Ringrose, the buccaneer who wrote the narrative of this voyage,
describes Sawkins as being "a man who was as valiant and courageous as any
man could be, and the best beloved of all our company"; and on another
occasion he speaks of him as "a man whom nothing on earth could terrifie."


SAWNEY, CAPTAIN.

A pirate of New Providence Island in the Bahamas. In this pirate republic
this old man lived in the best hut, and was playfully known as "Governor
Sawney."


DE SAYAS, FRANCISCO.

A Spanish pirate hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.


SCOT, LEWIS.

Distinguished as being the first pirate to carry on the trade on land as
well as at sea. Before this time pirates were never known to be anything
but harmless drunkards when on shore, whatever they might be on board
their ships. Scot changed all this when he sacked and pillaged the city of
Campeachy. So successful was he that his example was quickly followed by
Mansfield, John Davis, and other pirates.


SCOT, ROGER.

Born at Bristol.

One of Captain Roberts's crew. Tried for piracy in April, 1722, at Cape
Coast Castle, West Africa, after the great defeat of the pirates by H.M.S.
_Swallow_. On this occasion no less than 267 pirates were accounted for.
The finding of the Honourable the President and Judges of the Court of
Admiralty for trying of pirates was as follows:

  Acquitted                                 74
  Executed                                  52
  Respited                                   2
  To Servitude                              20
  To the Marshallsea                        17 for tryal

The rest were accounted for as follows:

  Killed { In the _Ranger_                  10
         { In the _Fortune_                  3
    Dy'd { In the passage to Cape Corso     15
         { Afterwards in the castle          4
  Negroes in both ships                     70
                                          ----
                                           267
                                          ----

A number of the prisoners signed a "humble petition" begging that, as
they, being "unhappily and unwisely drawn into that wretched and
detestable Crime of Piracy," they might be permitted to serve in the Royal
African Company in the country for seven years, in remission of their
crimes. This clemency was granted to twenty of the prisoners, of which
Scot was one.

A very impressive indenture was drawn up, according to which the prisoners
were to become the slaves of the Company for seven years, and this was
signed by the prisoners and by the President.


SCOTT, WILLIAM.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy in
1718 at Charleston, South Carolina, and hanged at White Point on November
8th.


SCUDAMORE, CHRISTOPHER.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern in
Hanover Street, Boston, in 1704, and hanged on Charles River, Boston Side,
on June 30th. A report of the trial and execution of these pirates,
describing Scudamore's conduct on the gallows, says: "He appeared very
Penitent since his Condemnation, was very diligent to improve his time
going to, and at the place of Execution."


SCUDAMORE, PETER.

Belonging to Bristol.

Surgeon in the _Mercy_ galley, and taken by Captain Roberts in 1721. It
was a rule on all pirate vessels for the surgeon to be excused from
signing the ship's articles. When the next prize was taken, if she carried
a surgeon, he was taken in place of their present one, if the latter
wished to leave. But when Scudamore came on board the _Royal Fortune_ he
insisted on signing the pirate articles and boasted that he was the first
surgeon that had ever done so, and he hoped, he said, to prove as great a
rogue as any of them.

When the African Company's Guinea ship, the _King Solomon_, was taken,
Scudamore came aboard and helped himself to their surgeon's instruments
and medicines. He also took a fancy for a backgammon board, but only kept
it after a violent quarrel with another pirate. It came out at his trial
that on a voyage from the Island of St. Thomas, in a prize, the _Fortune_,
in which was a cargo of slaves, Scudamore had tried to bring about a
mutiny of the blacks to kill the prize crew which was on board, and he was
detected in the night going about amongst the negroes, talking to them in
the Angolan language. He said that he knew enough about navigation to sail
the ship himself, and he was heard to say that "this were better than to
be taken to Cape Corso to be hanged and sun dried."

The same witness told how he had approached the prisoner when he was
trying to persuade a wounded pirate, one James Harris, to join him in his
scheme, but fearing to be overheard, Scudamore turned the conversation to
horse-racing.

Scudamore was condemned to death, but allowed three days' grace before
being hanged, which he spent in incessant prayers and reading of the
Scriptures. On the gallows he sang, solo, the Thirty-first Psalm. Died at
the age of 35.


SEARLES, CAPTAIN ROBERT.

In 1664 he brought in two Spanish prizes to Port Royal, but as orders had
only lately come from England to the Governor to do all in his power to
promote friendly relations with the Spanish islands, these prizes were
returned to their owners. To prevent Searle's doing such things again, he
was deprived of his ship's rudder and sails. In 1666, Searle, in company
with a Captain Stedman and a party of only eighty men, took the Island of
Tobago, near Trinidad, from the Dutch, destroying everything they could
not carry away.


SELKIRK, ALEXANDER. The original Robinson Crusoe.

Born in 1676 at Largo in Fifeshire, he was the seventh son of John
Selcraig, a shoemaker. In 1695 he was cited to appear before the Session
for "indecent conduct in church," but ran away to sea. In 1701 he was back
again in Largo, and was rebuked in the face of the congregation for
quarrelling with his brothers. A year later Selkirk sailed to England, and
in 1703 joined Dampier's expedition to the South Seas. Appointed
sailing-master to the _Cinque Ports_, commanded by Captain Stradling.

In September, 1704, he arrived at the uninhabited island of Juan
Fernandez, in the South Pacific. Selkirk, having quarrelled with the
captain, insisted on being landed on the island with all his belongings.
He lived alone here for nearly four years, building himself two cabins,
hunting the goats which abounded, and taming young goats and cats to be
his companions.

On the night of January 31st, 1709, seeing two ships, Selkirk lit a fire,
and a boat was sent ashore. These ships were the _Duke_ and _Duchess_ of
Bristol, under the command of Captain Woodes Rogers, while his old friend
Dampier was acting as pilot. Selkirk was at once appointed sailing-master
of the _Duchess_, and eventually arrived back in the Thames on October
14th, 1711, with booty worth £800, having been away from England for eight
years. While in England he met Steele, who described Selkirk as a "man of
good sense, with strong but cheerful expression." Whether Selkirk ever met
Defoe is uncertain, though the character of Robinson Crusoe was certainly
founded on his adventures in Juan Fernandez. In 1712 he returned to Largo,
living the life of a recluse, and we must be forgiven for suspecting that
he rather acted up to the part, since it is recorded that he made a cave
in his father's garden in which to meditate. This life of meditation in an
artificial cave was soon rudely interrupted by the appearance of a certain
Miss Sophia Bonce, with whom Selkirk fell violently in love, and they
eloped together to Bristol, which must have proved indeed a sad scandal to
the elders and other godly citizens of Largo. Beyond the fact that he was
charged at Bristol with assaulting one Richard Nettle, a shipwright, we
hear no more of Selkirk until his first will was drawn up in 1717, in
which he leaves his fortune and house to "my loving friend Sophia Bonce,
of the Pall Mall, London, Spinster." Shortly after this, Alexander basely
deserted his loving friend and married a widow, one Mrs. Francis Candis,
at Oarston in Devon.

In 1720 he was appointed mate to H.M.S. _Weymouth_, on board of which he
died a year later at the age of 45.

Selkirk is immortalized in literature, not only by Defoe, but by Cowper in
his "Lines on Solitude," beginning: "I am monarch of all I survey."


SHARP, ROWLAND.

Of Bath Town in North Carolina.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried for piracy at Charleston in 1718
and found "not guilty."


SHASTER, ROGER.

One of Captain Heidon's crew of the pirate ship _John of Sandwich_, which
was wrecked on the coast of Alderney. Shaster was arrested and hanged at
St. Martin's Point, Guernsey, in 1564.


SHAW, JOHN.

One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.


SHERGALL, HENRY, or SHERRAL. Buccaneer.

A seaman with Captain Bartholomew Sharp in his South Sea voyage. One
October day he fell into the sea while going into the spritsail-top and
was drowned. "This incident several of our company interpreted as a bad
omen, which proved not so, through the providence of the Almighty."


SHIRLEY, SIR ANTHONY.

In January, 1597, headed an expedition to the Island of Jamaica. He met
with little opposition from the Spaniards, and seized and plundered St.
Jago de la Vega.


SHIVERS, CAPTAIN.

This South Sea pirate cruised in company with Culliford and Nathaniel
North in the Red Sea, preying principally on Moorish ships, and also
sailed about the Indian Ocean as far as the Malacca Islands. He accepted
the royal pardon to pirates, which was brought out to Madagascar by
Commodore Littleton, and apparently gave up his wicked ways thereafter.


SHUTFIELD, WILLIAM.

Of Lancaster.

Hanged at Rhode Island in July, 1723, at the age of 40.


SICCADAM, JOHN.

Of Boston.

One of Captain Pound's crew. Found guilty of piracy, but pardoned.


SIMMS, HENRY, _alias_ "GENTLEMAN HARRY." Pickpocket, highwayman, pirate,
and Old Etonian.

Born in 1716 at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Sent while quite young to
school at Eton, where he "shewed an early inclination to vice," and at the
age of 14 was taken from school and apprenticed to a breeches-maker. No
Old Etonian, either then or now, would stand that kind of treatment, so
Simms ran away, becoming a pickpocket and later a highwayman. After
numerous adventures and escapes from prison, he was pressed on board
H.M.S. _Rye_, but he deserted his ship at Leith. After an "affair" at
Croydon, Simms was transplanted with other convicts to Maryland, in the
_Italian Merchant_. On the voyage he attempted, but without success, to
raise a mutiny. On his arrival in America he was sold to the master of the
_Two Sisters_, which was taken a few days out from Maryland by a Bayonne
pirate. Carried to Spain, Simms got to Oporto, and there was pressed on
board H.M.S. _King Fisher_. Eventually he reached Bristol, where he
bought, with his share of booty, a horse and two pistols, with which to go
on the highway.

Hanged on June 17th, 1747, for stealing an old silver watch and 5s. from
Mr. Francis Sleep at Dunstable.


SKIPTON, CAPTAIN.

Commanded a pirate ship, in which he sailed in company with Captain
Spriggs. Being chased by H.M.S. _Diamond_ off the coast of Cuba, Skipton
ran his sloop on to the Florida Reef. Escaping with his crew to an island,
they were attacked by the Indians, and many of them were captured and
eaten. The survivors, embarking in a canoe, were caught by the man-of-war
and taken prisoner.


SKYRM, CAPTAIN JAMES. Welsh pirate.

Hanged at the advanced age--for a pirate--of 44.

Commanded the _Ranger_, one of Captain Roberts's ships that cruised in
1721 and 1722 off the West Coast of Africa. In the fight with the King's
ship that took him he was very active with a drawn sword in his hand, with
which he beat any of his crew who were at all backward. One of his legs
was shot away in this action, but he refused to leave the deck and go
below as long as the action lasted. He was condemned to death and hanged
in chains.


SMITH, GEORGE. Welsh pirate.

One of Captain Roberts's pirates. Hanged at the age of 25.


SMITH, JOHN.

One of the mutinous crew of the _Antonio_. Hanged at Boston in 1672.


SMITH, JOHN WILLIAMS.

Of Charleston, Carolina.

Hanged in 1718 for piracy, at Charleston.


SMITH, MAJOR SAMUEL. Buccaneer.

At one time a buccaneer with the famous Mansfield.

In 1641 he was sent, by the Governor of Jamaica, with a party to reinforce
the troops which under Mansfield had recaptured the New Providence Island
from the Spanish. In 1660 he was taken prisoner by the Spanish and carried
to Panama and there kept in chains in a dungeon for seventeen months.


DE SOTO, BERNADO.

One of the crew of the schooner _Panda_ that took and plundered the Salem
brig _Mexican_. The crew of the _Panda_ were captured by an English
man-of-war and taken to Boston. De Soto was condemned to death, but
eventually fully pardoned owing to his heroic conduct in rescuing the crew
of an American vessel some time previously.


DE SOTO, CAPTAIN BENITO.

A Portuguese.

A most notorious pirate in and about 1830.

In 1827 he shipped at Buenos Ayres as mate in a slaver, named the
_Defenser de Pedro_, and plotted to seize the ship off the African coast.
The pirates took the cargo of slaves to the West Indies, where they sold
them. De Soto plundered many vessels in the Caribbean Sea, then sailed to
the South Atlantic, naming his ship the _Black Joke_. The fear of the
_Black Joke_ became so great amongst the East Indiamen homeward bound that
they used to make up convoys at St. Helena before heading north.

In 1832 de Soto attacked the _Morning Star_, an East Indiaman, and took
her, when he plundered the ship and murdered the captain. After taking
several more ships, de Soto lost his own on the rocky coast of Spain, near
Cadiz. His crew, although pretending to be honest shipwrecked sailors,
were arrested, but de Soto managed to escape to Gibraltar. Here he was
recognized by a soldier who had seen de Soto when he took the _Morning
Star_, in which he had been a passenger. The pirate was arrested, and
tried before Sir George Don, the Governor of Gibraltar, and sentenced to
death. He was sent to Cadiz to be hanged with the rest of his crew. The
gallows was erected at the water's edge, and de Soto, with his coffin, was
conveyed there in a cart. He died bravely, arranging the noose around his
own neck, stepping up into his coffin to do so; then, crying out, "Adios
todos," he threw himself off the cart.

This man must not be confused with one Bernado de Soto, who was tried for
piracy at Boston in 1834.


SOUND, JOSEPH.

Of the city of Westminster.

Hanged, at the age of 28, at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1723.


SPARKS, JAMES.

A Newfoundland fisherman.

In August, 1723, with John Phillips and three others, ran away with a
vessel to go "on the account." Sparks was appointed gunner.


SPARKES, JOHN.

A member of Captain Avery's crew, and described by one of his shipmates as
being "a true cock of the game." A thief, he robbed his fellow-shipmates,
and from one, Philip Middleton, he stole 270 pieces of gold.

Hanged at Execution Dock in 1696.


SPRATLIN, ROBERT.

Was one of Dampier's party which in 1681 crossed the Isthmus of Darien,
when he was left behind in the jungle with Wafer. Spratlin was lost when
the little party attempted to ford the swollen Chagres River. He
afterwards rejoined Wafer.


SPRIGGS, CAPTAIN FRANCIS FARRINGTON.

An uninteresting and bloody pirate without one single redeeming character.

He learnt his art with the pirate Captain Lowther, afterwards serving as
quartermaster with Captain Low and taking an active part in all the
barbarities committed by the latter.

About 1720 Low took a prize, a man-of-war called the _Squirrel_. This he
handed over to some of the crew, who elected Spriggs their captain. The
ship they renamed the _Delight_, and in the night altered their course and
left Low. They made a flag, bearing upon it a white skeleton, holding in
one hand a dart striking a bleeding heart, and in the other an hourglass.
Sailing to the West Indies, Spriggs took several prizes, treating the
crews with abominable cruelty. On one occasion the pirates chased what
they believed to be a Spanish ship, and after a long while they came
alongside and fired a broadside into her. The ship immediately
surrendered, and turned out to be a vessel the pirate had plundered only a
few days previously. This infuriated Spriggs and his crew, who showed
their disappointment by half murdering the captain. After a narrow escape
from being captured by a French man-of-war near the Island of St. Kitts,
Spriggs sailed north to the Summer Isles, or Bermudas. Taking a ship
coming from Rhode Island, they found her cargo to consist of horses.
Several of the pirates mounted these and galloped up and down the deck
until they were thrown. While plundering several small vessels of their
cargo of logwood in the Bay of Honduras, Spriggs was surprised and
attacked by an English man-of-war, and the pirates only escaped by using
their sweeps. Spriggs now went for a cruise off the coast of South
Carolina, returning again to Honduras. This was a rash proceeding on
Spriggs's part, for as he was sailing off the west end of Cuba he again
met the man-of-war which had so nearly caught him before in the bay.
Spriggs clapped on all sail, but ran his ship on Rattan Island, where she
was burnt by the _Spence_, while Captain Spriggs and his crew escaped to
the woods.


SPRINGER, CAPTAIN.

He fought gallantly with Sawkins and Ringrose in the Battle of Perico off
Panama on St. George's Day in 1680. He gave his name to Springer's Cay,
one of the Samballoes Islands. This was the rendezvous chosen by the
pirates, where Dampier and his party found the French pirate ship that
rescued them after their famous trudge across the Isthmus of Darien.


STANLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

With a few other buccaneers in their stronghold at New Providence Island
in 1660, withstood an attack by a Spanish fleet for five days. The three
English captains, Stanley, Sir Thomas Whetstone, and Major Smith, were
carried to Panama and there cast into a dungeon and bound in irons for
seventeen months.


STEDMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

In 1666, with Captain Searle and a party of only eighty men, he took and
plundered the Dutch island of Tobago. Later on, after the outbreak of war
with France, he was captured by a French frigate off the Island of
Guadeloupe. Stedman had a small vessel and a crew of only 100 men, and
found himself becalmed and unable to escape, so he boldly boarded the
Frenchman and fought for two hours, being finally overcome.


STEPHENS, WILLIAM.

Died on January 14th, 1682, on board of Captain Sharp's ship a few days
before their return to the Barbadoes from the South Seas. His death was
supposed to have been caused by indulging too freely in mancanilla while
ashore at Golfo Dulce. "Next morning we threw overboard our dead man and
gave him two French vollies and one English one."


STEPHENSON, JOHN.

Sailed as an honest seaman in the _Onslow_ (Captain Gee) from Sestos.
Taken in May, 1721, by the pirate Captain Roberts, he willingly joined the
pirates. When Roberts was killed on board the _Royal Fortune_, Stephenson
burst into tears, and declared that he wished the next shot might kill
him. Hanged in 1722.


STILES, RICHARD.

Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.


STOREY, THOMAS.

One of William Coward's crew which stole the ketch _Elinor_ in Boston
Harbour. Condemned to be hanged on January 27th, 1690, but afterwards
reprieved.


ST. QUINTIN, RICHARD.

A native of Yorkshire.

One of M'Kinlie's crew that murdered Captain Glass and his family in the
Canary ship. Afterwards arrested at Cork and hanged in chains near Dublin
on March 19th, 1765.


STURGES, CAPTAIN.

An Elizabethan pirate, who had his headquarters at Rochelle. In company
with the notorious pirate Calles, he in one year pillaged two Portuguese,
one French, one Spanish, and also a Scotch ship. His end is not known.


O'SULLIVAN, LORD. Receiver of pirate plunder.

The Sulivan Bere, of Berehaven in Ireland.

A notorious friend of the English pirates, he bought their spoils, which
he stored in his castle. He helped to fit out pirate captains for their
cruises, and protected them when Queen Elizabeth sent ships to try and
arrest them.


SUTTON, THOMAS.

Born at Berwick in 1699.

Gunner in Roberts's ship the _Royal Fortune_. At his trial he was proved
to have been particularly active in helping to take a Dutch merchantman,
the _Gertruycht_. Hanged in chains at Cape Coast Castle in April, 1722, at
the age of 23.


SWAN, CAPTAIN.

Commanded the _Nicholas_, and met Dampier when in the _Batchelor's
Delight_ at the Island of Juan Fernandez in 1684. The two captains cruised
together off the west coast of South America, the _Nicholas_ leaving
Dampier, who returned to England by way of the East Indies.


SWAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

Of the _Cygnet_. Left England as an honest trader. Rounded the Horn and
sailed up to the Bay of Nicoya, there taking on a crew of buccaneers who
had crossed the Isthmus of Darien on foot. Dampier was appointed pilot or
quartermaster to the _Cygnet_, a post analogous to that of a navigating
officer on a modern man-of-war, while Ringrose was appointed supercargo.
Swan had an adventurous and chequered voyage, sometimes meeting with
successes, but often with reverses. Eventually he sailed to the Philippine
Islands, where the crew mutinied and left Swan and thirty-six of the crew
behind. After various adventures the _Cygnet_, by now in a very crazy
state, just managed to reach Madagascar, where she sank at her anchorage.


SWITZER, JOSEPH.

Of Boston in New England.

Tried for piracy at Rhode Island in 1723, but found to be "not guilty."


SYMPSON, DAVID.

Born at North Berwick.

One of Roberts's crew. Tried and hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722. On
the day of execution Sympson was among the first six prisoners to be
brought up from the ship's hold to have their fetters knocked off and to
be fitted with halters, and it was observed that none of the culprits
appeared in the least dejected, except Sympson, who "spoke a little faint,
but this was rather imputed to a Flux that had seized him two or three
days before, than Fear." There being no clergyman in the colony, a kindly
surgeon tried to take on the duties of the ordinary, but with ill-success,
the hardened ruffians being quite unmoved by his attempts at exhortation.
In fact, the spectators were considerably shocked, as indeed they well
might be, by Sympson, suddenly recognizing among the crowd a woman whom he
knew, calling out "he had lain with that B----h three times, and now she
was come to see him hanged."

Sympson died at the age of 36, which was considerably above the average
age to which a pirate might expect to live.


TAYLOR, CAPTAIN.

This formidable South Sea pirate must indeed have looked, as well as
acted, the part, since his appearance is described by Captain Johnson as
follows: "A Fellow with a terrible pair of Whiskers, and a wooden Leg,
being stuck round with Pistols, like the Man in the Almanack with Darts."

This man Taylor it was who stirred up the crew of the _Victory_ to turn
out and maroon Captain England, and elect himself in his place. He was a
villain of the deepest dye, and burnt ships and houses and tortured his
prisoners.

The pirates sailed down the West Coast of India from Goa to Cochin, and
returned to Mauritius. Thence sailing to the Island of Mascarine they
found a big Portuguese ship, which they took. In her they discovered the
Conde de Eviceira, Viceroy of Goa, and, even better, four million dollars
worth of diamonds.

Taylor, now sailing in the _Cassandra_, heard that there were four
men-of-war on his tracks, so he sailed to Delagoa Bay and spent the
winter of the year 1722 there. It was now decided that as they had a huge
amount of plunder they had better give up piracy, so they sailed away to
the West Indies and surrendered themselves to the Governor of Porto Bello.
The crew broke up and each man, with a bag of diamonds, went whither he
would; but Captain Taylor joined the Spanish service, and was put in
command of a man-of-war, which was sent to attack the English logwood
cutters in the Bay of Honduras.


TAYLOR, WILLIAM.

One of Captain Phillips's crew. Wounded in the leg while attempting to
desert. There being no surgeon on board, a consultation was held over the
patient by the whole crew, and these learned men were unanimous in
agreeing that the leg should be amputated. Some dispute then arose as to
who should act the part of surgeon, and at length the carpenter was chosen
as the most proper person. "Upon which he fetch'd up the biggest saw, and
taking the limb under his Arm, fell to Work, and separated it from the
Body of the Patient in as little Time as he could have cut a Deal Board in
two." This surgeon-carpenter evidently appreciated the importance of
aseptics, for, "after that he had heated his Ax red hot in the Fire,
cauteriz'd the Wound but not with so much Art as he perform'd the other
Part for he so burnt the Flesh distant from the Place of Amputation that
it had like to have mortify'd." Taylor was tried and condemned to death at
Boston on May 12th, 1714, but for some reason not explained was reprieved.


TEACH, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or THATCH, or THACH, _alias_ DRUMMOND, _alias_
BLACKBEARD. Arch-pirate.

A Bristol man who settled in Jamaica, sailing in privateers, but not in
the capacity of an officer.

In 1716, Teach took to piracy, being put in command of a sloop by the
pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, Hornigold and Teach sailed together
from Providence towards the American coast, taking a billop from Havana
and several other prizes. After careening their vessels on the coast of
Virginia, the pirates took a fine French Guineaman bound to Martinico;
this ship they armed with forty guns, named her the _Queen Ann's Revenge_,
and Blackbeard went aboard as captain. Teach now had a ship that allowed
him to go for larger prizes, and he began by taking a big ship called the
_Great Allen_, which he plundered and then set fire to. A few days later,
Teach was attacked by H.M.S. _Scarborough_, of thirty guns, but after a
sharp engagement lasting some hours, the pirate was able to drive off the
King's ship.

The next ship he met with was the sloop of that amateur pirate and
landsman, Major Stede Bonnet. Teach and Bonnet became friends and sailed
together for a few days, when Teach, finding that Bonnet was quite
ignorant of maritime matters, ordered the Major, in the most high-handed
way, to come aboard his ship, while he put another officer in command of
Bonnet's vessel. Teach now took ship after ship, one of which, with the
curious name of the _Protestant Cæsar_, the pirates burnt out of spite,
not because of her name, but because she belonged to Boston, where there
had lately been a hanging of pirates.

Blackbeard now sailed north along the American coast, arriving off
Charleston, South Carolina. Here he lay off the bar for several days,
seizing every vessel that attempted to enter or leave the port, "striking
great Terror to the whole Province of Carolina," the more so since the
colony was scarcely recovered from a recent visit by another pirate, Vane.

Being in want of medicines, Teach sent his lieutenant, Richards, on shore
with a letter to the Governor demanding that he should instantly send off
a medicine chest, or else Teach would murder all his prisoners, and
threatening to send their heads to Government House; many of these
prisoners being the chief persons of the colony.

Teach, who was unprincipled, even for a pirate, now commanded three
vessels, and he wanted to get rid of his crews and keep all the booty for
himself and a few chosen friends. To do this, he contrived to wreck his
own vessel and one of his sloops. Then with his friends and all the booty
he sailed off, leaving the rest marooned on a small sandy island. Teach
next sailed to North Carolina, and with the greatest coolness surrendered
with twenty of his men to the Governor, Charles Eden, and received the
Royal pardon. The ex-pirate spent the next few weeks in cultivating an
intimate friendship with the Governor, who, no doubt, shared Teach's booty
with him.

A romantic episode took place at this time at Bath Town. The pirate fell
in love, not by any means for the first time, with a young lady of 16
years of age. To show his delight at this charming union, the Governor
himself married the happy pair, this being the captain's fourteenth wife;
though certain Bath Town gossips were heard to say that there were no
fewer than twelve Mrs. Teach still alive at different ports up and down
the West India Islands.

In June, 1718, the bridegroom felt that the call of duty must be obeyed,
so kissing good-bye to the new Mrs. Teach, he sailed away to the Bermudas,
meeting on his way half a dozen ships, which he plundered, and then
hurried back to share the spoils with the Governor of North Carolina and
his secretary, Mr. Knight.

For several months, Blackbeard remained in the river, exacting a toll from
all the shipping, often going ashore to make merry at the expense of the
planters. At length, things became so unbearable that the citizens and
planters sent a request to the Governor of the neighbouring colony of
Virginia for help to rid them of the presence of Teach. The Governor,
Spotswood, an energetic man, at once made plans for taking the pirate, and
commissioned a gallant young naval officer, Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of
H.M.S. _Pearl_, to go in a sloop, the _Ranger_, in search of him. On
November 17, 1718, the lieutenant sailed for Kicquetan in the James River,
and on the 21st arrived at the mouth of Okerecock Inlet, where he
discovered the pirate he was in search of. Blackbeard would have been
caught unprepared had not his friend, Mr. Secretary Knight, hearing what
was on foot, sent a letter warning him to be on his guard, and also any of
Teach's crew whom he could find in the taverns of Bath Town. Maynard lost
no time in attacking the pirate's ship, which had run aground. The fight
was furious, Teach boarding the sloop and a terrific hand-to-hand struggle
taking place, the lieutenant and Teach fighting with swords and pistols.
Teach was wounded in twenty-five places before he fell dead, while the
lieutenant escaped with nothing worse than a cut over the fingers.

Maynard now returned in triumph in his sloop to Bath Town, with the head
of Blackbeard hung up to the bolt-spit end, and received a tremendous
ovation from the inhabitants.

During his meteoric career as a pirate, the name of Blackbeard was one
that created terror up and down the coast of America from Newfoundland to
Trinidad. This was not only due to the number of ships Teach took, but in
no small measure to his alarming appearance. Teach was a tall, powerful
man, with a fierce expression, which was increased by a long, black beard
which grew from below his eyes and hung down to a great length. This he
plaited into many tails, each one tied with a coloured ribbon and turned
back over his ears. When going into action, Teach wore a sling on his
shoulders with three pairs of pistols, and struck lighted matches under
the brim of his hat. These so added to his fearful appearance as to strike
terror into all beholders. Teach had a peculiar sense of humour, and one
that could at times cause much uneasiness amongst his friends. Thus we are
told that one day on the deck of his ship, being at the time a little
flushed with wine, Blackbeard addressed his crew, saying: "Come let us
make a Hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it," whereupon Teach,
with several others, descended to the hold, shut themselves in, and then
set fire to several pots of brimstone. For a while they stood it, choking
and gasping, but at length had to escape to save themselves from being
asphyxiated, but the last to give up was the captain, who was wont to
boast afterwards that he had outlasted all the rest.

Then there was that little affair in the cabin, when Teach blew out the
candle and in the dark fired his pistols under the table, severely
wounding one of his guests in the knee, for no other reason, as he
explained to them afterwards, than "if he did not shoot one or two of them
now and then they'd forget who he was."

Teach kept a log or journal, which unfortunately is lost, but the entries
for two days have been preserved, and are worth giving, and seem to smack
of Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island." The entries, written in
Teach's handwriting, run as follows:

"1718. Rum all out--Our Company somewhat sober--A damn'd Confusion amongst
us!--Rogues a plotting--great Talk of Separation--so I look'd sharp for a
Prize.

"1718. Took one, with a great deal of Liquor on Board, so kept the Company
hot, damned hot, then all Things went well again."


TEAGUE, ROBERT.

A Scotch pirate, one of Captain Gow's crew. On May 26th, 1725, the crew
were tried in London and found guilty and sentenced to death, except
Teague and two others who were acquitted.


TEMPLETON, JOHN.

One of Captain John Quelch's crew of the ship _Charles_. Tried for piracy
at Boston in 1704, but, being discovered to be not yet 14 years of age and
only a servant on board the pirate ship, was acquitted.


TEW, Captain THOMAS, or Too.

A famous pirate, whose headquarters were at Madagascar. He was mentioned
by name in King William III.'s Royal Warrant to Captain Kidd to go hunting
for pirates, as a specially "wicked and ill-disposed person."

He sailed with Captain Dew from the Barbadoes with a Commission from the
Governor to join with the Royal African Company in an attack on the French
factory at Goori, at Gambia. Instead of going to West Africa, Tew and his
crew turned pirates, and sailed to the Red Sea. Here he met with a great
Indian ship, which he had the hardiness to attack, and soon took her, and
each of his men received as his share £3,000, and with this booty they
sailed to Madagascar. He was already held in high esteem by the pirates
who resided in that favourite stronghold. At one time he joined Misson,
the originator of "piracy-without-tears" at his garden city of Libertatia.
A quarrel arose between Misson's French followers and Tew's English
pirates. A duel was arranged between the two leaders, but by the tact of
another pirate--an unfrocked Italian priest--all was settled amicably, Tew
being appointed Admiral and the diplomatic ex-priest suitably chosen as
Secretary of State to the little republic. Such a reputation for kindness
had Tew that ships seldom resisted him, but on knowing who their assailant
was they gave themselves up freely. Some of Tew's men started a daughter
colony on their own account, and the Admiral sailed after them to try and
persuade them to return to the fold at Libertatia. The men refused, and
while Tew was arguing and trying to persuade them to change their minds,
his ship was lost in a sudden storm. Tew was soon rescued by the ship
_Bijoux_ with Misson on board, who, with a few men, had escaped being
massacred by the natives. Misson, giving Tew an equal share of his gold
and diamonds, sailed away, while Tew managed to return to Rhode Island in
New England, where he settled down for a while. To show the honesty of
this man, being now affluent, he kept a promise to the friends in Bermuda
who originally set him up with a ship, by sending them fourteen times the
original cost of the sloop as their just share of the profits.

At last, Tew found the call of the sea and the lure of the "grand account"
too great to resist, and he consented to take command of a pirate ship
which was to go on a cruise in the Red Sea. Arrived there, Tew attacked a
big ship belonging to the Great Mogul, and during the battle was mortally
wounded.

His historian tells us "a shot carried away the rim of Tew's belly, who
held his bowels with his hands for some space. When he dropped, it struck
such terror to his men that they suffered themselves to be taken without
further resistance." Thus fell fighting a fine sailor, a brave man, and a
successful pirate, and one who cheated the gallows awaiting him at
Execution Dock.


THOMAS, CAPTAIN, _alias_ STEDE BONNET.


THOMAS, JOHN.

Of Jamaica.

This Welsh pirate was one of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal
James_. Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.


THOMPSON, CAPTAIN.

A renegade pirate who joined the Barbary corsairs, becoming a Mohammedan.
Commanded a pirate vessel, and was taken prisoner off the coast of Ireland
by an Elizabethan ship. Hanged at Wapping.


THURBAR, RICHARD.

Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.


THURSTON, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

Of Tortuga Island.

Refused to accept the Royal offer of pardon of 1670, when all commissions
to privateer on the Spanish were revoked. Thurston, with a mulatto, Diego,
using obsolete commissions issued by the late Governor of Jamaica,
Modyford, continued to prey upon Spanish shipping, carrying their prizes
to Tortuga.


THWAITES, CAPTAIN JOSEPH.

Coxswain to Captain Hood, he was promoted in 1763 to be a midshipman in
H.M.S. _Zealous_, cruising in the Mediterranean. Putting into Algiers,
Thwaites was sent ashore by the captain to buy some sheep, but did not
return to the boat and, it being supposed he had been assassinated, the
ship sailed without him. The fact was that young Thwaites, who spoke
Turkish and Greek, had accepted an invitation to enter the Ottoman
service. Embracing the Mohammedan religion, Thwaites was put in command of
a forty-four gun frigate.

His first engagement was with the flagship of the Tunisian Admiral, which
he took and carried to Algiers. He soon brought in another prize, and so
pleased the Dey that he presented him with a scimitar, the hilt of which
was set with diamonds.

Thwaites, having soiled his hands with blood, now became the pirate
indeed, taking vessels of any nation, and drowning all his prisoners by
tying a double-headed shot round their necks and throwing them overboard.

He stopped at no atrocity--even children were killed, and one prisoner, an
English lieutenant and an old shipmate of his, called Roberts, he murdered
without a second thought. When Thwaites happened to be near Gibraltar, he
would go ashore and through his agents, Messrs. Ross and Co., transmit
large sums of money to his wife and children in England. But Thwaites had
another home at Algiers fitted with every luxury, including three Armenian
girls.

For several years this successful pirate plundered ships of all nations
until such pressure was brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers that
Thwaites thought it best to collect what valuables he could carry away and
disappear.

Landing at Gibraltar in 1796, dressed in European clothes, he procured a
passage to New York in an American frigate, the _Constitution_. Arriving
in the United States, he purchased an estate not far from New York and
built himself a handsome mansion, but a year later retribution came from
an unlooked-for quarter, for he was bitten by a rattlesnake and died in
the most horrible agonies both of mind and body.


TOMKINS, JOHN.

Of Gloucestershire.

Hanged at the age of 23 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Charles Harris's
crew.


TOPPING, DENNIS.

He shipped on board the sloop _Buck_ at Providence in 1718, in company
with Anstis and other famous pirates. Was killed at the taking of a rich
Portuguese ship off the coast of Brazil.


TOWNLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.

A buccaneer who in the year 1684 was one of the mixed English and French
fleet blockading Panama. On this occasion, he commanded a ship with a crew
of 180 men. By the next year the quarrels between the English had reached
such a pitch that Townley and Swan left Davis and sailed in search of
their French friends. In May, 1685, Townley was amongst the company that
took and sacked Guayaquil. In January, 1686, Townley rescued the French
pirate Grogniet and some 350 Frenchmen who, when attacking the town of
Quibo, were surprised by a Spanish squadron, which burnt their vessels
while the crews were on shore. Townley then sailed north with his French
comrades and sacked Granada.

His next adventure was to take the town of Lavelia, near to Panama, where
he found a rich cargo which the Viceroy had placed on shore because he was
afraid to send it to sea when so many pirates were about.

In August of the same year, Townley's ship was attacked by three Spanish
men-of-war. A furious fight took place, which ended by two of the Spanish
ships being captured and the third burnt. In this action the gallant
Townley was gravely wounded, and died shortly afterwards.


TRISTRIAN, CAPTAIN. French buccaneer.

In the year 1681 Dampier, with other malcontents, broke away from Captain
Sharp and marched on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. After undergoing
terrible hardships for twenty-two days, the party arrived on the Atlantic
seaboard, to find Captain Tristrian with his ship lying in La Sounds Cay.

The buccaneers bought red, blue, and green beads, and knives, scissors,
and looking-glasses from the French pirates to give to their faithful
Indian guides as parting gifts.


TRYER, MATTHEW.

A Carolina pirate, accused and acquitted on a charge of having captured a
sloop belonging to Samuel Salters, of Bermuda, in 1699.


TUCKER, ROBERT.

Of the Island of Jamaica.

One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried, condemned, and hanged at
Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. The prisoners were not
defended by counsel, because the members of the South Carolina Bar still
deemed it "a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward." We
understand that the barristers of South Carolina have since persuaded
themselves to overcome this prejudice. The result was that, with the
famous Judge Trott, a veritable terror to pirates, being President of the
Court of Vice-Admiralty, the prisoners had short and ready justice, and
all but four of the thirty-five pirates tried were found guilty.


TUCKERMAN, CAPTAIN.

Sailed with Captain Porter in the West Indies. Captain Johnson gives an
account of the meeting between these two pirate novices and the great
Captain Roberts at Hispaniola.


TURNLEY, CAPTAIN RICHARD.

A New Providence pirate who received the general pardon from Captain
Woodes Rogers in 1718. When, a little later, the scandal of Captain
Rackam's infatuation for Anne Bonny was causing such gossip among the two
thousand ex-pirates who formed the population of the settlement, it was
Turnley who brought news of the affair to the notice of the Governor. In
revenge for this action, Rackam and his lady, one day hearing that Turnley
had sailed to a neighbouring island to catch turtles, followed him. It
happened that Turnley was on shore hunting wild pigs and so escaped, but
Rackam sank his sloop and took his crew away with him as prisoners.


TYLE, CAPTAIN ORT VAN.

A Dutchman from New York.

A successful pirate in the days of the Madagascan sea-rovers. For some
time he sailed in company with Captain James, taking several prizes in the
Indian Ocean.

Van Tyle had a plantation at Madagascar and used to put his prisoners to
work there as slaves, one in particular being the notorious Welsh pirate,
David Williams, who toiled with Van Tyles's other slaves for six months
before making his escape to a friendly tribe in the neighbourhood.


UPTON, BOATSWAIN JOHN.

Born in 1679 of honest parents at Deptford.

Apprenticed to a waterman, he afterwards went to sea, serving on different
men-of-war as a petty officer. Until July, 1723, when 40 years of age,
Upton lived a perfectly honest life, but his wife dying, Upton found she
had contracted various debts and that he was in danger of being arrested
by the creditors. Leaving his four orphans, Upton hurried to Poole in
Dorsetshire, and was taken on as boatswain in the _John and Elizabeth_
(Captain Hooper), bound for Bonavista in Newfoundland. He seems to have
continued to sail as an honest seaman until November 14th, 1725, when
serving as boatswain in the _Perry_ galley, on a voyage between Barbadoes
and Bristol, the vessel was taken by a pirate, Cooper, in the _Night
Rambler_. At his subsequent trial witnesses declared that Upton willingly
joined the pirates, signed their articles, and was afterwards one of their
most active and cruel men.

Upton kept a journal, which was his only witness for his defence, in which
he described how he was forced to sign the pirates' articles under threats
of instant death. If his journal is to be believed, Upton escaped from the
pirates at the first opportunity, landing on the Mosquito coast. After
being arrested by the Spaniards as a spy, he was sent from one prison to
another in Central America, at last being put on board a galleon at Porto
Bello, to be sent to Spain. Escaping, he got aboard a New York sloop and
arrived at Jamaica in December, 1726. While at Port Royal he was pressed
on board H.M.S. _Nottingham_, serving in her for more than two years as
quartermaster, until one day he was accused of having been a pirate. Under
this charge he was brought a prisoner to England in 1729, tried in London,
and hanged, protesting his innocence to the last.


URUJ. See BARBAROSSA.


VALLANUEVA, CAPTAIN.

A Dominican.

Commanded in 1831 a small gaff-topsail schooner, the _General Morazan_,
armed with a brass eight-pounder and carrying a mixed crew of forty-four
men, French, Italian, English, and Creoles of St. Domingo.


VANCLEIN, CAPTAIN MOSES. Dutch filibuster.

Was serving with L'Ollonais's fleet off the coast of Yucatan when a mutiny
broke out, of which Vanclein was the ringleader. He persuaded the
malcontents to sail with him along the coast till they came to Costa Rica.
There they landed and marched to the town of Veraguas, which they seized
and pillaged. The pirates got little booty, only eight pounds of gold, it
proving to be a poor place.


VANE, CAPTAIN CHARLES.

Famous for his piratical activities off the coast of North America,
specially the Carolinas.

In 1718, when Woodes Rogers was sent by the English Government to break up
the pirate stronghold in the Bahama Islands, all the pirates at New
Providence Island surrendered to Rogers and received the King's pardon
except Vane, who, after setting fire to a prize he had, slipped out of the
bay as Rogers with his two men-of-war entered. Vane sailed to the coast of
Carolina, as did other West Indian pirates who found their old haunts too
warm for them.

Vane is first heard of as being actively engaged in stealing from the
Spaniards the silver which they were salving from a wrecked galleon in the
Gulf of Florida. Tiring of this, Vane stole a vessel and ranged up and
down the coast from Florida to New York, taking ship after ship, until at
last the Governor of South Carolina sent out a Colonel Rhet in an armed
sloop to try and take him. On one occasion Vane met the famous Blackbeard,
whom he saluted with his great guns loaded with shot. This compliment of
one pirate chief to another was returned in like kind, and then "mutual
civilities" followed for several days between the two pirate captains and
their crews, these civilities taking the form of a glorious debauch in a
quiet creek on the coast.

Vane soon had a change of fortune, when, meeting with a French man-of-war,
he decided to decline an engagement and to seek safety in flight, greatly
to the anger of his crew. For this he was obliged to stand the test of the
vote of the whole crew, who passed a resolution against his honour and
dignity, and branded him a coward, deprived him of his command, and packed
him off with a few of his adherents in a small sloop. Vane, not
discouraged by this reverse of fortune, rose again from the bottom rung of
the ladder to success, and quickly increased in strength of ships and
crew, until one day, being overcome by a sudden tornado, he lost
everything but his life, being washed up on a small uninhabited island off
the Honduras coast. Here he managed to support life by begging food from
the fishermen who occasionally came there in their canoes.

At last a ship put in for water, commanded by one Captain Holford, who
happened to be an old friend of Vane's. Vane naturally was pleased at this
piece of good fortune, and asked his dear old friend to take him off the
island in his ship, to which Holford replied: "Charles, I shan't trust you
aboard my ship, unless I carry you as a prisoner, for I shall have you
caballing with my men, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship
a-pirating." No promises of good behaviour from Vane would prevail on his
friend to rescue him; in fact, Captain Holford's parting remark was that
he would be returning in a month, and that if he then found Vane still on
the island he would carry him to Jamaica to be hanged.

Soon after Holford's departure another ship put in for water, none of the
crew of which knew Vane by sight, and he was too crafty to let them find
out the notorious pirate he was. They consented to take off the
shipwrecked mariner, when, just as all seemed to be going well, back came
the ship of friend Holford. Holford, who seems to have been a sociable
kind of man, was well acquainted with the captain who was befriending
Vane, and Holford was invited to dine on board his ship. As the guest was
passing along the deck of his host's ship on his way to the great cabin he
chanced to glance down the open hold, and there who should he see but his
dear old friend Vane hard at work; for he had already won his new master's
good graces by being a "brisk hand." Holford at once informed his host
that he was entertaining a notorious pirate, and with his consent clapped
Vane in irons, and removed him to his own ship, and when he arrived in
Jamaica handed his old friend to the justices, who quickly tried,
to the relative frequency of occurrence of hæmothorax I should have
placed it at about 30 per cent. The patients in these early battles
needed little wagon transport, and when sent down to the Base travelled
in comfortable ambulance trains. After the commencement of the march
from Modder River to Bloemfontein, however, these conditions were
changed, and all the chest as other cases were exposed to the necessity
of three days and nights' journey to the Stationary hospitals and
afterwards to the long journey to Cape Town. Of these patients, at
least 90 per cent. suffered with hæmothorax of varying degrees of
severity.

In some cases, the least common, signs of considerable intra-pleural
hæmorrhage immediately followed the wound; in others, the accumulation
of blood was gradual, and only manifest in any degree at the end of
three or four days, when it became stationary if the patient was kept at
rest. In a second series the hæmorrhage was of the recurrent variety;
these cases differing little in character from those of slight
continuous hæmorrhage. In a third, the bleeding was definitely of a
secondary character, corresponding with one of the classes of secondary
hæmorrhage described in Chapter IV., and occurring on the eighth or
tenth day from giving way of an imperfectly closed wounded vessel. In
either of the two latter classes the development of the hæmothorax often
corresponded with a journey, or with allowing the patient to get up.

The general course of these effusions was towards spontaneous absorption
and recovery. Coagulation of the blood took place early, the fluid serum
separated, and tended to undergo absorption with some rapidity, leaving
a small amount of coagulum at the base, which evidenced its presence for
many weeks by a persistence of a certain degree of dulness on
percussion. Early coagulation, I think, accounted for the usual absence
of gravitation ecchymosis as a sign.

The course to recovery was sometimes broken by signs of slight pleuritic
inflammation, which, as affecting the amount of effusion, will be spoken
of under the heading of symptoms. In some cases the amount of blood was
so great as to necessitate means being taken for its removal; in these a
reaccumulation often took place. Occasionally an empyema followed in
cases thus treated.

The nature of the blood evacuated on tapping varied much. In very early
aspirations unchanged blood was often met with, but clot sometimes made
evacuation difficult and necessitated a second puncture. In the tappings
done at the end of a week or more a dark porter-like fluid was common,
while when suppuration was imminent a brick-red-coloured grumous fluid
replaced normal blood. In the cases where early incision was resorted
to, blood both fluid and in clots was often mixed with a certain
proportion of lymph flakes, perhaps indicating the part taken by
inflammatory reaction to the irritation of the clot in producing the
rise of temperature.

_Symptoms of hæmothorax._--In the more severe cases of primary bleeding
the symptoms did not, as a rule, reach their full height until the third
or fourth day after the injury. The patients then often suffered
severely. The pulse and temperature rose, and to general symptoms of
loss of blood were added: occasional lividity of countenance; severe
dyspnoea, accompanied by inability to lie on the sound side or to
assume the supine position; absence of respiratory movement on the
injured side; pain, restlessness, cough, and sometimes continuance of
hæmoptysis, small clots usually being expectorated.

Accompanying these symptoms were the usual physical signs of fluid in
the pleura in differing degrees and combination. Dulness of varying
extent up to complete absence of resonance on one side, often
accompanied in the incomplete cases by well-marked skodaic resonance
anteriorly. Loss of vocal resonance, and fremitus; oegophony, tubular
respiration over the root of the lung or at the upper limit of the
dulness, and more or less extensive displacement of the heart. Obvious
increase in girth, fulness of the intercostal spaces, or gravitation
ecchymosis was rare. The latter was most common in instances in which
multiple fracture of the ribs existed (see fig. 83). I think the rarity
of the last sign must have been due to the early coagulation of the
blood, and its retention by the pleura, as I saw well-marked gravitation
ecchymosis in one or two cases of mediastinal hæmorrhage.

The above complex of symptoms was common to all the cases, but in the
slighter ones they gave rise to little trouble, and cleared up with
great rapidity.

[Illustration: FIG. 83.--Gravitation Ecchymosis in a case of Hæmothorax,
accompanying fracture of three ribs from within. The influence of the
fractures on the development of the ecchymosis is shown by the linear
arrangement of the discoloration]

The most interesting feature was offered by the temperature, as this was
very liable to lead one astray. A primary rise always occurred with the
collection of blood in the pleura, this reaching its height on the third
or fourth day, usually about 102° F. in well-marked cases; it then fell,
and in favourable instances remained normal. In a large number of cases,
however, where the amount of blood was considerable, this was not the
case, the primary fall not reaching the normal, and a second rise
occurred which reached the same height as before or higher. The second
rise was accompanied by sweating, quickened pulse, and the probability
of the development of an empyema had always to be considered. I believe
in most cases this secondary rise was an indication of a further
increase in the hæmorrhage, for the dulness usually increased in extent,
and such rises were often seen when the patient had been moved or taken
a journey. Again, the temperature often fell to normal after
paracentesis and removal of the blood, to rise again with a fresh
accumulation, which was not uncommon. I have already mentioned the large
proportional incidence of hæmothorax observed in the patients who had
to travel down from Paardeberg, and I might instance another case
related to me by Dr. Flockemann of the German ambulance, which was very
striking. A Boer, wounded at Colesberg, developed a hæmothorax which
quieted down, and he was removed to Bloemfontein; on arrival at the
latter place the temperature rose, and other signs of fever suggested
the development of an empyema; an exploring needle, however, only
brought blood to light. After a short stay at Bloemfontein the symptoms
entirely subsided, and the man was sent to Kroonstadt, when an exactly
similar attack resulted, again quieting down with rest.

Similar recurrent attacks of hæmorrhage and fever occurred, however, in
patients confined to their beds without moving after the first journey.
Some temperature charts, in illustration of this point, are added to the
cases quoted later. The explanation of the recurrent hæmorrhages is, I
think, to be found in the reduction of the intra-thoracic pressure with
coagulation and shrinkage of the clot in the pleura in the patients kept
quiet in bed, while in the patients who had to travel it was probably
the result of direct mechanical disturbance.

In many of these cases a pleural rub was audible at the upper margin of
the dulness with the development of the fresh symptoms. Whether this was
due to actual pleurisy or to the rubbing of surfaces rough from the
breaking down of slight recent adhesions which had formed a barrier to
the effusion, I am unable to say, but the signs were fairly constant. In
some instances the increase in the amount of fluid was, no doubt, due to
pleural effusion resulting from irritation from the presence of
blood-clot, or perhaps the shifting of the latter; in these the
secondary rise of temperature may well be ascribed to the development of
pleurisy.

I am inclined to believe, however, that the primary rise of temperature
was similar to that seen when blood accumulates in the peritoneal cavity
as the result of trauma, and the secondary rises in most cases to those
which we saw so frequently accompanying the interstitial secondary
hæmorrhages spoken of in Chapter IV., and are to be explained on the
theory of absorption of a blood ferment. The secondary rises always
occurred with a fresh effusion, often of blood, occasioning an
extension, which broke down probable light adhesions and exposed a fresh
area of normal pleural membrane to act as a surface for absorption.

It is, of course, manifest that the fever might also be ascribed to the
infection of the clot or serum from without, and in the first cases I
saw I was inclined to take this view, since we had in every case the
primary wounds of chest-wall, and possibly of lung, and in some the
addition of a puncture by an exploring needle between the first and
second rise. After a wider experience, however, I abandoned the
infection theory, as it seemed opposed by the very infrequent sequence
of suppuration. The effect of simple removal of the blood or serum was
also often so striking as to strongly suggest that it alone was
responsible for the fever. Exactly the same result, moreover, followed
evacuation of the interstitial blood effusions already mentioned
elsewhere.

The common course of all the cases of hæmothorax was to spontaneous
recovery, the rapidity of the subsidence of the signs depending mainly
on the quantity of the primary hæmorrhage, and the occurrence of further
increases. The blood serum tended to collect at the upper limit of the
original blood effusion (as was often proved on tapping), and this was
first absorbed; the clot deposited on the pleural surface and at the
basal part of the cavity was, however, not absorbed with the same
rapidity. In the majority of the patients when they left the hospitals,
at the end of six weeks on an average, some dulness and deficiency of
vesicular murmur always remained, and the clot and the surrounding
surface, irritated by its presence, will, no doubt, be responsible for
permanent adhesions in many cases. That such adhesions do form in the
majority of cases I feel certain, as, although these patients when they
left the hospital were to all intents and purposes apparently well, few
of them could undertake sustained exertion without getting short of
breath, and sometimes suffering from transitory pain, and for this
reason it became customary to invalid them home.

In a small proportion of the cases empyema followed; but I never saw
this in any case that had neither been tapped nor opened, and I saw
only one patient die from a chest wound uncomplicated by other injuries.
This case was an interesting one of recurrent hæmorrhage followed by
inflammatory troubles:--

[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 2.--Secondary Hæmorrhages in a case of
Hæmothorax. Case No. 151]

     (151) The wound was received at short range, probably at from
     100 to 200 yards. _Entry_, 1 inch from the left axillary margin
     in the first intercostal space; _exit_, at the back of the
     right arm 1-1/2 inch below the acromial angle; both pleuræ were
     therefore crossed. The patient expectorated at first fluid,
     then clotted, blood in considerable quantity. When brought into
     the advanced Base hospital on the third day, there were signs
     of blood in the left pleura, cellular emphysema over the right
     side of the chest, and signs of collapse of the right lung. The
     temperature chart gives shortly the course of the case: the
     right pneumo-thorax cleared up spontaneously, also the
     emphysema; but the left pleura needed tapping to relieve
     symptoms of pressure on four occasions, the 13th, 15th, 19th,
     and 25th days respectively. On the first two occasions blood
     was removed, on the third blood serum only, and on the last
     pus. The patient was relieved after each aspiration; after the
     third, the temperature fell to normal, the general condition
     also improved, and he promised to do well. None the less,
     reaccumulation took place, the evacuated fluid assumed an
     inflammatory character, and an incision to evacuate pus was
     eventually followed by death on the twenty-seventh day. The
     amount of hæmoptysis throughout was considerable, and the case
     was possibly one of pulmonary hæmothorax, as after death no
     source of hæmorrhage could be localised in the intercostal
     space. The track in the lung was almost healed, and although a
     part of it allowed the introduction of a probe for about an
     inch, it could be traced no further even on section of the
     organ, and no special vessel could be located as the original
     bleeding spot.

_Empyema._--I may here add the little that I have to say on this
subject. During the whole campaign the single case of primary empyema
that I saw was the one recorded below, which deserves special mention as
illustrating the disadvantage of extracting bullets on the field. Under
the conditions which necessarily accompanied this operation the
ensurance of asepsis was impossible, and the additional wound no doubt
proved the source of infection.

     (152) _Entry_, at the posterior margin of the sterno-mastoid
     muscle, 2 inches above the clavicle; the bullet came to the
     surface beneath the skin over the fifth rib, in the nipple line
     of the right side. There was never any hæmoptysis, but the
     patient suffered with some dyspnoea throughout. After a three
     days' stay in the Field hospital, where the subcutaneous bullet
     was removed, the patient was transported by wagon and train to
     the Base, a journey of about 600 miles.

     On the fifth day pus escaped from the extraction wound, and
     when the case was examined at the Base, the temperature was
     101°, the pulse over 100, the respirations 30, and the whole
     side of the chest was dull, with the exception of a patch of
     boxy resonance over the apex anteriorly. On the following day
     the chest was drained, and a considerable amount of pus
     evacuated, which was mixed with breaking-down blood-clot. A
     fortnight later a second operation had to be performed to
     improve the drainage, and the patient made a tedious recovery.

The following case well illustrates the symptoms in a severe case of
hæmothorax, and empyema following aspiration:--

     (153) The patient was wounded at Paardeberg at a range of from
     500 to 700 yards. _Entry_, just to the left of the episternal
     notch; _exit_, in the fifth left interspace posteriorly, midway
     between the spine and vertebral margin of the scapula. A
     quantity of bright blood was brought up at once, and later
     blood was coughed up in clots.

     There was no great pain at the moment of the injury; the man
     again got up to the firing line, and later walked two miles to
     the Field hospital without aid. He remained here a week, when
     he was sent down to the Base, and during the first three days'
     journey in the wagon he began to get worse. On the fourth day
     cough began to be very troublesome.

     When he arrived at the Base, fifteen days after the original
     injury, there was much dyspnoea; the temperature was 102°,
     and the pulse 110. The left side of the chest was dull
     throughout; an aspirating needle was introduced, and a pint of
     very dark liquid blood drawn off. The whole of the blood was
     not removed on account of the very severe cough and pain which
     the evacuation occasioned. The man appeared to steadily improve
     until three weeks later, when the temperature, which throughout
     had been uneven, became consistently high, and signs of fluid
     at the base increased. An aspirating needle was introduced, and
     16 ounces of pus were drawn off. Two days later a piece of rib
     was resected (Mr. Pegg) and another pint of pus evacuated.
     After this, rapid improvement took place, and in ten days the
     man was able to be up and dressed, although a small amount of
     discharge still persisted. He eventually made an excellent
     recovery.

Secondary empyemata not uncommonly followed incision of the chest, or
excision of a rib for draining a hæmothorax. These operations in the
early part of the campaign were more freely undertaken on the
supposition that rise of temperature and other symptoms of fever pointed
to incipient breaking down of the clot. Subsequent experience showed
this not to be the case, and early operations for drainage ceased to be
undertaken. In these operations a primary difficulty was met with in
effectively clearing out the clot, a drain had to be left, and
suppuration occurred later in a considerable proportion. The
suppurations were most troublesome; local adhesions formed, and the pus
collected in small pockets, which were difficult to find and to drain,
and even when the collections seemed to have been successfully dealt
with at the time, residual abscesses often followed at a very late date.
Thus, I saw a case with a contracted chest and a fresh abscess the day
before I left Cape Town, in whom I had advised and witnessed an
operation for the evacuation of clot in the presence of signs of fever a
week after my arrival in the country, nine months previously. I saw
another case where general infection followed incision of a hæmothorax,
but the patient fortunately recovered.

The question of _pleurisy_ has already been mentioned in connection with
hæmothorax; it no doubt accounted for secondary effusion in some cases,
and beyond this I have nothing to add to what has been there said.

_Pneumonia_ was rare; there were occasionally signs of consolidation,
but, I think, quite as often in the opposite lung as in the one injured.
I never saw a fatal case, and I am inclined to think that when it
occurred it was as often the result of cold and exposure as of the
injury to the lung. Abscess of the lung I only saw once, and that in a
case in which the injury to the chest was complicated by paraplegia from
spinal injury and septicæmia, and it was possibly pyæmic.

_Diagnosis._--No difficulties special to small-calibre wounds were
experienced, except such as have been already dealt with. The only class
of case which frequently gave rise to difficulty was hæmothorax. Here
two points especially needed consideration. (1) _The source of the
hæmorrhage as parietal or visceral._ As has been already foreshadowed,
this was mainly to be decided by the amount and persistence of the
hæmoptysis, but naturally free hæmoptysis did not negative concurrent
parietal bleeding. Then the actual source of the bleeding other than
from the lung had to be considered; in the great majority of cases the
intercostal vessels were responsible, and attention to the course of the
tracks often allowed this to be definitely decided upon.

A case included in the chapter on Injuries to the Blood Vessels (No. 5,
p. 127) is of great interest in this particular; in that instance
feebleness of the radial pulse, together with the position of the wound,
was a valuable indication of injury to the subclavian artery, but
weakened somewhat by the fact of retention of the bullet, and hence
uncertainty as to the exact course that it had taken, and as to whether
the bullet itself was not responsible for pressure on the vessel. Such
indications, however, should make one very chary of interference with a
hæmothorax, even with extremely urgent symptoms, in the light of our
present knowledge of the nature of the lesions to the great vessels
produced by small-calibre bullets, and their tendency to be incomplete.

(2) _The imminence of suppuration or its actual occurrence._--In most
cases it sufficed to preserve an expectant attitude, and in the
persistence or increase of symptoms, to have recourse to an exploratory
puncture as the best means of solution of the difficulty.

_Prognosis._--The prognosis both as to life and as to subsequent
ill-effects was remarkably good; in many cases of uncomplicated injury
to the lung the patients rejoined their regiments at the end of a month
or six weeks. In the more serious cases complicated by the collection of
blood in the pleura, convalescence was more prolonged, and an average
time of six to eight weeks often elapsed before the patients could be
safely discharged from hospital. In the more serious a certain amount of
dulness always persisted at this time over the base of the lung, and the
chest was usually somewhat contracted on the injured side, with evidence
in the way of decreased vesicular murmur that the lung was still not
free from compression. With regard to the persistence of dulness on
percussion, it is well to bear in mind that a thin layer of blood
apparently produces as serious impairment of resonance as a much larger
quantity of serum. The signs appeared to favour the view that the space
necessary for the location of the hæmorrhage had been obtained at the
expense of the lung rather than by distension of the thoracic parietes,
and also, I think, denoted the presence of adhesions. Possibly they will
entirely disappear with the return of full excursion movements of
respiration, the latter being often still somewhat restricted when the
patients left hospital. All the patients with such signs were liable to
attacks of pain and shortness of breath on actual bodily exertion. I
happened to meet with an officer, the subject of a Lee-Metford wound of
the thorax, sustained five years previously, and he told me that he was
nine months before he could take active exercise without feeling short
of breath.

As to the cases of hæmothorax and empyema which needed drainage, all did
well; but expansion of the lung was much less satisfactory than would
have been expected, probably on account of especially firm adhesions.
The importance of concurrent injury I need hardly dwell on; but I might
add that perforation of one or both arms, the most common one, did not
materially affect the general statements above made.

_Treatment._--In the early stages of the pulmonary wounds rest was the
all-important indication, and when this was assured few serious cases of
hæmothorax occurred. Beyond simple rest, the administration of opium
with a view to checking internal hæmorrhage was used with good effect.
The wounds needed simple dressing only.

The treatment of hæmothorax at a later date, however, was of much
interest and difficulty. I think the following lines may be laid down
for guidance in such cases:--

(i) Hæmothorax, even of considerable severity, will undergo spontaneous
cure. An early rise of temperature may be disregarded.

(ii) Tapping the chest is indicated when pressure signs on the lung are
sufficiently severe to cause serious symptoms, and the removal of the
blood undoubtedly shortens the period of recovery, as well as relieves
symptoms.

In such cases the collection of blood has usually been rapid and
continuous; hence a fresh hæmorrhage is always probable when the local
pressure has been removed. Tapping therefore should not necessarily mean
complete evacuation, and should be followed by careful firm binding up
of the chest, the administration of opium, and the most stringent
precautions for rest.

(iii) Tapping may be needed as a diagnostic aid, and in such
circumstances as much fluid as can be removed should be evacuated with
the same precautions as mentioned in the last paragraph.

(iv) Tapping may be indicated for the evacuation of serum expressed from
the blood-clot, or due to pleural effusion, on the same lines as in any
other collection of fluid in the pleural cavity.

(v) Early free incision is, as a rule, to be steadfastly avoided. Some
cases already quoted fully illustrate its disadvantages.

(vi) Cases in which an incision and the ligature of a parietal artery
are indicated are very rare. I never saw such a one myself.

(vii) If a hæmothorax suppurates, it must be treated on the ordinary
lines of an empyema. In view of the constant formation of adhesions and
difficulty in drainage, a portion of a rib should always be resected in
order to ensure sufficient space for after-treatment. The cavities, as a
rule, are better irrigated, the usual precautions being taken where
there is any reason to fear that the lung is still in communication with
the cavity.

Care in carrying out asepsis in tapping, which should be performed with
an aspirator, need hardly be more than mentioned. It will be noted that
in some of the cases quoted suppuration followed tapping, but it must be
remembered that in these the two primary wounds already existed as
possible channels of infection.

Retained bullets of small calibre in the thoracic cavity were not
common, unless the lodgment had occurred in the bodies of the vertebræ.
I saw very few. Shrapnel bullets and fragments of shells, however, were,
in proportion to the frequency of wounds from such projectiles, more
commonly retained. The rules to be followed in such cases do not
materially deviate from those to be observed in the body generally.

When the bullet is causing no trouble, and is lodged in either the bone
of the spine or the lung substance, no interference is advisable. When,
on the other hand, the bullet as viewed by the X-rays is seen to be in
the pleural cavity, and any symptoms of its presence exist, it may be
justifiable to remove it. I saw this done in one case for the removal of
a shrapnel bullet from the lower reflexion of the pleura on account of
fixed pain and tenderness complained of by the patient. The bullet, a
shrapnel, had perforated the arm, which the patient was sure was by his
side at the moment of injury, and the X-rays showed it to lie at the
bottom of the pleural cavity, where we assumed it had fallen. When,
however, the bullet was removed by Mr. Watson, he found that the fixed
pain and tenderness had been the result of a fracture of a rib from the
inner side, not involving loss of continuity; hence the actual
indication for the operation had been a delusive one, since the bullet
had not fallen, but expended its last force in injuring the rib. The
patient made an excellent recovery, and rejoined his regiment at the end
of six weeks. I saw several cases in which the bullet was lodged in
either the lung or bones of the spine do well with no interference. The
great disadvantage of primary removal in inducing an artificial
pneumo-thorax and in laying open a hæmothorax is obvious.

In case of lodgment of the bullet in the lung, bearing in mind the
infrequency of untoward symptoms, the latter should be watched for prior
to interference.

The following cases illustrate some typical instances of wound of chest
accompanied by the development of hæmothorax:--

[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 3.--Primary Hæmothorax, with rise of
temperature. Secondary rise, with fresh effusion and pneumonia.
Spontaneous recovery. Case No. 154]

     (154) _Severe hæmothorax. Spontaneous recovery._--Wounded at
     Modder River at a distance of 30 yards. _Entry_, at the
     junction of the left anterior axillary fold with the
     chest-wall; _exit_, immediately to the left of the seventh
     dorsal spinous process. The patient arrived at the Base with
     signs of an extensive hæmothorax, accompanied by a temperature
     which reached 102° on the fourth day, and on the evening of the
     tenth 103°. The man was very ill, and an exploring needle was
     inserted, by which about an ounce of blood was evacuated. The
     signs of fluid in the left pleura were accompanied by those of
     consolidation over the lower fourth of the right lung, and the
     sputa were rusty. Evidence of perforation of the left axillary
     artery existed in feebleness of the radial pulse; and there was
     musculo-spiral paralysis.

     After the preliminary puncture, the man refused any further
     operative treatment, although a second rise of temperature
     commenced on the fifteenth day, culminating in a temperature of
     103.2° on the eighteenth. The further treatment of the patient
     consisted in the ensurance of rest and the alleviation of pain.
     A steady fall in the temperature extended over another three
     weeks, together with diminution in the signs of fluid in the
     pleura. At the end of seventy-four days the man was sent home,
     some slight dulness at the left base, and contraction of the
     chest sufficient to influence the spine in the way of lateral
     curvature, being the only remaining signs.

[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 4.--Primary Hæmothorax. Secondary rise
of temperature, with increase in the effusion. Spontaneous recovery.
Case No. 155]

     (155) _Severe hæmothorax. Secondary effusion. Spontaneous
     recovery._--Wounded at Koodoosberg Drift, at a distance of 200
     yards. _Entry_, at angle of the right scapula; _exit_, at the
     junction of the left anterior axillary fold with the
     chest-wall. No signs of spinal cord injury. The patient was
     brought in from the field twelve miles by an ambulance wagon on
     the second day, and in crossing the Modder River he was
     accidentally upset into the stream. For the first four days
     there was no hæmoptysis, but for the succeeding nine days small
     brightish red clots were expectorated. There was some
     tenderness over the ribs from the fifth to the ninth in the
     axillary line, and on the ninth day some gravitation ecchymosis
     appeared over the same region. Cough was an early troublesome
     symptom in this case, and when admitted to the Base hospital,
     about the seventh day, there was evidence of fluid extending
     about a third of the way up the back.

     On the tenth day after admission a pleural rub was detected at
     the upper margin of the dulness, and the latter shortly
     extended upwards over a little more than half the back.
     Meanwhile, there was no further hæmoptysis, respiration was
     fairly easy, 24 per minute, but accompanied by slight
     dilatation of the alæ nasi, and the temperature, which had been
     ranging from 99° to 100°, began to rise steadily, on the
     fifteenth day reaching 102.5°. The patient refused even an
     exploratory puncture, and was treated on the expectant plan.
     The temperature slowly subsided, with a steady improvement in
     the physical signs, and at the end of about ten weeks he left
     for home with only slight dulness and incapacity for active
     exertion remaining. (Now again on active service.)

[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 5.--Hæmothorax, primary and secondary
rises of temperature, on each occasion falling on the evacuation of the
blood. Case No. 156]

     (156) _Severe hæmothorax. Recurrent secondary effusion. Tapping
     on two occasions. Cure._--The patient was wounded at
     Paardeberg, and arrived at the Base on the eighteenth day.
     _Entry_, below the first rib, just external to its junction
     with the costal cartilage; _exit_, through the ninth rib, just
     within the posterior axillary line. The whole right side of the
     chest was dull, with signs of the presence of fluid, the heart
     being displaced to the left. There was considerable distress;
     the respirations averaged 40, the pulse 100, and the
     temperature reached 101.5° the first evening after arrival.

     On the nineteenth day the thorax was aspirated (Mr. Hanwell)
     and 50 ounces of dirty red-coloured fluid, half clot, half
     serum, were evacuated. Considerable relief was afforded; the
     respirations became slightly less frequent; the heart returned
     to a normal position, and distant tubular respiration was
     audible. The temperature dropped to normal the third day after
     evacuation of the fluid, but on the sixth day it again
     commenced to rise, and meanwhile fluid again began to collect.

     On the twenty-sixth day a second aspiration resulted in the
     evacuation of 35 ounces of bloody fluid in which flakes of
     lymph were found. Three days later the temperature became
     normal. The respirations fell to 22, and the patient made an
     uninterrupted recovery.

[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 6.--Wound of Lung. Secondary
development of Hæmothorax, with rise of temperature. Spontaneous
recovery. Case No 157]

     (157) _Moderate hæmothorax. Secondary effusion at the end of
     twenty days. Spontaneous recovery._--Wounded at Paardeberg;
     range from 700 to 1,000 yards. _Entry_, in the centre of the
     second right intercostal space, anteriorly; _exit_, at the
     level of the sixth rib posteriorly, through the scapula, close
     to its vertebral margin.

     The patient arrived at the Base on the sixth day; he said he
     expectorated some blood at the end of about ten minutes after
     being shot, and experienced a 'half-choking sensation.' A small
     quantity of phlegm and occasional clots had been expectorated
     since. He had walked about a good deal; movement occasioned
     cough, and he became 'blown' very rapidly.

     On admission there were signs of fluid in the lower third of
     the pleural cavity, but no general symptoms beyond an evening
     rise of temperature to an average of 99°. About the twentieth
     day the temperature commenced to rise, and on the twenty-third
     and four following evenings reached 102°. The fever was
     accompanied by some distress, and a well-marked increase in the
     physical signs of the presence of fluid in the chest. The pulse
     rose to 96, and the respirations considerably above the average
     of 24, which was at first noted. A strictly expectant attitude
     was maintained, and the temperature steadily fell in a curve
     corresponding to the rise, gradually reaching the normal at the
     end of a week. The physical signs at the base steadily cleared
     up, and at the end of six weeks the patient returned to England
     convalescent.




CHAPTER XI

INJURIES TO THE ABDOMEN


Perhaps no chapter of military surgery was looked forward to with more
eager interest than that dealing with wounds of the abdomen. In none was
greater expectation indulged in with regard to probable advance in
active surgical treatment, and in none did greater disappointment lie in
store for us.

Wounds of the solid viscera, it is true, proved to be of minor
importance when produced by bullets of small calibre; but wounds of the
intestinal tract, although they showed themselves capable of spontaneous
recovery in a certain proportion of the cases observed, afforded but
slight opportunity for surgical skill, and results generally deviated
but slightly from those of past experience. Such success as was met with
depended rather on the mechanical genesis and nature of the wounds than
upon the efforts of the surgeon, and operative surgery scored but few
successes.

It is true that to the Civil Surgeon accustomed to surroundings replete
with every modern appliance and convenience, and the possibility of
exercising the most stringent precautions against the introduction of
sepsis from without, abdominal operations presented difficulties only
faintly appreciated in advance; but this alone scarcely accounted for
the want of success attending the active treatment of wounds of the
intestine when occasion demanded. Failure was rather to be referred to
the severity of the local injury to be dealt with, or to the operations
being necessarily undertaken at too late a date. Many fatalities, again,
were due to the association of other injuries, a large proportion of the
wound tracks involving other organs or parts beyond the boundaries of
the abdominal cavity.

The frequent association of wounds of the thoracic cavity with those of
the abdomen afforded many of the most striking examples of immunity from
serious consequences as a result of wound of the pleura. It must be
conceded that in a large number of such injuries only the extreme limits
of the pleural sac were encroached upon, yet in some the tracks passed
through the lungs, although without serious consequences. Under the
heading of injury to the large intestine a somewhat special form of
pleural septicæmia will be referred to.

It may at once be stated that such favourable results as occurred in
abdominal injuries were practically limited to wounds caused by bullets
of small calibre, and that, although in the short chapter dealing with
shell injuries a few recoveries from visceral wounds will be mentioned,
I never met with a penetrating visceral injury from a Martini-Henry or
large sporting bullet which did not prove fatal.

_Wounds of the abdominal wall._--It is somewhat paradoxical to say that
these injuries possessed special interest from their comparative rarity
of occurrence, since they were not of intrinsic importance. Their
infrequency depended on the difficulty of striking the body in such a
plane as to implicate the belly wall alone, and their interest in the
diagnostic difficulty which they gave rise to.

In many cases the position of the openings and the strongly oval or
gutter character possessed by them were sufficient proof of the
superficial passage of the bullet; in others we had to bear in mind that
the position of the patient when struck was rarely that of rest in the
supine position, in which the surgical examination was made, and
considerable difficulty arose. Some superficial tracks crossing the
belly wall have already been referred to in the chapter on wounds in
general and in that dealing with injuries to the chest, in which the
above characters sufficed to indicate that penetration of the abdominal
cavity had not occurred. In other instances a definite subcutaneous
gutter could be traced, and often in these a well-marked cord in the
abdominal wall corresponding to the track could be felt at a later date.
Again, limitation to the abdominal wall was sometimes proved by the
position of the retained bullet, or sometimes by the presence in the
track of foreign bodies carried in with the projectile. See case 160.

Fig. 84 illustrates an example where the limitation to the abdominal
wall was evident on inspection. Here the division of the thick muscles
of the abdominal wall had led to the formation of a swelling exactly
similar to that seen after the subcutaneous rupture of a muscle, and two
soft fluctuating tumours bounded by contracted muscle existed in the
substance of the oblique and rectus muscles.

[Illustration: FIG. 84.--Wound of Abdominal Wall (Lee-Metford). Division
of fibres of external oblique and rectus abdominis muscles. Case 159]

The cases which presented the most serious diagnostic difficulty in this
relation were those in which the wound was situated in the thicker
muscular portions of the lower part of the abdominal and pelvic walls.
Such a case is illustrated in the chapter on fractures (see fig. 55, p.
191). I saw one or two such instances, in which only the exploration
necessary for treatment of the fracture decided the point. In many of
the wounds affecting the lateral portion of the abdominal wall the
question of penetration could never be definitely cleared up, as wounds
of the colon sometimes gave rise to absolutely no symptoms.

In a certain proportion of the injuries the peritoneal cavity was no
doubt perforated without the infliction of any further visceral injury,
and in these also the doubt as to the occurrence of penetration was
never solved.

     (158) _Wound of belly wall._--Wounded at Modder River. _Entry_
     (Mauser), 2 inches below the centre of the left iliac crest;
     _exit_, 1-1/2 inch above and internal to the left anterior
     superior iliac spine. The patient was on horseback at the time
     of the injury and did not fall; he got down, however, and lay
     on the field an hour, whence he was removed to hospital.
     Probably the track pierced the ilium, and remained confined to
     the abdominal wall. There were no signs of visceral injury.

     (159) Cape Boy. Wounded at Modder River. _Entry_ (Lee-Metford),
     immediately above and outside right anterior superior spine;
     _exit_, 1-1/2 inch below and to right of umbilicus. A
     well-marked swelling corresponded with division of the fibres
     of the oblique muscles and of the rectus, and on palpation a
     hollow corresponding with the track was felt. The abdominal
     muscles were exceptionally well developed (fig. 84).

     (160) Wounded at Magersfontein while lying prone. _Entry_,
     irregular, oblique, and somewhat contused, over the eighth left
     rib, in the anterior axillary line; _exit_, a slit wound
     immediately above and to the left of the umbilicus. The bullet
     struck a small circular metal looking-glass before entering,
     hence the irregularity of the wound. The patient developed a
     hæmothorax, but no abdominal signs; the former was probably
     parietal in origin, secondary to the fractured rib, and the
     whole wound non-penetrating as far as the abdominal cavity was
     concerned.

     (161) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), 1-1/2 inch
     external to and 1/2 inch below the left posterior superior
     iliac spine; _exit_, 1 inch internal horizontally to the left
     anterior superior spine.

     No signs of intra-peritoneal injury were noted, but free
     suppuration occurred in left loin; the ilium was tunnelled.

     The same patient was wounded by a Jeffrey bullet in the hand;
     the third metacarpal was pulverised, although the bullet, which
     was longitudinally flanged, was retained.

     (162) Wounded outside Heilbron. _Entry_, below the eighth right
     costal cartilage; _exit_, below the eighth cartilage of the
     left side. The wound of entry was slightly oval; that of exit
     continued out as a 'flame'-like groove for 2 inches. A week
     later the wound track could be palpated as an evident hard
     continuous cord.

_Penetration of the intestinal area without definite evidence of
visceral injury._--This accident occurred with a sufficient degree of
frequency to obtain the greatest importance, both from the point of view
of diagnosis and prognosis, and as affecting the question of operative
interference. Amongst the cases reported below a number occurred in
which it was impossible to settle the question whether injury to the
bowel had occurred or not, and I will here shortly give what explanation
I can for the apparent escape of the intestine from serious injury.

We may first recall the general question of the escape of structures
lying to one or other side of the track of the bullet. I believe that
there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of the remarks already made as
to the escape of such structures as the nerves by means of displacement,
and that the occurrence of such escapes is manifestly dependent on the
degree of fixity of the nerve or the special segment of it implicated.
The general tendency of the tissues around the tracks to escape
extensive destruction from actual contusion has also been referred to,
and is, I think, indisputable.

If these observations be accepted, I think there can be no difficulty in
allowing that the small intestine is exceptionally well arranged to
escape injury. First of all, it is very moveable; secondly, it is so
arranged that in certain directions a bullet may pass almost parallel to
the long axis of the coils; thirdly, it is elastic, capable of
compression, and light, and hence offers but a small degree of
resistance to the passage of the bullet across the abdominal cavity.

Certain evidence both clinical and pathological supports the contention
that the small intestine may escape injury from the passing bullet.

First of all, the fact may be broadly stated that injuries to the small
intestine were fatal in the great majority of certainly diagnosed cases,
while, on the other hand, many tracks crossed the area occupied by the
small intestine without serious symptoms of any kind resulting.
Secondly, experience showed that when the bullet crossed the line of the
fixed portions of the large intestine the gut rarely escaped, and that,
although a considerable proportion of these cases recovered
spontaneously, in a large number of them immediate symptoms, or
secondary complications, clearly substantiated the nature of the
original injury. As far as my experience went, however, I never saw any
instance in which an undoubted injury of the small intestine was
followed by the development of a local peritoneal suppuration and
recovery, a sequence by no means uncommon in the case of wounds of the
large intestine. Although, therefore, I am not prepared to deny the
possibility of spontaneous recovery from an injury to the small
intestine, under certain conditions which will be stated later, I
believe that in the immense majority of cases in which a bullet crossed
the small intestine area without the supervention of serious symptoms,
the small intestine escaped perforating injury.

Beyond the clinical evidence offered above, certain pathological
observations support the view that the intestine escapes perforation by
displacement. Most of my knowledge on this subject was derived from the
limited number of abdominal sections I performed on cases of injury to
the small intestine, and may be summed up as follows.

The small intestine may present evidence of lateral contusion in the
shape of elongated ecchymoses, either parallel, oblique, or transverse
to its long axis. These ecchymoses resemble in extent and outline those
which ordinarily surround a wound of the intestinal wall produced by a
bullet (see fig. 87, p. 418).

The wall of the small intestine may be wounded to an extent short of
perforation, either the peritoneal coat alone being split, or the wound
implicating the muscular coat and producing an appearance similar to
that seen when the intestine is dragged upon during an operation, but
without so much gaping of the edges (see fig. 85, p. 416).

I met with these conditions in association with co-existing complete
perforations of the small intestine, and in one case of intra-peritoneal
hæmorrhage in which no complete perforation was discoverable (No. 169,
p. 432).

The implication and perforation of the small intestine are to some
extent influenced by the direction of the wound. A striking case is
included below, No. 201, in which a bullet passed from the loin to the
iliac fossa on each side of the body, approximately parallel to the
course of the inner margin of the colon, and I also saw some other
wounds in this direction in which no evidence of injury to the small
intestine was detected, and which got well. Again wounds from flank to
flank were, as a rule, very fatal; but I saw more than one instance
where these wounds were situated immediately below the crest of the
ilium, in which the intestine escaped injury (see case 171). A very
striking observation was made by Mr. Cheatle in such a wound. The
patient died as a result of a double perforation of both cæcum and
sigmoid flexure; none the less the bullet had crossed the small
intestine area without inflicting any injury.

The sum of my experience, in fact, was to encourage the belief that,
unless the intestine was struck in such a direction as to render lateral
displacement an impossibility, the gut often escaped perforation.

As a rule, the wounds of the abdomen which from their position proved
the most dangerous to the intestine were--

1. Wounds passing from one flank to the other were very dangerous, as
crossing complicated coils of the small intestine, and two fixed
portions of the colon. This danger was most marked when the wounds were
situated between the eighth rib in the mid axillary line and the crest
of the ilium; above this level the liver, or possibly liver and stomach,
were sometimes alone implicated, and the cases did well. Again, when the
wounds crossed the false pelvis the patients sometimes escaped all
injury to viscera.

2. Antero-posterior wounds in the small intestine area were very fatal
if the course was direct; in such the small intestine seldom escaped
injury.

3. Wounds with a certain degree of obliquity from anterior wall to
flank, or from flank to loin, were on the other hand comparatively
favourable, as the small intestine often escaped, and if any gut was
wounded, it was often the colon.

4. Vertical wounds implicating the chest and abdomen, or the abdomen and
pelvis, were on the whole not very unfavourable. For instance, when the
bullet entered by the buttock and emerged below the umbilicus, a number
of patients escaped fatal injury; this depended on the comparatively
good prognosis in wounds of the rectum and bladder. A good many
patients in whom the bullet entered by the upper part of the loin, and
escaped 1-1/2 inch within the anterior superior spine of the ilium, also
did well. The same holds good when the wounds either entered or emerged
under the anterior costal margin of the thorax, either prior to or after
traversing the thorax.

Wounds passing directly backward from the iliac regions were in my
experience very unfavourable; but I believe mainly as a result of
hæmorrhage from the iliac arteries.

_The occurrence of wounds of the abdomen of an 'explosive'
character._--The vast majority of the abdominal wounds observed in the
Stationary or Base hospitals were of the type dimensions. A certain
number of the abdominal injuries which proved fatal on the field or
shortly afterwards were described as explosive in character, and were
referred by the observers to the employment of expanding bullets.

A few words on this subject seem necessary, because it seems doubtful
whether such injuries could be produced by any of the forms of expanding
bullet of small calibre in use, unless the track crossed one of the
bones in the abdominal or pelvic wall. That this was sometimes the case
there is no doubt: thus I saw two cases in which the splenic flexure of
the colon was wounded, in which the external opening was large, and a
comminuted fracture of the ribs of the left side existed. One can well
believe that bullets passing through the pelvic bones might 'set up' to
a considerable extent, and although I never happened to see such a case,
an explanation of some of the wounds described by others might be found
in this occurrence.

In instances in which the soft parts alone were perforated, I am
disinclined to believe that bullets of small calibre, either regulation
or soft-nosed, were responsible for the injuries. I had the opportunity
of examining two Mauser bullets of the Jeffreys variety which crossed
the abdomen and caused death. In the first (figured on page 94, fig. 40)
very little alteration beyond slight shortening had occurred. In the
second the deformity was almost the same, except that the side of the
bullet was indented, probably from impact with some object prior to its
entry into the body. In each case the bullet was of course travelling at
a low rate of velocity; hence no very strong inference can be drawn
from either. In the case of the second specimen, which was removed by
Mr. Cheatle, a remarkable observation was made, which tends to throw
some light on one possible mode of production of large exit apertures.
This bullet crossed the cæcum, making two small type openings; but
later, when it crossed the sigmoid flexure, it tore two large irregular
openings in the gut. This might be explained on the ground that the
velocity was so small as only just to allow of perforation, which
therefore took the nature of a tear. I am inclined to suggest, as a more
likely explanation, that the spent bullet turned head over heels in its
course across the abdomen, and made lateral or irregular impact with the
last piece of bowel it touched. A slightly greater degree of force would
have allowed a similar large and irregular opening to be made in the
abdominal wall also.

In this relation the question will naturally be raised as to how far the
explosive appearances may have been due to high velocity alone on the
part of the bullet. I am disinclined from my general experience to
believe that explosive injuries of the soft parts were to be thus
explained. On the other hand, I believe that the possession of a low
degree of velocity very greatly increased the danger in abdominal
wounds. I believe that the bowel was, under these circumstances, less
likely to escape by displacement, and was more widely torn when wounded;
again, that inexact impact led to increase of size in the external
apertures, and the bullet was of course more often retained.

Mr. Watson Cheyne[19] published a very remarkable instance of one of the
dangers of an injury from a spent bullet, in which, in spite of
non-penetration of the abdominal cavity, the small intestine was
ruptured in two places.

I believe the majority of the wounds designated as explosive were the
result of the passage of large leaden bullets, either of the
Martini-Henry or Express type. The small opportunity of observing such
injuries in the hospitals of course depended on the fact that the
majority were rapidly fatal.

_Nature of the anatomical lesion in wounds of the intestine._--The
openings in the parietal peritoneum tended to assume the slit or star
forms, probably on account of the elasticity of the membrane. A diagram
of one of these forms is appended to fig. 89. In this instance the
opening in the peritoneum was made from the abdominal aspect, prior to
the escape of the bullet from the cavity, and on the impact of the tip,
the long axis of the bullet was oblique to the surface of the abdominal
wall.

In the intestinal wall the openings varied in character according to the
mode of impact.

In some cases the gut was merely contused by lateral contact of the
passing bullet. The result of this was evidenced later by the presence
of localised oval patches of ecchymosis. These were identical in
appearance with the patches shown surrounding the wounds in fig. 87.

[Illustration: FIG. 85.--Lateral Slit in Small Intestine produced by
passage of bullet. Slit somewhat obscured by deposition of inflammatory
lymph. (St. Thomas's Hospital Museum)]

More forcible lateral impact produced a split of the peritoneum, or of
this together with the muscular coat. Such a lateral slit is shown in
fig. 85, although the clearness of outline is somewhat impaired by the
presence of a considerable amount of inflammatory lymph.

Fig. 86 exhibits a lateral injury of a more pronounced form. The bullet
here struck the most prominent portion of the under surface of the
bowel, and produced a circular perforation not very unlike one produced
by rectangular impact, except in the lesser degree of eversion of the
mucous membrane. Here again the appearance is somewhat altered by the
presence of a considerable amount of lymph, but this is of less
importance in this figure because the lymph is localised to the portion
of the bowel in the immediate neighbourhood of the opening which had
suffered contusion and erasion.

[Illustration: FIG. 86.--Gutter Wound of Small Intestine caused by
lateral impact. Position of shallow portion of gutter indicated by
deposition of inflammatory lymph. Circular perforation. (St. Thomas's
Hospital Museum)]

Fig. 87, A B, illustrates a symmetrical perforation of the small
intestine; the aperture of entry (A) is roughly circular, and a ring of
mucous membrane protrudes and partially closes the opening. The aperture
of exit is a curved slit, again partially occluded by the mucous
membrane. The same amount of difference between the two apertures did
not always exist; in many cases both were circular, and apparently
symmetrical. Beyond this I have seen three apertures in close proximity,
two lying on the same aspect of the bowel, and the first of these was no
doubt an opening due to lateral impact similar to that seen in fig. 86.
In the recent condition little difference existed between the three
apertures.

The localised ecchymosis surrounding the apertures is quite
characteristic of this form of injury, and is a valuable aid to finding
the openings during an operation.

Fig. 88 shows the interior of the same segment of bowel, as fig. 87. It
shows the localised ecchymosis as seen from the inner surface, here
rather more extensive from the fact that the blood spreads more readily
in the submucous tissue.

[Illustration: FIG. 87.--Perforating Wounds of Small Intestine. A.
Entry; note circular outline and eversion of mucous membrane. B. Wound
of exit; curved slit-like character, eversion of mucous membrane. Note
the localised ecchymosis, more abundant round exit aperture. (St.
Thomas's Hospital Museum)]

It will be noted that the main feature of the form of injury is the
regular outline and the small size of the wounds. Another feature not
illustrated by the figures should also be mentioned. In the ruptures of
intestine with which we are acquainted in civil practice the wound in
the gut is almost without exception situated at the free border of the
bowel, but in these injuries it was just as frequently at the mesenteric
margin. The importance of this factor is considerable, since wounds
near the mesenteric edge are much more likely to be accompanied by
hæmorrhage, and thus the opportunity for diffusion of infection is
considerably multiplied, to say nothing of the danger from loss of
blood.

Beyond these more or less pure perforations, long slits or gutters were
occasionally cut. I saw instances of these in the case of the ascending
colon, and in the small curvature of the stomach. The comparative fixity
of the portion of bowel struck is a matter of great importance in the
production of this form of injury.

[Illustration: FIG. 88.--The same piece of Intestine as that shown in
fig. 87, laid open to show the ecchymosis on the inner aspect of the
Bowel. The two indicating lines lead to the openings, which appear
slit-like, and are sunk at the bottom of folds. (St. Thomas's Hospital
Museum)]

It may be well to add that, although the figures inserted are all taken
from small-intestine wounds, the nature of the wounds of the
peritoneum-clad part of the large intestine in no way differed from
them, except in so far as fixity of the bowel exposed it to a more
extensive wound when the bullet took a parallel course to its long axis.

A more important point in the injuries to the large intestine was the
possibility of an extra-peritoneal wound. I saw several such lesions of
the colon, every one of which ended fatally. I became still more fully
convinced of the greater seriousness of extra- to intra-peritoneal
rupture of this portion of the gut than I was when I expressed a similar
opinion in a former paper.[20] It will be seen later that the results of
intra- and extra-peritoneal wounds of the bladder fully confirm this
view, as all extra-peritoneal injuries died, while many intra-peritoneal
perforations recovered spontaneously.

_Wounds of the mesentery._--I had little experience of this injury; in
fact, case 169, on which I operated, was my sole observation. It stands
to reason, however, that injuries to the mesentery would be much more
frequent proportionately to wounds of the gut than is the case in the
ruptures seen in civil practice, since the whole area of the mesentery
is equally open to injury. Viewing the extreme danger of hæmorrhage into
the peritoneal cavity in these injuries, I should be inclined to expect
that a considerable proportion of those deaths from abdominal wounds
which took place on the field of battle were due to this source.

_Wounds of the omentum._--Here, again, I am unable to express any
opinion, although the supposition that hæmorrhage from this source took
place is natural.

Prolapse of omentum was comparatively rare, except in cases with large
wounds; it was apparently seen with some frequency among patients who
died rapidly on the field of battle. I only saw it twice, and on each
occasion in shell wounds. The wounds from small-calibre bullets were as
a rule too small to allow of external prolapse.

Fig. 89, however, illustrates a very interesting observation. A patient
in the German Ambulance in Heilbron, under Dr. Flockemann, died as a
result of suppuration and hæmorrhage secondary to an injury to the
colon. At the autopsy a portion of the omentum was found adherent in the
wound of exit, but it had not reached the external surface. The chief
interest of the observation lies in the light it throws on the mechanism
of these injuries. It is impossible to conceive that a small-calibre
bullet coming into direct contact with the omentum could do anything but
perforate it. It, therefore, appears clear that in a displacement like
that figured, only lateral impact occurred with the omentum, which was
carried along by the spin and rush of the bullet into the canal of exit,
where it lodged.

[Illustration: FIG. 89.--Great Omentum carried by the bullet into an
exit track leading from the abdominal cavity. A. Outline of opening in
the peritoneum]

_Results of injury to the intestine._ 1. _Escape of contents and
infection of the peritoneal cavity._--I think there is little special to
be said on this subject. The escape of contents into the peritoneal
cavity was by no means free, unless the injury was multiple. Thus in one
case of injury to the small intestine, No. 166, on which I operated,
there was absolutely no gross escape until the bowel was removed from
the abdominal cavity, when the contents spurted out freely. In one case
of very oblique injury to the colon there was a considerable quantity of
fæcal matter in a localised space, but as a rule the ordinary condition
best described as 'peritoneal infection' from the wound was found. The
bad effect of anything like free escape was well shown in multiple
perforations; in these suppurative peritonitis rapidly developed and the
patients died at the end of thirty-six hours or less. A typical case is
quoted in No. 168.

2. _Peritoneal infection, and general septicæmia._--As is evident from
the results quoted among the cases, the degree which this reached varied
greatly. It may of course be assumed that in some measure it occurred in
every case in which the bowel was perforated, but it was sometimes so
slight as to be scarcely noticeable. This may be said to have been most
common in injuries to the large intestine. Wounds of the cæcum,
ascending and descending colon, the sigmoid flexure, or the rectum, were
sometimes followed by no serious symptoms, either local or general.
Again in these portions of the bowel the development of local signs, and
the later formation of an abscess, were by no means uncommon.

In the case of the small intestine I never observed this sequence, and
the same may be said of the transverse colon, which in its anatomical
arrangement and position so nearly approximates to the small bowel. In
suspected wounds of these portions of the bowel either the symptoms were
so slight as to render it doubtful whether a perforation had occurred,
or marked signs of general peritoneal septicæmia developed, and death
resulted.

The condition of the peritoneum in fatal cases varied much. In some a
dry peritonitis, or one in which a considerable quantity of slightly
turbid fluid was effused, was found. In others a rapid suppurative
process, accompanied by the effusion of large quantities of plastic
lymph, was met with. My experience suggested that the latter condition
was the result of free infection from multiple wounds of the gut, the
former the accompaniment of single wounds. Hence I should ascribe the
difference mainly to the extent of the primary infection.

This is perhaps a suitable place to further discuss the explanation of
the escape of a considerable number of the patients who received wounds
of the abdomen, possibly implicating the bowel. Although this was not, I
think, so common an occurrence as has been sometimes assumed, yet many
examples were met with. Several reasons have been advanced.

(1) Great importance has been given to the fact that many of the men
were wounded while in a state of hunger, no food having been taken for
twelve or more hours before the reception of the injury. In view of the
well-proved fact in these, as in other intestinal injuries, that free
intestinal escape does not occur, and that it is usually a mere question
of infection, this explanation, in my opinion, is of small importance.
It might with far more justice be pointed out that many of these wounded
men were for them in the happy position of not having friends freely
dosing them with brandy and water after the reception of the injury, and
this was possibly an element of some importance.

Some of the men did, however, drink freely, and in one case which
terminated fatally a comrade gave a man wounded through the belly an
immediate dose of Beecham's pills.

(2) Mr. Treves has suggested that the effect of the severe trauma on the
muscular coat of the bowel is to cause a cessation of peristaltic
movement. This, as in the case of 'local shock' elsewhere, may no doubt
be of importance, and to it should be added the simultaneous cessation
of abdominal respiratory movements in the segment of the belly wall
covering the injured part. The occurrence of general cessation of
peristaltic movement is, however, to some extent opposed by the fact
that in a certain number of the cases early passage of motions was seen
just as happens in the intestinal ruptures seen in civil practice.

I should be inclined to ascribe the escape from serious infection in
these injuries to the same cause which accounts for their comparative
insignificance in other regions--namely, the small calibre of the bullet
and consequent small size of the lesion: in point of fact to the minimal
nature of the primary infection. I very much doubt if any patient who
had more than one complete perforation of the small intestine got well
during the whole campaign. This opinion is, moreover, supported by the
fact that the prognosis was so far better in cases of injury to the
large than to the small intestine, in which former segment of the bowel
we have the advantages of a position beyond the region in which
intestinal movement is most free, the unlikelihood of multiple injury,
and a drier and more solid type of fæcal contents.

In the instances in which recovery followed perforating injuries without
any bad signs we can only assume a minimal infection, and sufficient
irritation and reaction on the part of the bowel to produce rapid
adhesion between contiguous coils, and thus provisional closure.

The other mode of spontaneous recovery which I saw several times take
place in the injuries to the large bowel consisted in the limitation of
the spread of infection by early adhesions and the development of a
local abscess. The non-observance of this process in any case of injury
to the small intestine raises very great doubts in my mind as to the
frequent recovery of patients in whom the small intestine was
perforated.


INJURIES TO THE INTESTINAL TRACT

1. _Wounds of the stomach._--A considerable number of wounds in such a
situation as to have possibly implicated the stomach were observed, and
of these a certain number recovered spontaneously. The only two
instances that came under my own observation are recorded below. It will
be noted that in each the special symptoms were the classic ones of
vomiting and hæmatemesis. In the first case blood was also passed per
anum, and in the second the diagnosis was reinforced by the escape of
stomach contents from the external wound.

The second case was a surgical disappointment. No doubt the fatal issue
was mainly dependent on the fact that the external wound had to be kept
open to allow of the escape of the abundant discharge from the wounded
liver. In the absence of the hepatic wound, however, I believe it would
have been possible for this patient to have got well spontaneously, in
view of the firm adhesions which had formed around the opening in the
stomach, and the consequent localisation which had been effected.
Another unfortunate element in this case was the comminuted fracture of
the seventh costal cartilage, which maintained the patency of the
aperture of exit. The latter point, however, was of doubtful importance
from this aspect, as the vent provided for the gastric and biliary
secretions may have been the safety-valve that had allowed localisation
to develop.

I believe that the secondary hæmorrhage was the main element in robbing
us of a success in this case, and that this depended on the digestion of
the wound by the gastric secretion. The early troubles which arose in
the treatment of this patient well illustrate the difficulties by which
the military surgeon is at times met; but the patient was admirably
attended to and nursed by my friend Mr. Pershouse, and an orderly who
was specially put on duty for the purpose.

     (163) Wounded at Rensburg. _Entry_ (Mauser), in ninth left
     intercostal space in posterior axillary line; _exit_, a
     transverse slit 1/2 an inch in length to left of xiphoid
     appendage. Patient was retiring when struck; he did not fall,
     but ran for about 1,000 yards, whence he was conveyed to
     hospital. He vomited half an hour after the injury (last meal
     bread and 'bully beef,' taken two hours previously), and during
     the evening three times again, the vomit consisting mainly 'of
     dark thick blood.' He was put on milk diet, and not completely
     starved; on the third day a large quantity of dark clotted
     blood was passed per rectum with the stool, and this continued
     for two days.

     Ten days after the injury the temperature was still rising to
     100°, and did not become normal till the fourteenth day. The
     pulse averaged 80. The abdomen, meanwhile, moved fairly well,
     respirations 18 to 20. Some tenderness was present in the
     epigastrium and towards the spleen. Resonance throughout.
     Ordinary diet was now resumed, and beyond slight epigastric
     pain on deep inspiration, no further symptoms were observed,
     and the patient left for England at the end of the month. The
     spleen may have been traversed in this patient, as well as the
     lower margin of the right lung.

     (164*) Wounded at Enslin. _Entry_ (Mauser), 3/4 of an inch from
     the spine, opposite the eighth intercostal space; _exit_,
     through the seventh left costal cartilage, 1 inch from the
     median line. The patient was lying in the prone position when
     shot: he vomited blood freely, and the bowels acted three times
     before he was seen forty hours after the accident, each motion
     containing dark blood.

     On the commencement of the third day the patient's expression
     was extremely anxious, and he was suffering great pain. Pulse
     96, temperature 100°. Tongue moist, occasional vomiting, bowels
     open yesterday. Has taken fluid nourishment since injury. The
     abdomen moved with respiration, but was moderately distended,
     especially in the line of the transverse colon; it was
     tympanitic on percussion, there was no dulness in the flanks,
     and only moderate rigidity of the wall on palpation. Frothy
     fluid stained with bile and fæcal in odour was escaping from
     the wound of exit, and the everted margins of the latter were
     bile-stained.

     A vertical incision was carried downwards from the wound for 4
     inches. A rugged furrow was found on the under surface of the
     left lobe of the liver; the stomach was contracted and firmly
     adherent by recent lymph to the under surface of the liver and
     the diaphragm. The transverse colon was much distended. On
     separating the stomach a slit wound was found at the lesser
     curvature, immediately to the right of the oesophagus. This
     wound was closed with some difficulty with two tiers of
     sutures; the cavity was mopped out, and then irrigated with
     boiled water; a plug was introduced along the line of the
     furrow in the liver, and the lower part of the abdominal
     incision closed.

     The patient stood the operation well, and was removed to his
     tent; during the day, however, two thunder showers occurred
     during each of which water, several inches if not a foot deep,
     rushed through the camp. After the second flood he was removed
     to the operating room, the only house we had, and slept there.
     The pulse rose to 120, and respiration to 26, and there was
     pain, which was subdued by 1/3 grain of morphia, administered
     subcutaneously. A fair amount of urine was passed, and the
     bowels acted once, the motion containing blood.

     On the second day after operation there was some improvement;
     the pulse still numbered 116, and the temperature was raised to
     100°, but the belly moved fairly, and pain was moderate.
     Abundant foul-smelling, bile-stained discharge came from the
     wound when the plug was removed. Rectal feeding was
     supplemented by small quantities of milk and soda by the mouth.

     The condition did not materially change, but on the fourth day
     it was evident that the suturing of the stomach wound had given
     way, and liquid food escaped readily when taken. The discharge
     remained bile-stained and very foul. No extension of
     inflammation to the general peritoneal cavity occurred, but it
     was evident that the patient was suffering from constitutional
     infection from the foul wound, the lower part of which opened
     up somewhat after the removal of the stitches on the seventh
     day. The wound was irrigated three times daily with 1-300
     creolin lotion, but remained very foul. The man slowly lost
     strength, although escape from the stomach considerably
     decreased. On the tenth day a sudden severe hæmorrhage
     occurred, presumably from a large branch of the coeliac axis.
     The bleeding was readily controlled by a plug, and did not
     recur; but the patient rapidly sank, and died on the twelfth
     day after the operation, and fourteen days after reception of
     the injury. No _post-mortem_ examination was made.

2. _Wounds of the small intestine._--These were comparatively common,
but offered little that was special either in their symptoms or the
results attending them. Wounds were met with in every part of the small
gut; but I saw no case in which an injury to the duodenum could be
specially diagnosed.

As to the symptoms which attended these injuries, it is somewhat
difficult to speak with precision, and it must be left to my readers to
form an opinion as to how many of the cases recounted below were really
instances of perforating wounds. My own view is that in the majority of
the cases that got well spontaneously, the injury was not of a
perforating nature, and that for reasons which have been already set
forth. It will, however, be at once noted that in all the five cases in
which the injury was certainly diagnosed in hospital death occurred.

The cases of injury to the small intestine are perhaps best arranged in
three classes.

1. Those who died upon the field, or shortly after removal from it. In
these the external wounds were often large, the omentum was not rarely
prolapsed, and escape of fæces sometimes occurred early. Shock from the
severity of the lesion, and hæmorrhage, were no doubt important factors
in the early lethal issue in this class. Many of the injuries were no
doubt produced by bullets striking irregularly, by ricochets, by bullets
of the expanding forms, or by bullets of large calibre. As being beyond
the bounds of surgical aid, this class possessed the least interest.

2. Cases brought into the Field, or even the Stationary hospitals, with
symptoms of moderate severity, or even of an insignificant character,
in which evidence of septic peritonitis suddenly developed and death
ensued.

3. Cases in which the position of the wounds raised the possibility of
injury to the intestine, but in which the symptoms were slight or of
moderate severity, and which recovered spontaneously.

The whole crux in diagnosis lay in the attempt to separate the two
latter classes, and, personally, I must own to having been no nearer a
position of being able to form an opinion on this point, in the late
than in the early stage of my stay in South Africa. The advent of
peritoneal septicæmia was in many instances the only determining moment.
On this matter I can only add that, in civil practice, an exploratory
abdominal section is often the only means of determination of a rupture
of the bowel wall.

With regard to the cases of suspected injury to the bowel which
recovered spontaneously, the symptoms were somewhat special in their
comparative slightness, and in the limited nature of the local signs.
Thus the pulse seldom rose to as much as 100 in rate, 80 was a common
average. Respiration was never greatly quickened, 24 was a common rate.
The temperature rarely exceeded 100°. Vomiting was occasionally severe,
but usually not persistent, ceasing on the second day. A good quantity
of urine was passed. As to the local signs, these again were of a
limited nature; distension did not occur, or was slight; movement of the
abdominal wall was only restricted in the neighbourhood of the wound,
the affected area amounted to a quarter, or at most half, the abdominal
wall, and rigidity was localised to a similar segment. Local tenderness
usually existed; but, as a rule, there was little or no dulness to point
to the occurrence either of fluid effusion or a considerable deposition
of lymph.

Again many of the patients suffered with very slight symptoms of
constitutional shock, although there was considerable variation in this
particular.

     (165*) Wounded at Graspan, sustaining a compound fracture of
     the fibula. While being carried off the field, a second bullet
     (Lee-Metford) entered immediately outside the left posterior
     superior iliac spine, perforated the pelvis, and emerged 1-1/2
     inch within the left anterior superior spine. The patient was
     then put down and left on the field ten hours; later he was
     carried to shelter for the night, and arrived at Orange River
     on the second day. He suffered with some pain in the abdomen,
     especially during the journey in the train, but was not sick;
     the bowels were confined.

     When seen on the third day at 6 P.M., some pain was complained
     of in the abdomen, which moved freely in the upper part, but
     was motionless below the umbilicus. No distension. Tenderness
     around wound of exit and some rigidity. The bowels had acted
     four times during the day; motions loose, dark brown, and
     containing no blood. Face not anxious, eyes bright, temperature
     102°. Pulse 96, regular, and of good strength. Tongue moist and
     little furred.

     The abdomen was opened at 5 A.M. on the fourth day, as the
     local signs had become more pronounced, and the patient had
     passed a restless night in great abdominal pain. A local
     incision was chosen, as the wound was presumably in the sigmoid
     flexure. The sigmoid flexure was adherent to the abdominal wall
     opposite the wound of exit, and a dark ecchymosed patch was
     found, but no perforation could be detected. Foul pus and gas
     escaped freely from the pelvis, but no wound of the large bowel
     could be discovered here. On enlarging the incision upwards
     three openings were found in a coil of jejunum, probably that
     about five feet from the duodenal junction usually provided
     with the longest mesentery. No fourth opening could be found.
     The openings were circular, about 1/3 inch in diameter, clean
     cut, with a ring of everted mucous membrane, and the wall of
     the bowel in the neighbourhood was thickened. All three
     openings were included within a length of 2-1/2 inches. There
     was no surrounding ecchymosis of the bowel wall. Very little
     escaped intestinal contents were found in the situation of the
     bowel. The latter had apparently been retracted upwards, and
     lay to the left of the lumbar spine. The wounds were readily
     closed by five Lembert's sutures, three crossing the openings,
     and one at each end. The belly was then washed out with boiled
     water and closed. The delay in finding the wounds due to the
     mistaken impression that they would be found in the pelvis
     materially prolonged the operation, which lasted an hour and a
     half. The patient never rallied, and died seventeen hours
     later. It is possible that a wound in the sigmoid flexure was
     present which had already closed at the time of operation.

     (166*) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), opposite
     central point of left ilium; _exit_, 1-1/2 inch above the
     centre of the right Poupart's ligament. Vomiting commenced soon
     after the injury, and this was continuous until the patient's
     arrival in the Stationary hospital on the fourth day, when the
     condition was as follows:--

     Face extremely anxious in expression. Temperature 101°,
     sweating freely. Pulse 110, fair strength. Tongue moist.
     Abdomen much distended, rigid, motionless, tympanitic
     throughout. Bowels confined. No urine had been passed for
     twenty-four hours, [Symbol: ounce]ij in bladder on
     catheterisation, clear, and containing no blood.

     Abdominal section. Median incision. A considerable quantity of
     bloody effusion was evacuated. Intestine generally congested
     and distended. No lymph. Two wounds were found in the ileum on
     the opposite sides of one coil; the openings were circular,
     with the mucous membrane everted. No escape of fæcal matter was
     visible until the intestine was delivered, when intestinal
     contents spurted freely across the room. The openings were
     sutured with five Lembert's stitches. The bowel was punctured
     in two places to relieve distension, and then returned into the
     belly, after washing with boiled water.

     Four pints of saline solution were infused into the median
     basilic vein, and 1/30 grain strychnine sulph. was injected
     hypodermically.

     The patient did not rally, and died twelve hours after the
     operation.

     (167*) Wounded at Graspan. _Entry_ (Lee-Metford), midway
     between the umbilicus and pubes; _exit_, 1 inch to the left of
     the fifth lumbar spine. The patient was seen on the third day
     in the following condition: in great pain, expression extremely
     anxious, vomiting constantly. Pulse 150 running, respirations
     48. Temperature 100°, sweating freely. Great distension,
     rigidity, and general tenderness of immobile abdomen. No
     improvement followed the administration of brandy and
     hypodermic injection of strychnine 1/30 grain, and operation
     was deemed hopeless.

     In the evening the patient was apparently dying. Face blue and
     sunken and covered with sweat, eyes dull, speechless, pulse
     imperceptible, restlessness extreme, bowels acting
     involuntarily, no urine in bladder.

     The man was placed in a tent by himself, and to my surprise was
     alive and better the next morning; the expression was still
     anxious, but the face brighter and not sweating; the pulse
     only numbered 100, but was very weak, and the hands and feet
     were cold. The condition of the abdomen was unaltered, but the
     thoracic respiration had decreased in rapidity from 48 to 28.

     His condition still seemed to preclude any chance of successful
     intervention, but none the less life was retained until the
     morning of the seventh day, the state alternating between a
     moribund one and one of slight improvement. He was lucid at
     times, although for the most part wandering, and was so
     restless that no covering could be kept upon him. Vomiting was
     continuous, so that no nourishment could be retained; the
     bowels acted frequently involuntarily, and little or no urine
     was passed. Meanwhile, the abdomen became flat, then sunken, an
     area of induration and tenderness about 6 inches in diameter
     developing around the wound of entry. Slight variations in the
     pulse, and from normal to subnormal in the temperature, were
     noted, and death eventually occurred from septicæmia and
     inanition.

     (168*) Wounded at Driefontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), above the
     posterior third of the left iliac crest, at the margin of the
     last lumbar transverse process (probably through ilio-lumbar
     ligament); _exit_, 1 inch below and to the left of the
     umbilicus.

     The patient was wounded at 3 P.M., but not brought into the
     Field hospital until 9 P.M., when the temperature of the tents
     was below 28°F. He was considerably collapsed, suffering much
     pain, and vomited freely. The abdomen was flat, but very
     tender. Bowels confined. The column had to move at 5 A.M. the
     next morning, when the temperature was still near freezing, and
     during the day continuous fighting prevented any chance of
     operation. The man steadily sank during the day, and died
     thirty-six hours after the reception of the injury.

     _Post-mortem condition._--Belly not distended, dull anteriorly
     in patches, and right flank dull throughout. When the belly was
     opened, extensive adhesion of omentum and intestine enclosing
     numerous collections of pus were disclosed, and on disturbing
     the adhesions a large collection of turbid blood-stained fluid
     was set free from the right loin. The great omentum was much
     thickened and matted, with deposition of thick patches of
     lymph; very firm recent adhesions also united numerous coils of
     small intestine. The pus was foetid, but no appreciable
     quantity of intestinal contents was detected in it. The lower
     half or more of the small intestine was injected, reddened, and
     thickened. The wounds which were situated in the lower part of
     the jejunum and ileum were multiple, and seven perforations
     were detected; besides these the intestine was marked by
     bruises, and some gutter slits affecting the serous and
     muscular coats only. Considerable ecchymosis surrounded these
     latter. The clean perforations were circular, less than 1/4
     inch in diameter, and for the most part closed by eversion of
     the mucous membrane. Intestinal contents were not apparent, but
     escaped freely on manipulation of the bowel.

     (169*) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), over the
     eighth rib in the anterior axillary line; _exit_, 1 inch to the
     left of second lumbar spinous process, just below the last rib.
     Vomiting commenced almost immediately after reception of the
     injury, and the bowels acted frequently. This condition
     persisted until the fourth day, when the patient was brought
     down to Orange River, and the signs were as follows.
     Considerable pain in left half of abdomen, pulse 110, fair
     strength, temperature 101°. Some general distension of abdomen
     with complete disappearance of hepatic dulness. Some movement
     of right half of abdomen, left half immobile, dulness extending
     from the flank as far forwards as linea semilunaris. An
     incision was made in left linea semilunaris, and Oj blood
     evacuated from the left loin. There was no lymph on the
     intestines nor sign of inflammation. No perforation was
     discovered in either stomach or intestine, but on two coils of
     jejunum there were deep slits 3/4 inch long, extending through
     both peritoneal and muscular coats. Beyond these wounds, on
     other coils oval patches of ecchymosis, due to direct bruising,
     were present. The peritoneal cavity was sponged free of all
     blood and irrigated with boiled water; no bleeding point was
     discovered, and the abdomen was closed.

     The next morning the patient was comfortable; temperature
     100.2°, pulse 100. Tongue clean and moist; he vomited once
     during the night.

     Some bloody discharge had collected in the dressing, and at the
     lower angle of wound there was a local swelling, apparently in
     the abdominal wall. The flank was resonant.

     During the afternoon the patient became faint, and when seen at
     6 P.M. was in a state of collapse, in which he shortly died.

     Death was apparently due to renewal of the previous hæmorrhage.
     No _post-mortem_ examination was made.

     (170*) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), 1/2 inch to
     the left of the second sacral spine; _exit_, immediately below
     the left anterior superior iliac spine; the patient was
     kneeling at the time, and the same bullet traversed his left
     thigh in the lower third. When seen on the third day, the
     lower part of the abdomen was motionless, tumid, and tender.
     The bowels had been confined for three days; there had been no
     sickness, and the tongue was moist and clean. Temperature 100°,
     pulse 90, fair strength, respirations 38. The patient had once
     had an attack of acute appendicitis, and he himself said he was
     sure he now had 'peritonitis,' as he had pain exactly similar
     in the belly to that he had suffered in his previous illness.

     No further signs, however, developed under an expectant
     treatment, and he remained some two months in hospital, while
     the wound in the thigh and a third injury to the elbow-joint
     were healing.

     (171) _Entry_ (Mauser), at the highest point of the left crista
     ilii; _exit_, through the right ilium, 2 inches horizontally
     anterior to the posterior superior spine. Absolutely no
     abdominal symptoms followed. The bowels were confined five
     days, and then opened by enema. The patient complained of some
     stiffness in the lumbo-sacral region, but the right
     synchondrosis was no doubt implicated in the track.

     (172) Wounded at Paardeberg (range 800 yards). _Entry_
     (Mauser), 2 inches diagonally below and to the right of the
     umbilicus; _exit_, not discoverable. For the first two days the
     patient had to lie out with the regiment; on the fourth he was
     removed to the Field hospital. During the first three days the
     patient vomited (green matter) frequently, and the belly was
     hard and painful; as biscuit was the only available food, no
     nourishment was taken. The bowels acted on the second night. At
     the end of a week the patient was sent by bullock wagon (three
     days and nights) to Modder River, and then down to Capetown,
     where he walked into the hospital on the thirteenth day,
     apparently well.

     Two days later the temperature rose to 104°, and enteric fever
     was diagnosed, no local signs pointing to the injury existing.
     The patient made a good recovery.

     (173) Wounded at Colenso. _Entry_ (Mauser), at junction of
     outer 2/5 with inner 3/5 of line from right anterior superior
     iliac spine to umbilicus; _exit_, at upper part of right great
     sacro-sciatic foramen, in line of posterior superior iliac
     spine. Advancing on foot when struck; he then fell and crept
     fifty yards to behind a rock, where he remained seven and a
     half hours. For two days subsequently he vomited freely; the
     bowels acted nine hours after the injury, and then became
     constipated. No further symptoms were noted, and at the end of
     three weeks the abdomen was absolutely normal. The man is now
     again on active service.

     (174*) Wounded at Modder River while retiring on foot. _Entry_
     (Mauser), at highest point of right iliac crest; _exit_, 2-1/2
     inches to right of and 1/2 inch above level of umbilicus. The
     injury was not followed by sickness, and the bowels remained
     confined. During the first two days 'pain struck across the
     abdomen' when micturition was performed.

     When the patient came under observation on the third day the
     condition was as follows:--Complains of little pain,
     temperature normal, pulse 72, respirations 24, tongue moist,
     bowels confined. Rigidity of abdominal wall and deficient
     mobility of nearly whole right half of belly, the whole lower
     half of which moves little with respiration. No track palpable
     in abdominal parietes. No dulness, no distension. The
     temperature rose to 99.5° at night. On the fourth day the
     bowels acted freely, the pulse fell to 60, the respirations
     were 24, and the temperature normal.

     Tenderness and rigidity persisted in the right flank to the end
     of a week, after which time no further signs persisted.

     (175*) Wounded at Modder River while lying on right side. Range
     500 yards. Walked 400 yards after injury. _Entry_ (Mauser), at
     the junction of the posterior and middle thirds of the right
     iliac crest; _exit_, 3 inches to right of and 1/2 inch below
     the level of the umbilicus. The injury was followed by no signs
     of intra-abdominal lesion; on the third day the temperature was
     normal, pulse 80, and the tongue clean and moist. Some soreness
     at times and tenderness on pressure were complained of, but the
     man was discharged well at the end of one month.

     (176*) Wounded while doubling in retirement at Modder River.
     _Entry_ (Mauser), immediately above the junction of the
     posterior and middle thirds of the left iliac crest; _exit_, 1
     inch below costal margin (eighth rib), 3 inches to the right of
     the median line. The bullet was lying in the anterior wound,
     whence it was removed by the orderly who applied the first
     dressing on the field. The patient remained on the field seven
     and a half hours, and when brought into hospital at once
     commenced to vomit. The ejected matter, at first green in
     colour, during the next forty-eight hours changed to a dirty
     brown. Meanwhile, the abdomen was somewhat painful. When seen
     on the third day he had ceased to vomit for three hours. The
     face was slightly anxious, and the patient lay on the ground
     with the lower extremities extended. Temperature 99°, pulse 72,
     fair strength. Respirations 32, shallow. Tongue moist, lightly
     furred, bowels not open for four days. He slept fairly last
     night. Abdomen soft, moving well with respiration, no
     distension, slight tenderness below and to the right of the
     umbilicus, and local dulness in right flank.

     The next day the pulse fell to 60 and the bowels acted, but
     there was no change in the local condition. The man looked
     somewhat ill until the end of a week, but was then sent to the
     Base, and at the expiration of a month was sent home well.

     (177*) Wounded at Modder River. Two apertures of _entry_
     (Mauser); (_a_) below cartilage of eighth rib in left nipple
     line; (_b_) 2 inches below and 4-1/2 inches to the left of the
     median line. No exit wound discovered, and no track could be
     palpated between the two openings, which were both circular and
     depressed. When seen on fourth day there was tenderness in the
     lower half of the abdomen, and the left thigh was held in a
     flexed position. Respirations 20, respiratory movement confined
     to upper half of abdominal wall. Pulse 70, temperature 99°.
     Tongue moist, covered with white fur; bowels confined since the
     accident; no sickness. The patient remained under observation
     thirteen days, during which time pain and difficulty in
     movement of the left thigh persisted, also slight tenderness in
     the lower part of the abdomen; but at the end of a month he was
     sent to England well, but unfit to take further part in the
     campaign. I thought the bullet might be in the left psoas, but
     it was not localised.

     (178*) Wounded at Modder River. _Entry_ (Mauser), 3-1/2 inches
     above and 1-1/2 inch within the left anterior superior iliac
     spine; _exit_, 1-1/2 inch to the right of the tenth dorsal
     spinous process. The same bullet had perforated the forearm
     just above the wrist prior to entering the abdomen. No local or
     constitutional signs indicated either bowel injury or
     perforation of liver. The man, however, was suffering from a
     slight attack of dysentery, passing blood and mucus per rectum
     with great tenesmus. He was sent to the Base at the end of a
     week, and returned to England well three weeks later. He
     attributed his dysentery to the wound, as the symptoms did not
     exist prior to its reception; but as the disease coincided
     exactly with what was very prevalent amongst the troops at the
     time, I do not think there was any connection between it and
     the injury.

     (179) Wounded near Thaba-nchu. _Entry_, over the centre of the
     sacrum at the upper border of fourth segment; _exit_, 1-1/2
     inch above left Poupart's ligament, 2 inches from the median
     line. Aperture of entry oval, with long vertical axis. Exit
     wound a transverse slit, with slight tendency to starring (see
     fig. 19, p. 58). One hour after being shot the patient vomited
     once. There was some evidence of shock and considerable pain.
     The bowels acted involuntarily simultaneously with the
     vomiting, and incontinence of fæces and retention of urine
     persisted for four days. The vomit was bilious in appearance;
     no blood was seen either in it or the motions.

     Forty-six hours after the injury the condition was as follows:
     Face slightly anxious and pale; skin moist, temperature 100.4°;
     pulse 116, regular and of fair strength; respirations 24;
     abdomen slightly tumid; tenderness over lower half, especially
     on left side; the lower half moves little with respiration.

     Twenty-four hours later the patient had improved. He was
     comfortable and hopeful; slept well with morphia 1/3 grain
     hypodermically. Tongue moist, covered with white fur; has been
     taking milk only, [Symbol: ounce]ij every half-hour. No
     sickness. Temperature

     99°. Pulse 104. Respirations 24. Abdomen flatter; general
     respiratory movement; tenderness now mainly localised to an
     area 2-1/2 inches in diameter, to the left of the umbilicus,
     above exit wound.

     The patient continued to improve, and on the fifth day
     travelled six hours in a bullock wagon to Bloemfontein. Soon
     after arrival his temperature was normal: pulse 80,
     respirations 16, with good abdominal movement. Local tenderness
     persisted in the same area, but was less in degree. Tongue
     rather dry, bowels confined. Micturition normal. Two drachms of
     castor oil and an enema were given.

     On the ninth day patient was practically well, except for
     slight deep tenderness. He remained in bed on ordinary light
     diet, but at the end of the third week he was seized by a
     sudden attack of pain, the temperature rising to 103° and the
     pulse to 140, the abdomen becoming swollen and tender. He was
     then under the charge of Mr. Bowlby, who ordered some opium,
     and the symptoms rapidly subsided. Although this wound crossed
     the small intestine area, it is probable that the symptoms may
     have been due to an injury of the rectum or sigmoid flexure.

3. _Wounds of the large intestine._--Injuries to every part of the large
bowel were observed, and spontaneous recoveries were seen in all parts
except the transverse colon, which, as already remarked, is near akin
to the small intestine with regard to its position and anatomical
arrangement.

The only case of perforation of the vermiform appendix that I heard of,
one under the care of Mr. Stonham, died of peritoneal septicæmia.
Several cases of recovery from wounds of the cæcum and ascending colon
are recounted below. The only points of importance in the nature of the
signs of these injuries were their primary insignificance, and the
comparative frequency with which _local_ peritoneal suppuration followed
them. The absence of a similar sequence in some of the cases in which
wounds of the small intestine were assumed, was, in my opinion, one of
the strongest reasons for doubting the correctness of the diagnosis. It
is also a significant fact that injuries of the ascending colon--that is
to say, of the portion of the large bowel which perhaps lies most free
from the area occupied by the small intestine--were those which most
frequently recovered.

The following cases afford examples of the course followed in a number
of injuries to the large intestine, and illustrate both the
uncomplicated and the complicated modes of spontaneous recovery.

No. 180 affords a good example of an extra-peritoneal injury, and of the
especially fatal character of such lesions. This case was also one of my
surgical disappointments.

Nos. 182, 183 are of great interest in several particulars. First, the
aperture of exit was large and allowed the escape of fæces, not a very
common feature in wounds not proving immediately fatal. Secondly, in
neither were any peritoneal signs observed. Thirdly, in each the exit
wound communicated with the pleura, and the patients died from
septicæmia mainly due to absorption from the surface of that membrane
(_Pleural septicæmia_).

No. 190 is a most striking instance of spontaneous cure, since no doubt
can exist that both rectum and bladder were perforated.

     (180*) _Injury to the cæcum and ascending colon._--Boer,
     wounded at Graspan while sheltering behind a rock, lying on his
     back.

     _Entry_ (Lee-Metford), in right thigh, 3 inches below and 1
     inch within anterior superior spine of ilium; _exit_, in back,
     on a level with the fourth lumbar spinous process and 3 inches
     from that point.

     Half an hour after the wound the patient commenced to suffer
     severe stabbing pain; he lay on the field one hour; later he
     was taken to a Field hospital, and on the second day was sent
     by train a distance of twenty-five miles.

     When seen at the end of fifty hours the condition was as
     follows. Face anxious, complexion dusky. Great abdominal pain,
     especially about the umbilicus. Vomiting frequent and
     distressing; bowels confined since the accident; tongue dry and
     furred. Urine scanty. Pulse full and strong, 125; respirations,
     entirely thoracic, 30.

     Abdomen generally distended and tympanitic, wall rigid and
     motionless. Dulness in right flank, together with superficial
     oedema and emphysema.

     Abdominal section fifty-three and a half hours after accident.
     Incision in right linea semilunaris. Great omentum adherent to
     ascending colon, which was covered with plastic lymph. Gas and
     intestinal contents escaped from an opening at the line of
     reflexion of the peritoneum from the ascending colon;
     retro-peritoneal extravasation and emphysema extended the whole
     length of the ascending colon and around duodenum, the wall of
     the colon itself exhibiting subperitoneal emphysema. The colon
     was freed and the rent sewn up with interrupted sutures. About
     [Symbol: ounce] iv of foul fæcal fluid were evacuated from
     loin, and a free counter-opening made. The opening in the ilium
     by which the bullet had entered the abdomen was found at the
     brim of the pelvis; the loin and peritoneal cavity were sponged
     dry and flushed with boiled water; no lymph was seen on the
     small intestine. A large gauze plug was inserted into the
     posterior wound, one end of the plug being brought out of the
     operation incision.

     During the succeeding six days progress was not unsatisfactory:
     the abdomen became soft, moved with respiration, there was no
     sickness, and the bowels acted. The pulse fell to 90,
     respirations to 20, and the temperature did not exceed 102° F.
     The wound suppurated freely, however, and although there were
     no further signs of peritoneal septicæmia, it was evident that
     general infection had taken place, and on the sixth day a
     parotid bubo developed on the right side, which was opened.

     On the seventh day the patient suddenly commenced to fail
     rapidly; vomiting was almost continuous--at first curdled milk,
     later frothy watery fluid--and on the eighth day he died. The
     abdomen remained soft, sunken, and flaccid, and death no doubt
     resulted from general septicæmia rather than from peritoneal
     infection, absorption taking place from the large foul cavity
     behind the colon. As the cavity in part surrounded the
     descending duodenum, this possibly accounted for the attack of
     vomiting which preceded death.

     (181*) _Ascending colon._--Wounded at Graspan while lying in
     prone position. _Entry_ (Mauser), over ninth rib in line of
     right linea semilunaris; _exit_, in right buttock, just below
     and behind the top of the great trochanter.

     The injury was followed by little abdominal pain, but a strange
     sensation of local gurgling was noted. The bowels acted as soon
     as the patient reached camp, some hours after being wounded.
     There was no sickness and nothing abnormal was noted in the
     motions, except that they were loose and light-coloured.

     On the evening of the third day the patient came under
     observation in the ambulance train for Capetown. He looked
     somewhat anxious and ill, but he complained of little pain; the
     temperature was 102°, pulse 88, fair strength, soft and
     regular. There was local dulness, tenderness, and deficiency of
     movement in the right iliac region. As it was night, he was
     removed from the train and an operation was performed the next
     morning.

     Prior to operation the condition was as follows: Pulse 84,
     temperature 100°; respiration easy, 20. Tongue moist, but
     thickly coated in centre. Abdomen moves fairly, and is
     resonant, except in right lower quadrant. No distension.
     Dulness, tenderness, and rigidity in right iliac region, marked
     to outer side of cæcum. Entry wound nearly and exit quite
     healed. Cannot flex right thigh. The following operation was
     performed. Appendix incision, about [Symbol: ounce]j of fæcal
     fluid and fæces in a localised cavity on outer and anterior
     aspect of cæcum evacuated; adhesions very firm. Cavity sloughy
     throughout and cæcum covered with dull grey lymph. The opening
     in the bowel was not localised, and it was considered wiser to
     treat the case like one of perforation from appendicitis than
     to run the risk of breaking down adhesions. A small awl-like
     opening was found in the ilium with powdered bone at its
     entrance leading to the wound of exit.

     The after-treatment of the case gave rise to no anxiety, but
     healing of the resulting sinus was slow; fæcal-smelling pus
     escaped for some days, and a number of small sloughs came away.
     On the twelfth day the patient was sent down to Wynberg, where
     he remained twelve weeks. A counter-incision was needed in the
     loin to drain the suppurating cavity three weeks after the
     primary operation, and five weeks after the operation an escape
     of gas and fæces took place from the anterior wound, while the
     bowels were acting, as a result of a dose of castor oil. No
     further escape of fæces occurred, and he left for England with
     a small sinus only. No extension of inflammation into the
     original wound track ever occurred, both openings and the canal
     healing by primary union.

     The sinus remained open, and occasionally discharged for a
     further period of six months, and then healed firmly; since
     when the patient has been in perfect health.

     (182*) _Splenic flexure, descending colon._--Wounded at
     Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), in sixth left intercostal
     space in mid-axillary line; _exit_, in left loin, below last
     rib, at outer margin of erector spinæ. The patient remained in
     the Field hospital three days, during which time he exhibited
     no serious abdominal symptoms, but during the journey to Orange
     River (53-1/2 miles) he was sick. He remained at Orange River
     two days, and while there an enema was administered, producing
     a normal motion. The abdomen was slightly distended; it moved
     fairly, there was slight rigidity, but little tenderness.
     Temperature 100.8°, pulse 120. No appearance of fæces in wound.

     When seen on the sixth day the condition was as
     follows:--Patient cheerful and not in great pain. Temperature
     99.2°; pulse 120; respirations 48, very shallow. Abdomen soft,
     moving freely, no distension or general tenderness. Fluid fæces
     escaping in abundance from the wound in loin. Redness of skin
     and swelling below level of wound, and cellular emphysema
     above. Fæcal-smelling fluid was also escaping from the thoracic
     wound.

     The wound was enlarged, but the patient rapidly sank, and died
     of septicæmia on the seventh day.

     (183*) An exactly similar case came under observation from the
     battle of Modder River, except that the opening in the loin was
     somewhat larger, and earlier and freer escape of fæces took
     place from it. In this also fæcal matter passed freely into the
     left pleural cavity, and fæcal matter was expectorated, while
     there was an almost complete absence of abdominal symptoms.
     Death occurred on the fourth day.

     No _post-mortem_ examination was made in either case, but I
     believe in both the extra-peritoneal aspect of the colon was
     implicated and that the septicæmia was in great part due to
     absorption from the pleural rather than the peritoneal cavity,
     since in neither case were the abdominal symptoms a prominent
     feature.

     (184) _Possible wound of cæcum._--Wounded at Spion Kop. Bullet
     (Mauser) perforated the right forearm, then entered belly.
     _Entry_, 3 inches from the right anterior superior iliac spine,
     in the line of the supra-pubic fold of the belly wall (a
     transverse slit); _exit_, in right buttock, on a level with the
     tip of the great trochanter and 2 inches within it. The wound
     was received immediately after breakfast had been eaten. There
     was retention of urine and constipation for three days, but no
     sickness. Local pain and tenderness were severe, and at the end
     of three weeks there was still local tenderness, slight
     induration, and dragging pain on defæcation. The patient
     returned to England at the end of a month well, except for
     slight local tenderness.

     (185) _Possible wound of colon._--Wounded at Paardeberg; range
     200 yards. Walking at time. The bullet (Mauser) perforated the
     left forearm, just below the elbow-joint. _Entry_, into belly 1
     inch anterior to the tip of the left eleventh costal cartilage;
     no exit.

     The injury was followed by pain in the left half of the abdomen
     and vomiting, which continued for two days. The bowels acted on
     the third day; no nourishment was taken for two days, but a
     small quantity of water was allowed. No further symptoms were
     noted, and at the end of a fortnight the patient was well,
     except for slight local tenderness. The bullet could not be
     detected with the X-rays.

     (186) _Wound of cæcum_.--Wounded at Paardeberg. _Entry_
     (Mauser), 2 inches diagonally above and within right anterior
     superior iliac spine; _exit_, immediately to the right of the
     fifth lumbar spinous process; the patient was lying on his left
     side when struck. A burning pain down the right thigh
     immediately followed the accident, and lasted some days. There
     was no sickness, the bowels were confined three days, and there
     was pain across the back and down the thigh.

     On the tenth day he arrived at the Base, when he was lying on
     his back suffering considerable pain. The temperature ranged to
     101°. There was diarrhoea and cystitis, with a considerable
     amount of pus in the urine, which was very offensive. A small
     fluctuating spot existed on the back, just to the right of the
     original exit wound which was firmly healed. The abdomen moved
     fairly with respiration in its upper part, but was motionless
     below, especially in the right iliac fossa; some induration was
     to be felt here. The right thigh was kept flexed.

     During the next few days the pus disappeared from the urine,
     and with this change the induration in the right iliac fossa
     increased. An incision (Mr. Gairdner) was made into the
     fluctuating spot behind, and pus evacuated. The patient
     recovered.

     (187) _Possible wound of cæcum._--Wounded outside Heilbron.
     _Entry_ (Mauser), in the right loin, 2-1/2 inches above the
     iliac crest, at the margin of the erector spinæ; _exit_, 1-1/2
     inch above and within the right anterior superior spine of the
     ilium. There was little shock. The patient was brought six
     miles in a wagon into camp, and slept comfortably with a small
     morphia injection. Prior to the accident the patient was
     suffering from diarrhoea, but afterwards the bowels were
long as life lasted, so long did the heart continue to pulsate. There
could be no effect without a cause. How then was it that these
pulsations became spontaneous? To this query, no satisfactory answer had
been forthcoming. Similar spontaneous movements were also observable in
plant tissues, and by their investigation the secret of automatism in
the animal world became unravelled. The existence of these spontaneous
movements could easily be demonstrated by means of the Indian "Bon
Charal", the telegraph plant, whose small leaflets danced continuously
up and down. The popular belief that they danced in response to the
clappings of the hand was quite erroneous. From the readings of the
scripts made by this plant, the lecturer was in a position to state that
the automatic movements of both plants and animals were guided by laws
which were identical. Thus in the rhythmic tissues of the plant and the
animal the pulsation frequency was increased under the action of warmth
and lessened under cold, increased frequency being attended by
diminution of amplitude, and "_vice versa_". Under ether, there was a
temporary arrest, revival being possible when the vapour was blown off.
More fatal was the effect of chloroform. The most extraordinary
parallelism, however, lay in the fact that those poisons which arrested
the beat of the heart in a particular way arrested the plant pulsation
in a corresponding manner. The lecturer had succeeded in reviving a
leaflet poisoned by the application of one with a dose of counteracting
poison.

A time came when after one answer to a supreme shock there was a sudden
end of the plant's power to give any response. This supreme shock was
the shock of death. Even in this crisis, there was no immediate change
in the placid appearance of the plant. In man at the critical moment, a
spasm passed through the whole body, and similarly in the plant the
lecturer had discovered that a great contractile spasm took place. This
was accompanied by an electrical spasm also. In the script of the death
recorder the line that up to this point was being drawn became suddenly
reversed, and then ended. This was the last answer of the plants.

Thus the responsiveness of the plant world was one. There was no
difference of any kind between sunshine plants, and those which had
hitherto been regarded as insensitive or ordinary. It had also been
shown that all the varied and complex responses of the animal were
foreshadowed in the plant. An impressive spectacle was thus revealed of
that vast unity in which all living organisms, from the simplest plant
to the highest animal, were linked together and made one.

--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 5-3-1913.




EVIDENCE BEFORE THE PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION


The following is the evidence given by Dr. J. C. Bose, C. S. I., C. I.
E., Professor of Physics, Presidency College, Calcutta, on the 18th
December, 1913, before the Royal Commission on the Public Services in
India, presided over by Lord Islington, and published, in the Minutes of
Evidence relating to the Education Department, at pages 135 to 137, in
volume XX, Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners:


WRITTEN STATEMENT RELATING TO THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

83, 627 (I) _Method of recruitment._--The first question on which I have
been asked to give my opinion is as regards the method of recruitment. I
think that a high standard of scholarship should be the only
qualification insisted on. Graduates of well-known Universities,
distinguished for a particular line of study, should be given the
preference. I think the prospects of the Indian Educational Service are
sufficiently high to attract the very best material. In colonial
Universities they manage to get very distinguished men without any
extravagantly high pay. Possibly the present departmental method of
election does not admit of sufficiently wide publicity of notice to
attract the best candidates.

83, 628 (II) _System of training and probation._--As regards probation
and training, Educational officers should first win a reputation as good
teachers before the appointment is confirmed as they are transferred to
important colleges.

83, 629 (IV) _Conditions of Salary._--As regards conditions of Salary,
the pay should be moderately high, but not extravagant, and settled once
for all under some simple and well-defined rules. It is not only very
humiliating but degrading to a true scholar to be scrambling for money.
The difference between the pay of the higher and lower services should
be minimised.

83, 630 (VI) _Conditions of pension._--With reference to pension, I
think it is very unfair that more favourable terms are offered, when the
pensioner elects to retire in England.

83, 631 (VII) _Such limitations as exist in the employment of
non-Europeans._--Passing on to the question of limitations that exist in
the employment of Indians in the higher service, I should like to give
expression to an injustice which is very keenly felt. It is unfortunate
that Indian graduates of European Universities who have distinguished
themselves in a remarkable manner do not for one reason or other find
facilities for entering the higher Educational Service.

As teachers and workers it is an incontestable fact that Indian officers
have distinguished themselves very highly, and anything which
discriminates between Europeans and Indians in the way of pay and
prospects is most undesirable. A sense of injustice is ill-calculated to
bring about that harmony which is so necessary among all the members of
an educational institution, professors and students alike.

83, 632 (VIII) _Relations of the service with the Indian Civil Service
and with other services._--As regards the relations with the Indian
Civil Service, I am under the impression that they are somewhat
strained, but of this I have no personal experience.

83, 633 (IX) _Other points._--I have endeavoured to give my opinion on
the definite questions which have been asked. There is another aspect of
educational work in India which I think of the highest importance,
though I am not exactly sure whether it falls within the terms of
reference to the Royal Commission. I think that all the machinery to
improve the higher education in India would be altogether ineffectual
unless India enters the world movement for the advancement of knowledge.
And for this it is absolutely necessary to touch the imagination of the
people so as to rouse them to give their best energies to the work of
research and discovery, in which all the nations of the world are now
engaged. To aim at anything less will only end in a lifeless and
mechanical system from which the soul of reality has passed away. On
this subject I could have said much, but I will confine myself to one
point which I think at the present juncture to be of importance. The
Government of Bengal has been foremost in a tentative way in encouraging
research. What is necessary is the extension and continuity of this
enlightened policy.

83, 634. _Supplementary Note._--I would like to add a few remarks to
make the meaning of paragraphs 83, 627 and 83, 631 in my note more
explicit.

At the present recruitment in the Indian Educational Service is made in
England and is practically confined to Englishmen. Such racial
preference is in my opinion, prejudicial to the interest of education.
The best man available, English or Indian should be selected
impartially, and high scholarship should be the only test.

It has been said that the present standard of Indian Universities is
not as high as that of British Universities, and that the work done by
the former is more like that of a sixth form of public schools in
England. It is therefore urged that what is required for an Educational
officer is the capacity to manage classes rather than high scholarship.
I do not agree with these views: (1) there are Universities in Great
Britain whose standards are not higher than ours; I do not think that
the Pass Degree even of Oxford or Cambridge is higher than the
corresponding degree here; (2) the standard of the Indian Universities
is being steadily raised; (3) the standard will depend upon what the men
entrusted with Educational work will make it. For these reasons it is
necessary that the level of scholarship represented by the Indian
Educational Service should be maintained very high.

In paragraph 83,631 I have stated that even these Indians who have
distinguished themselves in European Universities have little chance of
entering the higher Educational Service. I should like to add that these
highly qualified Indians need only opportunities to render service which
would greatly advance the cause of higher education. As regards
graduates of Indian Universities, I have known men among them whose
works have been highly appreciated. If promising Indian graduates are
given the opportunity of visiting foreign Universities, I have no doubt
that they would stand comparison with the best recruits that can be
obtained from the West.


DR. J. C. BOSE CALLED AND EXAMINED

83,635. (Chairman). The witness favoured an arrangement by which Indians
would enter the higher ranks of the service, either through the
Provincial Service or by direct recruitment in India. The latter class
of officers, after completing their education in India, should
ordinarily go to Europe with a view to widening their experience. By
this he did not wish to decry the training given in the Indian
Universities, which produced some of the very best men, and he would not
make the rule absolute. It was not necessary for men of exceptional
ability to go to England in order to occupy a high chair. Unfortunately,
on account of there being no openings for men of genius in the
Educational Service, distinguished men were driven to the profession of
Law. In the present condition of India a larger number of distinguished
men were needed to give their lives to the education of the people.

83,636. The witness himself had spent part of his career in Europe, and
looking back he could say that this had been of great profit to him,
not so much on account of the training he got, as by being brought into
personal contact with eminent men whose influence extorted his
admiration, and create in him a feeling of emulation. In this way he
owed a great deal to Lord Rayleigh under whom he worked, but he did not
see why that advantage should not eventually be secured by Indians in
India under an Indian Lord Rayleigh.

83,637. There should be only one Educational Service, but men who were
distinguished in any subject should not start from its very lowest rung
but should be placed somewhere in the middle of it.

83,638. There were men in the Provincial Service who were very
distinguished; it was all a question of genius. The Educational Service
ought to be regarded not as a profession, but as a calling. Some men
were born to be teachers. It was not a question of race, of course; in
order to have an efficient educational system, there must be an
efficient organisation, but this should not be allowed to become
fossilised, and thus stand in the way of healthy growth.

83,639. In the Presidency College a young man fresh from an English
university was at once appointed a Professor regardless of his lack of
experience, whereas an Indian who passed in highest examination with
honours in India was appointed as an Assistant Professor. This grounding
often made him more efficient as a teacher than the Professor recruited
from England. There were now several Professors in the college, in the
Provincial Service, who were highly qualified, and who lectured to the
highest classes with very great success.

83,640. In the Physics Department he had under his direction several
Assistants who were so well qualified that they were allowed to give
lectures to several classes. These Assistants, after their experience at
the Presidency College, would be best fitted to become Professors in the
mofussil at Colleges. He would like to see them promoted to the higher
service after they had had experience. But before he gave them the
highest positions, he would make it compulsory for them to go to Europe.

83,641. A proportion of Europeans in the service was needed, but only as
experts and not as ordinary teachers. Only the very best men should be
obtained from Europe, and for exceptional cases. The general educational
work should be done entirely by Indians, who understood the difficulties
of the country much better than any outsider.

83,642. He advocated the direct recruitment of Indians in India by the
local government in consultation with the Secretary of State, rather
than by the Secretary of State alone. Indians were under a great
difficulty, in that they could not remain indefinitely in England after
taking their degrees and being away from the place of recruitment their
claims were overlooked.

83,643. There was no reason why a European should be paid a higher rate
of salary than an Indian on account of the distance he came. An Indian
felt a sense of inferiority if a difference was made as regards pay. The
very slight saving which government made by differentiating between the
two did not compensate for the feeling of wrong done. This feeling would
remain even if the pay was the same, but an additional grant in the
shape of a foreign service allowance was made to Europeans. All workers
in the field of education should feel a sense of solidarity, because
they were all serving one great cause, namely, education.

83,644. The term "professor", as at present used in India, was
undoubtedly a comprehensive one, but it was equally comprehensive in the
West.

83,645. (Sir Murray Hammick). The witness did not wish to recruit
definite proportions of the service in England and in India
respectively. He would for various reasons prefer a large number of
Indians engaged in education.

83,646. Even in Calcutta he would not make any difference between the
pay of the Indian and the pay of the European.

83,647. (Sir Valentine Chirol). The witness attached great value to the
influence of the teacher upon the student in the earlier stages of his
education, and it was in these stages that that influence could best be
exercised. At the same time he desired to limit the appointment of
non-Indians to men of very great distinction.

83,648. If a foreign professor would not come and serve in India for the
same remuneration as he obtained in his own country, the witness would
certainly not force him to come.

83,649. (Mr. Abdur Rahim). Recruitment for the Educational Service
should be made in the first place in India, if suitable men were
available; but if not then he would allow the best outsiders to be
brought in. In the present state of the country it would be very easy to
fill up many of the chairs by selecting the best men in India.

83,650. The aim of the universities should be to promote two classes of
work--first, research; and secondly, an all-round sound education. Men
of different types would be required for these two duties.

83,651. (Mr. Madge). Any idea that the educational system of India was
so far inferior to that of England, that Indians, who had made their
mark, had done so, not because of the educational system of the country,
but in spite of it, was quite unfounded. The standard of education
prevailing in India was quite up to the mark of several British
universities. It was as true of any other country in the world as of
India that education was valued as a means for passing examinations, and
not only for itself, and there was no more cramming in India than
elsewhere.

83,652. The West certainly brought to the East a modern spirit, which
was very valuable, but it would be dearly purchased by the loss of an
honorable career for competent Indians in their own country.

83,653. The educational system in India had in the past been too
mechanical, but a turn for the better was now taking place and the
universities were recognising the importance of research work, and were
willing to give their highest degrees to encourage it.

83,654. (Mr. Macdonald). The witness did not think it was necessary to
have a non-Indian element in the service in order to stiffen it up, but
he accepted the principle that there should be a certain small
proportion of non-Indians.

83,655. The title of professor at a college or University should carry
with it dignity and honour, and ought not to be so freely used as at
present. All he asked was that it should not be abolished at the expense
of such Indians as were doing as good work as their European colleagues.

83,656. If the Calcutta university continued to develop its teaching
side, there would be no objection to recruiting University Professors
from aided colleges. This would have certain advantages.

83,657. (Mr. Fisher). The witness desired to secure for India Europeans
who had European reputations in their different branches of study. If it
was necessary to go outside India or England to procure good men, he
would prefer to go to Germany. This was the practice in America where
they were annexing all the great intellects of Europe.

83,658. The witness would like to see India entering the world movement
in the advance and march of knowledge. It was of the highest importance
that there should be an intellectual atmosphere in India. It would be
of advantage if there were many Indians in the Educational Service. For
they came more in contact with the people, and influenced their
intellectual activity. Besides, on retirement they would live in India
and their life experience would be at their countrymen's service.

83,659. There was very little in the complaint made in certain quarters
that the work of the Professors in the colleges in India was hampered by
the Government regulations as to curricula. A good teacher was not
troubled by such matters.

83,660. (Mr. Sly). There was no scope for the employment of non-Indians
in the high schools as apart from the colleges. It was in the
professorial line that more help from the West was required.

83,661. (Mr. Gokhale). The witness knew of three instances in which the
colonies had secured distinguished men on salaries which were lower than
these given to officers of the Indian Educational Service. One was at
Toronto, another was in New Zealand and the third at Yale university.
The salaries on the two latter cases were £600 and £500 a year. The same
held good as regards Japan. The facts there had been stated in a
Government of India publication as follows: "Subsequent to 1895 there
were 67 Professors recruited in Europe and America, of those, 20 came
from Germany, 16 from England and 16 from the United States. The average
pay was £384. In the highest Imperial University the average pay is
£684. As soon as Japanese could be found to do the work, even tolerably
well, the foreigner was dropped."

83,662. When the witness first started work in India, he found that
there was no physical laboratory, or any grant made for a practical
experimental course. He had to construct instruments with the help of
local mechanics, whom he had to train. All this took him ten years. He
then undertook original investigation at his own expense. The Royal
Society became specially interested in his work and desired to give him
a Parliamentary grant for its continuation. It was after this that the
Government of Bengal came forward and offered him facilities for
research.

83,663. In the Educational Service he would take men of achievement from
anywhere; but men of promise he would take from his own country.

83,664. (Mr. Chaubal). He did not know whether the salaries he had
mentioned as having been paid in Japan, New Zealand and Yale were on an
incremental scale or not.

83,665. There was a difference of kind between the way in which
students were taught in schools and the way in which they were taught in
colleges. He did not agree with the witnesses who had said that during
the first year or two years at college the instruction given was similar
to that given in a school. It was very difficult to disprove or to prove
such statements. There would be no advantage in keeping boys to a school
course up the intermediate standard and making the colleges deal with
only those students who had passed the intermediate examination.

83,666. (Sir Theodore Morison). There should be one scale of pay for all
persons in the higher educational department. The rate of salary, Rs.
200 rising to Rs. 1,500 per month, was suitable, subject to the proviso
that the man of great distinction, instead of beginning at the lowest
rate of pay, should start some where in the middle of the list, say, at
Rs. 400 or Rs. 500. He would make no reference in regard to Europeans or
Indians in that respect. In effect this no doubt amounted to making
Indians eligible for higher educational posts both by direct recruitment
and by promotion.

83,667. He would not favour the handing over of all the Government
institutions in Bengal to private agencies; there must be one or two
Government colleges in order to keep up the standard. He should be
sorry to see the Government dissociating itself from one of its primary
duties, which was education.

83,668. Privately managed Colleges paid less in salary than the
Government Colleges. They paid about the same as was given in the
Provincial Service, and they obtained fairly good men. It would not be
right for a great Government to grant a minimum pay to Indian Professors
and an extravagantly high pay to their European colleagues, for doing
the same kind of work.

83,669. At the Presidency College the facilities for scientific work
were now greater than in many institutions in England. India was now
becoming a great country for Biological research. Again, the Physical
and Chemical Laboratories at the Presidency College were finer than many
in England. If young men of science in England thought they obtained
better opportunities in pursuing their subjects in New Zealand and
Toronto than in India, the India office ought to remove that impression
at once.

83,670. (Lord Ronaldshay). When an Indian graduate under the witnesses'
scheme was appointed direct to the higher service in India he would not
compel him to go to England for a period of training. The person who
would be appointed in India directly from the Indian Universities would
have to have previously served with distinction in subordinate
positions; a visit to Europe would be an advantage but not absolutely
necessary.

83,671. (Mr. Biss). The cost of living in Calcutta to an Indian
Professor or Lecturer would all depend as the style in which he lived.
In each service there is always a standard of living to which every
member is expected to conform. An Indian Professor had to go to Europe
from time to time to keep himself in touch with the developments of his
subject. An Indian officer had to support a large number of relations.
The question of a man's private expenses should not be raised in fixing
his pay. One might as well inquire whether the candidate for admission
to the service was a bachelor or married, or as to how many children he
had. He had known Europeans who had led a simple life, and had been all
the better for it.

83,672. He could not understand why men went to Japan and Canada instead
of coming to India on better terms. It was a mystery to him. He thought
it was either sheer ignorance or the spread of the commercial spirit.

83,673. All the students coming to his side of the University, were, as
a rule, keen and anxious to learn; he could not wish for better
students.

83,674. (Mr. Gupta). He desired one service, because he thought it was
most degrading that certain men, although they were doing the same work,
should be classed in a Provincial Service, while others should be
classed in an Imperial Service. The prospect of the members of the
Provincial Service were not at all what they ought to be, and that was
the reason why the best men were not attracted to it.




PROF. J. C. BOSE AT MADURA


On his way back to Calcutta from the Fourth Scientific Deputation to the
West, Prof. J. C. Bose visited Madura, 14th June 1915. The Tamil Sangam
presented him with an address. In reply Dr. Bose made an important
speech, in course of which he said:--

I am no longer a representative of Bengal nor have I come to a strange
place, but as an Indian addressing the mighty India and her people. When
we realise that unity of our destiny then a great future opens out for
us.

It may be we may theorise and attribute to the plants all the
characteristics of the animals; but that will be merely theory: there
will be no proof. There are certain classes of people who think that
plants are utterly unlike animals and some hold that they are like
animals. The mere theory is absolutely worthless in order to find out
the truth. We have to find by investigation, by means of researches, by
means of proofs, that one is identical with the other. We have not only
to drop all theory but we have to make the plant itself write down the
answers to the questions that we have to put to them. That was the great
problem,--how to make the plant itself answer and write down answers to
the question....

If the plants are acted on by various medicines and drugs like
ourselves, then we can create an agent or a spokesman on which we can
carry out all future investigations on the action of drugs. Then there
is opened out a great vista for the scientific study of medicine. And
let me tell you medicine is not yet an exact science. It is merely a
phase of tradition. We have not been able to make medicine scientific.
Now by the data of the influence of drugs on the fundamental basis of
life, as is seen in the plant, we shall be able to make the science of
medicine purely scientific.

In travelling all over the world, which I have done several times, I was
struck by two great characteristics of different nations. One
characteristic of certain nations is living for the future. All the
modern nations are striving to win force and power from nature. There is
another class of men who live on the glory of the past. Now, what is to
be the future of our nation? Are we to live only on the glory of the
past and die off from the face of the earth, to show that we are worthy
descendants of the glorious past and to show by our work, by our
intellect and by our service that we are not a decadent nation? We have
still a great and mighty future before us, a future that will justify
our ancestry. In talking about ancestry, do we ever realise that the
only way in which we can do honour to our past is not to boast of what
our ancestors have done but to carry out in the future something as
great, if not greater than they. Are we to be a living nation, to be
proud of our ancestry and to try to win renown by continuous
achievements? These mighty monuments that I see around me tell us what
has been done till very recent times. I have travelled over some of the
greatest ruins of the Universities of India. I have been to the ruins of
the University of Taxilla in the farthest corner of India which
attracted the people of the west and the east. I had been to the ruins
of Nalanda, a University which invited all the west to gain knowledge
under its intellectual fostering. I had been all there and seen them. I
have come here also and want to visit Conjeevaram. But are you to foster
the dead honours or to try to bring back your University in India and
drag once more from the rest of the world people who would come down and
derive knowledge from India? It is in that way and that way alone we can
win our self-respect and make our life and the life of the nation
worthy. The present era is the era of temples of learning. In order to
erect temples of learning we require all the offerings of our mighty
people. We want to erect temples and "viharas" which are so
indispensable to the study of nature and her secrets. It is a problem
which appeals to every thoughtful Indian. It is by the effort of the
people and by their generosity that all these mighty temples arose; and
now are we to worship the dead stones or are we to erect living temples
so that the knowledge that has been made in India shall be perpetuated
in India? I received requests from the different Universities in America
and Germany to allow students from those countries to come and learn the
science that has been initiated in India. Now, is this knowledge to pass
beyond our boundaries to that again in future time we may have to go to
the west to get back this knowledge or are we to keep this flame of
learning burning all the time?

(_Modern Review, Vol. xviii, p. 22-23_).




DR. J. C. BOSE ENTERTAINED

PARTY AT RAM MOHAN LIBRARY


On Saturday, 24th July, 1915, the members of the Ram Mohan Library and
Reading room received Dr. J. C. Bose, the President of the Library in a
right royal fashion, on his return to India from his Scientific
Deputation to the West.

There was a large and influential gathering, and the spacious hall was
tastefully decorated.

Dr. J. C. Bose arrived at 6:15 p.m. and was received at the gate by Mr.
D. N. Pal, Secretary. Dr. Bose then went round the hall accompanied by
the members of the Executive Committee while the Bharati Musical
Association played excellent Jaltaranga Orchestra.

Babu Bhupendra Nath Bose, Vice-President of the Library, made a
brilliant speech welcoming Dr. Bose and detailing the great services
done to the country by him.


DR. BOSE'S REPLY

Dr. Bose in reply expressed his thanks for the great interest shown in
different parts of this country in the success of his work. This was the
fourth occasion on which he had been deputed to the West by the
Government of India on a scientific mission, and the success that has
attended his visit to foreign countries has exceeded all his
expectations. In Vienna, in Paris, in Oxford, Cambridge and London, in
Harvard, Washington, Chicago and Columbia, in Tokio and in many other
places his work has uniformly been received with high appreciation. In
spite of the fact that his researches called into question some of the
existing theories, his results have notwithstanding received the fullest
acceptance. This was due to a great extent to the convincing character
of the demonstration afforded by the very delicate instruments he had
been able to invent and which worked under extremely difficult tests
with extraordinary perfection. Even the most critical savants in Vienna
felt themselves constrained to make a most generous admission. In these
new investigations on the border land between physics and physiology,
they held that Europe has been left behind by India, to which country
they would now have to come for inspiration. It has also been fully
recognised that science will derive benefit when the synthetic
intellectual methods of the East co-operate with the severe analytical
methods of the West. These opinions have also been fully endorsed in
other centres of learning and Dr. Bose had received applications from
distinguished Universities in Europe and America for admission of
foreign post graduate scholars to be trained in his Laboratory in the
new scientific methods that have been initiated in India.


RESEARCH LABORATORY FOR INDIA

This recognition that the advance of human knowledge will be incomplete
without India's special contributions, must be a source of great
inspiration for future workers in India. His countrymen had the keen
imagination which could extort truth out of a mass of disconnected facts
and the habit of meditation without allowing the mind to dissipate
itself. Inspired by his visits to the ancient Universities, at Taxila,
at Nalanda and at Conjevaram, Dr. Bose had the strongest confidence that
India would soon see a revival of those glorious traditions. There will
soon rise a Temple of Learning where the teacher cut off from worldly
distractions would go on with his ceaseless pursuit after truth, and
dying, hand on his work to his disciples. Nothing would seem laborious
in his inquiry; never is he to lose sight of his quest, never is he to
let it go obscured by any terrestrial temptation. For he is the Sanyasin
spirit, and India is the only country where so far from there being a
conflict between science and religion. Knowledge is regarded as religion
itself. Such a misuse of science as is now unfortunately in evidence in
the West would be impossible here. Had the conquest of air been achieved
in India, her very first impulse would be to offer worship at every
temple for such a manifestation of the divinity in man.


ECONOMIC DANGER OF INDIA

One of the most interesting events in his tour round the world was his
stay in Japan, where he had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted
with the efforts of the people and their aspirations towards a great
future. No one can help being filled with admiration for what they have
achieved. In materialistic efficiency, which in a mechanical era is
regarded as an index of civilisation, they have even surpassed their
German teachers. A few decades ago they had no foreign shipping and no
manufacture. But within an incredibly short time their magnificent lines
of steamers have proved so formidable a competitor that the great
American line in the Pacific will soon be compelled to stop their
sailings. Their industries again, through the wise help of the State and
other adventitious aids are capturing foreign markets. But far more
admirable is their foresight to save their country from any embroilment
with other nations with whom they want to live in peace. And they
realise any predominant interest of a foreign country in their trade or
manufacture is sure to lead to misunderstanding and friction. Actuated
by this idea they have practically excluded all foreign manufactured
articles by prohibitive tariffs.


REVIVAL OF INDIAN INDUSTRIES

Is our country slow to realise the danger that threatens her by the
capture of her market and the total destruction of her industries? Does
she not realise that it is helpless passivity that directly provokes
aggression? Has not the recent happenings in China served as an object
lesson? There is, therefore, no time to be lost and the utmost effort is
demanded of the Government and the people for the revival of our own
industries. The various attempts that have hitherto been made have not
been as successful as the necessity of the case demands. The efforts of
the Government and of the people have hitherto been spasmodic and often
worked at cross purposes. The Government should have an advisory body
of Indian members. There should be some modification of rules as regards
selection of Industrial scholars. Before being sent out to foreign
countries they should be made to study the conditions of manufacture in
this country and its difficulties. For a particular industry there
should be a co-ordinated group of three scholars, two for the industrial
and one for the commercial side. Difficulties would arise in adapting
foreign knowledge to Indian conditions. This can only be overcome by the
devoted labour of men of originality, who have been trained in our
future Research Laboratory. The Government could also materially help
(i) by offering facilities for the supply of raw materials (ii) by
offering expert advice (iii) by starting experimental industries. He had
reason to think that the Government is full alive to the crucial
importance of the subject and is determined to take every step
necessary. In this matter the aims of the people and the Government are
one. In facing a common danger and in co-operation there must arise
mutual respect and understanding. And perhaps through the very
catastrophe that is threatening the world there may grow up in India a
realisation of community of interest and solidarity as between
Government and people.


A CALL FOR NOBLER PATRIOTISM

A very serious danger is thus seen to be threatening the future of
India, and to avert it will require the utmost effort of the people.
They have not only to meet the economic crisis but also to protect the
ideals of ancient Aryan civilisation from the destructive forces that
are threatening it. Nothing great can be conserved except through
constant effort and sacrifice. There is a danger of, regarding the
mechanical efficiency as the sole end of life; there is also the
opposite danger of a life of dreaming, bereft of struggle and activity,
degenerating into parasitic habits of dependence. Only through the
nobler call of patriotism can our nation realise her highest ideals in
thought and in action; to that call the nation will always respond. He
had the inestimable privilege of winning the intimate friendship of Mr.
G. K. Gokhale. Before leaving England, our foremost Indian statesman
whose loss we so deeply mourn, had come to stay with the speaker for a
few days at Eastbourne. He knew that this was to be their last meeting.
Almost his parting question to Dr. Bose was whether science had anything
to say about future incarnations. For himself, however he was certain
that as soon as he would cast off his worn out frame he was to be born
once more in the country he loved, and bear all the country that may be
laid on him in her service. There can be no doubt that there must be
salvation for a country which can count on sons as devoted as Gopal
Krishna Gokhale.

--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 26-7-1915.




HISTORY OF A DISCOVERY


Substance of a Lecture delivered by Prof. J. C. Bose on the 20th
November 1915, at the Ram Mohan Library, under the Presidency of the
Hon'ble Mr. P. C. Lyon, and published at p. 693, Vol. xviii, of the
"Modern Review" (July to December, 1915).

At the tournament held before the court at Hastinapur, more than
twenty-five centuries ago, Karna, the reputed son of a Charioteer, had
challenged the supremacy of Prince Arjuna. To this challenge Arjuna had
returned a scornful answer; a prince could not cross swords with one who
could claim no nobility of descent. "I am my own ancestor," replied
Karna, and this perhaps the earliest assertion of the right of man to
choose and determine his own destiny. In the realm of knowledge also the
great achievements have been won only by men with determined purpose and
without any adventitious aids. Undismayed by human limitations they had
struggled in spite of many a failure. In their inquiry after truth they
regarded nothing as too laborious, nothing too insignificant, nothing
too painful. This is the process which all must follow; there is no
easier path.

The lecturer's research on the properties of Electric Waves was begun
just twenty-one years ago. In this he was greatly encouraged by the
appreciation shown by the Royal Society, which not only published his
researches, but also offered a Parliamentary grant for the continuance
of his work. The greatest difficulty lay in the construction of a
receiver to detect invisible ether disturbances. For this a most
laborious investigation had to be undertaken to find the action of
electric radiation on all kinds of matter. As a result of this long and
very patient work a new type of receiver was invented, so perfect in its
action that the _Electrician_ suggested its use in ships and
electro-magnetic high houses for the communication and transmission of
danger signals at sea through space. This was in 1895, several years in
advance of the present wireless system. Practical application of the
result of Dr. Bose's investigations appear so important that Great
Britain and the United States granted him patents for his invention of a
certain crystal receiver which proved to be the most sensitive detector
of wireless signals.


UNIVERSAL SENSITIVENESS OF MATTER

In the course of his investigations Dr. Bose found that the uncertainty
of the early type of his receiver was brought on by fatigue, and that
the curve of fatigue of his instrument closely resembled the fatigue
curve of animal muscle. He was soon able to remove the 'tiredness' of
his receiver by application of suitable stimulants; application of
certain poisons, on the other hand, permanently abolished its
sensitiveness. Dr. Bose was thus amazed at the discovery that inorganic
matter was anything but inert, but that its particles were a thrill
under the action of multitudinous forces that were playing on it. The
lecturer was at this time constrained to choose whether to go on with
the practical applications of his work, the success of which appeared to
be assured, or to throw himself into a vortex of conflict for the
establishment of some truth the glimmerings of which he was then but
dimly beginning to perceive. It is very curious that the human mind is
sometimes so constituted that it rejects lines of least resistance in
favour of the more difficult path. Dr. Bose chose the more difficult
path, and entered into a phase of activity which was to test all his
strength.


CASTE IN SCIENCE

Dr. Bose's discovery of Universal sensitiveness of matter was
communicated to the Royal Society on May 7th, 1901, when he himself gave
a successful experimental demonstration. His communication was, however,
strongly assailed by Sir John Burden-Sanderson, the leading
physiologist, and one or two of his followers. They had nothing to urge
against his experiments but objected to a physicist straying into the
preserve that had been specially reserved for the physiologist. He had
unwittingly strayed into the domain of a new and unfamiliar caste system
and offended its etiquette. In consequence of this opposition his paper,
which was already in print, was not published. This is not by any means
to be regarded as an injustice done to a stranger. Even Lord Rayleigh,
who occupies an unique position in the world of science, was subjected
to fierce attacks from the chemists, because he, a physicist, had
ventured to predict that the air would be found to contain new elements
not hitherto discovered.

It is natural that there should be prejudice against all innovations,
and the attitude of Sir John Burden-Sanderson is easily explained.
Unfortunately there was another incident about which similar explanation
could not be urged. Dr. Bose's Paper had been placed in the archives of
the Royal Society, so that technically there was no publication. And it
came about that eight months after the reading of his Paper, another
communication found publication in the Journal of a different society
which was practically the same as Dr. Bose's but without any
acknowledgment. The author of this communication was a gentleman who had
previously opposed him at the Royal Society. The plagiarism was
subsequently discovered and led to much unpleasantness. It is not
necessary to refer any more to the subject except as explanation of the
fact that the determined hostility and misrepresentations of one man
succeeded for more than ten years to bar all avenues of publication for
his discoveries. But every cloud has its silver lining; this incident
secured for him many true friends in England who stood for fair play,
and whose friendship has proved to be a source of great encouragement to
him.


FURTHER DIFFICULTIES

Dr. Bose's next work in 1903 was the discovery of the identity of
response and of automatic activity in plant and animal and of the
nervous impulse in plant. These new contributions were regarded as of
such great importance that the Royal Society showed its special
appreciation by recommending it to be published in their Philosophical
transactions. But the same influence which had hitherto stood in his way
triumphed once more, and it was at the very last moment that the
publication was withheld. The Royal Society, however, informed him that
his results were of fundamental importance, but as they were so wholly
unexpected and so opposed to the existing theories, that they would
reserve their judgment until, at some future time, plants themselves
could be made to record their answers to questions put to them. This was
interpreted in certain quarters here as the final rejection of Dr.
Bose's theories by the Royal Society, and the limited facilities which
he had in the prosecution of his researches were in danger of being
withdrawn. And everything was dark for him for the next ten years. The
only thought that possessed him was how to make the plant give testimony
by means of its own autograph.


LONG DELAYED SUCCESS

And when the night was at its darkest, light gradually appeared, and
after innumerable difficulties had been overcome his Resonant Recorder
was perfected, which enabled the plant to tell its own story. And in
the meantime something still more wonderful came to pass. Hitherto all
gates had been barred and he had to produce his passports everywhere. He
now found friends who never asked him for credentials. His time had come
at last. The Royal Society found his new methods most convincing and
honoured him by publication of his researches in the Philosophical
transactions. And his discoveries, which had so long remained in
obscurity, found enthusiastic acceptance.

Though his theories had thus received acceptance from the leading
scientific men of the Royal Society, there was yet no general conviction
of the identity of life reactions in plant and animal. No amount of
controversy can remove the tendency of the human mind to follow
precedents. The only thing left was to make the plant itself bear
witness before the scientific bodies in the West, by means of
self-records. At the recommendation of the Minister of Education, and of
the Government of Bengal, the Secretary of State sanctioned his
scientific deputation to Europe and America.


JOURNEY OF INDIAN PLANT ROUND THE WORLD

The special difficulty which he had to contend against lay in the fact
that the only time during which the plant flourished at all in the West,
was in the months of July and August, when the Universities and
scientific societies were in vacation. The only thing left was to take
the bold step of carrying growing plants from India and trust to human
ingenuity to keep them alive during the journey. Four plants, two
Mimosas and two Telegraph plants, were taken in a portable box with
glass cover, and never let out of sight. In the Mediterranean they
encountered bitter cold for the first time and nearly succumbed. They
were unhappier still in the Bay of Biscay, and when they reached London
there was a sharp frost. They had to be kept in a drawing room lighted
by gas, the deadly influence of which was discovered the next morning
when all the plants were found to be apparently killed. Two had been
killed, and the other two were brought round after much difficulty. The
plants were at once transferred to the hot-house in Regents Park. For
every demonstration in Dr. Bose's private Laboratory at Maida Vale, the
plant had to be brought and returned in a taxicab with closed doors so
that no sudden chill might kill them. When travelling, the large box in
which they were, could not be trusted out of sight in the luggage van.
They had practically to be carried in a reserved compartment. The
unusual care taken of the box always roused the greatest curiosity, and
in an incredibly short time large crowds would gather. When travelling
long distances, for example from London to Vienna, the carriage
accommodation had to be secured in advance. It was this that saved Dr.
Bose from being interned in Germany, where he was to commence his
lectures on the 4th August. He was to start for the University of Bonn
on the 2nd, but on account of hasty mobilisation of troops in Germany he
could not secure the reserved accommodation. Two days after came the
proclamation of War!


OUTCOME OF HIS WORK

The success of his scientific mission exceeded his most sanguine
expectations. The work in which he long persevered in isolation and
under most depressing difficulties, bore fruit at last. Apart from the
full recognition that the progress of the world's science would be
incomplete without India's special contributions, mutual appreciation
and better understanding resulted from his visit. One of the greatest of
Medical Institutions, the Royal Society of Medicine, has been pleased to
regard his address before the society as one of the most important in
their history and they expected that their science of medicine would be
materially benefited by the researches that are being carried out by him
in India. India has also been drawn closer to the great seats of
learning in the West, to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; for
there also the methods of inquiry initiated here have found the most
cordial welcome. Many Indian students find their way to America,
strangers in a strange land; hitherto they found few to advise and
befriend them. It will perhaps be different now, since their leading
Universities have begged from India the courtesy of hospitality for
their post graduate scholars. Some of these Universities again have
asked for a supply of apparatus specially invented at Dr. Bose's
laboratory which in their opinion will mark an epoch in scientific
advance.


THE INEFFABLE WONDER BEHIND THE VEIL

As for the research itself, he said its bearings are not exclusively
specialistic, but touch the foundation of various branches of science.
To mention only a few; in medicine it had to deal with the fundamental
reaction of protoplasm to various drugs, the solution of the problem why
an identical agent brings about diametrically opposite effects in
different constitutions; in the science of life it dealt with the new
comparative physiology by which any specific characteristic of a tissue
is traced from the simplest type in plant to the most complex in the
animal; the study of the mysterious phenomenon of death and the
accurate determination of the death point and the various conditions by
which this point may be dislocated backwards and forwards; in psychology
it had to deal with the unravelling of the great mystery that underlies
memory and tracing it backwards to latent impressions even in the
inorganic bodies which are capable of subsequent revival; and finally,
the determination of the special characteristic of that vehicle through
which sensiferous impulses are transmitted and the possibility of
changing the intensity and the tone of sensation. All these
investigations, Dr. Bose said, are to be carried out by new physical
methods of the utmost delicacy. He had in these years been able to
remove the obstacles in the path and had lifted the veil so as to catch
a glimpse of the ineffable wonder that had hitherto been hidden from
view. The real work, he said, had only just begun.


A SOCIAL GATHERING

At the Social Gathering held on the 16th December 1915, in the compound
of the Calcutta Presidency College, to meet him after his highly
successful tour through Europe, America and Japan, Dr. Bose spoke as
follows:--

He said that it was his rare good fortune to have been amply rewarded
for the hardships and struggles that he had gone through by the generous
and friendly feelings of his colleagues and the love and trust of his
pupils. He would say a few words regarding his experience in the
Presidency College for more than three decades, which he hoped would
serve to bring all who loved the Presidency College--present and past
pupils and their teachers--in closer bonds of union. He would speak to
them what he had learnt after years of patient labour, that the
impossible became possible by persistent and determined efforts and
adherence to duty and entire selflessness. The greatest obstacle often
arises out of foolish misunderstanding of each other's ideals, such as
the differing points of view, first of the Indian teacher, then of his
western colleague, and last but not least, the point of view of the
Indian pupils themselves. In all these respects his experience had been
wide and varied. He had both been an undergraduate and a graduate of the
Calcutta University with vivid realization of an Indian student's
aspirations; he had then become a student of conservative Cambridge and
democratic London. And during his frequent visits to Europe and America
he had become acquainted with the inner working of the chief
universities of the world. Finally he had the unique privilege of being
connected with the Presidency College for thirty-one years, from which
no temptation could sever him. He had the deepest sense of the sacred
vocation of the teacher. They may well be proud of a consecrated
life--consecrated to what? To the guidance of young lives, to the making
of men, to the shaping and determining of souls in the dawn of their
existence, with their dreams yet to be realised.

Education in the West and in the East showed how different customs and
ways might yet express a common ideal. In India the teacher was, like
the head of a family, reverenced by his pupils so deeply as to show
itself by touching the feet of their master. This in no servile act if
we come to think of it; since it is the expression of the pupils' desire
for his master's blessings, called down from heaven in an almost
religious communion of souls. This consecration is renewed every day,
calling forth patient foresight of the teacher. As the father shows no
special favour, but lets his love and compassion go out to the weakest,
so it is with the Indian teacher and his pupil. There is the relation
something very human, something very ennobling. He would say it was
essentially human rather than distinctively Eastern. For do we not find
something very like it in Mediaeval Europe? There too before the coming
of the modern era with its lack of leisure and its adherence to system
and machinery, there was a bond as sacred between the master and his
pupils. Luther used to salute his class every morning with lifted hat,
"I bow to you, great men of the future, famous administrators yet to be,
men of learning, men of character who will take on themselves the burden
of the world." Such is the prophetic vision given to the greatest of
teachers. The modern teacher from England will set before him an ideal
not less exalted--regarding his pupils as his comrades, he as an
Englishman will instill into them greater virility and a greater public
spirit. This will be his special contribution to the forming of our
Indian youths.

Turning to the Indian students he could say that it was his good fortune
never to have had the harmonious relation between teacher and pupils in
any way ruffled during his long connection with them for more than three
decades. The real secret of success was in trying at times to see things
from the student's point of view and to cultivate a sense of humour
enabling him to enjoy the splendid self-assurance of youth with a
feeling not unmixed with envy. In essential matters, however, one could
not wish to meet a better type or one more quickly susceptible to finer
appeals to right conduct and duty as Indian students. Their faults are
rather of omission than of commission, since in his experience he formed
that the moment they realised their teachers to be their friends, they
responded instantly and did not flinch from any test, however severe,
that could be laid on them.

--_The Presidency College Magazine._ _Vol. II, pages_ 339-341.




LIGHT VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE


On the 14th January 1916, Dr. J. C. Bose delivered a public lecture, on
Light Visible and Invisible, at the third Indian Science Congress held
at Lucknow, before a crowded audience which included the
Lieutenant-Governor (Sir James Meston).

Dr. Bose, in course of his lecture, spoke of the imperfection of our
senses. Our ear, for example, fails to respond to all sounds. There are
many sounds to which we are deaf. This was because our ear was tuned to
answer to the narrow range of eleven octaves of sound vibrations. He
showed a remarkable experiment of an artificial ear which remained
irresponsive to various sounds, but when a particular note, to which it
was tuned, was sounded even at the distant end of the hall, this ear
picked it up and responded violently. As there were sounds audible and
inaudible, so there were lights visible and invisible. The imperfection
of our eye as a detector of ether vibrations was, however, far more
serious. The eye could detect ether vibrations lying within a single
octave--between 400 to 800 billion vibrations per second. Comparatively
slow vibrations of ether did not affect our eye and the disturbances
they give rise to well-known as electric waves. The electric waves,
predicted by Maxwell, were discovered by Hertz. These waves were about
three metres long. They were about ten million times larger than the
beams of visible light. Dr. Bose showed that the three short electric
waves have the same property as a beam of light, exhibiting reflections,
refraction, even total reflection, through a black crystal, double
refraction, polarisation, and rotation of the plane of polarisation. The
thinnest film of air was sufficient to produce total reflection of
visible light with its extremely short wave lengths. But with the new
electric waves which he produced, Dr. Bose showed that the critical
thickness of air space determined by the refracting power of the prison
and by the wave length of electric oscillations. Dr. Bose determined the
index of refraction of electric waves for different materials, and
eliminated a difficulty which presented itself in Maxwell's theory as to
the relation between the index of refraction of light and the
di-electric constant of insulators. He also measured the wave lengths of
various oscillations. The order to produce short electric oscillations,
to detect them and study their optical properties, he had to construct a
large number of instruments. It was a hard task to produce very short
electric waves which had enough energy to be detected, but Dr. Bose
overcame this difficulty by constructing radiators or oscillators of his
own type, which emitted the shortest waves with sufficient energy. As a
receiver he used a sensitive metallic coherer, which in itself led to
new and important discoveries. When electric waves fall on a loose
contact between two pieces of metals, the resistance of the contact
changes and a current passes through the contact indicating the
existence of electrical oscillations. Dr. Bose discovered the surprising
fact that with potassium metal the resistance of the contact increases
under the action of electric waves and that this contact exhibits an
automatic recovery. He found further that the change of the metallic
contact resistance when acted upon by electric waves, is a function of
the atomic weight. These phenomena led to a new theory of metallic
coherers. Before these discoveries it was assumed that the particles of
the two metallic pieces in contact are, as it were, fused together, so
that the resistance decreases. But the increasing resistance appearing
for some elements, led to the theory that the electric forces in the
waves produced a peculiar molecular action or a re-arrangement of the
molecules, which may either increase or decrease the contact resistance.

--_Pioneer_,--16-1-1916.




HINDU UNIVERSITY ADDRESS


The foundation of the Hindu University was laid by Lord Hardinge on the
4th February 1916. "Many striking addresses were delivered on the
occasion. Professor J.C. Bose in his masterly address went to the root
of the matter and pointed in an inspiring manner what should be done to
make the Hindu University worthy of its name. He deprecated a repetition
of the Universities of the West." He said:--

In tracing the characteristic phenomenon of life from simple beginnings
in that vast region which may be called unvoiced, as exemplified in the
world of plants, to its highest expression in the animal kingdom, one is
repeatedly struck by the one dominant fact that in order to maintain an
organism at the height of its efficiency something more than a
mechanical perfection of its structure is necessary. Every living
organism, in order to maintain its life and growth, must be in free
communion with all the forces of the Universe about it.


STIMULUS WITHIN AND WITHOUT

Further, it must not only constantly receive stimulus from without, but
must also give out something from within, and the healthy life of the
organism will depend on these two fold activities of inflow and
outflow. When there is any interference with these activities, then
morbid symptoms appear, which ultimately must end in disaster and death.
This is equally true of the intellectual life of a Nation. When through
narrow conceit a Nation regards itself self-sufficient and cuts itself
from the stimulus of the outside world, then intellectual decay must
inevitably follow.


SPECIAL FUNCTION OF A NATION

So far as regards the receptive function. Then there is another function
in the intellectual life of a Nation, that of spontaneous outflow, that
giving out of its life by which the world is enriched. When the Nation
has lost this power, when it merely receives, but cannot give out, then
its healthy life is over, and it sinks into a degenerate existence which
is purely parasitic.


HOW INDIA CAN TEACH

How can our Nation give out of the fulness of the life that is in it,
and how can a new Indian University help in the realisation of this
object? It is clear that its power of directing and inspiring will
depend on its world status. This can be secured to it by no artificial
means, nor by any strength in the past; and what is the weakness that
has been paralysing her activities for the accomplishment of any great
scientific work? There must be two different elements, and these must be
evenly balanced. Any excess of either will injure it.


HOW TO SECURE THIS STATUS

This world status can only be won by the intrinsic value of the great
contributions to be made by its own Indian scholars for the advancement
of the world's knowledge. To be organic and vital our new University
must stand primarily for self-expression, and for winning for India a
place she has lost. Knowledge is never the exclusive possession of any
particular race, nor does it recognise geographical limitations. The
whole world is interdependent, and a constant stream of thought had been
carried out throughout the ages enriching the common heritage of
mankind. Although science was neither of the East nor of the West but
international, certain aspects of it gained richness by reason of their
place of origin.

In any case if India need to make any contribution to the world it
should be as great as the hope they cherished for her. Let them not
talk of the glories of the past till they have secured for her, her true
place among the intellectual nations of the world. Let them find out how
she had fallen from her high estate and ruthlessly put an end to all
that self satisfied and little-minded vanity which had been the cause of
their fatal weakness. What was it that stood in her way? Was her mind
paralysed by weak superstitious fears? That was not so; for her great
thinkers, the Rishis, always stood for freedom of intellect and while
Galileo was imprisoned and Bruno burnt for their opinions, they boldly
declared that even the Vedas were to be rejected if they did not conform
to truth. They urged in favour of persistent efforts for the discovery
of physical causes yet unknown, since to them nothing was extra-physical
but merely mysterious because of a hitherto unascertained cause. Were
they afraid that the march of knowledge was dangerous to true faith? Not
so. For their knowledge and religion were one.

These are the hopes that animate us. For there is something in the Hindu
culture which is possessed of extraordinary latent strength by which it
has resisted the ravages of time and the destructive changes which have
swept over the earth. And indeed a capacity to endure through infinite
transformations must be innate in that mighty civilisation which has
seen the intellectual culture of the Nile Valley, of Assyria and of
Babylon war and wane and disappear and which to-day gazes on the future
with the same invincible faith with which it met the past.

--_Modern Review, vol. XIX, pages_ 277, 278.




THE HISTORY OF A FAILURE THAT WAS GREAT


At the invitation of the President and the committee of the Faridpore
Industrial Exhibition, Dr. J. C. Bose gave a lecture on the life of his
father, the late Babu Bhugwan Chunder Bose, who founded the Exhibition
at Faridpore, where he was the sub-divisional officer, 50 years ago. It
was published in the Modern Review for February 1917--volume xxi, p.
221. In course of his address, said Dr. Bose:--

It is the obvious, the insistent, the blatant that often blinds us to
the essential. And in solving the mystery that underlies life, the
enlightenment will come not by the study of the complex man, but through
the simpler plant. It is the unsuspected forces, hidden to the eyes of
men,--the forces imprisoned in the soil and the stimuli of alternating
flash of light and the gloomings of darkness these and many others will
be found to maintain the ceaseless activity which we know as the fulness
of throbbing life.

This is likewise true of the congeries of life which we call a society
or a nation. The energy which moves this great mass in ceaseless effort
to realise some common aspiration, often has its origin in the unknown
solitudes of a village life. And thus the history of some efforts, not
forgotten, which emanated from Faridpore, may be found not unconnected
with which India is now meeting her problems to-day. How did these
problems first dawn in the minds of some men who forecast themselves by
half a century? How fared their hopes, how did their dreams become
buried in oblivion? Where lies the secret of that potency which makes
certain efforts apparently doomed to failure, rise renewed from beneath
the smouldering ashes? Are these dead failures, so utterly unrelated to
some great success that we may acclaim to day? When we look deeper we
shall find that this is not so, that as inevitable as in the sequence of
cause and effect, so unrelenting must be the sequence of failure and
success. We shall find that the failure must be the antecedent power to
lie dormant for the long subsequent dynamic expression in what we call
success. It is then and then only that we shall begin to question
ourselves which is the greater of the two, a noble failure or a vulgar
success.

As a concrete example, I shall relate the history of a noble failure
which had its setting in this little corner of the earth. And if some of
the audience thought that the speaker has been blessed with life that
has been unusually fruitful, they will soon realise that the power and
strength that nerved me to meet the shocks of life were in reality
derived at this very place, where I witnessed the struggle which
overpowered a far greater life.


STIMULUS OF CONTACT WITH WESTERN CULTURE

An impulse from outside reacts on impressionable bodies in two different
ways, depending on whether the recipient is inert or fully alive. The
inert is fashioned after the pattern of the impression made on it, and
this in infinite repetition of one mechanical stamp. But when an
organism is fully alive, the answering reaction is often of an
altogether different character to the impinging stimulus. The outside
shocks stir up the organism to answer feebly or to utmost in ways as
multitudinous and varied as life itself. So the first impetus of Western
education impressed itself on some in a dead monotony of imitation of
things Western; while in others it awakened all that was greatest in the
national memory. It is the release of some giant force which lay for
long time dormant. My father was one of the earliest to receive the
impetus characteristic of the modern epoch as derived from the West. And
in his case it came to pass that the stimulus evoked the latent
potentialities of his race for evolving modes of expression demanded by
the period of transition in which he was placed. They found expression
in great constructive work, in the restoration of quiet amidst disorder,
in the earliest effort to spread education both among men and women, in
questions of social welfare, in industrial efforts, in the establishment
of people's Bank and in the foundation of industrial and technical
schools. And behind all these efforts lay a burning love for his country
and its nobler traditions.


MATTERS EDUCATIONAL

In educational matters he had very definite ideas which is now becoming
more fully appreciated. English schools were at that time not only
regarded as the only efficient medium for instruction. While my father's
subordinates sent their children to the English schools intended for
gentle folks, I was sent to the vernacular school where my comrades were
hardy sons of toilers and of others who, it is now the fashion to
regard, were belonging to the depressed classes. From these who tilled
the ground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening
corn, and the sons of the fisher folk, who told stories of the strange
creatures that frequented the unknown depths of mighty rivers and
stagnant pools, I first derived the lesson of that which constitutes
true manhood. From them too I drew my love of nature. When I came home
accompanied by my comrades I found my mother waiting for us. She was an
orthodox Hindu, yet the "untouchableness" of some of my school fellows
did not produce any misgivings in her. She welcomed and fed all these as
her own children; for it is only true of the mother heart to go out and
enfold in her protecting care all those who needed succour and a
mother's affection. I now realise the object of my being sent at the
most plastic period of my life to the vernacular school, where I was to
learn my own language, to think my own thoughts and to receive the
heritage of our national culture through the medium of our own
literature. I was thus to consider myself one with the people and never
to place myself in an equivocal position of assumed superiority. This I
realised more particularly when later I wished to go to Europe and to
compete for the Indian Civil Service, his refusal as regards that
particular career was absolute. I was to rule nobody but myself, I was
to be a scholar not an administrator.


THE HISTORY OF A FAILURE THAT WAS GREAT

There has been some complaint that the experiment of meeting out cut and
dried moral texts as a part of school routine has not proved to be so
effective as was expected by their promulgators. The moral education
which we received in our childhood was very indirect and came from
listening to stories recited by the 'Kathas' on various incidents
connected with our great epics. Their effect on our minds was very
great; this may be because our racial memory makes us more prone to
respond to certain ideals that have been impressed on the consciousness
of the nation. These early appeals to our emotions have remained
persistent; the only difference is that which was there as a narrative
of incidents more or less historical, is now realised as eternally true,
being an allegory of the unending struggle of the human soul in its
choice between what is material and that other something which
transcends it. The only pictures now in my study are a few frescoes done
for me by Abanindra Nath Tagore and Nanda Lal Bose. The first fresco
represents Her, who is the Sustainer of the Universe. She stands
pedestalled on the lotus of our heart. The world was at peace; but a
change has come. And She under whose Veil of Compassion we had been
protected so long, suddenly flings us to the world of conflict. Our
great epic, the Mahabharata, deals with this great conflict, and the few
frescoes delineate some of the fundamental incidents. The coming of the
discord is signalled by the rattle of dice, thrown by Yudhisthira, the
pawn at stake, being the crown. Two hostile arrays are set in motion,
mighty Kaurava armaments meeting in shock of battle the Pandava host
with Arjuna as the leader, and Krishna as his Divine Charioteer. At the
supreme moment Arjuna had flung down his earthly weapon, Gandiva. It was
then that the eternal conflict between matter and spirit was decided.
The next panel shows the outward or the material aspect of victory.
Behind a foreground of waving flags is seen the battle field of
Kurukshetra with procession of white-clad mourning women seen by fitful
lights of funeral pyres. In the last panel is seen Yudhisthira
renouncing the fruits of his victory setting out on his last journey. In
front of him lies the vast and sombre plain and mountain peaks, faintly
visible by gleams of unearthly light, unlocalised but playing here and
there. His wife and his brothers had fallen behind and dropped one by
one. There is to be no human companion in his last journey. The only
thing that stood by him and from which he had never been really
separated is Dharma or the Spirit of Righteousness.


LIFE OF ACTION

Faridpur at that time enjoyed a notoriety of being the stronghold of
desperate characters, dacoits by land and water. My father had captured
single-handed one of the principal leaders, whom he sentenced to a long
term of imprisonment. After release he came to my father and demanded
some occupation, since the particular vocation in which he had
specialised was now rendered impossible. My father took the unusual
course to employ him as my special attendant to carry me, a child of
four, on his back to the distant village school. No nurse could be
tenderer than this ex-leader of lawless men, whose profession had been
to deal out wounds and deaths. He had accepted a life of peace but he
could not altogether wipe out his old memories. He used to fill my
infant mind with the stories of his bold adventures, the numerous fights
in which he had taken part, the death of his companions and his
hair-breadth escapes. Numerous were the decorations he bore. The most
conspicuous was an ugly mark on his breast left by an arrow and a hole
on the thigh caused by a spear thrust. The trust imposed on this
marauder proved to be not altogether ill placed for once in a river
journey we were pursued by several long boats filled with armed dacoits.
When these boats came too near for us to effect an escape the erstwhile
dacoit leader, my attendant, stood up and gave a peculiar cry, which was
evidently understood. For the pursuing boats vanished at the signal.


INDUSTRIAL EFFORTS

I come now to another period of his life fifty years from now, when he
foresaw the economic danger that threatened his country. This
Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition was one of the first means he
thought of to avert the threatened danger. Here also he attempted to
bring together other activities. Evening entertainments were given by
the performances of "Jatras," which have been the expression of our
national drama and which have constantly enriched our Bengali literature
by the contributions of village bards and composers. There were athletic
tournaments also and display of physical strength and endurance. He also
established here the people's Bank, which is now in a most flourishing
condition. He established industrial and technical schools, and it was
there that the inventive bend of my mind received its first impetus. I
remember the deep impression made on my mind by the form of worship
rendered by the artisans to Viswakarma God in his aspect as the Great
Artificer: His hand it was that was moulding the whole creation; and it
seemed that we were the instruments in his hand, through whom he
intended to fashion some Great Design.

In practical agriculture my father was among Indians one of the first to
start a tea industry in Assam, now regarded as one of the most
flourishing. He gave practically everything in the starting of some
Weaving Mills. He stood by this and many other efforts in industrial
developments. The success of which I spoke did not come till long
after--too late for him to see it. He had come before the country was
ready, and it happened to him as it must happen to all pioneers. Every
one of his efforts failed and the crash came. And a great burden fell on
us which was only lifted by our united effects just before his work here
was over.

A failure? Yes but not ignoble or altogether futile. Since it was
through the witnessing of this struggle that the son learned to look on
success or failure as one, to realise that some defeat was greater than
victory. And if my life in any way proved to be fruitful, then that came
through the realisation of this lesson.

To me his life had been one of blessing and daily thanksgiving.
Nevertheless every one had said that he wrecked his life which was meant
for far greater things. Few realise that out of the skeletons of myriad
lives have been built vast continents. And it is on the wreck of a life
like his and of many such lives there will be built the Greater India
yet to be. We do not know why it should be so, but we do know that the
Earth Mother is hungry for sacrifice.




QUEST OF TRUTH AND DUTY


Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose delivered the following Address, on the 25th
February 1917, to the students of the Presidency College on receiving
their _Arghya_ and congratulations on the occasion of his knighthood. It
was published in the Modern Review for March 1917--Volume XXI, p. 343.

In your congratulations for the recent honour, you have overlooked a
still greater that came to me a year ago, when I was gazetted as your
perpetual professor, so that the tie which binds me to you is never to
be severed. Thirty-two years ago I sought to be your teacher. For the
trust that you imposed on me could I do anything less than place before
you the highest that I knew? I never appealed to your weaknesses but
your strength. I never set before you that was easy but used all the
compulsion for the choice of the most difficult. And perhaps as a
reward for these years of effort I find all over India those who have
been my pupils occupying positions of the highest trust and
responsibility in different walks of life. I do not merely count those
who have won fame and success but I also claim many others who have
taken up the burden of life manfully and whose life of purity and
unselfishness has brought gleams of joy in suffering lives.


THE LAW UNIVERSAL

Through science I was able to teach you how the seeming veils the real;
how though the garish lights dazzle and blind us, there are lights
invisible, which glow persistently after the brief flare burns out. One
came to realise how all matter was one, how unified all life was. In the
various expressions of life even in the realm of thought the same
Universal law prevails. There was no such thing as brute matter, but
that spirit suffused matter in which it was enshrined. One also realised
dimly a mysterious Cyclic Law of Change, seen not merely in inorganic
matter but also in organised life and its highest manifestations. One
saw how inertness passes into the climax of activity and how that climax
is perilously near its antithetic decline. This basic change puzzles us
by its seeming caprice not merely in our physical instruments but also
in the cycle of individual life and death and in the great cycle of the
life and death of nations. We fail to see things in their totality and
we erect barriers that keep kindreds apart. Even science which attempts
to rise above common limitations, has not escaped the doom which limited
vision imposes. We have caste in science as in religion and in politics,
which divides one into conflicting many. The law of Cyclic change
follows us relentlessly even in the realm of thought. When we have
raised ourselves to the highest pinnacle, through some oversight we fall
over the precipice. Men have offered their lives for the establishment
of truth. A climax is reached after which the custodians of knowledge
themselves bar further advance. Men who have fought for liberty impose
on themselves and on others the bond of slavery. Through centuries have
men striven to erect a mighty edifice in which Humanity might be
enshrined; through want of vigilance the structure crumbled into dust.
Many cycles must yet be run and defeats must yet be borne before man
will establish a destiny which is above change.

And through science I was able to teach you to seek for truth and help
to discover it yourself. This attitude of detachment may possess some
advantage in the proper understanding of your duties. You will have,
besides, the heritage of great ideals that have been handed down to
you. The question which you have to decide is duty to yourself, to the
king and to your country. I shall speak to you of the ideals which we
cherish about these duties.


DUTY TO SELF

As regards duty to self, can there be anything so inclusive as being
true to your manhood? Stand upright and do not be either cringing or
vulgarly self-assertive. Be righteous. Let your words and deeds
correspond. Lead no double life. Proclaim what you think right.


IDEAL OF KINGSHIP

The Indian ideal of kingship will be clear to you if I recite the
invocation with which we crowned our kings from the Vedic Times:

     "Be with us. We have chosen thee
     Let all the people wish for thee
     Stand steadfast and immovable
     Be like a mountain unremoved
     And hold thy kingship in thy grasp."

We have chosen thee, our prayers have consecrated thee, for all the
wishes of the people went with thee. Thou art to stand as mountain
unremoved, for thy throne is planted secure on the hearts of thy people.
Stand steadfast then, for we have endowed thee with power irresistible.
Fall therefore not away; but let thy sceptre be held firmly in thy
grasp.

Which is more potent, Matter or Spirit? Is the power with which the
people endow their king identical with the power of wealth with which we
enrich him by paying him his Royal dues? We make him irresistible not by
wealth but by the strength of our lives, the strength of our mind, may,
we have to pay him more according to our ancient Lawgivers, in as much
as the eighth part of our deeds and virtues, and the merit we have
ourselves acquired. We can only make him irresistible by the strength of
our lives, the strength of our minds, and the strength that comes out of
righteousness.


DUTY TO OUR COUNTRY

And lastly, what are our duties to our country? These are essentially to
win honour for it and also win for it security and peace. As regards
winning honour for our country, it is true that while India has offered
from the earliest times welcome and hospitality to all peoples and
nationalities her children have been subjected to intolerable
humiliations in other countries even under the flag of our king.

There can be no question of the fundamental duty of every Indian to
stand up and uphold the honour of his country and strove for the removal
of wrong.

The general task of redressing wrong is not a problem of India alone,
but one in which the righteous men are interested the world over. For
wrong cries for redress everywhere, in the clashings interests of the
rich and poor, between capital and labour, between those who hold the
power and those from whom it has been withheld,--in a word in the
struggle of the Disinherited.

When any man is rendered unable to uphold his manhood and self-respect
and woman are deprived of the chivalrous protection and consideration of
men and subjected to degradation, the general level of manhood or
womanhood in the world is lowered. It then becomes an outrage to
humanity and a challenge to all men to safeguard the sacredness of our
common human nature.

What is the machinery which sets a going a world movement for the
redress of wrong? For this I need not cite instances from the history of
other countries but take one which is known to you and in which the
living actors are still among us. In the midst of the degradation of his
countrymen in South Africa, there stood up a man himself nurtured in
luxury, to take up the burden of the disinherited. His wife too stood by
him, a lady of gentle birth. We all know who that man is--he is
Gandhi,--and what humiliations and suffering he went through. Do you
think he suffered in vain and that his voice remained unheard? It was
not so, for in the great vortex of passion for Justice, there were
caught others--men like Polak and Andrews. Are they your countrymen? Not
in the narrow sense of the word but truly in a larger sense, that these
who choose to bear and suffer belong to one clan the clan from which
Kshatriya Chivalry is recruited. The removal of suffering and of the
cause of suffering is the Dharma of the strong Kshatriya. The earth is
the wide and universal theatre of man's woeful pageant. The question is
who is to suffer more than his share. Is the burden to fall on the weak
or the strong? Is it to be under hopeless compulsion or of voluntary
acceptance?


DEFENCE OF HOMELAND

In your services for your country there is no higher at the present
moment than to ensure for her security and peace. We have so long
enjoyed the security of peace without being called upon to maintain it.
But this is no longer so.

At no time within the recent history of India has there been so quick a
readjustment and appreciation as regards proper understanding of the
aspiration of the Indian people. This has been due to what India has
been able to offer not merely in the regions of thought but also in the
fields of battle.


MASS RESPONSE

And remember that when the world is in conflagration, this corner which
has hitherto escaped it, will not evade the peril which threatens it.
The march of disaster will then be terribly rapid. You have soon to
prepare yourself against any hostile sides. You can only withstand it if
the whole people realise the imminent danger. You can by your thought
and by your action awaken and influence the multitude. Do not have any
misgivings about the want of long previous preparations. Have you not
already seen how mind triumphs over matter and have not some of you with
only a few months' preparation stood fearless at your post in
Mesopotamia and won recognition by your calm collectedness and true
heroism? They may say that you are but a small handful, what of the vast
illiterate millions? Illiterate in what sense? Have not the ballads of
these illiterates rendered into English by our Poet touched profoundly
the hearts of the very elect of the West? Have not the stories of their
common life appealed to the common kinship of humanity? If you still
have some doubts about the power of the multitude to respond instantly
to the call of duty, I shall relate an incident which came within my own
personal experience. I had gone on a scientific expedition to the
borders of the Himalayan terrai of Kumaun; a narrow ravine was between
me and the plateau on the other side. Terror prevailed among the
villagers on the other side of the ravine; for a tigress had come down
from the forest. And numerous had been the toll in human lives exacted.
Petitions had been sent up to the Government and questions had been
asked in Parliament. A reward of Rs. 500 had been offered. Various
captains in the army with battery of guns came many a time, but the
reward remained unclaimed. The murderess of the forest would come out
even in broad day-light and leisurely take her victims from away their
companions. Nothing could circumvent her demoniac cunning. When all
hopes had nearly vanished, the villagers went to Kaloo Singh, who
possessed an old matchlock. At the special sanction of the Magistrate he
was allowed to buy a quantity of gunpowder; the bullets he himself made
by melting bits of lead. With his primitive weapon with the entreaties
of his villagers ringing in his ears Kaloo Singh started on his perilous
journey. At midday I was startled by the groanings of some animals in
pain. The tigress had sprung among a herd of buffalo and with successive
strokes of its mighty paws had killed two buffaloes and left them in the
field. Kaloo Singh waited there for the return of the tigress to the
kill. There was not a tree near by; only there was a low bush behind
which he lay crouched. After hours of waiting as the sun was going down
he was taken aback by the sudden apparition of the tigress which stood
within six feet of him. His limbs had become half paralysed from cold
and his crouching position. Trying to raise his gun he could take no aim
as his arm was shaking with involuntary fear. Kaloo Singh explained to
me afterwards how he succeeded in shaking off his mortal terror. "I
quietly said to myself, Kaloo Singh, Kaloo Singh, who sent you here? Did
not the villagers put their trust on you! I could then no longer lie in
hiding, and I stood up and something strange and invigorating crept up
strength into my body. All the trembling went and I became as hard as
steel. The tigress had seen me and with eyes blazing crouched for the
spring lashing its tail. Only six feet lay between. She sprang and my
gun also went off at the same time and she missed her aim and fell dead
close to me." That was how a common villager went off to meet death at
the call of something for which he could give no name and the mother
and wife of Kaloo Singh had also bidden him go. There are millions of
Kaloo Singhs with mother and sisters and wife to send them forth. And
you too have many loved ones who would themselves bid you arm for the
defence of your homes.


DIFFERENCE OF TEMPERAMENT

The issue is clear, and immediate action is imperative. But action is
delayed by misunderstanding arising out of temperamental differences
between the Governing Class and the People. Curiously enough the
respective responsive characteristics of the Anglo Saxon and the Indians
are paralleled by the two types of responses seen in all living matter.
In the one type the response is slow but proportionate to the stimulus
that excites it. The response grows with the strength of external force.
In the other it is quite different--here it is an all-or-none principle.
It either responds to the utmost or nothing at all. This is also
illustrated in the different racial characteristics. The Anglo Saxon has
even by his rights by struggle, step by step. The insignificant little
has, by accumulation, became large, and which has been gained, has been
gained for all time. But in the Indian the ideal and the emotional are
the only effective stimulus. The ideal of his King is Rama, who
renounced his kingdom and even his beloved for an idea. One day a king
and another day a bare-footed wanderer in the forest! Who cares? All or
nothing!

The concessions made by a modern form of Government safeguarded by
necessary limitations may appear almost as grudging gifts. The Indian
wants something which comes with unhesitating frankness and warmth and
strikes his ideality and imagination. But ancient and modern kingship
are sometimes at one in direct and spontaneous pronouncement of the
royal sympathy. Such was the Proclamation of Queen Victoria which
stirred to its depths the popular heart.

"In the Prosperity of Our subjects will be our strength, in their
contentment Our security, in their Gratitude Our best Reward."

That there are increasingly frequent reflexes in our Government to
popular needs and wishes is happily illustrated at a most opportune
moment from the statements in the recent _Gazette of India_ and cables
received from London. In the former we find that the Viceroy and his
council had recommended the abolition of the system of indentured
labour. In the telegram from London Mr. Chamberlain states that the
Viceroy has informed him that Indians will be eligible for commissions
in the New Defence of India Army.


MARCH OF WORLD TRAGEDY

In the meantime the Embodiment of World Tragedy is marching with giant
strides. Brief will be his hesitation whether he will choose to step
first to the East or to the West. Already across the Atlantic, they are
preparing for the dreaded visitation. In the farthest East they have
long been prepared. We alone are not ready. Pity for our helplessness
will not stay the impending disaster, rather provoke it. When that
comes, as assuredly it will unless we are prepared to resist, havoc will
be let loose and horrors perpetrated before which the imagination quails
back in dismay.

I have tried to lay before you as dispassionately as I could the issues
involved. But some of you may cry out and say, we can not live in cold
scientific and philosophic abstractions. Emotion is more to us than pure
reasoning. We cannot stay in this indecision which is paralysing our
wills and crushing the soul out of us. The world is offering their best
and behold them marching to be immolated so that by the supreme offering
of death they might win safety and honor for their motherland. There is
no time for wavering. We too will throw in our lot with those who are
fighting. They say that by our lives we shall win for our birth-land an
honoured place in their federation. We shall trust them. We shall stand
by their side and fight for our home and homeland. And let Providence
shape the Issue.




THE VOICE OF LIFE


The following is the Inaugural Address delivered by Sir J. C. Bose, on
the 30th November 1917, in dedicating the Bose Institute to the Nation.

I dedicate to-day this Institute--not merely a Laboratory but a Temple.
The power of physical methods applies for the establishment of that
truth which can be realised directly through our senses, or through the
vast expansion of the perceptive range by means of artificially created
organs. We still gather the tremulous message when the note of the
audible reaches the unheard. When human sight fails, we continue to
explore the region of the invisible. The little that we can see is as
nothing compared to the vastness of that which we cannot. Out of the
very imperfection of his senses man has built himself a raft of thought
by which he makes daring adventures on the great seas of the Unknown.
But there are other truths which will remain beyond even the
supersensitive methods known to science. For these we require faith,
tested not in a few years but by an entire life. And a temple is erected
as a fit memorial for the establishment of that truth for which faith
was needed. The personal, yet general, truth and faith whose
establishment this Institute commemorates is this: that when one
dedicates himself wholly for a great object, the closed doors shall
open, and the seemingly impossible will become possible for him.

Thirty-two years ago I chose teaching of science as my vocation. It was
held that by its very peculiar constitution, the Indian mind would
always turn away from the study of Nature to metaphysical speculations.
Even had the capacity for inquiry and accurate observation been assumed
present, there were no opportunities for their employment; there were no
well-equipped laboratories nor skilled mechanicians. This was all too
true. It is for man not to quarrel with circumstances but bravely accept
them; and we belong to that race and dynasty who had accomplished great
things with simple means.


FAILURE AND SUCCESS

This day twenty-three years ago, I resolved that as far as the
whole-hearted devotion and faith of one man counted, that would not be
wanting and within six months it came about that some of the most
difficult problems connected with Electric Waves found their solution in
my Laboratory and received high appreciation from Lord Kelvin, Lord
Rayleigh and other leading physicists. The Royal Society honoured me by
publishing my discoveries and offering, of their own accord, an
appropriation from the special Parliamentary Grant for the advancement
of knowledge. That day the closed gates suddenly opened and I hoped that
the torch that was then lighted would continue to burn brighter, and
brighter. But man's faith and hope require repeated testing. For five
years after this, the progress was interrupted; yet when the most
generous and wide appreciation of my work had reached almost the highest
point there came a sudden and unexpected change.


LIVING AND NON-LIVING

In the pursuit of my investigations I was unconsciously led into the
border region of physics and physiology and was amazed to find boundary
lines vanishing and points of contact emerge between the realms of the
Living and Non-living. Inorganic matter was found anything but inert; it
also was a thrill under the action of multitudinous forces that played
on it. A universal reaction seemed to bring together metal, plant and
animal under a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same
phenomena of fatigue and depression, together with possibilities of
recovery and of exaltation, yet also that of permanent irresponsiveness
which is associated with death. I was filled with awe at this stupendous
generalisation; and it was with great hope that I announced my results
before the Royal Society,--results demonstrated by experiments. But the
physiologists present advised me, after my address, to confine myself to
physical investigations in which my success had been assured, rather
than encroach on their preserve. I had thus unwittingly strayed into the
domain of a new and unfamiliar caste system and so offended its
etiquette. An unconscious theological bias was also present which
confounds ignorance with faith. It is forgotten that He, who surrounded
us with this ever-evolving mystery of creation, the ineffable wonder
that lies hidden in the microcosm of the dust particle, enclosing within
the intricacies of its atomic form all the mystery of the cosmos, has
also implanted in us the desire to question and understand. To the
theological bias was added the misgivings about the inherent bent of the
Indian mind towards mysticism and unchecked imagination. But in India
this burning imagination which can extort new order out of a mass of
apparently contradictory facts, is also held in check by the habit of
meditation. It is this restraint which confers the power to hold the
mind in pursuit of truth, in infinite patience, to wait, and reconsider,
to experimentally test and repeatedly verify.

It is but natural that there should be prejudice, even in science,
against all innovations; and I was prepared to wait till the first
incredulity could be overcome by further cumulative evidence.
Unfortunately there were other incidents and misrepresentations which it
was impossible to remove from this insulating distance. Thus no
conditions could have been more desperately hopeless than those which
confronted me for the next twelve years. It is necessary to make this
brief reference to this period of my life; for one who would devote
himself to the search of truth must realise that for him there awaits no
easy life, but one of unending struggle. It is for him to cast his life
as an offering, regarding gain and loss, success and failure, as one.
Yet in my case this long persisting gloom was suddenly lifted. My
scientific deputation in 1914, from the Government of India, gave the
opportunity of giving demonstrations of my discoveries before the
leading scientific societies of the world. This led to the acceptance of
my theories and results, and the recognition of the importance of the
Indian contribution to the advancement of the world's science. My own
experience told me how heavy, sometimes even crushing, are the
difficulties which confront an inquirer here in India; yet it made me
stronger in my determination, that I shall make the path of those who
are to follow me less arduous, and that India, is never to relinquish
what has been won for her after years of struggle.


THE TWO IDEALS

What is it that India is to win and maintain? Can anything small or
circumscribed ever satisfy the mind of India? Has her own history and
the teaching of the past prepared her for some temporary and quite
subordinate gain? There are at this moment two complementary and not
antagonistic ideals before the country. India is drawn into the vortex
of international competition. She has to become efficient in every
way,--through spread of education, through performance of civic duties
and responsibilities, through activities both industrial and commercial.
Neglect of these essentials of national duty will imperil her very
existence; and sufficient stimulus for these will be found in success
and satisfaction of personal ambition.

But these alone do not ensure the life of a nation. Such material
activities have brought in the West their fruit, in accession of power
and wealth. There has been a feverish rush even in the realm of science,
for exploiting applications of knowledge, not so often for saving as
for destruction. In the absence of some power of restraint, civilisation
is trembling in an unstable poise on the brink of ruin. Some
complementary ideal there must be to save man from that mad rush which
must end in disaster. He has followed the lure and excitement of some
insatiable ambition, never pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate
object for which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He
forgot that far more potent than competition was mutual help and
co-operation in the scheme of life. And in this country through
milleniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and
absorbing prize of the hour, sought for the realisation of the highest
ideal of life--not through passive renunciation, but through active
struggle. The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired
nothing has nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven and won, can
enrich the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious experience.
In India such examples of constant realisation of ideals through work
have resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition. And by
her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted herself through
infinite transformations. Thus while the soul of Babylon and the Nile
Valley have transmigrated, ours still remains vital and with capacity of
absorbing what time has brought, and making it one with itself.

The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renunciation in
response to the highest call of humanity is the other and complementary
ideal. The motive power for this is not to be found in personal ambition
but in the effacement of all littlenesses, and uprooting of that
ignorance which regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at
others' loss. This I know, that no vision of truth can come except in
the absence of all sources of distraction, and when the mind has reached
the point of rest.

Public life, and the various professions will be the appropriate spheres
of activity for many aspiring young men. But for my disciples, I call on
those very few, who, realising inner call, will devote their whole life
with strengthened character and determined purpose to take part in that
infinite struggle to win knowledge for its own sake and see truth face
to face.


ADVANCEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE

The work already carried out in my laboratory on the response of matter,
and the unexpected revelations in plant life, foreshadowing the wonders
of the highest animal life, have opened out very extended regions of
inquiry in Physics, in physiology in Medicine, in Agriculture and even
in Psychology. Problems, hitherto regarded as insoluble, have now been
brought within the sphere of experimental investigation. These inquiries
are obviously more extensive than those customary either among
physicists or physiologists, since demanding interests and aptitudes
hitherto more or less divided between them. In the study of Nature,
there is a necessity of the dual view point, this alternating yet
rhythmically unified interaction of biological thought with physical
studies, and physical thought with biological studies. The future worker
with his freshened grasp of physics, his fuller conception of the
inorganic world, as indeed thrilling with "the promise and potency of
life" will redouble his former energies of work and thought. Thus he
will be in a position to win now the old knowledge with finer sieves, to
research it with new enthusiasm and subtler instruments. And
thus with thought and toil and time he may hope to bring fresher views
into the old problems. His handling of these will be at once more vital
and more kinetic, more comprehensive and unified.

The farther and fuller investigation of the many and ever-opening
problems of the nascent science which includes both Life and Non-Life
are among the main purposes of the Institute I am opening to-day; in
these fields I am already fortunate in having a devoted band of
disciples, whom I have been training for the last ten years. Their
number is very limited, but means may perhaps be forthcoming in the
future to increase them. An enlarging field of young ability may thus be
available, from which will emerge, with time and labour, individual
originality of research, productive invention and some day even creative
genius.

But high success is not to be obtained without corresponding
experimental exactitude, and this is needed to-day more than ever, and
to-morrow yet more again. Hence the long battery of supersensitive
instruments and apparatus, designed here, which stand before in their
cases in our entrance hall. They will tell you of the protracted
struggle to get behind the deceptive seeming into the reality that
remained unseen;--of the continuous toil and persistence and of
ingenuity called forth for overcoming human limitations. In these
directions through the ever-increasing ingenuity of device for advancing
science, I see at no distant future an advance of skill and of invention
among our workers; and if this skill be assured, practical applications
will not fail to follow in many fields of human activity.

The advance of science is the principal object of this Institute and
also the diffusion of knowledge. We are here in the largest of all the
many chambers of this House of Knowledge--its Lecture Room. In adding
this feature, and on a scale hitherto unprecedented in a Research
Institute, I have sought permanently to associate the advancement of
knowledge with the widest possible civic and public diffusion of it; and
this without any academic limitations, henceforth to all races and
languages, to both men and women alike, and for all time coming.

The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand
knowledge. They will announce to an audience of some fifteen hundred
people, the new discoveries made here, which will be demonstrated for
the first time before the public. We shall thus maintain continuously
the highest aim of a great Seat of Learning by taking active part in the
_advancement_ and diffusion of knowledge. Through the regular
publication of the Transactions of the Institute, these Indian
contributions will reach the whole world. The discoveries made will thus
become public property. No patents will ever be taken. The spirit of our
national culture demands that we should for ever be free from the
desecration of utilising knowledge for personal gain. Besides the
regular staff there will be a selected number of scholars, who by their
work have shown special aptitude, and who would devote their whole life
to the pursuit of research. They will require personal training and
their number must necessarily be limited. But it is not the quantity
but quality that is of essential importance.

It is my further wish, that as far as the limited accommodation would
permit, the facilities of this Institute should be available to workers
from all countries. In this I am attempting to carry out the traditions
of my country, which so far back as twenty-five centuries ago, welcomed
all scholars from different parts of the world, within the precincts of
its ancient seats of learning, at Nalanda and at Taxilla.


THE SURGE OF LIFE

With this widened outlook, we shall not only maintain the highest
traditions of the past but also serve the world in nobler ways. We shall
be at one with it in feeling the common surgings of life, the common
love for the good, the true and the beautiful. In this Institute, this
Study and Garden of Life, the claim of art has not been forgotten, for
the artist has been working with us, from foundation to pinnacle, and
from floor to ceiling of this very Hall. And beyond that arch the
Laboratory merges imperceptibly into the garden, which is the true
laboratory for the study of Life. There the creepers, the plants and the
trees are played upon by their natural environments,--sunlight and wind,
and the chill at midnight under the vault of starry space. There are
other surroundings also, where they will be subjected to chromatic
action of different lights, to invisible rays, to electrified ground or
thunder-charged atmosphere. Everywhere they will transcribe in their own
script the history of their experience. From this lofty point of
observation, sheltered by the trees, the student will watch this
panorama of life. Isolated from all distractions, he will learn to
attune himself with Nature; the obscuring veil will be lifted and he
will gradually come to see how community throughout the great ocean of
life outweighs apparent dissimilarity. Out of discord he will realise
the great harmony.


THE OUTLOOK

These are the dreams that wove a network round my wakeful life for many
years past. The outlook is endless, for the goal is at infinity. The
realisation cannot be through one life or one fortune but through the
co-operation of many lives and many fortunes. The possibility of a
fuller expansion will depend on very large endowments. But a beginning
must be made, and this is the genesis of the foundation of this
Institute. I came with nothing and shall return as I came; if something
is accomplished in the interval, that would indeed be a privilege. What
I have I will offer, and one who had shared with me the struggles and
hardships that had to be faced, has wished to bequeath all that is hers
for the same object. In all my struggling efforts I have not been
altogether solitary while the world doubted, there had been a few, now
in the City of Silence, who never wavered in their trust.

Till a few weeks ago it seemed that I shall have to look to the future
for securing the necessary expansion of scope and for permanence of the
Institute. But response is being awakened in answer to the need. The
Government have most generously intimated their desire to sanction
grants towards placing the Institute on a permanent basis the extent of
which will be proportionate to the public interest in this national
undertaking. Out of many who would feel an interest in securing adequate
Endowment, the very first donations have come from two of the merchant
princes of Bombay, to whom I had been personally unknown.

A note that touched me deeply came from some girl students of the
Western Province, enclosing their little contribution "for the service
of our common motherland." It is only the instinctive mother-heart that
can truly realise the bond that draws together the nurselings of the
common homeland. There can be no real misgiving for the future when at
the country's call man offers the strength of his life and woman her
active devotion, she most of all, who has the greater insight and larger
faith because of the life of austerity and self-abnegation. Even a
solitary wayfarer in the Himalayas has remembered to send me message of
cheer and good hope. What is it that has bridged over the distance and
blotted out all differences? That I will come gradually to know; till
then it will remain enshrined as a feeling. And I go forward to my
appointed task, undismayed by difficulties, companioned by the kind
thoughts of my well-wishers, both far and near.


INDIA'S SPECIAL APTITUDES IN CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

The excessive specialisation of modern science in the West has led to
the danger of losing sight of the fundamental fact that there can be but
one truth, one science which includes all the branches of knowledge. How
chaotic appear the happenings in Nature? Is nature a Cosmos! in which
the human mind is some day to realise the uniform march of sequence,
order and law? India through her habit of mind is peculiarly fitted to
realise the idea of unity, and to see in the phenomenal world an orderly
universe. This trend of thought led me unconsciously to the dividing
frontiers of different sciences and shaped the course of my work in its
constant alternations between the theoretical and the practical, from
the investigation of the inorganic world to that of organised life and
its multifarious activities of growth, of movement, and even of
sensation. On looking over a hundred and fifty different lines of
investigations carried on during the last twenty-three years, I now
discover in them a natural sequence. The study of Electric Waves led to
the devising of methods for the production of the shortest electric
waves known and these bridged over the gulf between visible and
invisible light; from this followed accurate investigation on the
optical properties of invisible waves, the determination of the
Erasmus, and professor of divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514, in the name
of his faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the audacity of the
_Praise of Folly_, his derision of divines and also his temerity in
correcting the text of the New Testament. Erasmus had defended himself
elaborately. At present war was being waged in a much wider field: for
or against Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of
the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_ had so sensationally taken up the
cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same suspicion with
which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain divines. He stayed during
the remainder of 1516 and the first half of 1517 at Antwerp, Brussels
and Ghent, often in the house of Peter Gilles. In February 1517, there
came tempting offers from France. Budaeus, Cop, Étienne Poncher, Bishop
of Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would
present him with a generous prebend if he would come to Paris. Erasmus,
always shy of being tied down, only wrote polite, evasive answers, and
did not go.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the meantime he received the news of the papal absolution. In
connection with this he had, once more, to visit England, little
dreaming that it would be the last time he should set foot on British
soil. In Ammonius's house of Saint Stephen's Chapel at Westminster on 9
April 1517, the ceremony of absolution took place, ridding Erasmus for
good of the nightmare which had oppressed him since his youth. At last
he was free!

Invitations and specious promises now came to him from all sides.
Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high ecclesiastical honours which awaited
him in England. Budaeus kept pressing him to remove to France. Cardinal
Ximenes wanted to attach him to the University of Alcalá, in Spain. The
Duke of Saxony offered him a chair at Leipzig. Pirckheimer boasted of
the perfections of the free imperial city of Nuremberg. Erasmus,
meanwhile, overwhelmed again with the labour of writing and editing,
according to his wont, did not definitely decline any of these offers;
neither did he accept any. He always wanted to keep all his strings on
his bow at the same time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked to
accompany the court of the youthful Charles, who was on the point of
leaving the Netherlands for Spain. But he declined. His departure to
Spain would have meant a long interruption of immediate contact with the
great publishing centres, Basle, Louvain, Strassburg, Paris, and that,
in turn, would have meant postponement of his life-work. When, in the
beginning of July, the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship
for Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain.

He was thus destined to go to this university environment, although it
displeased him in so many respects. There he would have academic duties,
young latinists would follow him about to get their poems and letters
corrected by him and all those divines, whom he distrusted, would watch
him at close quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. 'I have
removed to Louvain', he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'till I
shall decide which residence is best suited to old age, which is already
knocking at the gate importunately.'

As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517-21) at Louvain. His
life was now becoming more stationary, but because of outward
circumstances rather than of inward quiet. He kept deliberating all
those years whether he should go to England, Germany or France, hoping
at last to find the brilliant position which he had always coveted and
never had been able or willing to grasp.

The years 1516-18 may be called the culmination of Erasmus's career.
Applauding crowds surrounded him more and more. The minds of men were
seemingly prepared for something great to happen and they looked to
Erasmus as the man! At Brussels, he was continually bothered with visits
from Spaniards, Italians and Germans who wanted to boast of their
interviews with him. The Spaniards, with their verbose solemnity,
particularly bored him. Most exuberant of all were the eulogies with
which the German humanists greeted him in their letters. This had begun
already on his first journey to Basle in 1514. 'Great Rotterdamer',
'ornament of Germany', 'ornament of the world' were some of the simplest
effusions. Town councils waited upon him, presents of wine and public
banquets were of common occurrence. No one expresses himself so
hyperbolically as the jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. 'I am pointed
out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has received a letter from
Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove' is a moderate
apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss', Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a
great glory to have seen Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but
Erasmus now,' writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus, as Alcibiades
stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of
earnest admiration and helpfulness that was to prove of much more value
than these exuberant panegyrics. There is an element of national
exaltation in this German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently
stimulated mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.

The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little later and
a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him immortality,
Étienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated Italian humanists,
Germain de Brie declares that French scholars have ceased reading any
authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom
resounds with his name.

This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways. Almost every
year the rumour of his death was spread abroad, malignantly, as he
himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings were ascribed to him in
which he had no share whatever, amongst others the _Epistolae obscurorum
virorum_.

But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The time was
long since past when he asked More to procure him more correspondents.
Letters now kept pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to
reply. A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show a single
note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction
from one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer
what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day that he
hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not answer, I seem unkind,'
says Erasmus, and that thought was intolerable.

We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time, occupied more
or less the place of the newspaper at present, or rather of the literary
monthly, which arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It
was, as in antiquity--which in this respect was imitated better and more
profitably, perhaps, than in any other sphere--an art. Even before 1500
Erasmus had, at Paris, described that art in the treatise, _De
conscribendis epistolis_, which was to appear in print in 1522. People
wrote, as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a wider circle,
or at any rate, with the certainty that the recipient would show the
letter to others. A fine Latin letter was a gem, which a man envied his
neighbour. Erasmus writes to Budaeus: 'Tunstall has devoured your letter
to me and re-read it as many as three or four times; I had literally to
tear it from his hands.'

Unfortunately fate did not always take into consideration the author's
intentions as to publicity, semi-publicity or strict secrecy. Often
letters passed through many hands before reaching their destination, as
did Servatius's letter to Erasmus in 1514. 'Do be careful about
letters,' he writes more than once; 'waylayers are on the lookout to
intercept them.' Yet, with the curious precipitation that characterizes
him, Erasmus was often very careless as to what he wrote. From an early
age he preserved and cared for his letters, yet nevertheless, through
his itinerant life, many were lost. He could not control their
publication. As early as 1509 a friend sent him a manuscript volume of
his own (Erasmus's) letters, that he had picked up for sale at Rome.
Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he himself superintended the
publication of his letters; at first only a few important ones;
afterwards in 1516 a selection of letters from friends to him, and after
that ever larger collections till, at the end of his life, there
appeared a new collection almost every year. No article was so much in
demand on the book market as letters by Erasmus, and no wonder. They
were models of excellent style, tasteful Latin, witty expression and
elegant erudition.

The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters often made them
compromising. What one could say to a friend in confidence might
possibly injure when many read it. Erasmus, who never was aware how
injuriously he expressed himself, repeatedly gave rise to
misunderstanding and estrangement. Manners, so to say, had not yet
adapted themselves to the new art of printing, which increased the
publicity of the written word a thousandfold. Only gradually under this
new influence was the separation effected between the public word,
intended for the press, and the private communication, which remains in
writing and is read only by the recipient.

Meanwhile, with the growth of Erasmus's fame, his earlier writings, too,
had risen in the public estimation. The great success of the
_Enchiridion militis christiani_ had begun about 1515, when the times
were much riper for it than eleven years before. 'The _Moria_ is
embraced as the highest wisdom,' writes John Watson to him in 1516. In
the same year we find a word used, for the first time, which expresses
better than anything else how much Erasmus had become a centre of
authority: _Erasmiani_. So his German friends called themselves,
according to Johannes Sapidus. More than a year later Dr. Johannes Eck
employs the word still in a rather friendly sense, as a generally
current term: 'all scholars in Germany are Erasmians,' he says. But
Erasmus did not like the word. 'I find nothing in myself', he replies,
'why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and, altogether, I hate
those party names. We are all followers of Christ, and to His glory we
all drudge, each for his part.' But he knows that now the question is:
for or against him! From the brilliant latinist and the man of wit of
his prime he had become the international pivot on which the
civilization of his age hinged. He could not help beginning to feel
himself the brain, the heart and the conscience of his times. It might
even appear to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming word
or, perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The faith in an easy triumph
of pure knowledge and Christian meekness in a near future speaks from
the preface of Erasmus's edition of the New Testament.

How clear did the future look in those years! In this period Erasmus
repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age, which is on the
point of dawning. Perennial peace is before the door. The highest
princes of the world, Francis I of France, Charles, King of Spain, Henry
VIII of England, and the emperor Maximilian have ensured peace by the
strongest ties. Uprightness and Christian piety will flourish together
with the revival of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the
mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of culture. We may
congratulate the age, it will be a golden one.

But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is heard for the last time
in 1519; after which the dream of universal happiness about to dawn
gives place to the usual complaint about the badness of the times
everywhere.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] For a full translation of this important letter see pp. 212-18.

[14] The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome's epistles, where
it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked very much.
It appears again in a letter of 5 March 1531, LB. X 1590 A.




CHAPTER XII

ERASMUS'S MIND

    Erasmus's mind: Ethical and aesthetic tendencies, aversion to
    all that is unreasonable, silly and cumbrous--His vision of
    antiquity pervaded by Christian faith--Renascence of good
    learning--The ideal life of serene harmony and happy
    wisdom--Love of the decorous and smooth--His mind neither
    philosophic nor historical, but strongly philological and
    moralistic--Freedom, clearness, purity, simplicity--Faith in
    nature--Educational and social ideas


What made Erasmus the man from whom his contemporaries expected their
salvation, on whose lips they hung to catch the word of deliverance? He
seemed to them the bearer of a new liberty of the mind, a new clearness,
purity and simplicity of knowledge, a new harmony of healthy and right
living. He was to them as the possessor of newly discovered, untold
wealth which he had only to distribute.

What was there in the mind of the great Rotterdamer which promised so
much to the world?

The negative aspect of Erasmus's mind may be defined as a heartfelt
aversion to everything unreasonable, insipid, purely formal, with which
the undisturbed growth of medieval culture had overburdened and
overcrowded the world of thought. As often as he thinks of the
ridiculous text-books out of which Latin was taught in his youth,
disgust rises in his mind, and he execrates them--Mammetrectus,
Brachylogus, Ebrardus and all the rest--as a heap of rubbish which ought
to be cleared away. But this aversion to the superannuated, which had
become useless and soulless, extended much farther. He found society,
and especially religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, traditions
and conceptions, from which the spirit seemed to have departed. He does
not reject them offhand and altogether: what revolts him is that they
are so often performed without understanding and right feeling. But to
his mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things, and
with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere
of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a useless, nay, a hurtful
scene of human stupidity and selfishness. And, intellectualist as he is,
with his contempt for ignorance, he seems unaware that those religious
observances, after all, may contain valuable sentiments of unexpressed
and unformulated piety.

Through his treatises, his letters, his _Colloquies_ especially, there
always passes--as if one was looking at a gallery of Brueghel's
pictures--a procession of ignorant and covetous monks who by their
sanctimony and humbug impose upon the trustful multitude and fare
sumptuously themselves. As a fixed motif (such motifs are numerous with
Erasmus) there always recurs his gibe about the superstition that a
person was saved by dying in the gown of a Franciscan or a Dominican.

Fasting, prescribed prayers, the observance of holy days, should not be
altogether neglected, but they become displeasing to God when we repose
our trust in them and forget charity. The same holds good of confession,
indulgence, all sorts of blessings. Pilgrimages are worthless. The
veneration of the Saints and of their relics is full of superstition and
foolishness. The people think they will be preserved from disasters
during the day if only they have looked at the painted image of Saint
Christopher in the morning. 'We kiss the shoes of the saints and their
dirty handkerchiefs and we leave their books, their most holy and
efficacious relics, neglected.'

Erasmus's dislike of what seemed antiquated and worn out in his days,
went farther still. It comprised the whole intellectual scheme of
medieval theology and philosophy. In the syllogistic system he found
only subtlety and arid ingenuity. All symbolism and allegory were
fundamentally alien to him and indifferent, though he occasionally tried
his hand at an allegory; and he never was mystically inclined.

Now here it is just as much the deficiencies of his own mind as the
qualities of the system which made him unable to appreciate it. While he
struck at the abuse of ceremonies and of Church practices both with
noble indignation and well-aimed mockery, a proud irony to which he was
not fully entitled preponderates in his condemnation of scholastic
theology which he could not quite understand. It was easy always to talk
with a sneer of the conservative divines of his time as _magistri
nostri_.

His noble indignation hurt only those who deserved castigation and
strengthened what was valuable, but his mockery hurt the good as well as
the bad in spite of him, assailed both the institution and persons, and
injured without elevating them. The individualist Erasmus never
understood what it meant to offend the honour of an office, an order, or
an establishment, especially when that institution is the most sacred of
all, the Church itself.

Erasmus's conception of the Church was no longer purely Catholic. Of
that glorious structure of medieval-Christian civilization with its
mystic foundation, its strict hierarchic construction, its splendidly
fitting symmetry he saw hardly anything but its load of outward details
and ornament. Instead of the world which Thomas Aquinas and Dante had
described, according to their vision, Erasmus saw another world, full of
charm and elevated feeling, and this he held up before his compatriots.

[Illustration: XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS]

It was the world of Antiquity, but illuminated throughout by Christian
faith. It was a world that had never existed as such. For with the
historical reality which the times of Constantine and the great fathers
of the Church had manifested--that of declining Latinity and
deteriorating Hellenism, the oncoming barbarism and the oncoming
Byzantinism--it had nothing in common. Erasmus's imagined world was an
amalgamation of pure classicism (this meant for him, Cicero, Horace,
Plutarch; for to the flourishing period of the Greek mind he remained
after all a stranger) and pure, biblical Christianity. Could it be a
union? Not really. In Erasmus's mind the light falls, just as we saw in
the history of his career, alternately on the pagan antique and on the
Christian. But the warp of his mind is Christian; his classicism only
serves him as a form, and from Antiquity he only chooses those elements
which in ethical tendency are in conformity with his Christian ideal.

[Illustration: XVI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57]

And because of this, Erasmus, although he appeared after a century of
earlier Humanism, is yet new to his time. The union of Antiquity and the
Christian spirit which had haunted the mind of Petrarch, the father of
Humanism, which was lost sight of by his disciples, enchanted as they
were by the irresistible brilliance of the antique beauty of form, this
union was brought about by Erasmus.

What pure Latinity and the classic spirit meant to Erasmus we cannot
feel as he did because its realization does not mean to us, as to him, a
difficult conquest and a glorious triumph. To feel it thus one must have
acquired, in a hard school, the hatred of barbarism, which already
during his first years of authorship had suggested the composition of
the _Antibarbari_. The abusive term for all that is old and rude is
already Gothic, Goths. The term barbarism as used by Erasmus comprised
much of what we value most in the medieval spirit. Erasmus's conception
of the great intellectual crisis of his day was distinctly dualistic. He
saw it as a struggle between old and new, which, to him, meant evil and
good. In the advocates of tradition he saw only obscurantism,
conservatism, and ignorant opposition to _bonae literae_, that is, the
good cause for which he and his partisans battled. Of the rise of that
higher culture Erasmus had already formed the conception which has since
dominated the history of the Renaissance. It was a revival, begun two or
three hundred years before his time, in which, besides literature, all
the plastic arts shared. Side by side with the terms restitution and
reflorescence the word renascence crops up repeatedly in his writings.
'The world is coming to its senses as if awaking out of a deep sleep.
Still there are some left who recalcitrate pertinaciously, clinging
convulsively with hands and feet to their old ignorance. They fear that
if _bonae literae_ are reborn and the world grows wise, it will come to
light that they have known nothing.' They do not know how pious the
Ancients could be, what sanctity characterizes Socrates, Virgil, and
Horace, or Plutarch's _Moralia_, how rich the history of Antiquity is in
examples of forgiveness and true virtue. We should call nothing profane
that is pious and conduces to good morals. No more dignified view of
life was ever found than that which Cicero propounds in _De Senectute_.

In order to understand Erasmus's mind and the charm which it had for his
contemporaries, one must begin with the ideal of life that was present
before his inward eye as a splendid dream. It is not his own in
particular. The whole Renaissance cherished that wish of reposeful,
blithe, and yet serious intercourse of good and wise friends in the cool
shade of a house under trees, where serenity and harmony would dwell.
The age yearned for the realization of simplicity, sincerity, truth and
nature. Their imagination was always steeped in the essence of
Antiquity, though, at heart, it is more nearly connected with medieval
ideals than they themselves were aware. In the circle of the Medici it
is the idyll of Careggi, in Rabelais it embodies itself in the fancy of
the abbey of Thélème; it finds voice in More's _Utopia_ and in the work
of Montaigne. In Erasmus's writings that ideal wish ever recurs in the
shape of a friendly walk, followed by a meal in a garden-house. It is
found as an opening scene of the _Antibarbari_, in the numerous
descriptions of meals with Colet, and the numerous _Convivia_ of the
_Colloquies_. Especially in the _Convivium religiosum_ Erasmus has
elaborately pictured his dream, and it would be worth while to compare
it, on the one hand with Thélème, and on the other with the fantastic
design of a pleasure garden which Bernard Palissy describes. The little
Dutch eighteenth-century country-seats and garden-houses in which the
national spirit took great delight are the fulfilment of a purely
Erasmian ideal. The host of the _Convivium religiosum_ says: 'To me a
simple country-house, a nest, is pleasanter than any palace, and, if he
be king who lives in freedom and according to his wishes, surely I am
king here'.

Life's true joy is in virtue and piety. If they are Epicureans who live
pleasantly, then none are more truly Epicureans than they who live in
holiness and piety.

The ideal joy of life is also perfectly idyllic in so far that it
requires an aloofness from earthly concerns and contempt for all that is
sordid. It is foolish to be interested in all that happens in the world;
to pride oneself on one's knowledge of the market, of the King of
England's plans, the news from Rome, conditions in Denmark. The sensible
old man of the _Colloquium Senile_ has an easy post of honour, a safe
mediocrity, he judges no one and nothing and smiles upon all the world.
Quiet for oneself, surrounded by books--that is of all things most
desirable.

On the outskirts of this ideal of serenity and harmony numerous flowers
of aesthetic value blow, such as Erasmus's sense of decorum, his great
need of kindly courtesy, his pleasure in gentle and obliging treatment,
in cultured and easy manners. Close by are some of his intellectual
peculiarities. He hates the violent and extravagant. Therefore the
choruses of the Greek drama displease him. The merit of his own poems he
sees in the fact that they pass passion by, they abstain from pathos
altogether--'there is not a single storm in them, no mountain torrent
overflowing its banks, no exaggeration whatever. There is great
frugality in words. My poetry would rather keep within bounds than
exceed them, rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.' In another
place he says: 'I am always most pleased by a poem that does not differ
too much from prose, but prose of the best sort, be it understood. As
Philoxenus accounted those the most palatable fishes that are no true
fishes and the most savoury meat what is no meat, the most pleasant
voyage, that along the shores, and the most agreeable walk, that along
the water's edge; so I take especial pleasure in a rhetorical poem and a
poetical oration, so that poetry is tasted in prose and the reverse.'
That is the man of half-tones, of fine shadings, of the thought that is
never completely expressed. But he adds: 'Farfetched conceits may please
others; to me the chief concern seems to be that we draw our speech from
the matter itself and apply ourselves less to showing off our invention
than to present the thing.' That is the realist.

From this conception results his admirable, simple clarity, the
excellent division and presentation of his argument. But it also causes
his lack of depth and the prolixity by which he is characterized. His
machine runs too smoothly. In the endless _apologiae_ of his later
years, ever new arguments occur to him; new passages to point, or
quotations to support, his idea. He praises laconism, but never
practises it. Erasmus never coins a sentence which, rounded off and
pithy, becomes a proverb and in this manner lives. There are no current
quotations from Erasmus. The collector of the _Adagia_ has created no
new ones of his own.

The true occupation for a mind like his was paraphrasing, in which,
indeed, he amply indulged. Soothing down and unfolding was just the work
he liked. It is characteristic that he paraphrased the whole New
Testament except the Apocalypse.

Erasmus's mind was neither philosophic nor historic. His was neither the
work of exact, logical discrimination, nor of grasping the deep sense of
the way of the world in broad historical visions in which the
particulars themselves, in their multiplicity and variegation, form the
image. His mind is philological in the fullest sense of the word. But by
that alone he would not have conquered and captivated the world. His
mind was at the same time of a deeply ethical and rather strong
aesthetic trend and those three together have made him great.

The foundation of Erasmus's mind is his fervent desire of freedom,
clearness, purity, simplicity and rest. It is an old ideal of life to
which he gave new substance by the wealth of his mind. Without liberty,
life is no life; and there is no liberty without repose. The fact that
he never took sides definitely resulted from an urgent need of perfect
independence. Each engagement, even a temporary one, was felt as a
fetter by Erasmus. An interlocutor in the _Colloquies_, in which he so
often, spontaneously, reveals his own ideals of life, declares himself
determined neither to marry, nor to take holy orders, nor to enter a
monastery, nor into any connection from which he will afterwards be
unable to free himself--at least not before he knows himself completely.
'When will that be? Never, perhaps.' 'On no other account do I
congratulate myself more than on the fact that I have never attached
myself to any party,' Erasmus says towards the end of his life.

Liberty should be spiritual liberty in the first place. 'But he that is
spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,' is
the word of Saint Paul. To what purpose should he require prescriptions
who, of his own accord, does better things than human laws require? What
arrogance it is to bind by institutions a man who is clearly led by the
inspirations of the divine spirit!

In Erasmus we already find the beginning of that optimism which judges
upright man good enough to dispense with fixed forms and rules. As More,
in _Utopia_, and Rabelais, Erasmus relies already on the dictates of
nature, which produces man as inclined to good and which we may follow,
provided we are imbued with faith and piety.

In this line of confidence in what is natural and desire of the simple
and reasonable, Erasmus's educational and social ideas lie. Here he is
far ahead of his times. It would be an attractive undertaking to discuss
Erasmus's educational ideals more fully. They foreshadow exactly those
of the eighteenth century. The child should learn in playing, by means
of things that are agreeable to its mind, from pictures. Its faults
should be gently corrected. The flogging and abusive schoolmaster is
Erasmus's abomination; the office itself is holy and venerable to him.
Education should begin from the moment of birth. Probably Erasmus
attached too much value to classicism, here as elsewhere: his friend
Peter Gilles should implant the rudiments of the ancient languages in
his two-year-old son, that he may greet his father with endearing
stammerings in Greek and Latin. But what gentleness and clear good sense
shines from all Erasmus says about instruction and education!

The same holds good of his views about marriage and woman. In the
problem of sexual relations he distinctly sides with the woman from deep
conviction. There is a great deal of tenderness and delicate feeling in
his conception of the position of the girl and the woman. Few characters
of the _Colloquies_ have been drawn with so much sympathy as the girl
with the lover and the cultured woman in the witty conversation with the
abbot. Erasmus's ideal of marriage is truly social and hygienic. Let us
beget children for the State and for Christ, says the lover, children
endowed by their upright parents with a good disposition, children who
see the good example at home which is to guide them. Again and again he
reverts to the mother's duty to suckle the child herself. He indicates
how the house should be arranged, in a simple and cleanly manner; he
occupies himself with the problem of useful children's dress. Who stood
up at that time, as he did, for the fallen girl, and for the prostitute
compelled by necessity? Who saw so clearly the social danger of
marriages of persons infected with the new scourge of Europe, so
violently abhorred by Erasmus? He would wish that such a marriage should
at once be declared null and void by the Pope. Erasmus does not hold
with the easy social theory, still quite current in the literature of
his time, which casts upon women all the blame of adultery and lewdness.
With the savages who live in a state of nature, he says, the adultery of
men is punished, but that of women is forgiven.

Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, be it half in
jest, the conception of natural virtue and happiness of naked islanders
in a savage state. It soon crops up again in Montaigne and the following
centuries develop it into a literary dogma.




CHAPTER XIII

ERASMUS'S MIND-CONTINUED

    Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies--The world encumbered by
    beliefs and forms--Truth must be simple--Back to the pure
    sources--Holy Scripture in the original languages--Biblical
    humanism--Critical work on the texts of Scripture--Practice
    better than dogma--Erasmus's talent and wit--Delight in words
    and things--Prolixity--Observation of details--A veiled
    realism--Ambiguousness--The 'Nuance'--Inscrutability of the
    ultimate ground of all things


Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, those are to
Erasmus the dominant requirements, also when we pass from his ethical
and aesthetic concepts to his intellectual point of view; indeed, the
two can hardly be kept apart.

The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human constitutions and
opinions and scholastic dogmas, and overburdened with the tyrannical
authority of orders, and because of all this the strength of gospel
doctrine is flagging. Faith requires simplification, he argued. What
would the Turks say of our scholasticism? Colet wrote to him one day:
'There is no end to books and science. Let us, therefore, leave all
roundabout roads and go by a short cut to the truth.'

Truth must be simple. 'The language of truth is simple, says Seneca;
well then, nothing is simpler nor truer than Christ.' 'I should wish',
Erasmus says elsewhere, 'that this simple and pure Christ might be
deeply impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best attainable
in this way, that we, supported by our knowledge of the original
languages, should philosophize _at the sources_ themselves.'

Here a new watchword comes to the fore: back to the sources! It is not
merely an intellectual, philological requirement; it is equally an
ethical and aesthetic necessity of life. The original and pure, all that
is not yet overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has such a
potent charm. Erasmus compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick
off the tree. To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science,
to lead it back from the now turbid pools to those living and most pure
fountain-heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doctrine--thus he
saw the task of divinity. The metaphor of the limpid water is not
without meaning here; it reveals the psychological quality of Erasmus's
fervent principle.

'How is it', he exclaims, 'that people give themselves so much trouble
about the details of all sorts of remote philosophical systems and
neglect to go to the sources of Christianity itself?' 'Although this
wisdom, which is so excellent that once for all it put the wisdom of all
the world to shame, may be drawn from these few books, as from a
crystalline source, with far less trouble than is the wisdom of
Aristotle from so many thorny books and with much more fruit.... The
equipment for that journey is simple and at everyone's immediate
disposal. This philosophy is accessible to everybody. Christ desires
that his mysteries shall be spread as widely as possible. I should wish
that all good wives read the Gospel and Paul's Epistles; that they were
translated into all languages; that out of these the husbandman sang
while ploughing, the weaver at his loom; that with such stories the
traveller should beguile his wayfaring.... This sort of philosophy is
rather a matter of disposition than of syllogisms, rather of life than
of disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition, rather of
transformation than of logic.... What is the philosophy of Christ, which
he himself calls _Renascentia_, but the insaturation of Nature created
good?--moreover, though no one has taught us this so absolutely and
effectively as Christ, yet also in pagan books much may be found that is
in accordance with it.'

Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist. As often as Erasmus
reverts to these matters, his voice sounds clearest. 'Let no one', he
says in the preface to the notes to the New Testament, 'take up this
work, as he takes up Gellius's _Noctes atticae_ or Poliziano's
Miscellanies.... We are in the presence of holy things; here it is no
question of eloquence, these matters are best recommended to the world
by simplicity and purity; it would be ridiculous to display human
erudition here, impious to pride oneself on human eloquence.' But
Erasmus never was so eloquent himself as just then.

What here raises him above his usual level of force and fervour is the
fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the right of biblical
criticism. It revolts him that people should study Holy Scripture in the
Vulgate when they know that the texts show differences and are corrupt,
although we have the Greek text by which to go back to the original form
and primary meaning.

He is now reproached because he dares, as a mere grammarian, to assail
the text of Holy Scripture on the score of futile mistakes or
irregularities. 'Details they are, yes, but because of these details we
sometimes see even great divines stumble and rave.' Philological
trifling is necessary. 'Why are we so precise as to our food, our
clothes, our money-matters and why does this accuracy displease us in
divine literature alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he
wearies himself out about words and syllables! Why do we slight any word
of Him whom we venerate and worship under the name of the Word? But, be
it so! Let whoever wishes imagine that I have not been able to achieve
anything better, and out of sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart
or lack of erudition have taken this lowest task upon myself; it is
still a Christian idea to think all work good that is done with pious
zeal. We bring along the bricks, but to build the temple of God.'

He does not want to be intractable. Let the Vulgate be kept for use in
the liturgy, for sermons, in schools, but he who, at home, reads our
edition, will understand his own the better in consequence. He, Erasmus,
is prepared to render account and acknowledge himself to have been wrong
when convicted of error.

Erasmus perhaps never quite realized how much his philological-critical
method must shake the foundations of the Church. He was surprised at his
adversaries 'who could not but believe that all their authority would
perish at once when the sacred books might be read in a purified form,
and when people tried to understand them in the original'. He did not
feel what the unassailable authority of a sacred book meant. He rejoices
because Holy Scripture is approached so much more closely, because all
sorts of shadings are brought to light by considering not only what is
said but also by whom, for whom, at what time, on what occasion, what
precedes and what follows, in short, by the method of historical
philological criticism. To him it seemed so especially pious when
reading Scripture and coming across a place which seemed contrary to the
doctrine of Christ or the divinity of his nature, to believe rather that
one did not understand the phrase _or that the text might be corrupt_.
Unperceived he passed from emendation of the different versions to the
correction of the contents. The epistles were not all written by the
apostles to whom they are attributed. The apostles themselves made
mistakes, at times.

The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer a unity to Erasmus.
It was, on the one hand, a strong desire for an upright, simple, pure
and homely belief, the earnest wish to be a good Christian. But it was
also the irresistible intellectual and aesthetic need of the good taste,
the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the Ancients, the dislike
of what was cumbrous and involved. Erasmus thought that good learning
might render good service for the necessary purification of the faith
and its forms. The measure of church hymns should be corrected. That
Christian expression and classicism were incompatible, he never
believed. The man who in the sphere of sacred studies asked every author
for his credentials remained unconscious of the fact that he
acknowledged the authority of the Ancients without any evidence. How
naïvely he appeals to Antiquity, again and again, to justify some bold
feat! He is critical, they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He
permits himself to insert digressions? So did the Ancients, etc.

Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered Antiquity by his
fundamental conviction that it is the practice of life which matters.
Not he is the great philosopher who knows the tenets of the Stoics or
Peripatetics by rote--but he who expresses the meaning of philosophy by
his life and his morals, for that is its purpose. He is truly a divine
who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his
face and his eyes, by his life itself, that wealth should be despised.
To live up to that standard is what Christ himself calls _Renascentia_.
Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only. But in that sense it
is closely allied to the idea of the Renaissance as a historical
phenomenon. The worldly and pagan sides of the Renaissance have nearly
always been overrated. Erasmus is, much more than Aretino or
Castiglione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one over whose
Christian sentiment the sweet gale of Antiquity had passed. And that
very union of strong Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity is
the explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success.

       *       *       *       *       *

The mere intention and the contents of the mind do not influence the
world, if the form of expression does not cooperate. In Erasmus the
quality of his talent is a very important factor. His perfect clearness
and ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto and
humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was
irresistible and captivates even us, as soon as we read him. In all that
constitutes his talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether a
representative of the Renaissance. There is, in the first place, his
eternal _à propos_. What he writes is never vague, never dark--it is
always plausible. Everything seemingly flows of itself like a fountain.
It always rings true as to tone, turn of phrase and accent. It has
almost the light harmony of Ariosto. And it is, like Ariosto, never
tragic, never truly heroic. It carries us away, indeed, but it is never
itself truly enraptured.

The more artistic aspects of Erasmus's talent come out most
clearly--though they are everywhere in evidence--in those two
recreations after more serious labour, the _Moriae Encomium_ and the
_Colloquia_. But just those two have been of enormous importance for his
influence upon his times. For while Jerome reached tens of readers and
the New Testament hundreds, the _Moria_ and _Colloquies_ went out to
thousands. And their importance is heightened in that Erasmus has
nowhere else expressed himself so spontaneously.

In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary ones,
there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire. There is
hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid
fancy. There are unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the _Abbatis et
eruditae colloquium_ is a Molière character. It should be noticed how
well Erasmus always sustains his characters and his scenes, because he
_sees_ them. In 'The woman in childbed' he never forgets for a moment
that Eutrapelus is an artist. At the end of 'The game of knucklebones',
when the interlocutors, after having elucidated the whole nomenclature
of the Latin game of knuckle-bones, are going to play themselves,
Carolus says: 'but shut the door first, lest the cook should see us
playing like two boys'.

As Holbein illustrated the _Moria_, we should wish to possess the
_Colloquia_ with illustrations by Brueghel, so closely allied is
Erasmus's witty clear vision of incidents to that of this great master.
The procession of drunkards on Palm Sunday, the saving of the
shipwrecked crew, the old men waiting for the travelling cart while the
drivers are still drinking, all these are Dutch genre pieces of the best
sort.

We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance. Erasmus is certainly
a realist in the sense of having an insatiable hunger for knowledge of
the tangible world. He wants to know things and their names: the
particulars of each thing, be it never so remote, such as those terms of
games and rules of games of the Romans. Read carefully the description
of the decorative painting on the garden-house of the _Convivium
religiosum_: it is nothing but an object lesson, a graphic
representation of the forms of reality.

In its joy over the material universe and the supple, pliant word, the
Renaissance revels in a profusion of imagery and expressions. The
resounding enumerations of names and things, which Rabelais always
gives, are not unknown to Erasmus, but he uses them for intellectual and
useful purposes. In _De copia verborum ac rerum_ one feat of varied
power of expression succeeds another--he gives fifty ways of saying:
'Your letter has given me much pleasure,' or, 'I think that it is going
to rain'. The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme and variations:
to display all the wealth and mutations of the logic of language.
Elsewhere, too, Erasmus indulges this proclivity for accumulating the
treasures of his genius; he and his contemporaries can never restrain
themselves from giving all the instances instead of one: in _Ratio verae
theologiae_, in _De pronuntiatione_, in _Lingua_, in _Ecclesiastes_. The
collections of _Adagia_, _Parabolae_, and _Apophthegmata_ are altogether
based on this eagerness of the Renaissance (which, by the way, was an
inheritance of the Middle Ages themselves) to luxuriate in the wealth of
the tangible world, to revel in words and things.

The senses are open for the nice observation of the curious. Though
Erasmus does not know that need of proving the secrets of nature, which
inspired a Leonardo da Vinci, a Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by
his keen observation, a child of his time. For peculiarities in the
habits and customs of nations he has an open eye. He notices the gait of
Swiss soldiers, how dandies sit, how Picards pronounce French. He
notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented with
half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how
some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while German art
prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to
which he gives the rein in all his writings, belongs here.

And, in spite of all his realism, the world which Erasmus sees and
renders, is not altogether that of the sixteenth century. Everything is
veiled by Latin. Between the author's mind and reality intervenes his
antique diction. At bottom the world of his mind is imaginary. It is a
subdued and limited sixteenth-century reality which he reflects.
Together with its coarseness he lacks all that is violent and direct in
his times. Compared with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the
statesmen, the navigators, the soldiers and the scientists, Erasmus
confronts the world as a recluse. It is only the influence of Latin. In
spite of all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, Erasmus is never fully
in contact with life. All through his work not a bird sings, not a wind
rustles.

But that reserve or fear of directness is not merely a negative quality.
It also results from a consciousness of the indefiniteness of the ground
of all things, from the awe of the ambiguity of all that is. If Erasmus
so often hovers over the borderline between earnestness and mockery, if
he hardly ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due to
cautiousness, and fear to commit himself. Everywhere he sees the
shadings, the blending of the meaning of words. The terms of things are
no longer to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals mounted
in gold, or as stars in the firmament. 'I like assertions so little that
I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever it is allowed by
the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the
Church.' 'What is exempt from error?' All subtle contentions of
theological speculation arise from a dangerous curiosity and lead to
impious audacity. What have all the great controversies about the
Trinity and the Virgin Mary profited? 'We have defined so much that
without danger to our salvation might have remained unknown or
undecided.... The essentials of our religion are peace and unanimity.
These can hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points as
possible and leave many questions to individual judgement. Numerous
problems are now postponed till the oecumenical Council. It would be
much better to put off such questions till the time when the glass shall
be removed and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to
face.'

'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed
that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever
deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this
manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and the imbecility
of human understanding.'




CHAPTER XIV

ERASMUS'S CHARACTER

    Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness--
    Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and
    friendship--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much
    concerned about other men's opinions--Need of self-
    justification--Himself never in the wrong--Correlation
    between inclinations and convictions--Ideal image of
    himself--Dissatisfaction with himself--Self-centredness--A
    solitary at heart--Fastidiousness--Suspiciousness--Morbid
    mistrust--Unhappiness--Restlessness--Unsolved contradictions of
    his being--Horror of lies--Reserve and insinuation


Erasmus's powerful mind met with a great response in the heart of his
contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the march of civilization.
But one of the heroes of history he cannot be called. Was not his
failure to attain to still loftier heights partly due to the fact that
his character was not on a level with the elevation of his mind?

And yet that character, a very complicated one, though he took himself
to be the simplest man in the world, was determined by the same factors
which determined the structure of his mind. Again and again we find in
his inclinations the correlates of his convictions.

At the root of his moral being we find--a key to the understanding of
his character--that same profound need of purity which drove him to the
sources of sacred science. Purity in the material and the moral sense is
what he desires for himself and others, always and in all things. Few
things revolt him so much as the practices of vintners who doctor wine
and dealers who adulterate food. If he continually chastens his language
and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse
which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness, of
the home and of the body. He has a violent dislike of stuffy air and
smelly substances. He regularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a
malodorous lane; he loathes shambles and fishmongers' shops. Fetors
spread infection, he thinks. Erasmus had, earlier than most people,
antiseptic ideas about the danger of infection in the foul air of
crowded inns, in the breath of confessants, in baptismal water. Throw
aside common cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, let us be
cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each other by way of greeting.
The fear of the horrible venereal disease, imported into Europe during
his lifetime, and of which Erasmus watched the unbridled propagation
with solicitude, increases his desire for purity. Too little is being
done to stop it, he thinks. He cautions against suspected inns; he wants
to have measures taken against the marriages of syphilitic persons. In
his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical and moral aversion
to the man's evil plays an unmistakable part.

Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres. His body forces him to be
that. He is highly sensitive, among other things very susceptible to
cold, 'the scholars' disorder', as he calls it. Early in life already
the painful malady of the stone begins to torment him, which he resisted
so bravely when his work was at stake. He always speaks in a coddling
tone about his little body, which cannot stand fasting, which must be
kept fit by some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully
tries to select a suitable climate. He is at times circumstantial in the
description of his ailments.[15] He has to be very careful in the matter
of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep
again, and because of that has often to lose the morning, the best time
to work and which is so dear to him. He cannot stand cold, wind and fog,
but still less overheated rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves,
which are burned nearly all the year through and made Germany almost
unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above. It is
not only the plague which he flees--for fear of catching cold he gives
up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where his friend Peter Gilles is
in mourning. Although he realizes quite well that 'often a great deal of
the disease is in the imagination', yet his own imagination leaves him
no peace. Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death.

His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh air, this last
item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome
and is afraid of draughts. His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises:
'Do not take too much medicine, keep quiet and do not get angry'. Though
there is a 'Praise of Medicine' among his works, he does not think
highly of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the
_Colloquies_.

Also in his outward appearance there were certain features betraying his
delicacy. He was of medium height, well-made, of a fair complexion with
blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of
speech, but a thin voice.

In the moral sphere Erasmus's delicacy is represented by his great need
of friendship and concord, his dislike of contention. With him peace and
harmony rank above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be
the guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it might be, have
all the world as a friend. 'Wittingly I discharge no one from my
friendship,' he says. And though he was sometimes capricious and
exacting towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness
the many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary
estrangement, always won back--More, Peter Gilles, Fisher, Ammonius,
Budaeus, and others too numerous to mention. 'He was most constant in
keeping up friendships,' says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own attachment to
Erasmus is a proof of the strong affection he could inspire.

At the root of this desire of friendship lies a great and sincere need
of affection. Remember the effusions of almost feminine affection
towards Servatius during his monastic period. But at the same time it is
a sort of moral serenity that makes him so: an aversion to disturbance,
to whatever is harsh and inharmonious. He calls it 'a certain occult
natural sense' which makes him abhor strife. He cannot abide being at
loggerheads with anyone. He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep
his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, even if he were
attacked. But his enemies had not willed it, and in later years he
became well accustomed to bitter polemics, with Lefèvre d'Étaples, with
Lee, with Egmondanus, with Hutten, with Luther, with Beda, with the
Spaniards, and the Italians. At first it is still noticeable how he
suffers by it, how contention wounds him, so that he cannot bear the
pain in silence. 'Do let us be friends again,' he begs Lefèvre, who does
not reply. The time which he had to devote to his polemics he regards as
lost. 'I feel myself getting more heavy every day,' he writes in 1520,
'not so much on account of my age as because of the restless labour of
my studies, nay more even by the weariness of disputes than by the work,
which, in itself, is agreeable.' And how much strife was still in store
for him then!

If only Erasmus had been less concerned about public opinion! But that
seemed impossible: he had a fear of men, or, we may call it, a fervent
need of justification. He would always see beforehand, and usually in
exaggerated colours, the effect his word or deed would have upon men. Of
himself, it was certainly true as he once wrote: that the craving for
fame has less sharp spurs than the fear of ignominy. Erasmus is with
Rousseau among those who cannot bear the consciousness of guilt, out of
a sort of mental cleanliness. Not to be able to repay a benefit with
interest, makes him ashamed and sad. He cannot abide 'dunning creditors,
unperformed duty, neglect of the need of a friend'. If he cannot
discharge the obligation, he explains it away. The Dutch historian Fruin
has quite correctly observed: 'Whatever Erasmus did contrary to his duty
and his rightly understood interests was the fault of circumstances or
wrong advice; he is never to blame himself'. And what he has thus
justified for himself becomes with him universal law: 'God relieves
people of pernicious vows, if only they repent of them,' says the man
who himself had broken a vow.

There is in Erasmus a dangerous fusion between inclination and
conviction. The correlations between his idiosyncrasies and his precepts
are undeniable. This has special reference to his point of view in the
matter of fasting and abstinence from meat. He too frequently vents his
own aversion to fish, or talks of his inability to postpone meals, not
to make this connection clear to everybody. In the same way his personal
experience in the monastery passes into his disapproval, on principle,
of monastic life.

The distortion of the image of his youth in his memory, to which we have
referred, is based on that need of self-justification. It is all
unconscious interpretation of the undeniable facts to suit the ideal
which Erasmus had made of himself and to which he honestly thinks he
answers. The chief features of that self-conceived picture are a
remarkable, simple sincerity and frankness, which make it impossible to
him to dissemble; inexperience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns
of life and a total lack of ambition. All this is true in the first
instance: there is a superficial Erasmus who answers to that image, but
it is not the whole Erasmus; there is a deeper one who is almost the
opposite and whom he himself does not know because he will not know him.
Possibly because behind this there is a still deeper being, which is
truly good.

Does he not ascribe weaknesses to himself? Certainly. He is, in spite of
his self-coddling, ever dissatisfied with himself and his work.
_Putidulus_, he calls himself, meaning the quality of never being
content with himself. It is that peculiarity which makes him
dissatisfied with any work of his directly after it has appeared, so
that he always keeps revising and supplementing. 'Pusillanimous' he
calls himself in writing to Colet. But again he cannot help giving
himself credit for acknowledging that quality, nay, converting that
quality itself into a virtue: it is modesty, the opposite of boasting
and self-love.

This bashfulness about himself is the reason that he does not love his
own physiognomy, and is only persuaded with difficulty by his friends to
sit for a portrait. His own appearance is not heroic or dignified enough
for him, and he is not duped by an artist who flatters him: 'Heigh-ho,'
he exclaims, on seeing Holbein's thumbnail sketch illustrating the
_Moria_: 'if Erasmus still looked like that, he would take a wife at
once'. It is that deep trait of dissatisfaction that suggests the
inscription on his portraits: 'his writings will show you a better
image'.

Erasmus's modesty and the contempt which he displays of the fame that
fell to his lot are of a somewhat rhetorical character. But in this we
should not so much see a personal trait of Erasmus as a general form
common to all humanists. On the other hand, this mood cannot be called
altogether artificial. His books, which he calls his children, have not
turned out well. He does not think they will live. He does not set store
by his letters: he publishes them because his friends insist upon it. He
writes his poems to try a new pen. He hopes that geniuses will soon
appear who will eclipse him, so that Erasmus will pass for a stammerer.
What is fame? A pagan survival. He is fed up with it to repletion and
would do nothing more gladly than cast it off.

Sometimes another note escapes him. If Lee would help him in his
endeavours, Erasmus would make him immortal, he had told the former in
their first conversation. And he threatens an unknown adversary, 'If you
go on so impudently to assail my good name, then take care that my
gentleness does not give way and I cause you to be ranked, after a
thousand years, among the venomous sycophants, among the idle boasters,
among the incompetent physicians'.

The self-centred element in Erasmus must needs increase accordingly as
he in truth became a centre and objective point of ideas and culture.
There really was a time when it must seem to him that the world hinged
upon him, and that it awaited the redeeming word from him. What a
widespread enthusiastic following he had, how many warm friends and
venerators! There is something naïve in the way in which he thinks it
requisite to treat all his friends, in an open letter, to a detailed,
rather repellent account of an illness that attacked him on the way back
from Basle to Louvain. _His_ part, _his_ position, _his_ name, this more
and more becomes the aspect under which he sees world-events. Years will
come in which his whole enormous correspondence is little more than one
protracted self-defence.

Yet this man who has so many friends is nevertheless solitary at heart.
And in the depth of that heart he desires to be alone. He is of a most
retiring disposition; he is _a recluse_. 'I have always wished to be
alone, and there is nothing I hate so much as sworn partisans.' Erasmus
is one of those whom contact with others weakens. The less he has to
address and to consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he
utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always
causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry,
reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should not
be thought that we get to know him to the core from his letters. Natures
like his, which all contact with men unsettles, give their best and
deepest when they speak impersonally and to all.

After the early effusions of sentimental affection he no longer opens
his heart unreservedly to others. At bottom he feels separated from all
and on the alert towards all. There is a great fear in him that others
will touch his soul or disturb the image he has made of himself. The
attitude of warding off reveals itself as fastidiousness and as
bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark when he exclaimed jocularly:
'_Fastidiosule!_ You little fastidious person!' Erasmus himself
interprets the dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The
excessive sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth results from
it. But his friend Ammonius speaks of his _subrustica verecundia_, his
somewhat rustic _gaucherie_. There is, indeed, often something of the
small man about Erasmus, who is hampered by greatness and therefore
shuns the great, because, at bottom, they obsess him and he feels them
to be inimical to his being.

It seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and fervent
gratefulness were strange to Erasmus. And yet such was his nature. In
characters like his a kind of mental cramp keeps back the effusions of
the heart. He subscribes to the adage: 'Love so, as if you may hate one
day, and hate so, as if you may love one day'. He cannot bear benefits.
In his inmost soul he continually retires before everybody. He who
considers himself the pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the
highest degree suspicious towards all his friends. The dead Ammonius,
who had helped him so zealously in the most delicate concerns, is not
secure from it. 'You are always unfairly distrustful towards me,'
Budaeus complains. 'What!' exclaims Erasmus, 'you will find few people
who are so little distrustful in friendship as myself.'

When at the height of his fame the attention of the world was indeed
fixed on all he spoke or did, there was some ground for a certain
feeling on his part of being always watched and threatened. But when he
was yet an unknown man of letters, in his Parisian years, we continually
find traces in him of a mistrust of the people about him that can only
be regarded as a morbid feeling. During the last period of his life this
feeling attaches especially to two enemies, Eppendorf and Aleander.
Eppendorf employs spies everywhere who watch Erasmus's correspondence
with his friends. Aleander continually sets people to combat him, and
lies in wait for him wherever he can. His interpretation of the
intentions of his assailants has the ingenious self-centred element
which passes the borderline of sanity. He sees the whole world full of
calumny and ambuscades threatening his peace: nearly all those who once
were his best friends have become his bitterest enemies; they wag their
venomous tongues at banquets, in conversation, in the confessional, in
sermons, in lectures, at court, in vehicles and ships. The minor
enemies, like troublesome vermin, drive him to weariness of life, or to
death by insomnia. He compares his tortures to the martyrdom of Saint
Sebastian, pierced by arrows. But his is worse, for there is no end to
it. For years he has daily been dying a thousand deaths and that alone;
for his friends, if such there are, are deterred by envy.

He mercilessly pillories his patrons in a row for their stinginess. Now
and again there suddenly comes to light an undercurrent of aversion and
hatred which we did not suspect. Where had more good things fallen to
his lot than in England? Which country had he always praised more? But
suddenly a bitter and unfounded reproach escapes him. England is
responsible for his having become faithless to his monastic vows, 'for
no other reason do I hate Britain more than for this, though it has
always been pestilent to me'.

He seldom allows himself to go so far. His expressions of hatred or
spite are, as a rule, restricted to the feline. They are aimed at
friends and enemies, Budaeus, Lypsius, as well as Hutten and Beda.
Occasionally we are struck by the expression of coarse pleasure at
another's misfortune. But in all this, as regards malice, we should not
measure Erasmus by our ideas of delicacy and gentleness. Compared with
most of his contemporaries he remains moderate and refined.

       *       *       *       *       *

Erasmus never felt happy, was never content. This may perhaps surprise
us for a moment, when we think of his cheerful, never-failing energy, of
his gay jests and his humour. But upon reflection this unhappy feeling
tallies very well with his character. It also proceeds from his general
attitude of warding off. Even when in high spirits he considers himself
in all respects an unhappy man. 'The most miserable of all men, the
thrice-wretched Erasmus,' he calls himself in fine Greek terms. His life
'is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of misfortunes. How can anyone envy
_me_?' To no one has Fortune been so constantly hostile as to him. She
has sworn his destruction, thus he sang in his youth in a poetical
complaint addressed to Gaguin: from earliest infancy the same sad and
hard fate has been constantly pursuing him. Pandora's whole box seems to
have been poured out over him.

This unhappy feeling takes the special form of his having been charged
by unlucky stars with Herculean labour, without profit or pleasure to
himself:[16] troubles and vexations without end. His life might have
been so much easier if he had taken his chances. He should never have
left Italy; or he ought to have stayed in England. 'But an immoderate
love of liberty caused me to wrestle long with faithless friends and
inveterate poverty.' Elsewhere he says more resignedly: 'But we are
driven by fate'.

That immoderate love of liberty had indeed been as fate to him. He had
always been the great seeker of quiet and liberty who found liberty late
and quiet never. By no means ever to bind himself, to incur no
obligations which might become fetters--again that fear of the
entanglements of life. Thus he remained the great restless one. He was
never truly satisfied with anything, least of all with what he produced
himself. 'Why, then, do you overwhelm us with so many books', someone at
Louvain objected, 'if you do not really approve of any of them?' And
Erasmus answers with Horace's word: 'In the first place, because I
cannot sleep'.

A sleepless energy, it was that indeed. He cannot rest. Still half
seasick and occupied with his trunks, he is already thinking about an
answer to Dorp's letter, just received, censuring the _Moria_. We should
fully realize what it means that time after time Erasmus, who, by
nature, loved quiet and was fearful, and fond of comfort, cleanliness
and good fare, undertakes troublesome and dangerous journeys, even
voyages, which he detests, for the sake of his work and of that alone.

He is not only restless, but also precipitate. Helped by an incomparably
retentive and capacious memory he writes at haphazard. He never becomes
anacoluthic; his talent is too refined and sure for that; but he does
repeat himself and is unnecessarily circumstantial. 'I rather pour out
than write everything,' he says. He compares his publications to
parturitions, nay, to abortions. He does not select his subjects, he
tumbles into them, and having once taken up a subject he finishes
without intermission. For years he has read only _tumultuarie_, up and
down all literature; he no longer finds time really to refresh his mind
by reading, and to work so as to please himself. On that account he
envied Budaeus.

'Do not publish too hastily,' More warns him: 'you are watched to be
caught in inexactitudes.' Erasmus knows it: he will correct all later,
he will ever have to revise and to polish everything. He hates the
labour of revising and correcting, but he submits to it, and works
passionately, 'in the treadmill of Basle', and, he says, finishes the
work of six years in eight months.

In that recklessness and precipitation with which Erasmus labours there
is again one of the unsolved contradictions of his being. He _is_
precipitate and careless; he _wants_ to be careful and cautious; his
mind drives him to be the first, his nature restrains him, but usually
only after the word has been written and published. The result is a
continual intermingling of explosion and reserve.

The way in which Erasmus always tries to shirk definite statements
irritates us. How carefully he always tries to represent the
_Colloquies_, in which he had spontaneously revealed so much of his
inner convictions, as mere trifling committed to paper to please his
friends. They are only meant to teach correct Latin! And if anything is
said in them touching matters of faith, it is not I who say it, is it?
As often as he censures classes or offices in the _Adagia_, princes
above all, he warns the readers not to regard his words as aimed at
particular persons.

Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew, even when he held definite
views, how to avoid direct decisions, not only from caution, but also
because he saw the eternal ambiguity of human issues.

Erasmus ascribes to himself an unusual horror of lies. On seeing a liar,
he says, he was corporeally affected. As a boy he already violently
disliked mendacious boys, such as the little braggart of whom he tells
in the _Colloquies_. That this reaction of aversion is genuine is not
contradicted by the fact that we catch Erasmus himself in untruths.
Inconsistencies, flattery, pieces of cunning, white lies, serious
suppression of facts, simulated sentiments of respect or sorrow--they
may all be pointed out in his letters. He once disavowed his deepest
conviction for a gratuity from Anne of Borselen by flattering her
bigotry. He requested his best friend Batt to tell lies in his behalf.
He most sedulously denied his authorship of the Julius dialogue, for
fear of the consequences, even to More, and always in such a way as to
avoid saying outright, 'I did not write it'. Those who know other
humanists, and know how frequently and impudently they lied, will
perhaps think more lightly of Erasmus's sins.

For the rest, even during his lifetime he did not escape punishment for
his eternal reserve, his proficiency in semi-conclusions and veiled
truths, insinuations and slanderous allusions. The accusation of perfidy
was often cast in his teeth, sometimes in serious indignation. 'You are
always engaged in bringing suspicion upon others,' Edward Lee exclaims.
'How dare you usurp the office of a general censor, and condemn what you
have hardly ever tasted? How dare you despise all but yourself? Falsely
and insultingly do you expose your antagonist in the _Colloquia_.' Lee
quotes the spiteful passage referring to himself, and then exclaims:
'Now from these words the world may come to know its divine, its censor,
its modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, earnest,
decency and honesty! Erasmian modesty has long been proverbial. You are
always using the words "false accusations". You say: if I was
consciously guilty of the smallest of all his (Lee's) false accusations,
I should not dare to approach the Lord's table!--O man, who are you, to
judge another, a servant who stands or falls before his Lord?'

This was the first violent attack from the conservative side, in the
beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle which Luther's action had
unchained kept the world in ever greater suspense. Six months later
followed the first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers.
Ulrich von Hutten, the impetuous, somewhat foggy-headed knight, who
wanted to see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause of Germany,
turns to Erasmus, whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically acclaimed
as the man of the new weal, with the urgent appeal not to forsake the
cause of the reformation or to compromise it. 'You have shown yourself
fearful in the affair of Reuchlin; now in that of Luther you do your
utmost to convince his adversaries that you are altogether averse from
it, though we know better. Do not disown us. You know how triumphantly
certain letters of yours are circulated, in which, to protect yourself
from suspicion, you rather meanly fasten it on others ... If you are now
afraid to incur a little hostility for _my_ sake, concede me at least
that you will not allow yourself, out of fear for another, to be tempted
to renounce me; rather be silent about me.'

Those were bitter reproaches. In the man who had to swallow them there
was a puny Erasmus who deserved those reproaches, who took offence at
them, but did not take them to heart, who continued to act with prudent
reserve till Hutten's friendship was turned to hatred. In him was also a
great Erasmus who knew how, under the passion and infatuation with which
the parties combated each other, the Truth he sought, and the Love he
hoped would subdue the world, were obscured; who knew the God whom he
professed too high to take sides. Let us try ever to see of that great
Erasmus as much as the petty one permits.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Cf. the letter to Beatus Rhenanus, pp. 227-8.

[16] Ad. 2001 LB. II, 717B, 77 c. 58A. On the book which Erasmus holds
in his hand in Holbein's portrait at Longford Castle, we read in Greek:
The Labours of Hercules.




CHAPTER XV

AT LOUVAIN

1517-18

    Erasmus at Louvain, 1517--He expects the renovation of the
    Church as the fruit of good learning--Controversy with Lefèvre
    d'Étaples--Second journey to Basle, 1518--He revises the edition
    of the New Testament--Controversies with Latomus, Briard and
    Lee--Erasmus regards the opposition of conservative theology
    merely as a conspiracy against good learning


When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the summer of 1517 he had
a vague presentiment that great changes were at hand. 'I fear', he
writes in September, 'that a great subversion of affairs is being
brought about here, if God's favour and the piety and wisdom of princes
do not concern themselves about human matters.' But the forms which that
great change would assume he did not in the least realize.

He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was only to last 'till
we shall have seen which place of residence is best fit for old age,
which is already knocking'. There is something pathetic in the man who
desires nothing but quiet and liberty, and who through his own
restlessness, and his inability not to concern himself about other
people, never found a really fixed abode or true independence. Erasmus
is one of those people who always seem to say: tomorrow, tomorrow! I
must first deal with this, and then ... As soon as he shall be ready
with the new edition of the New Testament and shall have extricated
himself from troublesome and disagreeable theological controversies, in
which he finds himself entangled against his wish, he will sleep, hide
himself, 'sing for himself and the Muses'. But that time never came.

Where to live when he shall be free? Spain, to which Cardinal Ximenes
called him, did not appeal to him. From Germany, he says, the stoves and
the insecurity deter him. In England the servitude which was required of
him there revolted him. But in the Netherlands themselves, he did not
feel at his ease, either: 'Here I am barked at a great deal, and there
is no remuneration; though I desired it ever so much, I could not bear
to stay there long'. Yet he remained for four years.

Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. At first he put
up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, Rhetor of the University, whose
house he exchanged that summer for quarters in the College of the Lily.
Martin Dorp, a Dutchman like himself, had not been estranged from him by
their polemics about the _Moria_; his good will was of great importance
to Erasmus, because of the important place Dorp occupied in the
theological faculty. And lastly, though his old patron, Adrian of
Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been called away from Louvain
to higher dignities, his influence had not diminished in consequence,
but rather increased; for just about that time he had been made a
cardinal.

Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the Louvain divines.
Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the University, Jean Briard of Ath,
repeatedly expressed his approval of the edition of the New Testament,
to Erasmus's great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a member of
the theological faculty. Yet he did not feel at his ease among the
Louvain theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less congenial to
him than that of the world of the English scholars. Here he felt a
spirit which he did not understand and distrusted in consequence.

In the years in which the Reformation began, Erasmus was the victim of a
great misunderstanding, the result of the fact that his delicate,
aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of
the faith nor the hard necessities of human society. He was neither
mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Erasmus the great problem of
Church and State and society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but
restoration and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt
sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should be reduced
to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies,
speculations should make room for the practice of true piety. The Gospel
was easily intelligible to everybody and within everybody's reach. And
the means to reach all this was good learning, _bonae literae_. Had he
not himself, by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
even earlier by the now famous _Enchiridion_, done most of what had to
be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the upright, will soon please
all.' As early as the beginning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang
Fabricius Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the great
task. 'Well then, take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth
be a great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. _We_ have
lived through the first shock.'

Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such
inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism)
does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's
diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is
still much greater that he should have effected by the same labour the
emergence of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness, even
though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist
school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the beginnings
made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus believed even more firmly
than Erasmus that faith was a matter of erudition.

It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted the cleansed
truth at once. How could people continue to oppose themselves to what,
to him, seemed as clear as daylight and so simple? He, who so sincerely
would have liked to live in peace with all the world, found himself
involved in a series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents
pass unnoticed was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
striving to justify himself in the eyes of the world, but also by the
custom of his time, so eager for dispute.

There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples,
or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, the Parisian theologian, who as
a preparer of the Reformation may, more than anyone else, be ranked with
Erasmus. At the moment when Erasmus got into the travelling cart which
was to take him to Louvain, a friend drew his attention to a passage in
the new edition of Faber's commentary on St. Paul's epistles, in which
he controverted Erasmus's note on the Second Epistle to the Hebrews,
verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber's book, and soon published an
_Apologia_. It concerned Christ's relation to God and the angels, but
the dogmatic point at issue hinged, after all, on a philological
interpretation of Erasmus.

Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus was violently
agitated by the matter, the more as he esteemed Faber highly and
considered him a congenial spirit. 'What on earth has occurred to the
man? Have others set him on against me? All theologians agree that I am
right,' he asserts. It makes him nervous that Faber does not reply again
at once. Badius has told Peter Gilles that Faber is sorry about it.
Erasmus in a dignified letter appeals to their friendship; he will
suffer himself to be taught and censured. Then again he growls: Let him
be careful. And he thinks that his controversy with Faber keeps the
world in suspense: there is not a meal at which the guests do not side
with one or the other of them. But finally the combat abated and the
friendship was preserved.

Towards Easter 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new journey to Basle, there
to pass through the press, during a few months of hard labour, the
corrected edition of the New Testament. He did not fail to request the
chiefs of conservative divinity at Louvain beforehand to state their
objections to his work. Briard of Ath declared he had found nothing
offensive in it, after he had first been told all sorts of bad things
about it. 'Then the new edition will please you much better,' Erasmus
had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, also one of the chief
divines, had expressed themselves in the same sense, and the Carmelite
Nicholas of Egmond had said that he had never read Erasmus's work. Only
a young Englishman, Edward Lee, who was studying Greek at Louvain, had
summarized a number of criticisms into ten conclusions. Erasmus had got
rid of the matter by writing to Lee that he had not been able to get
hold of his conclusions and therefore could not make use of them. But
his youthful critic had not put up with being slighted so, and worked
out his objections in a more circumstantial treatise.

[Illustration: XVII. VIEW OF BASLE, 1548]

Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May 1518. He had been
obliged to ask all his English friends (of whom Ammonius had been taken
from him by death in 1517) for support to defray the expenses of the
journey; he kept holding out to them the prospect that, after his work
was finished, he would return to England. In a letter to Martin Lypsius,
as he was going up the Rhine, he answered Lee's criticism, which had
irritated him extremely. In revising his edition he not only took it but
little into account, but ventured, moreover, this time to print his own
translation of the New Testament of 1506 without any alterations. At the
same time he obtained for the new edition a letter of approval from the
Pope, a redoubtable weapon against his cavillers.

At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a treadmill. But he was
really in his element. Even before the second edition of the New
Testament, the _Enchiridion_ and the _Institutio Principis Christiani_
were reprinted by Froben. On his return journey, Erasmus, whose work had
been hampered all through the summer by indisposition, and who had, on
that account, been unable to finish it, fell seriously ill. He reached
Louvain with difficulty (21 September 1518). It might be the pestilence,
and Erasmus, ever much afraid of contagion himself, now took all
precautions to safeguard his friends against it. He avoided his quarters
in the College of the Lily, and found shelter with his most trusted
friend, Dirck Maertensz, the printer. But in spite of rumours of the
plague and his warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath came, at
once, to visit him. Evidently the Louvain professors did not mean so
badly by him, after all.

[Illustration: XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament printed by Froben
in 1520]

But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain faculty were deeply
rooted. Lee, hurt by the little attention paid by Erasmus to his
objections, prepared a new critique, but kept it from Erasmus, for the
present, which irritated the latter and made him nervous. In the
meantime a new opponent arose. Directly after his return to Louvain,
Erasmus had taken much trouble to promote the establishment of the
_Collegium Trilingue_, projected and endowed by Jerome Busleiden, in his
testament, to be founded in the university. The three biblical
languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were to be taught there. Now when
James Latomus, a member of the theological faculty and a man whom he
esteemed, in a dialogue about the study of those three languages and of
theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus judged himself
concerned, and answered Latomus in an _Apologia_. About the same time
(spring 1519) he got into trouble with the vice-chancellor himself.
Erasmus thought that Ath had publicly censured him with regard to his
'Praise of Marriage', which had recently appeared. Though Ath withdrew
at once, Erasmus could not abstain from writing an _Apologia_, however
moderate. Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee assumed ever more
hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus's English friends attempt to restrain
their young, ambitious compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him
furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and
dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum
he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old
taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points
at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In
his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy
weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to
ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his
English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the
greatest trouble in keeping them back'.

Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it is 1520 and the three
great polemics of Luther were setting the world on fire.

Though one may excuse the violence and the petty spitefulness of Erasmus
in this matter, as resulting from an over-sensitive heart falling
somewhat short in really manly qualities, yet it is difficult to deny
that he failed completely to understand both the arguments of his
adversaries and the great movements of his time.

It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow-mindedness of
conservative divines who thought that there would be an end to faith in
Holy Scripture as soon as the emendation of the text was attempted.
'"They correct the Holy Gospel, nay, the Pater Noster itself!" the
preacher exclaims indignantly in the sermon before his surprised
congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew and Luke, and not at those
who, out of ignorance and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do
people wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his passionate
need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct did not deceive
his adversaries, when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake if
the linguistic judgement of a single individual might decide as to the
correct version of a text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences
which assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his
conceptions of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were no longer
purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated to his
philological insight. He could not be aware of it because, in spite of
all his natural piety and his fervent ethical sentiments, he lacked the
mystic insight which is the foundation of every creed.

It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable to understand
the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it
possible that so many, and among them men of high consideration, refused
to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted
the fact in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly have
lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy and
recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the ranks of haters
and opponents increase about him. He did not understand how they feared
his mocking acrimony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the _Moria_
had made. That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his
enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the Carmelites
who are ill-affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then a
new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of his compatriot
Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmelites, henceforth an object of
particular abhorrence to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus
found his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper.
The persecution increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more
every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently
preached about him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor,
against them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write
for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the people. After
1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned every day'.

But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not without reason, at
the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no longer be blind to the fact that
the great struggle did not concern him alone. On all sides the battle
was being fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters of
spirit and of faith?

The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a great and wilful
conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to suffocate good learning
and make the old ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times
in his letters after the middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he
writes on 21 March 1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the
barbarians on all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till
they have suppressed _bonae literae_.' 'Here we are still fighting with
the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade the Pope to
stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and cultured literature is
called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they
indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to
say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole
tragedy--under these terms he usually refers to the great theological
struggle--originates in the hatred of _bonae literae_. 'This is the
source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic
study and the _bonae literae_.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it
is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one. And meanwhile
envy harasses the _bonae literae_, which are attacked at his (Luther's)
instigation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insufferable,
when things do not go well with them; but who can stand them when they
triumph? Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'

This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University of Leipzig in
December 1520. This one-sided and academic conception of the great
events, a conception which arose in the study of a recluse bending over
his books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from
understanding the true nature and purport of the Reformation.




CHAPTER XVI

FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION

    Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther--
    Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1517--Progress of the
    Reformation--Luther tries to bring about a _rapprochement_ with
    Erasmus, March 1519--Erasmus keeps aloof; fancies he may yet act
    as a conciliator--His attitude becomes ambiguous--He denies ever
    more emphatically all relations with Luther and resolves to
    remain a spectator--He is pressed by either camp to take
    sides--Aleander in the Netherlands--The Diet of Worms,
    1521--Erasmus leaves Louvain to safeguard his freedom, October
    1521


About the close of 1516, Erasmus received a letter from the librarian
and secretary of Frederick, elector of Saxony, George Spalatinus,
written in the respectful and reverential tone in which the great man
was now approached. 'We all esteem you here most highly; the elector has
all your books in his library and intends to buy everything you may
publish in future.' But the object of Spalatinus's letter was the
execution of a friend's commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great
admirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his attention to the
fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, especially in that of the
epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had failed to conceive the idea of
_justitia_ correctly, had paid too little attention to original sin: he
might profit by reading Augustine.

The nameless Austin Friar was Luther, then still unknown outside the
circle of the Wittenberg University, in which he was a professor, and
the criticism regarded the cardinal point of his hardly acquired
conviction: justification by faith.

Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He received so many of
that sort, containing still more praise and no criticism. If he answered
it, the reply did not reach Spalatinus, and later Erasmus completely
forgot the whole letter.

Nine months afterwards, in September 1517, when Erasmus had been at
Louvain for a short time, he received an honourable invitation, written
by the first prelate of the Empire, the young Archbishop of Mayence,
Albert of Brandenburg. The archbishop would be pleased to see him on an
occasion: he greatly admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak
of Erasmus's emendation of the Old Testament, instead of the New) and
hoped that he would one day write some lives of saints in elegant style.

The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of classical studies,
whose attention had probably been drawn to Erasmus by Hutten and Capito,
who sojourned at his court, had recently become engaged in one of the
boldest political and financial transactions of his time. His elevation
to the see of Mayence, at the age of twenty-four, had necessitated a
papal dispensation, as he also wished to keep the archbishopric of
Magdeburg and the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of
ecclesiastical offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg
policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The Pope granted the
dispensation in return for a great sum of money, but to facilitate its
payment he accorded to the archbishop a liberal indulgence for the whole
archbishopric of Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg territories.
Albert, to whom half the proceeds were tacitly left, raised a loan with
the house of Fugger, and this charged itself with the indulgence
traffic.

When in December 1517, Erasmus answered the archbishop, Luther's
propositions against indulgences, provoked by the Archbishop of
Mayence's instructions regarding their colportage, had already been
posted up (31 October 1517), and were circulated throughout Germany,
rousing the whole Church. They were levelled at the same abuses which
Erasmus combated, the mechanical, atomistical, and juridical conception
of religion. But how different was their practical effect, as compared
with Erasmus's pacific endeavour to purify the Church by lenient means!

'Lives of saints?' Erasmus asked replying to the archbishop. 'I have
tried in my poor way to add a little light to the prince of saints
himself. For the rest, your endeavour, in addition to so many difficult
matters of government, and at such an early age, to get the lives of the
saints purged of old women's tales and disgusting style, is extremely
laudable. For nothing should be suffered in the Church that is not
perfectly pure or refined,' And he concludes with a magnificent eulogy
of the excellent prelate.

During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much occupied by his
own affairs--the journey to Basle and his red-hot labours there, and
afterwards his serious illness--to concern himself much with Luther's
business. In March he sends Luther's theses to More, without comment,
and, in passing, complains to Colet about the impudence with which Rome
disseminates indulgences. Luther, now declared a heretic and summoned to
appear at Augsburg, stands before the legate Cajetanus and refuses to
recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds him. Just about that time Erasmus
writes to one of Luther's partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms
about his work. The theses have pleased everybody. 'I see that the
monarchy of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, is a pestilence to
Christendom, but I do not know if it is expedient to touch that sore
openly. That would be a matter for princes, but I fear that these will
act in concert with the Pope to secure part of the spoils. I do not
understand what possessed Eck to take up arms against Luther.' The
letter did not find its way into any of the collections.

The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election of an emperor,
after old Maximilian had died in January, and the attempt of the curia
to regain ground with lenity. Germany was expecting the long-projected
disputation between Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt which, in truth,
would concern Luther. How could Erasmus, who himself was involved that
year in so many polemics, have foreseen that the Leipzig disputation,
which was to lead Luther to the consequence of rejecting the highest
ecclesiastical authority, would remain of lasting importance in the
history of the world, whereas his quarrel with Lee would be forgotten?

On 28 March 1519 Luther addressed himself personally to Erasmus for the
first time. 'I speak with you so often, and you with me, Erasmus, our
ornament and our hope; and we do not know each other as yet.' He
rejoices to find that Erasmus displeases many, for this he regards as a
sign that God has blessed him. Now that his, Luther's, name begins to
get known too, a longer silence between them might be wrongly
interpreted. 'Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you think fit,
acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who really admires you
and feels friendly disposed towards you, and for the rest would deserve
no better, because of his ignorance, than to lie, unknown, buried in a
corner.'

There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat rustically cunning
and half ironical letter. Luther wanted, if possible, to make Erasmus
show his colours, to win him, the powerful authority, touchstone of
science and culture, for the cause which he advocated. In his heart
Luther had long been aware of the deep gulf separating him from Erasmus.
As early as March 1517, six months before his public appearance, he
wrote about Erasmus to John Lang: 'human matters weigh heavier with him
than divine,' an opinion that so many have pronounced about
Erasmus--obvious, and yet unfair.

The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a _rapprochement_ was a
reason for Erasmus to retire at once. Now began that extremely ambiguous
policy of Erasmus to preserve peace by his authority as a light of the
world and to steer a middle course without committing himself. In that
attitude the great and the petty side of his personality are
inextricably intertwined. The error because of which most historians
have seen Erasmus's attitude towards the Reformation either in far too
unfavourable a light or--as for instance the German historian
Kalkoff--much too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erroneously regard
him as psychologically homogeneous. Just that he is not. His
double-sidedness roots in the depths of his being. Many of his
utterances during the struggle proceed directly from his fear and lack
of character, also from his inveterate dislike of siding with a person
or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and fervent conviction
that neither of the conflicting opinions can completely express the
truth, that human hatred and purblindness infatuate men's minds. And
with that conviction is allied the noble illusion that it might yet be
possible to preserve the peace by moderation, insight, and kindliness.

In April 1519 Erasmus addressed himself by letter to the elector
Frederick of Saxony, Luther's patron. He begins by alluding to his
dedication of Suetonius two years before; but his real purpose is to say
something about Luther. Luther's writings, he says, have given the
Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to inveigh against the _bonae
literae_, to decry all scholars. He himself does not know Luther and has
glanced through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises
his life. How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to
condemn him offhand, and that before the indiscreet vulgar! For has he
not proposed a dispute, and submitted himself to everybody's judgement?
No one has, so far, admonished, taught, convinced him. Every error is
not at once heresy.

The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. Where we find that,
we should not rashly suspect people of heresy. Why do we so uncharitably
persecute the lapses of others, though none of us is free from error?
Why do we rather want to conquer than cure, suppress than instruct?

But he concludes with a word that could not but please Luther's friends,
who so hoped for his support. 'May the duke prevent an innocent man from
being surrendered under the cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. This
is also the wish of Pope Leo, who has nothing more at heart than that
innocence be safe.'

At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep Froben back from
publishing Luther's writings, 'that they may not fan the hatred of the
_bonae literae_ still more'. And he keeps repeating: I do not know
Luther, I have not read his writings. He makes this declaration to
Luther himself, in his reply to the latter's epistle of 28 March. This
letter of Erasmus, dated 30 May 1519, should be regarded as a newspaper
leader[17], to acquaint the public with his attitude towards the Luther
question. Luther does not know the tragedies which his writings have
caused at Louvain. People here think that Erasmus has helped him in
composing them and call him the standard bearer of the party! That
seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the _bonae literae_. 'I
have declared that you are perfectly unknown to me, that I have not yet
read your books and therefore neither approve nor disapprove anything.'
'I reserve myself, so far as I may, to be of use to the reviving
studies. Discreet moderation seems likely to bring better progress than
impetuosity. It was by this that Christ subjugated the world.'

On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of Luther's friends and
followers, a short note, not meant for publication: 'I hope that the
endeavours of yourself and your party will be successful. Here the
Papists rave violently.... All the best minds are rejoiced at Luther's
boldness: I do not doubt he will be careful that things do not end in a
quarrel of parties!... We shall never triumph over feigned Christians
unless we first abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its
satellites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites. But no
one could attempt that without a serious tumult.'

As the gulf widens, Erasmus's protestations that he has nothing to do
with Luther become much more frequent. Relations at Louvain grow ever
more disagreeable and the general sentiment about him ever more unkind.
In August 1519 he turns to the Pope himself for protection against his
opponents. He still fails to see how wide the breach is. He still takes
it all to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England and King
Francis of France in their own countries have imposed silence upon the
quarrellers and slanderers; if only the Pope would do the same!

In October he was once more reconciled with the Louvain faculty. It was
just at this time that Colet died in London, the man who had, better
perhaps than anyone else, understood Erasmus's standpoint. Kindred
spirits in Germany still looked up to Erasmus as the great man who was
on the alert to interpose at the right moment and who had made
moderation the watchword, until the time should come to give his friends
the signal.

But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice already sounded less
powerfully than before. A letter to Cardinal Albert of Mayence, 19
October 1519, of about the same content as that of Frederick of Saxony
written in the preceding spring, was at once circulated by Luther's
friends; and by the advocates of conservatism, in spite of the usual
protestation, 'I do not know Luther', it was made to serve against
Erasmus.

It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory
position which Erasmus wished to take up would soon be altogether
untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where
he was a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther
there, as he had worked against Reuchlin. On 7 November 1519 the Louvain
faculty, following the example of that of Cologne, proceeded to take the
decisive step: the solemn condemnation of a number of Luther's opinions.
In future no place could be less suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the
citadel of action against reformers. It is surprising that he remained
there another two years.

The expectation that he would be able to speak the conciliating word was
paling. For the rest he failed to see the true proportions. During the
first months of 1520 his attention was almost entirely taken up by his
own polemics with Lee, a paltry incident in the great revolution. The
desire to keep aloof got more and more the upper hand of him. In June he
writes to Melanchthon: 'I see that matters begin to look like sedition.
It is perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should prefer not to
be the author.' He has, he thinks, by his influence with Wolsey,
prevented the burning of Luther's writings in England, which had been
ordered. But he was mistaken. The burning had taken place in London, as
early as 12 May.

The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up his hope to play a
conciliatory part may be found in what follows. In the summer of 1520
the famous meeting between the three monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I and
Charles V, took place at Calais. Erasmus was to go there in the train of
his prince. How would such a congress of princes--where in peaceful
conclave the interests of France, England, Spain, the German Empire, and
a considerable part of Italy, were represented together--have affected
Erasmus's imagination, if his ideal had remained unshaken! But there are
no traces of this. Erasmus was at Calais in July 1520, had some
conversation with Henry VIII there, and greeted More, but it does not
appear that he attached any other importance to the journey than that of
an opportunity, for the last time, to greet his English friends.

It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, when the cause of
faith took so much harsher forms, his duties as counsellor to the
youthful Charles, now back from Spain to be crowned as emperor,
circumscribed his liberty more than before. In the summer of 1520
appeared, based on the incriminating material furnished by the Louvain
faculty, the papal bull declaring Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he
should speedily recant, excommunicating him. 'I fear the worst for the
unfortunate Luther,' Erasmus writes, 9 September 1520, 'so does
conspiracy rage everywhere, so are princes incensed with him on all
sides, and, most of all, Pope Leo. Would Luther had followed my advice
and abstained from those hostile and seditious actions!... They will not
rest until they have quite subverted the study of languages and the good
learning.... Out of the hatred against these and the stupidity of monks
did this tragedy first arise.... I do not meddle with it. For the rest,
a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose to write against Luther.'

Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enormous celebrity, as
circumstances would have it, more and more a valuable asset in the great
policy of emperor and pope. People wanted to use his name and make him
choose sides. And that he would not do for any consideration. He wrote
evasively to the Pope about his relations with Luther without altogether
disavowing him. How zealously he defends himself from the suspicion of
being on Luther's side as noisy monks make out in their sermons, who
summarily link the two in their scoffing disparagement.

But by the other side also he is pressed to choose sides and to speak
out. Towards the end of October 1520 the coronation of the emperor took
place at Aix-la-Chapelle. Erasmus was perhaps present; in any case he
accompanied the Emperor to Cologne. There, on 5 November, he had an
interview about Luther with the Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was
persuaded to write down the result of that discussion in the form of
twenty-two _Axiomata concerning Luther's cause_. Against his intention
they were printed at once.

Erasmus's hesitation in those days between the repudiation and the
approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is the tragic
defect running through his whole personality: his refusal or inability
ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and
selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long since have
altogether forsaken Luther's cause. It is his misfortune affecting his
fame, that he continually shows his weaknesses, whereas what is great in
him lies deep.

At Cologne Erasmus also met the man with whom, as a promising young
humanist, fourteen years younger than himself, he had, for some months,
shared a room in the house of Aldus's father-in-law, at Venice:
Hieronymus Aleander, now sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to
persuade him to conform his imperial policy to that of the Pope, in the
matter of the great ecclesiastical question, and give effect to the
papal excommunication by the imperial ban.

It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that his friend had so
far surpassed him in power and position, and was now called to bring by
diplomatic means the solution which he himself would have liked to see
achieved by ideal harmony, good will and toleration. He had never
trusted Aleander, and was more than ever on his guard against him. As a
humanist, in spite of brilliant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus's
inferior, and had never, like him, risen from literature to serious
theological studies; he had simply prospered in the service of Church
magnates (whom Erasmus had given up early). This man was now invested
with the highest mediating powers.

To what degree of exasperation Erasmus's most violent antagonists at
Louvain had now been reduced is seen from the witty and slightly
malicious account he gives Thomas More of his meeting with Egmondanus
before the Rector of the university, who wanted to reconcile them. Still
things did not look so black as Ulrich von Hutten thought, when he wrote
to Erasmus: 'Do you think that you are still safe, now that Luther's
books are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!'

Ever more emphatic do Erasmus's protestations become that he has nothing
to do with Luther. Long ago he had already requested him not to mention
his name, and Luther promised it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again
refer to you, neither will other good friends, since it troubles you'.
Ever louder, too, are Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks
at him, and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the
right to preach.

In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to which
Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the Diet of Worms,
holding fast to his opinions, confronted by the highest authority in the
Empire. So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment it may
seem that the Emperor's power is in danger rather than Luther and his
adherents. 'If I had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have
endeavoured that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate
arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the still
greater detriment of the world.'

The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire (as in the
Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's books were to be
burned, his adherents arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther
was to be given up to the authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief
will follow. 'The Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had
never appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht Dürer, on hearing
the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of his journey that
passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be?
Hear, you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect
the truth, obtain the martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I
have heard you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in
which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf of
the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O Erasmus, be on this side,
that God may be proud of you.'

It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is the
expectation that he will not do all this. Dürer had rightly understood
Erasmus.

The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus, the most
dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now become one of the most
serious opponents of Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too,
indirectly. To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's
compatriots had been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of
Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to
defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he has never
written against Luther. He will read him, he will soon take up something
to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in getting Aleander, who arrived at
Louvain in June, to prohibit preaching against him. The Pope still hopes
that Aleander will succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom he is
again on friendly terms, to the right track.

But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which was now left to him:
to leave Louvain and the Netherlands to regain his menaced independence.
The occasion to depart had long ago presented itself: the third edition
of his New Testament called him to Basle once more. It would not be a
permanent departure, and he purposed to return to Louvain. On 28 October
(his birthday) he left the town where he had spent four difficult years.
His chambers in the College of the Lily were reserved for him and he
left his books behind. On 15 November he reached Basle.

Soon the rumour spread that out of fear of Aleander he had saved himself
by flight. But the idea, revived again in our days in spite of Erasmus's
own painstaking denial, that Aleander should have cunningly and
expressly driven him from the Netherlands, is inherently improbable. So
far as the Church was concerned, Erasmus would at almost any point be
more dangerous than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism,
under immediate control of the strict Burgundian government, where, it
seemed, he could sooner or later be pressed into the service of the
anti-Lutheran policy.

It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly pointed out, which
he feared and evaded. Not for his bodily safety did he emigrate; Erasmus
would not have been touched--he was far too valuable an asset for such
measures. It was his mental independence, so dear to him above all else,
that he felt to be threatened; and, to safeguard that, he did not return
to Louvain.

[Illustration: XIX. THE HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT WHERE ERASMUS LIVED FROM MAY
TO NOVEMBER 1521]

[Illustration: XX. ERASMUS'S STUDY AT ANDERLECHT]

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Translation on pp. 229 ff.




CHAPTER XVII

ERASMUS AT BASLE

1521-9

    Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years:
    1521-9--Political thought of Erasmus--Concord and
    peace--Anti-war writings--Opinions concerning princes and
    government--New editions of several Fathers--The
    _Colloquia_--Controversies with Stunica, Beda, etc.--Quarrel
    with Hutten--Eppendorff


It is only towards the evening of life that the picture of Erasmus
acquires the features with which it was to go down to posterity. Only at
Basle--delivered from the troublesome pressure of parties wanting to
enlist him, transplanted from an environment of haters and opponents at
Louvain to a circle of friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers,
emancipated from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage of
purifying yourself from the lust of life, you will come unto that lake
where all desire shall be washed away.




CHAPTER XX

'NOBLESSE OBLIGE'

     'Sooner shall the cleft rock reunite so as to make a whole, than
     may he who kills any living being be admitted into our
     society.'--_Acceptance into the Monkhood._


It is very noticeable throughout the bazaars of Burma that all the beef
butchers are natives of India. No Burman will kill a cow or a bullock,
and no Burman will sell its meat. It is otherwise with pork and fowls.
Burmans may sometimes be found selling these; and fish are almost
invariably sold by the wives of the fishermen. During the king's time,
any man who was even found in possession of beef was liable to very
severe punishment. The only exception, as I have explained elsewhere,
was in the case of the queen when expecting an addition to her family,
and it was necessary that she should be strengthened in all ways. None,
not even foreigners, were allowed to kill beef, and this law was very
stringently observed. Other flesh and fish might, as far as the law of
the country went, be sold with impunity. You could not be fined for
killing and eating goats, or fowls, or pigs, and these were sold
occasionally. It is now ten years since King Thibaw was overthrown, and
there is now no law against the sale of beef. And yet, as I have said,
no respectable Burman will even now kill or sell beef. The law was
founded on the beliefs of the people, and though the law is dead, the
beliefs remain.

It is true that the taking of life is against Buddhist commands. No life
at all may be taken by him who adheres to Buddhistic teaching. Neither
for sport, nor for revenge, nor for food, may any animal be deprived of
the breath that is in it. And this is a command wonderfully well kept.
There are a few exceptions, but they are known and accepted as breaches
of the law, for the law itself knows no exceptions. Fish, as I have
said, can be obtained almost everywhere. They are caught in great
quantities in the river, and are sold in most bazaars, either fresh or
salted. It is one of the staple foods of the Burmese. But although they
will eat fish, they despise the fisherman. Not so much, perhaps, as if
he killed other living things, but still, the fisherman is an outcast
from decent society. He will have to suffer great and terrible
punishment before he can be cleansed from the sins that he daily
commits. Notwithstanding this, there are many fishermen in Burma.

A fish is a very cold-blooded beast. One must be very hard up for
something to love to have any affection to spare upon fishes. They
cannot be, or at all events they never are, domesticated, and most of
them are not beautiful. I am not aware that they have ever been known to
display any attachment to anyone, which accounts, perhaps, for the
comparatively lenient eye with which their destruction is contemplated.

For with warm-blooded animals it is very different. Cattle, as I have
said, can never be killed nor their meat sold by a Burman, and with
other animals the difficulty is not much less.

I was in Upper Burma for some months before the war, and many a time I
could get no meat at all. Living in a large town among prosperous
people, I could get no flesh at all, only fish and rice and vegetables.
When, after much trouble, my Indian cook would get me a few fowls, he
would often be waylaid and forced to release them. An old woman, say,
anxious to do some deed of merit, would come to him as he returned
triumphantly home with his fowls and tender him money, and beg him to
release the fowls. She would give the full price or double the price of
the fowls; she had no desire to gain merit at another person's expense,
and the unwilling cook would be obliged to give up the fowls. Public
opinion was so strong he dare not refuse. The money was paid, the fowls
set free, and I dined on tinned beef.

And yet the villages are full of fowls. Why they are kept I do not know.
Certainly not for food. I do not mean to say that an accidental meeting
between a rock and a fowl may not occasionally furnish forth a dinner,
but this is not the object with which they are kept--of this I am sure.

You would not suppose that fowls were capable of exciting much
affection, yet I suppose they are. Certainly in one case ducks were.
There is a Burman lady I know who is married to an Englishman. He kept
ducks. He bought a number of ducklings, and had them fed up so that they
might be fat and succulent when the time came for them to be served at
table. They became very fine ducks, and my friend had promised me one. I
took an interest in them, and always noticed their increasing fatness
when I rode that way. Imagine, then, my disappointment when one day I
saw that all the ducks had disappeared.

I stopped to inquire. Yes, truly they were all gone, my friend told me.
In his absence his wife had gone up the river to visit some friends, and
had taken the ducks with her. She could not bear, she said, that they
should be killed, so she took them away and distributed them among her
friends, one here and one there, where she was sure they would be well
treated and not killed. When she returned she was quite pleased at her
success, and laughed at her husband and me.

This same lady was always terribly distressed when she had to order a
fowl to be killed for her husband's breakfast, even if she had never
seen it before. I have seen her, after telling the cook to kill a fowl
for breakfast, run away and sit down in the veranda with her hands over
her ears, and her face the very picture of misery, fearing lest she
should hear its shrieks. I think that this was the one great trouble to
her in her marriage, that her husband would insist on eating fowls and
ducks, and that she had to order them to be killed.

As she is, so are most Burmans. If there is all this trouble about
fowls, it can be imagined how the trouble increases when it comes to
goats or any larger beasts. In the jungle villages meat of any kind at
all is never seen: no animals of any kind are allowed to be killed. An
officer travelling in the district would be reduced to what he could
carry with him, if it were not for an Act of Government obliging
villages to furnish--on payment, of course--supplies for officers and
troops passing through. The mere fact of such a law being necessary is
sufficient proof of the strength of the feeling against taking life.

Of course, all shooting, either for sport or for food, is looked upon as
disgraceful. In many jungle villages where deer abound there are one or
two hunters who make a living by hunting. But they are disgraced men.
They are worse than fishermen, and they will have a terrible penalty to
pay for it all. It will take much suffering to wash from their souls the
cruelty, the blood-thirstiness, the carelessness to suffering, the
absence of compassion, that hunting must produce. 'Is there no food in
the bazaar, that you must go and take the lives of animals?' has been
said to me many a time. And when my house-roof was infested by sparrows,
who dropped grass and eggs all over my rooms, so that I was obliged to
shoot them with a little rifle, this was no excuse. 'You should have
built a sparrow-cote,' they told me. 'If you had built a sparrow-cote,
they would have gone away and left you in peace. They only wanted to
make nests and lay eggs and have little ones, and you went and shot
them.' There are many sparrow-cotes to be seen in the villages.

I might give example after example of this sort, for they happen every
day. We who are meat-eaters, who delight in shooting, who have a horror
of insects and reptiles, are continually coming into collision with the
principles of our neighbours; for even harmful reptiles they do not care
to kill. Truly I believe it is a myth, the story of the Burmese mother
courteously escorting out of the house the scorpion which had just
bitten her baby. A Burmese mother worships her baby as much as the woman
of any other nation does, and I believe there is no crime she would not
commit in its behalf. But if she saw a scorpion walking about in the
fields, she would not kill it as we should. She would step aside and
pass on. 'Poor beast!' she would say, 'why should I hurt it? It never
hurt me.'

The Burman never kills insects out of sheer brutality. If a beetle drone
annoyingly, he will catch it in a handkerchief and put it outside, and
so with a bee. It is a great trouble often to get your Burmese servants
to keep your house free of ants and other annoying creatures. If you
tell them to kill the insects they will, for in that case the sin falls
on you. Without special orders they would rather leave the ants alone.

In the district in which I am now living snakes are very plentiful.
There are cobras and keraits, but the most dreaded is the Russell's
viper. He is a snake that averages from three to four feet long, and is
very thick, with a big head and a stumpy tail. His body is marked very
prettily with spots and blurs of light on a dark, grayish green, and he
is so like the shadows of the grass and weeds in a dusty road, that you
can walk on him quite unsuspectingly. Then he will bite you, and you
die. He comes out usually in the evening before dark, and lies about on
footpaths to catch the home-coming ploughman or reaper, and, contrary to
the custom of other snakes, he will not flee on hearing a footstep. When
anyone approaches he lies more still than ever, not even a movement of
his head betraying him. He is so like the colour of the ground, he hopes
he will be passed unseen; and he is slow and lethargic in his movements,
and so is easy to kill when once detected. As a Burman said, 'If he sees
you first, he kills you; if you see him first, you kill him.'

In this district no Burman hesitates a moment in killing a viper when
he has the chance. Usually he has to do it in self-defence. This viper
is terribly feared, as over a hundred persons a year die here by his
bite. He is so hated and feared that he has become an outcast from the
law that protects all life.

But with other snakes it is not so. There is the hamadryad, for
instance. He is a great snake about ten to fourteen feet long, and he is
the only snake that will attack you first. He is said always to do so,
certainly he often does. One attacked me once when out quail-shooting.
He put up his great neck and head suddenly at a distance of only five or
six feet, and was just preparing to strike, when I literally blew his
head off with two charges of shot.

You would suppose he was vicious enough to be included with the
Russell's viper in the category of the exceptions, but no. Perhaps he is
too rare to excite such fierce and deadly hate as makes the Burman
forget his law and kill the viper. However it may be, the Burman is not
ready to kill the hamadryad. A few weeks ago a friend of mine and myself
came across two little Burman boys carrying a jar with a piece of broken
tile over it. The lads kept lifting up the tile and peeping in, and then
putting the tile on again in a great hurry, and their actions excited
our curiosity. So we called them to come to us, and we looked into the
jar. It was full of baby hamadryads. The lads had found a nest of them
in the absence of the mother, who would have killed them if she had
been there, and had secured all the little snakes. There were seven of
them.

We asked the boys what they intended to do with the snakes, and they
answered that they would show them to their friends in the village. 'And
then?' we asked. And then they would let them go in the water. My friend
killed all the hamadryads on the spot, and gave the boys some coppers,
and we went on. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else? Can you
think of any other schoolboys sparing any animal they caught, much less
poisonous snakes? The extraordinary hold that this tenet of their
religion has upon the Burmese must be seen to be understood. What I
write will sound like some fairy story, I fear, to my people at home. It
is far beneath the truth. The belief that it is wrong to take life is a
belief with them as strong as any belief could be. I do not know
anywhere any command, earthly or heavenly, that is acted up to with such
earnestness as this command is amongst the Burmese. It is an abiding
principle of their daily life.

Where the command came from I do not know. I cannot find any allusion to
it in the life of the great teacher. We know that he ate meat. It seems
to me that it is older even than he. It has been derived both by the
Burmese Buddhists and the Hindus from a faith whose origin is hidden in
the mists of long ago. It is part of that far older faith on which
Buddhism was built, as was Christianity on Judaism.

But if not part of his teaching--and though it is included in the sacred
books, we do not know how much of them are derived from the Buddha
himself--it is in strict accordance with all his teaching. That is one
of the most wonderful points of Buddhism, it is all in accordance; there
are no exceptions.

I have heard amongst Europeans a very curious explanation of this
refusal of Buddhists to take life. 'Buddhists,' they say, 'believe in
the transmigration of souls. They believe that when a man dies his soul
may go into a beast. You could not expect him to kill a bull, when
perchance his grandfather's soul might inhabit there.' This is their
explanation, this is the way they put two and two together to make five.
They know that Buddhists believe in transmigration, they know that
Buddhists do not like to take life, and therefore one is the cause of
the other.

I have mentioned this explanation to Burmans while talking of the
subject, and they have always laughed at it. They had never heard of it
before. It is true that it is part of their great theory of life that
the souls of men have risen from being souls of beasts, and that we may
so relapse if we are not careful. Many stories are told of cases that
have occurred where a man has been reincarnated as an animal, and where
what is now the soul of a man used to live in a beast. But that makes no
difference. Whatever a man may have been, or may be, he is a man now;
whatever a beast may have been, he is a beast now. Never suppose that a
Burman has any other idea than this. To him men are men, and animals are
animals, and men are far the higher. But he does not deduce from this
that man's superiority gives him permission to illtreat or to kill
animals. It is just the reverse. It is because man is so much higher
than the animal that he can and must observe towards animals the very
greatest care, feel for them the very greatest compassion, be good to
them in every way he can. The Burman's motto should be _Noblesse
oblige_; he knows the meaning, if he knows not the words.

For the Burman's compassion towards animals goes very much farther than
a mere reluctance to kill them. Although he has no command on the
subject, it seems to him quite as important to treat animals well during
their lives as to refrain from taking those lives. His refusal to take
life he shares with the Hindu; his perpetual care and tenderness to all
living creatures is all his own. And here I may mention a very curious
contrast, that whereas in India the Hindu will not take life and the
Mussulman will, yet the Mussulman is by reputation far kinder to his
beasts than the Hindu. Here the Burman combines both qualities. He has
all the kindness to animals that the Mahommedan has, and more, and he
has the same horror of taking life that the Hindu has.

Coming from half-starved, over-driven India, it is a revelation to see
the animals in Burma. The village ponies and cattle and dogs in India
are enough to make the heart bleed for their sordid misery, but in Burma
they are a delight to the eye. They are all fat, every one of them--fat
and comfortable and impertinent; even the ownerless dogs are well fed. I
suppose the indifference of the ordinary native of India to animal
suffering comes from the evil of his own lot. He is so very poor, he has
such hard work to find enough for himself and his children, that his
sympathy is all used up. He has none to spare. He is driven into a dumb
heartlessness, for I do not think he is actually cruel.

The Burman is full of the greatest sympathy towards animals of all
kinds, of the greatest understanding of their ways, of the most
humorously good-natured attitude towards them. Looking at them from his
manhood, he has no contempt for them; but the gentle toleration of a
father to very little children who are stupid and troublesome often, but
are very lovable. He feels himself so far above them that he can
condescend towards them, and forbear with them.

His ponies are pictures of fatness and impertinence and go. They never
have any vice because the Burman is never cruel to them; they are never
well trained, partly because he does not know how to train them, partly
because they are so near the aboriginal wild pony as to be incapable of
very much training. But they are willing; they will go for ever, and
are very strong, and they have admirable constitutions and tempers. You
could not make a Burman ill-use his pony if you tried, and I fancy that
to break these little half-wild ponies to go in cabs in crowded streets
requires severe treatment. At least, I never knew but one
hackney-carriage driver either in Rangoon or Mandalay who was a Burman,
and he very soon gave it up. He said that the work was too heavy either
for a pony or a man. I think, perhaps, it was for the safety of the
public that he resigned, for his ponies were the very reverse of
meek--which a native of India says a hackney-carriage pony should
be--and he drove entirely by the light of Nature.

So all the drivers of gharries, as we call them, are natives of India or
half-breeds, and it is amongst them that the work of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals principally lies. While I was in
Rangoon I tried a number of cases of over-driving, of using ponies with
sore withers and the like. I never tried a Burman. Even in Rangoon,
which has become almost Indianized, his natural humanity never left the
Burman. As far as Burmans are concerned, the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals need not exist. They are kinder to their animals
than even the members of the Society could be. Instances occur every
day; here is one of the most striking that I remember.

There is a town in Burma where there are some troops stationed, and
which is the headquarters of the civil administration of the district.
It is, or was then, some distance from a railway-station, and it was
necessary to make some arrangement for the carriage of the mails to and
from the town and station. The Post-Office called for tenders, and at
length it was arranged through the civil authorities that a coach should
run once a day each way to carry the mails and passengers. A native of
India agreed to take the contract--for Burmans seldom or never care to
take them--and he was to comply with certain conditions and receive a
certain subsidy.

There was a great deal of traffic between the town and station, and it
was supposed that the passenger traffic would pay the contractor well,
apart from his mail subsidy. For Burmans are always free with their
money, and the road was long and hot and dusty. I often passed that
coach as I rode. I noticed that the ponies were poor, very poor, and
were driven a little hard, but I saw no reason for interference. It did
not seem to me that any cruelty was committed, nor that the ponies were
actually unfit to be driven. I noticed that the driver used his whip a
good deal, but then some ponies require the whip. I never thought much
about it, as I always rode my own ponies, and they always shied at the
coach, but I should have noticed if there had been anything remarkable.
Towards the end of the year it became necessary to renew the contract,
and the contractor was approached on the subject. He said he was
willing to continue the contract for another year if the mail subsidy
was largely increased. He said he had lost money on that year's working.
When asked how he could possibly have lost considering the large number
of people who were always passing up and down, he said that they did not
ride in his coach. Only the European soldiers and a few natives of India
came with him. Officers had their own ponies and rode, and the Burmans
either hired a bullock-cart or walked. They hardly ever came in his
coach, but he could not say what the reason might be.

So an inquiry was made, and the Burmese were asked why they did not ride
on the coach. Were the fares too high?--was it uncomfortable? But no, it
was for neither of these reasons that they left the coach to the
soldiers and natives of India. It was because of the ponies. No Burman
would care to ride behind ponies who were treated as these ponies
were--half fed, overdriven, whipped. It was a misery to see them; it was
twice a misery to drive behind them. 'Poor beasts!' they said; 'you can
see their ribs, and when they come to the end of a stage they are fit to
fall down and die. They should be turned out to graze.'

The opinion was universal. The Burmans preferred to spend twice or
thrice the money and hire a bullock-cart and go slowly, while the coach
flashed past them in a whirl of dust, or they preferred to walk. Many
and many times have I seen the roadside rest-houses full of travellers
halting for a few minutes' rest. They walked while the coach came by
empty; and nearly all of them could have afforded the fare. It was a
very striking instance of what pure kind-heartedness will do, for there
would have been no religious command broken by going in the coach. It
was the pure influence of compassion towards the beasts and refusal to
be a party to such hard-heartedness. And yet, as I have said, I do not
think the law could have interfered with success. Surely a people who
could act like this have the very soul of religion in their hearts,
although the act was not done in the name of religion.

All the animals--the cattle, the ponies, and the buffaloes--are so tame
that it is almost an unknown thing for anyone to get hurt.

The cattle are sometimes afraid of the white face and strange attire of
a European, but you can walk through the herds as they come home in the
evening with perfect confidence that they will not hurt you. Even a cow
with a young calf will only eye you suspiciously; and with the Burmans
even the huge water buffaloes are absolutely tame. You can see a herd of
these great beasts, with horns six feet across, come along under the
command of a very small boy or girl perched on one of their broad backs.
He flourishes a little stick, and issues his commands like a general. It
is one of the quaintest imaginable sights to see this little fellow get
off his steed, run after a straggler, and beat him with his stick. The
buffalo eyes his master, whom he could abolish with one shake of his
head, submissively, and takes the beating, which he probably feels about
as much as if a straw fell on him, good-humouredly. The children never
seem to come to grief. Buffaloes occasionally charge Europeans, but the
only place where I have known of Burmans being killed by buffaloes is in
the Kalè Valley. There the buffaloes are turned out into the jungle for
eight months in the year, and are only caught for ploughing and carting.
Naturally they are quite wild; in fact, many of them are the offspring
of wild bulls.

The Burmans, too, are very fond of dogs. Their villages are full of
dogs; but, as far as I know, they never use them for anything, and they
are never trained to do anything. They are supposed to be useful as
watch-dogs, but I do not think they are very good even at that. I have
surrounded a village before dawn, and never a dog barked, and I have
heard them bark all night at nothing.

But when a Burman sees a fox-terrier or any English dog his delight is
unfeigned. When we first took Upper Burma, and such sights were rare,
half a village would turn out to see the little 'tail-less' dog trotting
along after its master. And if the terrier would 'beg,' then he would
win all hearts. I am not only referring to children, but to grown men
and women; and then there is always something peculiarly childlike and
frank in these children of the great river.

Only to-day, as I was walking up the bank of the river in the early
dawn, I heard some Burman boatmen discussing my fox-terrier. They were
about fifteen yards from the shore, poling their boat up against the
current, which is arduous work; and as I passed them my little dog ran
down the bank and looked at them across the water, and they saw her.

'See now,' said one man to another, pausing for a moment with his pole
in his hand--'see the little white dog with the brown face, how wise she
looks!'

'And how pretty!' said a man steering in the stern. 'Come!' he cried,
holding out his hand to it.

But the dog only made a splash in the water with her paws, and then
turned and ran after me. The boatmen laughed and resumed their poling,
and I passed on. In the still morning across the still water I could
hear every word, but I hardly took any note; I have heard it so often.
Only now when I come to write on this subject do I remember.

It has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is a manly thing to
be indifferent to pain--not to our own pain only, but to that of all
others. To be sorry for a hunted hare, to compassionate the wounded
deer, to shrink from torturing the brute creation, has been accounted by
us as namby-pamby sentimentalism, not fit for man, fit only for a
squeamish woman. To the Burman it is one of the highest of all virtues.
He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded on compassion
and kindness and sympathy--that nothing of great value can exist without
them. Do you think that a Burmese boy would be allowed to birds'-nest,
or worry rats with a terrier, or go ferreting? Not so. These would be
crimes.

That this kindness and compassion for animals has very far-reaching
results no one can doubt. If you are kind to animals, you will be kind,
too, to your fellow-man. It is really the same thing, the same feeling
in both cases. If to be superior in position to an animal justifies you
in torturing it, so it would do with men. If you are in a better
position than another man, richer, stronger, higher in rank, that
would--that does often in our minds--justify ill-treatment and contempt.
Our innate feeling towards all that we consider inferior to ourselves is
scorn; the Burman's is compassion. You can see this spirit coming out in
every action of their daily life, in their dealings with each other, in
their thoughts, in their speech. 'You are so strong, have you no
compassion for him who is weak, who is tempted, who has fallen?' How
often have I heard this from a Burman's lips! How often have I seen him
act up to it! It seems to them the necessary corollary of strength that
the strong man should be sympathetic and kind. It seems to them an
unconscious confession of weakness to be scornful, revengeful,
inconsiderate. Courtesy, they say, is the mark of a great man,
discourtesy of a little one. No one who feels his position secure will
lose his temper, will persecute, will be disdainful. Their word for a
fool and for a hasty-tempered man is the same. To them it is the same
thing, one infers the other. And so their attitude towards animals is
but an example of their attitude to each other. That an animal or a man
should be lower and weaker than you is the strongest claim he can have
on your humanity, and your courtesy and consideration for him is the
clearest proof of your own superiority. And so in his dealings with
animals the Buddhist considers himself, consults his own dignity, his
own strength, and is kind and compassionate to them out of the greatness
of his own heart. Nothing is more beautiful than the Burman in his ways
with his children, and his beasts, with all who are lesser than himself.

Even to us, who think so very differently from him on many points, there
is a great and abiding charm in all this, to which we can find only one
exception; for to our ideas there is one exception, and it is this: No
Burman will take any life if he can help it, and therefore, if any
animal injure itself, he will not kill it--not even to put it out of its
pain, as we say. I have seen bullocks split on slippery roads, I have
seen ponies with broken legs, I have seen goats with terrible wounds
caused by accidental falls, and no one would kill them. If, when you are
out shooting, your beaters pick up a wounded hare or partridge, do not
suppose that they wring its neck; you must yourself do that, or it will
linger on till you get home. Under no circumstances will they take the
life even of a wounded beast. And if you ask them, they will say: 'If a
man be sick, do you shoot him? If he injure his spine so that he will be
a cripple for life, do you put him out of his pain?'

If you reply that men and beasts are different, they will answer that in
this point they do not recognise the difference. 'Poor beast! let him
live out his little life.' And they will give him grass and water till
he dies.

This is the exception that I meant, but now, after I have written it, I
am not so sure. Is it an exception?




CHAPTER XXI

ALL LIFE IS ONE

     'I heard a voice that cried,
     "Balder the Beautiful
     Is dead, is dead,"
     And through the misty air
     Passed like the mournful cry
     Of sunward-sailing cranes.'
                            TEGNER'S _Drapa_.


All romance has died out of our woods and hills in England, all our
fairies are dead long ago. Knowledge so far has brought us only death.
Later on it will bring us a new life. It is even now showing us how this
may be, and is bringing us face to face again with Nature, and teaching
us to know and understand the life that there is about us. Science is
telling us again what we knew long ago and forgot, that our life is not
apart from the life about us, but of it. Everything is akin to us, and
when we are more accustomed to this knowledge, when we have ceased to
regard it as a new, strange teaching, and know that we are but seeing
again with clearer eyes what a half-knowledge blinded us to, then the
world will be bright and beautiful to us as it was long ago.

But now all is dark. There are no dryads in our trees, nor nymphs among
the reeds that fringe the river; even our peaks hold for us no guardian
spirit, that may take the reckless trespasser and bind him in a rock for
ever. And because we have lost our belief in fairies, because we do not
now think that there are goblins in our caves, because there is no
spirit in the winds nor voice in the thunder, we have come to think that
the trees and the rocks, the flowers and the storm, are all dead things.
They are made up, we say, of materials that we know, they are governed
by laws that we have discovered, and there is no life anywhere in
Nature.

And yet this cannot be true. Far truer is it to believe in fairies and
in spirits than in nothing at all; for surely there is life all about
us. Who that has lived out alone in the forest, that has lain upon the
hillside and seen the mountains clothe themselves in lustrous shadows
shot with crimson when the day dies, who that has heard the sigh come up
out of the ravines where the little breezes move, that has watched the
trees sway their leaves to and fro, beckoning to each other with wayward
amorous gestures, but has known that these are not dead things?

Watch the stream coming down the hill with a flash and a laugh in the
sunlight, look into the dark brown pools in the deep shadows beneath
the rocks, or voyage a whole night upon the breast of the great river,
drifting past ghostly monasteries and silent villages, and then say if
there be no life in the waters, if they, too, are dead things. There is
no consolation like the consolation of Nature, no sympathy like the
sympathy of the hills and streams; and sympathy comes from life. There
is no sympathy with the dead.

When you are alone in the forest all this life will come and talk to
you, if you are quiet and understand. There is love deep down in the
passionate heart of the flower, as there is in the little quivering
honeysucker flitting after his mate, as there was in Romeo long ago.
There is majesty in the huge brown precipice greater than ever looked
from the face of a king. All life is one. The soul that moves within you
when you hear the deer call to each other far above in the misty meadows
of the night is the same soul that moves in everything about you. No
people who have lived much with Nature have failed to descry this. They
have recognised the life, they have felt the sympathy of the world about
them, and to this life they have given names and forms as they would to
friends whom they loved. Fairies and goblins, fauns and spirits, these
are but names and personifications of a real life. But to him who has
never felt this life, who has never been wooed by the trees and hills,
these things are but foolishness, of course.

To the Burman, not less than to the Greek of long ago, all nature is
alive. The forest and the river and the mountains are full of spirits,
whom the Burmans call Nats. There are all kinds of Nats, good and bad,
great and little, male and female, now living round about us. Some of
them live in the trees, especially in the huge fir-tree that shades half
an acre without the village; or among the fernlike fronds of the
tamarind; and you will often see beneath such a tree, raised upon poles
or nestled in the branches, a little house built of bamboo and thatch,
perhaps two feet square. You will be told when you ask that this is the
house of the Tree-Nat. Flowers will be offered sometimes, and a little
water or rice maybe, to the Nat, never supposing that he is in need of
such things, but as a courteous and graceful thing to do; for it is not
safe to offend these Nats, and many of them are very powerful. There is
a Nat of whom I know, whose home is in a great tree at the crossing of
two roads, and he has a house there built for him, and he is much
feared. He is such a great Nat that it is necessary when you pass his
house to dismount from your pony and walk to a respectful distance. If
you haughtily ride past, trouble will befall you. A friend of mine
riding there one day rejected all the advice of his Burmese companions
and did not dismount, and a few days later he was taken deadly sick of
fever. He very nearly died, and had to go away to the Straits for a
sea-trip to take the fever out of his veins. It was a very near thing
for him. That was in the Burmese times, of course. After that he always
dismounted. But all Nats are not so proud nor so much to be feared as
this one, and it is usually safe to ride past.

Even as I write I am under the shadow of a tree where a Nat used to
live, and the headman of the village has been telling me all about it.
This is a Government rest-house on a main road between two stations, and
is built for Government officials travelling on duty about their
districts. To the west of it is a grand fig-tree of the kind called
Nyaungbin by the Burmese. It is a very beautiful tree, though now a
little bare, for it is just before the rains; but it is a great tree
even now, and two months hence it will be glorious. It was never
planted, the headman tells me, but came up of itself very many years
ago, and when it was grown to full size a Nat came to live in it. The
Nat lived in the tree for many years, and took great care of it. No one
might injure it or any living creature near it, so jealous was the Nat
of his abode. And the villagers built a little Nat-house, such as I have
described, under the branches, and offered flowers and water, and all
things went well with those who did well. But if anyone did ill the Nat
punished him. If he cut the roots of the tree, the Nat hurt his feet;
and if he injured the branches, the Nat injured his arms; and if he cut
the trunk, the Nat came down out of the tree, and killed the
sacrilegious man right off. There was no running away, because, as you
know, the headman said, Nats can go a great deal faster than any man.
Many men, careless strangers, who camped under the tree and then abused
the hospitality of the Nat by hunting near his home, came to severe
grief.

But the Nat has gone now, alas! The tree is still there, but the Nat has
fled away these many years.

'I suppose he didn't care to stay,' said the headman. 'You see that the
English Government officials came and camped here, and didn't fear the
Nats. They had fowls killed here for their dinner, and they sang and
shouted; and they shot the green pigeons who ate his figs, and the
little doves that nested in his branches.'

All these things were an abomination to the Nat, who hated loud, rough
talk and abuse, and to whom all life was sacred.

So the Nat went away. The headman did not know where he was gone, but
there are plenty of trees.

'He has gone somewhere to get peace,' the headman said. 'Somewhere in
the jungle, where no one ever comes save the herd-boy and the deer, he
will be living in a tree, though I do not think he will easily find a
tree so beautiful as this.'

The headman seemed very sorry about it, and so did several villagers who
were with him; and I suggested that if the Nat-houses were rebuilt, and
flowers and water offered, the Nat might know and return. I even offered
to contribute myself, that it might be taken as an _amende honorable_ on
behalf of the English Government. But they did not think this would be
any use. No Nat would come where there was so much going and coming, so
little care for life, such a disregard for pity and for peace. If we
were to take away our rest-house, well then, perhaps, after a time,
something could be done, but not under present circumstances.

And so, besides dethroning the Burmese king, and occupying his golden
palace, we are ousting from their pleasant homes the guardian spirits of
the trees. They flee before the cold materialism of our belief, before
the brutality of our manners. The headman did not say this; he did not
mean to say this, for he is a very courteous man and a great friend of
all of us; but that is what it came to, I think.

The trunk of this tree is more than ten feet through--not a round bole,
but like the pillar in a Gothic cathedral, as of many smaller boles
growing together; and the roots spread out into a pedestal before
entering the ground. The trunk does not go up very far. At perhaps
twenty-five feet above the ground it divides into a myriad of smaller
trunks, not branches, till it looks more like a forest than a single
tree; it is full of life still. Though the pigeons and the doves come
here no longer, there are a thousand other birds flitting to and fro in
their aerial city and chirping to each other. Two tiny squirrels have
just run along a branch nearly over my head, in a desperate hurry
apparently, their tails cocked over their backs, and a sky blue
chameleon is standing on the trunk near where it parts. There is always
a breeze in this great tree; the leaves are always moving, and there is
a continuous rustle and murmur up there. A mango-tree and tamarind near
by are quite still. Not a breath shakes their leaves; they are as still
as stone, but the shadow of the fig-tree is chequered with ever-changing
lights. Is the Nat really gone? Perhaps not; perhaps he is still there,
still caring for his tree, only shy now and distrustful, and therefore
no more seen.

Whole woods are enchanted sometimes, and no one dare enter them. Such a
wood I know, far away north, near the hills, which is full of Nats.
There was a great deal of game in it, for animals sought shelter there,
and no one dared to disturb them; not the villagers to cut firewood, nor
the girls seeking orchids, nor the hunter after his prey, dared to
trespass upon that enchanted ground.

'What would happen,' I asked once, 'if anyone went into that wood? Would
he be killed, or what?'

And I was told that no one could tell what would happen, only that he
would never be seen again alive. 'The Nats would confiscate him,' they
said, 'for intruding on their privacy.' But what they would do to him
after the confiscation no one seemed to be quite sure. I asked the
official who was with me, a fine handsome Burman who had been with us in
many fights, whether he would go into the wood with me, but he declined
at once. Enemies are one thing, Nats are quite another, and a very much
more dreadful thing. You can escape from enemies, as witness my
companion, who had been shot at times without number and had only once
been hit, in the leg, but you cannot escape Nats. Once, he told me,
there were two very sacrilegious men, hunters by profession, only more
abandoned than even the majority of hunters, and they went into this
wood to hunt 'They didn't care for Nats,' they said. They didn't care
for anything at all apparently. 'They were absolutely without reverence,
worse than any beast,' said my companion.

So they went into the wood to shoot, and they never came out again. A
few days later their bare bones were found, flung out upon the road near
the enchanted wood. The Nats did not care to have even the bones of such
scoundrels in their wood, and so thrust them out. That was what happened
to them, and that was what might happen to us if we went in there. We
did not go.

Though the Nats of the forest will not allow even one of their beasts to
be slain, the Nats of the rivers are not so exclusive. I do not think
fish are ever regarded in quite the same light as animals. It is true
that a fervent Buddhist will not kill even a fish, but a fisherman is
not quite such a reprobate as a hunter in popular estimation. And the
Nats think so too, for the Nat of a pool will not forbid all fishing.
You must give him his share; you must be respectful to him, and not
offend him; and then he will fill your nets with gleaming fish, and all
will go well with you. If not, of course, you will come to grief; your
nets will be torn, and your boat upset; and finally, if obstinate, you
will be drowned. A great arm will seize you, and you will be pulled
under and disappear for ever.

A Nat is much like a human being; if you treat him well he will treat
you well, and conversely. Courtesy is never wasted on men or Nats, at
least, so a Burman tells me.

The highest Nats live in the mountains. The higher the Nat the higher
the mountain; and when you get to a very high peak indeed, like
Mainthong Peak in Wuntho, you encounter very powerful Nats.

They tell a story of Mainthong Peak and the Nats there, how all of a
sudden, one day in 1885, strange noises came from the hill. High up on
his mighty side was heard the sound of great guns firing slowly and
continuously; there was the thunder of falling rocks, cries as of
someone bewailing a terrible calamity, and voices calling from the
precipices. The people living in their little hamlets about his feet
were terrified. Something they knew had happened of most dire import to
them, some catastrophe which they were powerless to prevent, which they
could not even guess. But when a few weeks later there came even into
those remote villages the news of the fall of Mandalay, of the surrender
of the king, of the 'great treachery,' they knew that this was what the
Nats had been sorrowing over. All the Nats everywhere seem to have been
distressed at our arrival, to hate our presence, and to earnestly desire
our absence. They are the spirits of the country and of the people, and
they cannot abide a foreign domination.

But the greatest place for Nats is the Popa Mountain, which is an
extinct volcano standing all alone about midway between the river and
the Shan Mountains. It is thus very conspicuous, having no hills near it
to share its majesty; and being in sight from many of the old capitals,
it is very well known in history and legend. It is covered with dense
forest, and the villages close about are few. At the top there is a
crater with a broken side, and a stream comes flowing out of this break
down the mountain. Probably it was the denseness of its forests, the
abundance of water, and its central position, more than its guardian
Nats, that made it for so many years the last retreating-place of the
half-robber, half-patriot bands that made life so uneasy for us. But the
Nats of Popa Mountains are very famous.

When any foreigner was taken into the service of the King of Burma he
had to swear an oath of fidelity. He swore upon many things, and among
them were included 'all the Nats in Popa.' No Burman would have dared to
break an oath sworn in such a serious way as this, and they did not
imagine that anyone else would. It was and is a very dangerous thing to
offend the Popa Nats; for they are still there in the mountain, and
everyone who goes there must do them reverence.

A friend of mine, a police officer, who was engaged in trying to catch
the last of the robber chiefs who hid near Popa, told me that when he
went up the mountain shooting he, too, had to make offerings. Some way
up there is a little valley dark with overhanging trees, and a stream
flows slowly along it. It is an enchanted valley, and if you look
closely you will see that the stream is not as other streams, for it
flows uphill. It comes rushing into the valley with a great display of
foam and froth, and it leaves in a similar way, tearing down the rocks,
and behaving like any other boisterous hill rivulet; but in the valley
itself it lies under a spell. It is slow and dark, and has a surface
like a mirror, and it flows uphill. There is no doubt about it; anyone
can see it. When they came here, my friend tells me, they made a halt,
and the Burmese hunters with him unpacked his breakfast. He did not want
to eat then, he said, but they explained that it was not for him, but
for the Nats. All his food was unpacked, cold chicken and tinned meats,
and jam and eggs and bread, and it was spread neatly on a cloth under a
tree. Then the hunters called upon the Nats to come and take anything
they desired, while my friend wondered what he should do if the Nats
took all his food and left him with nothing. But no Nats came, although
the Burmans called again and again. So they packed up the food, saying
that now the Nats would be pleased at the courtesy shown to them, and
that my friend would have good sport. Presently they went on, leaving,
however, an egg or two and a little salt, in case the Nats might be
hungry later, and true enough it was that they did have good luck. At
other times, my friend says, when he did not observe this ceremony, he
saw nothing to shoot at all, but on this day he did well.

The former history of all Nats is not known. Whether they have had a
previous existence in another form, and if so, what, is a secret that
they usually keep carefully to themselves, but the history of the Popa
Nats is well known. Everyone who lives near the great hill can tell you
that, for it all happened not so long ago. How long exactly no one can
say, but not so long that the details of the story have become at all
clouded by the mists of time.

They were brother and sister, these Popa Nats, and they had lived away
up North. The brother was a blacksmith, and he was a very strong man. He
was the strongest man in all the country; the blow of his hammer on the
anvil made the earth tremble, and his forge was as the mouth of hell. No
one was so much feared and so much sought after as he. And as he was
strong, so his sister was beautiful beyond all the maidens of the time.
Their father and mother were dead, and there was no one but those two,
the brother and sister, so they loved each other dearly, and thought of
no one else. The brother brought home no wife to his house by the forge.
He wanted no one while he had his sister there, and when lovers came
wooing to her, singing amorous songs in the amber dusk, she would have
nothing to do with them. So they lived there together, he growing
stronger and she more beautiful every day, till at last a change came.

The old king died, and a new king came to the throne, and orders were
sent about to all the governors of provinces and other officials that
the most beautiful maidens were to be sent down to the Golden City to be
wives to the great king. So the governor of that country sent for the
blacksmith and his sister to his palace, and told them there what orders
he had received, and asked the blacksmith to give his sister that she
might be sent as queen to the king. We are not told what arguments the
governor used to gain his point, but only this, that when he failed, he
sent the girl in unto his wife, and there she was persuaded to go. There
must have been something very tempting, to one who was but a village
girl, in the prospect of being even one of the lesser queens, of living
in the palace, the centre of the world. So she consented at last, and
her brother consented, and the girl was sent down under fitting escort
to find favour in the eyes of her king. But the blacksmith refused to
go. It was no good the governor saying such a great man as he must come
to high honour in the Golden City, it was useless for the girl to beg
and pray him to come with her--he always refused. So she sailed away
down the great river, and the blacksmith returned to his forge.

As the governor had said, the girl was acceptable in the king's sight,
and she was made at last one of the principal queens, and of all she had
most power over the king. They say she was most beautiful, that her
presence was as soothing as shade after heat, that her form was as
graceful as a young tree, and the palms of her hands were like lotus
blossoms. She had enemies, of course. Most of the other queens were her
enemies, and tried to do her harm. But it was useless telling tales of
her to the king, for the king never believed; and she walked so wisely
and so well, that she never fell into any snare. But still the plots
never ceased.

There was one day when she was sitting alone in the garden pavilion,
with the trees making moving shadows all about her, that the king came
to her. They talked for a time, and the king began to speak to her of
her life before she came to the palace, a thing he had never done
before. But he seemed to know all about it, nevertheless, and he spoke
to her of her brother, and said that he, the king, had heard how no man
was so strong as this blacksmith, the brother of the queen. The queen
said it was true, and she talked on and on and praised her brother, and
babbled of the days of her childhood, when he carried her on his great
shoulder, and threw her into the air, catching her again. She was
delighted to talk of all these things, and in her pleasure she forgot
her discretion, and said that her brother was wise as well as strong,
and that all the people loved him. Never was there such a man as he. The
king did not seem very pleased with it all, but he said only that the
blacksmith was a great man, and that the queen must write to him to come
down to the city, that the king might see him of whom there was such
great report.

Then the king got up and went away, and the queen began to doubt; and
the more she thought the more she feared she had not been acting wisely
in talking as she did, for it is not wise to praise anyone to a king.
She went away to her own room to consider, and to try if she could hear
of any reason why the king should act as he had done, and desire her
brother to come to him to the city; and she found out that it was all a
plot of her enemies. Herself they had failed to injure, so they were now
plotting against her through her brother. They had gone to the king, and
filled his ear with slanderous reports. They had said that the queen's
brother was the strongest man in all the kingdom. 'He was cunning, too,'
they said, 'and very popular among all the people; and he was so puffed
up with pride, now that his sister was a queen, that there was nothing
he did not think he could do.' They represented to the king how
dangerous such a man was in a kingdom, that it would be quite easy for
him to raise such rebellion as the king could hardly put down, and that
he was just the man to do such a thing. Nay, it was indeed proved that
he must be disloyally plotting something, or he would have come down
with his sister to the city when she came. But now many months had
passed, and he never came. Clearly he was not to be trusted. Any other
man whose sister was a queen would have come and lived in the palace,
and served the king and become a minister, instead of staying up there
and pretending to be a blacksmith.

The king's mind had been much disturbed by this, for it seemed to him
that it must be in part true; and he went to the queen, as I have said,
and his suspicions had not been lulled by what she told him, so he had
ordered her to write to her brother to come down to the palace.

The queen was terrified when she saw what a mistake she had made, and
how she had fallen into the trap of her enemies; but she hoped that the
king would forget, and she determined that she would send no order to
her brother to come. But the next day the king came back to the subject,
and asked her if she had yet sent the letter, and she said 'No!' The
king was very angry at this disobedience to his orders, and he asked her
how it came that she had not done as he had commanded, and sent a
letter to her brother to call him to the palace.

Then the queen fell at the king's feet and told him all her fears that
her brother was sent for only to be imprisoned or executed, and she
begged and prayed the king to leave him in peace up there in his
village. She assured the king that he was loyal and good, and would do
no evil.

The king was rather abashed that his design had been discovered, but he
was firm in his purpose. He assured the queen that the blacksmith should
come to no harm, but rather good; and he ordered the queen to obey him,
threatening her that if she refused he would be sure that she was
disloyal also, and there would be no alternative but to send and arrest
the blacksmith by force, and punish her, the queen, too. Then the queen
said that if the king swore to her that her brother should come to no
harm, she would write as ordered. _And the king swore._

So the queen wrote to her brother, and adjured him by his love to her to
come down to the Golden City. She said she had dire need of him, and she
told him that the king had sworn that no harm should come to him.

The letter was sent off by a king's messenger. In due time the
blacksmith arrived, and he was immediately seized and thrown into prison
to await his trial.

When the queen saw that she had been deceived, she was in despair. She
tried by every way, by tears and entreaties and caresses, to move the
king, but all without avail. Then she tried by plotting and bribery to
gain her brother's release, but it was all in vain. The day for trial
came quickly, and the blacksmith was tried, and he was condemned and
sentenced to be burnt alive by the river on the following day.

On the evening of the day of trial the queen sent a message to the king
to come to her; and when the king came reluctantly, fearing a renewal of
entreaties, expecting a woman made of tears and sobs, full of grief, he
found instead that the queen had dried her eyes and dressed herself
still more beautifully than ever, till she seemed to the king the very
pearl among women. And she told the king that he was right, and she was
wrong. She said, putting her arms about him and caressing him, that she
had discovered that it was true that her brother had been plotting
against the king, and therefore his death was necessary. It was
terrible, she said, to find that her brother, whom she had always held
as a pattern, was no better than a traitor; but it was even so, and her
king was the wisest of all kings to find it out.

The king was delighted to find his queen in this mood, and he soothed
her and talked to her kindly and sweetly, for he really loved her,
though he had given in to bad advice about the brother. And when the
king's suspicions were lulled, the queen said to him that she had now
but one request to make, and that was that she might have permission to
go down with her maids to the river-shore in the early morning, and see
herself the execution of her traitor brother. The king, who would now
have granted her anything--anything she asked, except just that one
thing, the life of her brother--gave permission; and then the queen said
that she was tired and wished to rest after all the trouble of the last
few days, and would the king leave her. So the king left her to herself,
and went away to his own chambers.

Very early in the morning, ere the crimson flush upon the mountains had
faded in the light of day, a vast crowd was gathered below the city, by
the shore of the great river. Very many thousands were there, of many
countries and peoples, crowding down to see a man die, to see a traitor
burnt to death for his sins, for there is nothing men like so much as to
see another man die.

Upon a little headland jutting out into the river the pyre was raised,
with brushwood and straw, to burn quickly, and an iron post in the
middle to which the man was to be chained. At one side was a place
reserved, and presently down from the palace in a long procession came
the queen and her train of ladies to the place kept for her. Guards were
put all about to prevent the people crowding; and then came the
soldiers, and in the midst of them the blacksmith; and amid many cries
of 'Traitor, traitor!' and shouts of derision, he was bound to the iron
post within the wood and the straw, and the guards fell back.

The queen sat and watched it all, and said never a word. Fire was put to
the pyre, and it crept rapidly up in long red tongues with coils of
black smoke. It went very quickly, for the wood was very dry, and a
light breeze came laughing up the river and helped it. The flames played
about the man chained there in the midst, and he made never a sign; only
he looked steadily across at the purple mountain where his home lay, and
it was clear that in a few more moments he would be dead. There was a
deep silence everywhere.

Then of a sudden, before anyone knew, before a hand could be held out to
hinder her, the queen rose from her seat and ran to the pyre. In a
moment she was there and had thrown herself into the flames, and with
her arms about her brother's neck she turned and faced the myriad eyes
that glared upon them--the queen, in all the glory of her beauty,
glittering with gems, and the man with great shackled bare limbs,
dressed in a few rags, his muscles already twisted with the agony of the
fire. A great cry of horror came from the people, and there was the
movement of guards and officers rushing to stop the fire; but it was all
of no use. A flash of red flames came out of the logs, folding these
twain like an imperial cloak, a whirl of sparks towered into the air,
and when one could see again the woman and her brother were no longer
there. They were dead and burnt, and the bodies mingled with the ashes
of the fire. She had cost her brother his life, and she went with him
into death.


Some days after this a strange report was brought to the palace. By the
landing-place near the spot where the fire had been was a great
fig-tree. It was so near to the landing-place, and was such a
magnificent tree, that travellers coming from the boats, or waiting for
a boat to arrive, would rest in numbers under its shade. But the report
said that something had happened there. To travellers sleeping beneath
the tree at night it was stated that two Nats had appeared, very large
and very beautiful, a man Nat and a woman Nat, and had frightened them
very much indeed. Noises were heard in the tree, voices and cries, and a
strange terror came upon those who approached it. Nay, it was even said
that men had been struck by unseen hands and severely hurt, and others,
it was said, had disappeared. Children who went to play under the tree
were never seen again: the Nats took them, and their parents sought for
them in vain. So the landing-place was deserted, and a petition was
brought to the king, and the king gave orders that the tree should be
hewn down. So the tree was cut down, and its trunk was thrown into the
river; it floated away out of sight, and nothing happened to the men
who cut the tree, though they were deadly afraid.

The tree floated down for days, until at last it stranded near a
landing-place that led to a large town, where the governor of these
parts lived; and at this landing-place the portents that had frightened
the people at the great city reappeared and terrified the travellers
here too, and they petitioned the governor.

The governor sought out a great monk, a very holy man learned in these
matters, and sent him to inquire, and the monk came down to the tree and
spoke. He said that if any Nats lived in the tree, they should speak to
him and tell him what they wanted. 'It is not fit,' he said, 'for great
Nats to terrify the poor villagers at the landing-place. Let the Nats
speak and say what they require. All that they want shall be given.' And
the Nats spake and said that they wanted a place to live in where they
could be at peace, and the monk answered for the governor that all his
land was at their disposal. 'Let the Nats choose,' he said; 'all the
country is before them.' So the Nats chose, and said that they would
have Popa Mountain, and the monk agreed.

The Nats then left the tree and went away, far away inland, to the great
Popa Mountain, and took up their abode there, and all the people there
feared and reverenced them, and even made to their honour two statues
with golden heads and set them up on the mountain.

This is the story of the Popa Nats, the greatest Nats of all the
country of Burma, the guardian spirits of the mysterious mountain. The
golden heads of the statues are now in one of our treasuries, put there
for safe custody during the troubles, though it is doubtful if even then
anyone would have dared to steal them, so greatly are the Nats feared.
And the hunters and the travellers there must offer to the Nats little
offerings, if they would be safe in these forests, and even the young
man must obtain permission from the Nats before he marry.

I think these stories that I have told, stories selected from very many
that I have heard, will show what sort of spirits these are that the
Burmese have peopled their trees and rivers with; will show what sort of
religion it is that underlies, without influencing, the creed of the
Buddha that they follow. It is of the very poetry of superstition, free
from brutality, from baseness, from anything repulsive, springing, as I
have said, from their innate sympathy with Nature and recognition of the
life that works in all things. It always seems to me that beliefs such
as these are a great key to the nature of a people, are, apart from all
interest in their beauty, and in their akinness to other beliefs, of
great value in trying to understand the character of a nation.

For to beings such as Nats and fairies the people who believe in them
will attribute such qualities as are predominant in themselves, as they
consider admirable; and, indeed, all supernatural beings are but the
magnified shadows of man cast by the light of his imagination upon the
mists of his ignorance.

Therefore, when you find that a people make their spirits beautiful and
fair, calm and even tempered, loving peace and the beauty of the trees
and rivers, shrinkingly averse from loud words, from noises, and from
the taking of life, it is because the people themselves think that these
are great qualities. If no stress be laid upon their courage, their
activity, their performance of great deeds, it is because the people who
imagine them care not for such things. There is no truer guide, I am
sure, to the heart of a young people than their superstitions; these
they make entirely for themselves, apart from their religion, which is,
to a certain extent, made for them. That is why I have written this
chapter on Nats: not because I think it affects Buddhism very much one
way or another, but because it seems to me to reveal the people
themselves, because it helps us to understand them better, to see more
with their eyes, to be in unison with their ideas--because it is a great
key to the soul of the people.




CHAPTER XXII

DEATH, THE DELIVERER

     'The end of my life is near at hand; seven days hence, like a man
     who rids himself of a heavy load, I shall be free from the burden
     of my body.'--_Death of the Buddha._


There is a song well known to all the Burmese, the words of which are
taken from the sacred writings. It is called the story of Ma Pa Da, and
it was first told to me by a Burmese monk, long ago, when I was away on
the frontier.

It runs like this:

In the time of the Buddha, in the city of Thawatti, there was a certain
rich man, a merchant, who had many slaves. Slaves in those days, and,
indeed, generally throughout the East, were held very differently to
slaves in Europe. They were part of the family, and were not saleable
without good reason, and there was a law applicable to them. They were
not _hors de la loi_, like the slaves of which we have conception. There
are many cases quoted of sisters being slaves to sisters, and of
brothers to brothers, quoted not for the purpose of saying that this
was an uncommon occurrence, but merely of showing points of law in such
cases.

One day in the market the merchant bought another slave, a young man,
handsome and well mannered, and took him to his house, and kept him
there with his family and the other slaves. The young man was earnest
and careful in his work, and the merchant approved of him, and his
fellow-slaves liked him. But Ma Pa Da, the merchant's daughter, fell in
love with him. The slave was much troubled at this, and he did his best
to avoid her; but he was a slave and under orders, and what could he do?
When she would come to him secretly and make love to him, and say, 'Let
us flee together, for we love each other,' he would refuse, saying that
he was a slave, and the merchant would be very angry. He said he could
not do such a thing. And yet when the girl said, 'Let us flee, for we
love each other,' he knew that it was true, and that he loved her as she
loved him; and it was only his honour to his master that held him from
doing as she asked.

But because his heart was not of iron, and there are few men that can
resist when a woman comes and woos them, he at last gave way; and they
fled away one night, the girl and the slave, taking with them her jewels
and some money. They travelled rapidly and in great fear, and did not
rest till they came to a city far away where the merchant would never,
they thought, think of searching for them.

Here, in this city where no one knew of their history, they lived in
great happiness, husband and wife, trading with the money they had with
them.

And in time a little child was born to them.

About two or three years after this it became necessary for the husband
to take a journey, and he started forth with his wife and child. The
journey was a very long one, and they were unduly delayed; and so it
happened that while still in the forest the wife fell ill, and could not
go on any further. So the husband built a hut of branches and leaves,
and there, in the solitude of the forest, was born to them another
little son.

The mother recovered rapidly, and in a little time she was well enough
to go on. They were to start next morning on their way again; and in the
evening the husband went out, as was his custom, to cut firewood, for
the nights were cold and damp.

Ma Pa Da waited and waited for him, but he never came back.

The sun set and the dark rose out of the ground, and the forest became
full of whispers, but he never came. All night she watched and waited,
caring for her little ones, fearful to leave them alone, till at last
the gray light came down, down from the sky to the branches, and from
the branches to the ground, and she could see her way. Then, with her
new-born babe in her arms and the elder little fellow trotting by her
side, she went out to search for her husband. Soon enough she found him,
not far off, stiff and cold beside his half-cut bundle of firewood. A
snake had bitten him on the ankle, and he was dead.

So Ma Pa Da was alone in the great forest, but a girl still, with two
little children to care for.

But she was brave, despite her trouble, and she determined to go on and
gain some village. She took her baby in her arms and the little one by
the hand, and started on her journey.

And for a time all went well, till at last she came to a stream. It was
not very deep, but it was too deep for the little boy to wade, for it
came up to his neck, and his mother was not strong enough to carry both
at once. So, after considering for a time, she told the elder boy to
wait. She would cross and put the baby on the far side, and return for
him.

'Be good,' she said; 'be good, and stay here quietly till I come back;'
and the boy promised.

The stream was deeper and swifter than she thought; but she went with
great care and gained the far side, and put the baby under a tree a
little distance from the bank, to lie there while she went for the other
boy. Then, after a few minutes' rest, she went back.

She had got to the centre of the stream, and her little boy had come
down to the margin to be ready for her, when she heard a rush and a cry
from the side she had just left; and, looking round, she saw with terror
a great eagle sweep down upon the baby, and carry it off in its claws.
She turned round and waved her arms and cried out to the eagle, 'He!
he!' hoping it would be frightened and drop the baby. But it cared
nothing for her cries or threats, and swept on with long curves over the
forest trees, away out of sight.

Then the mother turned to gain the bank once more, and suddenly she
missed her son who had been waiting for her. He had seen his mother wave
her arms; he had heard her shout, and he thought she was calling him to
come to her. So the brave little man walked down into the water, and the
black current carried him off his feet at once. He was gone, drowned in
the deep water below the ford, tossing on the waves towards the sea.

No one can write of the despair of the girl when she threw herself under
a tree in the forest. The song says it was very terrible.

At last she said to herself, 'I will get up now and return to my father
in Thawatti; he is all I have left. Though I have forsaken him all these
years, yet now that my husband and his children are dead, my father will
take me back again. Surely he will have pity on me, for I am much to be
pitied.'

So she went on, and at length, after many days, she came to the gates of
the great city where her father lived.

At the entering of the gates she met a large company of people,
mourners, returning from a funeral, and she spoke to them and asked
them:

'Who is it that you have been burying to-day so grandly with so many
mourners?'

And the people answered her, and told her who it was. And when she
heard, she fell down upon the road as one dead: for it was her father
and mother who had died yesterday, and it was their funeral train that
she saw. They were all dead now, husband and sons and father and mother;
in all the world she was quite alone.

So she went mad, for her trouble was more than she could bear. She threw
off all her clothes, and let down her long hair and wrapped it about her
naked body, and walked about raving.

At last she came to where the Buddha was teaching, seated under a
fig-tree. She came up to the Buddha, and told him of her losses, and how
she had no one left; and she demanded of the Buddha that he should
restore to her those that she had lost. And the Buddha had great
compassion upon her, and tried to console her.

'All die,' he said; 'it comes to everyone, king and peasant, animal and
man. Only through many deaths can we obtain the Great Peace. All this
sorrow,' he said, 'is of the earth. All this is passion which we must
get rid of, and forget before we reach heaven. Be comforted, my
daughter, and turn to the holy life. All suffer as you do. It is part of
our very existence here, sorrow and trouble without any end.'

But she would not be comforted, but demanded her dead of the Buddha.
Then, because he saw it was no use talking to her, that her ears were
deaf with grief, and her eyes blinded with tears, he said to her that he
would restore to her those who were dead.

'You must go,' he said, 'my daughter, and get some mustard-seed, a pinch
of mustard-seed, and I can bring back their lives. Only you must get
this seed from the garden of him near whom death has never come. Get
this, and all will be well.'

So the woman went forth with a light heart. It was so simple, only a
pinch of mustard-seed, and mustard grew in every garden. She would get
the seed and be back very quickly, and then the Lord Buddha would give
her back those she loved who had died. She clothed herself again and
tied up her hair, and went cheerfully and asked at the first house,
'Give me a pinch of mustard-seed,' and it was given readily. So with her
treasure in her hand she was going forth back to the Buddha full of
delight, when she remembered.

'Has ever anyone died in your household?' she asked, looking round
wistfully.

The man answered 'Yes,' that death had been with them but recently. Who
could this woman be, he thought, to ask such a question? And the woman
went forth, the seed dropping from her careless fingers, for it was of
no value. So she would try again and again, but it was always the same.
Death had taken his tribute from all. Father or mother, son or brother,
daughter or wife, there was always a gap somewhere, a vacant place
beside the meal. From house to house throughout the city she went, till
at last the new hope faded away, and she learned from the world, what
she had not believed from the Buddha, that death and life are one.

So she returned, and she became a nun, poor soul! taking on her the two
hundred and twenty-seven vows, which are so hard to keep that nowadays
nuns keep but five of them.[1]


This is the teaching of the Buddha, that death is inevitable; this is
the consolation he offers, that all men must know death; no one can
escape death; no one can escape the sorrow of the death of those whom he
loves. Death, he says, and life are one; not antagonistic, but the same;
and the only way to escape from one is to escape from the other too.
Only in the Great Peace, when we have found refuge from the passion and
tumult of life, shall we find the place where death cannot come. Life
and death are one.

This is the teaching of the Buddha, repeated over and over again to his
disciples when they sorrowed for the death of Thariputra, when they
were in despair at the swift-approaching end of the great teacher
himself. Hear what he says to Ananda, the beloved disciple, who is
mourning over Thariputra.

'Ananda,' he said, 'often and often have I sought to bring shelter to
your soul from the misery caused by such grief as this. There are two
things alone that can separate us from father and mother, from brother
and sister, from all those who are most cherished by us, and those two
things are distance and death. Think not that I, though the Buddha, have
not felt all this even as any other of you; was I not alone when I was
seeking for wisdom in the wilderness?

'And yet what would I have gained by wailing and lamenting either for
myself or for others? Would it have brought to me any solace from my
loneliness? Would it have been any help to those whom I had left? There
is nothing that can happen to us, however terrible, however miserable,
that can justify tears and lamentations and make them aught but a
weakness.'

And so, we are told, in this way the Buddha soothed the affliction of
Ananda, and filled his soul with consolation--the consolation of
resignation.

For there is no other consolation possible but this, resignation to the
inevitable, the conviction of the uselessness of sorrow, the vanity and
selfishness of grief.

There is no meeting again with the dead. Nowhere in the recurring
centuries shall we meet again those whom we have loved, whom we love,
who seem to us to be parts of our very soul. That which survives of us,
the part which is incarnated again and again, until it be fit for
heaven, has nothing to do with love and hate.

Even if in the whirlpool of life our paths should cross again the paths
of those whom we have loved, we are never told that we shall know them
again and love them.

A friend of mine has just lost his mother, and he is very much
distressed. He must have been very fond of her, for although he has a
wife and children, and is happy in his family, he is in great sorrow. He
proposes even to build a pagoda over her remains, a testimony of respect
which in strict Buddhism is reserved to saints. He has been telling me
about this, and how he is trying to get a sacred relic to put in the
pagoda, and I asked him if he never hoped again to meet the soul of his
mother on earth or in heaven, and he answered:

'No. It is very hard, but so are many things, and they have to be borne.
Far better it is to face the truth than to escape by a pleasant
falsehood. There is a Burmese proverb that tells us that all the world
is one vast burial-ground; there are dead men everywhere.'

'One of our great men has said the same,' I answered.

He was not surprised.

'As it is true,' he said, 'I suppose all great men would see it.'

Thus there is no escape, no loophole for a delusive hope, only the
cultivation of the courage of sorrow.

There are never any exceptions to the laws of the Buddha. If a law is a
law, that is the end of it. Just as we know of no exceptions to the law
of gravitation, so there are no exceptions to the law of death.

But although this may seem to be a religion of despair, it is not really
so. This sorrow to which there is no relief is the selfishness of
sorrow, the grief for our own loneliness; for of sorrow, of fear, of
pity for the dead, there is no need. We know that in time all will be
well with them. We know that, though there may be before them vast
periods of suffering, yet that they will all at last be in Nebhan with
us. And if we shall not know them there, still we shall know that they
are there, all of them--not one will be wanting. Purified from the lust
of life, white souls steeped in the Great Peace, all living things will
attain rest at last.


There is this remarkable fact in Buddhism, that nowhere is any fear
expressed of death itself, nowhere any apprehension of what may happen
to the dead. It is the sorrow of separation, the terror of death to the
survivors, that is always dwelt upon with compassion, and the agony of
which it is sought to soothe.

That the dying man himself should require strengthening to face the King
of Terrors is hardly ever mentioned. It seems to be taken for granted
that men should have courage in themselves to take leave of life
becomingly, without undue fears. Buddhism is the way to show us the
escape from the miseries of life, not to give us hope in the hour of
death.

It is true that to all Orientals death is a less fearful thing than it
is to us. I do not know what may be the cause of this, courage certainly
has little to do with it; but it is certain that the purely physical
fear of death, that horror and utter revulsion that seizes the majority
of us at the idea of death, is absent from most Orientals. And yet this
cannot explain it all. For fear of death, though less, is still there,
is still a strong influence upon their lives, and it would seem that no
religion which ignored this great fact could become a great living
religion.

Religion is made for man, to fit his necessities, not man for religion,
and yet the faith of Buddhism is not concerned with death.

Consider our faith, how much of its teaching consists of how to avoid
the fear of death, how much of its consolation is for the death-bed. How
we are taught all our lives that we should live so as not to fear death;
how we have priests and sacraments to soothe the dying man, and give
him hope and courage, and how the crown and summit of our creed is that
we should die easily. And consider that in Buddhism all this is
absolutely wanting. Buddhism is a creed of life, of conduct; death is
the end of that life, that is all.

We have all seen death. We have all of us watched those who, near and
dear to us, go away out of our ken. There is no need for me to recall
the last hours of those of our faith, to bring up again the fading eye
and waning breath, the messages of hope we search for in our Scriptures
to give hope to him who is going, the assurances of religion, the cross
held before the dying eyes.

Many men, we are told, turn to religion at the last after a life of
wickedness, and a man may do so even at the eleventh hour and be saved.

That is part of our belief; that is the strongest part of our belief;
and that is the hope that all fervent Christians have, that those they
love may be saved even at the end.

I think it may truly be said that our Western creeds are all directed at
the hour of death, as the great and final test of that creed.

And now think of Buddhism; it is a creed of life. In life you must win
your way to salvation by urgent effort, by suffering, by endurance. On
your death-bed you can do nothing. If you have done well, then it is
well; if ill, then you must in future life try again and again till you
succeed. A life is not washed, a soul is not made fit for the dwelling
of eternity, in a moment.

Repentance to a Buddhist is but the opening of the eyes to see the path
to righteousness; it has no virtue in itself. To have seen that we are
sinners is but the first step to cleansing our sin; in itself it cannot
purify.

As well ask a robber of the poor to repent, and suppose thereby that
those who have suffered from his guilt are compensated for the evil done
to them by his repentance, as to ask a Buddhist to believe that a sinner
can at the last moment make good to his own soul all the injuries caused
to that soul by the wickedness of his life.

Or suppose a man who has destroyed his constitution by excess to be by
the very fact of acknowledging that excess restored to health.

The Buddhist will not have that at all. A man is what he makes himself;
and that making is a matter of terrible effort, of unceasing endeavour
towards the right, of constant suppression of sin, till sin be at last
dead within him. If a man has lived a wicked life, he dies a wicked man,
and no wicked man can obtain the perfect rest of the sinless dead.
Heaven is shut to him. But if heaven is shut it is not shut for ever; if
hell may perhaps open to him it is only for a time, only till he is
purified and washed from the stain of his sins; and then he can begin
again, and have another chance to win heaven. If there is no immediate
heaven there is no eternal hell, and in due time all will reach heaven;
all will have learnt, through suffering, the wisdom the Buddha has shown
to us, that only by a just life can men reach the Great Peace even as he
did.

So that if Buddhism has none of the consolation for the dying man that
Christianity holds out, in the hope of heaven, so it has none of the
threats and terrors of our faith. There is no fear of an angry Judge--of
a Judge who is angry.

And yet when I came to think over the matter, it seemed to me that
surely there must be something to calm him in the face of death. If
Buddhism does not furnish this consolation, he must go elsewhere for it.
And I was not satisfied, because I could find nothing in the sacred
books about a man's death, that therefore the creed of the people had
ignored it. A living creed must, I was sure, provide for this somehow.

So I went to a friend of mine, a Burman magistrate, and I asked him:

'When a man is dying, what does he try to think of? What do you say to
comfort him that his last moments may be peace? The monks do not come, I
know.'

'The monks!' he said, shaking his head; 'what could they do?'

I did not know.

'Can you do anything,' I asked, 'to cheer him? Do you speak to him of
what may happen after death, of hopes of another life?'

'No one can tell,' said my friend, 'what will happen after death. It
depends on a man's life, if he has done good or evil, what his next
existence will be, whether he will go a step nearer to the Peace. When
the man is dying no monks will come, truly; but an old man, an old
friend, father, perhaps, or an elder of the village, and he will talk to
the dying man. He will say, "Think of your good deeds; think of all that
you have done well in this life. Think of your good deeds."'

'What is the use of that?' I asked. 'Suppose you think of your good
deeds, what then? Will that bring peace?'

The Burman seemed to think that it would.

'Nothing,' he said, 'was so calming to a man's soul as to think of even
one deed he had done well in his life.'

Think of the man dying. The little house built of bamboo and thatch,
with an outer veranda, where the friends are sitting, and the inner
room, behind a wall of bamboo matting, where the man is lying. A pot of
flowers is standing on a shelf on one side, and a few cloths are hung
here and there beneath the brown rafters. The sun comes in through
little chinks in roof and wall, making curious lights in the
semi-darkness of the room, and it is very hot.

From outside come the noises of the village, cries of children playing,
grunts of cattle, voices of men and women clearly heard through the
still clear air of the afternoon. There is a woman pounding rice near
by with a steady thud, thud of the lever, and there is a clink of a loom
where a girl is weaving ceaselessly. All these sounds come into the
house as if there were no walls at all, but they are unheeded from long
custom.

The man lies on a low bed with a fine mat spread under him for bedding.
His wife, his grown-up children, his sister, his brother are about him,
for the time is short, and death comes very quickly in the East. They
talk to him kindly and lovingly, but they read to him no sacred books;
they give him no messages from the world to which he is bound; they
whisper to him no hopes of heaven. He is tortured with no fears of
everlasting hell. Yet life is sweet and death is bitter, and it is hard
to go; and as he tosses to and fro in his fever there comes in to him an
old friend, the headman of the village perhaps, with a white muslin
fillet bound about his kind old head, and he sits beside the dying man
and speaks to him.

'Remember,' he says slowly and clearly, 'all those things that you have
done well. Think of your good deeds.'

And as the sick man turns wearily, trying to move his thoughts as he is
bidden, trying to direct the wheels of memory, the old man helps him to
remember.

'Think,' he says, 'of your good deeds, of how you have given charity to
the monks, of how you have fed the poor. Remember how you worked and
saved to build the little rest-house in the forest where the traveller
stays and finds water for his thirst. All these are pleasant things, and
men will always be grateful to you. Remember your brother, how you
helped him in his need, how you fed him and went security for him till
he was able again to secure his own living. You did well to him, surely
that is a pleasant thing.'

I do not think it difficult to see how the sick man's face will lighten,
how his eyes will brighten at the thoughts that come to him at the old
man's words. And he goes on:

'Remember when the squall came up the river and the boat upset when you
were crossing here; how it seemed as if no man could live alone in such
waves, and yet how you clung to and saved the boy who was with you,
swimming through the water that splashed over your head and very nearly
drowned you. The boy's father and mother have never forgotten that, and
they are even now mourning without in the veranda. It is all due to you
that their lives have not been full of misery and despair. Remember
their faces when you brought their little son to them saved from death
in the great river. Surely that is a pleasant thing. Remember your wife
who is now with you; how you have loved her and cherished her, and kept
faithful to her before all the world. You have been a good husband to
her, and you have honoured her. She loves you, and you have loved her
all your long life together. Surely that is a pleasant thing.'

Yes, surely these are pleasant things to have with one at the last.
Surely a man will die easier with such memories as these before his
eyes, with love in those about him, and the calm of good deeds in his
dying heart. If it be a different way of soothing a man's end from those
which other nations use, is it the worse for that?

Think of your good deeds. It seems a new idea to me that in doing well
in our life we are making for ourselves a pleasant death, because of the
memory of those things. And if we have none? or if evil so outnumbered
the good deeds as to hide and overwhelm them, what then? A man's death
will be terrible indeed if he cannot in all his days remember one good
deed that he has done.

'All a man's life comes before him at the hour of death,' said my
informant; 'all, from the earliest memory to the latest breath. Like a
whole landscape called by a flash of lightning out of the dark night. It
is all there, every bit of it, good and evil, pleasure and pain, sin and
righteousness.'

A man cannot escape from his life even in death. In our acts of to-day
we are determining what our death will be; if we have lived well, we
shall die well; and if not, then not. As a man lives so shall he die, is
the teaching of Buddhism as of other creeds.

So what Buddhism has to offer to the dying believer is this, that if he
live according to its tenets he will die happily, and that in the life
that he will next enter upon he will be less and less troubled by sin,
less and less wedded to the lust of life, until sometime, far away, he
shall gain the great Deliverance. He shall have perfect Peace, perfect
rest, perfect happiness, he and his, in that heaven where his teacher
went before him long ago.

And if we should say that this Deliverance from life, this Great Peace,
is Death, what matter, if it be indeed Peace?

FOOTNOTE:

[1] These five vows are:

     1. Not to take life.
     2. To be honest.
     3. To tell the truth.
     4. To abstain from intoxicants.
     5. Chastity.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE POTTER'S WHEEL

     'Life is like a great whirlpool wherein we are dashed to and fro by
     our passions.'--_Saying of the Buddha._


It is a hard teaching, this of the Buddha about death. It is a teaching
that may appeal to the reason, but not to the soul, that when life goes
out, this thing which we call 'I' goes out with it, and that love and
remembrance are dead for ever.

It is so hard a teaching that in its purity the people cannot believe
it. They accept it, but they have added on to it a belief which changes
the whole form of it, a belief that is the outcome of that weakness of
humanity which insists that death is not and cannot be all.

Though to the strict Buddhist death is the end of all worldly passion,
to the Burmese villager that is not so. He cannot grasp, he cannot
endure that it should be so, and he has made for himself out of Buddhism
a belief that is opposed to all Buddhism in this matter.

He believes in the transmigration of souls, in the survival of the 'I.'
The teaching that what survives is not the 'I,' but only the result of
its action, is too deep for him to hold. True, if a flame dies the
effects that it has caused remain, and the flame is dead for ever. A new
flame is a new flame. But the 'I' of man cannot die, he thinks; it lives
and loves for all time.

He has made out of the teaching a new teaching that is very far from
that of the Buddha, and the teaching is this: When a man dies his soul
remains, his 'I' has only changed its habitation. Still it lives and
breathes on earth, not the effect, but the soul itself. It is reborn
among us, and it may even be recognised very often in its new abode.

And that we should never forget this, that we should never doubt that
this is true, it has been so ordered that many can remember something of
these former lives of theirs. This belief is not to a Burman a mere
theory, but is as true as anything he can see. For does he not daily see
people who know of their former lives? Nay, does he not himself, often
vaguely, have glimpses of that former life of his? No man seems to be
quite without it, but of course it is clearer to some than others. Just
as we tell stories in the dusk of ghosts and second sight, so do they,
when the day's work is over, gossip of stories of second birth; only
that they believe in them far more than we do in ghosts.

A friend of mine put up for the night once at a monastery far away in
the forest near a small village. He was travelling with an escort of
mounted police, and there was no place else to sleep but in the
monastery. The monk was, as usual, hospitable, and put what he had, bare
house-room, at the officer's disposal, and he and his men settled down
for the night.

After dinner a fire was built on the ground, and the officer went and
sat by it and talked to the headman of the village and the monk. First
they talked of the dacoits and of crops, unfailing subjects of interest,
and gradually they drifted from one subject to another till the
Englishman remarked about the monastery, that it was a very large and
fine one for such a small secluded village to have built. The monastery
was of the best and straightest teak, and must, he thought, have taken a
very long time and a great deal of labour to build, for the teak must
have been brought from very far away; and in explanation he was told a
curious story.

It appeared that in the old days there used to be only a bamboo and
grass monastery there, such a monastery as most jungle villages have;
and the then monk was distressed at the smallness of his abode and the
little accommodation there was for his school--a monastery is always a
school. So one rainy season he planted with great care a number of teak
seedlings round about, and he watered them and cared for them. 'When
they are grown up,' he would say, 'these teak-trees shall provide
timber for a new and proper building; and I will myself return in
another life, and with those trees will I build a monastery more worthy
than this.' Teak-trees take a hundred years to reach a mature size, and
while the trees were still but saplings the monk died, and another monk
taught in his stead. And so it went on, and the years went by, and from
time to time new monasteries of bamboo were built and rebuilt, and the
teak-trees grew bigger and bigger. But the village grew smaller, for the
times were troubled, and the village was far away in the forest. So it
happened that at last the village found itself without a monk at all:
the last monk was dead, and no one came to take his place.

It is a serious thing for a village to have no monk. To begin with,
there is no one to teach the lads to read and write and do arithmetic;
and there is no one to whom you can give offerings and thereby get
merit, and there is no one to preach to you and tell you of the sacred
teaching. So the village was in a bad way.

Then at last one evening, when the girls were all out at the well
drawing water, they were surprised by the arrival of a monk walking in
from the forest, weary with a long journey, footsore and hungry. The
villagers received him with enthusiasm, fearing, however, that he was
but passing through, and they furbished up the old monastery in a hurry
for him to sleep in. But the curious thing was that the monk seemed to
know it all. He knew the monastery and the path to it, and the ways
about the village, and the names of the hills and the streams. It
seemed, indeed, as if he must once have lived there in the village, and
yet no one knew him or recognised his face, though he was but a young
man still, and there were villagers who had lived there for seventy
years. Next morning, instead of going on his way, the monk came into the
village with his begging-bowl, as monks do, and went round and collected
his food for the day; and in the evening, when the villagers went to see
him at the monastery, he told them he was going to stay. He recalled to
them the monk who had planted the teak-trees, and how he had said that
when the trees were grown he would return. 'I,' said the young monk, 'am
he that planted these trees. Lo, they are grown up, and I am returned,
and now we will build a monastery as I said.'

When the villagers, doubting, questioned him, and old men came and
talked to him of traditions of long-past days, he answered as one who
knew all. He told them he had been born and educated far away in the
South, and had grown up not knowing who he had been; and that he had
entered a monastery, and in time became a Pongyi. The remembrance came
to him, he went on, in a dream of how he had planted the trees and had
promised to return to that village far away in the forest.

The very next day he had started, and travelled day after day and week
upon week, till at length he had arrived, as they saw. So the villagers
were convinced, and they set to work and cut down the great boles, and
built the monastery such as my friend saw. And the monk lived there all
his life, and taught the children, and preached the marvellous teaching
of the great Buddha, till at length his time came again and he returned;
for of monks it is not said that they die, but that they return.

This is the common belief of the people. Into this has the mystery of
Dharma turned, in the thoughts of the Burmese Buddhists, for no one can
believe the incomprehensible. A man has a soul, and it passes from life
to life, as a traveller from inn to inn, till at length it is ended in
heaven. But not till he has attained heaven in his heart will he attain
heaven in reality.

Many children, the Burmese will tell you, remember their former lives.
As they grow older the memories die away and they forget, but to the
young children they are very clear. I have seen many such.

About fifty years ago in a village named Okshitgon were born two
children, a boy and a girl. They were born on the same day in
neighbouring houses, and they grew up together, and played together, and
loved each other. And in due course they married and started a family,
and maintained themselves by cultivating their dry, barren fields about
the village. They were always known as devoted to each other, and they
died as they had lived--together. The same death took them on the same
day; so they were buried without the village and were forgotten; for the
times were serious.

It was the year after the English army had taken Mandalay, and all Burma
was in a fury of insurrection. The country was full of armed men, the
roads were unsafe, and the nights were lighted with the flames of
burning villages. It was a bad time for peace-loving men, and many such,
fleeing from their villages, took refuge in larger places nearer the
centres of administration.

Okshitgon was in the midst of one of the worst of all the distressed
districts, and many of its people fled, and one of them, a man named
Maung Kan, with his young wife went to the village of Kabyu and lived
there.

Now, Maung Kan's wife had born to him twin sons. They were born at
Okshitgon shortly before their parents had to run away, and they were
named, the eldest Maung Gyi, which is Brother Big-fellow, and the
younger Maung Ngè, which means Brother Little-fellow. These lads grew up
at Kabyu, and soon learned to talk; and as they grew up their parents
were surprised to hear them calling to each other at play, and calling
each other, not Maung Gyi and Maung Ngè, but Maung San Nyein and Ma
Gywin. The latter is a woman's name, and the parents remembered that
these were the names of the man and wife who had died in Okshitgon about
the time the children were born.

So the parents thought that the souls of the man and wife had entered
into the children, and they took them to Okshitgon to try them. The
children knew everything in Okshitgon; they knew the roads and the
houses and the people, and they recognised the clothes they used to wear
in a former life; there was no doubt about it. One of them, the younger,
remembered, too, how she had borrowed two rupees once of a woman, Ma
Thet, unknown to her husband, and left the debt unpaid. Ma Thet was
still living, and so they asked her, and she recollected that it was
true she had lent the money long ago.

Shortly afterwards I saw these two children. They are now just over six
years old. The elder, into whom the soul of the man entered, is a fat,
chubby little fellow, but the younger twin is smaller, and has a curious
dreamy look in his face, more like a girl than a boy. They told me much
about their former lives. After they died they said they lived for some
time without a body at all, wandering in the air and hiding in the
trees. This was for their sins. Then, after some months, they were born
again as twin boys. 'It used,' said the elder boy, 'to be so clear, I
could remember everything; but it is getting duller and duller, and I
cannot now remember as I used to do.'

Of children such as this you may find any number. Only you have to look
for them, as they are not brought forward spontaneously. The Burmese,
like other people, hate to have their beliefs and ideas ridiculed, and
from experience they have learned that the object of a foreigner in
inquiring into their ways is usually to be able to show by his contempt
how very much cleverer a man he is than they are. Therefore they are
very shy. But once they understand that you only desire to learn and to
see, and that you will always treat them with courtesy and
consideration, they will tell you all that they think.

A fellow officer of mine has a Burmese police orderly, a young man about
twenty, who has been with him since he came to the district two years
ago. Yet my friend only discovered accidentally the other day that his
orderly remembers his former life. He is very unwilling to talk about
it. He was a woman apparently in that former life, and lived about
twenty miles away. He must have lived a good life, for it is a step of
promotion to be a man in this life; but he will not talk of it. He
forgets most of it, he says, though he remembered it when he was a
child.

Sometimes this belief leads to lawsuits of a peculiarly difficult
nature. In 1883, two years before the annexation of Upper Burma, there
was a case that came into the local Court of the oil district, which
depended upon this theory of transmigration.

Opposite Yenangyaung there are many large islands in the river. These
islands during the low water months are joined to the mainland, and are
covered with a dense high grass in which many deer live.

When the river rises, it rises rapidly, communication with the mainland
is cut off, and the islands are for a time, in the higher rises,
entirely submerged. During the progress of the first rise some hunters
went to one of these islands where many deer were to be found and set
fire to the grass to drive them out of cover, shooting them as they came
out. Some deer, fleeing before the fire, swam across and escaped, others
fell victims, but one fawn, barely half grown, ran right down the
island, and in its blind terror it leaped into a boat at anchor there.
This boat was that of a fisherman who was plying his trade at some
distance, and the only occupant of the boat was his wife. Now this woman
had a year or so before lost her son, very much loved by her, but who
was not quite of the best character, and when she saw the deer leaping
into the boat, she at once fancied that she saw the soul of her erring
son looking at her out of its great terrified eyes. So she got up and
took the poor panting beast in her arms and soothed it, and when the
hunters came running to her to claim it she refused. 'He is my son,' she
said, 'he is mine. Shall I give him up to death?' The hunters clamoured
and threatened to take the deer by force, but the woman was quite firm.
She would never give him up except with her life. 'You can see,' she
said, 'that it is true that he is my son. He came running straight to
me, as he always did in his trouble when he was a boy, and he is now
quite quiet and contented, instead of being afraid of me as an ordinary
deer would be.' And it was quite true that the deer took to her at once,
and remained with her willingly. So the hunters went off to the court of
the governor and filed a suit for the deer.

The case was tried in open court, and the deer was produced with a
ribbon round its neck. Evidence there was naturally but little. The
hunters claimed the deer because they had driven it out of the island by
their fire. The woman resisted the claim on the ground that it was her
son.

The decision of the court was this:

'The hunters are not entitled to the deer because they cannot prove that
the woman's son's soul is not in the animal. The woman is not entitled
to the deer because she cannot prove that it is. The deer will therefore
remain with the court until some properly authenticated claim is put
in.'

So the two parties were turned out, the woman in bitter tears, and the
hunters angry and vexed, and the deer remained the property of the
judge.

But this decision was against all Burmese ideas of justice. He should
have given the deer to the woman. 'He wanted it for himself,' said a
Burman, speaking to me of the affair. 'He probably killed it and ate it.
Surely it is true that officials are of all the five evils the
greatest.' Then my friend remembered that I was myself an official, and
he looked foolish, and began to make complimentary remarks about English
officials, that they would never give such an iniquitous decision. I
turned it off by saying that no doubt the judge was now suffering in
some other life for the evil wrought in the last, and the Burman said
that probably he was now inhabiting a tiger.

It is very easy to laugh at such beliefs; nothing is, indeed, easier
than to be witty at the expense of any belief. It is also very easy to
say that it is all self-deception, that the children merely imagine that
they remember their former lives, or are citing conversation of their
elders.

How this may be I do not know. What is the explanation of this, perhaps
the only belief of which we have any knowledge which is at once a living
belief to-day and was so as far back as we can get, I do not pretend to
say. For transmigration is no theory of Buddhism at all, but was a
leading tenet in the far older faith of Brahmanism, of which Buddhism
was but an offshoot, as was Christianity of Judaism.

I have not, indeed, always attempted to reach the explanation of things
I have seen. When I have satisfied myself that a belief is really held
by the people, that I am not the subject of conscious deception, either
by myself or others, I have conceived that my work was ended.

There are those who, in investigating any foreign customs and strange
beliefs, can put their finger here and say, 'This is where they are
right'; and there and say, 'This belief is foolishly wrong and idiotic.'
I am not, unfortunately, one of these writers. I have no such confident
belief in my own infallibility of judgment as to be able to sit on high
and say, 'Here is truth, and here is error.'

I will leave my readers to make their own judgment, if they desire to do
so; only asking them (as they would not like their own beliefs to be
scoffed and sneered at) that they will treat with respect the sincere
beliefs of others, even if they cannot accept them. It is only in this
way that we can come to understand a people and to sympathize with them.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize the enormous effect that a belief in
transmigration such as this has upon the life and intercourse of the
people. Of their kindness to animals I have spoken elsewhere, and it is
possible this belief in transmigration has something to do with it, but
not, I think, much. For if you wished to illtreat an animal, it would be
quite easy, even more easy, to suppose that an enemy or a murderer
inhabited the body of the animal, and that you were but carrying out the
decrees of fate by ill-using it. But when you love an animal, it may
increase that love and make it reasonable, and not a thing to be ashamed
of; and it brings the animal world nearer to you in general, it bridges
over the enormous void between man and beast that other religions have
made. Nothing humanizes a man more than love of animals.

I do not know if this be a paradox, I know that it is a truth.

There was one point that puzzled me for a time in some of these stories
of transmigration, such as the one I told about the man and wife being
reborn twins. It was this: A man dies and leaves behind children, let us
say, to whom he is devoutly attached. He is reborn in another family in
the same village, maybe. It would be natural to suppose that he would
love his former family as much as, or even more than, his new one.
Complications might arise in this way which it is easy to conceive would
cause great and frequent difficulties.

I explained this to a Burman one day, and asked him what happened, and
this is what he said: 'The affection of mother to son, of husband to
wife, of brother to sister, belongs entirely to the body in which you
may happen to be living. When it dies, so do these affections. New
affections arise from the new body. The flesh of the son, being of one
with his father, of course loves him; but as his present flesh has no
sort of connection with his former one, he does not love those to whom
he was related in his other lives. These affections are as much a part
of the body as the hand or the eyesight; with one you put off the
other.'

Thus all love, to the learned, even the purest affection of daughter to
mother, of man to his friend, is in theory a function of the body--with
the one we put off the other; and this may explain, perhaps, something
of what my previous chapter did not make quite clear, that in the
hereafter[2] of Buddhism there is no affection.

When we have put off all bodies, when we have attained Nirvana, love and
hate, desire and repulsion, will have fallen from us for ever.

Meanwhile, in each life, we are obliged to endure the affections of the
body into which we may be born. It is the first duty of a monk, of him
who is trying to lead the purer life, to kill all these affections, or
rather to blend them into one great compassion to all the world alike.
'Gayüna,' compassion, that is the only passion that will be left to
us. So say the learned.

I met a little girl not long ago, a wee little maiden about seven years
old, and she told me all about her former life when she was a man. Her
name was Maung Mon, she said, and she used to work the dolls in a
travelling marionette show. It was through her knowledge and partiality
for marionettes that it was first suspected, her parents told me, whom
she had been in her former life. She could even as a sucking-child
manipulate the strings of a marionette-doll. But the actual discovery
came when she was about four years old, and she recognised a certain
marionette booth and dolls as her own. She knew all about them, knew
the name of each doll, and even some of the words they used to say in
the plays. 'I was married four times,' she told me. 'Two wives died, one
I divorced; one was living when I died, and is living still. I loved her
very much indeed. The one I divorced was a dreadful woman. See,'
pointing to a scar on her shoulder, 'this was given me once in a
quarrel. She took up a chopper and cut me like this. Then I divorced
her. She had a dreadful temper.'

It was immensely quaint to hear this little thing discoursing like this.
The mark was a birth-mark, and I was assured that it corresponded
exactly with one that had been given to the man by his wife in just such
a quarrel as the one the little girl described.

The divorced wife and the much-loved wife are still alive and not yet
old. The last wife wanted the little girl to go and live with her. I
asked her why she did not go.

'You loved her so much,' I said. 'She was such a good wife to you.
Surely you would like to live with her again.'

'But all that,' she replied, 'was in a former life.'

Now she loved only her present father and mother. The last life was like
a dream. Broken memories of it still remained, but the loves and hates,
the passions and impulses, were all dead.

Another little boy told me once that the way remembrance came to him was
by seeing the silk he used to wear made into curtains, which are given
to the monks and used as partitions in their monasteries, and as walls
to temporary erections made at festival times. He was taken when some
three years old to a feast at the making of a lad, the son of a wealthy
merchant, into a monk. There he recognised in the curtain walling in
part of the bamboo building his old dress. He pointed it out at once.

This same little fellow told me that he passed three months between his
death and his next incarnation without a body. This was because he had
once accidentally killed a fowl. Had he killed it on purpose, he would
have been punished very much more severely. Most of this three months he
spent dwelling in the hollow shell of a palm-fruit. The nuisance was, he
explained, that this shell was close to the cattle-path, and that the
lads as they drove the cattle afield in the early morning would bang
with a stick against the shell. This made things very uncomfortable for
him inside.

It is not an uncommon thing for a woman when about to be delivered of a
baby to have a dream, and to see in that dream the spirit of someone
asking for permission to enter the unborn child; for, to a certain
extent, it lies within a woman's power to say who is to be the life of
her child.

There was a woman once who loved a young man, not of her village, very
dearly. And he loved her, too, as dearly as she loved him, and he
demanded her in marriage from her parents; but they refused. Why they
refused I do not know, but probably because they did not consider the
young man a proper person for their daughter to marry. Then he tried to
run away with her, and nearly succeeded, but they were caught before
they got clear of the village.

The young man had to leave the neighbourhood. The attempted abduction of
a girl is an offence severely punishable by law, so he fled; and in
time, under pressure from her people, the girl married another man; but
she never forgot. She lived with her husband quite happily; he was good
to her, as most Burmese husbands are, and they got along well enough
together. But there were no children.

After some years, four or five, I believe, the former lover returned to
his village. He thought that after this lapse of time he would be safe
from prosecution, and he was, moreover, very ill.

He was so ill that very soon he died, without ever seeing again the girl
he was so fond of; and when she heard of his death she was greatly
distressed, so that the desire of life passed away from her. It so
happened that at this very time she found herself enceinte with her
first child, and not long before the due time came for the child to be
born she had a dream.

She dreamt that her soul left her body, and went out into space and met
there the soul of her lover who had died. She was rejoiced to meet him
again, full of delight, so that the return of her soul to her body, her
awakening to a world in which he was not, filled her with despair. So
she prayed her lover, if it was now time for him again to be incarnated,
that he would come to her--that his soul would enter the body of the
little baby soon about to be born, so that they two might be together in
life once more.

And in the dream the lover consented. He would come, he said, into the
child of the woman he loved.

When the woman awoke she remembered it all, and the desire of life
returned to her again, and all the world was changed because of the new
life she felt within her. But she told no one then of the dream or of
what was to happen.

Only she took the greatest care of herself; she ate well, and went
frequently to the pagoda with flowers, praying that the body in which
her lover was about to dwell might be fair and strong, worthy of him who
took it, worthy of her who gave it.

In due time the baby was born. But alas and alas for all her hopes! The
baby came but for a moment, to breathe a few short breaths, to cry, and
to die; and a few hours later the woman died also. But before she went
she told someone all about it, all about the dream and the baby, and
that she was glad to go and follow her lover. She said that her baby's
soul was her lover's soul, and that as he could not stay, neither would
she; and with these words on her lips she followed him out into the
void.

The story was kept a secret until the husband died, not long
afterwards; but when I came to the village all the people knew it.

I must confess that this story is to me full of the deepest reality,
full of pathos. It seems to me to be the unconscious protestation of
humanity against the dogmas of religion and of the learned. However it
may be stated that love is but one of the bodily passions that dies with
it; however, even in some of the stories themselves, this explanation is
used to clear certain difficulties; however opposed eternal love may be
to one of the central doctrines of Buddhism, it seems to me that the
very essence of this story is the belief that love does not die with the
body, that it lives for ever and ever, through incarnation after
incarnation. Such a story is the very cry of the agony of humanity.

'Love is strong as death; many waters cannot quench love;' ay, and love
is stronger than death. Not any dogmas of any religion, not any
philosophy, nothing in this world, nothing in the next, shall prevent
him who loves from the certainty of rejoining some time the soul he
loves.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The hereafter = the state to which we attain when we have
done with earthly things.




CHAPTER XXIV

THE FOREST OF TIME

     'The gate of that forest was Death.'


There was a great forest. It was full of giant trees that grew so high
and were so thick overhead that the sunshine could not get down below.
And there were huge creepers that ran from tree to tree climbing there,
and throwing down great loops of rope. Under the trees, growing along
the ground, were smaller creepers full of thorns, that tore the wayfarer
and barred his progress. The forest, too, was full of snakes that crept
along the ground, so like in their gray and yellow skins to the earth
they travelled on that the traveller trod upon them unawares and was
bitten; and some so beautiful with coral red and golden bars that men
would pick them up as some dainty jewel till the snake turned upon them.

Here and there in this forest were little glades wherein there were
flowers. Beautiful flowers they were, with deep white cups and broad
glossy leaves hiding the purple fruit; and some had scarlet blossoms
that nodded to and fro like drowsy men, and there were long festoons of
white stars. The air there was heavy with their scent. But they were all
full of thorns, only you could not see the thorns till after you had
plucked the blossom.

This wood was pierced by roads. Many were very broad, leading through
the forest in divers ways, some of them stopping now and then in the
glades, others avoiding them more or less, but none of them were
straight. Always, if you followed them, they bent and bent until after
much travelling you were where you began; and the broader the road, the
softer the turf beneath it; the sweeter the glades that lined it, the
quicker did it turn.

One road there was that went straight, but it was far from the others.
It led among the rocks and cliffs that bounded one side of the valley.
It was very rough, very far from all the glades in the lowlands. No
flowers grew beside it, there was no moss or grass upon it, only hard
sharp rocks. It was very narrow, bordered with precipices.

There were many lights in this wood, lights that flamed out like sunsets
and died, lights that came like lightning in the night and were gone.
This wood was never quite dark, it was so full of these lights that
flickered aimlessly.

There were men in this wood who wandered to and fro. The wood was full
of them.

They did not know whither they went; they did not know whither they
wished to go. Only this they knew, that they could never keep still;
for the keeper of this wood was Time. He was armed with a keen whip, and
kept driving them on and on; there was no rest.

Many of these when they first came loved the wood. The glades, they
said, were very beautiful, the flowers very sweet. They wandered down
the broad roads into the glades, and tried to lie upon the moss and love
the flowers; but Time would not let them. Just for a few moments they
could have peace, and then they must on and on. But they did not care.
'The forest is full of glades,' they said; 'if we cannot live in one, we
can find another.' And so they went on finding others and others, and
each one pleased them less.

Some few there were who did not go to the glades at all. 'They are very
beautiful,' they said, 'but these roads that pass through them, whither
do they lead? Round and round and round again. There is no peace there.
Time rules in those glades, Time with his whip and goad, and there is no
peace. What we want is rest. And those lights,' they said, 'they are
wandering lights, like the summer lightning far down in the South,
moving hither and thither. We care not for such lights. Our light is
firm and clear. What we desire is peace; we do not care to wander for
ever round this forest, to see for ever those shifting lights.'

And so they would not go down the winding roads, but essayed the path
upon the cliffs. 'It is narrow,' they said, 'it has no flowers, it is
full of rocks, but it is straight. It will lead us somewhere, not round
and round and round again--it will take us somewhere. And there is a
light,' they said, 'before us, the light of a star. It is very small
now, but it is always steady; it never flickers or wanes. It is the star
of Truth. Under that star we shall find that which we seek.'

And so they went upon their road, toiling upon the rocks, falling now
and then, bleeding with wounds from the sharp points, sore-footed, but
strong-hearted. And ever as they went they were farther and farther from
the forest, farther and farther from the glades and the flowers with
deadly scents; they heard less and less the crack of the whip of Time
falling upon the wanderers' shoulders.

The star grew nearer and nearer, the light grew greater and greater, the
false lights died behind them, until at last they came out of the
forest, and there they found the lake that washes away all desire under
the sun of Truth.

They had won their way. Time and Life and Fight and Struggle were behind
them, could not follow them, as they came, weary and footsore, into the
Great Peace.

And of those who were left behind, of those who stayed in the glades to
gather the deadly flowers, to be driven ever forward by the whip of
Time--what of them? Surely they will learn. The kindly whip of Time is
behind: he will never let them rest in such a deadly forest; they must
go ever forward; and as they go they grow more and more weary, the
glades are more and more distasteful, the heavy-scented blossoms more
and more repulsive. They will find out the thorns too. At first they
forgot the thorns in the flowers. 'The blossoms are beautiful,' they
said; 'what care we for the thorns? Nay, the thorns are good. It is a
pleasure to fight with them. What would the forest be without its
thorns? If we could gather the flowers and find no thorns, we should not
care for them. The more the thorns, the more valuable the blossoms.'

So they said, and they gathered the blossoms, and they faded. But the
thorns did not fade; they were ever there. The more blossoms a man had
gathered, the more thorns he had to wear, and Time was ever behind him.
They wanted to rest in the glades, but Time willed that ever they must
go forward; no going back, no rest, ever and ever on. So they grew very
weary.

'These flowers,' they said at last, 'are always the same. We are tired
of them; their smell is heavy; they are dead. This forest is full of
thorns only. How shall we escape from it? Ever as we go round and round
we hate the flowers more, we feel the thorns more acutely. We must
escape! We are sick of Time and his whip, our feet are very, very weary,
our eyes are dazzled and dim. We, too, would seek the Peace. We laughed
at those before who went along the rocky path; we did not want peace;
but now it seems to us the most beautiful thing in the world. Will Time
never cease to drive us on and on? Will these lights _never_ cease to
flash to and fro?'

Each man at last will turn to the straight road. He will find out. Every
man will find out at last that the forest is hateful, that the flowers
are deadly, that the thorns are terrible; every man will learn to fear
Time.

Then, when the longing for peace has come, he will go to the straight
way and find it; no man will remain in the forest for ever. He will
learn. When he is very, very weary, when his feet are full of thorns,
and his back scarred with the lashes of Time--great, kindly Time, the
schoolmaster of the world--he will learn.

Not till he has learnt will he desire to enter into the straight road.

But in the end all men will come. We at the last shall all meet together
where Time and Life shall be no more.

This is a Burman allegory of Buddhism. It was told me long ago. I trust
I have not spoilt it in the retelling.




CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUSION


This is the end of my book. I have tried always as I wrote to remember
the principles that I laid down for myself in the first chapter. Whether
I have always done so I cannot say. It is so difficult, so very
difficult, to understand a people--any people--to separate their beliefs
from their assents, to discover the motives of their deeds, that I fear
I must often have failed.

My book is short. It would have been easy to make a book out of each
chapter, to write volumes on each great subject that I have touched on;
but I have not done so--I have always been as brief as I could.

I have tried always to illustrate only the central thought, and not the
innumerable divergencies, because only so can a great or strange thought
be made clear. Later, when the thought is known, then it is easy to
stray into the byways of thought, always remembering that they are
byways, wandering from a great centre.

For the Burman's life and belief is one great whole.

I thought before I began to write, and I have become more and more
certain of it as I have taken up subject after subject, that to all the
great differences of thought between them and us there is one key. And
this key is that they believe the world is governed by eternal laws,
that have never changed, that will never change, that are founded on
absolute righteousness; while we believe in a personal God, altering
laws, and changing moralities according to His will.

If I were to rewrite this book, I should do so from this standpoint of
eternal laws, making the book an illustration of the proposition.

Perhaps it is better as it is, in that I have discovered the key at the
end of my work instead of at the beginning. I did not write the book to
prove the proposition, but in writing the book this truth has become
apparent to me.

The more I have written, the clearer has this teaching become to me,
until now I wonder that I did not understand long ago--nay, that it has
not always been apparent to all men.

Surely it is the beginning of all wisdom.

Not until we had discarded Atlas and substituted gravity, until we had
forgotten Enceladus and learned the laws of heat, until we had rejected
Thor and his hammer and searched after the laws of electricity, could
science make any strides onward.

An irresponsible spirit playing with the world as his toy killed all
science.

But now science has learned a new wisdom, to look only at what it can
see, to leave vain imaginings to children and idealists, certain always
that the truth is inconceivably more beautiful than any dream.

Science with us has gained her freedom, but the soul is still in bonds.

Only in Buddhism has this soul-freedom been partly gained. How beautiful
this is, how full of great thoughts, how very different to the barren
materialism it has often been said to be, I have tried to show.

I believe myself that in this teaching of the laws of righteousness we
have the grandest conception, the greatest wisdom, the world has known.

I believe that in accepting this conception we are opening to ourselves
a new world of unimaginable progress, in justice, in charity, in
sympathy, and in love.

I believe that as our minds, when freed from their bonds, have grown
more and more rapidly to heights of thought before undreamed of, to
truths eternal, to beauty inexpressible, so shall our souls, when freed,
as our minds now are, rise to sublimities of which now we have no
conception.

Let each man but open his eyes and see, and his own soul shall teach him
marvellous things.


THE END.


BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.








SILHOUETTES

BY
ARTHUR SYMONS

SECOND EDITION
REVISED AND ENLARGED

LONDON: LEONARD SMITHERS
EFFINGHAM HOUSE: ARUNDEL STREET
STRAND: MDCCCXCVI

TO
KATHERINE WILLARD,
NOW
KATHERINE BALDWIN.


_Paris: May,_ 1892.
_London: February,_ 1896.


CONTENTS.

*Preface:     
Being a Word on Behalf of Patchouli:     p. xiii.

At Dieppe:     
After Sunset:     p. 3.
On the Beach:     p. 4.
Rain on the Down:     p. 5.
Before the Squall:     p. 6.
Under the Cliffs:     p. 7.
Requies:     p. 8.

Masks and Faces:     
Pastel:     p. 11.
Her Eyes:     p. 12.
Morbidezza:     p. 13.
Maquillage:     p. 14.
*Impression:     p. 15.
An Angel of Perugino:     p. 16.
At Fontainebleau:     p. 17.
On the Heath:     p. 18.
In the Oratory:     p. 19.
Pattie:     p. 20.
In an Omnibus:     p. 21.
On Meeting After:     p. 22.
In Bohemia:     p. 23.
Emmy:     p. 24.
Emmy at the Eldorado:     p. 26.
*At the Cavour:     p. 27.
In the Haymarket:     p. 28.
At the Lyceum:     p. 29.
The Blind Beggar:     p. 30.
The Old Labourer:     p. 31.
The Absinthe Drinker:     p. 32.
Javanese Dancers     p. 33.

Love’s Disguises:     
Love in Spring:     p. 37.
Gipsy Love     p. 38.
In Kensington Gardens:     p. 39.
*Rewards:     p. 40.
Perfume:     p. 41.
Souvenir:     p. 42.
*To Mary:     p. 43.
To a Great Actress:     p. 44.
Love in Dreams:     p. 45.
Music and Memory:     p. 46.
*Spring Twilight:     p. 47.
In Winter:     p. 48.
*Quest:     p. 49.
To a Portrait:     p. 50.
*Second Thoughts:     p. 51.
April Midnight:     p. 52.
During Music:     p. 53.
On the Bridge:     p. 54.
“I Dream of Her”:     p. 55.
*Tears:     p. 56.
*The Last Exit:     p. 57.
After Love:     p. 58.
Alla Passeretta Bruna:     p. 59.

Nocturnes:     
Nocturne:     p. 63.
Her Street:     p. 64.
On Judges’ Walk:     p. 65.
In the Night:     p. 66.

Fêtes Galantes:     
*Mandoline:     p. 69.
*Dans l’Allée     p. 70.
*Cythère:     p. 71.
*Les Indolents:     p. 72.
*Fantoches:     p. 73.
*Pantomine:     p. 74.
*L’Amour par Terre:     p. 75.
*A Clymène:     p. 76.
From Romances sans Parole     p. 71.
 
Moods and Memories:     
City Nights:     p. 81.
A White Night:     p. 82.
In the Valley:     p. 83.
Peace at Noon:     p. 84.
In Fountain Court:     p. 85.
At Burgos:     p. 86.
At Dawn:     p. 87.
In Autumn:     p. 88.
On the Roads:     p. 89.
*Pierrot in Half-Mourning:     p. 90.
For a Picture of Watteau:     p. 91.

* The Preface, and the nineteen Poems marked with an asterisk, were not
contained in the first edition. One Poem has been omitted, and many
completely rewritten.




PREFACE:

BEING A WORD ON BEHALF OF PATCHOULI.

AN ingenuous reviewer once described some verses of mine as
“unwholesome,” because, he said, they had “a faint smell of Patchouli
about them.” I am a little sorry he chose Patchouli, for that is not a
particularly favourite scent with me. If he had only chosen Peau
d’Espagne, which has a subtle meaning, or Lily of the Valley, with
which I have associations! But Patchouli will serve. Let me ask, then,
in republishing, with additions, a collection of little pieces, many of
which have been objected to, at one time or another, as being somewhat
deliberately frivolous, why art should not, if it please, concern
itself with the artificially charming, which, I suppose, is what my
critic means by Patchouli? All art, surely, is a form of artifice, and
thus, to the truly devout mind, condemned already, if not as actively
noxious, at all events as needless. That is a point of view which I
quite understand, and its conclusion I hold to be absolutely logical. I
have the utmost respect for the people who refuse to read a novel, to
go to the theatre, or to learn dancing. That is to have convictions and
to live up to them. I understand also the point of view from which a
work of art is tolerated in so far as it is actually militant on behalf
of a religious or a moral idea. But what I fail to understand are those
delicate, invisible degrees by which a distinction is drawn between
this form of art and that; the hesitations, and compromises, and
timorous advances, and shocked retreats, of the Puritan conscience once
emancipated, and yet afraid of liberty. However you may try to convince
yourself to the contrary, a work of art can be judged only from two
standpoints: the standpoint from which its art is measured entirely by
its morality, and the standpoint from which its morality is measured
entirely by its art.

Here, for once, in connection with these “Silhouettes,” I have not, if
my recollection serves me, been accused of actual immorality. I am but
a fair way along the “primrose path,” not yet within singeing distance
of the “everlasting bonfire.” In other words, I have not yet written
“London Nights,” which, it appears (I can scarcely realize it, in my
innocent abstraction in aesthetical matters), has no very salutary
reputation among the blameless moralists of the press. I need not,
therefore, on this occasion, concern myself with more than the curious
fallacy by which there is supposed to be something inherently wrong in
artistic work which deals frankly and lightly with the very real charm
of the lighter emotions and the more fleeting sensations.

I do not wish to assert that the kind of verse which happened to
reflect certain moods of mine at a certain period of my life, is the
best kind of verse in itself, or is likely to seem to me, in other
years, when other moods may have made me their own, the best kind of
verse for my own expression of myself. Nor do I affect to doubt that
the creation of the supreme emotion is a higher form of art than the
reflection of the most exquisite sensation, the evocation of the most
magical impression. I claim only an equal liberty for the rendering of
every mood of that variable and inexplicable and contradictory creature
which we call ourselves, of every aspect under which we are gifted or
condemned to apprehend the beauty and strangeness and curiosity of the
visible world.

Patchouli! Well, why not Patchouli? Is there any “reason in nature” why
we should write exclusively about the natural blush, if the delicately
acquired blush of rouge has any attraction for us? Both exist; both, I
think, are charming in their way; and the latter, as a subject, has, at
all events, more novelty. If you prefer your “new-mown hay” in the
hayfield, and I, it may be, in a scent-bottle, why may not my
individual caprice be allowed to find expression as well as yours?
Probably I enjoy the hayfield as much as you do; but I enjoy quite
other scents and sensations as well, and I take the former for granted,
and write my poem, for a change, about the latter. There is no
necessary difference in artistic value between a good poem about a
flower in the hedge and a good poem about the scent in a sachet. I am
always charmed to read beautiful poems about nature in the country.
Only, personally, I prefer town to country; and in the town we have to
find for ourselves, as best we may, the _décor_ which is the town
equivalent of the great natural _décor_ of fields and hills. Here it is
that artificiality comes in; and if any one sees no beauty in the
effects of artificial light, in all the variable, most human, and yet
most factitious town landscape, I can only pity him, and go on my own
way.

That is, if he will let me. But he tells me that one thing is right and
the other is wrong; that one is good art and the other is bad; and I
listen in amazement, sometimes not without impatience, wondering why an
estimable personal prejudice should be thus exalted into a dogma, and
uttered in the name of art. For in art there can be no prejudices, only
results. If we arc to save people’s souls by the writing of verses,
well and good. But if not, there is no choice but to admit an absolute
freedom of choice. And if Patchouli pleases one, why not Patchouli?

Arthur Symons.


London, _February,_1896.




AT DIEPPE.




AFTER SUNSET.


THE sea lies quieted beneath
     The after-sunset flush
That leaves upon the heaped grey clouds
     The grape’s faint purple blush.

Pale, from a little space in heaven
     Of delicate ivory,
The sickle-moon and one gold star
     Look down upon the sea.




ON THE BEACH.


NIGHT, a grey sky, a ghostly sea,
     The soft beginning of the rain:
     Black on the horizon, sails that wane
Into the distance mistily.

The tide is rising, I can hear
     The soft roar broadening far along;
It cries and murmurs in my car
     A sleepy old forgotten song.

Softly the stealthy night descends,
     The black sails fade into the sky:
Is this not, where the sea-line ends,
     The shore-line of infinity?

I cannot think or dream: the grey
     Unending waste of sea and night,
     Dull, impotently infinite,
Blots out the very hope of day.




RAIN ON THE DOWN.


NIGHT, and the down by the sea,
     And the veil of rain on the down;
And she came through the mist and the rain to me
     From the safe warm lights of the town.

The rain shone in her hair,
     And her face gleamed in the rain;
And only the night and the rain were there
     As she came to me out of the rain.




BEFORE THE SQUALL.


THE wind is rising on the sea,
     White flashes dance along the deep,
That moans as if uneasily
     It turned in an unquiet sleep.

Ridge after rocky ridge upheaves
     A toppling crest that falls in spray
Where the tormented beach receives
     The buffets of the sea’s wild play.

On the horizon’s nearing line,
     Where the sky rests, a visible wall.
Grey in the offing, I divine
     The sails that fly before the squall.




UNDER THE CLIFFS.


BRIGHT light to windward on the horizon’s verge;
To leeward, stormy shadows, violet-black,
And the wide sea between
A vast unfurrowed field of windless green;
The stormy shadows flicker on the track
Of phantom sails that vanish and emerge.

I gaze across the sea, remembering her.
I watch the white sun walk across the sea,
This pallid afternoon,
With feet that tread as whitely as the moon,
And in his fleet and shining feet I see
The footsteps of another voyager.




REQUIES.


O IS it death or life
     That sounds like something strangely known
In this subsiding out of strife,
     This slow sea-monotone?

A sound, scarce heard through sleep,
     Murmurous as the August bees
That fill the forest hollows deep
     About the roots of trees.

O is it life or death,
     O is it hope or memory,
That quiets all things with this breath
     Of the eternal sea?




MASKS AND FACES.




PASTEL.


THE light of our cigarettes
     Went and came in the gloom:
     It was dark in the little room.

Dark, and then, in the dark,
     Sudden, a flash, a glow,
     And a hand and a ring I know.

And then, through the dark, a flush
     Ruddy and vague, the grace—
     A rose—of her lyric face.




HER EYES.


BENEATH the heaven of her brows’
     Unclouded noon of peace, there lies
A leafy heaven of hazel boughs
     In the seclusion of her eyes;

Her troubling eyes that cannot rest;
     And there’s a little flame that dances
(A firefly in a grassy nest)
     In the green circle of her glances;

A frolic Faun that must be hid,
     Shyly, in some fantastic shade,
Where pity droops a tender lid
     On laughter of itself afraid.




MORBIDEZZA.


WHITE girl, your flesh is lilies
Grown ’neath a frozen moon,
So still is
The rapture of your swoon
Of whiteness, snow or lilies.

The virginal revealment,
Your bosom’s wavering slope,
Concealment,
’Neath fainting heliotrope,
Of whitest white’s revealment,

Is like a bed of lilies,
A jealous-guarded row,
Whose will is
Simply chaste dreams:—but oh,
The alluring scent of lilies!




MAQUILLAGE.


THE charm of rouge on fragile cheeks,
     Pearl-powder, and, about the eyes,
The dark and lustrous Eastern dyes;
     The floating odour that bespeaks
A scented boudoir and the doubtful night
Of alcoves curtained close against the light

Gracile and creamy white and rose,
     Complexioned like the flower of dawn,
Her fleeting colours are as those
     That, from an April sky withdrawn,
Fade in a fragrant mist of tears away
When weeping noon leads on the altered day.




IMPRESSION.

TO M. C.


THE pink and black of silk and lace,
     Flushed in the rosy-golden glow
Of lamplight on her lifted face;
Powder and wig, and pink and lace,

And those pathetic eyes of hers;
     But all the London footlights know
The little plaintive smile that stirs
The shadow in those eyes of hers.

Outside, the dreary church-bell tolled,
     The London Sunday faded slow;
Ah, what is this? what wings unfold
In this miraculous rose of gold?




AN ANGEL OF PERUGINO.


HAVE I not seen your face before
     Where Perugino’s angels stand
In those calm circles, and adore
     With singing throat and lifted hand?

So the pale hair lay crescent-wise,
     About the placid forehead curled,
And the pale piety of eyes
     Was as God’s peace upon the world.

And you, a simple child serene,
     Wander upon your quiet way,
Nor know that any eyes have seen
     The Umbrian halo crown the day.




AT FONTAINEBLEAU.


IT was a day of sun and rain,
     Uncertain as a child’s quick moods;
And I shall never pass again
     So blithe a day among the woods.

The forest knew you and was glad,
     And laughed for very joy to know
Her child was with her; then, grown sad,
     She wept, because her child must go.

And you would spy and you would capture
     The shyest flower that lit the grass:
The joy I had to watch your rapture
     Was keen as even your rapture was.

The forest knew you and was glad,
     And laughed and wept for joy and woe.
This was the welcome that you had
     Among the woods of Fontainebleau.




ON THE HEATH.


HER face’s wilful flash and glow
     Turned all its light upon my face
     One bright delirious moment’s space,
And then she passed: I followed slow

Across the heath, and up and round,
     And watched the splendid death of day
     Upon the summits far away,
And in her fateful beauty found

The fierce wild beauty of the light
     That startles twilight on the hills,
     And lightens all the mountain rills,
And flames before the feet of night.




IN THE ORATORY.


THE incense mounted like a cloud,
     A golden cloud of languid scent;
Robed priests before the altar bowed,
     Expecting the divine event.

Then silence, like a prisoner bound,
     Rose, by a mighty hand set free,
And dazzlingly, in shafts of sound,
     Thundered Beethoven’s Mass in C.

She knelt in prayer; large lids serene
     Lay heavy on the sombre eyes,
As though to veil some vision seen
     Upon the mounts of Paradise.

Her dark face, calm as carven stone.
     The face that twilight shows the day,
Brooded, mysteriously alone,
     And infinitely far away.

Inexplicable eyes that drew
     Mine eyes adoring, why from me
Demand, new Sphinx, the fatal clue
     That seals my doom or conquers thee?




PATTIE.


COOL comely country Pattie, grown
     A daisy where the daisies grow,
No wind of heaven has ever blown
     Across a field-flower’s daintier snow.

Gold-white among the meadow-grass
     The humble little daisies thrive;
I cannot see them as I pass,
     But I am glad to be alive.

And so I turn where Pattie stands,
     A flower among the flowers at play;
I’ll lay my heart into her hands,
     And she will smile the clouds away.




IN AN OMNIBUS.


YOUR smile is like a treachery,
     A treachery adorable;
So smiles the siren where the sea
     Sings to the unforgetting shell.

Your fleeting Leonardo face,
     Parisian Monna Lisa, dreams
     Elusively, but not of streams
Born in a shadow-haunted place.

Of Paris, Paris, is your thought,
     Of Paris robes, and when to wear
The latest bonnet you have bought
     To match the marvel of your hair.

Yet that fine malice of your smile,
     That faint and fluctuating glint
     Between your eyelids, does it hint
Alone of matters mercantile?

Close lips that keep the secret in,
     Half spoken by the stealthy eyes,
Is there indeed no word to win,
     No secret, from the vague replies

Of lips and lids that feign to hide
     That which they feign to render up?
     Is there, in Tantalus’ dim cup,
The shadow of water, nought beside?




ON MEETING AFTER.


HER eyes are haunted, eyes that were
     Scarce sad when last we met.
What thing is this has come to her
     That she may not forget?

They loved, they married: it is well!
     But ah, what memories
Are these whereof her eyes half tell,
     Her haunted eyes?




IN BOHEMIA.


DRAWN blinds and flaring gas within,
     And wine, and women, and cigars;
Without, the city’s heedless din;
     Above, the white unheeding stars.

And we, alike from each remote,
     The world that works, the heaven that waits,
Con our brief pleasures o’er by rote,
     The favourite pastime of the Fates.

We smoke, to fancy that we dream,
     And drink, a moment’s joy to prove,
And fain would love, and only seem
     To love because we cannot love.

Draw back the blinds, put out the light:
     ’Tis morning, let the daylight come.
God! how the women’s cheeks are white,
     And how the sunlight strikes us dumb!




EMMY.


EMMY’S exquisite youth and her virginal air,
     Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile,
Come to me out of the past, and I see her there
     As I saw her once for a while.

Emmy’s laughter rings in my ears, as bright,
     Fresh and sweet as the voice of a mountain brook,
And still I hear her telling us tales that night,
     Out of Boccaccio’s book.

There, in the midst of the villainous dancing-hall,
     Leaning across the table, over the beer,
While the music maddened the whirling skirts of the ball,
     As the midnight hour drew near,

There with the women, haggard, painted and old,
     One fresh bud in a garland withered and stale,
She, with her innocent voice and her clear eyes, told
     Tale after shameless tale.

And ever the witching smile, to her face beguiled,
     Paused and broadened, and broke in a ripple of fun,
And the soul of a child looked out of the eyes of a child,
     Or ever the tale was done.

O my child, who wronged you first, and began
     First the dance of death that you dance so well?
Soul for soul: and I think the soul of a man
     Shall answer for yours in hell.




EMMY AT THE ELDORADO.


TO meet, of all unlikely things,
Here, after all one’s wanderings!
But, Emmy, though we meet,
What of this lover at your feet?

For, is this Emmy that I see?
A fragile domesticity
I seem to half surprise
In the evasions of those eyes.

Once a child’s cloudless eyes, they seem
Lost in the blue depths of a dream,
As though, for innocent hours,
To stray with love among the flowers.

Without regret, without desire,
In those old days of love on hire,
Child, child, what will you do,
Emmy, now love is come to you?

Already, in so brief a while,
The gleam has faded from your smile;
This grave and tender air
Leaves you, for all but one, less fair.

Then, you were heedless, happy, gay,
Immortally a child; to-day
A woman, at the years’ control:
Undine has found a soul.




AT THE CAVOUR.


WINE, the red coals, the flaring gas,
     Bring out a brighter tone in cheeks
That learn at home before the glass
     The flush that eloquently speaks.

The blue-grey smoke of cigarettes
     Curls from the lessening ends that glow;
The men are thinking of the bets,
     The women of the debts, they owe.

Then their eyes meet, and in their eyes
     The accustomed smile comes up to call,
A look half miserably wise.
     Half heedlessly ironical.




IN THE HAYMARKET.


I DANCED at your ball a year ago,
     To-night I pay for your bread and cheese,
“And a glass of bitters, if you please,
     For you drank my best champagne, you know!”

Madcap ever, you laugh the while,
     As you drink your bitters and munch your bread;
The face is the same, and the same old smile
     Came up at a word I said.

A year ago I danced at your ball,
     I sit by your side in the bar to-night;
And the luck has changed, you say: that’s all!
     And the luck will change, you say: all right!

For the men go by, and the rent’s to pay,
     And you haven’t a friend in the world to-day;
And the money comes and the money goes:
     And to-night, who cares? and to-morrow, who knows?




AT THE LYCEUM.


HER eyes are brands that keep the angry heat
     Of fire that crawls and leaves an ashen path.
     The dust of this devouring flame she hath
Upon her cheeks and eyelids. Fresh and sweet
In days that were, her sultry beauty now
     Is pain transfigured, love’s impenitence,
     The memory of a maiden innocence,
As a crown set upon a weary brow.

She sits, and fain would listen, fain forget;
     She smiles, but with those tragic, waiting eyes,
Those proud and piteous lips that hunger yet
     For love’s fulfilment. Ah, when Landry cries
“My heart is dead!” with what a wild regret
     Her own heart feels the throb that never dies!




THE BLIND BEGGAR.


HE stands, a patient figure, where the crowd
     Heaves to and fro beside him. In his ears
     All day the Fair goes thundering, and he hears
In darkness, as a dead man in his shroud.
Patient he stands, with age and sorrow bowed,
     And holds a piteous hat of ancient yean;
     And in his face and gesture there appears
The desperate humbleness of poor men proud.

What thoughts are his, as, with the inward sight,
     He sees those mirthful faces pass him by?
Is the long darkness darker for that light.
     The misery deeper when that joy is nigh?
Patient, alone, he stands from morn to night,
     Pleading in his reproachful misery.




THE OLD LABOURER.


HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak,
     His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits;
     His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits
Bending above the hearthstone’s feeble smoke.
Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land;
     He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil;
     He saw his masters flourish through his toil;
He held their substance in his horny hand.

Now he is old: he asks for daily bread:
     He who has sowed the bread he may not taste
          Begs for the crumbs: he would do no man wrong.
The Parish Guardians, when his case is read,
     Will grant him (yet with no unseemly haste)
     Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.




THE ABSINTHE DRINKER.


GENTLY I wave the visible world away.
     Far off, I hear a roar, afar yet near,
     Far off and strange, a voice is in my ear,
And is the voice my own? the words I say
Fall strangely, like a dream, across the day;
     And the dim sunshine is a dream. How clear,
     New as the world to lovers’ eyes, appear
The men and women passing on their way!

The world is very fair. The hours are all
     Linked in a dance of mere forgetfulness.
          I am at peace with God and man. O glide,
Sands of the hour-glass that I count not, fall
     Serenely: scarce I feel your soft caress.
          Rocked on this dreamy and indifferent tide.




JAVANESE DANCERS,


TWITCHED strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums.
     Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting;
And now the stealthy dancer comes
     Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling;

Smiling between her painted lids a smile,
     Motionless, unintelligible, she twines
     Her fingers into mazy lines,
Twining her scarves across them all the while.

One, two, three, four step forth, and, to and fro,
     Delicately and imperceptibly,
Now swaying gently in a row,
     Now interthreading slow and rhythmically,

Still with fixed eyes, monotonously still,
     Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate,
     With lingering feet that undulate,
With sinuous fingers, spectral hands that thrill,

The little amber-coloured dancers move,
     Like little painted figures on a screen,
     Or phantom-dancers haply seen
Among the shadows of a magic grove.




LOVE’S DISGUISES.




LOVE IN SPRING.


GOOD to be loved and to love for a little, and then
     Well to forget, be forgotten, ere loving grow life!
Dear, you have loved me, but was I the man among men?
Sweet, I have loved you, but scarcely as mistress or wife.

Message of Spring in the hearts of a man and a maid,
     Hearts on a holiday: ho! let us love: it is Spring.
Joy in the birds of the air, in the buds of the glade,
     Joy in our hearts in the joy of the hours on the wing.

Well, but to-morrow? To-morrow, good-bye: it is over.
     Scarcely with tears shall we part, with a smile who had met.
Tears? What is this? But I thought we were playing at lover.
     Play-time is past. I am going. And you love me yet!




GIPSY LOVE.


THE gipsy tents are on the down,
     The gipsy girls are here;
And it’s O to be off and away from the town
     With a gipsy for my dear!

We’d make our bed in the bracken
     With the lark for a chambermaid;
The lark would sing us awake in the mornings
     Singing above our head.

We’d drink the sunlight all day long
     With never a house to bind us;
And we’d only flout in a merry song
     The world we left behind us.

We would be free as birds are free
     The livelong day, the livelong day;
And we would lie in the sunny bracken
     With none to say us nay.

The gipsy tents are on the down,
     The gipsy girls are here;
And it’s O to be off and away from the town
     With a gipsy for my dear!




IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.


UNDER the almond tree,
Room for my love and me!
     Over our heads the April blossom;
April-hearted are we.

Under the pink and white,
Love in her eyes alight;
     Love and the Spring and Kensington Gardens:
Hey for the heart’s delight!




REWARDS.


BECAUSE you cried, I kissed you, and,
Ah me! how should I understand
That piteous little you were fain
To cry and to be kissed again?

Because you smiled at last, I thought
That I had found what I had sought.
But soon I found, without a doubt,
No man can find a woman out.

I kissed your tears, and did not stay
Till I had kissed them all away.
Ah, hapless me! ah, heartless child!
She would not kiss me when she smiled.




PERFUME.


SHAKE out your hair about me, so,
     That I may feel the stir and scent
Of those vague odours come and go
     The way our kisses went.

Night gave this priceless hour of love,
     But now the dawn steals in apace,
And amorously bends above
     The wonder of your face.

“Farewell” between our kisses creeps,
     You fade, a ghost, upon the air;
Yet, ah! the vacant place still keeps
     The odour of your hair.




SOUVENIR.


HOW you haunt me with your eyes!
Still that questioning persistence,
Sad and sweet, across the distance
Of the days of love and laughter,
Those old days of love and lies.

Not reproaching, not reproving,
Only, always, questioning,
Those divinest eyes can bring
Memories of certain summers,
Nights of dreaming, days of loving,

When I loved you, when your kiss,
Shyer than a bird to capture,
Lit a sudden heaven of rapture;
When we neither dreamt that either
Could grow old in heart like this.

Do you still, in love’s December,
Still remember, still regret
That sweet unavailing debt?
Ah, you haunt me, to remind me
You remember, I forget!




TO MARY.


IF, Mary, that imperious face,
     And not in dreams alone,
Come to this shadow-haunted place
     And claim dominion;

If, for your sake, I do unqueen
     Some well-remembered ghost,
Forgetting much of what hath been
     Best loved, remembered most;

It is your witchery, not my will,
     Your beauty, not my choice:
My shadows knew me faithful, till
     They heard your living voice.




TO A GREAT ACTRESS.


SHE has taken my heart, though she knows not, would care not.
     It thrills at her voice like a reed in the wind;
I would taste all her agonies, have her to spare not,
          Sin deep as she sinned,

To be tossed by the storm of her love, as the ocean
     Rocks vessels to wreck; to be hers, though the cost
Were the loss of all else: for that moment’s emotion
          Content to be lost!

To be, for a moment, the man of all men to her,
     All the world, for one measureless moment complete;
To possess, be possessed! To be mockery then to her,
          Then to die at her feet!




LOVE IN DREAMS.


I LIE on my pallet bed,
     And I hear the drip of the rain;
The rain on my garret roof is falling,
     And I am cold and in pain.

I lie on my pallet bed,
     And my heart is wild with delight;
I hear her voice through the midnight calling,
     As I lie awake in the night.

I lie on my pallet bed,
     And I see her bright eyes gleam;
She smiles, she speaks, and the world is ended,
     And made again in a dream.




MUSIC AND MEMORY.

To K.W.


ACROSS the tides of music, in the night,
Her magical face,
A light upon it as the happy light
Of dreams in some delicious place
Under the moonlight in the night.

Music, soft throbbing music in the night,
Her memory swims
Into the brain, a carol of delight;
The cup of music overbrims
With wine of memory, in the night.

Her face across the music, in the night,
Her face a refrain,
A light that sings along the waves of light,
A memory that returns again,
Music in music, in the night.




SPRING TWILIGHT.

To K. W.


THE twilight droops across the day,
     I watch her portrait on the wall
Palely recede into the grey
     That palely comes and covers all.

The sad Spring twilight, dull, forlorn,
     The menace of the dreary night:
But in her face, more fair than morn,
     A sweet suspension of delight.




IN WINTER.


PALE from the watery west, with the pallor of winter a-cold,
Rays of the afternoon sun in a glimmer across the trees;
Glittering moist underfoot, the long alley. The firs, one by one,
Catch and conceal, as I saunter, and flash in a dazzle of gold
Lower and lower the vanishing disc: and the sun alone sees
At I wait for my love in the fir-tree alley alone with the sun.




QUEST.


I CHASE a shadow through the night,
     A shadow unavailing;
Out of the dark, into the light,
     I follow, follow: is it she?

Against the wall of sea outlined,
     Outlined against the windows lit,
The shadow flickers, and behind
     I follow, follow after it.

The shadow leads me through the night
     To the grey margin of the sea;
Out of the dark, into the light,
     I follow unavailingly.




TO A PORTRAIT.


A PENSIVE photograph
     Watches me from the shelf:
Ghost of old love, and half
     Ghost of myself!

How the dear waiting eyes
     Watch me and love me yet:
Sad home of memories,
     Her waiting eyes!

Ghost of old love, wronged ghost,
     Return, though all the pain
Of all once loved, long lost,
     Come back again.

Forget not, but forgive!
     Alas, too late I cry.
We are two ghosts that had their chance to live,
     And lost it, she and I.




SECOND THOUGHTS.


WHEN you were here, ah foolish then!
     I scarcely knew I loved you, dear.
I know it now, I know it when
     You are no longer here.

When you were here, I sometimes tired,
     Ah me! that you so loved me, dear.
Now, in these weary days desired,
     You are no longer here.

When you were here, did either know
     That each so loved the other, dear?
But that was long and long ago:
     You are no longer here.




APRIL MIDNIGHT.


SIDE by side through the streets at midnight,
     Roaming together,
Through the tumultuous night of London,
     In the miraculous April weather.

Roaming together under the gaslight,
     Day’s work over,
How the Spring calls to us, here in the city,
     Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!

Cool the wind blows, fresh in our faces,
     Cleansing, entrancing,
After the heat and the fumes and the footlights,
     Where you dance and I watch your dancing.

Good it is to be here together,
     Good to be roaming;
Even in London, even at midnight,
     Lover-like in a lover’s gloaming.

You the dancer and I the dreamer,
     Children together,
Wandering lost in the night of London,
     In the miraculous April weather.




DURING MUSIC.


THE music had the heat of blood,
     A passion that no words can reach;
We sat together, and understood
     Our own heart’s speech.

We had no need of word or sign,
     The music spoke for us, and said
All that her eyes could read in mine
     Or mine in hers had read.




ON THE BRIDGE.


MIDNIGHT falls across hollow gulfs of
night
     As a stone that falls in a sounding well;
Under us the Seine flows through dark and light,
     While the beat of time—hark!—is audible.

Lights on bank and bridge glitter gold and red,
     Lights upon the stream glitter red and white;
Under us the night, and the night overhead.
     We together, we alone together in the night.




“I DREAM OF HER.”


I DREAM of her the whole night long,
     The pillows with my tears are wet.
I wake, I seek amid the throng
     The courage to forget.

Yet still, as night comes round, I dread,
     With unavailing fears,
The dawn that finds, beneath my head,
     The pillows wet with tears.




TEARS.


O HANDS that I have held in mine,
     That knew my kisses and my tears,
     Hands that in other years
Have poured my balm, have poured my wine;

Women, once loved, and always mine,
     I call to you across the years,
     I bring a gift of tears,
I bring my tears to you as wine.




THE LAST EXIT.


OUR love was all arrayed in pleasantness,
     A tender little love that sighed and smiled
     At little happy nothings, like a child,
A dainty little love in fancy dress.

But now the love that once was half in play
     Has come to be this grave and piteous thing.
     Why did you leave me all this suffering
For all your memory when you went away?

You might have played the play out, O my friend,
     Closing upon a kiss our comedy.
     Or is it, then, a fault of taste in me,
Who like no tragic exit at the end?




AFTER LOVE.


O TO part now, and, parting now,
     Never to meet again;
To have done for ever, I and thou,
     With joy, and so with pain.

It is too hard, too hard to meet
     As friends, and love no more;
Those other meetings were too sweet
     That went before.

And I would have, now love is over,
     An end to all, an end:
I cannot, having been your lover,
     Stoop to become your friend!




ALLA PASSERETTA BRUNA.


IF I bid you, you will come,
     If I bid you, you will go,
          You are mine, and so I take you
To my heart, your home;
     Well, ah, well I know
          I shall not forsake you.

I shall always hold you fast,
     I shall never set you free,
          You are mine, and I possess you
Long as life shall last;
     You will comfort me,
          I shall bless you.

I shall keep you as we keep
     Flowers for memory, hid away,
          Under many a newer token
Buried deep,
     Roses of a gaudier day,
          Rings and trinkets, bright and broken.

Other women I shall love,
     Fame and fortune I may win,
          But when fame and love forsake me
And the light is night above,
     You will let me in,
          You will take me.




NOCTURNES.




NOCTURNE.


ONE little cab to hold us two,
Night, an invisible dome of cloud,
The rattling wheels that made our whispers loud,
As heart-beats into whispers grew;
And, long, the Embankment with its lights,
The pavement glittering with fallen rain,
The magic and the mystery that are night’s,
And human love without the pain.

The river shook with wavering gleams,
Deep buried as the glooms that lay
Impenetrable as the grave of day,
Near and as distant as our dreams.
A bright train flashed with all its squares
Of warm light where the bridge lay mistily.
The night was all about us: we were free,
Free of the day and all its cares!

That was an hour of bliss too long,
Too long to last where joy is brief.
Yet one escape of souls may yield relief
To many weary seasons’ wrong.
“O last for ever!” my heart cried;
It ended: heaven was done.
I had been dreaming by her side
That heaven was but begun.




HER STREET.

(IN ABSENCE.)


I PASSED your street of many memories.
     A sunset, sombre pink, the flush
     Of inner rose-leaves idle fingers crush,
Died softly, as the rose that dies.
All the high heaven behind the roof lay thus,
     Tenderly dying, touched with pain
     A little; standing there I saw again
The sunsets that were dear to us.

I knew not if ’twere bitter or more sweet
     To stand and watch the roofs, the sky.
     O bitter to be there and you not nigh,
Yet this had been that blessed street.
How the name thrilled me, there upon the wall!
    There was the house, the windows there
     Against the rosy twilight high and bare,
The pavement-stones: I knew them all!

Days that have been, days that have fallen cold!
     I stood and gazed, and thought of you,
     Until remembrance sweet and mournful drew
Tears to eyes smiling as of old.
So, sad and glad, your memory visibly
     Alive within my eyes, I turned;
     And, through a window, met two eyes that burned,
Tenderly questioning, on me.




ON JUDGES’ WALK.


THAT night on Judges’ Walk the wind
     Was as the voice of doom;
The heath, a lake of darkness, lay
     As silent as the tomb.

The vast night brooded, white with stars,
     Above the world’s unrest;
The awfulness of silence ached
     Like a strong heart repressed.

That night we walked beneath the trees,
     Alone, beneath the trees;
There was some word we could not say
     Half uttered in the breeze.

That night on Judges’ Walk we said
     No word of all we had to say;
But now there shall be no word said
     Before the Judge’s Day.




IN THE NIGHT.


THE moonlight had tangled the trees
Under our feet as we walked in the night,
And the shadows beneath us were stirred by the breeze
In the magical light;
And the moon was a silver fire,
And the stars were flickers of flame,
Golden and violet and red;
And the night-wind sighed my desire,
And the wind in the tree-tops whispered and said
In her ear her adorable name.

But her heart would not hear what I heard,
The pulse of the night as it beat,
Love, Love, Love, the unspeakable word,
In its murmurous repeat;
She heard not the night-wind’s sigh,
Nor her own name breathed in her ear,
Nor the cry of my heart to her heart,
A speechless, a clamorous cry:
“Love! Love! will she hear? will she hear?”
O heart, she will hear, by and by,
When we part, when for ever we part.




FÊTES GALANTES.

AFTER PAUL VERLAINE.




MANDOLINE,


THE singers of serenades
     Whisper their faded vows
Unto fair listening maids
     Under the singing boughs.

Tircis, Aminte, are there,
     Clitandre is over-long,
And Damis for many a fair
     Tyrant makes many a song.

Their short vests, silken and bright,
     Their long pale silken trains,
Their elegance of delight,
     Twine soft blue silken chains.

And the mandolines and they,
     Faintlier breathing, swoon
Into the rose and grey
     Ecstasy of the moon.




DANS L’ALLÉE.


AS in the age of shepherd king and queen,
Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,
Under the sombre branches, and between
The green and mossy garden-ways she goes,
With little mincing airs one keeps to pet
A darling and provoking perroquet.
Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds
With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,
So vaguely hints of vague erotic things
That her eye smiles, musing among its folds.
—Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,
Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,
In her divine unconscious pride of youth,
The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.




CYTHÈRE.


BY favourable breezes fanned,
     A trellised arbour is at hand
     To shield us from the summer airs;

The scent of roses, fainting sweet,
     Afloat upon the summer heat,
     Blends with the perfume that she wears.

True to the promise her eyes gave,
     She ventures all, and her mouth rains
     A dainty fever through my veins;

And Love, fulfilling all things, save
     Hunger, we ’scape, with sweets and ices,
     The folly of Love’s sacrifices.




LES INDOLENTS.


BAH! spite of Fate, that says us nay,
Suppose we die together, eh?
     —A rare conclusion you discover!

—What’s rare is good. Let us die so,
Like lovers in Boccaccio.
     —Hi! hi! hi! you fantastic lover!

—Nay, not fantastic. If you will,
Fond, surely irreproachable.
     Suppose, then, that we die together?

—Good sir, your jests are fitlier told
Than when you speak of love or gold.
     Why speak at all, in this glad weather?

Whereat, behold them once again,
Tircis beside his Dorimène,
     Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,

For some caprice of idle breath
Deferring a delicious death.
     Hi! hi! hi! what fantastic lovers!




FANTOCHES.


SCARAMOUCHE waves a threatening hand
To Pulcinella, and they stand,
     Two shadows, black against the moon.

The old doctor of Bologna pries
For simples with impassive eyes,
     And mutters o’er a magic rune.

The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed,
Glides slyly ’neath the trees, in quest
     Of her bold pirate lover’s sail;

Her pirate from the Spanish main,
Whose passion thrills her in the pain
     Of the loud languorous nightingale.




PANTOMIME.


PIERROT, no sentimental swain,
Washes a pâté down again
     With furtive flagons, white and red.


Commerce and communication, 486.

Commerce, hastens progress, 362.

Common schools, 477.

Constitutional liberty in England, 393.

Copernicus, 461.

Crete, island of, 207.

Crô-Magnon, earliest ancestral type, 28; cultures of, 72.

Crompton, Samuel, spinning "mule," 436.

Crusades, causes of, 319, 320, 321; results of, 322-323; effect on
monarchy, 324; intellectual development, 325; impulse to commerce, 326;
social effect, 327.

Cultures, evidence of primitive, 28; mental development and, 32; early
European, 32.

Curie, Madame, 469.

Custom, 112, 288, 295.


Dance, the, as dramatic expression, 133; economic, religious, and
social functions of, 134.

Darius I, founded Persian Empire, 168.

Darwin, Charles, 467.

Democracy, 342, 392, 449.

Democracy in America, 418; characteristics of, 419-421; modern
political reforms of, 421-425.

Descartes, René, 461.

Diogenes, 218.

Discovery and invention, 362.

Duruy, Victor, 363.


Economic life, 170-180, 290, 429.

Economic outlook, 495.

Education and democracy, 477-482.

Education, universal, 475, 478; in the United States, 476.

Educational progress, 482.

Egypt, 145, 146; centre of civilization, 157-160; compared with
Babylon, 162; pyramids, 160; religion, 172; economic life, 178;
science, 182.

England, beginnings of constitutional liberty in, 345.

Environment, physical, determines the character of civilization, 141;
quality of soil, 144; climate and progress, 146; social order, 149.

Equalization of opportunities, 499.

Euphrates valley, seat of early civilization, 152.

Evidences of man's antiquity, 69; localities of, 71-78; knowledge of,
develops reflective thinking, 77.

Evolution, 467-469.


Family, the early, 109-112; Greek and Roman, 212-213; German, 286.

Feudalism, nature of, 294-299; sources of, 294, based on land tenure,
296; social classification under, 298; conditions of society under,
300; individual development under, 302; influence on world progress,
303.

Fire and its economy, 88.

Florence, 336.

Food supply, determines progress, 83-85; increased by discovery and
invention, 86.

France, free cities of, 330; rise of popular assemblies, 338; rural
communes, 338; place in modern civilization, 399; philosophers of, 403;
return to monarchy, 417; character of constitutional monarchy, 418.

France, in modern civilization, 399; philosophers of, 403.

Franklin, Benjamin, 465.

Freedom of the press, 484.

Freeman, E. A., 233.

French republic, triumph of, 417.

French Revolution, 405-407; results of, 407.


Galileo, 461.

Gabon, Francis, 469.

Geography, 312.

Germans, social life of, 283; classes of society, 285; home life, 286;
political organization, 287; social customs, 288; contribution to law,
291; judicial system, 292.

Gilbert, William, 461.

Glacial epoch, 62.

Greece, 148, 205, 210.

Greece and Rome compared, 250.

Greek equality and liberty, 229.

Greek federation, 245.

Greek government, an expanded family, 229; diversity of, 231; admits
free discussion, 231; local self-government, 232; independent community
life, 231; group selfishness, 232; city state, 239.

Greek influence on Rome, 261.

Greek life, early, 205; influence of, 213.

Greek philosophy, observation and inquiry, 215; Ionian philosophy, 216;
weakness of, 219; Eleatic philosophy, 220; Sophists, 221; Epicureans,
224; influence of, 225.

Greek social life, 241, 243.

Greeks, origin of, 209; early social life of, 208; character of
primitive, 209; family life of, 212; religion of, 212.

Guizot, 399.


Hargreaves, James, invents the spinning jenny, 436.

Harvey, William, 461.

Hebrew influence, 164.

Henry VIII and the papacy, 387; defender of the faith, 396.

Heraclitus, 218.

Hierarchy, development of, 276.

History, 312.

Holy Roman Empire, 414.

Human chronology, 59.

Humanism, 349, 364, 366; relation of language and literature to, 367;
effect on social manners, 371; relation to science and philosophy, 372;
advances the study of the classics, 373; general influence on life, 373.

Huss, John, 378, 379.

Huxley, Thomas H., 471.


Ice ages, the, 62, 64.

Incas, culture of, 187.

India, 148, 166.

Individual culture and social order, 150.

Industrial development, 429-433, 439; revolution, 437.

Industries, radiate from land as a centre, 429; early mediaeval, 430;
public, 497; corporate, 497.

Industry and civilization, 441.

International law, reorganization of, 492.

Invention, 86, 362, 436.

Iroquois, social organization of, 198.

Italian art and architecture, 368.

Italian cities, 332; popular government of, 333.


Jesuits, the, 385.

Justinian Code, 260.


Kepler, 463.

Knowledge, diffusion of, 480.

Koch, 470.

Koran, the, 304, 310.


Labor, social economics of, 496.

Lake dwellings, 78.

Lamarck, J. P., 467.

Land, use of, determines social life, 145.

Language, origin of, 121; a social function, 123; development of,
126-129; an instrument of culture, 129.

Latin language and literature, 261.

League for permanent peace, 489-492

Licinian laws, 256.

Lister, 469, 470.

Locke, John, 398.

Lombard League, 337.

Louis XIV, the divine right of kings, 400.

Luther, Martin, and the German Reformation, 382-385.

Lycurgus, reforms of, 244.

Lysander, 241.


Magdalenian cultures, 72.

Man, origin of, 57; primitive home of, 66, antiquity of, 73-70; and
nature, 141; not a slave to environment, 149.

Manorial system, 430.

Manuscripts, discovery of, 364.

Marxian socialism in Russia, 427.

Maya race, 192.

Medicine, 308.

Medontidae, 234.

Men of genius, 33.

Mesopotamia, 154.

Metals, discovery and use of, 100.

Metaphysics, 310.

Mexico, 146.

Michael Angelo, 370.

Milton, John, 398.

Minoan civilization, 207.

Monarchy, a stage of progress in Europe, 344.

Monarchy versus democracy, 392.

Mongolian race, 167.

Montesquieu, 404.

Morgan, Lewis H., beginning of civilization, 4; classification of
social development, 49.

Morton, William, T. G., 470.

Mound builders, 197.

Music, as language, 131; as a socializing factor, 133, 137.

Mutual aid, 120; of nations, 491.


Napier, John, 463.

Napoleon Bonaparte, 417.

Nationality and race, 444.

Nature, aspects of, determine types of social life, 147.

Neanderthal man, 29, 65.

Newton, Sir Isaac, 463.

Nile, valley, seat of early civilization, 152.

Nobility, the French, 400.


Occam, William of, 379.

Oriental civilization, character of, 170; war for conquest and plunder,
171; religious belief, 171-174; social condition, 175; social
organization, 176-178; economic life, 178-180; writing, 181; science,
182; contribution to world progress, 184.


Parliament, rebukes King James I, 396; declaration of, 397.

Pasteur, Louis, 469, 470.

Peloponnesian War, 241.

People, the condition of, in France, 401.

Pericles, age of, 247.

Petrarch, 365, 366.

Philosophy, Ionian, 216; Eleatic, 220; sophist, 221; stoic, 225;
sceptic, 225; influence of Greek on civilization, 226, 228.

Phoenicians, the, become great navigators, 161; colonization by, 161.

Physical needs, efforts to satisfy, 82-85.

Picture writing, 126.

Pithecanthropus erectus, 29.

Plato, 222.

Political ideas, spread of, 486-488.

Political liberty in XVIII century. [Transcriber's note: no page number
in source]

Polygenesis, monogenesis, 66.

Popular government, expense of, 328, 414.

Power manufacture, 437.

Pre-historic human types, 63, 65, 66.

Pre-historic man, types of, 28,

Pre-historic time, 60-61.

Primitive man, social life of, 31, 32; brain capacity of, 29.

Progress and individual development, 23; and race development, 22;
influence of heredity on, 24; influence of environment on, 25; race
interactions and, 26; early cultural evidence of, 32; mutations in, 33;
data of, 34; increased by the implements used, 35; revival of,
throughout Europe, 348; and revival of learning, 372-373.

Progress, evidence of, 456.

Public opinion, 485.

Pueblo Indians, culture of, 194; social life, 195; secret societies,
196.

Pythagoras, 219.


Race and language, 124.

Races, cause of decline, 201, 202.

Racial characters, 70.

Recounting human progress, methods of 37-52; economic development,
39-40.

Reform measures in England, 415.

Reformation, the, character of, 375; events leading to, 376-380; causes
of, 380-382; far-reaching results of, 388-391.

Religion and social order, 113-116.

Religious toleration, growth of, 447.

Renaissance, the, 349, 370.

Republicanism, spread of, 425.

Research, foundations of, 472; educational process of, 479.

Revival of learning, 364.

River and glacial drift, 74.

Roebuck, John, the blast furnace, 436.

Roman civil organization, 258.

Roman empire, and its decline, 264.

Roman government, 258; law, 259; imperialism, 267.

Roman social life, 264.

Rome a dominant city, 257; development of government, 258.

Rome, political organization, 252; struggle for liberty, 243; social
conditions, 255; invasion of the Gauls, 255; Agrarian laws, 254, 256;
plebeians and patricians, 256; optimates, 256; influence on world
civilization, 266.

Rousseau, 404.


Savonarola, 380.

Scholastic philosophy, 353.

Schools, cathedral and monastic, 356; Graeco-Roman, 357.

Science, in Egypt, 182; in Spain, 306; nature of, 307, 458; and
democracy, 464, 465.

Scientific classification, 460; men, 465; progress, 470; investigation,
trend of, 473.

Scientific methods, 459.

Scientific research, 463.

Semites, 160.

Shakespeare, 398.

Shell mounds, 73.

Shelters, primitive, 99.

Social conditions at the beginning of the Christian era, 269.

Social contacts of the Christian religion, 268.

Social development, 13, 23, 49, 104, 114, 347, 443.

Social evolution, depends on variation, 347; character of, 443.

Social forces, balance of, 501.

Social groups, interrelation of, 454.

Social life, 31, 133, 145, 147, 171, 178-180, 208, 241, 243, 247, 255,
258, 283, 285, 289, 298, 300, 327, 371.

Social life of primitive man, 31, 32; development of social order,
41-45; intellectual character of, 47; religious and moral condition of,
46, 47; character of, 108; moral status of, 117.

Social opportunities, 455.

Social order, 8, 41, 122, 149, 150, 176-178, 193, 196, 444, 445.

Social organization, 145, 176-178, 210, 250-252, 432, 433, 444.

Social unrest, 502.

Society, 5, 175, 205, 255, 256, 268-273, 285, 301, 316, 443, 445, 446,
450, 451, 452.

Society, complexity of modern, 452.

Socrates, 221.

Solon, constitution of, 235.

Spain, attempts at popular government in, 341.

Sparta, domination of, 241; character of Spartan state, 242.

Spencer, Herbert, 471.

Spiritual progress and material comfort, 500.

State education, 482.

States-general, 341.

Struggle for existence develops the individual and the race, 106.

Summary of progress, 503.

Switzerland, democracy in cantons, 342.

Symonds, J. A., 366.


Teutonic liberty, 281; influence of, 282, 291, 292; laws, 291.

Theodosian Code, 260.

Toltecs, 192.

Towns, in the Middle Ages, 329.

Trade,434.

Trade and its social Influence, 104.

Transportation, 102.

Tylor, E. B., Primitive Culture, 114.

Tyndall, John, 471.


Unity of the human race, 66.

Universities, mediaeval, 475; English, 476; German, 476; American, 476;
endowed, 484.

Universities, rise of, 360; nature of, 361; failure in scientific
methods, 361.


Venice, 335.

Village community, 44.

Village sites, 77.

Voltaire, 404.


Waldenses, 378.

Warfare and social progress, 119.

Watt, James, power manufacture, 436.

Weissman, A., 467.

Western civilisation, important factors in its foundation, 268.

Whitney, Ely, the cotton gin, 436.

Wissler, Clark, culture areas, 26; trade, 104.

World state, 493.

World war, breaks the barriers of thought, 488.

World War, iconoclastic effects of, 427.

Writing, 181.

Wyclif, John, and the English reformation, 378, 386.


Zeno, 220.

Zenophanes, 220.

Zwingli and the reformation in Switzerland, 385.






Transcriber's notes:

In the Table of Contents, the "PART III" division precedes Chapter VII,
but in the body of the book it precedes Chapter VIII.

Page numbers in this book are enclosed in curly braces.  For its Index,
a page number has been placed only at the start of that section.  In
the HTML version of this book, page numbers are placed in the left
margin.

Footnote numbers are enclosed in square brackets.  Each chapter's
footnotes have been renumbered sequentially and moved to the end of
that chapter.








Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
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Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistencies in the hyphenation and variations in spelling have been
retained as in the original.





  WINGS OF THE
    WIND

  BY

  CREDO HARRIS

  _Author of_
  "TOBY," "SUNLIGHT PATCH,"
  "WHERE THE SOULS OF MEN ARE CALLING,"
  ETC.


  BOSTON
  SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS




  Copyright, 1920
  BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
  (INCORPORATED)




  TO
  S. THRUSTON BALLARD
  WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HAS SHARED
  MANY A PLEASANT CAMP-FIRE
  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED




  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                PAGE

      I. "TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"       9

     II. THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR          16

    III. THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ             29

     IV. NIRVANA                          43

      V. "TO THE VERY END!"               54

     VI. A VOICE FROM THE WATER           70

    VII. A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY           80

   VIII. THE CHASE BEGINS                 94

     IX. A SHOT FROM THE DARK            104

      X. A SILENT ENEMY                  117

     XI. A STRANGE FIND                  129

    XII. THE HURRICANE                   140

   XIII. ON TO DEATH RIVER!              153

    XIV. SMILAX BRINGS NEWS              161

     XV. EFAW KOTEE'S DEN                174

    XVI. THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH         190

   XVII. THE RESCUE                      202

  XVIII. DOLORIA                         212

    XIX. ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS         228

     XX. SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT     238

    XXI. PLANTING A MEMORY               249

   XXII. I LOVE YOU                      266

  XXIII. THE ATTACK                      275

   XXIV. GERMAN CRUELTY                  289

    XXV. A FLYING THRONE                 304

   XXVI. A TREASURE BOX                  319

  XXVII. THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS           330





WINGS OF THE WIND




CHAPTER I

"TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"


At last out of khaki, and dressed in conventional evening clothes, I
felt as if I were indeed writing the first words of another story on the
unmarred page of the incoming year. As I entered the library my mother,
forgetting that it was I who owed her deference, came forward with
outstretched arms and a sound in her voice like that of doves at nesting
time. Dad's welcome was heartier, even though his eyes were dimmed with
happy tears. And old Bilkins, our solemn, irreproachable butler, grinned
benignly as he stood waiting to announce dinner. What a wealth of
affection I had to be grateful for!

I did not lack gratitude, but with the old year touching the heels of
the new, and Time commanding me to get in step, my return to civil life
held few inducements. Instead of a superabundance of cheer, I had
brought from France jumpy nerves and a body lean with over
training--natural results of physical exhaustion coupled with the mental
reaction that must inevitably follow a year and a half of highly
imaginative living.

But there was another aspect less tangible, perhaps more permanent--and
all members of combat divisions will understand exactly what I mean.
When America picked up the gauntlet, an active conscience jerked me from
a tuneful life and drove me out to war--for whether men are driven by
conscience, or a government draft board, makes no difference in the
effect upon those who come through. Time after time, for eighteen
months, I made my regular trips into hell--into a hell more revolting
than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured to spellbound, quaking
sinners. Never in this world had there been a parallel to the naked
dangers and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never so
prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations of human flesh,
smells that turned the body sick, blasphemies that made the soul grow
hard, frenzied efforts to kill, and above all a spirit, fanatical, that
urged each man to bear more, kill more, because he was a Crusader for
the right.

Into this red crucible I had plunged, and now emerged--remolded. In one
brief year and a half I had lived my life, dreamed the undreamable,
accomplished the unaccomplishable. Much had gone from me, yet much had
come--and it was this which had come that distorted my vision of future
days; making them drab, making my fellows who had not taken the plunge
seem purposeless and immature. Either they were out of tune, or I
was--and I thought, of course, that they were. What freshness could I
bring to an existence of peace when my gears would not mesh with its
humdrum machinery!

My mother, ever quick to detect the workings of my mind as well as the
variations of my body, had noticed these changes when I disembarked the
previous week, and had become obsessed with the idea that I stood
tottering on the brink of abysmal wretchedness. So, while I was marking
time the few days at camp until the hour of demobilization, she summoned
into hasty conference my father, our family doctor, and the select near
relatives whose advice was a matter of habit rather than value, to
devise means of leading me out of myself.

This, I afterward learned, had been a weighty conference, resulting in
the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my
more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong
into business--as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no
doubt--and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the
mulish streak that coursed through my blood, their plans were laid
behind my back with the greatest secrecy. Therefore, when entering the
library this last night in December and hurrying to my mother's arms, I
had no suspicion that I was being drawn into a very agreeable trap,
gilded by my father's abundant generosity.

We sat late after dinner. Somewhere in the hall Bilkins hovered with
glasses and tray to be on hand when the whistles began their screaming.
In twenty years he had not omitted this New Year's Eve ceremony.

"Your wound never troubles you?" my mother asked, her solicitation over
a scratch I had received ten months before not disguising a light of
pride that charmed me.

"I've forgotten it, Mater. Never amounted to anything."

"Still, you did leave some blood on French soil," Dad spoke up, for this
conceit appealed to him.

"Enough to grow an ugly rose, perhaps," I admitted.

"I'll bet you grew pretty ones on the cheeks of those French girls," he
chuckled.

"Pretty ones don't grow any more, on cheeks or anywhere else," I
doggedly replied. "Materialism's the keynote now--that's why I'm going
back to work, at once."

"Oh," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your father's stupid office,
yet!"

"There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled.

"Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if Gates has the yacht in
commission, and you take a run down to Miami----"

"Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly interrupted him.
"I hadn't intended leaving New York this winter, but will chaperon a
house party if you like!"

"Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with good-natured
emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go after adventures and romances and
that kind of thing! Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's
what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!"

They waited, rather expectantly.

"Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm. "But it's a waste of
time to go after romance and adventure. They died with the war."

"Ho!--they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision. "What's become
of your imagination--your vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the
Mater supported him by exclaiming:

"Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my Pantheist! Don't tell me
your second sight for discovering the beautiful in things has failed
you!"

"It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with
bitterness some of the fellows who had been with me.

What was romance here to the colorful, high-tensioned thing I had seen
in devastated areas where loves of all gradations were torn and
scattered and trampled into the earth like chaff! Fretfully I told them
this.

They exchanged glances, yet she continued in coaxing vein:

"You're such a big baby to've been such a big soldier! Don't you know
that romance is always just over the hill, hand in hand with
adventure--both lonely for someone to play with? Wars can't kill them!
It's after wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"

"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to think of it, that's
exactly right! And Gates has the same crew of six--men you've always
known! Even that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The _Whim_, you
can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner yacht that sails! I
say again that if I had the chance I'd turn her free on whatever magic
course the wings of the wind would take her! That I would--by George!"

And there was a note of deep appeal in the Mater's voice as she asked:

"Why not get that boy you wrote so much about--Tommy what's-his-name,
the Southerner? I like him!"

This plan, which I now saw had been so carefully prepared--fruit of the
secret conference--was but one in the million or so of others throughout
America nurtured and matured by the brave army of fathers, mothers,
wives, sisters, daughters, who stayed at home and gave their all,
waiting with alternate hopes and fears, looking with prayerful eyes to
the day that would bring a certain one back into their arms. What
difference if some plans were elaborate and some as modest as a flower?
Who would dare distinguish between the cruise on a private yacht and the
cake endearingly made in a hot little kitchen for the husky lad just
returned from overseas? Each was its own best expression of pride and
love. Each said in its tenderest way: "Well done, my own!"

A lump came into my throat.

"It's rather decent of a fellow to have two such corking forbears," I
murmured.

The Mater turned her gentle eyes to the fire, and Dad, clearing his
throat in a blustering way--though he was not at all a blustering
man--replied:

"Perhaps it's rather decent of us to have a son who--er, I mean,
who--well, er----"

"A cruise hits me right," I exclaimed, hurriedly coming to his rescue,
for neither of us wanted a scene. "And I'll wire Tommy Davis, Mater--the
chap you mentioned. He's a corking fellow! I didn't write you how the
battalion started calling him 'Rebel' till he closed up half a dozen
eyes, did I? You see, in the beginning, when we were rookies, the
sergeant had us up in formation to get our names, and when he came to
Tommy that innocent drawled: 'Mr. Thomas Jefferson Davis, suh, of
Loui'ville, Jefferson county, Kentucky, suh.' You could have heard a pin
drop. The sergeant, as hard-boiled as they come, stood perfectly still
and let a cold eye bore into him for half a minute, then gasped: 'Gawd!
What a wicked little rebel!'"

They laughed.

"Why didn't you bring him home with you?"

"Same reason he couldn't take me home with him. There were people
waiting, and turkey, and--but he won't want to go," I added. "He's crazy
about a girl down there!"

"Fiddlesticks," my father chuckled. "Any normal fellow'll want to
cruise! I'll wire him myself--this very night!"

Bilkins entered with the tray, wishing us a happy new year. Outside the
whistles were beginning to blow. After we had pledged each other, and
drunk to 1919, the Mater, a light of challenge in her eyes, looked at me
and gave another toast:

"To a cruise and an adventure, Jack!"

"To romance," Dad cried, gallantly raising her fingers to his lips.

There was no use being a wet blanket, so with a laugh I said:

"To adventure and romance!--Mater, if they're still on earth I'll bring
them home to you!"

I knew it was a very silly toast, but let it go to please them--for why
disillusion those who believe in the actuality of nonexistence?




CHAPTER II

THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR


Ten days later Tommy and I--and Bilkins, whom I had begged of my father
at the eleventh hour--stepped off the train at Miami, stretched our arms
and breathed deep breaths of balmy air. Gates, his ruddy face an augury
of good cheer, was there to meet us, and as he started off well laden
with a portion of our bags, Tommy whispered:

"Reminds me of the old chap in that picture 'The Fisherman's Daughter'!"

The description did fit Gates like an old glove, yet his most dominant
characteristic was an unfailing loyalty to our family and an honest
bluntness, both of which had become as generally recognized as his skill
in handling the _Whim_--"the smartest schooner yacht," he would have
told you on a two-minute acquaintanceship, "that ever tasted salt."

"We might open the cottage for a few days, Gates," I said, as we were
getting into the motor.

"Bless you, sir," he replied, caressing a weather-beaten chin with thumb
and finger, "the _Whim_'s been tugging at her cable mighty fretful this
parst fortnight! The crew hoped you'd be coming aboard at once, sir.
Fact is, we're wanting to be told how you and Mr. Thomas, here, licked
those Germans."

"Angels of the Marne protect me," Tommy groaned. "Gates, I wouldn't
resurrect those scraps for the Kaiser's scalp!"

"Yes, he will," I promised, smiling at the old fellow's look of
disappointment. "He'll probably talk you to death, though; that's the
only trouble."

"I'll tell you what," Tommy said, "we'll chuck the cottage idea and go
aboard; then tonight, Gates, you pipe the crew--if that's the nautical
term--whereupon I'll hold a two-hour inquest over our deceased war, on
condition that we bury the subject forever more. We came down here to
lose the last eighteen months of our lives, Gates, not keep 'em green.
Maybe you don't know it, but we're after the big adventure!"

His eyes twinkled as he said this, and his face was lighted by a rare
smile that no one possessed more engagingly than Tommy. While he treated
the probability of an adventure with tolerant amusement, such was his
inherent love of it and so developed was his capacity for
"playing-true," that he sometimes made me think almost anything might
turn up. I was quite unaware that my mother had written him, or that he,
in return, had promised to keep her fully advised of my improvement--a
state which was already beginning.

"I carn't see how you help talking of it, sir--all that gas, and liquid
fire, and bursting shells," Gates stared at him in perplexity.

"It's an effort, but I refuse to turn phonograph like some of the old
timers--not that I love 'em any less for it, Lord knows!" Then he began
to laugh, and turned to me, adding: "One of the first things I did after
getting home was to drop in on a very dear gentleman who's been a friend
of our family since the Ark. He came at me with open arms, crying:
'Well, Thomas, sit right down and tell me about your experiences!' I
side-tracked that--for I hate the word. We didn't go over for
_experiences_! But he wouldn't be denied. 'Try to think,' he commanded.
'Why, Thomas, old as I am, I remember when Stonewall Jackson struck that
brilliant blow----' and you can shoot me for a spy, Jack, if he didn't
keep me there five hours while he fought the entire Civil War! No
sir-ee! After tonight, never again!"

But Tommy's talk, to which the crew listened in rapt attention, consumed
nearer six than two, or even five hours. These men were hungry for
authentic first-hand information--being too old to have sought it for
themselves.

It must not be inferred that the _Whim's_ crew consisted of the ancient
and decrepit. More than once my father had said that if ever he should
get in a tight place there was no band of six he would rather have at
his back than this one headed by Gates; nor did he except Pete, the
prince of cooks. Yet who, by the wildest stretch of fancy, could have
contemplated tight places or dangers as the trim yacht rode peacefully
at anchor an eighth of a mile off our dock at smiling Miami? To every
man aboard such things as death and the shedding of blood had ceased
with the armistice, and Gates would have taken his oath, were it asked
of him, that our course pointed only toward laughing waters, blue skies,
and emerald shore-lines.

Early next morning we were under way when Tommy pounded on my stateroom
door, challenging me to a dip overboard. There was a glorious joy in his
voice, as far reaching as reveille, that found response in the cockles
of my heart. Gates, never happier than when standing beneath stretched
canvas, hove-to as he saw us dash stark naked up the companionway stairs
and clear the rail head-first, but he laid by only while we had our
splash and continued the course southward the moment our hands grasped
the gangway.

"We're cruising, not swimming," he said bluntly, as we reached the deck.
"But I'll say this," he called after us, "you're both in about as fine
condition as men get to be. I'll give _that_ to the Army!" Which was
true, except for the fact that I might have been pronounced overtrained.
Tommy and I were as hard as nails, our skin glowed like satin--but,
better than this, his spirit was quick with the love of living, charged
with a contagion that had already begun to touch my own.

Half an hour later he mumbled through a crumbling biscuit:

"If Pete ever cooked better grub than this it was in a previous
incarnation!"

"Man achieves his greatest triumph but once in life," I admitted. "It's
self-evident."

One loses track of time while sailing in south Florida waters. There is
a lassitude that laughs at clocks; the lotus floats over the waves even
as over the land, and a poetic languor steals into the soul breeding an
indifference to hours and days--wretched things, at best, that were only
meant for slaves! Neither of us realized our passing into Barnes Sound,
and saw only that the _Whim_, sails gracefully drawing, cut the water as
cleanly as a knife.

Another day passed during which we shot at sharks, or trawled, or lay on
deck smoking and occasionally gazing over the side at displays of fish
and flora twenty feet beneath us. But upon the third morning I asked:

"Where are we bound, Gates?"

"Mr. Thomas says Key West, sir, and then Havana."

"Mr. Thomas, indeed," I laughed, for it was exactly like Tommy to take
over the command of a ship, or anything else that struck his fancy.

Before leaving Miami he had received a twenty page letter from the
Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such
volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what
orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a
very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine
would always be dear to him.

During our most trying hours in France, thoughts of this wonderful girl,
whose name was Nell, unfailingly kept his spirits high. In moments of
confidence that come to pals on the eve of battle I saw that some day
they might be eternal "buddies"--certainly if he had his way; and toward
this achievement he had been, since graduating from the University of
Virginia, directing every effort to build up a stock farm which his
family had more or less indifferently carried for generations. Next to
winning Nell, his greatest ambition was to raise a Derby
winner--according to him a more notable feat than being President.

The sixth of April, 1917, had caught him with a promising string of
yearlings, each an aristocrat in the equine world of blue-bloods, each a
hope for that most classic of American races. But he had thrown these
upon the hands of a trainer and submerged his personal interests six
hours after Congress declared war. At the same moment, indeed, all of
Kentucky was turning to a greater tradition than that of "horses and
whiskey"; and, by the time the draft became operative, the board of one
county searched it from end to end without finding a man to
register--because those in the fighting age, married or single, with
dependents or otherwise, had previously rushed to the Colors. This, and
the fact that his state, with three others, headed the nation with the
highest percentage in physical examinations, added luster to the shield
of his old Commonwealth--though he roundly insisted that 'twas not
Kentucky's manhood, but her womanhood, who deserved the credit. After
our cruise he was going back to the thoroughbreds, now within a few
months of the required Derby age; and of course I had promised to be on
hand at Churchill Downs when his colors flashed past the grandstand.

Late in the afternoon the _Whim_ docked at Key West and, while Gates was
ashore arranging for our clearance, Tommy and I ambled up town in search
of daily papers. We were seated in the office of a rather seedy hotel
when its proprietor approached, saying:

"'Scuse me, gents,--are you from that boat down there?"

I answered in the affirmative.

"Going to Havana?"

This, too, I admitted.

"Well, there's a feller by the desk who missed the steamer, and he
hoped--er----"

"We'd take him over," Tommy supplied the halting words. "Where is he?"

Turning, we easily distinguished the man by his timid glances in our
direction.

"Whiz-bang," Tommy whispered. "What the deuce would you call it, Jack?"

Except for his age, that might have been sixty, he was most comical to
look upon--in stature short and round, suggesting kinship with a gnome.
His head seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been because
it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored hair, with mustache and
beard to match. He was attired in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that
looked as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed. On
the floor about his feet lay almost every conceivable type and age of
traveling bag, with the inevitable camera.

"What's his name?" Tommy asked, not that that would have made any
difference if his passport were in order.

"Registered as 'Monsieur Dragot, of Roumania,'" the proprietor answered.

"Roumania!" Tommy looked at me. "Let's go meet him, Jack."

Monsieur Dragot turned out to be the original singed cat, for assuredly
he possessed more attractive qualities inside than were exteriorly
visible, and from a first shyness that did not lack charm he expanded
briskly. After visiting a "dry" café, to seal this fortunate
acquaintanceship--as he insisted upon calling it--he warmed up to us and
we to him, with the result that his bags were soon carried down and
stowed in our spare stateroom. Leaving him there, we went on deck.

"Dragot," Tommy mused. "Speaks with a slight accent, but I can't make
out what!"

"Roumanian, possibly," I suggested, "as he comes from there."

"You rather excel yourself," he smiled. "Registering from Roumania,
however, isn't prima facie evidence that he's a Roumanian."

"He's a clever little talker, all the same."

"Right O! Too clever. I'm wondering if we aren't a pair of chumps to
take him."

"Why?"

"He may be a crook, for all we know. Did you notice what he said about
holding a commission from Azuria, and then hurrying to explain that
Azuria isn't on the ordinary maps--just a wee bit of a kingdom up in the
Carpathians, yet in the confines of Roumania? I call that fishy!"

"Not entirely so, Tommy. When you said it might now be turning into a
republic, did you notice how proudly he declared that the descendants of
Basil the Wolf couldn't be humbled?--that, situated in Moldavia, and
escaping the ravages of the Bulgarian army, they were stronger today
than ever?"

"Sounds like raving, sonny. Who the dickens is Basil the Wolf? No, Jack,
that doesn't tell us anything."

"It tells us he couldn't have been inspired like that unless the place
and people were real to him!"

"Well, pirate or priest," Tommy laughed, "he'll do if he waltzes us up
to the big adventure. You're about fit enough to tackle one now!" During
the past forty-eight hours he had openly rejoiced with Gates at my
improvement and tried, with the indifferent success of an unbeliever, to
play up at top speed that silly idea of an approaching adventure.

We had strolled aft, and now stopped to watch a tall Jamaica negro--or
so we thought him to be--asking Gates for a place in the crew. His
clothing was too scant to hide the great muscles beneath, and Tommy
touched my arm, saying:

"There's a specimen for you!"

Had he been cast in bronze a critic might have said that the sculptor,
by over-idealizing masculine perfection, had made the waist too small,
the hips too slender, for the powerful chest and shoulders; the wrists
and ankles might have been thought too delicate as terminals for the
massive sinews leading into them. He smiled continually, and spoke in a
soft, almost timid voice.

"I like that big fellow," I said. Perhaps I had been well called a
pantheist, having always extravagantly admired the perfect in form or
face or the wide outdoors.

Feeling my interests he turned from Gates, looking at me with dog-like
pathetic trustfulness. Among the things he told us briefly--for the crew
stood ready to cast off--was that he once followed the sea, but in more
recent years lived by fishing up sponges and at times supplying shark
meat to the poorer quarter of Key West. The carcass of a water fowl tied
to his boat, while he occupied himself with sponges, would sometimes
attract a shark; then he would strip, take a knife in his teeth, and
dive.

I glanced at Gates, but saw no incredulity in his face.

In another hour, at nearly dusk, Key West had grown small and finally
sank below the horizon, leaving only its three skeleton-like towers
standing against the sky--standing erect with all nerves strained,
watch-dogs of the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed cry
from some waif out in the mysterious night.

Looking back along our wake I imagined the big black man standing as we
had left him on the dock, gazing after us with patient regret; and I was
glad to have given him the handful of coins at parting, little dreaming
how many times that loaf upon the water would come floating in to me.

Monsieur Dragot revealed himself more and more to our astonished eyes as
we sat that night on deck. He had been a professor in the University of
Bucharest, and hinted at an intimate entente with the reigning house of
Azuria. Besides being versed in many sciences, including medicine, he
spoke seven languages and read several others. But these things were
drawn from him by Tommy's artful questions, rather than being said in
boastfulness. Indeed, Monsieur was charmingly, almost touchily, modest.
Of his business in Havana he gave no hint, yet this happened to be the
one piece of information that Tommy seemed most possessed to find out.

"You'll be in Cuba long, Monsieur?" he asked.

"No one can say. A day, a week, a month, a year--it is an elusive search
I follow, my young friends. May I call you that?"

We bowed, and I deferentially suggested:

"If we can help you in any way?----"

"It is the beautiful spirit of America," he sighed, "to help those in
distress, yet there is nothing to do but watch--watch. For you have not
yet been here long enough to see a child in these waters--no?"

Tommy, perhaps because he came from the South and was on more or less
friendly terms with superstitions, glanced over the rail as if an infant
might be floating around almost anywhere. Our strange guest's mysterious
hints were, indeed, rather conducive to creeps.

Then, without further comment, he arose, tossed his cigar overboard, ran
his fingers through his mass of hair, and went below.

"What d'you suppose he meant?" I asked, in a guarded voice.

"Simple enough," Tommy whispered. "He's got apartments to let
upstairs."

"Get out, man," I laughed. "That chap has more sense than either of us!"

"Then he'd better come across with some of it. You remember the freckled
lad at Soissons who got fuzzy-headed from too much concussion? Well, he
saw children around everywhere, too! It's a sure sign, Jack!" But now he
laughed, adding: "Oh, I suppose our little Roumanian's all right,
only----"

He was interrupted by Monsieur, himself, who emerged from the
companionway door.

"I come again," he smiled apologetically, "because tomorrow our journeys
part, and I have shown scant consideration for your kindness."

"It's we who feel the obligation," Tommy murmured. "Now, if we could
only help you find the child--supposing, of course, that's what you're
watching for!"

Monsieur gave a deep sigh, appearing to be quite overcome by a secret
grief; but after a moment he looked at us, asking ingenuously:

"You think my behavior unusual?"

"Well, since you make a point of it," I laughed, and hesitated.

"I see, I see! But, my young friends, you must take my word that I
cannot tell you much." He drew us nearer. "This I may say: that, after
Roumania dropped out of the war, the new Chancellor of Azuria wired
imploringly for me to leave my classes at the University and come to
him--because for years I have advised with Azurian statesmen, frequently
going on special missions. By the recent death of the old Chancellor a
certain paper came to light. This was a secret agent's report sent from
Havana in 1914----I may not divulge its contents. But for the war it
would have been followed up at once. Whether the same hopes exist
now--well, I am here to discover. Ah, my young friends," his voice
trembled, "much depends upon this! I must--I must find the child if it
lives!"

Tommy's eyes grew round.

"I can say no more," Monsieur added. "Accept my thanks and gratitude for
the help you have given me. And now--_bon soir_."

He bowed, backing himself toward the stairs as though leaving a royal
presence, doing it so easily, so naturally, that we did not even smile.
When he had quite disappeared we turned and faced each other.

"What do you think now?" I asked.

"I think he's a treasure," Tommy cried. His face had lighted with a new
excitement. "If we want any fun on this trip, don't let him get out of
our sight! Stick to him! I won't deny he has a screw loose, but----"

"That makes it all the better," I laughed, adding: "Looks like the
Mater's toast might come true, after all, doesn't it!"--for I had
described our New Year's Eve to Tommy.

"Sonny, I've a hunch we won't even have to tiptoe over the hill to find
adventures with him around! He's their regular hanging-out place!"

Gates came up, and seemed vastly amused when we told him of our hopes.

"He doesn't look like much of an adventurer, sir, but he's certainly a
change from the great run of people I've met. Still, I carn't see how
we're going to keep him against his will!"

"Neither can I, Tommy."

"Use a little persuasion."

"But suppose he won't persuade?"

"What's the use of crossing bridges," Tommy grinned. "If he won't
persuade, then sit on his head--anything, I don't care! The main thing
is--keep him!"




CHAPTER III

THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ


Next morning began the conversion, or rather the persuasion, of Monsieur
Dragot to remain a while longer with the _Whim_. Pete started off with
another triumphant breakfast and before our guest had gone far with it
his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy and I put ourselves out to be
agreeable, telling him jokes that sometimes registered but frequently
did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.

"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you'll have a
better chance to find that child!"

Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.

"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go but anywhere, and that
ought to fall in with your plans."

"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you,
searching?"

"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather taken a fancy to you,
haven't we, Tommy?"

"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a
million-dollar bill to us!"

"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment and pleasure, "you
disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"

"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What d'you know about this
little gezabo, anyhow!"

Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new
word.

"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"

"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that's you!"

"Your American Indian language?"

"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around.
Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known
that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.

"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone
upwards of twenty years."

"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six
years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home,
leads me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care of
herself!"

Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:

"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet,
as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing
search, my boys!"

Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:

"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called
'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave
kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up
one there, as a last resort."

"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy,
explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas,
really an intellectual outcast.

"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I will stay with you a
while, eh? Maybe we can teach him something--this cut-upping Tommy of
yours!"

He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and later Tommy
confided to me that he was glad we wouldn't have to sit on the old
fellow's head.

Passing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the _Whim_ tacked prettily
through the entrance of Havana harbor and in another scant two miles
dropped anchor.

Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as the skies and
hardly less contagious than the city's laughter. But when one drops
anchor and then hoists it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud
those blue waves hide; and this circumstance, slight as it may seem,
held a potent influence on our future.

Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design very much like the
_Whim_, except that her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were
checked with age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she long
ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the
impression of aristocracy--broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No
bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country's emblem waved over her
taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather
badly painted word _Orchid_ on her name plate. Taken altogether, she was
rather difficult to place.

These signs of poverty would have passed unobserved by us, had we not in
coming to anchor swung between her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not
that it made any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we
impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously polite
thing to have done--and Gates was a stickler on matters of yacht
etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable about it, while at the same time
being reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the bottom of
Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined to megaphone apologies
and consult her wishes. Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two
sailors were seated forward playing cards--a surlier pair of ruffians
would have been hard to find--but neither of them so much as glanced up.

"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.

Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no better success. Then
to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally
growling: "Lascars, likely!"--and proceeded to hail in something he
afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to
attract the surly pair who played at cards.

"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy suggested, but this was
lost on the serious little man. Yet he did call in another strangely
sounding tongue, then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:

"They must be stuffies!"

"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice people don't say
stuffies, ever!"

"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he smiled at me. I had noticed
that when preoccupied or excited the idioms of his various languages got
tumbled into a rather hopeless potpourri.

Quarantine and customs were passed in the leisurely fashion of Cuban
officials, and Monsieur asked to be sent immediately ashore, promising
to return at sundown. There was a man, the secret agent, he explained,
who held important information.

"I'll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir," Gates told him,
but he refused to consider this, declaring that he could hire any of the
boatmen thereabout to bring him out.

"He's that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to me. "But I carn't
make head nor tail of him. Bilkins says he went in to lay out his
clothes, and the things he's got stuck in those bags would astonish
you!"

Nearing six o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one
oar--a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen--and when Monsieur
came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung
listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as if at last its weight
had proven too great for the squat body.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy Jack?"

"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining us.

Monsieur's pale eyes stared for a moment, then blinked several times
before he murmured:

"The man I went to see is dead--murdered, just after he mailed that
report. So I have no information. These police called it suicide because
a knife lay in his hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any
man I kill!"

"Was he a friend of yours?"

"No. I have never seen him. But he knew something!"

"He evidently knew too much," Tommy suggested.

"You speak true, my boy. It seems to be a dangerous thing here to know
too much of certain matters!"

"Well," I laughed, trying to put a heartiness in my voice and drive away
his depression, "let's go ashore for dinner! Then the Opera--and
afterwards another bite where the high life eats? What-say, Professor?"

As it turned out, however, neither the dinner, nor all of Tommy's
banter, nor Madame Butterfly sung in Spanish (as if it could!) succeeded
in restoring Monsieur to a normal temper.

"We've simply got to make him laugh," I whispered to Tommy. "It's a
matter of principle now!"

"Then wait till we have supper, and get him soused," my confederate
cautiously replied. "That'll do it. But you'd better not drink much," he
added. "How are the nerves this evening?"

"I've almost forgotten them," I answered.

But Tommy was persistent at times. Unknown to me he was now preparing a
report to wire the Mater.

"Sleeping better?" he asked.

"Lots."

"Lying to me?"

"A little," I laughed outright. "But honestly I'm in heaps better
shape!"

"Oh, I've seen you improving from day to day, but we want to put it over
right. So don't hit the asphalt too hard tonight."

And in all justice to myself and my friendship to Tommy I really did not
intend to. What place was it that some one said is paved with good
intentions?

Leaving the Opera House we mixed with the laughing tide that flowed
along the Prado, and by the merest chance--destinies of nations, much
less our own, sometimes rest upon a merest chance--dropped in for supper
at a fashionable place patronized by those who wish to see the brightest
of Havana life. There were other places, of course, that might have
offered quite as much, but this one happened to be on the route we had
taken.

Midnight passed, but still we lingered, seated on the latticed balcony
that encircles an inner court where cabaret features are
held--suggestive of a bull ring. One rather piquant Spanish girl,
playing her accompaniment on a guitar, gazed softly up at Tommy while
singing about some wonderful Nirvana, an enchanted island that floated
in a sea of love. It was a pretty song, even if more intense than
temperate, and pleased with it he tossed her a coin; whereupon she
tilted her chin and raised a shoulder, asking in the universal language
of cabarets if she should not come up and drink a health with the
_imperioso Señor_. But he, whose heart was beating against a twenty-page
letter from a nymph in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, laughed a
negative, this time throwing her a flower that she kissed lightly and
put in her hair.

We had supped well, the mandolins were now tinkling, incessantly, and
this, mingled with the silvery tones of glasses touched in eager
pledges, created an ensemble of sounds dear to the heart of every true
Bohemian. Effects were good here. The ceilings and walls of our balcony
were lighted by vari-colored electric bulbs artfully placed amidst
growing vines that drooped in festoons above the tables, producing a
fairy-like enchantment. And, indeed, the café proved to be a mart not
only of enchantments but entertainments, including a popular gambling
salon.

At last, in desperation seeing that Monsieur refused to be cheered,
Tommy sprang up, saying:

"Come, gezabo, let's court Dame Roulette! Join us, Jack?"

This I declined, and watched them move off arm in arm. But a strange
thing arrested my attention for, as they preceded down the corridor, I
saw a man in yachting clothes--the uniform of a captain--draw quickly
back into an alcove as if wanting to escape discovery. When they had
passed he looked out, more fearfully than curiously, and after a moment
of indecision slowly followed them. Urged by a suspicion that this was
in some way associated with the professor, I arose and also followed.
Yet upon reaching the salon the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Tommy
and Monsieur were each buying a stack of chips, the place seemed quiet
and orderly, so without being observed I returned to my table.

Now left alone I leaned back, idly twisting the stem of my glass,
looking over the sea of merry people who made a picture that quickened
interest. For I am particularly fond of sitting apart and watching an
assemblage of handsomely groomed men and women laughing, talking and
making love. I like to guess whether fears or tears or desperate courage
hide behind their gayety; whether the rapidly wagging tongues are
uttering inanities or planning naughty things; whether the love-making
will stop with coffee and liqueur, or, lighted by them, burn into
eternity.

All phases of human banality and human enigma seemed to be represented.
There were languid beauties of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might
have expressed _ennui_, passion, pride--anything, in fact, that one's
humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption was there, with heavy
ear-rings of jet, whose habit was that of looking slant-wise through her
cigarette smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked,
eyebrow; also there were a few American women, by far the most smartly
dressed. Great was the throb of life in this discreet and fashionable
café. I felt its tremendous emphasis, and was content.

Then, quite without warning, I caught my breath as my glance fell upon a
girl dining with an old chap but three tables away. Among the habitués
of the Ritzes of two continents there could not have been found another
like her, for never had I beheld a face as exquisite--and I've seen
many. It possessed a beauty that left me helpless--yet there was an
indefinable sadness in it that might have suggested a haunting fear.

One of the lights among the vines hung close to her, and I could see
these things. Even could I see the color of her eyes, deep purple
eyes--the tone the wild iris takes at twilight. When she leaned one way
I might have thought the rich abundance of her hair contained spun
copper or deep red gold, and again I would have sworn it matched the
mellow brown of chestnuts; in all forming an arrangement of waves, each
refusing to stay in place yet never really getting out of order, each
coquetting with a subtle mischief that found an echo in her lips. Her
neck and shoulders were of that perfection that men realize but can not
analyze; and her mouth, laughing or in repose, was maddening.

And there was an added charm quite apart from hair and eyes and lips.
This I had never before seen in any face. Animation? Yes, and more.
Interest in the life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree.
Wildness? That was it!--a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that
found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there
from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to
keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness
that she typified which made my cheeks grow hot with watching.

But who has ever made a picture worthy of his dreams! How, then, can I
describe this girl, when painter, sculptor, writer--all--would miserably
fail at attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination might gaze in
frank amazement and admit itself surpassed! Here, indeed, was all the
vital, colorful magnetism of a type that men are quick to die for!

Her gown--yet how can man describe a woman's gown? It was a very rich
affair and added to the picture. But this I did observe distinctly, that
in revealing her arms and shoulders there was no slightest hint of that
abandonment of _décolleté_ which denotes the approach of feminine
despair, nor was the color in her cheeks a result of anything less pure
than the kiss of air and sunshine.

Her _vis-à-vis_, almost too old to have been her father, was one of
those whose nationality is difficult to place. His hair, mustache and
Vandyke beard were gray; he was tall, thin, and perhaps seventy-five
years old. His complexion impressed one most unpleasantly because of its
sallow, almost yellow, hue; and although I had not yet had a full-face
view of him I intuitively knew that his teeth were long and thin and
yellow. A slight palsy never let his head be still, as if some
persistent agent were making him deny, eternally deny, an inarticulate
accusation--as accusations of the conscience perforce must be.

Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement,
sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed
the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the
waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually placid
individual to a state of amazed incapacity. Then a quick, really a
pitiful, look of terror came into the girl's eyes as she shrank back in
her chair. It lasted but a second before she was again making herself
agreeable--acting, of course--and I wanted to cross to him and demand:
"Why is this lady afraid?"

I hated the man; at first sight I loathed him. It was one of those
antipathies sometimes observed in dogs that see each other from a
distance--hair up and teeth bared. The feeling is spontaneous,
unpredictable, and the usual result is fight.

Up to this time she had not seen me, or even known of my insignificant
existence; but suddenly, as though it were a sally of banter whose blade
he parried in the nick of time, her laughter-bathed eyes darted past him
and squarely met my own; her lips sobered into a half parted expression
of interest and, some strange thought--perhaps unbidden--coming into her
mind, sent the blood surging to her cheeks. As quickly as this happened
it had gone, and again she seemed to be absorbing the attention of her
_vis-à-vis_.

Once, years ago in the Dolomites, I thoughtlessly struck my staff upon a
piece of rock when, lo, a wonderful tone arose therefrom. And the memory
of that rich, unbidden sound was re-awakened now as the contact of our
glances stirred something which thrilled me with a maddening sense of
harmony. As an E string vibrates when another E is struck somewhere near
to it, so my being vibrated with each tilt of her head, each movement of
her lips. Yet however much I conjured the magnet of my will to make her
look again, she successfully, if coquettishly, resisted.

The Spanish waiter came up softly to refill my glass; an attention I
permitted, murmuring happily:

"Right, kiddo! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with champagne, for my
heart is faint with love!"--only Solomon didn't sing it quite like
that, the fickle old dog, nor did my waiter understand me, which was
just as well.

Engrossed with watching her I saw a new look come into her face as she
quickly whispered something across the table. Her _vis-à-vis_ turned
impatiently as a man approached them, who to my surprise was the yacht
captain--the fellow who had apparently followed Tommy and Monsieur. He
was a well-built blond, with a bullet-shaped head, high cheek bones and
deep set eyes--pig eyes. His right cheek bore several scars which,
considering his type, strongly suggested a German of University dueling
experiences. So I looked on him with a livelier suspicion, even as she
seemed to be doing.

In an undertone he now said something that brought the old man to his
feet. With fear written on their faces they talked for several minutes,
during which the blond jerked his head once or twice toward the gambling
rooms. The girl had leaned forward watching them intently. Then with a
peremptory order the old one sent him away and sank back into his chair;
but a moment later, clutching the tablecloth, he spoke a few words that
made her recoil in evident horror.

I did not know what to do or what to think, so I merely watched with
every sense alert. I saw him call the waiter for his settlement, I saw
him take out a large roll of money and with trembling fingers peel off
the outside bill--a new and crinkly fifty-dollar note. I saw the girl
idly marking on the winecard with a small gold pencil, though her eyes
were veiling an intense excitement; and when the waiter returned with a
pile of change which the old man began to count, I saw her furtively
slip the winecard to her lap. A moment later it fell to the floor as she
arose to leave.

Together they started toward the exit, but having taken a few steps she
left him with a brief word and returned, presumably for her glove.
Partially free from his eternal vigilance, she raised her eyes without
dissimulation and looked quickly, appealingly into mine; then down at
her hand, on which she leaned, whose fingers were unfolding from a
little ball of paper. Again into my eyes she looked--a look of infinite
appeal.

Across the void from her world to my own she was signaling--trying to
tell me what?--and frantically my fancy sprang to translate the message.
But as the man, with growing agitation, had been watching narrowly
throughout this--a condition of which I felt sure she must be acutely
aware--I dared not make the slightest sign. Yet she seemed to understand
and, joining him, they passed out.

I pounced upon that crumpled ball of paper and was back in my chair
unfolding it with nervous fingers. Feverishly pressing out the creases I
saw that it was, indeed, a corner torn from the winecard, and written
upon it--nothing. Absolutely nothing!

Perhaps I should have laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in
my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a
stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my
orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched
across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my
harp were snapped, curled up, and could not be made to play again.

But the Spanish girl was playing her guitar, once more singing her
impassioned song of the enchanted island in its sea of love, which made
me pity myself so much that I permitted the waiter again to fill my
glass. What a wondrous adventure this night might have brought!

Such thoughts wore not to be profaned by the companionship of Tommy and
Monsieur, so I slipped away, hailed a cab and alighted at the Machina
wharf. The boatman there, whom I aroused to take me out, was one of the
most stupid fellows I've ever encountered. At any rate, someone was
stupid.

Going aboard the yacht I stood for a moment listening to the lonely
sweep of his oar sculling shoreward through the murky night. Over the
castellated walls of La Cabaña raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm
brewing, or had some supernal madness touched the night?

The watch forward called in a guarded voice: "All right, sir?" to which
I answered, "All right," then went cautiously across deck and crept down
the companionway stairs. The cabin was dark so I felt for my stateroom,
passed in and closed the door. Somehow my fingers could not locate the
light jet, but what matter? In three minutes I had undressed and was
fast asleep.




CHAPTER IV

NIRVANA


A pleasant sense of motion came over me that suggested cradling waves,
and I was sleepily wondering why we had gone out on a day that portended
storms, when a tapping at my stateroom door was followed by someone
whispering:

"Aren't you ever going to get up, you lazy old dear?"

It was a girl's voice.

Gradually and cautiously I drew the sheet about my chin, feeling no
little confused to have a girl five feet away whispering pet names at me
through a thin partition.

"Aren't you?" she repeated, more sweetly imperious.

"You bet," I stammered.

"Then do hurry! It's almost ten, and I've been waiting such a long
time!"

Whereupon I heard her moving off, pressing her hands against the panels
for steadiness, and there struck me as having been an endearing pathos
in the way she said: "such a long time!"

This was, no doubt, some of Tommy's doing. He had invited friends aboard
for luncheon, and was now daring one of them to play this joke. But my
glance turned to the room, to its equipment and toilette articles which
were large and curiously shaped, and the numbing truth crept into my
brain that the stupid boatman had put me on the wrong yacht.

I had known some tight places in France, but this one simply squeezed me
all over. There was nothing for it, of course, but go out and
explain--yet how could a chap appear at noon draped in a sheet! The
situation confused me, but I decided to search the wardrobe, of my
unknown host, to borrow his razor, appropriate a new toothbrush that
should be found in a box somewhere, and select flannels and linens in
keeping with the hour. Still balanced between confusion and panic I must
have done these things because, fittingly attired though with no very
good fit, I opened my door, stepped softly along the passageway, and
entered the cabin.

On a wide couch built in at one side a girl lay reading. Her head was
toward me, but as I advanced she arose with a low cry of gladness,
saying:

"So you're here at last----!" then with a little gasp drew back, facing
me in the most entrancing attitude of bewilderment.

It was the girl who had left that ball of paper!

The sea, always my friend, at this moment did a rather decent thing; it
gave the yacht a firm but gentle lurch and sent us into each other's
arms. Perhaps nothing else in all the world of chances could so
effectively have broken the ice between us, for we were laughing as I
helped her back to the couch; and, as our eyes met, again we laughed.

"I didn't know," she said, "that Father brought a guest aboard last
night!"

"Awkward of him, wasn't it?" I stammered, sparring for time.

"One is apt to be awkward in weather like this," she graciously
admitted.

"You don't know how profoundly aware I am of--of how terribly true that
is," I stumbled along. "Is he on deck?" For, oh, if I could only get to
see him five minutes alone!

"No, he's unusually lazy this morning; but I've called, him, the old
dear!"

A chill crept up my spine--crept up, crept down, and then criss-crossed.
But she must know of her mistake before we had gone so far that putting
me ashore would be a serious inconvenience--for I knew he would put me
ashore at the nearest point, if not, indeed, set me adrift in an open
boat. Therefore I suggested:

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to call him again? It's rather important!"

"Oh, you think we shouldn't have gone out in a storm like this? I've
been dreadfully uneasy!"

"No danger at all," I declared, with affected indifference, adding: "The
weather isn't half as rough as 'the old dear' will be, take my word for
it!"

A shadow of mystification passed over her wonderful face, yet she smiled
with well-bred tolerance, saying:

"You are quite droll."

"Drollery is the brother of good fellowship," I replied, helping her
across the reeling cabin. As I had feared, she went directly to my room
where the door had swung back showing an empty bunk.

"Why, he's up, after all," she glanced over her shoulder at me.

"I believe he is," I idiotically affirmed.

"But where?"--this more to herself.

"Hiding, maybe," I ventured, taking a facetious squint about.

"Hiding?" she asked, in mild surprise.

"Er--playing a trick on us! He's a funny old dog at tricks!"

"Funny old dog?" She drew slightly away from me. "Do you mean my father,
Mr.--er?"

"Jack," I prompted, more than ever embarrassed and wishing the ocean
would come up and swallow me; for I realized, alas, that my gods, by
whom I was reasonably well remembered in so far as concerned physique,
had been shamelessly remiss in their bestowal of brains.

"Jack?" she slowly repeated. "What an odd name!"

This made me feel queer.

"Where do you live," I asked, "that you think it's an odd name? The
States are crawling with Jacks! It's even the Democratic emblem!"

Her perplexity was fast approaching alarm when we heard a muffled report
above, followed by a trembling of the yacht. Someone called an order
that sounded far away in the wind.

"Hold tight," I said, "while I see if anything's wrong!"

But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what had happened. We had
snapped our mainsheet, that was all; letting the boom swing out and
putting us in the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly
minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger
and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked:

"Was my father on deck?"

"I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she thought I knew.

"Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted.

"I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back--you can't make it
alone!"

"Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make things alone!"

I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up and started to go
on deck. If I could take her father off to one side and explain, well
and good. He would perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood
that it was partially the result of a desire to fill Monsieur with
spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything by asking:

"What does he look like?"

"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.

"No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don't know
your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you
last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But
what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I've not wilfully
followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I
mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice
his mistake."

From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then almost to mirth. It was
a hard place for a girl to be in, and I expected her to leave me now,
find the old chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The fact
that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts made no difference. And I
do believe she was considering that when a sailor passed us, looking
enough like Tommy to have been his twin brother.

"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come below!"

The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in surprise, saying:

"Then my name can't seem very odd to you, Miss Graham!"

She was regarding me as though trying to discover what kind of a species
I was that had got on her father's yacht, when the sailor came back
followed by a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to meet
the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite came.

"He ain't aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the captain--for the
burly one was only the captain, after all--saluted, saying:

"I've just now found out, ma'am, he ain't aboard!"

"Not aboard? What do you mean?"

"After bringing you on last night he went ashore again to get a little
below was the bed-chamber of as many more.

Cast back upon his own thoughts, Rollo reviewed many things--his short
life, the reckless ups-and-downs in which he had spent it--but all
without remorse or regret.

"I might have been a lawyer, and lived to a hundred!" he said to
himself. "It is better as it is. If I have done little good, perhaps I
have not had time to do a great deal of harm."

Then very contentedly he curled himself up to sleep as best he might,
only dreamily wondering if little Concha would be sorry when she heard.

Ramon Garcia sat with his eyes fixed on the sentry who had ceased his
to-and-fro tramp up the centre, and now leaned gloomily against the
wall, his hands crossed about the cross-bar of his sword-bayonet.

Across the granary John Mortimer reclined with his head in his hands,
making vows never to enter Spain or trust himself under the leadership
of a mad Scot, if this once he should get clear off.

"It isn't the being shot," he moaned; "it's not being able to tell them
that I'm not a fool, but a respectable merchant able to pay my way and
with a balance at William Deacon's Bank. But it serves me right!" Then a
little inconsequently he added, "By gum, if I get out of this I'll have
a Spanish clerk in the works and learn the language!"

Which was John Mortimer's way of making a vow to the gods.

Etienne, having his hands comparatively free, and finding himself
sleepless, looked enviously at Rollo's untroubled repose, and began to
twist cigarettes for himself and the sentry who guarded his side of the
granary.

Without, the owls circled and cried. A dog barked in the village above,
provoking a far-reaching chorus of his kind. Then blows fell, and he
fled yelping out of earshot.

Rollo was not wholly comfortable on his couch of grain. The bonds about
his feet galled him, having been more tightly drawn than those of his
companions in virtue of his chiefship. Nevertheless he got a good deal
of sleep, and each time that he awoke it seemed to him that El Sarria
was staring harder at the sentry and that the man had moved a little
nearer.

At last, turning his head a little to one side, he heard distinctly the
low murmur of voices.

"Do you remember Pancorbo?" said Ramon Garcia.

Rollo could not hear the answer, but he caught the outlaw's next
question.

"And have you forgotten El Sarria, who, having a certain Miguelete under
the point of his knife, let him go for his sweetheart's sake, because
she was waiting for him down in the valley?"

The sentry's reply was again inaudible, but Rollo was fully awake now.
Ramon Garcia had not abandoned hope, and why should he? When there was
anything to be done, none could be so alert as Rollo Blair.

"I am El Sarria the outlaw," Ramon went on, "and these are my
companions. We are no traitors, but good Carlists to a man. Our papers
are----"

Here the words were spoken so low that Rollo could not hear more, but
the next moment he was nudged by Ramon on the leg.

"Write a note to Concha Cabezos, telling her to bring the papers here at
once if she would save our lives. You are sure she is faithful?"

"I am sure!" said Rollo, who really had no reason for his confidence
except the expression in her eyes.

He had no paper, but catching the sentry's eye, he nodded across to
where Etienne was still diligently rolling cigarettes.

"Alcoy?" he whispered.

The sentry shouldered his piece and took a turn or two across the floor,
keeping his eye vigilantly on his fellow guard, who, having seated
himself in the window-sill, had dozed off to sleep, the cigarette still
drooping from the corner of his mouth. Yes, he was certainly asleep.

He held out his hand to Etienne, who readily gave him the last he had
rolled. The sentry thanked him with a quick martial salute, and after a
turn or two more, deftly dropped the crumbled tobacco upon the floor and
let the leaf drop on Rollo's knees with a stump of pencil rolled up in
it.

Then the young man, turning his back upon the dozing guard in the stone
window-sill, wrote with some difficulty the following note, lying on his
breast and using the uneven floor of the granary for a desk.

     "Little Concha" (it ran), "we are General Cabrera's prisoners.
     Bring the papers as soon as you receive this. Otherwise we are
     to be shot at day-break.--ROLLO BLAIR."

There was still a little space left upon the leaf of Alcoy paper, and
with a half shamefaced glance at El Sarria, he added, "_And in any case
do not wholly forget R. B._"

He passed the note to the outlaw, who folded it to the size of a postage
stamp and apparently gave directions where and to whom it was to be
delivered.

"In half an hour we shall be relieved and I will go," said the Carlist
ex-Miguelete, and resumed his steady tramp. Presently he awoke his
comrade so that he might not be found asleep at the change of guard.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was nothing more to be done till day-break. They had played their
last card, and now they must wait to see what cards were out against
them, and who should win the final trick at the hour of sunrise.

Rollo fell asleep again. And so soundly this time, that he only woke to
consciousness when a soldier in a white _boina_ pulled roughly at his
elbow, and ordered him to get up.

All about the granary the Carlists were stamping feet, pulling on boots,
and flapping arms.

"It's a cold morning to be shot in," said the man, with rough
kindliness; "but I will get you some hot chocolate in a moment. That
will warm your blood for you, and in any case you will have a quick
passage. I will pick you a firing party of the best shots in the three
provinces. The general will be here in a quarter of an hour, and the sun
will rise in another quarter. One is just as punctual as the other. A
cigarette?--thank you. Well, you are a cool hand! I'm off to see about
the chocolate!"

And Rollo Blair, with a slight singing in his ears, and a chill
emptiness about the pit of his stomach, stood on his feet critically
rolling a cigarette in a leaf of Etienne's Alcoy paper.

John Mortimer said nothing, but looked after the man who had gone for
the chocolate.

"I wish it had been coffee," he said; "chocolate is always bad for my
digestion!"

Then he smiled a little grimly. His sufferings from indigestion produced
by indulgence in this particular chocolate would in all probability not
be prolonged, seeing that the glow of the sun-rising was already
reddening the sky to the east.

Etienne was secretly fingering his beads. And El Sarria thought with
satisfaction of the safety of Dolóres; he had given up hope of Concha a
full hour ago. The ex-Miguelete had doubtless again played the traitor.
He took a cigarette from Rollo without speaking and followed him across
the uneven floor between the heaps of trodden grain.

They were led down the stairway one by one, and as they passed through
the ground floor, with its thick woolly coating of grey flour dust, a
trumpet blew without, and they heard the trampling of horses in the
courtyard.

"Quick!" said a voice at Rollo's elbow, "here is your chocolate. Nothing
like it for strengthening the knee-joints at a time like this. I've seen
men die on wine and on rum and on brandy; but for me, give me a cup of
chocolate as good as that, when my time comes!"

Rollo drank the thick sweet strength-giving stuff to the accompaniment
of clattering hoofs and jingling accoutrements.

"Come!" said a voice again, "give me the cup. Do not keep the general
waiting. He is in no good temper this morning, and we are to march
immediately."

The young man stepped out of the mill-door into the crisp chill of the
dawn. All the east was a glory of blood-red cloud, and for the second
time Rollo and his companions stood face to face with General Cabrera.

It was within a quarter of an hour of the sun-rising.




CHAPTER XXII

HIS MOTHER'S ROSARY


It was, as the soldier had said most truly, a cold morning to be shot
in. But the Carlists, accustomed to Cabrera's summary methods, appeared
to think but little of the matter, and jested as the firing parties were
selected and drawn out. Ragged and desolate they looked as they stood on
a slight slope between the foreigners and the red dawn, biting their
cartridges and fingering the pulls of their rifles with hands numbed
with cold. At elbow and knee their rags of uniforms flapped like bunches
of ribbons at a fair.

"In the garden!" whispered Luis Fernandez to Cabrera.

"To the garden!" commanded the general, lighting a new cigarette and
puffing vigorously, "and at this point I may as well bid you good-bye. I
wish our acquaintance had been pleasanter. But the fortune of war,
gentlemen! My mother had not so long time to say her prayers at the
hands of your friend Nogueras--and she was a woman and old, gentlemen. I
doubt not you know as well how to die as she?"

And they did. Not one of them uttered a word. John Mortimer, seeing
there was now no chance of making his thousand pounds, set an example
of unbending dignity. He comported himself, indeed, exactly as he would
have done on his marriage day. That is, he knew that the eyes of many
were upon him, and he resolved not to shame the performance. So he went
through his part with the exact English mixture of awkward shyness and
sulky self-respect which would have carried him creditably to the altar
in any English church.

Etienne faced his death like the son of an ancient race, and a good
Catholic. He could not have a confessor, but he said his prayers,
committed his soul to God and the Virgin, and faced the black muzzles
not greatly abashed.

As for El Sarria, death was his _métier_, his familiar friend. He had
lived with him for years, as a man with a wife, rising up and lying
down, eating and breathing in his company. "The fortune of war," as
Cabrera said. El Sarria was ready. Dolóres and her babe were safe. He
asked no more.

And not less readily fell into line Rollo Blair. A little apart he stood
as they made ready to march out of the presence of the Carlist general.
John Mortimer was already on his way, carefully and conscientiously
ordering his going, that he might not in these last things disgrace his
nation and his upbringing. Etienne and Ramon were following him. Still
the young Scot lingered. Cabrera, nervously fingering his accoutrement
and signing papers at a folding table, found time to eye him with
curiosity.

"Did he mean to make a last plea for mercy?" he thought.

Cabrera smiled contemptuously. A friend of Nogueras might know Ramon
Cabrera of Tortosa better. But Rollo had no such thought. He had in his
fingers Etienne's last slip of Alcoy paper, in which the cigarette of
Spain, unfailing comforter, is wrapped. To fill it he had crumbled his
last leaf of tobacco. Now it was rolled accurately and with lingering
particularity, because it was to be the last. It lay in his palm featly
made, a cigarette worthy to be smoked by Don Carlos himself.

Almost unconsciously Rollo put it to his lips. It was a cold morning,
and it is small wonder that his hand shook a little. He was just
twenty-three, and his main regret was that he had not kissed little
Concha Cabezos--with her will, or against it--all would have been one
now. Meantime he looked about him for a light. The general noticed his
hesitation, rose from the table, and with a low bow offered his own, as
one gentleman to another. Rollo thanked him. The two men approached as
if to embrace. Each drew a puff of his cigarette, till the points glowed
red. Rollo, retreating a little, swept a proud acknowledgment of thanks
with his _sombrero_. Cabrera bowed with his hand on his heart. The young
Scot clicked his heels together as if on parade, and strode out with
head erect and squared shoulders in the rear of his companions.

"By God's bread, a man!" said Cabrera, as he resumed his writing, "'tis
a thousand pities I must shoot him!"

They stood all four of them in the garden of the mill-house, underneath
the fig trees in whose shade El Sarria had once hidden himself to watch
the midnight operations of Don Tomas.

The sun was just rising. His beams red, low, and level shot across the
mill-wheel, turning the water of the unused overshot into a myriad
pearls and diamonds as it splashed through a side culvert into the
gorge beneath, in which the gloom of night lingered.

The four men still stood in order. Mortimer and Etienne in the middle,
with slim Rollo and the giant Ramon towering on either flank.

"_Load with ball--at six paces--make ready!_"

The officer's commands rang out with a certain haste, for he could
already hear the clattering of the horses of the general's cavalcade,
and he knew that if upon his arrival he had not carried out his orders,
he might expect a severe reprimand.

But it was not the general's suite that rode so furiously. The sound
came from a contrary direction. Two horses were being ridden at speed,
and at sight of the four men set in order against the wall the foremost
rider sank both spurs into her white mare and dashed forward with a wild
cry.

The officer already had his sword raised in the air, the falling of
which was to be the signal for the volley of death. But it did not fall.
Something in the aspect of the girl-rider as she swept up parallel with
the low garden wall, her hair floating disordered about her
shoulders--her eyes black and shining like stars--the sheaf of papers
she waved in her hand, all compelled the Carlist to suspend that last
irrevocable order.

It was Concha Cabezos who arrived when the eleventh hour was long past,
and leaped from her reeking horse opposite the place of execution. With
her, wild-haired as a Mænad, rode La Giralda, cross-saddled like a man.

"General Cabrera! Where is General Cabrera?" cried Concha. "I must see
him instantly. These are no traitors. They are true men, and in the
service of Don Carlos. Here are their papers!"

"Where is Ramon Cabrera? Tell me quickly!" cried La Giralda. "I have
news for him. I was with his mother when she died. They whipped me at
the cross of Tortosa to tell what I knew--stripping me to the waist they
whipped me, being old and the mother of many. Cabrera will avenge me.
Let me but see Ramon Cabrera whom of old I suckled at my breasts!"

The officer hesitated. In such circumstances one might easily do wrong.
He might shoot these men, and after all find that they were innocent. He
preferred to wait. The living are more easily deprived of life than the
dead restored to it. Such was his thought.

In any case he had not long to wait.

Round the angle of the mill-house swept the general and his staff,
brilliant in scarlet and white, heightened by the glitter of abundant
gold-lace. For the ex-butcher of Tortosa was a kind of military dandy,
and loved to surround himself with the foppery of the _matador_ and the
brigand. At heart, indeed, he was still the _guerrillero_ of Morella,
riding home through the streets of that little rebel city after a
successful foray.

As his eyes fell on the row of men dark against the dusty _adobe_ of the
garden wall, and on the two pale women, a dark frown overspread his
face.

"What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "Why have you not obeyed your
instructions? Why are these men not yet dead?"

The officer trembled, and began an explanation, pointing to Concha and
La Giralda, both of whom stood for a moment motionless. Then flinging
herself over the low wall of the garden as if her years had more nearly
approached seventeen than seventy, La Giralda caught the great man by
the stirrup.

"Little Ramon, Ramon Cabrera," she cried, "have you forgotten your old
nurse, La Giralda of Sevilla, your mother's gossip, your own playmate?"

The general turned full upon her, with the quick indignant threat of one
who considers himself duped, in his countenance. It had gone ill with La
Giralda if she had not been able to prove her case. But she held
something in her hand, the sight of which brought the butcher of Tortosa
down from his saddle as quickly as if a Cristino bullet had pierced him
to the heart.

La Giralda was holding out to him an old string of beads, simply carved
out of some brown oriental nut, but so worn away by use that the
stringing had almost cut through the hard and polished shell.

"My mother's rosary!" he cried, and sinking on his knees, he devoutly
received and kissed it. He abode thus a moment looking up to the
sky--he, the man who had waded in blood during six years of bitter
warfare. He kissed the worn beads one by one and wept. They were his
mother's way to heaven. And he did not know a better. In which perchance
he was right.

"Whence gat you this?" cried Cabrera, rising sharply as a thought struck
him; "my mother never would have parted with these in her life--you
plundered it from her body after her death! Quick, out with your story,
or you die!"

"Nay, little foster-son," said La Giralda, "I was indeed with your
mother at the last--when she was shot by Nogueras, and five minutes
before she died she gave her rosary into my hands to convey to you.
'Take this to my son,' she said, 'and bid him never forget his mother,
nor to say his prayers night and morn. Bid him swear it on these sacred
beads!' So I have brought them to you. She kissed them before she died.
At the risk of my life have I brought it."

"And these," said Cabrera--"do you know these dogs, La Giralda?"

He pointed to the four men who still stood by the wall, the firing party
at attention before them, and the eyes of all on the next wave of the
general's hand which would mean life or death.

La Giralda drew a quick breath. Would the hold she had over him be
sufficient for what she was about to ask? He was a fierce man and a
cruel, this Ramon Cabrera, who loved naught in the world except his
mother, and had gained his present ascendency in the councils of Don
Carlos by the unbending and consistent ferocity of his conduct.

"These are no traitors, General," she said; "they are true men, and deep
in the councils of the cause."

She bent and whispered in his ear words which others could not hear. The
face of the Carlist general darkened from a dull pink to purple, and
then his colour ebbed away to a ghastly ashen white as he listened.

Twice he sprang up from the stone bench where he had seated himself,
ground his heel into the gravel brought from the river-bed beneath, and
muttered a characteristic imprecation, "Ten for one of their women I
have slain already--by San Vicente after this it shall be a hundred!"

For La Giralda was telling him the tale of his mother's shooting by
Nogueras.

Then all suddenly he reseated himself, and beckoned to Concha.

"Come hither," he said; "let me see these fellows' papers, and tell me
how they came into your hands!"

Concha was ready.

"The Señor, the tall stranger, had a mission to the Lady Superior of the
Convent," she began. "From Don Baltasar Varela it was, Prior of the
great Carlist Monastery of Montblanch. He trusted his papers into her
hands as a guarantee of his loyalty and good faith, and here they are!"

Concha flashed them from her bosom and laid them in the general's hands.
Usually Cabrera was blind to female charms, but upon this occasion his
eye rested with pleasure on the quick and subtle grace of the Andaluse.

"Then you are a nun?" he queried, looking sharply at her figure and
dress.

"Ah, no," replied Concha, thinking with some hopefulness that she was to
have at least a hearing, "I am not even a lay sister. The good Lady
Superior had need of a housekeeper--one who should be free of the
convent and yet able to transact business without the walls. It is a
serious thing (as your honour knows) to provision even a hundred men who
can live rough and eat sparely--how much harder to please a
convent-school filled from end to end with the best blood in Spain! And
good blood needs good feeding----"

"As I well knew when I was a butcher in Tortosa!" quoth Cabrera,
smiling. "There were a couple of ducal families within the range of my
custom, and they consumed more beef and mutton than a whole _barrio_ of
poor pottage-eaters!"

To make Cabrera smile was more than half the battle.

"You are sure they had nothing to do with the slayers of my mother?" He
was fierce again in a moment, and pulled the left flange of his
moustache into his mouth with a quick nervous movement of the fingers.

"I will undertake that no one of them hath ever been further South than
this village of Sarria," said Concha, somewhat hastily, and without
sufficient authority.

Cabrera looked at the papers. There was a Carlist commission in the name
of Don Rollo Blair duly made out, a letter from General Elio, chief of
the staff, commending all the four by name and description to all good
servants of Don Carlos, as trustworthy persons engaged on a dangerous
and secret mission. Most of all, however, he seemed to be impressed with
the ring belonging to Etienne, with its revolving gem and concealed
portrait of Carlos the Fifth.

He placed it on his finger and gazing intently, asked to whom it
belonged. As soon as he understood, he summoned the little Frenchman to
his presence. Etienne came at the word, calm as usual, and twirling his
moustache in the manner of Rollo.

"This is your ring?" he demanded of the prisoner. Concha tried to catch
Etienne's eye to signal to him that he must give Cabrera that upon which
his fancy had lighted. But her former lover stubbornly avoided her eye.

"That is my ring," he answered dryly, after a cursory inspection of the
article in question as it lay in the palm of the _guerillero's_ hand.

"It is very precious to you?" asked the butcher of Tortosa,
suggestively.

"It was given to me by my cousin, the king," answered Etienne, briefly.

"Then I presume you do not care to part with it?" said Cabrera, turning
it about on his finger, and holding it this way and that to the light.

"No," said Etienne, coolly. "You see, my cousin might not give me
another!"

But the butcher of Tortosa could be as simple and direct in his methods
as even Rollo himself.

"Will you give it to me?" he said, still admiring it as it flashed upon
his finger.

Etienne looked at the general calmly from head to foot, Concha all the
time frowning upon him to warn him of his danger. But the young man was
preening himself like a little bantam-cock of vanity, glad to be
reckless under the fire of such eyes. He would not have missed the
chance for worlds, so he replied serenely, "Do you still intend to shoot
us?"

"What has that to do with the matter?" growled Cabrera, who was losing
his temper.

"Because if you do," said Etienne, who had been waiting his opportunity,
"you are welcome to the jewel--_after_ I am dead. But if I am to live, I
shall require it for myself!"




CHAPTER XXIII

THE BURNING OF THE MILL-HOUSE


Cabrera bit his lip for a moment, frowned still more darkly, and then
burst into a roar of laughter. For the moment the _gamin_ in him was
uppermost--the same curly-pated rascal who had climbed walls and stolen
apples from the market-women's stalls of Tortosa thirty years ago.

"You are a brave fellow," cried the general, "and I would to Heaven that
your royal cousin had more of your spirit. Are all of your company of
the same warlike kidney?"

"I trust I am afraid of no man on the field of honour," answered the
loyal little Frenchman, throwing out his chest. "Yet I speak but the
truth when I aver that there is not one of my companions who could not
say grace and eat me up afterwards!"

Among the letters which had formed part of Rollo's credentials there was
one superscribed "_To be opened in the camp of General Cabrera_."

Cabrera now dismissed the firing party with a wave of his hand, the
officer in command exchanging an encouraging nod with Rollo. Then he
summoned that young man to approach. Rollo threw away the last inch of
his cigarette, and going up easily, saluted the general with his usual
self-possession.

"Well, colonel," said the latter, "I little thought to exchange
civilities with you again; but for that you have to thank this young
lady. The fortune of war once more! But if young men will entrust
precious papers to pretty girls, they must have a fund of gratitude upon
which to draw--that is, when the ladies arrive in time. On this occasion
it was most exactly done. Yet you must have lived through some very
crowded moments while you faced the muzzles of yonder rifles!"

And he pointed to the lane down which the firing party was defiling.

Rollo bowed, but did not reply, awaiting the general's pleasure.
Presently Cabrera, recollecting the sealed letter in his hand, gave it
unopened to the youth.

"There," he said, "that, I see, is to be opened in the camp of General
Cabrera. Well--where Cabrera is, there is his camp. Open it, and let us
see what it contains."

"I will, general," said the young Scot, "in so far, that is, as it
concerns your Excellency."

The Carlist general sat watching Rollo keenly as he broke the seal and
discovered a couple of enclosures. One was sealed and the other open.
The first he presented to Cabrera, who, observing the handwriting of the
superscription, changed colour. Meanwhile, without paying any attention
to him, Rollo read his own communication from beginning to end. It had
evidently been passed on to him from a higher authority than the Abbot,
for only the address was in the handwriting of that learned ecclesiast.

It ran as follows:

     "To the Man who shall be chosen by our trusted Councillor for
     the Mission Extraordinary in the service of Carlos
     Quinto--These:

     "You will receive from General Cabrera such succour and
     assistance as may seem to you needful in pursuance of the
     project you have in hand, namely the capturing of the young
     Princess Isabel together with her mother, the so-called Regent
     Cristina. Thereafter you will bring them with diligence within
     our lines, observing all the respect and courtesy due to their
     exalted rank and to the sex to which they belong.

     "At the same time you are held indemnified for all killings of
     such persons as may stand in your way in the execution of the
     duty laid upon you, and by order of the King himself you hereby
     take rank as a full Colonel in his service."

Meanwhile Cabrera had been bending his brows over the note which had
been directed to him personally. He rose and paced the length of the
garden-wall with the letter in his hand, while Rollo stood his ground
with an unmoved countenance. Presently he stopped opposite the young man
and stood regarding him intently.

"I am, I understand, to furnish you with men for this venture," he said;
"good--but I am at liberty to prove you first. That you are cool and
brave I know. We must find out whether you are loyal as well."

"I am as loyal as any Spaniard who ever drew breath," retorted Rollo,
hotly, "and in this matter I will answer for my companions as well."

"And pray in what way, Sir Spitfire?" said Cabrera, smiling.

"Why, as a man should," said Rollo, "with his sword or his pistol,
or--as is our island custom--with his fists--it is all the same to me;
yes, even with your abominable Spanish knife, which is no true
gentleman's weapon!"

"I am no unfriend to plainness, sir, either in speech or action," said
Cabrera; "I see you are indeed a brave fellow, and will not lessen the
king's chances of coming to his own by letting you loose on the men
under my command. Still for one day you will not object to ride with
us!"

Rollo coloured high.

"General," he said, "I will not conceal it from you that I have wasted
too much time already; but if you wish for our assistance in your
designs for twenty-four hours, I am not the man to deny you."

"I thought not," cried Cabrera, much pleased. "And now have you any
business to despatch before we leave this place? If so, let it be seen
to at once!"

"None, Excellency," said Rollo, "save that if you are satisfied of our
good faith I should like to see Luis Fernandez the miller dealt with
according to his deserts!"

"I will have him shot instantly," cried Cabrera; "he hath given false
tidings to his Majesty's generals. He hath belied his honest servants.
Guard, bring Luis Fernandez hither!"

This was rather more than Rollo had bargained for. He was not yet
accustomed to the summary methods of Cabrera, even though the butcher's
hand had hardly yet unclosed from himself. He was already meditating an
appeal in favour of milder measures, when the guard returned with the
news that Luis Fernandez was nowhere to be found. Dwelling-house,
strong-room, mill, garden, and gorge beneath--all had been searched. In
vain--they were empty and void. The tumbled beds where the general and
his staff had slept, the granary with its trampled heaps of corn ready
for grinding, the mill-wheel with the pool beneath where the lights and
shadows played at bo-peep, where the trout lurked and the water-boxes
seemed to descend into an infinity of blackness--all were deserted and
lonesome as if no man had been near them for a hundred years.

"The rascal has escaped!" cried Cabrera, full of rage; "have I not told
you a thousand times you keep no watch? I have a great mind to stand
half a dozen of you up against that wall. Escaped with my entire command
about the rogue's home-nest! Well, set a torch to it and see if he is
lurking anywhere about the crevices like a centipede in a crack!"

Cabrera felt that he had wasted a great deal of time on a fine morning
without shooting somebody, and it would certainly have gone ill with Don
Luis or his brother if either of them had been compelled by the flames
to issue forth from the burning mill-house of Sarria.

But they were not there. The cur dogs of the village and a few
half-starved mongrels that followed the troops had great sport worrying
the rats which darted continually from the burning granaries. But of the
more important human rats, no sign.

All the inhabitants of the village were there likewise, held back from
plundering by the bayonets of the Carlist troops. They stood recounting
to each other, wistfully, the stores of clothes, the silk curtains, the
uncut pieces of broadcloth, the household linen, the great eight-day
clocks in their gilt ormolu cases. Every woman had something to add to
the catalogue. Every householder felt keenly the injustice of
permitting so much wealth to be given to the crackling flames.

"Yes, it was very well," they said; "doubtless the Fernandez family were
vermin to be burned up--smoked out. But they possessed much good gear,
the gathering of many years. These things have committed no treason
against either Don Carlos or the Regent Cristina. Why then are we not
permitted to enter and remove the valuables? It is monstrous. We will
represent the matter to General Cabrera--to Don Carlos himself!"

But one glance at the former, as he sat his horse, nervously twisting
the reins and watching the destruction from under his black brows, made
their hearts as water within them. Their pet Valiant, old Gaspar Perico,
too, had judiciously hidden himself. Esteban the supple had accompanied
him, and the venta of Sarria was in the hands of the silent,
swift-footed, but exceedingly capable maid-servant who had played the
trick upon Etienne.

The Sarrians therefore watched the mill-house blaze up, and thanked God
that it stood some way from the other dwellings of the place.

Suddenly Cabrera turned upon them.

"Hearken ye, villagers of Sarria," he cried, "I have burned the home of
a traitor. If I hear of any shelter being granted to Luis Fernandez or
his brother within your bounds, I swear by the martyred honour of my
mother that on my return I will burn every house within your walls and
shoot every man of you capable of bearing arms. You have heard of Ramon
Cabrera. Let that be enough."

The villagers got apprehensively behind each other, and none answered,
each waiting for the other, till with mighty bass thunder the voice rang
out again:

"Have you no answer?" he cried, "no promise? Must I set a dozen of you
with your backs against the wall, as I did at Espluga in Francoli, to
stimulate those dull country wits of yours?"

Then a young man gaily dressed was thrust to the front. Very unwilling
he was to show himself, and at his appearance, with his knees knocking
together, a merry laugh rang out from behind Cabrera.

That chieftain turned quickly with wrath in his eye. For it was a sound
of a woman's mirth that was heard, and all such were strictly forbidden
within his lines.

But at the sight of little Concha, her dark eyes full of light, her
hands clapping together in innocent delight, her white teeth disclosed
in gay and dainty laughter, a certain _maja_ note of daring unconvention
in her costume, she was so exactly all that would have sent him into
raptures twenty years before when he was an apprentice in Tortosa, that
the grim man only smiled and turned again to the unwilling spokesman of
the municipality of Sarria.

A voice from the press before the burning house announced the delegate's
quality.

"Don Raphael de Flores, son of our _alcalde_."

"Speak on, Don Raphael," cried Cabrera; "I will not shoot you unless it
should be necessary."

Thus encouraged the trembling youth began.

"Your Excellency," he quavered, "we of Sarria have nothing to do with
the family of Fernandez. We would not give any one of them a handful of
maize or a plate of lentil broth if he were starving. We are loyal men
and women--well-wishers to the cause of the only true and absolute King
Carlos Quinto."

"I am credibly informed that it is otherwise," said Cabrera, "and that
you are a den of red-hot nationals. I therefore impose a fine of two
thousand _duros_ on the municipality, and as you are the alcalde's son,
we will keep you in durance till they be paid."

Don Raphael fell on his knees. His pale face was reddened by the flames
from the mill-house, the fate of which must have afforded a striking
object-lesson to a costive magistracy in trouble about a forced loan.

"We are undone," he cried; "I am a married man, your Excellency, and
have not a _maravedi_ to call my own. You had better shoot me out of
hand, and be done with it. Indeed, we cannot possibly pay."

"Go and find your father," cried Cabrera; "he pocketed half of the price
of Don Ramon Garcia's house. I cannot see my namesake suffer. Tell him
that two thousand _duros_ is the price up till noon. After that it will
have risen to four thousand, and by three of the afternoon, if the money
be not paid into the treasury of the only absolute and Catholic
sovereign (in the present instance my breeches pocket), I shall be
reluctantly compelled to shoot one dozen of the leading citizens of the
township of Sarria. Let a strong guard accompany this young man till he
returns from carrying his message."

In this way did Cabrera replenish the treasury of his master Don Carlos,
and with such pleasant argument did he induce reluctant _alcaldes_ to
discover the whereabouts of their strong boxes.

For a remarkably shrewd man was General Ramon Cabrera, the butcher of
Tortosa.




CHAPTER XXIV

HOW TO BECOME A SOLDIER


The change in the aspect of affairs would have made a greater difference
to most companies of adventurers than it did to that of which Master
Rollo Blair of Blair Castle in the shire of Fife was the leader. In the
morning they had all risen with the expectation of being shot with the
sun-rising. At ten of the clock they were speeding southward on good
horses, holding acknowledged rank and position in the army of the only
Catholic and religious sovereign.

But they were a philosophic quartette. Rollo drew in the morning air and
blew it back again through his nostrils without thinking much of how
nearly he had come to kissing the brown earth of Luis Fernandez's garden
with a dozen bullets through his heart. Mortimer meditated somewhat
sulkily upon his lost onions, rustling pleasantly back there in the cool
_patio_ of the nunnery. Etienne sorrowed for his latest love idyll
ruthlessly cut short, and as to El Sarria, he thought of nothing save
that Dolóres had come back to him and that he had yet to reckon with the
Fernandez family. The next time he would attend to the whole matter
himself, and there would be no mistakes.

It was not without sadness that Rollo looked his last on the white
walls of the convent of the Holy Innocents. He was glad indeed to have
placed Dolóres in safety--glad that she and her child were together, and
that the good sisters were responsible for them. Between them the four
had made up a purse to be sent by Concha to the Mother Superior, to be
applied for the behoof of her guests till the better days should come,
and Ramon Garcia be able to claim his wife and first-born son.

But Concha had refused point-blank.

"The babe came through the wicket. The mother arrived by night, a
fugitive asking pity, like the Virgin fleeing down to Egypt in the
pictures," said Concha. "The convent needs no alms, nor does the Lady
Superior sell her help. Keep the money, lads. If I am not a fool you
will need it more than the sisterhood of the Holy Innocents before you
come to your journey's end."

And with that she blew them each a dainty kiss, distinguishing no one
above the other, dropped a curtsey to the general, whose eyes followed
her with more than usual interest, leaped on her white mare and rode
off, attended by La Giralda riding astride like a man, in the same
fashion in which she had arrived.

So little Concha was gone from his sight, and duty loomed up suddenly
gaunt and void of interest before Rollo. To risk his life was nothing.
When he got nearer to the goal, his blood would rise, that he knew. To
capture a queen and a regent at one coup, to upset a government, to
bring a desolating war to an end--these were all in the day's work. But
why, in the name of all that was sanest and most practical, did his
heart feel like lead within him and his new dignity turn to Dead Sea
ashes in his mouth?

It was not long before Cabrera dropped back, that he might talk over
ways and means with the young colonel. It was clear that the _guerrilla_
chieftain did not believe greatly in the project.

"I do not understand all this," he said; "it is not my way. What have we
to do with taking women and children prisoners? Let us have no truck,
barter, or exchange with the government at Madrid except at the point of
the bayonet. That is my way of it, and if my advice had been taken
before, my master would at this moment have been in the royal palace of
his ancestors. But these secret embassies in the hands of
foreigners--what good can come of them?"

Rollo explained such things as the Abbot of Montblanch had made clear to
him--namely, that the Regent and her daughter were by no means averse to
Holy Church, nor yet eager to keep the true King out of his own. But,
they were in the power of unscrupulous men--Mendizábal, Linares, and
others, who for their own ends published edicts and compelled the ladies
to sign them. If they were captured and sequestered for their own good,
the ministry would break down and Don Carlos would reign undisturbed.

Rollo thought the exposition a marvel of clearness and point. It was
somewhat disappointing, therefore, when he had finished to hear from
Cabrera the unmoved declaration: "A Cristino is a Cristino whether in
the palace of Madrid or on the mountains of Morella. And the quickest
way is the best way with such an one, wherever met with!"

"But you do not mean to say that you would shoot the girl-Queen or the
mother-Regent if they fell into your hands?" cried Rollo, aghast at the
horror.

The deep underlying anger leaped up fiery red into the eyes of the
_guerrilla_ chief.

"Aye, that would I," he cried, "as quickly as they slew my own old
mother in the barrack yard of Tortosa!"

And thinking of that tragedy and the guilt of Nogueras, Rollo felt there
was something to be said for the indomitable, implacable little
butcher-general of Don Carlos.

Cabrera was silent for a while after making this speech, and then
abruptly demanded of Rollo how many men he would require for his
undertaking.

"I am bidden to place my entire command at your service," he said with
obvious reluctance, glancing out of his little oblique eyes at the young
colonel.

Rollo considered a while before answering.

"It is my opinion that the fewer men concerned in such a venture the
greater the chances of success," he said at last; "furnish me with one
petty officer intimately acquainted with the country between Zaragoza
and San Ildefonso, and I will ask no more."

Cabrera drew a long breath and looked at the young man with infinitely
more approval than he had before manifested.

"You are right," he said, "three times right! If you fail, there are
fewer to go to the gallows. In prison fewer ill-sewn wine-skins to leak
information. If you succeed, there are also fewer to divide the credit
and the reward. For my own part, I do not think you will succeed, but I
will provide you with the best man in my command for your purpose and in
addition heartily wish you well out of your adventure!"

Cabrera was indeed immensely relieved to find the desires of our hero so
moderate. He had been directed to supply him with whatever force he
required, and he expected to be deprived of a regiment at least, at a
most critical time in the affairs of the Absolute King.

"Young man," he said, "you will certainly be shot or hanged before you
are a month older. Nevertheless in the mean time I would desire to have
the honour of shaking you by the hand. If you were not to die so soon,
undoubtedly you would go far! It is a pity. And the Cristinos are bad
shots. They will not do the job half as creditably as my fellows would
have done it for you this morning!"

The man who was chosen by Cabrera to accompany them on their mission was
of a most remarkable appearance. Tall, almost as tall as El Sarria, he
was yet distinguished from his fellows by a notable gauntness and
angularity of figure.

"A step-ladder with the bottom bars missing!" was Rollo's mental
description of him, as he stood before them in a uniform jacket much too
tight for him, through which his ribs showed not unlike the spars of a
ladder.

But in other respects Sergeant Cardono was a remarkable man. The iron
gravity of his countenance, seamed on the right-hand side by a deep
scar, took no new expression when he found himself detailed by his
general for this new and dangerous mission.

With a single salute he fell out and instantly attached himself to
Rollo, whom he relieved of his knapsack and waterbottle on the spot.
Sergeant Cardono paid no attention whatever to the other three, whom he
evidently regarded as very subordinate members of the expedition.

As soon as they arrived at the village where they were to part from the
command of Cabrera, Sergeant Cardono promptly disappeared. He was not
seen for several hours, during which Rollo and El Sarria wandered here
and there endeavouring in that poor place to pick up some sustenance
which would serve them in lieu of a dinner. They had but poor success. A
round of black bread, a fowl of amazing age, vitality, and muscular
development, with a few snails, were all that they could obtain by their
best persuasions, aided by the money with which Rollo was plentifully
supplied. John Mortimer looked disconsolately on. He had added a little
ham on his own account, which last he had brought in his saddle-bags
from the venta of Sarria. But everything pointed to a sparse meal, and
even the philosophic Etienne shrugged his shoulders and departed to
prospect at a certain house half a mile up the road where, as they had
ridden rapidly by, a couple of pretty girls had looked out curiously at
the tossing Carlist _boinas_.

Rollo and El Sarria were carrying their scanty provend to a house where
a decent-looking woman had agreed to cook it for them, when their gloomy
reveries were interrupted by a sudden apparition which burst upon them
as they stood on the crest of a deep hollow.

The limestone hills had been rent asunder at the place, and from the
bare faces of the rocks the neighbouring farmers and villagers had
quarried and carried away such of the overhanging blocks as could easily
be trimmed to suit their purposes.

Part of what remained had been shaped into a _hornito_, or stone oven,
under which a fire had been kindled, and a strange figure moved about,
stirring the glowing charcoal with a long bar of iron. On a smaller
hearth nearer at hand a second fire blazed, and the smell of fragrant
cookery rose to the expectant and envious nostrils of the four.

It was Sergeant Cardono, who moved about whistling softly, now attending
to the steaming _olla_, now watching the rising bread in the _hornito_.

Perceiving Rollo, he saluted gravely and remarked, "Dinner will be
served in half an hour." The others, as before, he simply ignored. But
in deference to his new commander he stopped whistling and moved about
with his lean shoulders squared as if on parade.

When the bread and the skinny chicken were placed in his hands, he
glanced at them with somewhat of superciliousness.

"The bread will serve for crumbs," he said, and immediately began to
grate the baton-like loaf with a farrier's hoof-rasp which he used in
his culinary operations. "But this," he added, as he turned over the
bird, "is well stricken in years, and had better be given to the
recruits. They have young teeth and have had practice upon dead
artillery mules!"

So saying, he went casually to the edge of the little quarry, whistled a
peculiar note and tossed the bird downward to some person unseen, who
appeared from nowhere in particular for the purpose of receiving it.

When the dinner was ready Sergeant Cardono announced it to Rollo as if
he had been serving a prince. And what was the young man's astonishment
to find a table, covered with a decent white cloth, under the shelter of
a limestone rock, spread for three, and complete even to table napkins,
which the sergeant had tied into various curious shapes.

As they filed down the slope the sergeant stood at attention, but when
El Sarria passed he quickly beckoned him aside with a private gesture.

"You and I will eat after the foreigners," he explained.

El Sarria drew himself up somewhat proudly, but Sergeant Cardono
whispered in his ear two or three words which appeared to astonish him
so much that he did as he was bid, and stood aside while John Mortimer
and Etienne de Saint Pierre seated themselves.

But Rollo, who had no great love for eating, and considered one man just
as much entitled to respect as another, would not sit down till El
Sarria was accommodated also.

"May it please your Excellency, Don Ramon and I have much to say to each
other," quoth the Sergeant, with great respect, "besides your honour is
aware--the garlic--the onions--we of this country love them?"

"But so do I," cried Rollo, "and I will not have distinctions made on
this expedition. We are all to risk our lives equally and we shall all
fare equally, and if we are caught our dose of lead or halter-hemp will
be just the same."

Here El Sarria interrupted.

"With respect," he said, "it is true that this gentleman hath some
private matters to communicate to me which have nothing to do with the
object of our mission. I crave your permission that for to-day I may
dine apart with him!"

After this there was no more to be said. El Sarria helped the sergeant
to serve the meal, which was at once the proof of his foraging ability
and his consummate genius as a cook. For though the day was Friday, the
soup was very far from _maigre_. The stew contained both lamb and fresh
pork cut into generous cubes with a sufficiency of savoury fat included.
A sausage had been sliced small for seasoning and the whole had been so
smothered in _garbanzos_, haricot beans, rice, mixed with strips of
toothsome salt fish, that John Mortimer bent and said a well-deserved
blessing over the viands.

"I don't usually in this country," he explained, "but really this is
what my good old father would call a manifest providence. That fellow of
ours will prove a treasure."

"It seems so," said Rollo, a little grimly, "that is, if he can scout
and fight as well as he can cater and cook."

For himself the young Scot cared little what he ate, and would have
dined quite cheerfully on dry bread and water, if any one would have
listened to his stories of the wonders of his past life or the yet more
wonderful achievements of his future. He would have sat and spun yarns
concerning the notches on Killiecrankie at a dyke-back, though he had
not tasted food for twenty-four hours, with the utmost composure and
relish. But his companions were of another kidney, being all valiant
trencher-men--John Mortimer desiring chiefly quantity in his eating,
while Etienne, no mean cook himself, desiderated rather variety and
delicacy in the dishes which were set before him.

At all events the dinner was a great success, though the Sergeant, who
evinced the greatest partiality for Rollo, often reproached him with
eating little, or inquired anxiously if the sauce of a certain dish
were not to his taste. Rollo, in the height of his argument, would
hastily affirm that it was delicious, and be off again in chase of some
deed of arms or daring, leaving the Sergeant's _chef-d'oeuvre_
untasted on his plate.

At this the Sergeant shook his head in private to El Sarria.

"It will stand in his way, I fear me," he said sententiously; "was there
ever a notable general yet who had not a fine belly to wag before him
upon horseback? 'Tis as necessary as the cock's feathers in his hat. Now
there is your cut-and-thrust officer who is good for nothing but to be
first in charges and to lead forlorn hopes--this colonel of yours is
just the figure for him. I have seen many a dozen of them get the lead
between their ribs and never regretted it before. But it is a devil's
pity that this young cockerel is not fonder of his dinner. How regardeth
he the women?"

This last question was asked anxiously, yet with some hope. But this
also El Sarria promptly scattered to the winds.

"I do not think that he regards them at all! He has scarcely looked at
one of them ever since I first knew him."

Sergeant Cardono groaned, seemingly greatly perturbed in spirit.

"I feared as much," he said, shaking his head; "he hath not the right
wandering eye. Now, that young Frenchman is a devil untamed! And the
Englishman--well, though he is deeper, he also hath it in him. But the
colonel is all for fighting and his duty. It is easy to see that he will
rise but little higher. When was there ever a great soldier without a
weakness for a pretty woman and a good dinner? Why, the thing is
against nature. Now, my father fought in the War of the Independence,
and the tales that he told of El Gran' Lor'--he was a soldier if you
like, worthy of the white plumes! A cook all to himself closer at his
elbow than an aide-de-camp--and as to the women--ah----!"

Sergeant Cardono nodded as one who could tell tales and he would. Yet
the Sergeant Cardono found some reason to change his mind as to Rollo's
qualifications for field-officership before the end of their first day
apart from Cabrera.

It was indeed with a feeling of intense relief that the little company
of five men separated from the white and red _boinas_ of the
butcher-general's cavalcade. Well-affected to them as Cabrera might be
for the time being, his favour was so brief and uncertain, his affection
so tiger-like, that even Sergeant Cardono sighed a sigh of satisfaction
when they turned their horses' heads towards the far-away Guadarrama
beyond which lay the goal of their adventuring.

Presently the tongues of the little cavalcade were unloosed. El Sarria
and Sergeant Cardono having found subjects of common interest, communed
together apart like old friends. John Mortimer and Etienne, who
generally had little to say to each other, conversed freely upon
wine-growing and the possibility of introducing cotton-spinning into the
South of France. For Etienne was not destitute of a certain Gascon eye
to the main chance.

Rollo alone rode gloomily apart. He was turning over the terms of his
commission in his mind, and the more he thought, the less was he
satisfied. It was not alone the desperateness of the venture that
daunted Rollo, but the difficulty of providing for the Queen-Regent and
little princess when captured. There were a couple of hundred miles to
ride back to those northern fastnesses where they would be safe; for the
most part without cover and through country swarming with Nationals and
Cristino partisans.

Riding thus in deep meditation, Rollo, whose gaze was usually so alert,
did not observe away to the right a couple of horses ridden at speed and
rapidly overtaking their more tired beasts.

El Sarria, however, did not fail to note them, but, fearing a belated
message of recall from General Cabrera, he did not communicate his
discovery to his companions, contenting himself with keeping his eye
upon the approaching riders.

Rollo was therefore still advancing, his reins flung loosely upon his
beast's neck and his whole attitude betokening a melancholy resignation,
a couple of lengths before his companions, when a sudden clattering of
hoofs startled him. He looked up, and there, on her white mare,
well-lathered at girth and bridle, was little Concha Cabezos, sitting
her panting beast with the grace of the true Andaluse.

Her hair was a little ruffled by the wind. Her cheeks and lips were
adorably red. There was a new and brilliant light in her eye; and after
one curiously comprehensive glance at the company, she turned about to
look for her companion, La Giralda, who presently cantered up on a
lumbering Estramenian gelding. La Giralda sat astride as before, her
lower limbs, so far as these were apparent, being closely clad in
leather, a loose skirt over them preserving in part the appearance of
sex.

Rollo was dumb with sheer astonishment. He could only gaze at the
flushed cheek, the tingling electric glances, the air completely
unconscious and innocent of the girl before him.

"Concha!" he cried aloud. "Concha--what do you here? I thought--I
imagined you were safe at the Convent of the Holy Innocents!"

And from behind Sergeant Cardono marked his cheek, alternately paling
and reddening, his stammering tongue and altered demeanour, with the
utmost satisfaction.

"Good--good," he muttered under his breath to El Sarria; "he will make a
true general yet. The saints be praised for this weakness! If only he
were fonder of his dinner all might yet be well!"




CHAPTER XXV

THE MISSION OF THE SEÑORITA CONCHA


"I too have a mission, I would have you know," said Concha, a dangerous
coquetry showing through her grave demeanour, "a secret mission from the
Mother Superior of the Convent of the Holy Innocents. Do not attempt to
penetrate the secret. I assure you it will be quite useless. And pray do
not suppose that only you can adventure forth on perilous quests!"

"I assure you," began Rollo, eagerly, "that I suppose no such thing. At
the moment when you came up I was wishing with all my heart that the
responsibility of the present undertaking had been laid on any other
shoulders than mine!"

Yet in spite of his modesty, certain it is that from that moment Rollo
rode no longer with his head hanging down like a willow blown by the
wind. The reins lay no more lax and abandoned on his horse's neck. On
the contrary, he sat erect and looked abroad with the air of a
commander, and his hand rested oftener on the hilt of Killiecrankie,
with the air of pride which Concha privately thought most becoming.

"And in what case left you my wife and babe?" suddenly demanded El
Sarria, riding up, and inquiring somewhat imperiously of the new
recruit concerning the matter which touched him most nearly.

"The Señora Dolóres is safe with the good sisters, and as in former
times I was known to have been her companion, it was judged safest that
I should not longer be seen in the neighbourhood. Likewise I was charged
with the tidings that Luis Fernandez with a company of Cristino
Migueletes has been seen riding southward to cut you off from Madrid,
whither it is supposed you are bound!"

Rollo turned quickly upon her with some anger in his eye.

"Why did you not tell me that at first?" he said.

Concha smiled a subtle smile and turned her eyes upon the ground.

"If you will remember, I had other matters to communicate to your
Excellency," she said meekly--almost too meekly, Rollo thought. "This
matter of Luis Fernandez slipped my memory, till it was my good fortune
to be reminded of it by Don Ramon!"

And all the while the long lean Sergeant Cardono, his elbows glued to
his sides, sat his horse as if spiked to the saddle, and chuckled with
quiet glee at the scene.

"He will do yet," he muttered; "'twas ever thus that my father told me
of the Gran' Lor' before Salamanca. Be he as stiff as a ramrod and as
frigid as his own North Pole, the little one will thaw him--bend
him--make a fool of him for his soul's good. She is not an Andaluse of
the gipsy blood for nothing! He will make him a soldier yet, this young
man, by the especial grace of San Vicente de Paul, only I do not think
that either of them will deserve readmission to the Convent of the Holy
Innocents!"

More than once Rollo endeavoured to extract from Concha to what place
her self-assumed mission was taking her, and at what point she would
leave them. It was in vain. The lady baffled all his endeavours with the
most consummate ease.

"You have not communicated to me," she said, "the purport of your own
adventures. How then can I tell at what place our ways divide?"

"I am forbidden to reveal to any save General Cabrera alone my secret
instructions!" said Rollo, with such dignity as he could muster at short
notice.

"And I," retorted Concha, "am as strictly forbidden to reveal mine to
General Cabrera or even to that notable young officer, Colonel Don Rollo
of the surname which resembles so much a _borrico's_ serenade!"

That speech would have been undoubtedly rude save for the glance which
accompanied it, given softly yet daringly from beneath a jetty fringe of
eyelash.

Nevertheless all Rollo Blair's pride of ancestry rose insurgent within
him. Who was this Andalucian waiting-maid that she should speak lightly
of the descendant of that Blair of Blair Castle who had stood for Bruce
and freedom on the field of Bannockburn? It was unbearable--and yet,
well, there was something uncommon about this girl. And after all, was
it not the mark of a gentleman to pay no heed to the babbling of women's
tongues? If they did not say one thing, they would another. Besides, he
cared nothing what this girl might say. A parrot prattling in a cage
would affect him as much.

So they rode on together over the great tawny brick-dusty wastes of Old
Castile, silent mostly, but the silence occasionally broken by speech,
friendly enough on either side. Behind them pounded La Giralda, gaunt as
the sergeant himself, leather-legginged, booted and spurred, watching
them keenly out of her ancient, unfathomable gipsy eyes.

And ever as they rode the Guadarrama mountains rose higher and whiter
out of the vast and hideous plain, the only interruption to the circling
horizon of brown and parched corn lands. But at this season scrub-oak
and juniper were the only shrubs to be seen, and had there been a
Cristino outpost anywhere within miles, the party must have been
discerned riding steadily towards the northern slopes of the mountains.
But neither man nor beast took notice of them, and a certain large
uncanny silence brooded over the plain.

At one point, indeed, they passed near enough to distinguish in the far
north the snow-flecked buttresses of the Sierra de Moncayo. But these,
they knew, were the haunts of their Carlist allies. The towns and
villages of the plain, however, were invariably held by Nationals, and
it had often gone hard with them, had not Sergeant Cardono detached
himself from the cavalcade, and, venturing alone into the midst of the
enemy, by methods of his own produced the materials for many an
excellent meal. At last, one day the Sergeant came back to the party
with an added gloom on his long, lean, leathern-textured face. He had
brought with him an Estramaduran ham, a loaf of wheaten bread, and a
double string of sausages. But upon his descending into the temporary
camp which sheltered the party in the bottom of a _barranco_, or deep
crack in the parched plateau overgrown with scented thyme and dwarf
oak, it became obvious that he had news of the most serious import to
communicate.

He called Rollo aside, and told him how he had made his way into a
village, as was his custom, and found all quiet--the shops open, but
none to attend to them, the customs superintendent in his den by the
gate, seated on his easy chair, but dead--the presbytery empty of the
priest, the river bank dotted with its array of worn scrubbing boards,
but not a washerwoman to be seen. Only a lame lad, furtively plundering,
had leaped backward upon his crutch with a swift drawing of his knife
and a wolfish gleam of teeth. He had first of all warned the Sergeant to
keep off at his peril, but had afterwards changed his tone and confessed
to him that the plague was abroad in the valley of the Duero, and that
he was the only being left alive in the village save the vulture and the
prowling dog.

"The plague!" Sergeant Cardono had gasped, like every Spaniard stricken
sick at the very sound of the word.

"Yes, and I own everything in the village," asserted the imp. "If you
want anything here you must pay me for it!"

The Sergeant found it even as the cripple had said. There was not a
single living inhabitant in the village. Here and there a shut door and
a sickening smell betrayed the fact that some unfortunates had been left
to die untended. Etienne and John Mortimer were for different reasons
unwilling to taste of the ham and bread he had brought back, thinking
that these might convey the contagion, but La Giralda and the Sergeant
laughed their fears to scorn, and together retired to prepare the
evening meal.

As the others made their preparations for the night, watering their
beasts and grooming them with the utmost care, the little crook-backed
imp from the village appeared on the brink of the _barranco_, his
sallow, weazened face peeping suspiciously out of the underbrush, and
his crutch performing the most curious evolutions in the air.

There was something unspeakably eerie in the aspect of the solitary
survivor of so many living people, left behind to prey like a ghoul on
the abandoned possessions of the fear-stricken living and the
untestamented property of the dead.

Concha shrank instinctively from his approach, and the boy, perceiving
his power over her, came scuttling like a weasel through the brushwood,
till little more than a couple of paces interposed between him and the
girl. Frozen stiff with loathing and terror, it was not for some time
that Concha could cry out and look round hastily for Rollo, who
(doubtless in his capacity of leader of the expedition) was not slow in
hastening to her assistance.

"That boy--there!" she gasped, "he frightens me--oh hateful! make him go
away!" And she clutched the young man's arm with such a quick nervous
grasp, that a crimson flush rose quickly to Rollo's cheek.

"No," muttered Etienne to himself as he watched the performance
critically, "she was never in love with you, sir! She never did as much
for you as that. But on the whole, with a temper like Mistress Concha's,
I think you are well out of it, Monsieur Etienne!" Which wise dictum
might or might not be based on the fox's opinion as to sour grapes.

All unconsciously Rollo reached a protecting hand across to the little
white fingers which gripped his arm so tightly.

"Go away, boy," he commanded; "do you not see that you terrify the
Señorita?"

"I see--that is why I stay!" cried the amiable youth gleefully,
flourishing his crutch about his head as if on the point of launching it
at the party.

Rollo laid his hand on the hilt of Killiecrankie with a threatening
gesture.

"If you come an inch nearer, I will give you plague!" cried the boy,
showing his teeth wickedly, "and your wench also. You will grow
black--yes, and swell! Then you will die, both of you. And there will be
no one to bury you, like those in the houses back there. Then all you
possess shall be mine, ha, ha!"

And he laughed and danced till a fit of coughing came upon him so that
he actually crowed in a kind of fiendish exaltation. But Rollo Blair was
not a man to be jested with, either by devil or devil's imp. He drew a
pistol from his belt, looked carefully to the priming, and with the
greatest coolness in the world pointed it at the misshapen brat.

"Now listen," he said, "you are old enough to know the meaning of words;
I give you one minute to betake yourself to your own place and leave us
alone! There is no contagion in a pistol bullet, my fine lad, but it is
quite as deadly as any plague. So be off before a charge of powder
catches you up!"

The sound of the angry voices had attracted La Giralda, who, looking up
hastily from her task of building the fire beneath the gipsy tripod at
which she and the Sergeant were cooking, advanced hastily with a long
wand in her hand.

The imp wheeled about as on a pivot, and positively appeared to shrink
into his clothing at the sight of her. He stood motionless, however,
while La Giralda advanced threateningly towards him with the wand in her
hand as if for the purpose of castigation. As she approached he emitted
a cry of purely animal terror, and hastily whipping his crutch under his
arm, betook himself, in a series of long hops, to a spot twenty yards
higher up the bank. But La Giralda stopped him by a word or two spoken
in an unknown tongue, harsh-sounding as Catalan, but curt and brief as a
military order.

The boy stood still and answered in the same speech, at first gruffly
and unwillingly, with downcast looks and his bare great toe scrabbling
in the dust of the hillside.

The dialogue lasted for some time, till at last with a scornful gesture
La Giralda released him, pointing to the upper edge of the _barranco_ as
the place by which he was to disappear: the which he was now as eager to
do, as he had formerly been insolently determined to remain.

During this interview Rollo had stood absent-mindedly with his hand
pressed on Concha's, as he listened to the strange speech of La Giralda.
Even his acquaintance with the language of the gipsies of Granada had
only enabled him to understand a word here and there. The girl's colour
slowly returned, but the fear of the plague still ran like ice in her
veins. She who feared nothing else on earth, was shaken as with a palsy
by the terror of the Black Death, so paralysing was the fear that the
very name of cholera laid upon insanitary Spain.

"Well?" said Rollo, turning to La Giralda, who stood considering with
her eyes upon the ground, after her interview with the crook-backed
dwarf.

"You must give me time to think," she said; "this boy is one of our
people--a Gitano of Baza. He is not of this place, and he tells me
strange things. He swears that the Queen and the court are plague-stayed
at La Granja by fear of the cholera. They dare not return to Madrid.
They cannot supply themselves with victuals where they are. The very
guards forsake them. And the Gitanos of the hills--but I have no right
to tell that to the foreigner--the Gorgio. For am not I also a Gitana?"

       *       *       *       *       *

The village where Rollo's command first stumbled upon this dreadful fact
was called Frias, in the district of La Perla, and lies upon the eastern
spurs of the Guadarrama. It was, therefore, likely enough then that the
boy spoke truth, and that within a few miles of them the Court of Spain
was enduring privations in its aerial palace of La Granja.

But even when interrogated by El Sarria the old woman remained
obstinately silent as to the news concerning her kinsfolk which she had
heard from the crippled dwarf.

"It has nothing to do with you," she repeated; "it is a matter of the
Gitanos!"

But there came up from the bottom of the ravine, the lantern-jawed
Sergeant, long, silent, lean, parched as a Manchegan cow whose pasture
has been burnt up by a summer sun. With one beckoning finger he summoned
La Giralda apart, and she obeyed him as readily as the boy had obeyed
her. They communed a long time together, the old gipsy speaking, the
coffee-coloured Sergeant listening with his head a little to the side.

At the end of the colloquy Sergeant Cardono went directly up to Rollo
and saluted.

"Is it permitted for me to speak a word to your Excellency concerning
the objects of the expedition?" he said, with his usual deference.

"Certainly!" answered Rollo; "for me, my mission is a secret one, but I
have no instructions against listening."

The Sergeant bowed his head.

"Whatever be our mission you will find me do my duty," he said; "and
since this cursed plague may interfere with all your plans, it is well
that you should know what has befallen and what is designed. You will
pardon me for saying that it takes no great prophet to discover that our
purposes have to do with the movements of the court."

Rollo glanced at him keenly.

"Did General Cabrera reveal anything to you before your departure?" he
asked.

"Nay," said Sergeant Cardono; "but when I am required to guide a party
secretly to San Ildefonso, where the court of the Queen-Regent is
sojourning, it does not require great penetration to see the general
nature of the service upon which I am engaged!"

Rollo recovered himself.

"You have not yet told me what you have discovered," he said,
expectantly.

"No," replied the Sergeant with great composure--"that can wait."

For little Concha was approaching; and though he had limitless
expectations of the good influence of that young lady upon the military
career of his officer, he did not judge it prudent to communicate
intelligence of moment in her presence. Wherein for once he was wrong,
since that pretty head of the Andalucian beauty, for all its clustering
curls, was full of the wisest and most far-seeing counsel--indeed, more
to be trusted in a pinch than the _juntas_ of half-a-dozen provinces.

But the Sergeant considered that when a girl was pretty and aware of it,
she had fulfilled her destiny--save as it might be in the making of
military geniuses. Therefore he remained silent as the grave so long as
Concha stayed. Observing this, the girl asked a simple question and then
moved off a little scornfully, only remarking to herself: "As if I could
not make him tell me whenever I get him by himself!"

She referred (it is needless to state) not to Sergeant Cardono, but to
his commanding officer, Señor Don Rollo Blair of Blair Castle in the
self-sufficient shire of Fife.




CHAPTER XXVI

DEEP ROMANY


The news which Sergeant Cardono had to communicate was indeed fitted to
shake the strongest nerves. If true, it took away from Rollo at once all
hope of the success of his mission. He saw himself returning disgraced
and impotent to the camp of Cabrera, either to be shot out of hand, or
worse still, to be sent over the frontier as something too useless and
feeble to be further employed.

Briefly, the boy's news as repeated by La Giralda to the Sergeant,
informed Rollo that though the court was presently at La Granja and many
courtiers in the village of San Ildefonso, the royal guards through fear
and hunger had mutinied and marched back to Madrid, and that the gipsies
were gathering among the mountains in order to make a night attack upon
the stranded and forsaken court of Spain.

In the sergeant's opinion not a moment was to be lost. The object of the
hill Gitanos was pure plunder, but they would think nothing of
bloodshed, and would doubtless give the whole palace and town over to
rapine and pillage. Themselves desperate with hunger and isolation, they
had resolved to strike a blow which would ring from one end of Spain to
the other.

It was their intention (so the imp said) to kill the Queen-Regent and
her daughter, to slaughter the ministers and courtiers in attendance, to
plunder the palace from top to bottom and to give all within the
neighbouring town of San Ildefonso to the sword.

The programme, as thus baldly announced, was indeed one to strike all
men with horror, even those who had been hardened by years of
fratricidal warfare in which quarter was neither given nor expected.

Besides the plunder of the palace and its occupants, the leaders of the
gipsies expected that they would obtain great rewards from Don Carlos
for thus removing the only obstacles to his undisputed possession of the
throne of Spain.

The heart of Rollo beat violently. His Scottish birth and training gave
him a natural reverence for the sanctity of sickness and death, and the
idea of these men plotting ghoulishly to utilise "the onlaying of the
hand of Providence" (as his father would have phrased it) for the
purposes of plunder and rapine, unspeakably revolted him.

Immediately he called a council of war, at which, in spite of the frowns
of Sergeant Cardono, little Concha Cabezos had her place.

La Giralda was summoned also, but excused herself saying, "It is better
that I should not know what you intend to do. I am, after all, a
black-blooded Gitana, and might be tempted to reveal your secrets if I
knew them. It is better therefore that I should not. Let me keep my own
place as a servitor in your company, to cut the brushwood for your fire
and to bring the water from the spring. In those things you will find me
faithful. Trust the gipsy no further!"

Rollo, remembering her loyalty in the matter of Dolóres at the village
of El Sarria, was about to make an objection, but a significant gesture
from the Sergeant restrained him in time.

Whereupon Rollo addressed himself to the others, setting clearly before
them the gravity of the situation.

John Mortimer shook his head gravely. He could not approve.

"How often has my father told me that the first loss is the least! This
all comes of trying to make up my disappointment about the Abbot's
Priorato!"

Etienne shrugged his shoulders and philosophically quoted a Gascon
proverb to the effect that who buys the flock must take the black sheep
also.

El Sarria simply recollected that his gun and pistols were in good
order, and waited for orders.

The conference therefore resolved itself into a trio of
consultants--Rollo because he was the leader, Sergeant Cardono because
he knew the country, and Concha--because she was Concha!

They were within an hour or two's rapid march of La Granja over a pass
in the Guadarrama. The sergeant volunteered to lead them down into the
gardens in that time. He knew a path often travelled by smugglers on
their way to Segovia.

"It is clear that if we are to carry away the Queen-Regent and her
daughter, we must forestall the gipsies," said Rollo.

Concha clasped her hands pitifully.

"Ah, the poor young Queen!" she cried. "Praise to the saints that I was
not born a princess! It goes to my heart to make her a prisoner!"

The Sergeant uttered a guttural grunt which intimated that in his
opinion the influence of the petticoat on the career of a soldier might
be over-done. Otherwise he maintained his gravity, speaking only when he
was directly appealed to and giving his judgment with due submission to
his superiors.

Finally it was judged that they should make a night march over the
mountains, find some suitable place to lie up in during the day, and in
the morning send in La Giralda and the Sergeant to San Ildefonso in the
guise of fagot sellers to find out if the gipsy boy of Baza had spoken
the truth.

       *       *       *       *       *

San Ildefonso and La Granja are two of the most strangely situated
places in Spain. A high and generally snow-clad Sierra divides them from
Madrid and the south. The palace is one of the most high-lying upon
earth, having originally been one of the mountain granges of the monks
of Segovia to which a king of Spain took a fancy, and, what is more
remarkable, for which he was willing to pay good money.

Upon the site a palace has been erected, a miniature Versailles,
infinitely more charming than the original, with walks, fountains,
waterfalls all fed by the cold snow water of the Guadarrama, and fanned
by the pure airs of the mountains. This Grange has been for centuries a
favourite resort of the Court of Spain, and specially during these last
years of the Regent Cristina, who, when tired with the precision and
etiquette of the Court of Madrid, retired hither that she might do as
she pleased for at least two or three months of the year.

Generally the great park-gates stood hospitably open, and the little
town of San Ildefonso, with its lodgings and hostels, was at this season
crowded with courtiers and hangers-on of the court. Guards circulated
here and there, or clattered after the Queen-Regent as she drove out on
the magnificent King's highway which stretched upwards over the
Guadarrama towards Madrid, or whirled down towards Segovia and the
plains of Old Castile. Bugles were never long silent in _plaza_ or
barrack yard. Drums beat, fifes shrilled, and there was a continuous
trampling of horses as this ambassador or that was escorted to the
presence of Queen Cristina, widow of Fernando VII., mother of Isabel the
Second, and Regent of Spain.

A word of historical introduction is here necessary, and it shall be but
a word. For nearly a quarter of a century Fernando, since he had been
restored to a forfeited throne by British bayonets, had acted on the
ancient Bourbon principle of learning nothing and forgetting nothing.
His tyrannies became ever more tyrannical, his exactions more shameless,
his indolent arrogance more oppressive. Twice he had to invoke the aid
of foreign troops, and once indeed a French army marched from one end of
Spain to the other.

But with the coming of his third wife, young Maria Cristina of Naples,
all this was changed. Under her influence Fernando promptly became meek
and uxorious. Then he revoked the ordinance of a former King which
ordained that no woman should reign in Spain. He recalled his
revocation, and again promulgated it according as his hope of offspring
waxed or waned.

Finally a daughter was born to the ill-mated pair, and Don Carlos, the
King's brother and former heir-apparent, left the country. Immediately
upon the King's death civil war divided the state. The stricter
legitimists who stood for Don Carlos included the church generally and
the religious orders. To these were joined the northern parts of Navarra
and the Basque countries whose privileges had been threatened, together
with large districts of the ever-turbulent provinces of Aragon and
Catalunia.

Round the Queen-Regent and her little daughter collected all the liberal
opinion of the peninsula, most of the foreign sympathy, the influence of
the great towns and sea-ports, of the capital and the government
officials, the regular army and police with their officers--indeed all
the organised and stated machinery of government.

But up to the time of our history these advantages had been to some
extent neutralised by the ill-success of the governmental generalship
and by the brilliant successes of two great Carlist leaders--Tomas
Zumalacarregui and Ramon Cabrera.

These men perfectly understood the conditions of warfare among their
native mountains, and had inflicted defeat upon defeat on every Cristino
general sent against them.

But a cloud had of late overspread the fair prospects of the party.
Their great general, Tomas Zumalacarregui, had been killed by a cannon
ball at the siege of Bilbao, and Cabrera, though unsurpassed as a
guerrilla leader, had not the swift Napoleonic judgment and breadth of
view of his predecessor. Add to this that a new premier, Mendizábal, and
a new general, Espartero, were directing operations from Madrid. The
former, already half English, had begun to carry out his great scheme of
filling the pockets of the civil and military authorities by conveying
to the government all the property belonging to the religious orders
throughout Spain, who, like our friend the Abbot of Montblanch, had
resolutely and universally espoused the cause of Don Carlos.

It was an early rumour of this intention which had so stirred the
resentment of Don Baltasar Varela, and caused him to look about for some
instrument of vengeance to prevent the accomplishment of the designs of
"that _burro_ of the English Stock Exchange," as his enemies freely
named Mendizábal.

But Cristina of Naples was a typical woman of the Latin races, and,
however strongly she might be determined to establish her daughter on
the throne of Spain, she was also a good Catholic, and any oppression of
Holy Church was abhorrent to her nature.

Upon this probability, which amounted to certainty in his mind, the
Abbot of Montblanch resolved to proceed.

Moreover, it was an open secret that a few months after the death of her
husband Fernando, Cristina had married Muñoz, one of the handsomest
officers of her bodyguard. For this and other Bourbon delinquencies,
conceived in the good old Neapolitan manner, the Spaniards generally had
the greatest respect--not even being scandalized when the Queen created
her new partner Duke of Rianzares, or when, in her _rôle_ of honorary
colonel of dragoons, she appeared in a uniform of blue and white,
because these were the colours of the "Immaculate Conception."

But enough has been said to indicate the nature of the adventure which
our hero had before him, when after a toilsome march the party halted in
the grey of the dawn in a tiny dell among the wild mountains of
Guadarrama.

The air was still bleak and cold, though luckily there was no wind.
Concha, the child of the south, shivered a little as Rollo aided her to
dismount, and this must be the young man's excuse for taking his blue
military cloak from its coil across his saddle-bow, and wrapping it
carefully and tenderly about her.

Concha raised her eyes once to his as he fastened its chain-catch
beneath her chin, and Rollo, though the starlight dimmed the brilliance
of the glance, felt more than repaid. In the background Etienne smiled
bitterly. The damsel of the green lattice being now left far behind at
Sarria, he would have had no scruples about returning to his allegiance
to Concha. But the chill indifference with which his advances were
received, joined to something softer and more appealing in her eyes when
she looked at Rollo, warned the much-experienced youth that he had
better for the future confine his gallantries to the most common and
ordinary offices of courtesy.

Yet it was certainly a restraint upon the young Frenchman, who, almost
from the day he had been rid of his Jesuit tutor, had made it a maxim to
make love to the prettiest girl of any company in which he happened to
find himself.

When, therefore, he found himself reduced to a choice between an
inaccessible Concha and La Giralda, riding astride in her leathern
leg-gear and sack-like smock, the youth bethought himself of his
religious duties which he had latterly somewhat neglected; and, being
debarred from earthly love by Concha's insensibility and La Giralda's
ineligibility, it did not cost him a great effort to become for the
nonce the same Brother Hilario who had left the monastery of Montblanch.

So, much to the astonishment of John Mortimer, who moved a little
farther from him, as being a kind of second cousin of the scarlet woman
of the Seven Hills, Etienne pulled out his rosary and, falling on his
knees, betook him to his prayers with vigour and a single mind.

Sergeant Cardono had long ago abandoned all distinctive marks of his
Carlist partisanship and military rank. Moreover, he had acquired, in
some unexplained way, a leathern Montera cap, a short many-buttoned
jacket, a flapped waistcoat of red plush, and leathern small-clothes of
the same sort as those worn by La Giralda. Yet withal there remained
something very remarkable about him. His great height, his angular
build, the grim humour of his mouth, the beady blackness of eyes which
twinkled with a fleck of fire in each, as a star might be reflected in a
deep well on a moonless night--these all gave him a certain distinction
in a country of brick-dusty men of solemn exterior and rare speech.

Also there was something indescribably daring about the man, his air and
carriage. There was the swagger as of a famous _matador_ about the way
he carried himself. He gave a cock to his plain countryman's cap which
betokened one of a race at once quicker and more gay--more passionate
and more dangerous than the grave and dignified inhabitants of Old
Castile through whose country they were presently journeying.

As Cardono and La Giralda departed out of the camp, the Sergeant driving
before him a donkey which he had picked up the night before wandering by
the wayside, El Sarria looked after them with a sardonic smile which
slowly melted from his face, leaving only the giant's usual placid good
nature apparent on the surface. The mere knowledge that Dolóres was
alive and true to him seemed to have changed the hunted and desperate
outlaw almost beyond recognition.

"Why do you smile, El Sarria?" said Concha, who stood near by, as the
outlaw slowly rolled and lighted a _cigarrillo_. "You do not love this
Sergeant. You do not think he is a man to be trusted?"

El Sarria shrugged his shoulders, and slowly exhaled the first long
breathing of smoke through his nostrils.

"Nay," he said deliberately, "I have been both judged and misjudged
myself, and it would ill become me in like manner to judge others. But
if that man is not of your country and my trade, Ramon Garcia has lived
in vain. That is all."

Concha nodded a little uncertainly.

"Yes," she said slowly, "yes--of my country. I believe you. He has the
Andalucian manner of wearing his clothes. If he were a girl he would
know how to tie a ribbon irregularly and how to place a bow-knot a
little to the side in the right place--things which only Andalucians
know. But what in the world do you mean by 'of your profession'?"

El Sarria smoked a while in silence, inhaling the blue cigarette smoke
luxuriously, and causing it to issue from his nostrils white and
moisture-laden with his breath. Then he spoke.

"I mean of my late profession," he explained, smiling on Concha; "it
will not do for a man on the high-road to a commission to commit himself
to the statement that he has practised as a bandit, or stopped a coach
on the highway in the name of King Carlos Quinto that he might examine
more at his ease the governmental mail bags. But our Sergeant--well, I
am man-sworn and without honour if he hath not many a time taken
blackmail without any such excuse!"

Concha seemed to be considering deeply. Her pretty mouth was pursed up
like a ripe strawberry, and her brows were knitted so fiercely that a
deep line divided the delicately arched eyebrows.

"And to this I can add somewhat," she began presently; "they say (I know
not with what truth) that I have some left-handed gipsy blood in me--and
if that man be not a Gitano--why, then I have never seen one. Besides,
he speaks with La Giralda in a tongue which neither I nor Don Rollo
understand."

"But I thought," said El Sarria, astonished for the first time, "that
both you and Don Rollo understood the crabbed gipsy tongue! Have I not
heard you speak it together?"

"As it is commonly spoken--yes," she replied, "we have talked many a
time for sport. But this which is spoken by the Sergeant and La Giralda
is deep Romany, the like of which not half a dozen in Spain understand.
It is the old-world speech of the Rom, before it became contaminated by
the jargon of fairs and the slang of the travelling horse-clipper."

"Then," said El Sarria, slowly, "it comes to this--'tis you and not I
who mistrust these two?"

"No, that I do not," cried Concha, emphatically; "I have tried La
Giralda for many years and at all times found her faithful, so that her
bread be well buttered and a draught of good wine placed alongside it.
But the Sergeant is a strong man and a secret man----"

"Well worth the watching, then?" said El Sarria, looking her full in the
face.

Concha nodded.

"Carlist or no, he works for his own hand," she said simply.

"Shall ye mention the matter to Don Rollo?" asked El Sarria.

"Nay--what good?" said Concha, quickly; "Don Rollo is brave as a bull of
Jaen, but as rash. You and I will keep our eyes open and say nothing.
Perhaps--perhaps we may have doubted the man somewhat over-hastily. But
as for me, I will answer for La Giralda."

"For me," said El Sarria, sententiously, "I will answer for no
woman--save only Dolóres Garcia!"

Concha looked up quickly.

"I also am a woman," she said, smiling.

"And quite well able to answer for yourself, Señorita!" returned El
Sarria, grimly.

For the answers of Ramon Garcia were not at all after the pattern set by
Rollo the Scot.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE SERGEANT AND LA GIRALDA


The dust-heat of the desolate plains of Old Castile was red on the
horizon when the Sergeant and his companion started together on their
strange and perilous mission. Would they ever return, and when? What
might they not find? A Court deserted and forlorn, courtiers fleeing, or
eager to flee if only they knew whither, from the dread and terrible
plague? A Queen and a princess without guards, a palace open to the
plunder of any chance band of robbers? For something like this the imp
of the deserted village had prepared them.

At all events, the Sergeant and La Giralda went off calmly enough in the
direction of the town of San Ildefonso, driving their donkey before
them. For a minute, as they gained the crest, their figures stood out
black and clear against the coppery sunrise. The next they had
disappeared down the slope, the flapping peak of Cardono's Montera cap
being the last thing to be lost sight of.

The long, dragging, idle day was before the party in the dry ravine.

Etienne went to his saddle-bags, and drawing his breviary from the
leathern flap, began to peruse the lessons for the day with an attentive
piety which was not lessened by the fact that he had forgotten most of
the Latin he had learned at school. John Mortimer, on the other hand,
took out his pocket-book, and was soon absorbed by calculations in which
wine and onions shared the page with schemes for importing into Spain
Manchester goods woven and dyed to suit the taste of the country
housewives.

El Sarria sat down with a long sigh to his never-failing resort of
cleaning and ordering his rifle and pistols. He had a phial of oil, a
feather, and a fine linen rag which he carried about with him for the
purpose. Afterwards he undertook the same office for the weapons of
Rollo. Those of the other members of the expedition might take care of
themselves. Ramon Garcia had small belief in their ability to make much
use of them, at any rate--the sergeant being alone excepted.

These three being accounted for, there remained only Rollo and Concha.
Now there was a double shelf a little way from the horses, from which
the chief of the expedition could keep an eye on the whole encampment.
The pair slowly and, as it were, unconsciously gravitated thither, and
in a moment Rollo found himself telling "the story of his life" to a
sympathetic listener, whose bright eyes stimulated all his capacities as
narrator, and whose bright smile welcomed every hairbreadth escape with
a joy which Rollo could not but feel must somehow be heartfelt and
personal. Besides, adventures sound so well when told in Spanish and to
a Spanish girl.

Yet, strange as it may seem, the young man missed several opportunities
of arousing the compassion of his companion.

He said not a word about Peggy Ramsay, nor did he mention the broken
heart which he had come so far afield to curé. And as for Concha,
nothing could have been more nunlike and conventual than the expression
with which she listened. It was as if one of the Lady Superior's
"Holiest Innocents" had flown over the nunnery wall and settled down to
listen to Rollo's tale in that wild gorge among the mountains of
Guadarrama.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meantime the Sergeant and his gipsy companion pursued their way with
little regard to the occupations or sentiments of those they had left
behind them. Cardono's keen black eyes, twinkling hither and thither, a
myriad crows' feet reticulating out from their corners like spiders'
webs, took in the landscape, and every object in it.

The morning was well advanced when, right across their path, a
well-to-do farmhouse lay before them, white on the hillside, its walls
long-drawn like fortifications, and the small slit-like windows
counterfeiting loopholes for musketry. But instead of the hum of work
and friendly gossip, the crying of ox-drivers yoking their teams, or
adjusting the long blue wool over the patient eyes of their beasts,
there reigned about the place, both dwelling and office-houses, a
complete and solemn silence. Only in front of the door several
she-goats, with bunching, over-full udders, waited to be milked with
plaintive whimperings and tokens of unrest.

La Giralda looked at her companion. The Sergeant looked at La Giralda.
The same thought was in the heart of each.

La Giralda went up quickly to the door, and knocked loudly. At
farmhouses in Old Castile it is necessary to knock loudly, for the
family lives on the second floor, while the first is given up to bundles
of fuel, trusses of hay, household provender of the more indestructible
sort, and one large dog which invariably answers the door first and
expresses in an unmistakable manner his intention of making his
breakfast off the stranger's calves.

But not even the dog responded to the clang of La Giralda's oaken cudgel
on the stout door panels. Accordingly she stepped within, and without
ceremony ascended the stairs. In the house-place, extended on a bed, lay
a woman of her own age, dead, her face wearing an expression of the
utmost agony.

In a low trundle-bed by the side of the other was a little girl of four.
Her hands clasped a doll of wood tightly to her bosom. But her eyes,
though open, were sightless. She also was dead.

La Giralda turned and came down the stairs, shaking her head mournfully.

"These at least are ours," she said, when she came out into the hot
summer air, pointing to the little flock of goats. "There is none to
hinder us."

"Have the owners fled?" asked the Sergeant, quickly.

"There are some of them upstairs now," she replied, "but, alas, none who
will ever reclaim them from us! The excuse is the best that can be
devised to introduce us into San Ildefonso, and, perhaps, if we have
luck, inside the palisades of La Granja also."

So without further parley the Sergeant proceeded, in the most
matter-of-fact way possible, to load the ass with huge fagots of
kindling wood till the animal showed only four feet paddling along under
its burden, and a pair of patient orbs, black and beady like those of
the Sergeant himself, peering out of a hay-coloured matting of hair.

This done, the Sergeant turned his sharp eyes every way about the dim
smoky horizon. He could note, as easily as on a map, the precise notch
in the many purple-tinted gorges where they had left their party. It was
exactly like all the others which slit and dimple the slopes of the
Guadarrama, but in this matter it was as impossible for the Sergeant to
make a mistake as for a town-dweller to err as to the street in which he
has lived for years.

But no one was watching them. No clump of juniper held a spy, and the
Sergeant was at liberty to develop his plans. He turned quickly upon the
old gipsy woman.

"La Giralda," he said, "there is small use in discovering the
disposition of the courtiers in San Ildefonso--ay, or even the defences
of the palace, if we know nothing of the Romany who are to march
to-night upon the place."

La Giralda, who had been drawing a little milk from the udders of each
she-goat, to ease them for their travel, suddenly sprang erect.

"I do not interfere in the councils of the Gitano," she cried; "I am
old, but not old enough to desire death!"

But more grim and lack-lustre than ever, the face of Sergeant Cardono
was turned upon her, and more starrily twinkled the sloe-like eyes
(diamonds set in Cordovan leather) as he replied:--"The councils of the
Rom are as an open book to me. If they are life, they are life because I
will it; if death, then I will the death!"

The old gipsy stared incredulously.

"Long have I lived," she said, staring hard at the sergeant, "much have
I seen, both of gipsy and Gorgio; but never have I seen or heard of the
man who could both make that boast, and make it good!"

She appeared to consider a moment.

"Save one," she added, "and he is dead!"

"How did he die?" said the Sergeant, his tanned visage like a mask, but
never removing his eyes from her face.

"By the _garrote_" she answered, in a hushed whisper. "I saw him die."

"Where?"

"In the great _plaza_ of Salamanca," she said, her eyes fixed in a stare
of regretful remembrance. "It was filled from side to side, and the
balconies were peopled as for a bull-fight. Ah, he was a man!"

"His name?"

"José Maria, the Gitano, the prince of brigands!" murmured La Giralda.

"Ah," said the Sergeant, coolly, "I have heard of him."




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DEAD AND THE LIVING


Not a word more was uttered between the two. La Giralda, for no reason
that she would acknowledge even to herself, had conceived an infinite
respect for Sergeant Cardono, and was ready to obey him implicitly--a
fact which shows that our sweet Concha was over-hasty in supposing that
one woman in any circumstances can ever answer for another when there is
a man in the case.

But on this occasion La Giralda's submission was productive of no more
than a command to go down into the town of San Ildefonso, the white
houses of which could clearly be seen a mile or two below, while the
sergeant betook himself to certain haunts of the gipsy and the brigand
known to him in the fastnesses of the Guadarrama.

Like a dog La Giralda complied. She sharpened a stick with a knife which
she took from a little concealed sheath in her leathern leggings, and
with it she proceeded to quicken the donkey's extremely deliberate pace.

Then with the characteristic cry of the goatherd, she gathered her flock
together and drove them before her down the deeply-rutted road which led
from the farmhouse. She had not proceeded far, however, when she
suddenly turned back, with a quick warning cry to her cavalcade. The
donkey instantly stood still, patient amid its fagots as an image in a
church. The goats scattered like water poured on flat ground, and began
to crop stray blades of grass, invisible to any eyes but their own, amid
wastes of cracked earth and deserts of grey water-worn pebbles.

As she looked back, Sergeant Cardono was disappearing up among the
tumbled foot-hills and dry beds of winter torrents, which render the
lower spurs of the Guadarrama such a puzzle to the stranger, and such a
paradise for the smuggler and _guerrillero_. In another moment he had
disappeared. With a long quiet sigh La Giralda stole back to the
farmhouse. In spite of her race, and heathenish lack of creed, the spark
of humanity was far from dead in her bosom. The thought of the open eyes
of the little girl, which gazed even in death with fixed rapture upon
her wooden treasure, remained with her.

"The woman is as old as I--she can bide her time!" she muttered to
herself. "But the child--these arms are not yet so shrunken that they
cannot dig up a little earth to lay the babe thereunder."

And at the chamber door La Giralda paused. Like her people, she was
neither a good nor yet a bad Catholic. Consciously or unconsciously she
held a more ancient faith, though she worshipped at no shrine, told no
beads, and uttered no prayers.

"They have not been long dead," she said to herself, as she entered;
"the window is open and the air is sweet. Yet the plague, which snatches
away the young and strong, may look askance at old Giralda's hold on
life, which at the best is no stronger than the strength of a
basting-thread!"

Having said these words she advanced to the low trundle-bed, and,
softly crooning in an unknown tongue over the poor dead babe, she
lovingly closed its eyes, and taking a sheet from a wall-press that
stood partially open, she began to enwrap the little girl in its crisp
white folds. The Spaniards are like the Scottish folk in this, that they
have universally stores of the best and finest linen.

La Giralda was about to lay the wooden puppet aside as a thing of little
worth, but something in the clutch of the small dead hands touched and
troubled her. She altered her intention.

"No, you shall not be parted!" she said, "and if there be a resurrection
as the priests prate of--why, you shall e'en wake with the doll in your
arms!"

So the pair, in death not divided, were wrapt up together, and the gipsy
woman prepared to carry her light burden afield. But before doing so she
went to the bed. It was an ancient woman who lay thereon, clutching the
bed-clothes, and drawn together with the last agony. La Giralda gazed at
her a moment.

"You I cannot carry--it is impossible," she muttered; "you must take
your chance--even as I, if so be that the plague comes to me from this
innocent!"

Nevertheless, she cast another coverlet over the dead woman's face, and
went down the broad stairs of red brick, carrying her burden like a
precious thing. La Giralda might be no good Catholic, no fervent
Protestant, but I doubt not the First Martyr of the faith, the Preacher
of the Mount, would have admitted her to be a very fair Christian. On
the whole I cannot think her chances in the life to come inferior to
those of the astute Don Baltasar Varela, Prior of the Abbey of
Montblanch, or those of many a shining light of orthodoxy in a world
given to wickedness.

Down in the shady angle of the little orchard the old gipsy found a
little garden of flowers, geranium and white jasmine, perhaps planted to
cast into the rude coffin of a neighbour, _Yerba Luisa_, or lemon
verbena for the decoctions of a simple pharmacopoeia, on the outskirts
of these a yet smaller plot had been set aside. It was edged with white
stones from the hillside, and many coloured bits of broken crockery
decorated it. A rose-bush in the midst had been broken down by some
hasty human foot, or perhaps by a bullock or other large trespassing
animal. There were nigh a score of rose-buds upon it--all now parched
and dead, and the whole had taken on the colour of the soil.

La Giralda stood a moment before laying her burden down. She had the
strong heart of her ancient people. The weakness of tears had not
visited her eyes for years--indeed, not since she was a girl, and had
cried at parting from her first sweetheart, whom she never saw again. So
she looked apparently unmoved at the pitiful little square of cracked
earth, edged with its fragments of brown and blue pottery, and at the
broken rose-bush lying as if also plague-stricken across it, dusty,
desolate, and utterly forlorn. Yet, as we have said, was her heart by no
means impervious to feeling. She had wonderful impulses, this parched
mahogany-visaged Giralda.

"It is the little one's own garden--I will lay her here!" she said to
herself.

So without another word she departed in search of mattock and spade. She
found them easily and shortly, for the hireling servants of the house
had fled in haste, taking nothing with them. In a quarter of an hour the
hole was dug. The rose-tree, being in the way, was dragged out and
thrown to one side. La Giralda, who began to think of her donkey and
goats, hastily deposited the babe within, and upon the white linen the
red earth fell first like thin rain, and afterwards, when the sheet was
covered, in lumps and mattock-clods. For La Giralda desired to be gone,
suddenly becoming mindful of the precepts of the Sergeant.

"No priest has blessed the grave," she said; "I can say no prayers over
her! Who is La Giralda that she should mutter the simplest prayer? But
when the Master of Life awakes the little one, and when He sees the look
she will cast on her poor puppet of wood, He will take her to His bosom
even as La Giralda, the mother of many, would have taken her! God, the
Good One, cannot be more cruel than a woman of the heathen!"

And so with the broken pottery for a monument, and the clasp of infant
hands about the wooden doll for a prayer to God, the dead babe was left
alone, unblessed and unconfessed--but safe.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile we must go over the hill with Sergeant Cardono. Whatever his
thoughts may have been as he trudged up the barren glens, seamed and
torn with the winter rains, no sign of them appeared upon his sunburnt
weather-beaten face. Steadily and swiftly, yet without haste, he held
his way, his eyes fixed on the ground, as though perfectly sure of his
road, like a man on a well-beaten track which he has trod a thousand
times.

For more than an hour he went on, up and ever up, till his feet crisped
upon the first snows of Peñalara, and the hill ramparts closed in. But
when he had reached the narrows of a certain gorge, he looked keenly to
either side, marking the entrance. A pile of stones roughly heaped one
upon the other fixed his attention. He went up to them and attentively
perused their structure and arrangement, though they appeared to have
been thrown together at random. Then he nodded sagely twice and passed
on his way.

The glen continued to narrow overhead. The sunshine was entirely shut
out. The jaws of the precipice closed in upon the wayfarer as if to
crush him, but Sergeant Cardono advanced with the steady stride of a
mountaineer, and the aplomb of one who is entirely sure of his
reception.

The mountain silence grew stiller all about. None had passed that way
(so it seemed) since the beginning of time. None would repass till time
should be no more.

Suddenly through the utter quiet there rang out, repeated and
reduplicated, the loud report of a rifle. The hills gave back the
challenge. A moment before the dingy bedrabbled snow at Cardono's feet
had been puffed upwards in a white jet, yet he neither stopped for this
nor took the least notice. Loyal or disloyal, true or false, he was a
brave man this Sergeant Cardono. I dare say that any one close to him
might have discerned his beady eyes glitter and glance quickly from side
to side, but his countenance was turned steadfastly as ever upon the
snow at his feet.

Again came the same startling challenge out of the vague emptiness of
space, the bullet apparently bursting like a bomb among the snow. And
again Cardono took as much notice as if some half-dozen of village
loungers had been playing ball among the trees.

Only when a third time the _whisk_ of the bullet in the snow a yard or
two to the right preceded the sound of the shot, Cardono shook his head
and muttered, "Too long range! The fools ought to be better taught than
that!" Then he continued his tramp steadily, neither looking to the
right nor to the left. The constancy of his demeanour had its effect
upon the unseen enemy. The Sergeant was not further molested; and though
it was obvious that he advanced each step in about as great danger of
death as a man who is marched manacled to the garrote, he might simply
have been going to his evening billet in some quiet Castilian village,
for all the difference it made in his appearance.

Up to this point Cardono had walked directly up the torrent bed, the
rounded and water-worn stones rattling and slipping under his iron-shod
half-boots, but at a certain point where was another rough cairn of
stones, he suddenly diverged to the right, and mounted straight up the
fell over the scented thyme and dwarf juniper of the mountain slopes.

Whatever of uncertainty as to his fate the Sergeant felt was rigidly
concealed, and even when a dozen men dropped suddenly upon him from
various rocky hiding-places, he only shook them off with a quick gesture
of contempt, and said something in a loud voice which brought them all
to a halt as if turned to stone by an enchanter's spell.

The men paused and looked at each other. They were all well armed, and
every man had an open knife in his hand. They had been momentarily
checked by the words of the Sergeant, but now they came on again as
threateningly as before. Their dark long hair was encircled by red
handkerchiefs knotted about their brows, and in general they possessed
teeth extraordinarily white gleaming from the duskiest of skins. The
beady sloe-black eyes of the Sergeant were repeated in almost every
face, as well as that indefinable something which in all lands marks the
gipsy race.

The Sergeant spoke again in a language apparently more intelligible than
the deep Romany password with which he had first checked their deadly
intentions.

"You have need of better marksmen," he said; "even the Migueletes could
not do worse than that!"

"Who are you?" demanded a tall grey-headed gipsy, who like the Sergeant
had remained apparently unarmed; "what is your right to be here?"

The Sergeant had by this time seated himself on a detached boulder and
was rolling a cigarette. He did not trouble to look up as he answered
carelessly, "To the Gitano my name is José Maria of Ronda!"

The effect of his words was instantaneous. The men who had been ready to
kill him a moment before almost fell at his feet, though here and there
some remained apparently unconvinced.

Prominent among these was the elderly man who had put the question to
the Sergeant. Without taking his eyes from those of the Carlist soldier
he exclaimed, "Our great José Maria you cannot be. For with these eyes I
saw him garrotted in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca!"

The Sergeant undid his stock and pointed to a blood-red band about his
neck, indented deeply into the skin, and more apparent at the back and
sides than in front.

"Garrotted in good faith I was in the Plaza of Salamanca, as this
gentleman says," he remarked with great coolness. "But not to death. The
executioner was as good a _Gitano_ as myself, and removed the spike
which strikes inward from the back. So you see I am still José Maria of
Ronda in the flesh, and able to strike a blow for myself!"

The gipsies set up a wild yell. The name of the most celebrated and most
lawless of their race stirred them to their souls.

"Come with us," they cried; "we are here for the greatest plunder ever
taken or dreamed of among the Romany----"

"Hush, I command you," cried the elder man. "José Maria of Ronda this
man may be, but we are _Gitanos_ of the North, and need not a man from
Andalucia to lead us, even if he carry a scarlet cravat about his neck
for a credential!"

The Sergeant nodded approval of this sentiment and addressed the old
gipsy in deep Romany, to which he listened with respect, and answered in
a milder tone, shaking his head meanwhile.

"I have indeed heard such sayings from my mother," he said, "and I
gather your meaning; but we _Gitanos_ of the North have mingled too much
with the outlander and the foreigner to have preserved the ancient
purity of speech. But in craft and deed I wot well we are to the full as
good Roms as ever."

By this time it was clear to the Sergeant that the old man was jealous
of his leadership; and as he himself was by no means desirous of taking
part in a midnight raid against a plague-stricken town, he proceeded to
make it clear that, being on his way to his own country of Andalucia and
had been led aside by the gipsy cryptograms he had observed by the
wayside and the casual greeting of the crook-backed imp of the village.

Upon this the old man sat down beside Sergeant Cardono, or, as his new
friends knew him to be, José Maria the brigand. He did not talk about
the intended attack as the Sergeant hoped he would. Being impressed by
the greatness of his guest, he entered into a minute catalogue of the
captures he had made, the men he had slain as recorded on the butt of
his gun or the haft of his knife, and the cargoes he had successfully
"run" across the mountains or beached on the desolate sands of
Catalunia.

"I am no inlander," he said, "I am of the sea-coast of Tarragona. I have
never been south of Tortosa in my life; but there does not live a man
who has conducted more good cigars and brandy to their destination than
old Pépe of the Eleven Wounds!"

The sergeant with grave courtesy reached him a well-rolled cigarette.

"I have heard of your fame, brother," he said; "even at Ronda and on the
Madrid-Seville road your deeds are not unknown. But what of this venture
to-night? Have you enough men, think you, to overpower the town watchmen
and the palace-guards?"

The old gipsy tossed his bony hands into the air with a gesture of
incomparable contempt.

"The palace guards are fled back to Madrid," he cried, "and as to the
town watch they are either drunk or in their dotage!"

Meantime the main body of the gipsies waited patiently in the
background, and every few minutes their numbers were augmented by the
arrival of others over the various passes of the mountains. These took
their places without salutation, like men expected, and fell promptly to
listening to the conversation of the two great men, who sat smoking
their cigarettes each on his own stone in the wide wild corrie among the
rocks of the Guadarrama which had been chosen as an appropriate
rendezvous.

Singularly enough, after the sergeant had shown the scarlet mark of the
strangling ring about his neck, no one of all that company doubted for a
moment that he was indeed the thrice-famous José Maria of Ronda. None
asked a question as to his whence or whither. He was José Maria, and
therefore entitled not only to be taken at once into the secrets of
Egypt, but also, and it pleased him, to keep his own.

And very desperate and bloody some of 'his own' were. In the present
instance, plunder and bloodshed were to proceed hand in hand. No quarter
was to be given to old or young. The plague-stricken sick man and the
watcher by the bed, the woman feeding her fire of sticks under her
_puchero_, the child asleep on its pillow, the Queen in the palace, the
Princess in her nursery--all were to die, quickly and suddenly. These
men had sworn it. The dead were no tale-tellers. That was the way of
Egypt--the ancient way of safety. Were they not few and feeble in the
midst of innumerable hordes of the _Busne_? Had they not been driven
like cattle, abused like dogs, sent guiltless to the scaffold, shot in
batches by both warring parties? Now in this one place at least, they
would do a deed of vengeance at which the ears of the world would
tingle.

The Sergeant sat and smoked and listened. He was no stranger to such
talk. It was the way of his double profession of Andalucian bandit and
Carlist _guerrilero_, to devise and execute deeds of terror and death.
But nothing so cold-blooded as this had José Maria ever imagined. He had
indeed appropriated the governmental mails till the post-bags almost
seemed his own property, and the guards handed them down without
question as to a recognised official. He had, in his great days,
captured towns and held them for either party according to the good the
matter was likely to do himself. But there was something revolting in
this whole business which puzzled him.

"Whose idea was all this?" he asked at last. "I would give much to see
the _Gitano_ who could devise such a stroke."

The grim smile on the countenance of old Pépe of the Eleven Wounds grew
yet more grim.

"No gipsy planned it and no man!" he said sententiously. "Come hither,
Chica!"

And out from among the listening throng came a girl of thirteen or
fourteen, dressed neatly and simply in a grey linen blouse belted at the
waist with a leather belt. A gay plaid, striped of orange and crimson,
hung neatly folded over her shoulder, and she rested her small sunburnt
hand on the silver hilt of a pistol. Black elf-locks escaped from
beneath a red silk kerchief knotted saucily after the fashion of her
companions. But her eyes, instead of being beady and black with that
far-away contemplative look which characterises the children of Egypt,
were bright and sunny and blue as the Mediterranean itself in the front
of spring.

"Come hither, Chica--be not afraid," repeated old Pépe of the Eleven
Wounds, "this is a great man--the greatest of all our race. You have
heard of him--as who, indeed, has not!"

Chica nodded with a quick elfish grin of intense pleasure and
appreciation. "I was listening," she said, "I heard all. And I
saw--would that I could see it again. Oh, if only the like would happen
to me!"

"Tell the noble Don José who you are, my pretty Chica," said Pépe,
soothingly.

But the child stamped her sandalled foot. It was still white at the
instep, and the sergeant could see by the blue veins that she had not
gone long barefoot. The marks of a child either stolen for ransom or run
away from home owing to some wild strain in the blood were too obvious
to be mistaken. Her liberty of movement among the gipsies made the
latter supposition the more probable.

"I am _not_ pretty Chica, and I am not little," she cried angrily. "I
would have you remember, Pépe, that _I_ made this plan, which the folk
of Egypt are to execute to-night. But since this is the great brigand
Don José of Ronda, who was executed at Salamanca, I will tell him all
about it."

She looked round at the dark faces with which they were surrounded.

"There are new folk among these," she said, "men I do not know. Bid them
go away. Else I will not speak of myself, and I have much to say to Don
José!"

Pépe of the Eleven Wounds looked about him, and shook his head. Gipsydom
is a commonwealth when it comes to a venture like this, and save in the
presence of some undoubted leader, all Egypt has an equal right to hear
and to speak. Pépe's authority was not sufficient for this thing. But
that of the Sergeant was.

He lifted his Montera cap and said, "I would converse a while with this
maid on the affairs of Egypt. 'Tis doubtless no more than you know
already, and then, having heard her story my advice is at your service.
But she will not speak with so many ears about. It is a woman's whim,
and such the wisest of us must sometimes humour."

The gipsies smiled at the gay wave of his hand with which Cardono
uttered this truism and quickly betook themselves out of earshot in
groups of ten and a dozen. Cards were produced, and in a few minutes
half a score of games were in progress at different points of the
quarry-like cauldron which formed the outlaws' rendezvous.

At once the humour of the child changed.

"They obeyed you," she said; "I like you for that. I mean to have many
men obey me when I grow up. Then I will kill many--thousands and
thousands. Now I can do nothing--only I have it in my head--here!"

The elf tapped her forehead immediately underneath the red sash which
was tied about it. The Sergeant, though eager to hear her story and
marvelling at such sentiments from the lips of a child, successfully
concealed his curiosity, and said gently, "Tell me how you came to think
of to-night----"

"Of what to-night?" asked the girl quickly and suspiciously.

"The deed which is to be done to-night," replied the Sergeant simply, as
though he were acquainted with the whole.

She leaped forward and caught him by the arm.

"You will stay and go with us? You will lead us?" she hissed, her blue
eyes aflame and with trembling accents, "then indeed will I be sure of
my revenge. Then the Italian woman and her devil's brat shall not
escape. Then I shall be sure--sure!"

She repeated the last words with concentrated fury, apparently
impossible to one of her age. The Sergeant smoked quietly and observed
her. She seemed absolutely transfigured.

"Tell me that you will," she cried, low and fierce, so that her voice
should not reach the men around; "these, when they get there, will think
of nothing but plunder. As if rags and diamonds and gold were worth
venturing one's life for. But I desire death--death--death, do you hear?
To see the Italian woman and her paramour pleading for their lives, one
wailing over against the other, on their knees. Oh, I know them and the
brat they call the little Queen! To-night they shall lie dead under my
hands--with this--with this!"

And the girl flashed a razor-keen blade out of her red waistband. She
thrust the hilt forward into the Sergeant's hands as if in token of
fealty.

"See," she said, touching the edge lovingly, "is it not sharp? Will it
not kill surely and swiftly? For months I have sharpened it--ah, and
to-night it will give me my desire!"

It was the Sergeant's belief that the girl was mad, nevertheless he
watched her with his usual quiet scrutiny, the power of which she
evidently felt. For she avoided his eyes and hastened on with her story
before he had time to cross-question her.

"Why do I hate them? I see the question on your lips. Because the
Italian woman hath taken away my father and slain my mother--slain her
as truly and with far sharper agony than she herself shall know when I
set this knife to her throat. I am the daughter of Muñoz, and I swore
revenge on the man and on the woman both when I closed my mother's eyes.
My mother's heart was broken. Ah, you see, she was weak--not like me! It
would take a hundred like the Neapolitan to break my heart; and as for
the man, though he were thrice my father, he should beg his life in
vain."

She snatched her knife jealously out of his hand, tried its edge on the
back of her hand with a most unchildlike gesture, and forthwith
concealed it in her silken _faja_. Then she laid her hand once more on
the Sergeant's arm.

"You will lead us, will you not, José Maria?" she said pleadingly. "I
can trust you. You have done many great deeds. My nurse was a woman of
Ronda and told me of your exploits on the road from Madrid to Sevilla.
You will lead us to-night. Only you must leave these three in the palace
to me. If you will, you shall have also my share of the plunder. But
what do I say, I know you are too noble to think only of that--as these
wolves do!"

She cast a haughty glance around upon the gipsies at their card-play.

"I, that am of Old Castile and noble by four descents, have demeaned
myself to mix with _Gitanos_," she said, "but it has only been that I
might work out my revenge. I told Pépe there of my plan. I showed him
the way. He was afraid. He told ten men, and they were afraid. Fifty,
and they were afraid. Now there are a hundred and more, and were it not
that they know that all lies open and unguarded, even I could not lead
them thither. But they will follow you, because you are José Maria of
Ronda." The Sergeant took the girl's hand in his. She was shaking as
with an ague fit, but her eyes, blue and mild as a summer sky, had that
within them which was deadlier than the tricksome slippery demon that
lurks in all black orbs, whether masculine or feminine.

"Chica," he said, "your wrongs are indeed bitter. I would give much to
help you to set the balance right. Perhaps I may do so yet. But I cannot
be the commander of these men. They are not of my folk or country. They
have not even asked me to lead them. They are jealous of me! You see it
as well as I!"

"Ah!" cried the girl, laying her hand again on his cuff, "that is
because they do not wish you to share their plunder. But tell them that
you care nothing for that and they will welcome you readily enough. The
place is plague-stricken, I tell you. The palace lies open. Little
crook-backed Chepe brought me word. He says he adores me. He is of the
village of Frias, back there behind the hills. I do not love him, even
though he has a bitter heart and can hate well. Therefore I suffer him."

The Sergeant rose to his feet and looked compassionately down at the
vivid little figure before him. The hair, dense and black, the blue
eyes, the red-knotted handkerchief, the white teeth that showed between
the parted lips clean and sharp as those of a wild animal. Cardono had
seen many things on his travels, but never anything like this. His soul
was moved within him. In the deeps of his heart, the heart of a Spanish
gipsy, there was an infinite sympathy for any one who takes up the blood
feud, who, in the face of all difficulties, swears the _vendetta_. But
the slim arms, the spare willowy body, the little white sandalled feet
of the little girl--these overcame him with a pitifully amused sense of
the disproportion of means to end.

"Have you no brother, Señorita?" he said, using by instinct the title of
respect which the little girl loved the most. She saw his point in a
moment.

"A brother--yes, Don José! But my brother is a cur, a dog that eats
offal. Pah! I spit upon him. He hath taken favours from the woman. He
hath handled her money. He would clean the shoes they twain leave at
their chamber door. A brother--yes; the back of my hand to such
brothers! But after to-night he shall have no offal to eat--no bones
thrown under the table to pick. For in one slaying I will kill the
Italian woman Cristina, the man Muñoz who broke my mother's heart, and
the foisted changeling brat whom they miscall the daughter of Fernando
and the little Queen of Spain!"

She subsided on a stone, dropped her head into her hands, and took no
further notice of the Sergeant, who stood awhile with his hand resting
on her shoulder in deep meditation. There was, he thought, no more to be
said or done. He knew all there was to know. The men had not asked him
to join them, so he would venture no further questions as to the time
and the manner of attack. They were still jealous of him with that
easily aroused jealousy of south and north which in Spain divides even
the clannish gipsy.

Nevertheless he went the round of the men. They were mostly busy with
their games, and some of them even snatched the stakes in to them, lest
he should demand a percentage of the winnings after the manner of
Sevilla. The Sergeant smiled at the reputation which distance and many
tongues had given him. Then, with a few words of good fellowship and
the expression of a wish for success and abundant plunder, he bade them
farewell. It was a great deed which they designed and one worthy of his
best days. He was now old, he said, and must needs choose easier
courses. He did not desire twice to feel the grip of the collar of iron.
But young blood--oh, it would have its way and run its risks!

Here the Sergeant smiled and raised his Montera cap. The men as
courteously bade him good-day, preserving, however, a certain respectful
distance, and adding nothing to the information he had already obtained.

But Chica, seated on her stone, with her scarlet-bound head on her hand,
neither looked up nor gave him any greeting as his feet went slowly down
the rocky glen and crunched over the begrimed patches of last year's
snow, now wide-pored and heavy with the heat of noonday.




CHAPTER XXIX

A LITTLE QUEEN AT HOME


Meanwhile, leaving the grave in the shaded corner of the farm garden, La
Giralda went out with many strange things moving in her heart. More than
once she had seen her own children laid in the dust, with far less of
emotion than this nameless little girl clutching her wooden puppet and
smiling, well-pleased, in the face of the Last Terror.

She found the donkey standing still and patient between his fagot
bundles. The she-goats, on the other hand, had scattered a little this
way or that as this blade of grass or that spray of _encina_ had allured
them. But a sharp cry or two called them together. For it was many hours
since any of them had been milked, and the full teats standing out every
way ached for the pressing fingers.

The Sergeant had, of course, long since completely disappeared up the
hillside, so La Giralda, with one comprehensive look back at the
desolate farmhouse, drove her little flock before her towards the town
gates of San Ildefonso. Like a picture, the dustily red roofs lay
beneath in the sunshine, spire and roof-garden, pigeon-house and terrace
walk. Parts of the white palace of La Granja also were to be seen, but
indistinctly, since it lay amid a pleasant distraction of greenery, and
the woods waved and the falling waters glimmered about it like the
landscape of a dream.

From the _Colegiata_ came the tolling of a bell, slow and irregular. All
else was silent. Presently, with her little flock before her, La Giralda
found herself skirting the high-paled ironwork which confines the
palace. She pursued her way towards the town, taking care, however, to
look sharply about her so that she might miss nothing.

The palace grounds seemed utterly deserted. The fountains slept; "Fame"
drove no longer her waters fifty yards into the air; the Frogs rested
from their ungrateful labours open-mouthed and gasping for breath. Not
even a gardener was to be seen scratching weeds on a path, or in the
dimmest distance passing at random across one of the deep-shaded
avenues. An unholy quiet seemed to have settled upon the place, the
marvel of Castile, the most elevated of earthly palaces, broken only by
the sombre tolling of the chapel bell, which would cease for five
minutes without apparent reason, and then, equally without cause, begin
all over again its lugubrious chime.

Down the zigzags towards the town went La Giralda, the goats taking
advantage of the wider paths to stray further afield, and needing more
frequently the touch of the wand, which the old woman had taken from the
donkey's load in order to induce them to proceed.

As the gipsy passed along, a small shrill voice called upon her to stop,
and from a side walk, concealed by roses and oleander bushes, late
flowering because of the great elevation, a richly-dressed little girl
came running. She ran at the top of her speed towards the gilt railings
which towered high above her head. Her age appeared to be about that of
the little girl whom La Giralda had buried among the pottery shards in
that other meaner garden up on the mountain side.

"Stop," she cried imperiously, "I bid you stop! I am the Queen, and you
must obey me. I have not seen any one for five days except stupid old
Susana, who will be after me in a moment. Stop, I tell you! I want to
see your goats milked. I love milk, and they will not give me enough,
pretending that there is none within the palace. As if a Queen of Spain
could not have all the milk she wanted! Ridiculous!"

By this time the little girl had mounted the parapet and was clinging
with all her might to the iron railings, while a fat motherly person had
waddled out of the underbrush in search of her, and with many
exclamations of pretended anger and indignation was endeavouring to
entice her away.

But the more the nurse scolded and pulled, the more firmly did the
little maid cling to the golden bars. At last the elderly woman, quite
out of breath, sat down on the stone ledge and addressed to her charge
the argument which in such cases betokens unconditional surrender.

"My lady Isabel, what would your noble and royal mother say," she
gasped, "thus to forget all the counsels and commands of those put in
authority over you and run to the railings to chatter with a gipsy wife?
Go away, goatherdess, or I will call the attendants and have you put in
prison!"

La Giralda had stopped her flock, obedient to the wishes of the little
maid, but now, with a low curtsey to both, she gathered them together
with her peculiar whistling cry, and prepared to continue her way down
into the village.

But this the little girl would in nowise permit. She let go the iron
rail, and with both hands clenched fell upon her attendant with
concentrated fury.

"Bad, wicked Susana," she cried, "I will have you whipped and sent about
your business. Nay, I myself will beat you. I will kill you, do you
hear? I have had nothing to eat and no one to play with for a week--not
a gardener, not a dog, not even a soldier on guard to salute me or let
me examine his sword-bayonet. And now when this dear, this sweet old
Señora comes by with her lovely, lovely goats, you must perforce try to
pull me off as if I were a village child that had played truant from the
monks' school and must be birched for its fault!"

All the while she was speaking, the young Princess directed a shower of
harmless blows at the skirts of her attendant, which Doña Susana
laughingly warded off, begging all the while for pity, and instancing
the direct commands of the little girl's mother, apparently a very
exalted personage indeed, as a reason for her interference.

But Isabel of Spain was not to be appeased, and presently she had
recourse to tears in the midst of her fury.

"You hate me--I know you do--that is what it means," she cried, "you
would not have me happy even for a moment. But one day I shall be Queen,
and do as I like! Yes, and drink as much warm goat's milk as I want, in
spite of all the stupid, wicked, cruel Susanas in the world. And I shall
throw you into a dungeon with nothing but mice and rats and serpents and
centipedes--yes, and snails that leave a white slimy trail over you
when they crawl! Ugh! And I will have your hands tied, so that you shall
not be able to brush them off when they tickle your neck. Yes, I will,
Susana! I swear it, and I am growing big--so big! And soon I shall be
old enough to have you put in prison with the mice and snails, bad
Susana! Oh, wicked Susana!"

Now, whether these childish threats actually had some effect, or whether
the old lady was so soft-hearted as her comfortable appearance denoted,
certain it is that she took a key from her pocket and passed it through
the tall gilt railings to La Giralda.

"Go down a hundred yards or so," she said, "and there you will find a
gate. Open it with that key and bring over your animals to the little
pavilion among the trees by the fountain."

Upon hearing this the Princess instantly changed her tune. She had got
her own way, and now it was "Beautiful Doña Susana! Precious and
loveliest companion, when I am Queen you shall have the greatest and
handsomest grandee in the kingdom to be your husband, and walk in
diamonds and rubies at our court balls! Yes, you shall. I promise it by
my royal oath. And now I will run to the house kitchen for basins to
catch the goats' milk in, and my little churn to churn the butter
in--and--and----"

But before she had catalogued half the things that she meant to find and
bring she departed at the top of her speed, making the air ring with her
shouts of delight.

Slowly, and with the meekest dignity, La Giralda did as she was bidden.
She found the little gate, which, indeed, proved so narrow that she
could not get her donkey to pass through with his great side-burdens of
fagots. But as these were not at all heavy, La Giralda herself detached
them, and, laying them carefully within the railings, she unhaltered the
patient beast and, tying him only with a cord about his neck, left him a
generous freedom of browsing upon the royal grass-plots and undergrowth.

The goats, however, perhaps alarmed by the trim daintiness of the place
and the unwonted spectacle of unlimited leaves and forage, kept close
together. One or two of them, indeed, smelt doubtfully at luxuriant
tufts, but as they had only previously seen grass in single blades, and
amid Saharas of gravel and sand, the experiment of eating an entire
mouthful at a time appeared too hazardous and desperate. They were of a
cautious turn of mind, in addition to which their udders had become so
distended that little white beads were forcing themselves from the
teats, and they expressed their desire for relief by plaintive
whimperings and by laying their rough heads caressingly against La
Giralda's short and primitive skirt and leather-cased legs.

In a few moments after they had reached the pavilion the Princess came
shouting back. She was certainly a most jovial little person, Spanish at
all points, with great dark eyes and cheeks apple-red with good health
and the sharp airs of the Guadarrama. Doña Susana had walked a little in
front of La Giralda and her flock, to show the superiority of her
position, and also, it may be, to display the amplitude of her several
chins, by holding them in the air in a manner as becoming as it was
dignified.

"Milk them! Milk them quickly! Let me see!" the Princess shouted,
clanging the pails joyously together. The walls of the pavilion in which
La Giralda found herself were decorated with every kind of household
utensil, but not such as had ever been used practically. Everything was
of silver or silver-gilt. There was indeed a complete _batterie de
cuisine_--saucepans, patty-pans, graters, a mincing machine with the
proper screws and handles, shining rows of lids, and a complete
graduated series of cooking spoons stuck in a bandolier. Salad dishes of
sparkling crystal bound with silver ornamented the sideboard, while
various earthen pots and pans of humbler make stood on a curiously
designed stove under whose polished top no fire had ever burned. At
least so it appeared to La Giralda, who, much impressed by the
magnificence of the installation, would promptly have driven her goats
out again.

But this the little Isabel would by no means permit.

"Here--here!" she commanded, "this is mine--my very own. My mother has a
dairy--I have a kitchen. Milk the goats here, I command you, nowhere but
here!"

And thrusting the bucket into the old woman's hand, she watched
carefully and eagerly as La Giralda pressed the milk downwards in
hissing streams. The she-goat operated upon expressed her gratitude by
turning to lick the hand which relieved her.

At this the little girl danced with delight.

"It looks so easy--I could do it myself! I am sure of it. I tell you,
Susana, I will do it. Stand still, _cabra_! Do you not know that I am
Isabel the Second, Queen of all the Spains!"

But the she-goat, having no very strong monarchial sentiments, or
perhaps being inclined to Carlist opinions, as soon as she felt the grip
of unaccustomed fingers promptly kicked over in the dust the Queen of
all the Spains.

The little girl had not time to gather herself up or even to emit the
howl of disappointment and anger which hovered upon her lips, before her
attendant rushed at her with pitiful cries:

"Oh, the wicked goat! The devil-possessed emblem of Satan! Let it be
slain! Did not your poor Susana warn you to have nothing to do with such
evil things--thus to overturn in the dust the best, the sweetest, the
noblest of Princesses!"

But the best and sweetest of Princesses, having violent objections to
being gathered up into the capacious embrace of her nurse, especially
before company, vigorously objected in much the same manner as the goat
had done, and at last compelled Doña Susana to deposit her once more on
the paved floor of the miniature kitchen. Having arrived in which place,
her anger completely vanished, for a tankardful of rich warm goat's milk
was handed to her by La Giralda, and in this flowing bowl she soon
forgot her woes.

"You must come down to the palace and be paid," said the little girl;
"we are most of us very hungry there, and those who are not hungry are
thirsty. The waggons from Madrid have been stopped on the way, and all
the guards have gone to bring them back!"

At this Doña Susana looked quickly across to the old goatherdess and
signalled that the little Princess was not to be informed of anything
she might happen to know.

"You have not been in the town, I trust!" said Doña Susana.

Now La Giralda could conscientiously have declared that she had never
been within the gates of San Ildefonso in her life, but thinking that in
the circumstances the statement might appear a suspicious one, she
modified it to a solemn declaration that she had come directly down from
her farm on the mountain-side, as, indeed, they themselves had seen.

Satisfied of her veracity, Doña Susana took her very independent and
difficult charge by the hand and led the way towards the palace of La
Granja, glimpses of which could be obtained through the foliage which
was still everywhere verdant and abundant with the first freshness of
spring--so high did the castle lie on the hill-slopes, and so enlivening
were the waste waters downthrown from the rocky crests of Peñalara,
whose snows glimmered through the trees, as it seemed, but a bowshot
above their heads.

The goats, each expecting their turn of milking, followed at her heels
as obediently as well-trained dogs. Most of them were of the usual
dark-red colour, a trifle soiled with the grey dust on which they had
been lying. A few were white, and these were the favourites of the
little Queen, who, though compelled to go on ahead, looked constantly
back over her shoulder and endeavoured to imitate the shrill whistling
call by which La Giralda kept her flock in place.

When they arrived at the palace front the doors stood wide open. At Doña
Susana's call an ancient major-domo appeared, his well-developed
waistcoat mating ill with the pair of shrunk and spindle shanks which
appeared beneath. The sentry boxes, striped red and gold with the
colours of Spain, were empty. At the guard-houses there were no lounging
sergeants or smart privates eager to rise and salute as the little Queen
passed by.

There was already indeed about the palace an air of desolation. The
great gates in front towards the town had been closed, as if to shut off
infection, and the Court itself, dwindled to a few faithful old
retainers of Fernando VII., surrounded his widow and her new husband
with a devotion which was yet far more than their due.

It was not long before La Giralda had milked the remainder of the flock
and sent the creaming white pitchers into the palace. Little Isabel
danced with delight as one she-goat after another escaped with infinite
tail-waggling and bleatings of pleasure. And in the dearth of other
amusement she desired and even commanded the old woman to remain and
pasture her herd within the precincts of the palace. But La Giralda had
much yet to do. She must find out the state and dispositions of the town
of San Ildefonso, and then rejoin her companions in the little corrie or
cauldron-like _cirque_ in which she and the sergeant had left Rollo and
the other members of the expedition.

So after the small and imperious royal maid had been carried screaming
and battling upstairs by Doña Susana and the globular major-domo, La
Giralda, richly rewarded in golden coin of the realm, and with all the
requisite information as to the palace, betook herself back to the gate
by which she had left the ass. This she loaded again, and driving it
before her she retraced her steps past the corner of the palace, and so
to the porter's lodge by the great gate.

Here she was presently ushered out by a mumbling old woman who informed
her that her husband and son had both gone to Madrid with the troops,
but would undoubtedly return in an hour or two, a statement which with
her superior information the old gipsy took leave to doubt.

The town of San Ildefonso lay beneath the chateâu, and to her right as
La Giralda issued from the gates. The houses were of an aspect at once
grave and cheerful. They had been built mostly, not for permanent
residence, but in order to accommodate the hordes of courtiers and their
suites who, in the summer months, followed the royal personages over the
mountains from Madrid.

As most of these had fled at the first invasion of the cholera, the
windows, at this period of the year generally bright with flowers and
shaded with emerald barred _jalousies_, were closely shut up, and upon
several of the closed doors appeared the fatal black and white notices
of the municipality, which indicated that there either was or had been a
case of the plague within the infected walls.

La Giralda went down the streets uttering the long wailing cry which
indicated that she had firewood to sell. But though she could have
disposed of the milk from the goats over and over again, there appeared
but little demand for her other commodity, even though she called,
"_Leña-a-a-a! Ah, leña-a-a-a!_" from one end of San Ildefonso to the
other.

A city watchman, with a pipe in his mouth, looked drowsily and frowsily
out of the town-hall or _ayuntamiento_. He was retreating again to his
settle when it suddenly struck him that this intruder had paid no duty
upon her milk and firewood. True, he was not the functionary appointed
by law to receive the tax; but since he was on the spot, and for lack of
other constituted the representative of civic state, he felt he must
undertake the duty.

So, laying aside his pipe and seizing his halberd and cocked hat, he
sallied grumblingly forth to intercept the bold contravener of municipal
laws. But the active limbs of the old gipsy, the lightened udders of the
she-goats, and the ass with his meek nose pointed homeward, took the
party out of the village gate before the man in authority could
over-take La Giralda.

Soon, therefore, the roofs of San Ildefonso and the white palace again
lay beneath her as the gipsy reascended by her track of the morning. So
long had she occupied in her various adventures that the evening shadows
were already lengthening when she returned to the corrie where the party
had spent in restful indolence the burden and heat of the day. The
Sergeant had not yet arrived, and La Giralda delayed her story till he
should give her leave to speak. For not even to the gipsies of the
Guadarrama was José Maria a greater personage than Sergeant Cardono to
La Giralda of Sevilla.

In the mean time she busied herself, with Concha's help, in preparing
the evening meal, as quick upon her legs as if she had done nothing but
lounge in the shade all day. It was almost sundown when the Sergeant
came in, dropping unannounced over the precipice as if from the clouds.

"We must be in La Granja in two hours if we are to save a soul within
its walls," he said, "but--we have an hour for dinner first! Therefore
let us dine. God knows when we shall taste food again!"

And with this dictum John Mortimer heartily agreed.




CHAPTER XXX

PALACE BURGLARS


The startling announcement of the Sergeant at once set the whole party
in motion. Their suspicions of the morning were cast to the winds, as
the Sergeant and La Giralda in turn related their adventures. Concha,
having formerly vouched so strongly for the old gipsy woman, now nodded
triumphantly across to Rollo, who on his part listened intently. As
Sergeant Cardono proceeded the young man leaned further and further
forward, breathing deeply and regularly. The expression on his face was
that of fierce and keen resolution.

The Sergeant told all the tale as it had happened, reserving only the
identification of himself with the famous José Maria of Ronda, which the
gipsies had made on the strength of the red mark about his neck, now
once more concealed under his military stock. Cardono, however, made no
secret that he was of the blood of Egypt, and set down to this fact all
that he had been able to accomplish. In swift well-chosen words he told
of the fierce little girl with the dark hair and blue eyes, who declared
herself to be the daughter of Muñoz, sometime paramour and now reputed
husband of the Queen-Regent--making it clear that she had indeed planned
the wholesale slaughter, not only of those in the palace, but also of
the inhabitants of the town of San Ildefonso.

Then in her turn La Giralda told of her visit to the pavilion, of the
little Queen, passionate, joyous, kindly natured, absolutely Spanish,
till the hearts of her hearers melted to the tale.

"Our orders are to capture her and her mother the Regent," said Rollo,
thoughtfully. "It would therefore serve our purpose but ill if we
permitted these two to be sacrificed to the bloodthirsty fury of a mob
of plunderers!"

"Then the sooner we find ourselves within the gates, the more chance we
shall have of saving them both!" said the Sergeant. "Serve out the
_puchero_, La Giralda!"

Concha had taken no part in the discussion. But she had listened with
all her ears, and now in the pause that followed she declared her
unalterable intention of making one of the party.

"I also am of Andalucia," she said with calm determination, "there are
two others of my country here who will answer for me. You cannot leave
me alone, and La Giralda will be needed as guide when once you reach the
palace precincts. I shall not be in the way, I promise you, and if it
comes to gun and pistol, there I think you will not find me wanting!"

In his heart and though he made several objections, Rollo was glad
enough to give way. For with all the unknown dangers of the night before
them, and the certainty of bloodshed when the gipsies should attack, he
relished still less the thought of leaving Concha alone in that pit on
the chill side of Guadarrama.

"I promise you, Colonel, the maid will be worth her billet," said the
Sergeant, "or else she is no true Andaluse. To such an one in old days I
have often trusted----"

Thus far Cardono had proceeded when suddenly he broke off his
reminiscence, and with a paternal gesture patted Concha's arm as she was
bending over to transfer a second helping of the _puchero_ to his dish.

The party was now in excellent marching order, well-provisioned,
well-fed, rested, and provided with the best and most recent
information. Even John Mortimer's slow English blood developed some
latent Puritanic fire, and he said, "Hang me if I do not fight for the
little girl who was willing to pay for the _whole_ of the goat-milk!"

To fight for a Queen, who at the early age of five was prepared to give
a wholesale order like that, appeared to John Mortimer a worthy and
laudable deed of arms. He was free indeed to assist in taking her
captive, if by so doing he could further the shipping of the Priorato he
himself had paid for. But to make over to a set of thieves and murderers
a girl who had about her the makings of a good customer and a woman of
business habits, stirred every chivalric feeling within him.

The night was so dark that it was resolved that the party should leave
their horses behind them in the stables of the deserted farm. They could
then proceed on foot more softly and with more safety to themselves. To
this La Giralda, knowing that they must return that way, readily
assented. For the thought of the dead woman she had left in the
first-floor room haunted her, and even in the darkness of the night she
could see the stark outlines of the sheet she had spread over the body.

So it came to pass that once more horseshoe iron clattered, and there
was a flashing of lights and a noise of voices about the lonely and
stricken farmhouse. But only La Giralda gave a thought to the little
grave in the shady corner of the garden, and only she promised herself
to revisit it when the stern work of the night should be over and the
dawn of a calmer morning should have arisen.

Now, as soon as Sergeant Cardono returned, he placed himself as
completely as formerly under the orders of Rollo. He was no more José
Maria the famous gipsy, but Sergeant Cardono of the army of H.M. Carlos
Quinto, and Señor Rollo was his colonel. Like a good scout he was ready
to advise, but to the full as ready to hold his tongue and obey.

And Rollo, though new to his position, was not above benefiting
continually by his wisdom, and as a matter of fact it was the Sergeant
who, in conjunction with La Giralda, led the little expedition down the
perilous goat-track by which the old gipsy had followed her flock in the
morning. As usual Concha kept her place beside Rollo, with Mortimer and
Etienne a little behind, while El Sarria, taciturn but alert as usual,
brought up the rear.

It can hardly be said that they carried with them any extraordinary
elements of success. Indeed, in one respect they were at a manifest
disadvantage. For in an expedition of this kind there ought to be one
leader of dignity, character, and military genius far beyond the others.
But among this little band which stole so quietly along the
mountain-paths of the Guadarrama, beneath the frowning snow-clad brow of
Peñalara, there was not one who upon occasion could not have led a
similar forlorn hope. Each member of the party possessed a character
definite and easily to be distinguished from all the others. It was an
army of officers without any privates.

Still, since our Firebrand, Rollo the Scot, held the nominal leadership,
and his quick imperious character made that chieftainship a reality,
there was at least a chance that they might bring to a successful
conclusion the complex and difficult task which was before them.

       *       *       *       *       *

They now drew near to the palace, which, as one descends the mountains,
is approached first. The town of San Ildefonso lay further to the right,
an indistinguishable mass of heaped roofs and turrets without a light or
the vestige of a street apparent in the gloom. It seemed to Rollo a
strange thing to think of this stricken town lying there with its dead
and dying, its empty tawdry lodgings from which the rich and gay of the
Court had fled so hastily, leaving all save their most precious
belongings behind, the municipal notices on the door, white crosses
chalked on a black ground, while nearer and always nearer approached the
fell gipsy rabble intent on plunder and rapine.

Even more strange, however, seemed the case of the royal palace of La
Granja. Erected at infinite cost after the pattern of Versailles and
Marly, the smallness of its scale and the magnificence of its natural
surroundings caused it infinitely to surpass either of its models in
general effect. It had, however, never been intended for defence, nor
had the least preparation been made in case of attack. It was doubtless
presumed that whenever the Court sojourned there, the royal personages
would arrive with such a guard and retinue as, in that lonely place,
would make danger a thing to be laughed at.

But no such series of circumstances as this had ever been thought of;
the plague which had fallen so heavily and as it seemed mysteriously and
instantaneously upon the town; the precincts of the palace about to be
invaded by a foe more fell than Frank or Moor; the guards disappeared
like snow in the sun, and the only protection of the lives of the
Queen-Regent and her daughter, a band of Carlists sent to capture their
persons at all hazards.

Verily the whole situation was remarkably complex.

The briefest look around convinced Rollo that it would be impossible for
so small a party to hold the long range of iron palisades which
surrounded the palace. These were complete, indeed, but their extent was
far too great to afford any hope of keeping out the gipsies without
finding themselves taken in the rear. They must hold La Granja itself,
that was clear. There remained, therefore, only the problem of finding
entrance.

Between the porter's lodge and the great gates near the _Colegiata_ they
discovered a ladder left somewhat carelessly against a wall where
whitewashing had been going on during the day, some ardent royal
tradesman having ventured back, preferring the chance of the plague to
the abandonment of his contract.

This they at once appropriated, and Rollo and the Sergeant, being the
two most agile of the company, prepared to mount.

If the time had been less critical, and a disinterested observer had
been available, it would at this moment have been interesting to observe
the demeanour of Concha. Feeling that in a manner she was present on
sufferance, she could not of course make any objection to the plan of
escalade, nor could she offer to accompany Rollo and the Sergeant, but
with clasped hands and tightly compressed lips she stood beneath,
repeating under her breath quick-succeeding prayers for the safety of
one (or both) of the adventurers.

So patent and eager was her anxiety even in the gloom of the night that
La Giralda, to whom her agitation was manifest, laid her hand on the
girl's arm and whispered in her ear that she must be brave, a true
Andaluse, and not compromise the expedition by any spoken word.

Concha turned indignantly upon her, shaking off her restraining hand as
she did so.

"Do you think I am a fool?" she whispered. "I will do nothing to spoil
their chances. But oh, Giralda, at any moment he might be shot!"

"Trust José Maria. He hath taken risks far greater than this," said La
Giralda in a low voice, wilfully mistaking her meaning. But Concha,
quite unconsoled, did nothing but clasp her hands and quicken her
supplications to the Virgin.

The ladder was reared against the gilded iron railing and Rollo mounted,
immediately dropping lightly down on the further side. The Sergeant
followed, and presently both were on the ground. At a word from Rollo,
El Sarria pushed the ladder over and the two received it and laid it
along the parapet in a place where it would remain completely hidden
till wanted.

The two moved off together in the direction of the porter's lodge, at
the door of which the Sergeant knocked lightly, and then, obtaining no
answer, with more vehemence. A window was lifted and a frightened voice
asked who came there at that time of night.

The Sergeant answered with some sharpness that they wished for the key
of the great gate.

Upon this the same old woman who had ushered out La Giralda appeared
trembling at the lattice, and was but little relieved when the Sergeant,
putting on his most serious air, informed her that her life was in the
utmost danger, and that she must instantly come downstairs, open the
gate, and accompany them to the palace.

"I knew it," quavered the old woman, "I knew it since ever my husband
went away with the soldiers and left me here alone. I shall be murdered
among you, but my blood will be on his hands. Indeed, sirs, he hath
never treated me well, but spent his wages at the wine tavern, giving me
but a beggarly pittance. Nay, how do I know but he had an intent in thus
deserting me? He hath, and I can prove it, cast eyes of desire on Maria
of the pork-shop, only because she is younger and more comely than I,
who had grown old and wrinkled bearing him children and cooking him
_ollas_! Aye, and small thanks have I got for either. As indeed I have
told him hundreds of times. Such a man! A pretty fellow to be head
porter at a Queen's gate! I declare I will inform her Royal Majesty this
very night, if I am to go to the palace, that will I!"

"Come down immediately and let us in, my good woman," said the Sergeant,
soothingly. For it appeared as if this torrent of accusation against the
absent might continue to flow for an indefinite period.

"But how am I to know that you are not the very rogues and thieves of
whom you tell?" persisted the old lady with some show of reason.

"Well," said the Sergeant forbearingly, "as to that you must trust us,
mother. It is the best you can do. But fear nothing, we will treat you
gently as a cat her kitten, and you will come up to the palace with us
to show us in what part of it dwell the Queen and her daughter."

"Nay, not if it be to do harm to my lady and the sweet little maid who
this very day brought a pail of milk to poor old Rebeca the portress,
whose husband hath forsaken her for a pork-shop trull. I would rather
die!"

Rollo was about to speak, but the Sergeant whispered that the old lady
was now in such good case to admit them, that she might be frighted by
his foreign accent.

In a few moments the woman could be heard stiffly and grumblingly
descending the stairs, the door was opened, and Rebeca appeared with the
key in her hand.

"How many are there of your party?" she asked, her poor hand shaking so
that she could scarcely fit the key in the lock, and her voice sunk to a
quavering whisper.

"There are five men of us and two women," said the Sergeant, quickly.
"Now we are all within, pray give me the key and show us the road to the
Queen's apartments."

"Two women!" grumbled the poor old creature, whose mind appeared to be
somewhat unhinged; "that will never suit her Royal Highness the Regent,
especially if they are young and well-looking. She loves not such, any
more than I love the hussy of the pork-shop. Though, indeed, my man hath
not the roving eye in his head as her Señor Muñoz hath. Ah, the saints
have mercy on all poor deserted women! But what am I saying? If the
Lady Cristina heard me speak ill of him, she would set my poor old neck
in the garrote. Then--crack--all would be over!"

The party now advanced towards the palace, which in the gloom of a
starless night was still entirely hidden from their sight, save as a
darker mass set square against the black vault of heaven.

By this time Concha and La Giralda had taken the trembling portress by
the arms, and were bringing her along in the van, whispering comfort in
her ears all the way. The sergeant and Rollo came next, with Mortimer
and Etienne behind, a naked blade in the hand of each, for Rollo had
whispered the word to draw swords. This, however, El Sarria interpreted
to mean his faithful Manchegan knife, to which he trusted more than to
any sword of Toledo that ever was forged.

At any other time they could not have advanced a score of yards without
being brought to a stand-still by the challenge of a sentry, the whistle
of a rifle bullet, or the simultaneous turning out of the guard. But now
no such danger was to be apprehended. All was still as a graveyard
before cock-crow.

It is hard, in better and wiser days, when things are beginning to be
traced to their causes, to give any idea of the effect of the first
appearance of Black Cholera among a population at once so simple and so
superstitious as that of rural Spain. The inhabitants of the great
towns, the Cristino armies in the field, the country-folk of all
opinions were universally persuaded that the dread disease was caused by
the monks in revenge for the despites offered to them; especially by the
hated Jesuits, who were supposed to have thrown black cats alive into
rivers and wells in order to produce disease by means of witchcraft and
diabolical agency.

So universal was this belief that so soon as the plague broke out in any
city or town the neighbouring monasteries were immediately plundered,
and the priors and brethren either put to death or compelled to flee for
their lives.

Some such panic as this had stampeded the troops stationed in and about
the little town of San Ildefonso, when the first cases of cholera proved
fatal little more than a week before. A part of these had rushed away to
plunder the rich monastery of El Parral a few miles off, lying in the
hollow beneath Segovia. Others, breaking up into parties of from a dozen
to a hundred, had betaken themselves over the mountains in the direction
of Madrid.

So the Queen-Regent and the handsome Señor Muñoz remained perforce at La
Granja, for the two-fold reason that the palace of Madrid was reported
to be in the hands of a rebellious mob, and that the disbanding troops
had removed with them every sort and kind of conveyance, robbed the
stables of the horses, and plundered the military armoury of every
useful weapon.

They had not, however, meddled with the treasures of the palace, nor
offered any indignity to the Queen-Regent, or to any of the inmates of
La Granja. But as the Sergeant well knew, not thus would these be
treated by the roving bands of gipsies, who in a few hours would be
storming about the defenceless walls. No resource of oriental torture,
no refinement of barbarity would be omitted to compel the Queen and her
consort to give up the treasures without which it was well known that
they never travelled. Obviously, therefore, there was no time to be
lost.

They went swiftly round the angle of the palace, their feet making no
sound on the clean delicious sward of those lawns which make the place
such a marvel in the midst of tawny, dusty, burnt-up Spain. In a brief
space the party arrived unnoted and unchecked under the wall of the
northern part.

Lights still burnt in two or three windows on the second floor, though
all was dark on the face which the palace turned towards the south and
the town of San Ildefonso.

"These are the windows of the rooms occupied by my lady the
Queen-Regent," whispered the portress, Rebeca, pointing upwards; "but
promise me to commit no murder or do any hurt to the little maid."

"Be quiet, woman," muttered Rollo, more roughly than was his wont; "we
are come to save both of them from worse than death. Sergeant Cardono,
bring the ladder!"

The Sergeant disappeared, and it was not many seconds before he was back
again adjusting its hooks to the side of an iron balcony in front of one
of the lighted rooms. Almost before he had finished Rollo would have
mounted, impetuously as was his custom, but the Sergeant held him back
by the arm.

"I crave your forgiveness," he whispered, "but if you will pardon me
saying so, I have much more experience in such matters than you. Permit
me in this single case to precede you! We know not what or whom we may
meet with above!"

Nevertheless, though the Sergeant mounted first, Rollo followed so
closely that his hands upon the rounds of the ladder were more than once
in danger of being trodden upon by the Sergeant's half-boots.

Presently they stood together on the iron balcony and peered within. A
tall dark man leaned against an elaborately carved mantelpiece
indolently stroking his glossy black whiskers. A lady arrayed in a
dressing-gown of pink silk reaching to her feet was seated on a chair,
and submitting restlessly enough to the hands of her maid, who was
arranging her hair for the night, in the intervals of a violent but
somewhat one-sided quarrel which was proceeding between the pair.

Every few moments the lady would start from her seat and with her eyes
flashing fire she would advance towards the indolent dandy by the
mantelpiece as if with purpose of personal assault. At such seasons the
stout old Abigail instantly remitted her attentions and stood perfectly
well trained and motionless, with the brush and comb in her hand, till
it pleased her lady to sit down again.

All the while the gentleman said no word, but watched the development of
the scene with the utmost composure, passing his beautiful white fingers
through his whiskers and moustache after the fashion of a comb. The
lady's anger waxed higher and higher, and with it her voice also rose in
an equal ratio. What the end would have been it is difficult to
prophesy, for the Sergeant, realising that time was passing quickly,
produced an instrument with a broad flat blade bent at an acute angle to
the handle, and inserting it sharply into the crack of the French
window, opened it with a click which must have been distinctly audible
within, even in the height of the lady's argument.




CHAPTER XXXI

THE QUEEN'S ANTE-CHAMBER


Out of the darkness Rollo and the Sergeant stepped quickly into the
room. Whereupon, small wonder that the lady should scream and fall back
into her chair, the waiting-maid drop upon the floor as if she had been
struck by a Carlist bullet, or the gentleman with the long and glossy
whiskers suspend his caresses and gaze upon the pair with dropped jaw
and open mouth!

At his entrance Rollo had taken off his hat with a low bow. The Sergeant
saluted and stood at attention. There was a moment's silence in the
room, but before Rollo had time to speak the Queen-Regent recovered her
self-possession. The daughter of the Bourbons stood erect. Her long hair
streamed in dark glossy waves over her shoulders. Her bosom heaved
visibly under the thin pink wrapper. Anger struggled with fear in her
eyes. Verily Maria Cristina of Naples had plenty of courage.

"Who are you," she cried, "that dare thus to break in upon the privacy
of the Regent Queen of Spain? Duke, call the guard!"

But her husband only shrugged his shoulders and continued to gaze upon
the pair of intruders with a calm exterior.

"Your Majesty," said Rollo, courteously, naturally resuming the
leadership when anything requiring contact with gentlefolk came in the
way, "I am here to inform you that you are in great danger--greater than
I can for the moment make clear to you. The palace is, as I understand,
absolutely without defence--the town is in the same position. It is
within our knowledge that a band of two hundred gipsies are on the march
to attack you this night in order to plunder the château, and put to
death every soul within its walls. We have come, therefore, together
with our companions outside, to offer our best services in your
Majesty's defence!"

"But," cried the Queen-Regent, "all this may very well be, but you have
not yet told me who you are and what you are doing here!"

"For myself," answered Rollo, "I am a Scottish gentleman, trained from
my youth to the profession of arms. Those who wait without are for the
present comrades and companions, whom, with your Majesty's permission, I
shall bid to enter. For to be plain, every moment is of the utmost
importance, that we may lose no time in putting the château into such a
state of defence as is possible, since the attack of the gipsies may be
expected at any moment!"

Rollo stepped to the window to summon his company, but found them
already assembled on the balcony. It was no time for formal
introductions, yet, as each entered, Rollo, like a true herald,
delivered himself of a brief statement of the position of the individual
in the company. But when La Giralda entered, the stout waiting-maid rose
with a shriek from the floor where she had been sitting.

"Oh, my lady," she cried, "do not trust these wicked people. They have
come to murder us all. That woman is the very old goatherdess with whom
the Princess Isabel was so bewitched this morning! I knew some evil
would come of such ongoings!"

"Hush, Susana," said her mistress with severity; "when you are asked for
any information, be ready to give it. Till then hold your peace."

Which having said she turned haughtily back again to the strangers,
without vouchsafing a glance at her husband or the trembling handmaiden.

"I can well believe," she said, "that you have come here to do us a
service in our present temporary difficulty, and for that, if I find you
of approved fidelity, you shall not fail to be rewarded. Meantime, I
accept your service, and I place you and the whole of your men under the
immediate command of his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares!"

She turned to the tall exquisite who still continued to comb his
whiskers by the chimney-piece. Up till now he had not spoken a word.

Rollo scarcely knew what to reply to this, and as for the Sergeant, he
had the hardest work to keep from bursting into a loud laugh.

But they were presently delivered from their difficulty by the newly
nominated commander-in-chief himself.

"This scene is painful to me," said Señor Muñoz, placidly, "it irritates
my nerves. I have a headache. I think I shall retire and leave these
gentlemen to make such arrangements as may be necessary till the return
of our guards, which will doubtless take place within an hour or so. If
you need me you can call for me!"

Having made this general declaration he turned to Rollo and addressed
himself particularly to him.

"My rooms, I would have you know, are in the north wing," he continued;
"I beg that there shall be no firing or other brutal noise on that
side. Anything of the kind would be most annoying. So pray see to it."

Then he advanced to where his wife stood, her eyes full of anger at this
desertion.

"My angel," he said, calmly, "I advise you sincerely to do the same.
Retire to your chamber. Take a little _tisane_ for the cooling of the
blood, and leave all other matters to these new friends of ours. I am
sure they appear very honest gentlemen. But as you have many little
valuables lying about, do not forget to lock your door, as I shall mine.
Adieu, my angel!"

And so from an inconceivable height of dandyism his Excellency the Duke
of Rianzares would have stooped to bestow a good night salutation on his
wife's cheek, had not that lady, swiftly recovering from her stupor,
suddenly awarded him a resounding box on the ear, which so far
discomposed the calm of his demeanour that he took from his pocket a
handkerchief edged with lace, unfolded it, and with the most ineffable
gesture in the world wiped the place the lady's hand had touched. Then,
with the same abiding calm, he restored the cambric to his pocket, bowed
low to the Queen, and lounged majestically towards the door.

Maria Cristina watched him at first with a haughty and unmoved
countenance. Her hands clenched themselves close to her side, as if she
wished the blow had been bestowed with the shut rather than with the
open digits.

But as her husband (for so he really was, though the relationship was
not acknowledged till many years after, and at the feet of the Holy
Father himself in the Vatican) approached the door, opened it, and was
on the point of departing without once turning round, Cristina suddenly
broke into a half hysterical cry, ran after him, threw her arms tenderly
about his neck, and burst out weeping on his broad bosom.

The gentleman, without betraying the least emotion, patted her
tolerantly on the shoulder, and murmured some words in her ear, at the
same time looking over her head at the men of the company with a sort of
half-comic apology.

"Oh! Fernando, forgive me," she cried, "life of my life--the devil must
have possessed me! I will cut off the wicked hand that did the deed.
Give me a knife, good people--to strike the best and handsomest--oh, it
was wicked--cruel, diabolical!"

Whatever may have been the moral qualities of the royal blow, Rollo felt
that in their present circumstances time enough had been given to its
consideration, so he interposed.

"Your Majesty, the gipsies may be upon us at any moment. It would be as
well if you would summon all the servants of the palace together and arm
them with such weapons as may be available!"

Maria Cristina lifted her head from the shoulder of her Ferdinand, as if
she did not at first comprehend Rollo's speech, and was resolved to
resent an intrusion at such a moment. Whereupon the Scot repeated his
words to such good purpose that the Queen-Regent threw up her hands and
cried, "Alas! this happens most unfortunately. We have only old Eugenio
and a couple of lads in the whole palace since the departure of the
guards!"

"Never mind," said Rollo; "let us make the best of the matter. We will
muster them; perhaps they will be able to load and fire a musket apiece!
If I mistake not, the fighting will be at very short range!"

It was upon this occasion that Señor Fernando Muñoz showed his first
spark of interest.

"I will go and awake them," he said; "I know where the servants are wont
to sleep."

But on this occasion his fond wife would not permit him to stir.

"The wicked murderers may have already penetrated to that part of the
castle," she palpitated, her arms still about his neck, "and you must
not risk your precious life. Let Susana go and fetch them. She is old,
and has doubtless made her peace with religion."

"Nay, it is not fitting," objected Susana with spirit. "I am a woman,
and not so old as my lady says. I cannot go gadding about into the
chambers of all and sundry. Besides, there has been purpose of marriage
openly declared between me and the Señor Eugenio for upwards of thirty
years. What then would be said if I----"

"Nay, then," cried Maria Cristina, "stay where you are, Susana. For me,
I am none so nice. I will go myself. Do not follow me, Fernando!" And
with that she ran to the door, and her feet were heard flitting up the
stairway which led to the servants' wing of the palace. Muñoz made as if
to accompany her, but remembering his wife's prohibition, he did not
proceed farther than the door, where, with a curious smile upon his
face, he stood listening to the voice of the Queen-Regent upraised in
alternate appeal and rebuke.

During the interval, while the Sergeant and El Sarria were looking to
their stores and munitions, Rollo approached the waiting-maid, Susana,
and inquired of her the way to the armoury, where he expected to find
store of arms and powder.

"If this young maid will go also, I will conduct you thither, young
man!" said Susana, primly.

And holding Concha firmly by the hand, she took up a candle and led the
way.

But to Rollo's surprise they found the armoury wholly sacked. All the
valuable guns had been removed by the deserting guards. The gun racks
were torn down. The floor of beaten earth was strewed with flints of
ancient pieces of last century's manufacture. The barrels of
bell-mouthed blunderbusses leaned against the wall, the stocks, knocked
off in mere wantonness, were piled in corners; and in all the chests and
wall-presses there was not an ounce of powder to be found.

While Rollo was searching, Señor Muñoz appeared at the door, languid and
careless as ever. He watched the young Scot opening chests and rummaging
in lockers for a while without speaking. Then he spoke slowly and
deliberately.

"It strikes me that when I was an officer of the bodyguard, in the
service of the late Fernando the Seventh, my right royal namesake (and
in some sort predecessor), there was another room used for the private
stores and pieces of the officers. If I mistake not it was entered by
that door to the right, but the key appears to be wanting!"

He added the last clause, as he watched the frantic efforts of Rollo,
who had immediately thrown himself upon the panels, while the Señor was
in the act of rolling out his long-drawn Castilian elegances of
utterance.

"Hither, Cardono," cried Rollo, "open me this door! Quick, Sergeant!"

"Have a care," said the Duke; "there is powder inside!"

But Rollo, now keen on the scent of weapons of defence, would not admit
a moment's delay, and the Sergeant, inserting his curiously crooked
blade, opened that door as easily as he had done the French window.

Muñoz stepped forward with some small show of eagerness and glanced
within.

"Yes," he said, "the officers' arms are there, and a liberal allowance
of powder."

"They are mostly sporting rifles," said Rollo, looking them over, "but
there is certainly plenty of powder and ball."

"And what kills ibex and bouquetin on the sierras," drawled Muñoz, "will
surely do as much for a mountain gipsy if, as you said just now, the
range is likely to be a short one!"

Rollo began somewhat to change his opinion about the husband of the
Queen. At first he had seemed both dandy and coward, a combination which
Rollo held in the utmost contempt. But when Rollo had once seen him
handle a gun, he began to have more respect for his recent Excellency
the Duke of Rianzares.

"Can you tell us, from your military experience," Rollo asked, "which is
the most easily vulnerable part of this palace."

"It is easily vulnerable in every part," answered Muñoz, carelessly
snapping the lock of a rifle again and again.

"Nay, but be good enough to listen, sir," cried Rollo, with some heat.
"There are women and children here. You do not know the gipsies. You do
not know by whom they are led. You do not know the oaths of death and
torture they have sworn----"

"By whom are they led?" said Muñoz, still playing carelessly with the
rifle. "I thought such fellows were mere savages from the hills, and
might be slaughtered like sheep."

"Perhaps--at any rate they are led by your own daughter!" said Rollo,
briefly, growing nettled at the parvenu grandee's seeming indifference.

"_My daughter!_" cried Muñoz, losing in a moment his bright complexion,
and becoming of a slaty pallor, "my daughter, that mad imp of hell--who
thrice has tried to assassinate me!"

And as he spoke, he let the gun fall upon the floor at his feet. Then he
rallied a little.

"Who has told you this lie?" he exclaimed, with a kind of indignation.

"A man who does not make mistakes--or tell lies--Sergeant Cardono!" said
Rollo. "He has both seen and spoken to her! She has sworn to attack the
palace to-night."

"Then I am as good as dead already. I must go directly to my wife!"
answered Muñoz.

But Rollo stepped before him.

"Not without carrying an armful of these to where they will be of use,"
he said, pointing to the guns. And the Duke of Rianzares, without any
further demur, did his will. Rollo in turn took as many as he could
carry, and the Sergeant brought up the rear carrying a wooden box of
cartridges, which had evidently been packed ready for transportation.

They returned to the large lighted room, where Mortimer, Etienne, and El
Sarria had been left on guard. Concha and the waiting-maid seconded
their efforts by bringing store of pistols and ammunition.

On their way they passed through a hall, which by day seemed to be
lighted only from the roof. Rollo bade them deposit the arms there, and
bring the other candles and lamps to that place.

"Every moment that a light is to be seen at an outside window adds to
our danger," he said, and Concha ran at his bidding.

Before she had time to return, however, the Queen-Regent came in with
her usual dignity, the three serving-men following her. Rollo saw at
once that nothing was to be expected of Eugenio, whose ancient and
tottering limbs could hardly support the weight of his body. But there
was more hope of the two others. They proved to be stout young fellows
from the neighbourhood, and professed the utmost eagerness for a bout
with the gipsies. From their youth they had been accustomed to the use
of firearms--it is to be feared without due licence--in the royal
hunting preserves of Peñalara and the Guadarrama.

But this made no difference to Rollo, who instantly set about equipping
them with the necessary arms, and inquiring minutely about the
fastenings of the lower doors and windows. These it appeared were
strong. The doors themselves were covered without with sheet-iron, while
all the windows were protected not only by shutters but by solid
stanchions of iron sunk in the wall.

On the whole Rollo was satisfied, and next questioned the servants
concerning the state of the town and whether any assistance was to be
hoped for from that quarter. In this, however, he was disappointed. It
appeared that the whole municipality of San Ildefonso was so utterly
plague-stricken that scarce an able-bodied man remained, or so much as a
halfling boy capable of shouldering a musket. Only the women stood still
in the breach, true nursing mothers, not like her of Ramah, refusing to
be comforted, but continuing rather to tend the sick and dying till they
themselves also died--aye, even shrouding the dead and laying out the
corpses. A faithful brother or two of the Hermitage abode to carry the
last Sacraments of the Church through the deserted and grass-grown
streets, though there were few or none now to fall on their knees at the
passage of _Su Majestad_, or to uncover the head at the melancholy
tolling of the funeral bell.

With characteristic swiftness of decision Rollo made up his mind that
the best plan for the defence of the palace would be to place his scanty
forces along the various jutting balconies of the second floor,
carefully darkening all the rooms in their rear, so that, till the
moment of the attack itself, the assailants would have no idea that they
were expected. It was his idea that the small doors on the garden side
of the house, which led right and left to the servants' quarters, would
be attacked first. He was the more assured of this because the Sergeant
had recognised, in the bivouac of the gipsies, a man who had formerly
been one of the royal grooms both at La Granja and at Aranjuez. He would
be sure to be familiar, therefore, with that part of the interior of the
palace. Besides, being situated upon the side most completely removed
from the town, the assailants would have the less fear of interruption.

While Rollo was thus cogitating, Concha came softly to his side,
appearing out of the gloom with a suddenness that startled the young
man.

"I have pulled up the ladder by which we ascended and laid it across the
balcony," she said. "Was that right?"

"You--alone?" cried Rollo in astonishment.

She nodded brightly.

"Certainly," she answered; "women are not all so great weaklings as you
think them--nor yet such fools!"

"Indeed, you have more sense than I," Rollo responded, gloomily; "I
ought to have remembered that before. But, as you know, I have had many
things to think of."

"I am glad," she said, more quietly and submissively than ever in her
life, "that even in so small a matter I am permitted to think a little
for you!"

Whereupon, though the connection of idea is not obvious, Rollo
remembered the moment when he had faced the black muzzles of Cabrera's
muskets in the chill of the morning, and the bitter regret which had
then arisen to his mind. Out there in the dark of the palace-garden,
death fronted him as really though not perhaps so immediately. He
resolved quickly that he should not have the same regret again, if the
worst came to the worst. There was no one in the alcove where Concha had
found him. The Queen-Regent had disappeared to her suite of rooms, and
thither after a time Señor Muñoz had followed her. The rest were at that
moment being placed in their various posts by the Sergeant according to
Rollo's directions.

So he stooped quickly and kissed Concha upon the mouth.

It was strange. The girl's inevitable instinct on such matters seemed to
have deserted her. In a somewhat wide experience Concha could always
tell to a second when an attempt of this kind was due. Most women can,
and if they are kissed it is because they want to be. (In which, sayeth
the Wise Man, is great wisdom!) A fire-alarm rings in their brain with
absolute certainty, giving them time to evite the conflagration by a
healthy douche of cold water. But Rollo the Firebrand again proved
himself the Masterly Incalculable. Or else--but who could suspect
Concha?

It is, again sayeth the Wise Man, the same with kicking a dog. The brute
sees the kick coming before a muscle is in motion. He watches the eye of
his opponent and is forearmed. He vanisheth into space. But when Rollo
interviewed an animal in this fashion, he kicked first and thought
afterwards. Hence no sign of his intention appeared in his eye, and the
dog's yelp arrived almost as a surprise to himself.

So, with greatly altered circumstance, was it in the present instance.
Rollo kissed first and made up his mind to it some time after.
Consequently Concha was taken absolutely by surprise. She uttered a
little cry and stepped back indignantly into the lighted room where the
spare muskets were piled.

But again Rollo was before her. If he had attempted to make love, she
would have scathed him with the soundest indignation, based on
considerations of time, place, and personality.

But the young Scot gave her no opportunity. In a moment he had again
become her superior officer.

"Take your piece," he said, with an air of assured command, "together
with sufficient ammunition, and post yourself at the little staircase
window over the great door looking towards the town. If you see any one
approaching, do not hesitate to fire. Good-bye. God bless you! I will
see you again on my rounds!"

And Rollo passed on his way.

Then with a curious constraint upon her tongue, and on her spirit a new
and delightful feeling that she could do no other than as she was
bidden, Concha found herself, with loaded musket and pistol, obediently
taking her place in the general defence of the palace.




CHAPTER XXXII

LIKE A FALLING STAR


Rollo judged aright. It was indeed no time for love-making, and, to do
the young man justice, he did not connect any idea so concrete with the
impulsive kiss he had given to Concha.

She it was who had saved his life at Sarria. She was perilling her own
in order to accompany and assist his expedition. She had drawn up the
ladder he had foolishly forgotten. Yet, in spite of the fact that he was
a young man and by no means averse from love, Rollo was so clean-minded
and so little given to think himself desirable in the eyes of women,
that it never struck him that the presence of La Giralda and Concha
might be interpreted upon other and more personal principles than he had
modestly represented to himself.

True, Rollo was vain as a peacock--but not of his love-conquests.
Punctilious as any Spaniard upon the smallest point of honour, in a
quarrel he was as ready as a Parisian _maître d'armes_ to pull out sword
or pistol. Nevertheless when a man boasted in his presence of the
favours of a woman, he thought him a fool and a braggart--and was in
general nowise backward in telling him so.

Thus it happened that, though Concha had received no honester or better
intentioned kiss in her life, the giver of it went about his military
duties with a sense of having said his prayers, or generally, having
performed some action raising himself in his own estimation.

"God bless her," he said to himself, "I will be a better man for her
sweet sake. And, by heavens, if I had had such a sister, I might have
been a better fellow long ere this! God bless her, I say!"

But what wonder is it that little Concha, in her passionate Spanish
fashion understanding but one way of love, and being little interested
in brothers, felt the tears come to her eyes as Rollo's step waxed
fainter in the distance, and said over and over to herself with smiling
pleasure, "He loves me--he loves me! Oh, if only my mother had lived, I
might have been worthier of him. Then I would not have played with men's
hearts for amusement to myself, as alas, I have too often done. God
forgive me, there was no harm, indeed. But--but--I am not worthy of
him--I know I am not!"

So Rollo's hasty kiss on the dark balcony was provocative of a healthy
self-reproach on both sides--which at least was so much to the good.

Concha peered out into the darkness towards the south where a few stars
were blinking sleepily through the ground-mist. She could dimly discern
the outline of the town lying piled beneath her, without a light,
without a sound, without a sign of life. From beyond the hills came a
weird booming as of a distant cannonade. But Concha, the careless maiden
who had grown into a woman in an hour, did not think of these things.
For to the Spanish girl, whose heart is touched to the core, there is
but one subject worthy of thought. Wars, battles, sieges, the distresses
of queens, the danger of royal princesses--all are as nothing, because
her lips have been kissed.

"All the same," she muttered to herself, "he ought not have done it--and
when I have a little recovered I will tell him so!"

But at that moment, poised upon the topmost spike of the great gate in
front of her, she saw the silhouette of a man. He was climbing upwards,
with his hand on the cross-bar of the railing, and cautiously
insinuating a leg over the barrier, feeling meanwhile gingerly for a
foothold on the palace side.

"He is come to do evil to--to Rollo!" she said to herself, with a slight
hesitation even in thought when she came for the first time upon the
Christian name.

But there was no hesitation in the swift assurance with which she set
the rifle-stock to her shoulder, and no mistake as the keen and
practised eye glanced along the barrel.

She fired, and with a groan of pain the man fell back outside the
enclosure.

The sound of Concha's shot was the first tidings to the besieged that
the gipsies had really arrived. Rollo, stealing lightfoot from post to
post, pistol in hand, the Sergeant erect behind the vine-trellis on the
balcony between the rearward doors, Etienne and John Mortimer a little
farther along on the same side of the château, all redoubled their
vigilance at the sound. But for the space of an hour or more nothing
farther was seen or heard north, south, east, or west of the beleaguered
palace of La Granja.

The gipsies had not had the least idea that their intention was known.
They expected no obstacles till the discharge of Concha's piece put them
on their guard, and set them to concerting other and more subtle modes
of attack. It was too dark for those in the château to see whether the
wounded man lay where he had fallen or whether he had been removed by
his comrades.

Rollo hastened back to Concha and inquired in a low voice what it was
she had fired at. Whereupon she told him the story of the man climbing
the railings and how she had stayed his course so suddenly. Rollo made
no remark, save that she had done entirely right. Then he inquired if
she had recharged her piece, and hearing that she wanted nothing and was
ready for all emergencies, he departed upon his rounds without the least
leave-taking or approach to love-making. In her heart Concha respected
him for this, but at the same time she could not help feeling that a
Spaniard would have been somewhat warmer in his acknowledgments.
Nevertheless she comforted herself with the thought that he had trusted
her with one of the most important posts in the whole defence, and she
prayed fervently to the Virgin that she might be able to do her duty
there.

She thought also that, when the morning came, perhaps he would have more
time. For her, she could wait--here she smiled a little. Yes, she
acknowledged it. She who had caught so many, was now taken in her own
net. She would go to the world's end for this young Scot. Nor in her
heart of hearts was she ashamed of it. Above and beyond all courtesies
and sugared phrases she loved his free-handed, careless, curt-spoken,
hectoring way. After his one kiss, he had treated her exactly like any
other of his company. He did not make love well, but--she liked him none
the worse for that. In such matters (sayeth the Wise Man) excellence is
apt to come with experience.

And he would learn. Yes, decidedly he might yet do credit to his
teacher. To-morrow morning would arrive, and for the present, well--she
would keep her finger upon the trigger and a pair of remarkably
clear-sighted eyes upon the grey space of greensward crossed by black
trellises of railing immediately before her. That in the mean time was
her duty to her love and (she acknowledged it), her master.

Apart from these details of his feeling for Concha, however (which gave
him little concern), Rollo was far from satisfied with the condition of
affairs. He would rather (so he confided to the Sergeant) have defended
a sheepfold or a simple cottage than this many-chambered, many-passaged,
mongrel château. His force was scattered out of sight, though for the
most part not out of hearing of each other. It was indeed true that,
owing to his excellent dispositions, and the fortunate situation of the
balconies, he was able to command every part of the castle enclosure,
and especially the doors by which it was most likely that the chief
attempt would be made.

So occupied had Rollo been with his affairs, both private and of a
military character, that he had actually wholly forgotten the presence
of the Queen-Regent, her daughter and husband, within the palace of La
Granja. And this though he had come all that way across two of the
wildest provinces of Spain for the sole purpose of securing their
persons and transporting mother and daughter to the camp of Don Carlos.
Nevertheless so instant was the danger which now overhung every one,
that their intended captor had ceased to think of anything but how to
preserve these royal lives and to keep them from the hands of the
ruthless gipsies of the hills.

But circumstances quickly recalled the young man to his primary
purpose, and taught him that he must not trust too much to those whose
interests were opposed to his own.

Rollo, as we have said, had reserved no station for himself, but
constantly circulated round all the posts of his little army, ready at
any time to add himself to the effective forces of the garrison at any
threatened point. It was while he was thus passing from balcony to
balcony on the second or defending storey that his quick ear caught the
sound of a door opening and shutting on the floor beneath.

"Ah," thought Rollo to himself, suspiciously, "the Queen and her people
are safe in their chambers on this floor. No person connected with the
defence ought to be down there. This is either treachery or the enemy
have gained admission by some secret passage!"

With Rollo Blair to think was to act. So in another moment he had
slipped off his shoes, and treading noiselessly on his stocking soles
and with a naked sword in his hand he made his way swiftly and carefully
down towards the place whence he had heard the noise.

Descending by the grand _escalier_ he found himself in one of the narrow
corridors which communicated by private staircases with the left wing of
the palace. Rollo stood still in the deepest shadow. He was sure that he
could hear persons moving near him, and once he thought that he could
distinguish the sound of a muttered word.

The Egyptian darkness about him grew more and more instinct with noises.
There was a scuffling rustle, as of birds in a chimney, all over the
basement of the house. A door creaked as if a slight wind had blown it.
Then a latch clicked, and the wind, unaided, does not click latches.
Rollo withdrew himself deeper into a niche at the foot of the narrow
winding-stair which girdled a tower in the thickness of the wall.

The young man had almost resolved to summon his whole force from above,
so convinced was he that the enemy had gained a footing within the tower
and were creeping up to take them in the rear, when a sound altered his
intention. There is nothing more unmistakable to the ear than the
rebellious whimper of an angry child compelled to do something against
its will.

Rollo instantly comprehended the whole chain of circumstances. The
treachery touched him more nearly than he had imagined possible. Those
for whom he and his party were imperilling their lives were in fact to
leave them to perish as best they might in the empty shell of the
palace. The royal birds were on the point of flying.

A door opened, and through it (though dimly) Rollo could see the great
waterfall glimmering and above the stars, chill over the snowy shoulder
of Peñalara. He could not make out who had opened the door, but there
was enough light to discern that a lady wrapped in a mantilla went out
first. Then followed another, stouter and of shorter stature, apparently
carrying a burden. Then the whole doorway was obscured by the tall
figure of a man.

"Muñoz himself, by Heaven!" thought Rollo.

And with a leap he was after him, in his headlong course dashing to the
ground some other unseen person who confronted him in the hall.

In a moment more he had caught the tall man by the collar and swung him
impetuously round back within the doorway.

"Move one sole inch and your blood be on your own head!" he muttered.
And the captive feeling Rollo's steel cold at his throat, remained
prudently silent. Not so the lady without. She uttered a cry which rang
about the silent château.

"Muñoz! My husband! Fernando, where art thou? Oh, they have slain him,
and I only am to blame!"

She turned about and rushed back to the door, which she was about to
enter, when a cry far more sudden and terrible rang out behind her.

"_They have killed the Princess! Some one hath slain my darling!_"

At the word Rollo abandoned the man whom he was holding down, and with
shouts of "Cardono!" "El Sarria!" "To me! They are upon us!" he flung
himself outside.

There was little to be discerned clearly when he emerged into the cool
damp darkness, only a dim heap of writhing bodies as in some combat of
hounds or of the denizens of the midnight forest. But Rollo once and
again saw a flash of steel and a hand uplifted to strike. Without
waiting to think he gripped that which was topmost and therefore nearest
to him, and finding it unexpectedly light, he swung the thing clear by
the garment he had clutched. As he did so he felt a pain in his right
shoulder, which at the time appeared no more than the bite of a squirrel
or the sting of a bee. With one heave he threw the object, human or not
he could not for the moment determine, behind him into the blackness of
the hall.

"Take hold there, somebody!" he cried, for by this time he could hear
the clattering of the feet of his followers on the stairs and flagged
where to find Vance and the woman. Now."

"Were they responsible?"

"With deepest apologies, that need not trouble you." He stood ramrod
straight.

"With deepest apologies, Sato-sama, it troubles me very much." Nogami
examined his cigar. "This entire affair is very troublesome. In times
past I remember a certain prejudice in favor of civility on the part of
Tokyo. Have things really changed that much?"

"The moment for soft words is past. Tonight ended that."

Nogami drew on his cigar. "Assuming you locate Vance, what action do
you propose taking?"

"We have one last chance here to deal with this problem. Tomorrow the
_oyabun's_ people arrive, and then they will be in control. The
decisions will no longer be ours. Tonight I attempted to salvage the
situation and failed. Surely you know what that means, for us both. But
if you will give me Vance, perhaps we can both still be saved. If you
refuse to cooperate, the _oyabun _will destroy you as well as Vance. We
both know that. I am offering you a way out."

"With deepest gratitude, I must tell you it is too late, Sato-sama,
which I am sure you realize," Nogami said, drawing on his cigar and
taking care not to disturb the ash. "So with due respect I must inquire
concerning the purpose of this meeting."

"I need to locate this man Vance. Before the _kobun _from Tokyo arrive.
If you care about his well-being, then you should remember that his
treatment at my hands will be more understanding than--"

"When do they arrive?"

"As I said, we received word that they will be here tomorrow, Nogami-
san. With respect, you have befriended a man who is attempting to
blackmail the Tokyo _oyabun_. That is a career decision which, I assure
you, is most unwise."

"It is made. And I am aware of the consequences. So it would appear we
both know all there is to know about the future."

"Perhaps not entirely. Someone has attempted to make us think Vance and
the woman were kidnapped, that they are being held somewhere beyond our
reach. Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not. But if the transaction
for the hundred million is to take place tomorrow, then he must appear
here. The _oyabun's _people may be here by then. If they are not, we
will be."

"But if he has been kidnapped," Nogami's brow furrowed as he studied
his cigar, its ash still growing, "then there could be a problem with
the transaction. Who do you suppose would want him, besides the Tokyo
_oyabun_?"

"That I could not speculate upon. The KGB seems to have a great
interest in his activities. Perhaps they are guarding him in some more
secure place. Or perhaps something else has happened." He bowed. "Again
you must forgive me for this rude intrusion. It is important for you to
be aware that the situation is not resolved. That you still have a
chance to save yourself."

"The CEO will receive his hundred million, if there is no interference.
That much I have already arranged for. When that is completed, I will
consider my responsibilities discharged."

"Your responsibilities will never be discharged, Nogami-san. _Giri
_lasts forever." His voice was cutting. "The sooner you realize that,
the better."

"After tomorrow, it will be over, Sato-sama." He stretched out his arm
and tapped the inch-long ash into a trash basket beside the desk.

"Tomorrow," Jiro Sato bowed, "it only begins."



Wednesday 2:25 A.M.

_

_Yuri Andreevich Androv stood facing the bulkhead that sealed the
forward avionics bays, feeling almost as though he were looking at a
bank vault. As in all high-security facilities, the access doors were
controlled electronically.

Since the final retrofits were now completed, the Japanese maintenance
crews were only working two shifts; nobody was around at this hour
except the security guards. He'd told them he'd thought of something
and wanted to go up and take a look at the heavy-duty EN-15 turbo
pumps, which transferred hydrogen to the scramjets after it was
converted from liquid to gaseous phase for combustion. He'd been
worrying about their pulse rating and couldn't sleep.

He'd gone on to explain that although static testing had shown they
would achieve operating pressure in twenty milliseconds if they were
fully primed in advance, that was static testing, not flight testing,
and he'd been unable to sleep wondering about the adhesive around the
seals.

It was just technical mumbo-jumbo, although maybe he should be checking
them, he thought grimly. But he trusted the engineering team. He had
to. Besides, the pumps had been developed specially for the massive
Energia booster, and they'd functioned flawlessly in routine launchings
of those vehicles at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Of course, at Baikonur they always were initiated while the Energia was
on the launch pad, at full atmospheric pressure. On the _Daedalus_
they'd have to be powered in during flight, at sixty thousand feet and
2,700 miles per hour. But still . . .

The late-night security team had listened sympathetically. They had no
objection if Androv wanted to roll a stair-truck under the fuselage of
_Daedalus /, _then climb into the underbay and inspect turbo pumps in
the dead of night. Everybody knew he was eccentric. No, make that
insane. You'd have to be to want to ride a rocket. They'd just waved
him in. After all, the classified avionics in the forward bays were
secured.

He smiled grimly to think that he'd been absolutely right. Hangar
Control was getting lax about security in these waning days before the
big test. It always happened after a few months of mechanics trooping
in and out.

That also explained why he now had a full set of magnetic access cards
for all the sealed forward bays. Just as he'd figured, the mechanics
were now leaving them stuffed in the pockets of the coveralls they kept
in their lockers in the changing room.

Time to get started.

There was, naturally, double security, with a massive airlock port
opening onto a pressure bay, where three more secure ports sealed the
avionics bays themselves. The airlock port was like an airplane door,
double reinforced to withstand the near vacuum of space, and in the
center was a green metallic slot for a magnetic card.

He began trying cards, slipping them into the slot. The first, the
second, the third, the fourth, and then, payoff. The three green diodes
above the lock handle flashed.

He quickly shoved down the grip and pushed. The door eased inward, then
rotated to the side, opening onto the pressure bay.

The temperature inside was a constant 5 degrees Celsius, kept just
above freezing to extend the life of the sensitive electronic gear in
the next three bays. The high-voltage sodium lamps along the sides of
the fuselage now switched on automatically as the door swung inward. He
fleetingly thought about turning them off, then realized they weren't
manually operated.

Through the clouds of his condensing breath he could see that the
interior of the entry bay was a pale, military green. The color
definitely seemed appropriate, given what he now knew about this
vehicle.

He quickly turned and, after making sure the outer door could be
reopened from the inside, closed it behind him. When it clicked secure,
the sodium lights automatically shut off with a faint hum.

Just like a damned refrigerator, he thought.

But the dark was what he wanted. He withdrew a small penlight from his
pocket and scanned the three bulkhead hatches leading to the forward
bays. The portside bay, on the left, contained electronics for the
multimode phased array radar scanner in the nose, radar processors,
radar power supply, radar transmitters and receivers, Doppler
processor, shrouded scanner tracking mechanism, and an RF oscillator.
He knew; he'd checked the engineering diagrams.

He also knew the starboard equipment bay, the one on the right,
contained signal processors for the inertial navigation system (INS),
the instrument landing system (ILS), the foreplane hydraulic actuator,
the structural mode control system (SMCS), station controller, and the
pilot's liquid-oxygen tanks and evaporator.

The third forward bay, located beneath the other two and down a set of
steel stairs, was the one he needed to penetrate. It contained all the
computer gear: flight control, navigation, and most importantly, the
artificial intelligence (AI) system for pilot interface and backup.

He suddenly found himself thinking a strange thought. Since no air-
breathing vehicle had ever flown hypersonic, every component in this
plane was, in a sense, untested. To his mind, though, that was merely
one more argument for shutting down the damned AI system's override
functions before he went hypersonic. If something did go wrong, he
wanted this baby on manual. He only needed the computer to alert him to
potential problems. The solutions he'd have to work out with his own
brain. And balls. After all, that's why he was there.

As he walked down the steel steps, he thumbed through the magnetic
cards, praying he had the one needed to open the lower bay and access
the computers. Then he began inserting them one by one into the green
metallic slot, trying to keep his hand steady in the freezing cold.

Finally one worked. The three encoded diodes blinked, and a hydraulic
arm automatically slid the port open. Next the interior lights came on,
an orange high-voltage sodium glow illuminating the gray walls.

This third bay, like the two above it, was big enough to stand in. As
he stepped in, he glanced back up the stairs, then quickly resealed the
door. Off went the lights again, so he withdrew his penlight and turned
to start searching for what he wanted.

Directly in front of him was a steel monolith with banks of toggle
switches: electrical power controls, communications controls,
propulsion system controls, reaction-control systems. Okay, that's the
command console, which was preset for each flight and then monitored
from the cockpit.

Now where's the damned on-board AI module?

He scanned the bay. The AI system was the key to his plan. He had to
make certain the computer's artificial intelligence functions could be
completely shut down, disengaged, when the crucial moment came. He
couldn't afford for the on-board system-override to abort his planned
revision in the hypersonic flight plan. His job tonight was to make
sure all the surprises were his, not somebody else's. There wouldn't be
any margin for screw-ups. Everything had to go like clockwork.

He edged his way on through the freezing bay, searching the banks of
equipment for a clue, and then he saw what he was looking for. There,
along the portside bulkhead. It was a white, rectangular console, and
everything about it told him immediately it was what he wanted.

He studied it a second, trying to decide where to begin.

At that moment he also caught himself wondering fleetingly how he'd
ever gotten into this crazy situation. Maybe he should have quit the
Air Force years ago and gone to engineering school like his father had
wanted. Right now, he had to admit, a little electrical engineering
would definitely come in handy.

He took out a pocket screwdriver and began carefully removing the AI
console's faceplate, a bronzed rectangle. Eight screws later, he lifted
it off and settled it on the floor.

The penlight revealed a line of chips connected by neat sections of
plastic-coated wires. Somewhere in this electronic ganglia there had to
be a crucial node where he could attach the device he'd brought.

It had taken some doing, but he'd managed to assemble an item that
should take care of his problem beautifully when the moment came. It
was a radio-controlled, electrically operated blade that, when clamped
onto a strand of wires, could sever them in an instant. The radio range
was fifty meters, which would be adequate; the transmitter, no larger
than a small tape recorder, was going to be with him in his flight
suit. The instant he switched the turboramjets over to the scramjet
mode, he was going to activate it and blow their fucking AI module out
of the system. Permanently.

He figured he had ten minutes before one of the security team came
looking to see what he was doing; he'd timed this moment to coincide
with their regular tea break. Even the Japanese didn't work around the
clock.

Now, holding the penlight and shivering from the cold, he began
carefully checking the wires. Carefully, so very carefully. He didn't
have a diagram of their computer linkages, and he had to make sure he
didn't accidentally interrupt the main power source, since the one
thing he didn't want to do was disconnect any of the other flight
control systems. He wanted to cut in somewhere between the AI module's
power supply and its central processor. The power source led in here .
. . and then up the side over to there, a high-voltage transformer . .
. and then out from . . .

There. Just after the step-up transformer and before the motherboard
with the dedicated CPU and I/O. That should avoid any shorting in the
main power system and keep the interruption nice and localized.

The line was almost half an inch thick, double-stranded, copper
grounded with a coaxial sheath. But there was a clear section that led
directly down to the CPU. That's where he'd place the blade, and hope
it'd at least short- circuit the power feed even if it didn't sever the
wires completely.

He tested the radio transmitter one last time, making sure it would
activate the blade, then reached down and clamped the mechanism onto
the wire, tightening it with thumb screws. When it was as secure as he
could make it, he stood back and examined his handiwork. If somebody
decided to remove the faceplate, they'd spot it in a second, but
otherwise . . .

Quickly, hands trembling from the cold, he fitted the cover back on the
module and began replacing the screws with the tiny screwdriver. It
wasn't magnetized, a deliberate choice, so the small screws kept
slipping between his bulky fingers, a problem made more acute by the
numbing cold.

Three screws to go . . . then he heard the noise. Footsteps on the
aluminum catwalk in the pressure bay above. . . . _Shit_.

He kept working as fast as he could, grimly holding the screws secure
and fighting back the numbness and pain in his freezing fingers.

Only one more. Above, he could hear the sounds of someone checking each
of the equipment bays, methodically opening and then resecuring them.
First the starboard side bay was opened and closed, then the portside
bay. Now he heard footsteps advancing down the metal stairs leading to
the computer bay. They were five seconds away from discovering him.

The last screw was in.

He tried to stand, and realized his knees were numb. He staggered
backward, grabbing for something to steady himself . . . and the light
came on.

"Yuri Andreevich, so this is where you are. What are you doing here?"

It was the gravel voice of his father. He felt like a child again,
caught with his hand in his pants. What should he do? tell the truth?

"I'm--I'm checking over the consoles, passing the time. I couldn't
sleep."

"Don't lie to me." Andrei Androv's ancient eyebrows gathered into the
skeptical furrow Yuri knew so well. "You're up to something, another of
your tricks."

Yuri stared at him a moment. How had he known? A sixth sense?

"_Moi otyets_, why are you here? You should be getting your sleep."

"I'm an old man. An old man worries. I had a feeling you might be in
here tonight, tinkering with the vehicle. You told me you were planning
something. I think the time has come to tell me what it is."

Yuri took a deep breath and looked him over.

No, it was too risky. For them both. His secret had to be ironclad.

"It's better if you don't know."

"As you wish," the old man sighed. "But if you do something foolish . .
."

"I damned sure intend to try." He met his father's steely gaze.

"So did you do it?" Andrei Androv examined him, his ancient face ashen
beneath his mane of white hair. "Did you manage to sabotage the AI
module?"

He caught himself laughing out loud. Whatever else, his father was no
fool. He'd been a Russian too long to believe anything he heard or half
of what he saw. Intrigue was a way of life for him.

"Let's go. They'll come looking for us soon. This is the wrong place to
be found."

"You're right."

"Go back to the West Quadrant. Listen to a string quartet." He opened
the port and waited for his father to step out. Then he followed,
closing it behind them. "There's no reason for you to be involved.
Heads are going to roll, but why should yours be one of them?"

Andrei Petrovich Androv moved lightly up the metal stair, the spring in
his step belying his age. At the top he paused and turned back.

"You're acting out of principle, aren't you, Yuri? For once in your
life."

"I guess you could say that." He smiled, then moved on up the steps.

"Someday, the Russian people will thank you."

"Someday. Though I may not live to see it."

Andrei Androv stopped, his ancient eyes tearing as his voice dropped to
a whisper. "Of all the things you've ever done, my son, nothing could
make me more proud of you than what you just said. I've thought it
over, about the military uses for this vehicle, and I think the future
of the world is about to be rewritten here. You must stop them. You're
the only chance we have left."



































CHAPTER SIXTEEN



Wednesday 10:05 A.M.



The limousine had already left the Savoy and was headed down the Strand
when Alex Novosty broke the silence. He leaned forward, pushed the
button on the two-way microphone linking the passenger compartment to
the driver, and spoke in Russian.

"Igor Borisovich, there's been an alteration in our plans. We will not
be going to Westminster Union. Take us to Moscow Narodny Bank. The
trading branch on Saint Swithins Lane."

"_Shto ve skazale_?" Igor, still nursing his head from the kidnapping,
glanced into his rearview mirror. "The bank's main office is on King
William Street. We always--"

"Just do as you're told." Novosty cut him off, then killed the mike.

Vera Karanova stared at him, her dark eyes flooding with concern. "But
you said the transaction was scheduled for Westminster Union Bank, this
morning at ten-thirty."

"That was merely a diversion." Novosty leaned back. "The actual
arrangement is turned around. For security reasons."

"I don't like this." Her displeasure was obvious, and mounting. "There
is no reason--"

"It's better, I assure you." He withdrew a white tin of Balkan Sobranie
cigarettes from his coat, snapped it open, and withdrew one. Made of
fine Turkish Yenidje tobacco, they were what he always smoked on
important days. This was an important day.

As he flicked his lighter and drew in the first lungful of rich smoke,
he thought about how much he hated the dark-haired woman seated beside
him, dressed in a gray Armani business suit, sable coat, Cartier
jewelry. The bad blood between them traced back over five years, begin-
ning with a T-Directorate reshuffle in which she'd moved up to the
number three slot, cutting him out of a well-deserved promotion. The
rumor going around Dzerzhinsky Square was that she'd done it by making
the right connections, so to speak. It was the kind of in-house screw-
job Alex Novosty didn't soon forget, of forgive.

Their black limo was now passing the Royal Courts of Justice, on the
left, headed onto Fleet Street. Ahead was Cannon Street, which
intersected the end of Saint Swithins Lane. Just a few blocks more.
After today, he fully intended never to see her again.

"We've arranged for the transaction to take place through MNB's bond
trading desk," Novosty continued, almost as though to nobody in
particular. "Michael and I have taken care of everything."

"Who approved this change?" She angrily gripped the handrest.

"I did," Novosty replied sharply. "We're in charge." He masked a smile,
pleased to see her upset. The morning traffic was now almost at a
standstill, but they would be on time. "After all, he still has the
money."

"And for all you know he may be in Brazil by now. Perhaps that's the
reason he and the woman disappeared last night, with the help of an
accomplice who assaulted Igor Borisovich."

"Michael will be there," Novosty said. "Have no fear. He's not going
anywhere till this is finished."

"After this is completed," she said matter-of-factly, "he will be
finished. I hope you have planned for that."

Novosty glanced over, wondering what she meant. Had all the surprises
been covered? He hoped so, because this deal was his gateway to
freedom. The two million commission would mean a new beginning for him.



Wednesday 10:18 A.M.



Kenji Nogami sat upright at his wide oak desk, waiting for the phone to
ring. How would Michael play it? Admittedly it was smart to keep
everything close to the chest, but still. He would have felt better if
Michael Vance, Jr., had favored him with a little more trust.

On the other hand, keeping the details of the operation under wraps as
long as possible was probably wise. It minimized the chance for some
inadvertent slip-up.

Yes, it was definitely best. Because he was staring across his desk at
four of Tanzan Mino's Tokyo _kobun_, all dressed in shiny black leather
jackets. They'd arrived at the Docklands office just after dawn,
announcing they were there to hand-deliver the money to Tokyo. Jiro
Sato had directed them to Westminster Union.

The four all carried black briefcases, which did not contain business
papers. They intended to accomplish their mission by whatever means
necessary. Jiro Sato, the London _oyabun_, had not been invited to send
his people along with them this morning. He was now humiliated and dis-
graced, officially removed from the operation, on Tokyo's orders. The
regional office had failed, so Tokyo had sent in a _Mino-gumi_ version
of the Delta Force. They clearly had orders concerning what to do with
Michael Vance.

He didn't like this new twist. For everything to go according to plan,
violence had to be kept out of it. There was no way he and Michael
could go head to head with street enforcers. If Michael was thinking of
doing that, the man was crazy.

He glanced at his gold Omega, noting that it read ten- nineteen. In
eleven more minutes he'd know how Michael intended to run the scenario.

But whatever happened, he wasn't going to be intimidated by these
_kobun_ hoods, dark sunglasses and automatics notwithstanding. Those
days were over. Michael had given him a perfect opportunity to start
building a new life. He didn't care if all hell was about to break
loose.



Wednesday 10:23 A.M.



"_Polovena decyat_?" She examined him with her dark eyes.

"_Da_." Novosty nodded. "They will be here at ten-thirty. That is the
schedule."

He was feeling nervous, which was unusual and he didn't like it.
Whenever he got that way, things always started going off the track.

They were now in the paneled elevator, heading up to the sixth floor of
the Moscow Narodny Bank. The hundred million had been held overnight in
the vault of Victoria Courier Service Limited, which was scheduled to
deliver the satchels this morning at ten-thirty sharp. The location for
the delivery, however, was known only to him and to Michael Vance. He
wanted to be sure and arrive there ahead of the money. He also would
have much preferred being without the company of Vera Karanova.

One thing you had to say for Michael: He'd arranged the deal with great
finesse. He didn't trust anybody. Until he notified Victoria Courier
this morning, nobody knew where the money would be taken, not even the
Japanese banker Nogami. Still, the instruments were negotiable, leaving
the possibility of trouble if the timing went sour.

He intended to make sure it didn't. The planning had been split-second
up until now; this was no moment to relax his guard.

Yes, it was good he was here. As he studied Comrade Karanova, he
realized that something about her was still making him uneasy. So far
it was merely a hunch, but his hunches had been right more often than
he liked to think.

He tried to push the feeling aside. Probably just paranoia. She
obviously was here today for the same reason he was, to make sure the
Soviet money was returned safely. She probably was also still worried
about the protocol, but that problem was hers, not his. From today on,
the KGB would have to work out their in-fighting back home the best way
they could. The ground rules were changing fast in Moscow.

Besides, Dzerzhinsky Square was about to become part of a previous life
for him. If he could just clear this up, get his commission, he'd be
set. Forever. Enough was enough. Maybe he'd end up in the Caribbean
like Michael, drinking margaritas and counting string bikinis.

The elevator door opened. Facing them were Michael Vance and Eva
Borodin.

"Glad you could make it." Vance glanced coldly at Vera. "Right on time.
The money arrives in exactly seven minutes."

She nodded a silent greeting, pulling her sable coat tighter as she
strode past. The bank officials lined up along the corridor watched her
with nervous awe. Even in London, T-Directorate brass had clout.

They moved as a group down the long carpeted hallway leading to the
counting room. On this floor everything was high-security, with
uniformed guards at all the doorways. Negotiable instruments weren't
handled casually.



Wednesday 10:30 A.M.



An armoured van with V.C.S., Ltd. lettered on its side pulled up to the
black marble front of Moscow Narodny Bank's financial trading branch on
Saint Swithins Lane. Everything was on schedule.

"They're here." Eva was watching from the narrow window. Saint Swithins
Lane down below, virtually an alley, was so narrow it could accommodate
only one vehicle at a time. Across was Banque Worms, its unicorn
insignia staring out, its lobby chandeliers glowing. Nobody there even
bothered to notice. Just another armored truck interrupting the view.

Then three blue-uniformed guards emerged from the cab and approached
the rear doors from both sides, .38's in unsnapped holsters.

"Mr. Vance, they had better have the money, all of it." Vera stepped
over to the window and followed Eva's gaze down.

"It'll be there."

"For your sake I hope so," she replied as she turned back.

"Just hang around and watch," Vance said.

Just one more day, he told himself. One more lousy day. We'll have
enough of the protocol translated by tomorrow, the press package ready.
Then we drop it on the papers and blow town.

From the hallway outside a bell chimed faintly as the elevator opened,
a private lift that came directly up from the lobby. When he heard the
heavy footsteps of the couriers, accompanied by MNB guards, he stepped
over and quickly glanced out. The two blue-suits were each carrying a
large satchel handcuffed to the left wrist. Obviously the third had
stayed downstairs, guarding the van.

"This way." The heavy-jowled director of the MNB bond trading desk
stepped out and motioned them in. The play was on.

Kenji Nogami's issue of Mino Industries debentures had been registered
with the Issuing House Association the previous day. This morning they
would be acquired by Vance, using a wire transfer between the Moscow
Narodny Bank on Saint Swithins Lane and Westminster Union Bank's bond
desk. After that there would be a second transaction, whereby Sumitomo
Bank, Limited would accept the debentures as security for a loan of one
hundred million dollars, to be wire-transferred back to Westminster
Union and from there to Moscow Narodny Bank. Everything had been
prearranged. The whole transaction would require only minutes.

Unless there was a glitch.

Vance had fully expected that Tanzan Mino would send a welcoming
committee to Nogami's premises, which was why he'd arranged for the
money to be delivered here at Moscow Narodny's side-street branch. He
figured the Soviets, at least, would play it straight. KGB wanted its
file closed.

Then too, Eva still had the protocol. Their back-up insurance policy.

"Mr. Vance." Vera Karanova watched as the two security men unlatched
their satchels and began withdrawing the bundles of open cashiers
checks and bearer bonds. "I want to recount these securities, now."

"There're double-counted tallys already prepared"--he pointed toward the
bundles--"yesterday by the main branch of Moscow Narodny. The printouts
are attached."

"That was their count," she replied. "I intend to make my own, before
we go any further."

Which means time lost, he thought. Doesn't she realize we've got to get
this cash recycled, those bonds purchased and in place, before Tanzan
Mino's _kobun _have a chance to move on us? If the deal to acquire
Ken's new Mino Industries debentures doesn't go through, giving us
something to hold over the godfather's head . . .

She's literally playing into his hands.

"The instruments are all here, all negotiable, and all ready to go," he
said, stealing a quick glance toward Eva. One look at her eyes told him
she also sensed trouble brewing. "Now, we're damn well going to move
and move fast. We credit the funds here, then wire them to Westminster
Union. And by God we do it immediately."

"Mr. Vance, you are no longer giving the orders," she replied sharply.
"I'm in charge here now. As a matter of fact, I have no intention of
wiring the money anywhere. There will be no purchase of debentures. As
far as I'm concerned, it has now been returned." She paused for
emphasis. "But first we will count it."

"Vera, my love," Eva said, cutting her off, "if you try and double-
cross us, you're making a very big mistake. You seem to forget we've
got that protocol. What we didn't get around to telling you is that
we've deciphered it."

"You--?"

"That's right. As it happens, I don't think you're going to like what
it's got to say, but you might at least want to know the story before
you read about it in The Times day after tomorrow."

Alex Novosty's face had turned ashen. "Michael, Tanzan Mino's people
are probably headed here by now. Unless they go to the main office on
King William Street first." He was nervously glancing out the window.
"We're running out of time."

The game's about to get rough, Vance thought. Better take charge.

But before he could move, Novosty was gripping a Ruger P-85, a
lightweight 9mm automatic, pulled from a holster under the back of his
jacket. He'd worn it where the MNB guards would miss it.

The two Victoria couriers were caught flat-footed. Bankers weren't
supposed to start drawing weapons. They stared in astonishment as he
gestured for them to turn and face the wall.

"Michael," he said as he glanced over, "would you kindly give me a hand
and take those two .38's? We really must get this party moving."

Vera Karanova was smiling a thin smile. "I don't know how far you think
you will get with this."

"We seem to be working toward different objectives," Novosty answered.
"Michael has a solution to everybody's problem. I regret very much
you've chosen not to help facilitate it."

"The only problem he solved was yours," she shot back. "Mr. Vance
devised what amounts to an enormous check kiting scheme. You two
planned to perpetrate fraud. You're nothing better than criminals, both
of you, and I intend to make sure you haven't also given us a short
count."

"Comrade, fraud is a harsh word," Vance interjected.

"You are not as amusing as you think," she replied.

"Humor makes the world go round."

'This is not a joke. The negotiable instruments in this room are Soviet
funds. I intend to make sure those funds are intact. There will be a
full and complete count. Now."

She's gone over the edge, he told himself. She's definitely going to
try and screw us, either wittingly or unwittingly. But who in the room
is going to help her? That huddled group of Russian bankers now staring
terrified at Novosty's 9mm? Not damned likely. She's improvising, on
her own. But her little stunt could well end up sinking the ship.

The two couriers were now spread against the brown textured fabric of
the wall, legs apart. He walked over and reached into the leather
holsters at their hips, drawing out their revolvers. They were snub-
nosed Smith & Wesson Bodyguards, .38 caliber. He looked them over,
cocked them, and handed one to Eva.

"How about covering the door? I think it's time we got down to business
and traded some bonds."

"With pleasure." She stepped over and glanced out. It was clear.

"What do you think, Alex?" Vance turned back. "Word's going around
there's a hot new issue of Mino Industries zero-coupons coming out
today. What do you say we go long? In for a hundred. Just take the
lot."

"I heard the same rumor, this very morning," he smiled. "You're right.
My instincts say it's a definite buy."

"Fine." Vance turned to MNB's jowled branch chief. "We'd like to do a
little trading here this morning. Mind getting the bond desk at
Westminster Union on the line? Tell Nogami we're good for a hundred in
Mino Industries debentures, the new issue. At par."

"Michael." It was Eva's voice, suddenly alarmed.

"What?"

"We've got company. They look like field reps."

"Good God." Novosty strode to the door and looked out. A group of four
leather-jacketed Japanese were headed down the hallway, two disarmed
MNB guards in front. Also with them was Kenji Nogami.

Turning back, he looked imploringly at Vance. "What do we do?"

"Figure they came prepared." He waved toward Eva. "Better lose that
.38. Put it on the table for now. Maybe we can still talk this thing
through."

She nodded, then stepped over and laid her weapon beside the bundles of
securities. Vance took one last look at the Smith & Wesson in his own
hand and did the same. Even ex-archaeologists could do arithmetic.

All this time Vera Karanova had said nothing. She merely stood watching
the proceedings with a detached smile. Finally she spoke. "Now we can
proceed with the counting," she said calmly.

"Maybe you don't fully grasp the situation here, comrade." Vance stared
at her. "Those gorillas aren't dropping in for tea. We've got to stand
together."

She burst out laughing. "Mr. Vance, you are truly naive. No, you're
worse. You actually thought you could sabotage the most powerful new
global alliance of the twentieth century." Her dark eyes were gradually
turning glacial. "It will not be allowed to happen, believe me."

My God, he realized, that's why she wanted to get her hands on the
protocol. To deep-six it. She's been biding her time, stringing us
along. And today she managed to stall us long enough for Mino's boys to
figure out the switch. She's no longer working for T-Directorate; she's
part of Tanzan Mino's operation. All this time she's been working with
them.

"The negotiable certificates in this room will be delivered to their
rightful recipient by his personal jet," she continued. "Today."

"Over my dead body." He found himself thinking it might well be true.

"No, Mr. Vance, not exactly. Your contribution will be more substantial
than that."

He was speechless, for the first time.

The Russian bankers in the room were taken totally by surprise. Double-
dealing KGB games had always been part of the landscape, but this was
confusing in the extreme. Whose money was it anyway?

"Michael." Novosty's voice was trembling. "This cannot be allowed to
happen."

"I agree. We've definitely got a situation here."

He glanced around to see the four _Mino-gumi kobun _poised in the
doorway, all with H&K automatics now out of their briefcases. Kenji
Nogami was standing behind them, his eyes defeated.

Novosty still looked stunned. The range of options was rapidly
narrowing to none.

Vera indicated his Ruger. "You would be wise to put that away. Now."

"If they take these securities, my life's not worth a _kopeck_."
Novosty seemed to be thinking out loud. "What does it matter."

It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

Remembering it all later, Vance could barely recall the precise
sequence of events. He did remember shoving Eva back against the wall
as the fireworks began.

Novosty's first round caught the lead _Mino-gumi kobun_ squarely
between the eyes. As he pitched backward, arms flailing, he tumbled
against the others, giving Novosty time to fire again. With deadly
accuracy he caught another in the chest.

Kenji Nogami had already thrown himself on the thick hallway carpet,
safely avoiding the fusillade. The Russian bankers, too, had all hit
the floor, along with the MNB guards and the two couriers.

Then came a shot with a different sound--the dull thunk of a silencer.
Novosty jerked in surprise, pain spreading through his eyes. The
silencer thunked again, and again.

It was Vera Karanova. She was holding a small .22 caliber Walther PP,
with a specially equipped silencer. And her aim was flawless. Novosty
had three slugs arranged neatly down the side of his head before he
even realized what was happening. He collapsed forward, never knowing
whose hand had been on the gun.

She's probably wanted to get rid of him for years, Vance thought
fleetingly. She finally got her golden opportunity, the double-crossing
bitch.

He briefly considered grabbing back one of the .38's and avenging Alex
then and there, but he knew it would be suicidal.

"Alex, no!" Eva's voice sobbed.

"Both of you, hands on the wall." Comrade Karanova was definitely in
charge.

"Michael," Eva said, turning to comply, "what happened to our well-laid
plans?"

"Looks like too little, too late." He stretched beside her.

"What did she mean just now? About our 'contribution'?"

"Probably the protocol. My guess is she wants to see it destroyed.
Let's hope that'll be the end of it. The godfather's got his money. And
Alex's problem is solved permanently."

Now Kenji Nogami was entering the room, an island of Zen-like calm
amidst all the bedlam.

"Michael, I'm so sorry." He stepped over. "When the money didn't show
up as scheduled, they called Jiro Sato and he suggested they try here.
There was nothing I could do."

Vance nodded. "That's how I figured it'd be played. We didn't move fast
enough on this end. It was my fault."

"Too bad. We came close." He sighed. "But I'm not going to underwrite
the rest of those bogus debentures. He'll have to kill me."

"And he'll probably do just that. The hell with it. You tried, we all
tried. Now it looks like Tanzan Mino's scam is going to go through
whether we play or not. You might as well save your own skin. With any
luck, we can still sort out our end, but you--you're going to have to be
dealing with that bastard for years to come. Think about it."

"I'm still deciding," he said finally. "Let's wait and see how things
go."

"Alex opted for suicide. You shouldn't follow his lead."

"I'm not suicidal." He stepped back as Vera proceeded to pat them down.
"I think very carefully about my options."

"Get the money." She was directing the two remaining _Mino-gumi kobun
_toward the table.

"Gonna just rob the bank now, Comrade?" Vance turned and looked at her,
then at the three bodies strewn on the floor. The _kobun _seemed to
consider their late colleagues merely casualties of war. The dead men
received almost no notice. "Pretty costly little enterprise, wouldn't
you say. Not a very propitious start for your new era of world
serenity."

"You would be advised to shut up," she responded sharply.

"I feel personally violated by all this." Nogami had turned to her and
his voice was like steel. "As of this moment, you can put out of your
mind any illusion I might cooperate further. This outrage is beyond
acceptability."

"We did what had to be done," Vera said. "We still expect your
cooperation and I do not think we will be disappointed."

"Then your expectation is sadly misplaced," he replied icily. His eyes
signified he meant every word.

"We will see." She dismissed him as she turned her attention to the
money. The two _kobun_ had carefully removed their shiny black leather
jackets now and laid them on the table. Underneath they wore tightly
tailored white shirts, complete with underarm holsters containing 9mm
Llamas. The automatics were back in their briefcases, positioned by the
door. Stripped down for action, they were quickly and professionally
tallying the certificates, one handling the open cashiers checks and
the other the bearer bonds.

Guess they intend to keep a close eye on the details, Vance thought.

Well, screw them. We've still got the protocol. We've got some leverage
left.

But he was having trouble focusing on the future. He was still in shock
from the sight of Novosty being gunned down in cold blood. Alex's
abrupt death was a tragic end to an exceptional, if sometimes dubious,
career. He'd really wanted Novosty to make this one last score. The man
deserved it. He was an operator who lived at the edge, and Vance had
always admired players who put everything on the table, no matter which
side.

Well, he told himself, the scenario had come close, damned close. But
maybe it was doomed from the start. You only get so many chances to
tempt the fates. Today everybody's number came up, Alex's for the last
time.

Rest in peace, Aleksei Ilyich.

Then Vera turned back to them. "Now, I want the computer. We know it
was moved to the house in Kensington, but our search this morning did
not locate it."

So they were on to us from the start, Vance realized.

"Looks like you've got a problem." He strolled over and plopped down in
one of the straight-backed chairs along the opposite wall. "Too bad."

"No, you have a problem." She examined him confidently. "Because if
those materials are not returned to us, we will be forced to take
actions you may find harsh."

"Give it your best shot," he went on, glancing at Eva and hoping they
could keep up the bravado, "because we've got a few cards in our hand
too. Forget the money--that's history now--but we could still be in a
position to blow your whole project sky high."

"You two are the only ones outside our organization who know about the
protocol. That knowledge will not be allowed to go any farther."

"Don't be so sure. For all you know, we've already stashed a copy
somewhere. Left word that if anything happens to either one of us, the
package gets sent to the papers. Made public. Think what some premature
headlines would do for your little project."

"We have thought about it, Mr. Vance. That contingency has been
covered."

"Well, if I don't know what the other player's got, I tend to trust my
own cards."

But why play at all? he suddenly found himself musing. Fold this hand
and go for the next move.

Before leaving Crete he'd transmitted a copy of the protocol, still in
its encrypted form, to his office computer in Nassau. At the time it'd
merely seemed like prudence; now it might turn out to be a lifeline.
One phone call and it could be transmitted back here this very
afternoon. The magic of satellites in space. Knock out another quick
translation and they'd only have lost one day. What the hell. Use that
as a fallback position. Time, that's all it would take, just a little
more time.

"But what does it matter? The game's up anyway." He nodded toward Vera,
then turned to Eva, sending her a pointed signal.

"What was it Shakespeare said about discretion and valor," she
concurred, understanding exactly what he was thinking.

"The man knew when to fish and when to cut bait."

"True enough. Shall you tell them or shall I?"

"You can do the honors."

She walked over and picked up her briefcase. "You didn't really think
we'd leave it, did you, Comrade? So just take it and good riddance. A
little gift from the NSA. Who says America's getting stingy with its
foreign aid?"

Comrade Karanova motioned for the two _kobun _to take the case. "See if
it's there."

As they moved to comply, Vance found himself wondering if this really
was going to turn off the heat. Somehow it no longer seemed adequate.

"_Hai so_," he grunted through his teeth as he lifted it, "something is
here." Vance noticed that two digits of the little finger on his left
hand were missing, along with another digit on his ring finger. Good
thing Ken was never a street man, he thought fleetingly. Guess bankers
get to pay for their mistakes with something besides sections of fin-
ger.

"Then take it out," Vera commanded. "We are running out of time."

You've got that right, lady, Vance thought. Three men were just killed.
That personal Boeing of Tanzan Mino's better be warming up its Pratt &
Whitney's right now. London's about to get too hot for you.

One of the _kobun  _withdrew the Zenith. He placed it on the mahogany
table, then unlatched the top and lifted it up, only to stare at the
blank gray screen, unsure what he was supposed to do next.

Vera knew. She reached for the switch on the side and clicked it on,
then stood back and turned to Eva.

"Call up the file. I want to see if you have really broken the
encryption, the way you said."

"Truth time," she laughed, then punched up the translation.

_Project Daedalus_.

And there it was.

Comrade Karanova studied it a moment, as though not quite believing her
eyes. But she plainly had seen it before. "Congratulations. We were
sure no one would be able to break the encryption, not even you." She
glanced around. "You are very clever."

"Okay," Vance interjected, "I'm sure we all have better things to do
this morning. So why don't you take the damned thing and get out of
here. It's what you wanted. Just go and we'll all try and forget any of
this ever happened."

She flipped down the computer's screen, then turned back.
"Unfortunately nothing is ever that simple. I'm sorry to have to tell
you two that we haven't seen the last of each other." She paused, then
continued. "In fact, we are about to become much better acquainted."

"What do you mean?"

"You once told me, back when we met on the plane from Athens, you would
welcome that. You should be happy that your wish is now about to be
granted. You both are going to be our guests."

"That's kind of you." He stared at her, startled. "But we can probably
bear up to the separation."

"No, I must insist. You were right about the difficulties. Your death
now would be awkward, for a number of reasons. Alex will be trouble
enough to explain, but that is purely an internal Soviet matter. Moscow
Narodny can cover it. However, eliminating you two would raise awkward
inquiries. On the other hand, you represent a security risk to the
project. Consequently we have no option. Surely you understand."

He understood all too well. This was the one turn he hadn't figured on.

Almost eight years. It had been that long ago. But what had Ken said?
The Tokyo _oyabun _never forgot. What this really meant was that Tanzan
Mino wanted to settle the score first hand. What did he have planned?

Vance had a sudden feeling he didn't want to know. It was going to be a
zero-sum game. Everything on the table and winner take all.

The Uzi. The goddam Uzi. Why hadn't they brought it?

It was still back in Kensington, where they'd stashed it in the false
bottom of a new suitcase. But if the _Mino-gumi_ had been searching
only for a computer, maybe they'd missed it. So Tanzan Mino's hoods
could still be in for a surprise. Just make an excuse to go back.

Vera was aware an Uzi had been part of their deal for the limo, but
maybe that fact had momentarily slipped her mind, what with all the
important things she had to think about. Or maybe she'd assumed Alex
had kept it, or maybe she thought it was still in the car. Whatever she
thought, things were moving too fast now.

"I get the picture," he said, rising from his chair. With a

carefully feigned nonchalance, he strolled over to the table. "Guess
it's time we got our toothbrushes."

"You won't have to bother, Mr. Vance," Vera continued. "Your suitcases
were sent to the plane an hour ago. We found them conveniently packed.
Don't worry. Everything has already been taken care of."

Okay, scratch the Uzi. Looks like it's now or never. Settle it here.

He shot a glance at Eva, then at Ken, trying to signal them. They
caught it, and they knew. She began strolling in the direction of Vera,
who was now standing in the doorway, as though readying to depart.

"We appreciate the snappy service," Vance said. He looked down at the
computer, then bent over. When he came up, it was in his right hand,
sailing in an arc. He brought it around with all his might, aimed for
the nearest Japanese _kobun_. He was on target, catching the man
squarely in the stomach.

With a startled, disbelieving look the Japanese stumbled backward,
crashing over a large chair positioned next to the table. The other
_kobun_ instantly reached for his holstered Llama, but by then Kenji
Nogami had moved, seizing him and momentarily pinning his arms with a
powerful embrace.

For her own part, Eva had lunged for Vera and her purse, to neutralize
the Walther she carried. Comrade Karanova, however, had already
anticipated everything. She whisked back the purse, then plunged her
hand in. What she withdrew, though, was not a pistol but a shiny
cylindrical object made of glass.

It was three against three, a snapshot of desperation.

We've got a chance, Vance thought. Keep him down. And get the Llama.

As the _kobun_ tried to rise, gasping, Vance threw himself over the
upturned chair, reaching to pin the man's arms. With a bear-like
embrace he had him, the body small and muscular in his arms. Out of the
corner of his eye he saw Kenji Nogami still grappling with the other
_kobun_. The computer now lay on the floor, open and askew.

Where's Eva? He tried to turn and look for her, but there was no sound
to guide him. Then the _kobun_ wrenched free one arm and brought a fist
against the side of his face, diverting him back to matters at hand.

Hold him down. Just get the gun.

He tried to crush his larger frame against the other's slim body,
forcing the air out of him. Focus.

But the wiry man was stronger than he looked. With a twist he rolled
over and pinned Vance's shoulders against the carpet. Vance felt the
shag, soft against his skin, and couldn't believe how chilly it felt.
But now he had his hand on the _kobun's_ throat, holding him in a
powerful grip while jamming a free elbow against the holster.

Cut off his oxygen. Don't let him breathe.

The old moves were coming back, the shortcuts that would bring a more
powerful opponent to submission. He pressed a thumb against the man's
windpipe, shutting off his air. A look of surprise went through the
_kobun's_ eyes as he choked, letting his hold on Vance's shoulders
slacken.

Now.

He shoved the man's arm aside and reached for the holster. Then his
hand closed around the hard grip of the Llama. The Japanese was weaker
now, but still forcing his arm away from the gun, preventing him from
getting the grip he needed.

He rammed an elbow against the man's chin, then tightened his finger on
the grip of the Llama. He almost had it.

With his other hand he shoved the _kobun_'s face away, clawing at his
eyes, and again they rolled over, with the Japanese once more against
the carpet. But now he had the gun and he was turning.

He felt a sharp jab in his back, a flash of pain that seemed to come
from nowhere. It was both intense and numbing, as though his spine had
been caught in a vise. Then he felt his heart constrict, his
orientation spin. He rolled to the side, flailing an arm to try and
recover his balance, but the room was in rotation, his vision playing
tricks.

The one thing he did see was Vera Karanova standing over him, a blurred
image his mind tried vainly to correct. Her face was faltering, the
indistinct outlines of a desert mirage. Was she real or was he merely
dreaming?

. . . Now the room was growing serene, a slow-motion phantasmagoria of
pastel colors and soft, muted sounds. He tried to reach out, but there
was nothing. Instead he heard faint music, dulcet beckoning tones. The
world had entered another dimension, a seamless void. He wanted to be
part of its emptiness, to swathe himself in the cascade of oblivion
lifting him up. A perfect repose was drifting through him, a wave of
darkness. He heard his own breathing as he was buoyed into a blood-red
mist. He was floating, on a journey he had long waited to take, to a
place far, far away. . . .







BOOK THREE



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN



Thursday 2:28 P.M.



"The hypersonic test flight must proceed as scheduled," Tanzan Mino
said quietly. "Now that all the financial arrangements have been
completed, the Coordinating Committee of the LDP has agreed to bring
the treaty before the Diet next week. A delay is unthinkable."

"The problem is not technical, Mino-sama," Taro Ikeda, the project
director, continued, his tone ripe with deference. "It is the Soviet
pilot. Perhaps he should be replaced." He looked down, searching for
the right words. "I'm concerned. I think he has discovered the stealth
capabilities of the vehicle. Probably accidentally, but all the same,
I'm convinced he is now aware of them. Two nights ago he engaged in
certain unauthorized maneuvers I believe were intended to verify those
capabilities."

"_So deshoo_." Tanzan Mino's eyes narrowed. "But he has said nothing?"

"No. Not a word. At least to me."

"Then perhaps he was merely behaving erratically. It would not be the
first time."

"The maneuvers. They were too explicit," Ikeda continued. "As I said,
two nights ago, on the last test fight, he switched off the
transponder, then performed a snap roll and took the vehicle into a
power dive, all the way to the deck. It was intended to be a radar-
evasive action." The project director allowed himself a faint, ironic
smile. "At least we now know that the technology works. The vehicle's
radar signature immediately disappeared off the tracking monitors at
Katsura."

"It met the specifications?"

Ikeda nodded. "Yesterday I ordered a computer analysis of the data
tapes. The preliminary report suggests it may even have exceeded them."

Tanzan Mino listened in silence. He was sitting at his desk in the
command sector wing of the North Quadrant at the Hokkaido facility.
Although the sector was underground, like the rest of the facility,
behind his desk was a twenty-foot-long "window" with periscope double
mirrors that showed the churning breakers of La Perouse Strait.

His jet had touched down on the facility's runway at 6:48 A.M. and been
promptly towed into the hangar. Tanzan Mino intended to be in personal
command when _Daedalus I_ went hypersonic, in just nineteen hours. The
video monitors in his office were hard-wired directly to the main
console in Flight Control, replicating its data displays, and all
decisions passed across his desk.

"Leave the pilot to me," he said without emotion, revolving to gaze out
the wide window, which displayed the mid-afternoon sun catching the
crests of whitecaps far at sea. "What he knows or doesn't know will not
disrupt the schedule."

Once again, he thought, I've got to handle a problem personally. Why?
Because nobody else here has the determination to make the scenario
succeed. First the protocol, and then the money. I had to intervene to
resolve both.

But, he reflected with a smile, it turned out that handling those
difficulties personally had produced an unexpected dividend.

"As you say, _Mino-sama_," Ikeda bowed. "I merely wanted to make you
aware of my concern about the pilot. He should be monitored more
closely from now on."

"Which is precisely what I intend to do." Tanzan Mino's silver hair
seemed to blend with the sea beyond. "There is an obvious solution.
When he takes the vehicle hypersonic, he will not be alone."

"What are you suggesting? No one else--"

"Merely a simple security precaution. If he is not reliable, then steps
must be taken. Two of our people will be in the cockpit with him."

"You mean the scientists from Tsukuba? The cockpit was designed to
accommodate a three-man crew, but MITI hasn't yet designated the two
researchers."

"No. I mean my personal pilot and copilot. From the Boeing. Then if
Androv deviates from the prescribed test program in any way, they will
be there, ready to take immediate action. The problem is solved." He
revolved back from the window. "That will be all."

Ikeda bowed, then turned and hurriedly made his way toward the door. He
didn't like last-minute improvisations, but the CEO was now fully in
command. Preparations for two additional life-support systems would
have to be started immediately.

After Tanzan Mino watched him depart, he reached down and activated a
line of personal video monitors beside his desk.



Thursday 2:34 P.M.



Vance recognized the sound immediately. It was the harp-like plucking
of a Japanese _koto_, punctuated by the tinkling of a wind chime.
Without opening his eyes, he reached out and touched a hard, textured
surface. It was, he realized, a straw mat, and from the firmness of the
weave he knew it was _tatami_. Then he felt the soft cotton of the
padded mat beneath him and guessed he was lying on a futon. The air in
the room was faintly spiced with Mahayana Buddhist temple incense.

I'm in Japan, he told himself. Or somebody wants me to think I am.

He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a rice-paper lamp on
the floor next to his futon. Directly behind it, on the left, was a
_tokonoma _art alcove, built next to a set of sliding doors. A small,
round _shoji_ window in the _tokonoma  _shed a mysterious glow on its
hanging scroll, the painting an ink sketch of a Zen monk fording a
shallow stream.

Then he noticed an insignia that had been painted on the sliding doors
with a giant brush. He struggled to focus, and finally grasped that it
was the Minoan double ax, logo of the Daedalus Corporation.

Jesus!

He lay a minute, nursing the ache in his head and trying to remember
what had happened. All he could recall was London, money, Eva . . .

Eva. Where was she?

He popped erect and surveyed the room. It was traditional Jap anese,
the standard four-and-a-half tatami in size, bare and Spartan. A
classic.

But the music. It seemed to be coming through the walls.

The walls. They all looked to be rice paper. He clambered up and headed
for the fusuma with the double-ax logo. He tested it and realized that
the paper was actually painted steel. And it was locked. The room was
secure as a vault.

But across, opposite the _tokonoma_, was another set of sliding doors.
As he turned to walk over, he noticed he was wearing _tabi_, light
cotton stockings split at the toe, and he was clad in a blue-patterned
_yukata_  robe, cinched at the waist. He'd been stripped and re-
dressed.

This door was real, and he shoved it open. A suite of rooms lay beyond,
and there on a second futon, still in a drugged sleep, lay Eva. He
moved across, bent down, and shook her. She jerked away, her dreaming
disrupted, and turned over, but she didn't come out of it.

"Wake up." He shook her again. "The party just got moved. Wait'll you
get a load of the decor."

"What . . ." She rolled back and cracked open her bloodshot eyes. Then
she rose on one elbow and gazed around the room. It was appointed
identically to his, with only the hanging scroll in the _tokonoma_
different, hers being an angular, three-level landscape. "My God."

"Welcome to the wonderful world of Tanzan Mino. I don't know where the
hell we are, but it's definitely not Kansas, or London."

"My head feels like I was at ground zero when the bomb hit. My whole
body aches." She groaned and plopped back down on the futon. "What time
do you think it is?"

"Haven't a clue. How about starting with what day?" He felt for his
watch and realized it was gone. "What does it matter anyway? Nobody has
clocks in never-never land."

Satisfied she was okay, he stood up and surveyed the room. Then he saw
what he'd expected. There in the center of the ceiling, integrated into
the pattern of light-colored woods, was the glass eye of a video
camera.

And the music. Still the faint music.

He walked on down to the far end of her room and shoved aside another
set of sliding doors, also painted with the double-ax insignia. He
found himself looking at a third large space, this one paneled in raw
cypress. It was vast, and in the center was a cedar hot tub, sunk into
the floor. The water was fresh and steaming, and two tiny stools and
rinsing pails were located conveniently nearby on the redwood decking.
It was a traditional _o-furo_, one of the finest he'd ever seen.

"You're not going to believe this." He turned back and waved her
forward. In the soft rice-paper glow of the lamp she looked rakishly
disheveled. Japanese architecture always made him think of lovemaking.
"Our host probably figured we'd want to freshen up for the festivities.
Check it out."

"What?" She was shakily rising, pulling her yukata around her.

"All the comforts of home. Too bad they forgot the geisha."

She came over and stood beside him. "I don't believe this."

"Want to see if it's real, or just a mirage?"

She hesitantly stepped onto the decking, then walked out and bent down
to test the water. "Feels wet." She glanced back. "So what the heck. I
could use it."

"I'm ready." He kicked off his tabi and walked on out.

She pulled off his _yukata_, then picked up one of the pails and began
filling it from a spigot on the wall. "Okay, exalted male," she
laughed, "I'm going to scrub you. That's how they do it, right?" She
stood up and reached for a sponge and soap.

"They know how to live. Here, let me." He picked up a second sponge and
began scrubbing her back in turn. "How does it feel?"

"Maybe this is heaven."

"Hope we didn't have to die to get here. But hang on. I've got a
feeling the fun is just beginning."

He splashed her off with one of the pails, then watched as she gingerly
climbed down into the wooden tub.

"Michael, where do you think we are?" She sighed as the steam enveloped
her. "This has got to be Japan, but where?"

"Got a funny feeling I know." He was settling into the water beside
her. "But if I told you, you'd probably think I'm hallucinating." Above
the tub, he suddenly noticed yet another video camera.

As they lay soaking, the _koto _music around them abruptly stopped, its
poignant twangs disappearing with an electronic click.

"Are you finding the accommodations adequate?"

The voice was coming from a speaker carefully integrated into the raw
cypress ceiling.

"All things considered, we'd sooner be in Philadelphia." Vance looked
up.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the voice continued. "No expense has been
spared. My own personal quarters have been placed at your disposal."

"Mind telling me who's watching me bathe?" Eva splashed a handful of
water at the lens.

"You have no secrets from me, Dr. Borodin. However, in the interest of
propriety I have switched off the monitor for the bath. I'm afraid my
people were somewhat overly zealous, installing one there in the first
place." The voice chuckled. "But I should think you'd know. I am CEO of
the Daedalus Corporation, an organization not unfamiliar to you."

"All right," she said, "so where are we?"

"Why, you are in the corporation's Hokkaido facility. As my guests.
Since you two have taken such an interest in this project, I thought it
only fitting you should have an opportunity to see it first hand."

"Mind giving us a preview of the upcoming agenda?" Vance leaned back.
"We need to plan our day."

"Quite simply, I thought it was time you and I got reacquainted, Dr.
Vance. It's been a long time."

"Eight years."

"Yes. Eight years . . ." There was a pause. "If you would excuse me a
moment, I must take a call."

The speaker clicked off.

"Michael, I've got a very bad feeling about all this." She was rising
from the bath, her back to the camera. "What do you think he's going to
do?"

He's going to kill us, Vance realized. After he's played with us a
while. It's really quite simple.

"I don't know," he lied.

Then the speaker clicked on again. "Please forgive me. There are so
many demands on my time. However, I was hoping you, Dr. Vance, would
consent to join me this afternoon for tea. We have some urgent matters
to discuss."

"I'll see if I can work it into my schedule."

"Given the hectic goings-on here at the moment, perhaps a quiet moment
would be useful for us both." He paused again, speaking to someone
else, then his voice came back. "Shall we say four o'clock."

"What time is it now?"

"Please forgive me. I forgot. Your world is not regimented by time,
whereas mine regrettably is measured down to seconds. It is now almost
three in the afternoon. I shall expect you in one hour. Your clothes
are in the closet in your room. Now, if you will allow me. Affairs . .
."

And the voice was gone.

"Michael, are you really going to talk with that criminal?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. There's a game going on here, and we
have to stay in. Everybody's got a score to settle. We're about to see
who settles up first."



Thursday 3:29 P.M.



"Zero minus eighteen hours." Yuri Andreevich Androv stared at the green
screen, its numbers scrolling the computerized countdown. "Eighteen
fucking hours."

As he wheeled around, gazing over the beehive of activity in Flight
Control, he could already feel the adrenaline beginning to build.
Everything depended on him now. The vehicle was as ready as it was
going to be: all the wind tunnel tests, all the computer simulations,
even the supersonic test flights--everything said go. _Daedalus I_ was
going to make history tomorrow morning.

Except, he told himself, it's going to be a very different history from
the one everybody expects.

"Major Yuri Andreevich Androv, please report to Hangar Quadrant
immediately."

The stridency of the facility's paging system always annoyed him. He
glanced at the long line of computer screens one last time, then
shrugged and checked his watch. Who wanted him?

Well, a new planeload of Soviet VIPs reportedly had flown in yesterday,
though he hadn't seen any of them yet. He figured now that everything
looked ready, the _nomenklatura _were flooding in to bask in triumph.
Maybe after a day of vodka drinking and back slapping with the
officials in Project Management, they'd sobered up and realized they
were expected to file reports. So they were finally getting around to
talking to the people who were doing the actual work. They'd summon in
a few staffers who had hands-on knowledge of the project and commission
a draft report, which they'd then file, unread, under their own names.
Typical.

He reached for his leather flight jacket, deciding on a brisk walk to
work off the tension. The long corridor leading from the East Quadrant
to the Hangar Quadrant took him directly past Checkpoint Central and
the entry to West Quadrant, the Soviet sector, which also contained the
flight simulator and the main wind tunnel, or Number One, both now
quiet.

As he walked, he thought again about the new rumor he'd heard in the
commissary at lunch. Gossip kept the Soviet staff going--an instinct
from the old days--but this one just might be true. Some lower-level
staffers even claimed they'd seen him. The Chief.

Word was Tanzan Mino himself--none other than the CEO of the Daedalus
Corporation--had flown in this morning, together with his personal
bodyguards and aides. The story was he wanted hands-on control of the
first hypersonic test flight, wanted to be calling the shots in Flight
Control when _Daedalus I _made history.

Finally. The Big Man has decided to show his face.

"Yuri Andreevich, just a minute. Slow down."

He recognized the voice immediately and glanced around to see Nikolai
Vasilevich Grishkov, the portly Soviet chief mechanic, just emerging
from the West Quadrant. His bushy eyebrows hung like a pair of Siberian
musk-ox horns above his gleaming dark eyes.

"Have you seen her?" Grishkov was shuffling toward him.

"Seen who?" He examined the mechanic's spotless white coveralls. Jesus!
Even the support crews on this project were all sanitized, high-tech.

"The new woman. _Kracevia, moi droog. Ochen kracevia_. Beautiful beyond
words. And she is important. You can tell just by looking."

"Nikolai, there's never been a woman in this facility." He laughed and
continued on toward Security. "It's worse than a goddam troop ship.
You've finally started hallucinating from lack of _pezdyonka_."

"Yuri Andreevich, she's here and she's Soviet." The chief mechanic
followed him. "Some believe she arrived this morning with the CEO, but
nobody knows who she is. One rumor is she's Vera Karanova."

"Who?" The name was vaguely familiar.

"T-Directorate. Like I said, no one knows for sure, but that's what
we've heard."

"Impossible." He halted and turned back, frowning.

"That's just it, Yuri Andreevich," he sighed. "Those KGB bastards are
not supposed to even know about this project.

That was everybody's strict understanding. We were to be free of them
here. But now . . ." He caught the sleeve of Androv's flight jacket and
pulled him aside, out of the flow of pedestrian traffic in the hallway.
"My men were wondering. Maybe you could find a way to check her out?
You have better access. Everybody wants to know what's going on."

"KGB? It doesn't make any sense."

"If she's really . . . I just talked to the project kurirovat, Ivan
Semenovich, and he told me Karanova's now number three in T-
Directorate."

"Well, there's nothing we can do now, so the hell with her." He waved
his hand and tried to move on. "We've both got better things to worry
about."

"Just keep your antenna tuned, my friend, that's all. Let me know if
you can find out anything. Is she really Karanova? Because if she is,
we damned well need to know the inside story."

"Nikolai, if I see her, I'll be sure and ask." He winked. "And if she's
the hot number you say, maybe I'll find time to warm her up a little.
Get her to drop her . . . guard."

"If you succeed in that, _moi droog_," he said as his heavy eyebrows
lifted with a sly grin, "you'll be the envy of the facility. You've got
to see her."

"I can't wait." He shrugged and moved on toward the Hangar Security
station, at the end of the long corridor. When he flashed his A-level
priority ID for the two Japanese guards, he noticed they nervously made
a show of scrutinizing it, even though they both knew him perfectly
well, before saluting and authorizing entry.

That nails it, he told himself. Out of nowhere we suddenly have all
this rule-book crap. These guys are nervous as hell. No doubt about it,
the big _nachalnik_ is on the scene.

Great. Let all those assholes on the Soviet staff see the expression on
his face when the truth comes out. That's the real history we're about
to make here.

As he walked into the glare of neon, the cavernous space had never
seemed more vast, more imposing. He'd seen a lot of hangars, flown a
lot of experimental planes over the years, but nothing to match this.
Still, he always reminded himself, Daedalus was only hardware, just
more fancy iron. What really counted was the balls of the pilot holding
the flight stick.

That's when he saw them, clustered around the vehicle and gazing up. He
immediately recognized Colonel-General of Aviation Anatoly Savitsky,
whose humorless face appeared almost weekly in Soviet Military Review;
Major- General Igor Mikhailov, whose picture routinely graced the pages
of Air Defense Herald; and also Colonel-General Pavel Ogarkov, a
marshal of the Soviet air force before that rank was abolished by the
general secretary.

What are those Air Force neanderthals doing here? They're all notorious
hardliners, the "bomb first, ask questions later" boys. And _Daedalus_
is supposed to be for space research, right? Guess the bullshit is
about to be over. We're finally getting down to the real scenario.

And there in the middle, clearly the man in charge, was a tall, silver-
haired Japanese in a charcoal silk suit. He was showing off the
vehicles as though he owned them, and he carried himself with an
authority that made all the hovering Soviet generals look like bellboys
waiting for a tip.

Well, Yuri Andreevich thought, for the time being he does own them.
They're bought and paid for, just like us.

"_Tovarisch_, Major Androv, _kak pazhavatye_," came a voice behind him.
He turned and realized it belonged to General Valentin Sokolov,
commander of the MiG 31 wing at the Dolinsk air base on Sakhalin.
Sokolov was three star, top man in all the Soviet Far East. Flanking
him were half a dozen colonels and lieutenant colonels.

"Comrade General Sokolov." He whipped off a quick salute. Brass. Brass
everywhere. Shit. What in hell was this all about?

Now the project director, Taro Ikeda, had broken away from the Soviet
group and was approaching. "Yuri Andreevich, thank you for coming." He
bowed deferentially. "You are about to receive a great honor. The CEO
has asked for a private conference with you."

Yuri stared over Ikeda's shoulder at the Man-in-Charge. All this right-
wing brass standing around kissing his ass counted for nothing. He was
the one calling the shots. Who was everybody kidding?

Now the CEO looked his way, sizing him up with a quick glance. Yuri
Androv assessed him in turn. It was one look, but they both knew there
was trouble ahead.

Then Tanzan Mino patted a colonel-general on the shoulder and headed
over. "Yuri Andreevich Androv, I presume," he said in flawless Russian,
bowing lightly. "A genuine pleasure to meet you at last. There's a most
urgent matter we have to discuss."



Thursday 4:00 P.M.



At the precise hour, the _tokonoma _alcove off Vance's bedroom rotated
ninety degrees, as though moved by an unseen hand, and what awaited
beyond was a traditional Japanese sand-and-stone garden. It was, of
course, lit artificially, but the clusters of green shrubs seemed to be
thriving on the fluorescents. Through the garden's grassy center was a
curving pathway of flat stepping stones placed artfully in irregular
curves, and situated on either side of the walkway were towering rocks
nestled in glistening sand that had been raked to represent ocean
waves. The rocks were reminiscent of the soaring mountains in Chinese
Sung landscape paintings.

Vance's attention, however, was riveted on what awaited at the end of
the stony walkway. It was a traditional teahouse, set in a grove of
flowering azaleas. And standing in the doorway was a silver-haired
figure dressed in a formal black kimono. He was beckoning.

"Did I neglect to tell you I prefer Japanese _cha-no-yu _to the usual
British afternoon tea?" Tanzan Mino announced. "It is a ritual designed
to renew the spirit, to cleanse the mind. It goes back hundreds of
years. I always enjoy it in the afternoon, and I find it has
marvelously restorative powers. This seemed the ideal occasion for us
to meet and chat."

"Don't want to slight tradition." Vance slipped on the pair of wooden
clogs that awaited at the bottom of the path.

"My feelings entirely," the CEO continued, smiling as he watched him
approach. "You understand the Japanese way, Dr. Vance, which is one
reason we have so much to discuss."

He bowed a greeting as Vance deposited his clogs on the stepping stone
by the teahouse door. Together they stooped to enter.

A light murmur of boiling water came from a brazier set into the
_tatami_-matted floor, but otherwise the room was caught in an ethereal
silence. The decor was more modern than most teahouses, with fresh
cedar and pine for the ceiling and walls rather than the customary
reed, bark, and bamboo.

Tanzan Mino gestured for him to sit opposite as he immediately began
the formalities of ritually cleaning the bamboo scoop, then elevating
the rugged white tea bowl like an ancient chalance and ceremonially
wiping it. All the while his eyes were emotionless, betraying no hint
of what was in his mind.

After the utensils were ceremonially cleansed, he wordlessly scooped a
portion of pale-green powdered tea into the bowl, then lifted a
dipperful of boiling water from the kettle and poured it in. Finally he
picked up a bamboo whisk and began to whip the mixture, continuing
until it had acquired the consistency of green foam.

Authority, control, and--above all--discipline. Those things, Vance knew,
were what this was really about. As was traditional and proper, not a
word was spoken. This was the Zen equivalent of High Mass, and Tanzan
Mino was silently letting him know he was a true master--of himself, of
his world.

Then the _oyabun _reached over and formally presented the bowl, placing
it on the _tatami  _in front of his guest.

Vance lifted it up, rotated it a half turn in his hand, and took a
reserved sip. As the bitter beverage assaulted his mouth, he found
himself thinking this was probably intended to be his Last Supper. He
hoped he remembered enough to get the moves right.

He sipped one more time, then wiped the rim, formally repositioned the
bowl on the _tatami_, and leaned back.

"Perfectly done," Tanzan Mino smiled as he broke the silence. "I'm
impressed." He nodded toward the white bowl. "Incidentally, you were
just handling one of the finest pieces in all Japan."

"Shino ware. Mino region, late sixteenth century. Remarkably fine
glaze, considering those kilns had just started firing _chawan_."

"You have a learned eye, Dr. Vance." He smiled again, glancing down to
admire the rough, cracked surface of the rim. "The experts disagree on
the age, some saying very early seventeenth century, but I think your
assessment is correct. In any case, just handling it always soothes my
spirit. The discipline of the samurai is in a _chawan_ like this. And
in the _cha-no-yu_ ceremony itself. It's a test I frequently give my
Western friends. To see if they can grasp its spirituality. I'm pleased
to say that you handled the bowl exactly as you should have. You
understand that Japanese culture is about shaping the randomness of
human actions to a refined perfection. That's what we really should be
discussing here this afternoon, not the world of affairs, but I'm
afraid time is short. I often think of life in terms of a famous Haiku
by the poet Shiki:



_Hira-hira to

Kaze ni nigarete

Cho hitotsu.

_

"Sounds more like your new airplane," Vance observed, then translated:



A mortal butterfly

Fluttering and drifting

In the wind.



"A passable enough rendering, if I may say, though I don't necessarily
accept your analogy." He reached down and lifted a bottle of warmed
sake from beside the brazier. "By the way, I know you prefer tequila,
one of your odd quirks, but there was no time to acquire any. Perhaps
this will suffice."

He set down two black _raku_ saucers and began to pour. "Now, alas, we
must proceed."

Post time, Vance thought.

"Dr. Michael Vance." He lifted his saucer in a toast. "A scholar of the
lost Aegean civilizations, a former operative of the Central
Intelligence Agency, and finally a private consultant affiliated with a
group of mercenaries. I had your file updated when I first heard you
were involved. I see you have not been entirely idle since our last
encounter."

"You haven't done too bad yourself." Vance toasted him back. "This new
project is a big step up from the old days. Has a lot of style."

"It does indeed," he nodded. "I'm quite proud of our achievement here."

"You always thought big." Vance sipped again at his sake, warm and
soothing.

"It's kind of you to have remembered." Mino drank once more, then
settled his saucer on the _tatami _and looked up. "Of course, any
questions you have, I would be--"

"Okay, how's this. What do you expect to get out of me?"

He laughed. "Why nothing at all. Our reunion here is merely intended to
serve as a tutorial. To remind you and others how upsetting I find
intrusions into my affairs."

"Then how about starting off this 'tutorial' with a look at your new
plane?" Vance glanced around. "Guess I should call it _Daedalus_."

"_Daedalus I _and_ II. _There actually are two prototypes, although
only one is currently certified to operate in the hypersonic regime.
Yes, I expected the _Daedalus_ would intrigue you. You are a man of
insatiable intellectual appetite."

"I'm not sure that's necessarily a compliment."

"It wasn't necessarily meant to be. Sometimes curiosity needs to be
curbed. But if we can agree on certain matters, I shall enjoy providing
you a personal tour, to satisfy that curiosity. You are a man who can
well appreciate both my technological achievement and my strategic
coup."

The old boy's finally gone off the deep end, Vance told himself.
Megalomania. "Incidentally, by 'strategic coup' I suppose you're
referring to the fact you've got them exactly where you want them. The
Soviets."

"What do you mean?" His eyes hardened slightly.

"You know what I mean. They probably don't realize it yet, but you're
going to end up with the Soviet Far East in your wallet. For the price
of a hot airplane, you get to plunder the region. They're even going to
be thanking you while you reclaim Sakhalin for Japan. This _Daedalus_
spaceship is going to cost them the ranch. Have to admit it's
brilliant. Along with financing the whole scheme by swindling Benelux
tax dodgers."

"You are too imaginative for your own good, Dr. Vance," he said, a thin
smile returning. "Nobody is going to believe your interpretation of the
protocol."

"You've got a point. Nobody appreciates the true brilliance of a
criminal mind. Or maybe they just haven't known you as long as I have."

"Really, I'd hoped we would not descend to trading insults." He reached
to refill Vance's sake saucer. "It's demeaning. Instead I'd hoped we
could proceed constructively."

"Why not."

"Well then, perhaps you'll forgive me if I'm somewhat blunt. I'm afraid
my time is going to be limited over the next few hours. I may as well
tell you now that we are about to have the first hypersonic test of the
_Daedalus_. Tomorrow morning we will take her to Mach 25. Seventeen
thousand miles per hour. A speed almost ten times greater than any air-
breathing vehicle has ever before achieved."

"The sky's the limit," he whistled quietly. Alex hadn't known the half
of it. This was the ultimate plane.

"Impressive, I think you'll agree." Mino smiled and poured more sake
for himself.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"That ought to grease the way in the Diet for your deal. And the
protocol's financial grab ought to sail through the Supreme Soviet. You
prove this marvel can work and the rest is merely laundering your
profits."

"So I would like to think," he nodded. "Of course, one never knows how
these things will eventually turn out."

"So when do I get a look at it?"

"Why, that all depends on certain agreements we need to make."

"Then I guess it's time I heard the bottom line."

"Most assuredly." He leaned back. "Dr. Vance, you have just caused me
considerable hardship. Nor is this the first occasion you have done so.
Yet, I have not achieved what I have to date without becoming something
of a judge of men. The financial arrangements you put together in
London demonstrated, I thought, remarkable ingenuity. There could be a
place for you in my organization, despite all that has happened between
us."

"I don't work for the mob, if that's what you're hoping."

"Don't be foolhardy. Those days are well behind me," he went on calmly,
despite the flicker of anger in his eyes. "The completion of this
project will require financial and strategic skills well beyond those
possessed by the people who have worked for me in the past."

"All those petty criminals and hoods, you mean."

"I will choose to ignore that," he continued. "Whatever you may wish to
call them, they are not proving entirely adequate to the task at hand.
You bested my European people repeatedly and brought me a decided
humiliation."

Speaking of which, Vance found himself suddenly wondering, a thought
out of the blue, what's happened to Vera? She's been European point
woman for this whole scam. Where's she now?

Mino continued. "Therefore I must now either take you into my
organization or . . ." He paused. "It's that simple. Which, I wonder,
will it be?"

Vance studied him. "A lot depends on what happens to Eva."

"The fate of Dr. Borodin depends largely on your decision. So perhaps I
should give you some time to think it over." He leaned back. "Or
perhaps some inducement."

Vance didn't know what he meant. At first. Then he turned and looked
behind him. There waiting on the stony walkway of the garden were three
of Tanzan Mino's personal _kobun_, two of whom he recognized from
London. The CEO's instructions to them were in rapid-fire Japanese, but
he needed no translation as they moved forward.



ravelled round everything. Here men don't idealise women, by the looks
of things. Here they don't make these great leering eyes, the inevitable
yours-to-command look of Italian males. When the men from the country
look at these women, then it is Mind-yourself, my lady. I should think
the grovelling Madonna-worship is not much of a Sardinian feature. These
women have to look out for themselves, keep their own back-bone stiff
and their knuckles hard. Man is going to be male Lord if he can. And
woman isn't going to give him too much of his own way, either. So there
you have it, the fine old martial split between the sexes. It is tonic
and splendid, really, after so much sticky intermingling and
backboneless Madonna-worship. The Sardinian isn't looking for the "noble
woman nobly planned." No, thank you. He wants that young madam over
there, a young stiff-necked generation that she is. Far better sport
than with the nobly-planned sort: hollow frauds that they are. Better
sport too than with a Carmen, who gives herself away too much, In these
women there is something shy and defiant and un-get-atable. The defiant,
splendid split between the sexes, each absolutely determined to defend
his side, her side, from assault. So the meeting has a certain wild,
salty savour, each the deadly unknown to the other. And at the same
time, each his own, her own native pride and courage, taking the
dangerous leap and scrambling back.

Give me the old, salty way of love. How I am nauseated with sentiment
and nobility, the macaroni slithery-slobbery mess of modern adorations.

       *       *       *       *       *

One sees a few fascinating faces in Cagliari: those great dark unlighted
eyes. There are fascinating dark eyes in Sicily, bright, big, with an
impudent point of light, and a curious roll, and long lashes: the eyes
of old Greece, surely. But here one sees eyes of soft, blank darkness,
all velvet, with no imp looking out of them. And they strike a stranger,
older note: before the soul became self-conscious: before the mentality
of Greece appeared in the world. Remote, always remote, as if the
intelligence lay deep within the cave, and never came forward. One
searches into the gloom for one second, while the glance lasts. But
without being able to penetrate to the reality. It recedes, like some
unknown creature deeper into its lair. There is a creature, dark and
potent. But what?

Sometimes Velasquez, and sometimes Goya gives us a suggestion of these
large, dark, unlighted eyes. And they go with fine, fleecy black
hair--almost as fine as fur. I have not seen them north of Cagliari.

       *       *       *       *       *

The q-b spies some of the blue-and-red stripe-and-line cotton stuff of
which the peasants make their dress: a large roll in the doorway of a
dark shop. In we go, and begin to feel it. It is just soft, thickish
cotton stuff--twelve francs a metre. Like most peasant patterns, it is
much more complicated and subtle than appears: the curious placing of
the stripes, the subtle proportion, and a white thread left down one
side only of each broad blue block. The stripes, moreover, run _across_
the cloth, not lengthwise with it. But the width would be just long
enough for a skirt--though the peasant skirts have almost all a band at
the bottom with the stripes running round-ways.

The man--he is the esquimo type, simple, frank and aimiable--says the
stuff is made in France, and this the first roll since the war. It is
the old, old pattern, quite correct--but the material not _quite_ so
good. The q-b takes enough for a dress.

He shows us also cashmeres, orange, scarlet, sky-blue, royal blue: good,
pure-wool cashmeres that were being sent to India, and were captured
from a German mercantile sub-marine. So he says. Fifty francs a
metre--very, very wide. But they are too much trouble to carry in a
knapsack, though their brilliance fascinates.

       *       *       *       *       *

So we stroll and look at the shops, at the filigree gold jewelling of
the peasants, at a good bookshop. But there is little to see and
therefore the question is, shall we go on? Shall we go forward?

There are two ways of leaving Cagliari for the north: the State railway
that runs up the west side of the island, and the narrow-gauge secondary
railway that pierces the centre. But we are too late for the big trains.
So we will go by the secondary railway, wherever it goes.

There is a train at 2.30, and we can get as far as Mandas, some fifty
miles in the interior. When we tell the queer little waiter at the
hotel, he says he comes from Mandas, and there are two inns. So after
lunch--a strictly fish menu--we pay our bill. It comes to sixty odd
francs--for three good meals each, with wine, and the night's lodging,
this is cheap, as prices now are in Italy.

Pleased with the simple and friendly Scala di Ferre, I shoulder my sack
and we walk off to the second station. The sun is shining hot this
afternoon--burning hot, by the sea. The road and the buildings look dry
and desiccated, the harbour rather weary and end of the world.

There is a great crowd of peasants at the little station. And almost
every man has a pair of woven saddle-bags--a great flat strip of
coarse-woven wool, with flat pockets at either end, stuffed with
purchases. These are almost the only carrying bags. The men sling them
over their shoulder, so that one great pocket hangs in front, one
behind.

These saddle bags are most fascinating. They are coarsely woven in bands
of raw black-rusty wool, with varying bands of raw white wool or hemp or
cotton--the bands and stripes of varying widths going cross-wise. And on
the pale bands are woven sometimes flowers in most lovely colours,
rose-red and blue and green, peasant patterns--and sometimes fantastic
animals, beasts, in dark wool again. So that these striped zebra bags,
some wonderful gay with flowery colours on their stripes, some weird
with fantastic, griffin-like animals, are a whole landscape in
themselves.

The train has only first and third class. It costs about thirty francs
for the two of us, third class to Mandas, which is some sixty miles. In
we crowd with the joyful saddle-bags, into the wooden carriage with its
many seats.

And, wonder of wonders, punctually to the second, off we go, out of
Cagliari. En route again.




IV.

MANDAS.


The coach was fairly full of people, returning from market. On these
railways the third class coaches are not divided into compartments. They
are left open, so that one sees everybody, as down a room. The
attractive saddle-bags, _bercole_, were disposed anywhere, and the bulk
of the people settled down to a lively _conversazione_. It is much
nicest, on the whole, to travel third class on the railway. There is
space, there is air, and it is like being in a lively inn, everybody in
good spirits.

At our end was plenty of room. Just across the gangway was an elderly
couple, like two children, coming home very happily. He was fat, fat all
over, with a white moustache and a little not-unamiable frown. She was a
tall lean, brown woman, in a brown full-skirted dress and black apron,
with huge pocket. She wore no head covering, and her iron grey hair was
parted smoothly. They were rather pleased and excited being in the
train. She took all her money out of her big pocket, and counted it and
gave it to him: all the ten Lira notes, and the five Lira and the two
and the one, peering at the dirty scraps of pink-backed one-lira notes
to see if they were good. Then she gave him her half-pennies. And he
stowed them away in the trouser pocket, standing up to push them down
his fat leg. And then one saw, to one's amazement, that the whole of his
shirt-tail was left out behind, like a sort of apron worn backwards.
Why--a mystery. He was one of those fat, good-natured, unheeding men
with a little masterful frown, such as usually have tall, lean,
hard-faced, obedient wives.

They were very happy. With amazement he watched us taking hot tea from
the Thermos flask. I think he too had suspected it might be a bomb. He
had blue eyes and standing-up white eyebrows.

"Beautiful hot--!" he said, seeing the tea steam. It is the inevitable
exclamation. "Does it do you good?"

"Yes," said the q-b. "Much good." And they both nodded complacently.
They were going home.

       *       *       *       *       *

The train was running over the malarial-looking sea-plain--past the
down-at-heel palm trees, past the mosque-looking buildings. At a level
crossing the woman crossing-keeper darted out vigorously with her red
flag. And we rambled into the first village. It was built of sun-dried
brick-adobe houses, thick adobe garden-walls, with tile ridges to keep
off the rain. In the enclosures were dark orange trees. But the
clay-coloured villages, clay-dry, looked foreign: the next thing to mere
earth they seem, like fox-holes or coyote colonies.

Looking back, one sees Cagliari bluff on her rock, rather fine, with the
thin edge of the sea's blade curving round. It is rather hard to believe
in the real sea, on this sort of clay-pale plain.

       *       *       *       *       *

But soon we begin to climb to the hills. And soon the cultivation begins
to be intermittent. Extraordinary how the heathy, moor-like hills come
near the sea: extraordinary how scrubby and uninhabited the great spaces
of Sardinia are. It is wild, with heath and arbutus scrub and a sort of
myrtle, breast-high. Sometimes one sees a few head of cattle. And then
again come the greyish arable-patches, where the corn is grown. It is
like Cornwall, like the Land's End region. Here and there, in the
distance, are peasants working on the lonely landscape. Sometimes it is
one man alone in the distance, showing so vividly in his black-and-white
costume, small and far-off like a solitary magpie, and curiously
distinct. All the strange magic of Sardinia is in this sight. Among the
low, moor-like hills, away in a hollow of the wide landscape one
solitary figure, small but vivid black-and-white, working alone, as if
eternally. There are patches and hollows of grey arable land, good for
corn. Sardinia was once a great granary.

Usually, however, the peasants of the South have left off the costume.
Usually it is the invisible soldiers' grey-green cloth, the Italian
khaki. Wherever you go, wherever you be, you see this khaki, this
grey-green war-clothing. How many millions of yards of the thick,
excellent, but hateful material the Italian government must have
provided I don't know: but enough to cover Italy with a felt carpet, I
should think. It is everywhere. It cases the tiny children in stiff and
neutral frocks and coats, it covers their extinguished fathers, and
sometimes it even encloses the women in its warmth. It is symbolic of
the universal grey mist that has come over men, the extinguishing of all
bright individuality, the blotting out of all wild singleness. Oh
democracy! Oh khaki democracy!

       *       *       *       *       *

This is very different from Italian landscape. Italy is almost always
dramatic, and perhaps invariably romantic. There is drama in the plains
of Lombardy, and romance in the Venetian lagoons, and sheer scenic
excitement in nearly all the hilly parts of the peninsula. Perhaps it is
the natural floridity of lime-stone formations. But Italian landscape is
really eighteenth-century landscape, to be represented in that
romantic-classic manner which makes everything rather marvelous and very
topical: aqueducts, and ruins upon sugar-loaf mountains, and craggy
ravines and Wilhelm Meister water-falls: all up and down.

Sardinia is another thing. Much wider, much more ordinary, not
up-and-down at all, but running away into the distance. Unremarkable
ridges of moor-like hills running away, perhaps to a bunch of dramatic
peaks on the southwest. This gives a sense of space, which is so lacking
in Italy. Lovely space about one, and traveling distances--nothing
finished, nothing final. It is like liberty itself, after the peaky
confinement of Sicily. Room--give me room--give me room for my spirit:
and you can have all the toppling crags of romance.

So we ran on through the gold of the afternoon, across a wide, almost
Celtic landscape of hills, our little train winding and puffing away
very nimbly. Only the heath and scrub, breast-high, man-high, is too big
and brigand-like for a Celtic land. The horns of black, wild-looking
cattle show sometimes.

After a long pull, we come to a station after a stretch of loneliness.
Each time, it looks as if there were nothing beyond--no more
habitations. And each time we come to a station.

Most of the people have left the train. And as with men driving in a
gig, who get down at every public-house, so the passengers usually
alight for an airing at each station. Our old fat friend stands up and
tucks his shirt-tail comfortably in his trousers, which trousers all the
time make one hold one's breath, for they seem at each very moment to be
just dropping right down: and he clambers out, followed by the long,
brown stalk of a wife.

So the train sits comfortably for five or ten minutes, in the way the
trains have. At last we hear whistles and horns, and our old fat friend
running and clinging like a fat crab to the very end of the train as it
sets off. At the same instant a loud shriek and a bunch of shouts from
outside. We all jump up. There, down the line, is the long brown stork
of a wife. She had just walked back to a house some hundred yards off,
for a few words, and has now seen the train moving.

Now behold her with her hands thrown to heaven, and hear the wild shriek
"Madonna!" through all the hubbub. But she picks up her two skirt-knees,
and with her thin legs in grey stockings starts with a mad rush after
the train. In vain. The train inexorably pursues its course. Prancing,
she reaches one end of the platform as we leave the other end. Then she
realizes it is not going to stop for her. And then, oh horror, her long
arms thrown out in wild supplication after the retreating train: then
flung aloft to God: then brought down in absolute despair on her head.
And this is the last sight we have of her, clutching her poor head in
agony and doubling forward. She is left--she is abandoned.

The poor fat husband has been all the time on the little outside
platform at the end of the carriage, holding out his hand to her and
shouting frenzied scolding to her and frenzied yells for the train to
stop. And the train has not stopped. And she is left--left on that
God-forsaken station in the waning light.

So, his face all bright, his eyes round and bright as two stars,
absolutely transfigured by dismay, chagrin, anger and distress, he comes
and sits in his seat, ablaze, stiff, speechless. His face is almost
beautiful in its blaze of conflicting emotions. For some time he is as
if unconscious in the midst of his feelings. Then anger and resentment
crop out of his consternation. He turns with a flash to the long-nosed,
insidious, Phoenician-looking guard. Why couldn't they stop the train
for her! And immediately, as if someone had set fire to him, off flares
the guard. Heh!--the train can't stop for every person's convenience!
The train is a train--the time-table is a time-table. What did the old
woman want to take her trips down the line for? Heh! She pays the
penalty for her own inconsiderateness. Had _she_ paid for the
train--heh? And the fat man all the time firing off his unheeding and
unheeded answers. One minute--only one minute--if he, the conductor had
told the driver! if he, the conductor, had shouted! A poor woman! Not
another train! What was she going to do! Her ticket? And no money. A
poor woman--

There was a train back to Cagliari that night, said the conductor, at
which the fat man nearly burst out of his clothing like a bursting
seed-pod. He bounced on his seat. What good was that? What good was a
train back to Cagliari, when their home was in Snelli! Making matters
worse--

So they bounced and jerked and argued at one another, to their hearts'
content. Then the conductor retired, smiling subtly, in a way they have.
Our fat friend looked at us with hot, angry, ashamed, grieved eyes and
said it was a shame. Yes, we chimed, it _was_ a shame. Whereupon a
self-important miss who said she came from some Collegio at Cagliari
advanced and asked a number of impertinent questions in a tone of pert
sympathy. After which our fat friend, left alone, covered his clouded
face with his hand, turned his back on the world, and gloomed.

It had all been so dramatic that in spite of ourselves we laughed, even
while the q-b shed a few tears.

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, the journey lasted hours. We came to a station, and the conductor
said we must get out: these coaches went no further. Only two coaches
would proceed to Mandas. So we climbed out with our traps, and our fat
friend with his saddle-bag, the picture of misery.

The one coach into which we clambered was rather crowded. The only other
coach was most of it first-class. And the rest of the train was freight.
We were two insignificant passenger wagons at the end of a long string
of freight-vans and trucks.

There was an empty seat, so we sat on it: only to realize after about
five minutes, that a thin old woman with two children--her
grandchildren--was chuntering her head off because it was _her_
seat--why she had left it she didn't say. And under my legs was her
bundle of bread. She nearly went off her head. And over my head, on the
little rack, was her bercola, her saddle-bag. Fat soldiers laughed at
her good-naturedly, but she fluttered and flipped like a tart,
featherless old hen. Since she had another seat and was quite
comfortable, we smiled and let her chunter. So she clawed her bread
bundle from under my legs, and, clutching it and a fat child, sat tense.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was getting quite dark. The conductor came and said that there was no
more paraffin. If what there was in the lamps gave out, we should have
to sit in the dark. There was no more paraffin all along the line.--So
he climbed on the seats, and after a long struggle, with various boys
striking matches for him, he managed to obtain a light as big as a pea.
We sat in this _clair-obscur_, and looked at the sombre-shadowed faces
round us: the fat soldier with a gun, the handsome soldier with huge
saddle-bags, the weird, dark little man who kept exchanging a baby with
a solid woman who had a white cloth tied round her head, a tall
peasant-woman in costume, who darted out at a dark station and returned
triumphant with a piece of chocolate: a young and interested young man,
who told us every station. And the man who spat: there is always one.

Gradually the crowd thinned. At a station we saw our fat friend go by,
bitterly, like a betrayed soul, his bulging saddle-bag hanging before
and after, but no comfort in it now--no comfort. The pea of light from
the paraffin lamp grew smaller. We sat in incredible dimness, and the
smell of sheeps-wool and peasant, with only our fat and stoic young man
to tell us where we were. The other dusky faces began to sink into a
dead, gloomy silence. Some took to sleep. And the little train ran on
and on, through unknown Sardinian darkness. In despair we drained the
last drop of tea and ate the last crusts of bread. We knew we must
arrive some time.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was not much after seven when we came to Mandas. Mandas is a junction
where these little trains sit and have a long happy chat after their
arduous scramble over the downs. It had taken us somewhere about five
hours to do our fifty miles. No wonder then that when the junction at
last heaves in sight everybody bursts out of the train like seeds from
an exploding pod, and rushes somewhere for something. To the station
restaurant, of course. Hence there is a little station restaurant that
does a brisk trade, and where one can have a bed.

A quite pleasant woman behind the little bar: a brown woman with brown
parted hair and brownish eyes and brownish, tanned complexion and tight
brown velveteen bodice. She led us up a narrow winding stone stair, as
up a fortress, leading on with her candle, and ushered us into the
bedroom. It smelled horrid and sourish, as shutup bedrooms do. We threw
open the window. There were big frosty stars snapping ferociously in
heaven.

The room contained a huge bed, big enough for eight people, and quite
clean. And the table on which stood the candle actually had a cloth. But
imagine that cloth! I think it had been originally white: now, however,
it was such a web of time-eaten holes and mournful black inkstains and
poor dead wine stains that it was like some 2000 B.C. mummy-cloth. I
wonder if it could have been lifted from that table: or if it was
mummified on to it! I for one made no attempt to try. But that
table-cover impressed me, as showing degrees I had not imagined.--A
table-cloth.

We went down the fortress-stair to the eating-room. Here was a long
table with soup-plates upside down and a lamp burning an uncanny naked
acetylene flame. We sat at the cold table, and the lamp immediately
began to wane. The room--in fact the whole of Sardinia--was stone cold,
stone, stone cold. Outside the earth was freezing. Inside there was no
thought of any sort of warmth: dungeon stone floors, dungeon stone walls
and a dead, corpse-like atmosphere, too heavy and icy to move.

The lamp went quite out, and the q-b gave a cry. The brown woman poked
her head through a hole in the wall. Beyond her we saw the flames of the
cooking, and two devil-figures stirring the pots. The brown woman came
and shook the lamp--it was like a stodgy porcelain mantelpiece
vase--shook it well and stirred up its innards, and started it going
once more. Then she appeared with a bowl of smoking cabbage soup, in
which were bits of macaroni: and would we have wine? I shuddered at the
thought of death-cold red wine of the country, so asked what else there
was. There was malvagia--malvoisie, the same old malmsey that did for
the Duke of Clarence. So we had a pint of malvagia, and were comforted.
At least we were being so, when the lamp went out again. The brown woman
came and shook and smacked it, and started it off again. But as if to
say "Shan't for you", it whipped out again.

Then came the host with a candle and a pin, a large, genial Sicilian
with pendulous mustaches. And he thoroughly pricked the wretch with the
pin, shook it, and turned little screws. So up flared the flame. We were
a little nervous. He asked us where we came from, etc. And suddenly he
asked us, with an excited gleam, were we Socialists. Aha, he was going
to hail us as citizens and comrades. He thought we were a pair of
Bolshevist agents: I could see it. And as such he was prepared to
embrace us. But no, the q-b disclaimed the honor. I merely smiled and
shook my head. It is a pity to rob people of their exciting illusions.

"Ah, there is too much socialism everywhere!" cried the q-b.

"Ma--perhaps, perhaps--" said the discreet Sicilian. She saw which way
the land lay, and added:

"Si vuole un _pocchetino_ di Socialismo: one wants a tiny bit of
socialism in the world, a tiny bit. But not much. Not much. At present
there is too much."

Our host, twinkling at this speech which treated of the sacred creed as
if it were a pinch of salt in the broth, believing the q-b was throwing
dust in his eyes, and thoroughly intrigued by us as a pair of deep ones,
retired. No sooner had he gone than the lamp-flame stood up at its full
length, and started to whistle. The q-b drew back. Not satisfied by
this, another flame suddenly began to whip round the bottom of the
burner, like a lion lashing its tail. Unnerved, we made room: the q-b
cried again: in came the host with a subtle smile and a pin and an air
of benevolence, and tamed the brute.

What else was there to eat? There was a piece of fried pork for me, and
boiled eggs for the q-b. As we were proceeding with these, in came the
remainder of the night's entertainment: three station officials, two in
scarlet peaked caps, one in a black-and-gold peaked cap. They sat down
with a clamour, in their caps, as if there was a sort of invisible
screen between us and them. They were young. The black cap had a lean
and sardonic look: one of the red-caps was little and ruddy, very young,
with a little mustache: we called him the _maialino_, the gay little
black pig, he was so plump and food-nourished and frisky. The third was
rather puffy and pale and had spectacles. They all seemed to present us
the blank side of their cheek, and to intimate that no, they were not
going to take their hats off, even if it were dinner-table and a strange
_signora_. And they made rough quips with one another, still as if we
were on the other side of the invisible screen.

Determined however, to remove this invisible screen, I said
Good-evening, and it was very cold. They muttered Good-evening, and yes,
it was fresh. An Italian never says it is cold: it is never more than
_fresco_. But this hint that it was cold they took as a hint at their
caps, and they became very silent, till the woman came in with the
soup-bowl. Then they clamoured at her, particularly the _maialino_, what
was there to eat. She told them--beef-steaks of pork. Whereat they
pulled faces. Or bits of boiled pork. They sighed, looked gloomy,
cheered up, and said beef-steaks, then.

And they fell on their soup. And never, from among the steam, have I
heard a more joyful trio of soup-swilkering. They sucked it in from
their spoons with long, gusto-rich sucks. The _maialino_ was the
treble--he trilled his soup into his mouth with a swift, sucking
vibration, interrupted by bits of cabbage, which made the lamp start to
dither again. Black-cap was the baritone; good, rolling spoon-sucks. And
the one in spectacles was the bass: he gave sudden deep gulps. All was
led by the long trilling of the _maialino_. Then suddenly, to vary
matters, he cocked up his spoon in one hand, chewed a huge mouthful of
bread, and swallowed it down with a smack-smack-smack! of his tongue
against his palate. As children we used to call this "clapping".

"Mother, she's clapping!" I would yell with anger, against my sister.
The German word is schmatzen.

So the _maialino_ clapped like a pair of cymbals, while baritone and
bass rolled on. Then in chimed the swift bright treble.

At this rate however, the soup did not last long. Arrived the
beef-steaks of pork. And now the trio was a trio of castanet smacks and
cymbal claps. Triumphantly the _maialino_ looked around. He out-smacked
all.

The bread of the country is rather coarse and brown, with a hard, hard
crust. A large rock of this is perched on every damp serviette. The
_maialino_ tore his rock asunder, and grumbled at the black-cap, who had
got a weird sort of three-cornered loaf-roll of pure white bread--starch
white. He was a swell with this white bread.

Suddenly black-cap turned to me. Where had we come from, where were we
going, what for? But in laconic, sardonic tone.

"I _like_ Sardinia," cried the q-b.

"Why?" he asked sarcastically. And she tried to find out.

"Yes, the Sardinians please me more than the Sicilians," said I.

"Why?" he asked sarcastically.

"They are more open--more honest." He seemed to turn his nose down.

"The padrone is a Sicilian," said the _maialino_, stuffing a huge block
of bread into his mouth, and rolling his insouciant eyes of a gay,
well-fed little black pig towards the background. We weren't making much
headway.

"You've seen Cagliari?" the black-cap said to me, like a threat.

"Yes! oh Cagliari pleases me--Cagliari is beautiful!" cried the q-b,
who travels with a vial of melted butter ready for her parsnips.

"Yes--Cagliari is _so-so_--Cagliari is very fair," said the black cap.
"_Cagliari è discreto._" He was evidently proud of it.

"And is Mandas nice?" asked the q-b.

"In what way nice?" they asked, with immense sarcasm.

"Is there anything to see?"

"Hens," said the _maialino_ briefly. They all bristled when one asked if
Mandas was nice.

"What does one do here?" asked the q-b.

"_Niente!_ At Mandas one does _nothing_. At Mandas one goes to bed when
it's dark, like a chicken. At Mandas one walks down the road like a pig
that is going nowhere. At Mandas a goat understands more than the
inhabitants understand. At Mandas one needs socialism...."

They all cried out at once. Evidently Mandas was more than flesh and
blood could bear for another minute to these three conspirators.

"Then you are very bored here?" say I.

"Yes."

And the quiet intensity of that naked yes spoke more than volumes.

"You would like to be in Cagliari?"

"Yes."

Silence, intense, sardonic silence had intervened. The three looked at
one another and made a sour joke about Mandas. Then the black-cap turned
to me.

"Can you understand Sardinian?" he said.

"Somewhat. More than Sicilian, anyhow."

"But Sardinian is more difficult than Sicilian. It is full of words
utterly unknown to Italian--"

"Yes, but," say I, "it is spoken openly, in plain words, and Sicilian is
spoken all stuck together, none of the words there at all."

He looks at me as if I were an imposter. Yet it is true. I find it quite
easy to understand Sardinian. As a matter of fact, it is more a question
of human approach than of sound. Sardinian seems open and manly and
downright. Sicilian is gluey and evasive, as if the Sicilian didn't want
to speak straight to you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't. He is an
over-cultured, sensitive, ancient soul, and he has so many sides to his
mind that he hasn't got any definite one mind at all. He's got a dozen
minds, and uneasily he's aware of it, and to commit himself to anyone of
them is merely playing a trick on himself and his interlocutor. The
Sardinian, on the other hand, still seems to have one downright mind. I
bump up against a downright, smack-out belief in Socialism, for
example. The Sicilian is much too old in our culture to swallow
Socialism whole: much too ancient and rusé not to be sophisticated about
any and every belief. He'll go off like a squib: and then he'll smoulder
acridly and sceptically even against his own fire. One sympathizes with
him in retrospect. But in daily life it is unbearable.

"Where do you find such white bread?" say I to the black cap, because he
is proud of it.

"It comes from my home." And then he asks about the bread of Sicily. Is
it any whiter than _this_--the Mandas rock. Yes, it is a little whiter.
At which they gloom again. For it is a very sore point, this bread.
Bread means a great deal to an Italian: it is verily his staff of life.
He practically lives on bread. And instead of going by taste, he now,
like all the world, goes by eye. He has got it into his head that bread
should be white, so that every time he fancies a darker shade in the
loaf a shadow falls on his soul. Nor is he altogether wrong. For
although, personally, I don't like white bread any more, yet I do like
my brown bread to be made of pure, unmixed flour. The peasants in
Sicily, who have kept their own wheat and make their own natural brown
bread, ah, it is amazing how fresh and sweet and _clean_ their loaf
seems, so perfumed as home-bread used all to be before the war. Whereas
the bread of the commune, the regulation supply, is hard, and rather
coarse and rough, so rough and harsh on the palate. One gets tired to
death of it. I suspect myself the maize meal mixed in. But I don't know.
And finally the bread varies immensely from town to town, from commune
to commune. The so-called just and equal distribution is all my-eye. One
place has abundance of good sweet bread, another scrapes along, always
stinted, on an allowance of harsh coarse stuff. And the poor suffer
bitterly, really, from the bread-stinting, because they depend so on
this one food. They say the inequality and the injustice of distribution
comes from the Camorra--la grande Camorra--which is no more nowadays
than a profiteering combine, which the poor hate. But for myself, I
don't know. I only know that one town--Venice, for example--seems to
have an endless supply of pure bread, of sugar, of tobacco, of
salt--while Florence is in one continual ferment of irritation over the
stinting of these supplies--which are all government monopoly, doled out
accordingly.

We said Good-night to our three railway friends, and went up to bed. We
had only been in the room a minute or two, when the brown woman tapped:
and if you please, the black-cap had sent us one of his little white
loaves. We were really touched. Such delicate little generosities have
almost disappeared from the world.

It was a queer little bread--three-cornered, and almost as hard as ships
biscuit, made of starch flour. Not strictly bread at all.

       *       *       *       *       *

The night was cold, the blankets flat and heavy, but one slept quite
well till dawn. At seven o'clock it was a clear, cold morning, the sun
not yet up. Standing at the bedroom window looking out, I could hardly
believe my eyes it was so like England, like Cornwall in the bleak
parts, or Derbyshire uplands. There was a little paddock-garden at the
back of the Station, rather tumble-down, with two sheep in it. There
were several forlorn-looking out-buildings, very like Cornwall. And then
the wide, forlorn country road stretched away between borders of grass
and low, drystone walls, towards a grey stone farm with a tuft of trees,
and a naked stone village in the distance. The sun came up yellow, the
bleak country glimmered bluish and reluctant. The low, green hill-slopes
were divided into fields, with low drystone walls and ditches. Here and
there a stone barn rose alone, or with a few bare, windy trees attached.
Two rough-coated winter horses pastured on the rough grass, a boy came
along the naked, wide, grass-bordered high-road with a couple of milk
cans, drifting in from nowhere: and it was all so like Cornwall, or a
part of Ireland, that the old nostalgia for the Celtic regions began to
spring up in me. Ah, those old, drystone walls dividing the fields--pale
and granite-blenched! Ah, the dark, sombre grass, the naked sky! the
forlorn horses in the wintry morning! Strange is a Celtic landscape, far
more moving, disturbing than the lovely glamor of Italy and Greece.
Before the curtains of history lifted, one feels the world was like
this--this Celtic bareness and sombreness and _air_. But perhaps it is
not Celtic at all: Iberian. Nothing is more unsatisfactory than our
conception of what is Celtic and what is not Celtic. I believe there
never were any Celts, as a race.--As for the Iberians--!

[Illustration: TONARA]

Wonderful to go out on a frozen road, to see the grass in shadow bluish
with hoar-frost, to see the grass in the yellow winter-sunrise beams
melting and going cold-twinkly. Wonderful the bluish, cold air, and
things standing up in cold distance. After two southern winters, with
roses blooming all the time, this bleakness and this touch of frost in
the ringing morning goes to my soul like an intoxication. I am so glad,
on this lonely naked road, I don't know what to do with myself. I walk
down in the shallow grassy ditches under the loose stone walls, I walk
on the little ridge of grass, the little bank on which the wall is
built, I cross the road across the frozen cow-droppings: and it is all
so familiar to my _feet_, my very feet in contact, that I am wild as if
I had made a discovery. And I realize that I hate lime-stone, to live on
lime-stone or marble or any of those limey rocks. I hate them. They are
dead rocks, they have no life--thrills for the feet. Even sandstone is
much better. But granite! Granite is my favorite. It is so live under
the feet, it has a deep sparkle of its own. I like its roundnesses--and
I hate the jaggy dryness of lime-stone, that burns in the sun, and
withers.

       *       *       *       *       *

After coming to a deep well in a grassy plot in a wide space of the
road, I go back, across the sunny naked upland country, towards the pink
station and its out-buildings. An engine is steaming its white clouds in
the new light. Away to the left there is even a row of small houses,
like a row of railway-mens' dwellings. Strange and familiar sight. And
the station precincts are disorderly and rather dilapidated. I think of
our Sicilian host.

The brown woman gives us coffee, and very strong, rich goats' milk, and
bread. After which the q-b and I set off once more along the road to the
village. She too is thrilled. She too breathes deep. She too feels
_space_ around her, and freedom to move the limbs: such as one does not
feel in Italy and Sicily, where all is so classic and fixed.

The village itself is just a long, winding, darkish street, in shadow,
of houses and shops and a smithy. It might almost be Cornwall: not
quite. Something, I don't know what, suggests the stark burning glare of
summer. And then, of course, there is none of the cosiness which
climbing roses and lilac trees and cottage shops and haystacks would
give to an English scene. This is harder, barer, starker, more dreary.
An ancient man in the black-and-white costume comes out of a hovel of a
cottage. The butcher carries a huge side of meat. The women peer at
us--but more furtive and reticent than the howling stares of Italy.

So we go on, down the rough-cobbled street through the whole length of
the village. And emerging on the other side, past the last cottage, we
find ourselves again facing the open country, on the gentle down-slope
of the rolling hill. The landscape continues the same: low, rolling
upland hills, dim under the yellow sun of the January morning: stone
fences, fields, grey-arable land: a man slowly, slowly ploughing with a
pony and a dark-red cow: the road trailing empty across the distance:
and then, the one violently unfamiliar note, the enclosed cemetery lying
outside on the gentle hill-side, closed in all round, very compact,
with high walls: and on the inside face of the enclosure wall the marble
slabs, like shut drawers of the sepulchres, shining white, the wall
being like a chest of drawers, or pigeon holes to hold the dead. Tufts
of dark and plumy cypresses rise among the flat graves of the enclosure.
In the south, cemeteries are walled off and isolated very tight. The
dead, as it were, are kept fast in pound. There is no spreading of
graves over the face of the country. They are penned in a tight fold,
with cypresses to fatten on the bones. This is the one thoroughly
strange note in the landscape. But all-pervading there is a strangeness,
that strange feeling as if the _depths_ were barren, which comes in the
south and the east, sun-stricken. Sun-stricken, and the heart eaten out
by the dryness.

"I like it! I like it!" cries the q-b.

"But could you live here?" She would like to say yes, but daren't.

We stray back. The q-b wants to buy one of those saddle-bag
arrangements. I say what for? She says to keep things in. Ach! but
peeping in the shops, we see one and go in and examine it. It is quite a
sound one, properly made: but plain, quite plain. On the white
cross-stripes there are no lovely colored flowers of rose and green and
magenta: the three favorite Sardinian colors: nor are there any of the
fantastic and griffin-like beasts. So it won't do. How much does it
cost? Forty-five francs.

There is nothing to do in Mandas. So we will take the morning train and
go to the terminus, to Sorgono. Thus, we shall cross the lower slopes of
the great central knot of Sardinia, the mountain knot called
Gennargentu. And Sorgono we feel will be lovely.

Back at the station we make tea on the spirit lamp, fill the thermos,
pack the knapsack and the kitchenino, and come out into the sun of the
platform. The q-b goes to thank the black-cap for the white bread,
whilst I settle the bill and ask for food for the journey. The brown
woman fishes out from a huge black pot in the background sundry hunks of
coarse boiled pork, and gives me two of these, hot, with bread and salt.
This is the luncheon. I pay the bill: which amounts to twenty-four
francs, for everything. (One says francs or liras, irrespective, in
Italy.) At that moment arrives the train from Cagliari, and men rush in,
roaring for the soup--or rather, for the broth. "Ready, ready!" she
cries, going to the black pot.




V.

TO SORGONO.


The various trains in the junction squatted side by side and had long,
long talks before at last we were off. It was wonderful to be running in
the bright morning towards the heart of Sardinia, in the little train
that seemed so familiar. We were still going third class, rather to the
disgust of the railway officials at Mandas.

At first the country was rather open: always the long spurs of hills,
steep-sided, but not high. And from our little train we looked across
the country, across hill and dale. In the distance was a little town, on
a low slope. But for its compact, fortified look it might have been a
town on the English downs. A man in the carriage leaned out of the
window holding out a white cloth, as a signal to someone in the far off
town that he was coming. The wind blew the white cloth, the town in the
distance glimmered small and alone in its hollow. And the little train
pelted along.

It was rather comical to see it. We were always climbing. And the line
curved in great loops. So that as one looked out of the window, time and
again one started, seeing a little train running in front of us, in a
diverging direction, making big puffs of steam. But lo, it was our own
little engine pelting off around a loop away ahead. We were quite a long
train, but all trucks in front, only our two passenger coaches hitched
on behind. And for this reason our own engine was always running fussily
into sight, like some dog scampering in front and swerving about us,
while we followed at the tail end of the thin string of trucks.

I was surprised how well the small engine took the continuous steep
slopes, how bravely it emerged on the sky-line. It is a queer railway. I
would like to know who made it. It pelts up hill and down dale and round
sudden bends in the most unconcerned fashion, not as proper big railways
do, grunting inside deep cuttings and stinking their way through
tunnels, but running up the hill like a panting, small dog, and having a
look round, and starting off in another direction, whisking us behind
unconcernedly. This is much more fun than the tunnel-and-cutting system.

They told me that Sardinia mines her own coal: and quite enough for her
own needs: but very soft, not fit for steam-purposes. I saw heaps of it:
small, dull, dirty-looking stuff. Truck-loads of it too. And
truck-loads of grain.

At every station we were left ignominiously planted, while the little
engines--they had gay gold names on their black little bodies--strolled
about along the side-lines, and snuffed at the various trucks. There we
sat, at every station, while some truck was discarded and some other
sorted out like a branded sheep, from the sidings and hitched on to us.
It took a long time, this did.

       *       *       *       *       *

All the stations so far had had wire netting over the windows. This
means malaria-mosquitoes. The malaria climbs very high in Sardinia. The
shallow upland valleys, moorland with their intense summer sun and the
riverless, boggy behaviour of the water breed the pest inevitably. But
not very terribly, as far as one can make out: August and September
being the danger months. The natives don't like to admit there is any
malaria: a tiny bit, they say, a tiny bit. As soon as you come to the
_trees_ there is no more. So they say. For many miles the landscape is
moorland and down-like, with no trees. But wait for the trees. Ah, the
woods and forests of Gennargentu: the woods and forests higher up: no
malaria there!

The little engine whisks up and up, around its loopy curves as if it
were going to bite its own tail: we being the tail: then suddenly dives
over the sky-line out of sight. And the landscape changes. The famous
woods begin to appear. At first it is only hazel-thickets, miles of
hazel-thickets, all wild, with a few black cattle trying to peep at us
out of the green myrtle and arbutus scrub which forms the undergrowth;
and a couple of rare, wild peasants peering at the train. They wear the
black sheepskin tunic, with the wool outside, and the long stocking
caps. Like cattle they too peer out from between deep bushes. The myrtle
scrub here rises man-high, and cattle and men are smothered in it. The
big hazels rise bare above. It must be difficult getting about in these
parts.

Sometimes, in the distance one sees a black-and-white peasant riding
lonely across a more open place, a tiny vivid figure. I like so much the
proud instinct which makes a living creature distinguish itself from its
background. I hate the rabbity khaki protection-colouration. A
black-and-white peasant on his pony, only a dot in the distance beyond
the foliage, still flashes and dominates the landscape. Ha-ha! proud
mankind! There you ride! But alas, most of the men are still
khaki-muffled, rabbit-indistinguishable, ignominious. The Italians look
curiously rabbity in the grey-green uniform: just as our sand-colored
khaki men look doggy. They seem to scuffle rather abased, ignominious
on the earth. Give us back the scarlet and gold, and devil take the
hindmost.

       *       *       *       *       *

The landscape really begins to change. The hillsides tilt sharper and
sharper. A man is ploughing with two small red cattle on a craggy,
tree-hanging slope as sharp as a roof-side. He stoops at the small
wooden plough, and jerks the ploughlines. The oxen lift their noses to
heaven, with a strange and beseeching snake-like movement, and taking
tiny little steps with their frail feet, move slantingly across the
slope-face, between rocks and tree-roots. Little, frail, jerky steps the
bullocks take, and again they put their horns back and lift their
muzzles snakily to heaven, as the man pulls the line. And he skids his
wooden plough round another scoop of earth. It is marvellous how they
hang upon that steep, craggy slope. An English labourer's eyes would
bolt out of his head at the sight.

There is a stream: actually a long tress of a water-fall pouring into a
little gorge, and a stream-bed that opens a little, and shows a
marvellous cluster of naked poplars away below. They are like ghosts.
They have a ghostly, almost phosphorescent luminousness in the shadow of
the valley, by the stream of water. If not phosphorescent, then
incandescent: a grey, goldish-pale incandescence of naked limbs and
myriad cold-glowing twigs, gleaming strangely. If I were a painter I
would paint them: for they seem to have living, sentient flesh. And the
shadow envelopes them.

Another naked tree I would paint is the gleaming mauve-silver fig, which
burns its cold incandescence, tangled, like some sensitive creature
emerged from the rock. A fig tree come forth in its nudity gleaming over
the dark winter-earth is a sight to behold. Like some white, tangled sea
anemone. Ah, if it could but answer! or if we had tree-speech!

       *       *       *       *       *

Yes, the steep valley sides become almost gorges, and there are trees.
Not forests such as I had imagined, but scattered, grey, smallish oaks,
and some lithe chestnuts. Chestnuts with their long whips, and oaks with
their stubby boughs, scattered on steep hillsides where rocks crop out.
The train perilously winding round, half way up. Then suddenly bolting
over a bridge and into a completely unexpected station. What is more,
men crowd in--the station is connected with the main railway by a post
motor-omnibus.

An unexpected irruption of men--they may be miners or navvies or
land-workers. They all have huge sacks: some lovely saddle-bags with
rose-coloured flowers across the darkness. One old man is in full
black-and-white costume, but very dirty and coming to pieces. The others
wear the tight madder-brown breeches and sleeved waistcoats. Some have
the sheepskin tunic, and all wear the long stocking cap. And how they
smell! of sheep-wool and of men and goat. A rank scent fills the
carriage.

They talk and are very lively. And they have mediaeval faces, _rusé_,
never really abandoning their defences for a moment, as a badger or a
pole-cat never abandons its defences. There is none of the brotherliness
and civilised simplicity. Each man knows he must guard himself and his
own: each man knows the devil is behind the next bush. They have never
known the post-Renaissance Jesus. Which is rather an eye-opener.

Not that they are suspicious or uneasy. On the contrary, noisy,
assertive, vigorous presences. But with none of that implicit belief
that everybody will be and ought to be good to them, which is the mark
of our era. They don't expect people to be good to them: they don't want
it. They remind me of half-wild dogs that will love and obey, but which
won't be handled. They won't have their heads touched. And they won't be
fondled. One can almost hear the half-savage growl.

The long stocking caps they wear as a sort of crest, as a lizard wears
his crest at mating time. They are always moving them, settling them on
their heads. One fat fellow, young, with sly brown eyes and a young
beard round his face folds his stocking-foot in three, so that it rises
over his brow martial and handsome. The old boy brings his stocking-foot
over the left ear. A handsome fellow with a jaw of massive teeth pushes
his cap back and lets it hang a long way down his back. Then he shifts
it forward over his nose, and makes it have two sticking-out points,
like fox-ears, above his temples. It is marvellous how much expression
these caps can take on. They say that only those born to them can wear
them. They seem to be just long bags, nearly a yard long, of black
stockinette stuff.

The conductor comes to issue them their tickets. And they all take out
rolls of paper money. Even a little mothy rat of a man who sits opposite
me has quite a pad of ten-franc notes. Nobody seems short of a hundred
francs nowadays: nobody.

They shout and expostulate with the conductor. Full of coarse life they
are: but so coarse! The handsome fellow has his sleeved waistcoat open,
and his shirt-breast has come unbuttoned. Not looking, it seems as if he
wears a black undervest. Then suddenly, one sees it is his own hair. He
is quite black inside his shirt, like a black goat.

But there is a gulf between oneself and them. They have no inkling of
our crucifixion, our universal consciousness. Each of them is pivoted
and limited to himself, as the wild animals are. They look out, and they
see other objects, objects to ridicule or mistrust or to sniff curiously
at. But "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" has never entered
their souls at all, not even the thin end of it. They might love their
neighbour, with a hot, dark, unquestioning love. But the love would
probably leave off abruptly. The fascination of what is beyond them has
not seized on them. Their neighbour is a mere external. Their life is
centripetal, pivoted inside itself, and does not run out towards others
and mankind. One feels for the first time the real old mediaeval life,
which is enclosed in itself and has no interest in the world outside.

And so they lie about on the seats, play a game, shout, and sleep,
and settle their long stocking-caps: and spit. It is wonderful in
them that at this time of day they still wear the long stocking-caps
as part of their inevitable selves. It is a sign of obstinate and
powerful tenacity. They are not going to be broken in upon by
world-consciousness. They are not going into the world's common clothes.
Coarse, vigorous, determined, they will stick to their own coarse dark
stupidity and let the big world find its own way to its own enlightened
hell. Their hell is their own hell, they prefer it unenlightened.

And one cannot help wondering whether Sardinia will resist right
through. Will the last waves of enlightenment and world-unity break over
them and wash away the stocking-caps? Or is the tide of enlightenment
and world-unity already receding fast enough?

Certainly a reaction is setting in, away from the old universality,
back, away from cosmopolitanism and internationalism. Russia, with her
Third International, is at the same time reacting most violently away
from all other contact, back, recoiling on herself, into a fierce,
unapproachable Russianism. Which motion will conquer? The workman's
International, or the centripetal movement into national isolation? Are
we going to merge into one grey proletarian homogeneity?--or are we
going to swing back into more-or-less isolated, separate, defiant
communities?

Probably both. The workman's International movement will finally break
the flow towards cosmopolitanism and world-assimilation, and suddenly in
a crash the world will fly back into intense separations. The moment has
come when America, that extremist in world-assimilation and
world-oneness, is reacting into violent egocentricity, a truly
Amerindian egocentricity. As sure as fate we are on the brink of
American empire.

For myself, I am glad. I am glad that the era of love and oneness is
over: hateful homogeneous world-oneness. I am glad that Russia flies
back into savage Russianism, Scythism, savagely self-pivoting. I am glad
that America is doing the same. I shall be glad when men hate their
common, world-alike clothes, when they tear them up and clothe
themselves fiercely for distinction, savage distinction, savage
distinction against the rest of the creeping world: when America kicks
the billy-cock and the collar-and-tie into limbo, and takes to her own
national costume: when men fiercely react against looking all alike and
being all alike, and betake themselves into vivid clan or
nation-distinctions.

The era of love and oneness is over. The era of world-alike should be at
an end. The other tide has set in. Men will set their bonnets at one
another now, and fight themselves into separation and sharp distinction.
The day of peace and oneness is over, the day of the great fight into
multifariousness is at hand. Hasten the day, and save us from
proletarian homogeneity and khaki all-alikeness.

I love my indomitable coarse men from mountain Sardinia, for their
stocking-caps and their splendid, animal-bright stupidity. If only the
last wave of all-alikeness won't wash those superb crests, those caps,
away.

And it seemed to her as though she knew all the people who were there;
they were the women of the village, and the girls of her own age. But
the dog was well aware that there was something uncanny about it all.
He made his way down to Melbustad in flying leaps, and howled and barked
in the most lamentable manner, and gave the people no rest until they
followed him. The young fellow who was to marry the girl took his gun,
and climbed the hills; and when he drew near, there stood a number of
horses around the hut, saddled and bridled. He crept up to the hut,
looked through a loop-hole in the wall, and saw a whole company sitting
together inside. It was quite evident that they were trolls, the people
from underground, and therefore he discharged his gun over the roof. At
that moment the doors flew open, and a number of balls of gray yarn, one
larger than the other, came shooting out about his legs. When he went
in, there sat the maiden in her bridal finery, and nothing was missing
but the ring on her little finger, then all would have been complete.

"In heaven's name, what has happened here?" he asked, as he looked
around. All the silverware was still on the table, but all the tasty
dishes had turned to moss and toadstools, and frogs and toads and the
like.

"What does it all mean?" said he. "You are sitting here in all your
glory, just like a bride?"

"How can you ask me?" answered the maiden. "You have been sitting here
yourself, and talking about our wedding the whole afternoon!"

"No, I have just come," said he. "It must have been some one else who
had taken my shape!"

Then she gradually came to her senses; but not until long afterward was
she altogether herself, and she told how she had firmly believed that
her sweetheart himself, and all their friends and relatives had been
there. He took her straight back to the village with him, and so that
they need fear no such deviltry in the future, they celebrated their
wedding while she was still clad in the bridal outfit of the underground
folk. The crown and all the ornaments were hung up in Melbustad and it
is said that they hang there to this very day.


    NOTE

    Black jugglery and deception are practiced upon the poor
    dairy-maid in "The Troll Wedding" (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I,
    p. 50. From Hadeland, told by a _Signekjarring_, a kind of wise
    woman or herb doctress). Characteristic is the belief that troll
    magic and witchery may be nullified if a gun be fired over the
    place where it is supposed to be taking place. Then all reverts to
    its original form. Curious, also, is the belief that trolls like
    to turn into skeins of yarn when disturbed, and then roll swiftly
    away.




IX

THE HAT OF THE _HULDRES_


Once upon a time there was a big wedding at a certain farmstead, and a
certain cottager was on his way to the wedding-feast. As he chanced to
cross a field, he found a milk-strainer, such as are usually made of
cows' tails, and looking just like an old brown rag. He picked it up,
for he thought it could be washed, and then he would give it to his
wife for a dish-rag. But when he came to the house where they were
celebrating the wedding, it seemed as though no one saw him. The bride
and groom nodded to the rest of the guests, they spoke to them and
poured for them; but he got neither greeting nor drink. Then the chief
cook came and asked the other folk to sit down to the table; but he was
not asked, nor did he get anything to eat. For he did not care to sit
down of his own accord when no one had asked him. At last he grew angry
and thought: "I might as well go home, for not a soul pays a bit of
attention to me here." When he reached home, he said: "Good evening,
here I am back again."

"For heaven's sake, are you back again?" asked his wife.

"Yes, there was no one there who paid any attention to me, or even so
much as looked at me," said the man, "and when people show me so little
consideration, it seems as though I have nothing to look for there."

"But where are you? I can hear you, but I cannot see you!" cried his
wife.

The man was invisible, for what he had found was a _huldre_ hat.

"What are you talking about? Can't you see me? Have you lost your wits?"
asked the man. "There is an old hair strainer for you. I found it
outside on the ground," said he, and he threw it on the bench. And
then his wife saw him; but at the same moment the hat of the _huldres_
disappeared, for he should only have loaned it, not given it away.
Now the man saw how everything had come about, and went back to the
wedding-feast. And this time he was received in right friendly fashion,
and was asked to drink, and to seat himself at the table.


    NOTE

    A favorite jewel among the treasures of the underground world
    plays the leading part of the tale: "The Hat of the _Huldres_"
    (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I, p. 157; from the vicinity of
    Eidsvold, told by an old peasant woman). Often appearing in
    legend proper as the tarn-cap, it here finds a more humble place
    in everyday life, neither ennobled by legendary dignity, nor
    diversified by the rich incident of fairy-tale. The entertaining
    picture here afforded of its powers shows them all the more
    clearly.




X

THE CHILD OF MARY


Far, far from here, in a great forest, there once lived a poor couple.
Heaven blessed them with a charming little daughter; but they were so
poor they did not know how they were going to get her christened. So her
father had to go forth to see whether he could not find a god-father
to pay for the child's christening. All day long he went from one to
another; but no one wanted to be the god-father. Toward evening, as he
was going home, he met a very lovely lady, who wore the most splendid
clothes, and seemed most kind and friendly, and she offered to see that
the child was christened, if she might be allowed to keep it afterward.
The man replied that first he must ask his wife. But when he reached
home and asked her she gave him a flat "no." The following day the man
set out again; but no one wanted to be the god-father if he had to pay
for the christening himself, and no matter how hard the man begged, it
was all of no avail. When he went home that evening, he again met the
lovely lady, who looked so gentle, and she made him the same offer as
before. The man again told his wife what had happened to him, and added
that if he could not find a god-father for his child the following day,
they would probably have to let the lady take her, since she seemed to
be so kind and friendly. The man then went out for the third time, and
found no god-father that day. And so, when he once more met the friendly
lady in the evening, he promised to let her have the child, if she would
see that it was baptized. The following morning the lady came to the
man's hut, and with her two other men. She then took the child and went
to church with it, and it was baptized. Then she took it with her,
and the little girl remained with her for several years, and her
foster-mother was always good and kind to her.

Now when the girl had grown old enough to make distinctions, and had
acquired some sense, it chanced that her foster-mother once wished to
take a journey. "You may go into any room you wish," she said to the
girl, "only you are not to go into these three rooms," and then she set
out on her journey. But the girl could not resist opening the door
to the one room a little way--and swish! out flew a star. When her
foster-mother came home, she was much grieved to find that the star had
flown out, and was so annoyed with her foster-child that she threatened
to send her away. But the girl pleaded and cried, until at last she was
allowed to remain.

After a time the foster-mother wanted to take another journey, and she
forbade the girl, above all, to go into the two rooms which, as yet, she
had not entered. And the girl promised her that this time she would obey
her. But when she had been alone for some time, and had had all sorts
of thoughts as to what there might be in the second room, she could no
longer resist opening the second door a little way--and swish! out flew
the moon. When the foster-mother returned, and saw the moon had slipped
out, she again grieved greatly, and told the girl she could keep her no
longer, and that now she must go. But when the girl again began to cry
bitterly, and pleaded with such grace that it was impossible to deny
her, she was once more allowed to remain.

After this the foster-mother wished to take another journey, and she
told the girl, who was now more than half-grown, that she must take
her request not to go, or even so much as peep into the third room,
seriously to heart. But when the foster-mother had been away for some
time, and the girl was all alone and bored, she could at last resist no
longer. "O," thought she, "how pleasant it would be to take a peep into
that third room!" It is true, that at first she thought she would not do
it, because of her foster-mother; yet when the thought returned to her,
she could not hold back, after all; but decided that she should and
must by all means take a peep. So she opened the door the least little
bit--and swish! out flew the sun. When the foster-mother then returned,
and saw that the sun had flown out, she grieved greatly, and told
the girl that now she could positively stay with her no longer. The
foster-daughter cried and pleaded even more touchingly than before; but
all to no avail. "No, I must now punish you," said the foster-mother.
"But you shall have your choice of either becoming the most beautiful
of all maidens, without the power of speech, or the most homely, yet
able to talk. But you must leave this place." The girl said: "Then I
would rather be the most beautiful of maidens without the power of
speech"--and such she became, but from that time on she was dumb.

Now when the girl had left her foster-mother, and had wandered for a
time, she came to a large, large wood, and no matter how far she went
she could not reach its end. When evening came, she climbed into a high
tree that stood over a spring, and sat down in its branches to sleep.
Not far from it stood a king's castle, and early the next morning a
serving-maid came from it, to get water from the spring for the prince's
tea. And when the serving-maid saw the lovely face in the spring, she
thought it was her own. At once she threw down her pail and ran back
home holding her head high, and saying: "If I am as beautiful as all
that, I am too good to carry water in a pail!" Then another was sent to
fetch water, but the same thing happened with her; she, too, came back
and said she was far too handsome and too good to go to the spring and
fetch water for the prince. Then the prince went himself, for he wanted
to see what it all meant. And when he came to the spring, he also saw
the picture, and at once looked up into the tree. And so he saw the
lovely maiden who was seated among its branches. He coaxed her down,
took her back home with him, and nothing would do but that she must be
his bride, because she was so beautiful. But his mother, who was still
living, objected: "She cannot speak," said she, "and, maybe, she
belongs to the troll-folk." But the prince would not be satisfied until
he had won her. When, after a time, heaven bestowed a child upon the
queen, the prince set a strong guard about her. But suddenly they all
fell asleep, and her foster-mother came, cut the child's little finger,
rubbed some of the blood over the mouth and hands of the queen, and
said: "Now you shall grieve just as I did when you let the star slip
out!" And with that she disappeared with the child. When those whom the
prince had set to keep guard opened their eyes again, they thought that
the queen had devoured her child, and the old queen wanted to have her
burned; but the prince loved her so very tenderly, that after much
pleading he succeeded in having her saved from punishment, though only
with the greatest difficulty.

  [Illustration: "AND SO HE SAW THE LOVELY MAIDEN WHO WAS SEATED AMONG
  ITS BRANCHES."
                                                      --_Page 59_]

When heaven gave her a second child, a guard of twice as many men as had
first stood watch was again set about her; yet everything happened as
before, only that this time the foster-mother said to her: "Now you
shall grieve as I did when you let the moon slip out!" The queen wept
and pleaded--for when the foster-mother was there she could speak--but
without avail. Now the old queen insisted that she be burned. But the
prince once more succeeded in begging her free. When heaven gave her a
third child, a three-fold guard was set about her. The foster-mother
came while the guard slept, took the child, cut its little finger, and
rubbed some of the blood on the queen's mouth. "Now," said she, "you
shall grieve just as I did when you let the sun slip out!" And now the
prince could in no way save her, she was to be and should be burned.
But at the very moment when they were leading her to the stake, the
foster-mother appeared with all three children; the two older ones she
led by the hand, the youngest she carried on her arm. She stepped up to
the young queen and said: "Here are your children, for now I give them
back to you. I am the Virgin Mary, and the grief that you have felt is
the same grief that I felt aforetimes, when you had let the star, the
moon and the sun slip out. Now you have been punished for that which you
did, and from now on the power of speech is restored to you!"

The happiness which then filled the prince and princess may be imagined,
but cannot be described. They lived happily together ever after, and
from that time forward even the prince's mother was very fond of the
young queen.


    NOTE

    "The Child of Mary" (Asbjörnsen, and Moe, N.F.E., p. 34, No. 8,
    taken from the Bresemann translation [1847]), is a pious
    fairy-tale, which is also current in Germany; a good fairy often
    takes the place of the Virgin Mary.




XI

STORM MAGIC


The cabin-boy had been traveling around all summer long with his
captain; but when they began to prepare to set sail in the fall, he grew
restless and did not want to go along. The captain liked him, for though
he was no more than a boy, he was quite at home on deck, was a big, tall
lad, and did not mind lending a hand when need arose; then, too, he did
as much work as an able seaman, and was so full of fun that he kept the
whole crew in good humor. And so the captain did not like to lose him.
But the youth said out and out that he was not minded to take to the
blue pond in the fall; though he was willing to stay on board till
the ship was loaded and ready to sail. One Sunday, while the crew was
ashore, and the captain had gone to a farm-holding near the forest, in
order to bargain for small timber and log wood--presumably on his own
account--for a deck load, the youth had been left to guard the ship.
But you must know that he was a Sunday child, and had found a four-leaf
clover; and that was the reason he had the second sight. He could see
those who are invisible, but they could not see him.

And as he was sitting there in the forward cabin, he heard voices
within the ship. He peered through a crack, and there were three
coal-black crows sitting inside the deck-beams, and they were talking
about their husbands. All three were tired of them, and were planning
their death. One could see at once that they were witches, who had
assumed another form.

"But is it certain that there is no one here who can overhear us?" said
one of the crows. And by the way she spoke the cabin-boy knew her for
the captain's wife.

"No, you can see there's not," said the others, the wives of the first
and second quartermasters. "There is not a soul aboard."

"Well, then I do not mind saying that I know of a good way to get rid of
them," said the captain's wife once more, and hopped closer to the two
others. "We will turn ourselves into breakers, wash them into the sea,
and sink the ship with every man on board."

That pleased the others, and they sat there a long time discussing the
day and the fairway. "But is it certain that no one can overhear us?"
once more asked the captain's wife.

"You know that such is the case," said the two others.

"Well, there is a counter-spell for what we wish to do, and if it is
used, it will go hard with us, for it will cost us nothing less than our
lives!"

"What is the counter-spell, sister," asked the wife of the one
quartermaster.

"Is it certain that no one is listening to us? It seemed to me as though
some one were smoking in the forward cabin."

"But you know we looked in every corner. They just forgot to let the
fire go out in the caboose, and that is why there's smoke," said the
quartermaster's wife, "so tell away."

"If they buy three cords of birch-wood," said the witch,--"but it must
be full measure, and they must not bargain for it--and throw the first
cord into the water, billet by billet, when the first breaker strikes,
and the second cord, billet by billet, when the second breaker strikes,
and the third cord, billet by billet, when the third breaker strikes,
then it is all up with us!"

"Yes, that's true, sister, then it is all up with us! Then it is all up
with us!" said the wives of the quartermasters; "but there is no one who
knows it," they cried, and laughed loudly, and with that they flew out
of the hatchway, screaming and croaking like ravens.

When it came time to sail, the cabin-boy would not go along for anything
in the world; and all the captain's coaxing, and all his promises were
useless, nothing would tempt him to go. At last they asked him whether
he were afraid, because fall was at hand, and said he would rather hide
behind the stove, hanging to mother's apron strings. No, said the youth,
he was not afraid, and they could not say that they had ever seen him
show a sign of so land-lubberly a thing as fear; and he was willing to
prove it to them, for now he was going along with them, but he made
it a condition that three cords of birch-wood were to be bought, full
measure, and that on a certain day he was to have command, just as
though he himself were the captain. The captain asked what sort of
nonsense this might be, and whether he had ever heard of a cabin-boy's
being entrusted with the command of a ship. But the boy answered that
was all one to him; if they did not care to buy the three cords of
birch-wood, and obey him, as though he were captain, for the space of a
single day--the captain and crew should know which day it was to be in
advance--then he would set foot on the ship no more, and far less would
he ever dirty his hands with pitch and tar on her again. The whole thing
seemed strange to the captain, yet he finally gave in, because he wanted
to have the boy along with him and, no doubt, he also thought that
he would come to his senses again when they were once under way. The
quartermaster was of the same opinion. "Just let him command all he
likes, and if things go wrong with him, we'll help him out," said he. So
the birch-wood was bought, full-measure and without haggling, and they
set sail.

When the day came on which the cabin-boy was to take command, the
weather was fair and quiet; but he drummed up the whole ship's crew, and
with the exception of a tiny bit of canvas, had all sails reefed. The
captain and crew laughed at him, and said: "That shows the sort of a
captain we have now. Don't you want us to reef that last bit of sail
this very minute?" "Not yet," answered the cabin-boy, "but before long."

Suddenly a squall struck them, struck them so heavily that they thought
they would capsize, and had they not reefed the sails they would
undoubtedly have foundered when the first breaker roared down upon the
ship.

The boy ordered them to throw the first cord of birch-wood overboard,
billet by billet, one at a time and never two, and he did not let them
touch the other two cords. Now they obeyed him to the letter, and did
not laugh; but cast out the birch-wood billet by billet. When the last
billet fell they heard a groaning, as though some one were wrestling
with death, and then the squall had passed.

"Heaven be praised!" said the crew--and the captain added: "I am going
to let the company know that you saved ship and cargo."

"That's all very well, but we are not through yet," said the boy, "there
is worse to come," and he told them to reef every last rag, as well as
what had been left of the topsails. The second squall hit them with even
greater force than the first, and was so vicious and violent that the
whole crew was frightened. While it was at its worst, the boy told them
to throw overboard the second cord; and they threw it over billet by
billet, and took care not to take any from the third cord. When the last
billet fell, they again heard a deep groan, and then all was still. "Now
there will be one more squall, and that will be the worst," said the
boy, and sent every one to his station. There was not a hawser loose on
the whole ship.

The last squall hit them with far more force than either of the
preceding ones, the ship laid over on her side so that they thought she
would not right herself again, and the breaker swept over the deck.

But the boy told them to throw the last cord of wood overboard, billet
by billet, and no two billets at once. And when the last billet of wood
fell, they heard a deep groaning, as though some one were dying hard,
and when all was quiet once more, the whole sea was the color of blood,
as far as eye could reach.

When they reached land, the captain and the quartermasters spoke of
writing to their wives. "That is something you might just as well let
be," said the cabin-boy, "seeing that you no longer have any wives."

"What silly talk is this, young know-it-all! We have no wives?" said the
captain. "Or do you happen to have done away with them?" asked the
quartermasters.

"No, all of us together did away with them," answered the boy, and told
them what he had heard and seen that Sunday afternoon when he was on
watch on the ship; while the crew was ashore, and the captain was buying
his deckload of wood.

And when they sailed home they learned that their wives had disappeared
the day of the storm, and that since that time no one had seen or heard
anything more of them.


    NOTE

    A weird tale of the sea and of witches is that of "Storm Magic"
    (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I, p. 248. From the vicinity of
    Christiania, told by a sailor, Rasmus Olsen). In the "Fritjof
    Legend" the hero has a similar adventure at sea with two witches,
    who call up a tremendous storm. It would be interesting to know
    the inner context of the cabin-boy's counter magic, and why it is
    that the birch-wood, cast into the sea billet by billet, had the
    power to destroy the witches.




XII

THE FOUR-SHILLING PIECE


Once upon a time there was a poor woman, who lived in a wretched hut far
away from the village. She had but little to bite and less to burn, so
she sent her little boy to the forest to gather wood. He skipped and
leaped, and leaped and skipped, in order to keep warm, for it was a
cold, gray autumn day, and whenever he had gathered a root or a branch
to add to his bundle, he had to slap his arms against his shoulders, for
the cold made his hands as red as the whortleberry bushes over which he
walked. When he had filled his barrow, and was wandering homeward, he
crossed a field of stubble. There he saw lying a jagged white stone. "O,
you poor old stone, how white and pale you are! You must be freezing
terribly!" said the boy; took off his jacket, and laid it over the
stone. And when he came back home with his wood, his mother asked
him how it was that he was going around in the autumn cold in his
shirt-sleeves. He told her that he had seen a jagged old stone, quite
white and pale with the frost, and that he had given it his jacket. "You
fool," said the woman, "do you think a stone can freeze? And even if it
had chattered with frost, still, charity begins at home. Your clothes
cost enough as it is, even when you don't hang them on the stones out
in the field!"--and with that she drove the boy out again to fetch his
jacket. When he came to the stone, the stone had turned around, and had
raised itself from the ground on one side. "Yes, and I'm sure it is
because you have the jacket, poor fellow!" said the boy. But when he
looked more closely, there was a chest full of bright silver coins under
the stone. "That must be stolen money," thought the boy, "for no one
lays money honestly earned under stones in the wood." And he took the
chest, and carried it down to the pond nearby, and threw in the whole
pile of money. But a four-shilling piece was left swimming on the top
of the water. "Well, this one is honest, for whatever is honest will
float," said the boy. And he took the four-shilling piece and the jacket
home with him. He told his mother what had happened to him, that the
stone had turned around, and that he had found a chest full of silver
coins, and had thrown it into the pond because it was stolen money. "But
a four-shilling piece floated, and that I took along, because it was
honest," said the boy. "You are a fool," said the woman--for she was as
angry as could be--"if nothing were honest save what floats on the
water, there would be but little honesty left in the world. And if
the money had been stolen ten times over, still you had found it, and
charity begins at home. If you had kept the money, we might have passed
the rest of our lives in peace and comfort. But you are a dunderhead and
will stay a dunderhead, and I won't be tormented and burdened with you
any longer. Now you must get out and earn your own living."

So the boy had to go out into the wide world, and wandered about far
and near looking for service. But wherever he went people found him too
small or too weak, and said that they could make no use of him. At last
he came to a merchant. There they kept him to work in the kitchen, and
he had to fetch wood and water for the cook. When he had been there for
some time, the merchant decided to journey to far countries, and asked
all his servants what he should buy and bring back home for them.
After all had told him what they wanted, came the turn of the little
fellow who carried wood and water for the kitchen. He handed him his
four-shilling piece. "Well, and what am I to buy for it?" asked the
merchant. "It will not be a large purchase." "Buy whatever it will
bring, it is honest money, that I know," said the boy. His master
promised to do so, and sailed away.

Now when the merchant had discharged his cargo in foreign parts and had
reloaded, and had bought what his servants had desired, he went back to
his ship, and was about to shove off. Not until then did he remember
that the scullion had given him a four-shilling piece, with which to
buy him something. "Must I go up to the city again because of this
four-shilling piece? One only has one's troubles when one bothers with
such truck," thought the merchant. Then along came a woman with a bag on
her back. "What have you in your bag, granny?" asked the merchant. "O,
it is only a cat! I can feed her no longer, and so I want to throw her
into the sea in order to get rid of her," said the old woman. "The boy
told me to buy whatever I could get for the four-shilling piece," said
the merchant to himself, and asked the woman whether he could have her
cat for four shillings. The woman agreed without delay, and the bargain
was closed.

Now when the merchant had sailed on for a while, a terrible storm broke
loose, a thunderstorm without an equal, and he drifted and drifted, and
did not know where or whither. At last he came to a land where he had
never yet been, and went up into the city.

In the tavern which he entered the table was set, and at every place lay
a switch, one for each guest. This seemed strange to the merchant, for
he could not understand what was to be done with all the switches. Yet
he sat down and thought: "I will watch carefully, and see just what the
rest do with them, and then I can imitate them." Yes, and when the food
came on the table, then he knew why the switches were there: the place
was alive with thousands of mice, and all who were sitting at the table
had to work and fight and beat about them with their switches, and
nothing could be heard but the slapping of the switches, one worse than
the other. Sometimes people hit each other in the face, and then they
had to take time to say, "Excuse me!"

"Eating is hard work in this country," said the merchant. "How is it
the folk here have no cats?" "Cats?" said the people: they did not know
what they were. Then the merchant had the cat that he had bought for the
scullion brought, and when the cat went over the table, the mice had to
hurry into their holes, and not in the memory of man had the people been
able to eat in such comfort. Then they begged and implored the merchant
to sell them his cat. At last he said he would let them have her; but he
wanted a hundred dollars for her, and this they paid, and thanked him
kindly into the bargain.

Then the merchant sailed on, but no sooner had he reached the high seas
than he saw the cat sitting at the top of the main-mast. And immediately
after another storm and tempest arose, far worse than the first one, and
he drifted and drifted, till he came to a land where he had never yet
been. Again the merchant went to a tavern, and here, too, the table was
covered with switches; but they were much larger and longer than at the
place where he had first been. And they were much needed; for there were
a good many more mice, and they were twice the size of those he had
first seen.

Here he again sold his cat, and this time he received two hundred
dollars for her, and that without any haggling. But when he had sailed
off and was out at sea a way, there sat the cat up in the mast. And the
storm at once began again, and finally he was again driven to a land in
which he had never been. Again he turned in at a tavern, and there the
table was also covered with switches; but every switch was a yard and a
half long, and as thick as a small broom, and the people told him that
they knew of nothing more disagreeable than to sit down to eat, for
there were great, ugly rats by the thousand. Only with toil and trouble
could one manage to shove a bite of something into one's mouth once in a
while, so hard was it to defend oneself against the rats. Then the cat
was again brought from the ship, and now the people could eat in peace.
They begged and pleaded that the merchant sell them his cat; and for a
long time he refused; but at last he promised that they should have her
for three hundred dollars. And they paid him, and thanked him, and
blessed him into the bargain.

Now when the merchant was out at sea again, he considered how much the
boy had gained with the four-shilling piece he had given him. "Well, he
shall have some of the money," said the merchant to himself, "but not
all of it. For he has to thank me for the cat, which I bought for him,
and charity begins at home."

But while the merchant was thinking these thoughts, such a storm and
tempest arose that all thought the ship would sink. Then the merchant
realized that there was nothing left for him to do but to promise that
the boy should have all the money. No sooner had he made his vow, than
the weather turned fair, and he had a favoring wind for his journey
home. And when he landed, he gave the youth the six hundred dollars and
his daughter to boot. For now the scullion was as rich as the merchant
himself and richer, and thereafter he lived in splendor and happiness.
And he took in his mother and treated her kindly. "For I do not believe
that charity begins at home," said the youth.


    NOTE

    "The Honest Four-Shilling Piece" (Asbjörnsen and Moe, N.F.E.,
    p. 306, No. 59) stands for the idealization of childish simplicity
    and honesty, which after much travail, and despite the ill-will of
    the "experienced," comes into its deserved own.




XIII

THE MAGIC APPLES


Once upon a time there was a lad who was better off than all the others.
He was never short of money, for he had a purse which was never empty.
He never was short of food, for he had a table-cloth on which, as soon
as he spread it, he found all he wanted to eat and drink. And, besides,
he had a magic wishing cap. When he put it on he could wish himself
wherever he wanted, and there he would be that very moment.

There was only one thing that he lacked: he had no wife, and he was
gradually coming into the years when it would be necessary for him to
make haste.

As he was walking sadly along one fine day, it occurred to him to wish
himself where he would find the most beautiful princess in the world. No
sooner had he thought of it than he was there. And it was a land which
he had never yet seen, and a city in which he had never yet been. And
the king had a daughter, so handsome that he had never yet beheld her
like, and he wanted to have her on the spot. But she would have nothing
to do with him, and was very haughty.

Finally he despaired altogether, and was so beside himself that he could
no longer be where she was not. So he took his magic cap and wished
himself into the castle. He wanted to say good-by, so he said. And she
laid her hand in his. "I wish we were far beyond the end of the world!"
said the youth, and there they were. But the king's daughter wept, and
begged to be allowed to go home again. He could have all the gold and
silver in the castle in return. "I have money enough for myself," said
the youth, and he shook his purse so that money just rolled about. He
could sit down at the royal table and eat the finest food, and drink the
finest wines, said she. "I have enough to eat and drink myself," said
the youth. "See, you can sit down at the table," said he, and at once he
spread his table-cloth. And there stood a table covered with the best
one might wish; and the king himself ate no better.

After they had eaten, the king's daughter said: "O, do look at the
handsome apples up there on the tree! If you were really kind, you would
fetch me down a couple of them!" The youth was not lazy, and climbed up.
But he had forgotten his table-cloth and his purse, and these she took.
And while he was shaking down the apples his cap fell off. She at once
put it on and wished herself back in her own room, and there she was
that minute.

"You might have known it," said the youth to himself, and hurried down
the tree. He began to cry and did not know what to do. And as he was
sitting there, he sampled the apples which he had thrown down. No sooner
had he tried one than he had a strange feeling in his head, and when he
looked more closely, he had a pair of horns. "Well, now it can do me no
more harm," said he, and calmly went on eating the apples. But suddenly
the horns had disappeared, and he was as before. "Good enough!" said the
youth. And with that he put the apples in his pocket, and set out to
search for the king's daughter.

He went from city to city, and sailed from country to country; but it
was a long journey, and lasted a year and a day, and even longer.

But one day he got there after all. It was a Sunday, and he found out
that the king's daughter was at church. Then he sat himself down with
his apples before the church door, and pretended to be a peddler.
"Apples of Damascus! Apples of Damascus!" he cried. And sure enough, the
king's daughter came, and told her maidens to go and see what desirable
things the peddler from abroad might have to offer. Yes, he had apples
of Damascus. "What do the apples give one?" asked the maiden. "Wisdom
and beauty!" said the peddler, and the maiden bought.

When the king's daughter had eaten of the apples, she had a pair of
horns. And then there was such a wailing in the castle that it was
pitiful to hear. And the castle was hung with black, and in the whole
kingdom proclamation was made from all pulpits that whoever could help
the king's daughter should get her, and half the kingdom besides. Then
Tom, Dick and Harry, and the best physicians in the country came along.
But none of them could help the princess.

But one day a foreign doctor from afar came to court. He was not from
their country, he said, and had made the journey purposely just to try
his luck here. But he must see the king's daughter alone, said he, and
permission was granted him.

The king's daughter recognized him, and grew red and pale in turn. "If
I help you now, will you marry me?" asked the youth. Yes, indeed she
would. Then he gave her one of the magic apples, and her horns were only
half as large as before. "But I cannot do more until I have my cap,
and my table-cloth, and my purse back again," said he. So she went and
brought him the things. Then he gave her still another magic apple, and
now the horns were no more than tiny hornlets. "But now I cannot go on
until you have sworn that you will be true to me," said he. And she
swore that she would. And after she had eaten the third apple, her
forehead was quite smooth again, and she was even more beautiful than
in days gone by.

Then there was great joy in the castle. They prepared for the wedding
with baking and brewing, and invited people from East and West to come
to it. And they ate and drank, and were merry and of good cheer, and if
they have not stopped, they are merry and of good cheer to this very
day!


    NOTE

    "The Magic Apples" (_Norske Eventyr og Sagn_, optegnet av Sophus
    Bugge og Rikard Berge, Christiania, 1909, p. 61) is probably a
    somewhat original version of one of the cycles of tales in which
    people acquire asses' ears, long noses, humped backs and other
    adornments, through eating some enchanted fruit. The British Isles
    are believed to be the home-land of this tale, and it is thought
    to have emigrated to Scandinavia by way of France and Germany.




XIV

SELF DID IT


Once upon a time there was a mill, in which it was impossible to grind
flour, because such strange things kept happening there. But there was a
poor woman who was in urgent need of a little meal one evening, and she
asked whether they would not allow her to grind a little flour during
the night. "For heaven's sake," said the mill-owner, "that is quite
impossible! There are ghosts enough in the mill as it is." But the woman
said that she must grind a little; for she did not have a pinch of flour
in the house with which to make mush, and there was nothing for her
children to eat. So at last he allowed her to go to the mill at night
and grind some flour. When she came, she lit a fire under a big
tar-barrel that was standing there; got the mill going, sat down by the
fire, and began to knit. After a time a girl came in and nodded to her.
"Good evening!" said she to the woman. "Good evening!" said the woman;
kept her seat, and went on knitting. But then the girl who had come in
began to pull apart the fire on the hearth. The woman built it up again.

"What is your name?" asked the girl from underground.

"Self is my name," said the woman.

That seemed a curious name to the girl, and she once more began to pull
the fire apart. Then the woman grew angry and began to scold, and built
it all up again. Thus they went on for a good while; but at last, while
they were in the midst of their pulling apart and building up of the
fire, the woman upset the tar-barrel on the girl from underground. Then
the latter screamed and ran away, crying:

"Father, father! Self burned me!"

"Nonsense, if self did it, then self must suffer for it!" came the
answer from below the hill.


    NOTE.

    "Self Did It" (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I, p. 10. From the
    vicinity of Sandakar, told by a half-grown boy) belongs to the
    cycle of the Polyphemus fairy-tales, with a possible glimmer of
    the old belief that beings low in the mythological scale are most
    easily controlled by fire.




XV

THE MASTER GIRL


Once upon a time there was a king who had several sons; I do not just
know how many there were, but the youngest was not content at home,
and insisted on going out into the world to seek his fortune. And in
the end the king had to give him permission to do so. After he had
wandered for a few days, he came to a giant's castle, and took service
with the giant. In the morning the giant wanted to go off to herd his
goats, and when he started he told the king's son he was to clean the
stable in the meantime. "And when you are through with that, you need
do nothing more for to-day, for you might as well know that you have
come to a kind master," said he. "But you must do what you are told to
do conscientiously and, besides, you must not go into any of the rooms
that lie behind the one in which you slept last night, else your life
will pay the forfeit."

"He surely is a kind master," said the king's son to himself, walked up
and down the room, and whistled and sang; for, thought he, there would
be plenty of time to clean the stable. "But it would be nice to take a
look at the other room, there surely must be something in it that he is
alarmed about, since I am not so much as to take a look," thought he,
and went into the first room. There hung a kettle, and it was boiling,
but the king's son could find no fire beneath it. "What can there be in
it?" thought he, and dipped in a lock of his hair, and at once the hair
grew just like copper. "That's a fine soup, and whoever tastes it will
burn his mouth," said the youth, and went into the next room. There hung
another kettle that bubbled and boiled; but there was no fire beneath
it, either. "I must try this one, too," said the king's son, and again
he dipped in a lock of his hair and it grew just like silver. "We have
no such expensive soup at home," said the king's son, "but the main
thing is, how does it taste?" and with that he went into the third room.
And there hung still another kettle, a-boiling just like those in the
two other rooms, and the king's son wanted to try this one, too. He
dipped in a lock of his hair, and it came out like pure gold, and fairly
shimmered.

Then the king's son said: "Better and better! But if he cooks gold here,
I wonder what he cooks inside, there?" And he wanted to see, so he went
into the fourth room. Here there was no kettle to be seen; but a maiden
sat on a bench who must have been a king's daughter; yet whatever she
might be, the king's son had never seen any one so beautiful in all his
days. "Now in heaven's name, what are you doing here?" asked the maiden.
"I hired myself out here yesterday," said the king's son. "May God be
your aid, for it is a fine service you have chosen!" said she. "O, the
master is very friendly," said the king's son. "He has given me no hard
work to do to-day. When I have cleaned out the stable, I need do nothing
more." "Yes, but how are you going to manage it?" she went on. "If you
do as the others have done, then for every shovelful you pitch out, ten
fresh shovelfuls will fly in. But I'll tell you how to go about it. You
must turn around the shovel, and work with the handle, then everything
will fly out by itself."

This he would do, said the king's son; and he sat there with her all day
long, for they had soon agreed that they would marry, he and the king's
daughter, and in this way his first day in the giant's service did not
weary him at all. When evening came on, she told him that now he must
clean out the stable before the giant came, and when he got there he
thought he would try out her advice, and began to use the shovel as he
had seen his father's grooms use it. And sure enough, he had to stop
quickly, for after he had worked a little while, he hardly had room in
which to stand. Then he did as the king's daughter had told him, turned
the shovel around and used the handle. And in a wink the stable was as
clean as though it had been scrubbed. When he had finished he went
to the room that the giant had assigned him, and walked up and down,
whistling and singing. Then the giant came home with his goats. "Have
you cleaned out the stable?" he asked. "Yes, indeed, master, it is
spick and span," said the king's son. "I'll have to see that," said the
giant, and went into the stable; but it was just as the king's son had
said. "You surely have been talking to the Master Girl, for you could
not have done that alone," said the giant. "Master Girl? What is a
Master Girl?" said the king's son, and pretended to be very stupid. "I'd
like to see her, too." "You will see her in plenty of time," said the
giant.

The next morning the giant went off again with his goats. And he told
the king's son he was to fetch his horse from the pasture, and when he
had done this, he might rest: "For you have come to a kind master," said
he. "But if you enter one of the rooms which I forbade you entering
yesterday, I will tear off your head," he said, and went away with his
herd. "Indeed, you are a kind master," said the king's son, "but in
spite of it I'd like to have another little talk with the Master Girl,
for she is just as much mine as yours," and with that he went in to her.
She asked him what work he had to do that day. "O, it is not so bad
to-day," said the king's son. "I am only to fetch his horse from the
pasture." "And how are you going to manage that?" asked the Master Girl.
"Surely it is no great feat to fetch a horse from pasture," said the
king's son, "and I have ridden swift horses before." "Yet it is not an
easy matter to ride this horse home," said the Master Girl, "but I will
tell you how to set about it: When you see the horse, he will come
running up, breathing fire and flame, just as though he were a burning
pine-torch. Then you must take the bit that is hanging here on the door,
and throw it into his mouth, for then he will grow so tame that you can
do what you will with him." He would take good note of it, said the
king's son, and he sat there with the Master Girl the whole day long,
and they chatted and talked about this and that, but mainly about how
delightful it would be, and what a pleasant time they could have, if
they could only marry and get away from the giant. And the king's son
would have forgotten the pasture and the horse altogether, had not the
Master Girl reminded him of them toward evening. He took the bit that
hung in the corner, hurried out to the pasture, and the horse at once
ran up, breathing fire and flame; but he seized the moment when he came
running up to him with his jaws wide open, and threw the bit into his
mouth. Then he stood still, as gentle as a young lamb, and he had no
trouble bringing him to the stable. Then he went to his room again, and
began to whistle and sing. In the evening the giant came home with his
goats. "Did you fetch the horse?" he asked. "Yes, master," said the
king's son. "It would make a fine saddle-horse, but I just took it
straight to the stable." "I'll have to see that," said the giant, and
went into the stable. But there stood the horse, just as the king's son
had said. "You surely must have spoken to my Master Girl, for you
could not have done that alone," said the giant. "Yesterday the master
chattered about the Master Girl, and to-day he is talking about her
again. I wish master would show me the creature, for I surely would like
to see her," said the king's son, and pretended to be very simple and
stupid. "You will get to see her in plenty of time," said the giant.

On the third morning the giant went off again with his goats. "To-day
you must go to the devil, and fetch me his tribute," said he to the
king's son. "When you have done that, you may rest for the remainder of
the time, for you have come to a kind master, and you might as well know
it," and with that he went off. "You may be a kind master," said the
king's son; "yet you hand over some pretty mean jobs to me in spite of
it, but I think I'll look after your Master Girl a bit. You claim that
she belongs to you, but perhaps, in spite of it, she may tell me what to
do," and with that he went in to her. And when the Master Girl asked him
what the giant had given him to do that day, he told her he must go to
the devil and fetch a tribute. "But how will you go about it?" asked the
Master Girl. "You will have to tell me that," said the king's son, "for
I have never been to the devil's place, and even though I knew the way
there, I still would not know how much to ask for." "I will tell you
what you must do," said the Master Girl. "You must go to the rock behind
the pasture, and take the club that is lying there, and strike the rock
with it. Then one will come out whose eyes flash fire, and you must tell
him your business. And if he asks how much you want, you must tell him
as much as you can carry." He would take good note of it, said the
king's son, and he sat there with the Master Girl all day long until
evening, and he might be sitting there yet, if the Master Girl had not
reminded him that he must still go to the devil about the tribute before
the giant came home. So he set out, and did exactly as the Master Girl
had told him: he went to the rock, took the club and beat against it.
Then one came out from whose eyes and nose the sparks flew. "What do you
want?" he asked. "The giant has sent me to fetch his tribute," said the
king's son. "How much do you want?" the other again inquired. "I never
ask for more than I can carry," was the reply of the king's son. "It is
lucky for you that you did not ask for a whole ton at once," said the
one on the hill. "But come in with me, and wait a while." This the
king's son did, and saw a great deal of gold and silver lying in the
hill like dead rock in an ore-pile. Then as much as he could carry was
packed up, and with it he went his way. When the giant came home in
the evening with his goats, the king's son was running about the room,
whistling and singing as on the two preceding evenings. "Did you go to
the devil for the tribute?" asked the giant. "Yes, indeed, master," said
the king's son. "Where did you put it?" asked the giant again. "I stood
the sack of gold outside on the bench," was the reply. "I must see that
at once," said the giant, and went over to the bench. But the sack was
really standing there, and it was so full that the gold and silver
rolled right out when the giant loosened the string. "You surely must
have spoken to my Master Girl," said the giant. "If that is the case I
will tear your head off." "With your Master Girl?" said the king's
son. "Yesterday master talked about that Master Girl, and to-day he is
talking about her again, and the day before yesterday he talked about
her, too! I only wish that I might get the chance to see her sometime!"
said he. "Well, just wait until to-morrow," said the giant, "and then I
will lead you to her myself," he said. "A thousand thanks, master," said
the king's son, "but I think you are only joking!" The following day the
giant took him to the Master Girl.

"Now you must slaughter him, and cook him in the big kettle, you know
which one I mean. And when the soup is ready, you can call me," said the
giant, and he lay down on the bench to sleep, and at once began to snore
so that the hills shook. Then the Master Girl took a knife, and cut the
youth's little finger, and let three drops of blood fall on the bench.
Then she took all the old rags, and old shoes and other rubbish she
could find, and threw them all into the kettle. And then she took a
chest of gold-dust, and a lick-stone, and a bottle of water that hung
over the door, and a golden apple, and two golden hens, and left the
giant's castle together with the king's son as quickly as possible.
After a time they came to the sea, and they sailed across; though where
they got the ship I do not exactly know.

Now when the giant had been sleeping quite a while, he began to stretch
himself on his bench. "Is dinner ready yet?" he asked. "Just begun!"
said the first drop of blood on the bench. Then the giant turned
around, went to sleep again, and went on sleeping for quite some time.
Then he again turned around a little. "Is dinner not ready yet?" he
said, but did not open his eyes--nor had he done so the first time--for
he was still half asleep. "It is half ready!" called out the second drop
of blood, and then the giant thought it was the Master Girl. He turned
around on the bench and took another nap. After he had slept a couple of
hours longer, he once more began to move about and stretch: "Is dinner
still not ready?" said he. "Ready!" answered the third drop of blood.
The giant sat up and rubbed his eyes. But he could not see who had
called him, and so he called out to the Master Girl. But no one answered
him. "O, I suppose she has gone out for a little," thought the giant,
and he dipped his spoon in the kettle to try the dinner; but there was
nothing but leather soles and rags and like rubbish cooked together, and
he did not know whether it were mush or porridge. When he noticed this
he began to see a light, and realize how matters had come to pass, and
he grew so angry that he hardly knew what to do, and made after the
king's son and the Master Girl in flying haste. In a short time he came
to the sea, and could not cross. "But I know how to help myself," said
he. "I will fetch my sea-sucker." So the sea-sucker came, and lay down
and took two or three swallows, and thus lowered the water so that the
giant could see the king's son and the Master Girl out on the ship. "Now
you must throw the lick-stone overboard," said the Master Girl, and the
king's son did so. It turned into a tremendous large rock square across
the sea, and the giant could not get over, and the sea-sucker could
drink up no more of the sea. "I know quite well what I must do," said
the giant. "I must now fetch my hill-borer." So the hill-borer came, and
bored a hole through the rock, so the sea-sucker could get through and
keep on sucking. But no sooner were they thus far than the Master Girl
told the king's son to pour a drop or so of the bottle overboard, and
the sea grew so full that they had landed before the sea-sucker could so
much as take a single swallow.

Now they wanted to go home to the father of the king's son; but he would
not hear of the Master Girl's going afoot, since he did not think this
fitting for either of them. "Wait here a little while, until I fetch the
seven horses that stand in my father's stable," said the king's son. "It
is not far, and I will soon be back; for I will not have my bride come
marching home afoot." "No, do not do so, for when you get home to the
castle you will forget me, I know that positively," said the Master
Girl. "How could I forget you?" said the king's son. "We have passed
through so many hardships together, and we love each other so dearly,"
said he. He wanted to fetch the coach and seven horses at all costs, and
she was to wait by the seashore. So at last the Master Girl had to give
in.

"But when you get there, you must not take time to greet a single
person. You must at once go to the stable, harness the horses, and drive
back as swiftly as you can. They will all come to meet you, but you
must act as though you did not see them, and must not take a single bite
to eat. If you do not do that, you will make both of us unhappy," said
she. And he promised to do as she had said.

But when he got home to the castle, one of his brothers was just getting
married, and the bride and all the guests were already there. They all
crowded around him and asked him this, and asked him that, and wanted to
lead him in. But he acted as though he saw none of them, led out the
horses, and began to put them to the coach. And since they could by no
manner of means induce him to come into the castle, they came out with
again. What th' deuce d'ye mean by shouting at me as if I were a drunken
deck-hand! Speak to me above a whisper now--and you'll see what'll
happen to you. That's the police-boat pulling past."

The opportune plash of oars had suggested to him that plausible threat.
Captain Dove, listening intently, crouched back against the bulkhead,
his blinking, hot, suspicious eyes on Slyne's. The boat passed on. But
he had found time to observe that Slyne was in evening dress, with an
expensive fur coat to keep the cold out. And Slyne's cool contempt for
his ill-temper would seem to have impressed him no less than Slyne's air
of solid prosperity.

He himself, it appeared, had had care and adversity for his companions
ever since parting with his former friend. His chief aim in calling at
Genoa had been cheap coal and cheaper repairs, and he thought that he
was less likely to be recognised there than elsewhere in the
Mediterranean. But coal, he had found, had risen to a ruinous price in
consequence of a recent strike among the miners in England; and for even
the most trifling repairs he would have to wait at least a week, because
the dock-yard people were already working over-time to make way for a
man-of-war. Credit of any sort was not to be had. His portage-bill bade
fair to swamp his insufficient cash resources--even although three of
his now scanty crew had already deserted. And who could foretell what
might happen to him if they should get wagging their tongues too freely
in some wine-shop ashore! While, as if for climax, the Customs'
authorities had been displaying a most suspicious interest in him and
his ship. Under such circumstances, even a saint might have been
pardoned, as he pointed out, for showing a temper something short of
seraphic.

"And you've been doing me good turns--by your way of it--for some time
past," he continued, in a stifled, vehement whisper lest his voice
should still reach the receding boat. "Though--" He waved a claw-like
hand about him, words again failing him to describe adequately his
sufferings in consequence, as who should say, "See the result for
yourself."

Slyne sat down on the sofa opposite him, not even condescending to
glance, in response to that invitation, round the squalid,
poverty-stricken little cabin. "Never mind about some time past," he
advised, more pacifically. "You'll never get rich quick yesterday.
To-day's when _I'm_ going to make my pile. And I meant to let you in--"

"To another hole," Captain Dove concluded sceptically. "I only wish
you'd show me some sure way out of the one I'm in."

Slyne looked his annoyance at that further interruption, and made as if
to rise, but did no more than draw his gold cigarette-case from its
pocket. He knew that Captain Dove was merely trying to aggravate him,
and it would not have been politic to stray from the matter in hand. He
lighted a cigarette at his leisure and waited for what should come next.
He had changed his mind as to taking the old man fully into his
confidence. He thought he could see his way to get all he wanted for a
very great deal less than that might have cost him.

"Want a drink?" Captain Dove demanded, no doubt with the idea that a
dose of spirit might serve to stir up his visitor's temper, and looked
surprised at Slyne's curt head-shake, still more surprised over his
response.

"I can't afford to drink at all hours of the day and night now," said
Slyne austerely. "That sort of thing was all very well at sea, but--The
business I have in hand isn't of the sort that can be carried out on raw
brandy. And you'll have to taper off too, if you want to come in."

"Strike--me--sky-blue!" exclaimed the old man, and Slyne held up a
reproving hand.

"I can do with a good deal less of your bad language into the bargain,"
he mentioned coldly, "if you don't mind. In short, I want you to
understand from the start that you've got to behave as if you were a
reasonable human being and not a dangerous lunatic, or--I'll leave you
to rot, in the hole you've got yourself into."

Captain Dove, scarcely able to credit the evidence of his own ears but,
none the less, apparently, thinking hard, darted a very ugly glance at
him, and noticed the diamonds in his shirt-front. Under the strongest
temptation to call in a couple of deck-hands and have him thrown off the
ship, Captain Dove obviously paused to consider whether those could be
of any intrinsic value. He was, of course, satisfied that he knew
exactly how much--or, rather, how little money Slyne had had in his
pockets when he went ashore. And, if Slyne had already, within four and
twenty hours, been able to turn that over at a profit sufficient to
provide himself with a fur coat and diamonds, it might perhaps pay
Captain Dove to hear what he had to propose. Slyne, reading all the old
man's thoughts, could see that he had decided to temporise.

"But, I can do with a damn sight less of _your_ back-chat!" rumbled
Captain Dove, not to be put down without protest. "If you've come back
on board to offer me a founder's share in any new gold-brick factory,
fire straight ahead--and be short about it. It'll save time, too, if
you'll take it from me again that I'd rather have your room than your
company."

And at that, Slyne made his next considered move.

"All right," he said in a tone of the most utter contempt. "That's
enough. I'm off.

"I came back to do you a good turn--although few men, in my position,
would ever have looked near you again," he paused in the doorway to
remark acridly. "But I can see now what's the matter with you--and I
only wish I had noticed it in time to save myself all it has cost me.
It's senile decay you're suffering from. You're far too old to be of any
more use--even to yourself. You're in your dotage, and you'll soon be in
an asylum--for pauper lunatics!"

He had evidently lost his own temper at last. And Captain Dove was
visibly pleased with that result of his tactics; as a rule he was better
able to cope with Slyne on a basis of mutual abuse, heated on both
sides; Slyne cool and collected had him at a disadvantage.

"Now you're talking!" he retorted approvingly. "Say what's in your mind,
straightforwardly, and we'll soon come to an understanding. Sit down
again, you strutting peacock! and tell me what it is you want."

Slyne did not sit down again, however; to do so would scarcely have been
dignified. He stayed in the doorway, silent, a thin stream of
cigarette-smoke slowly filtering from his nostrils. His cold,
calculating eyes were once more on Captain Dove's. And it was Captain
Dove's would-be mocking glance that at length gave way.

"You offered to give me Sallie, if I paid you a hundred thousand
dollars," said Slyne, judicially.

"To see you safely married to her," Captain Dove corrected him.

Slyne nodded, in grave assent.

"Well, I'm going to hold you to your offer," said he. "The money's ready
and waiting for you--just as soon as we can settle a few trifling
formalities. I have Sallie's promise to marry me--"

"The devil you have!" said Captain Dove, not slow to seize opportunity
either. "I thought I heard her say--"

Slyne's face darkened again. "And, if you'll come ashore with me now,"
he went on, controlling his temper, "I'll prove to you that your money
is perfectly safe."

Captain Dove lay back in his bunk and laughed, most discordantly. He
laughed till his red-rimmed eyes were adrip, while Slyne sat looking at
him. He was still laughing when Slyne rose and, flicking the
cigarette-end from between two nicotine-stained fingers, began to button
his coat. He stopped laughing then, by calculated degrees.

"Sit down--sit down!" said he wheezily. "What's your hurry? You haven't
told me yet what those few 'trifling formalities' are. And how am I to
know whether--"

But Slyne was already beyond the doorway, fumbling with a last button.

"If you believe I've come here to talk simply for the sake of talking,"
said he with sombre magnificence, "I needn't waste any more breath on
you. Good-bye."

Captain Dove jumped out of his bunk. He was clearly impressed, in spite
of himself, by the other's indomitable assurance.

"Come back, you fool!" he called angrily. "Come back. I want to know--

"I'll go ashore with you," he shouted, raising his voice, since Slyne
was already on his way to the gangway. But Slyne did not seem to hear.

"I'll take your offer--for Sallie," cried Captain Dove, in a slightly
lower tone.

Slyne hesitated in his stride, stopped, and turned back into the
alleyway which led to the saloon.

"What was that you said?" he demanded of Captain Dove.

"Come on inside," requested Captain Dove, more curtly.

"I don't believe I will," Slyne declared, inwardly elated over the
winning of that somewhat risky move. "You don't deserve another chance.
And, if I do give you another, you needn't suppose--"

"Come on inside," begged Captain Dove, shivering, in no case to listen
to any lecture. "Come on, and we'll talk sense. Don't waste any more
good time."

Slyne followed him in again, congratulating himself on his firmness. He
felt that he had gained the whip-hand of the old man, and he meant to
keep it. He curtly refused again Captain Dove's more hospitable offer of
some refreshment, and, while his aggrieved host was clumsily getting
into some warmer clothing, talked to him from the saloon through the
open doorway of his cramped sleeping-quarters. It was easier to arrange
matters so than under Captain Dove's direct observation.

"You'll pay me cash, of course," Captain Dove stipulated, as though he
had been bargaining about a charter-party.

"I'll pay you cash," Slyne agreed, "the day Sallie marries me. And
meantime I'll give you my note of hand at thirty days for the money." He
listened intently, but Captain Dove, struggling fretfully with
refractory buttons, maintained an ominous silence.

"I'll have it backed by a London lawyer, to keep you safe," said Slyne.
"And listen! I'm not asking you to risk anything, or even to take my
note at its face value. I want you to come ashore with me and find out
for yourself from my lawyer that you can depend on the money. If you
don't feel satisfied about that after you've seen him, you needn't go
any farther, we'll call the bargain off; you can get back on board your
ship at once and no harm done.

"And, even as regards Sallie, I'm going out of my way to keep you right.
I'd give a great deal to get married at once, but--I'm willing to wait
till the day I can hand you your hundred thousand in cash. Everything's
fair, square, and above-board now. I'm not asking you to risk anything.

"And where in the wide world can you expect to do better for yourself!"
he argued. "If you go East you'll get no more for the girl--and look at
the expense! You'll be sorry all the rest of your life, too, for I know
you'd far sooner see her decently settled than sell her to any dog-faced
son-of-a-gun of a mandarin!

"You can say what you like," he concluded, although Captain Dove had
said never a word. "Clean money's pleasanter to spend than dirty, any
day. If I had been born wealthy, I'd never have needed to touch a marked
card. And now's your chance, too, to pull out of a rotten rut that'll
sooner or later land you among the chain-gang."

Captain Dove came forth from his cabin, indifferently clad, and eyed
Slyne with a sarcastic interest which somewhat disconcerted that
homilist.

"You don't _look_ just like a Band o' Hope!" said the old man, "but--"

Slyne rose again, and bit his lip, in simulated impatience. "Oh, all
right," said he. "If you're not interested--"

Captain Dove scowled at him. "I'm interested," he said grudgingly. "I'll
see this lawyer-fellow of yours whenever you like to bring him aboard,
and--if the money's there, you can count me in."

"He isn't the sort of lawyer you've been accustomed to, Dove," said
Slyne. "You've got to go to him."

Captain Dove did his best to out-stare him, but failed.

"And what's more," said Slyne, playing a trump card with great outward
indifference, "you can make him pay you for your time instead of you
paying him. I told you I came back here to do you a good turn. There's
more than a hundred thousand dollars of easy money for you in this
deal--if you go the right way about it.

"But--don't take my word for anything."

Captain Dove had palpable difficulty in suppressing the obvious repartee
to that last bit of advice. But cupidity and cunning kept him quiet for
a space.

"All right. I'll go with you," he agreed very gruffly at last. And Slyne
heaved a silent sigh of relief; he had feared more than once that the
contest of wills would after all go against him.

"You're wise," he commented carelessly. "It will pay you.

"You'd better see Sallie now, don't you think, and tell her--"

"I'm not going to interfere between you and her--till I get my money
from you," declared the old man with a crafty grin. "You must tackle her
yourself. She'll be up by now, but breakfast won't be ready for half an
hour. If I were you I'd take that coat off and let her have a sight of
those diamonds of yours."

Slyne did not wait to hear any more. He was already on his way aft, a
somewhat incongruous figure on the decks of the _Olive Branch_. When he
reached the companion-hatch on the poop he was smiling sardonically.

"I do believe it was my 'diamonds' that finally fetched that old
ruffian," said he to himself. "If they have the same effect on Sallie, I
won't grudge the few francs I paid for them!"

He tiptoed down the short stairway, and, having tapped very quietly at
the door of the after-saloon, entered without more ado. He judged that
he might have difficulty in gaining admission if he delayed to ask
leave.

The saloon was empty. But from an adjoining cabin came the sound of
splashing, and from its neighbour the shuffle of heavy feet, a faint
suggestion of deft hands busy among crisp muslin and sibilant silk.

Slyne hesitated; he wanted to be very tactful and yet was unwilling to
give up the advantage he had thus gained. He closed the door carefully
behind him. It creaked a little.

From the room whence had come the rustle of feminine garments an
uncanny-looking figure appeared, and darted an angry, apprehensive
glance about the saloon. The sound of splashing had ceased.

"'Morning, Ambrizette," said Slyne briskly and standing his ground. "Is
your mistress up yet? Tell her I have Captain Dove's leave to pay her a
call."

The dumb black dwarf's scowl grew darker, but her hand fell away from
her breast and she halted as Sallie's voice sounded from within.

"Is that you, Jasper!" it ejaculated. "What do you want? I thought--"

"I've come back--with good news for you, Sallie--wonderful news!" said
Slyne. "And I'm in no end of a hurry to be off again. Call Ambrizette in
and get dressed, as quick as you can. Captain Dove's waiting breakfast
for me and I mustn't delay him. How long will you be?"

"What sort of news is it?" asked Sallie, no less dubious than her maid
had been; and called her maid in, notwithstanding her well-founded
doubts as to the nature of any news he could bring. For Slyne had held
out to her the same lure that the serpent offered to Eve, and her
womanly curiosity would not allow her to order him at once from her
domain.

Slyne smiled slightly as he sat down in a basket-chair, to look about
him while she was still busy within. The little after-saloon which had
been her home for so long was finely furnished; more so, perhaps, than
was apparent to Slyne, whose taste in that respect inclined to the
florid. But he could not help noticing how dainty and neat and feminine
was its entire effect, with its cushioned cosy corners, snow-white
curtains and draperies. Its purely fragrant atmosphere stirred even
Slyne's conscience a little.

He lay back in his seat, and, gazing about him, recalled to mind all he
had been able to learn as to Sallie's strange past. It all fitted in so
perfectly with the fabric of his wonderful new plans that he could find
no possible flaw in them. And when Sallie herself at length came out to
him from her cabin, he was optimistically disposed to be very generous
in his dealings with her.

Fresh from her bath and doubly bewitching in her clinging, intimate
draperies, she met Slyne's glad, eager glance with grave, doubtful eyes,
and ignored entirely the hand he held out to her as he sprang from his
chair. But he affected not to notice her attitude of distrust, and,
greeting her gaily, saved his face by laying his outstretched hand on
another chair, which he set a little nearer his own.

"Won't you sit down?" he suggested with debonair courtesy.

But she shook her head; she was evidently afraid to receive him on any
such friendly footing. She did not even care to ask him what he was
doing in evening dress at breakfast-time and on board the _Olive
Branch_. But in her troubled eyes he could read that unspoken inquiry.

"I've been travelling all night to get back to you, Sallie," he told
her, in a low, eager tone, "and I hadn't time to change--I was in such a
hurry to tell you the news. I've come to take you away from the _Olive
Branch_,--and Captain Dove. I've come to set you free."

She stared at him as though she had not heard aright, her lips parted,
her eyebrows arched, a faint, puzzled, questioning frown on her
forehead.

"I've come to set you free," he said again.

"At what price?" she asked suddenly, with disconcerting directness, and
his would-be straightforward glance wavered.

"Don't put it that way!" he urged. "I ask no more than the fulfilment of
the promise you made me. And--listen, Sallie. I've found out who you
really are and where your home is. I'll take you there if only you--

"I'm not asking you to marry me right away, either, remember. All you
must do in the meantime is to sign without question some papers that
will be required. Then I'll make everything quite safe for you and take
you to your own home."

The quick doubt in her eyes had given place to an expression of helpless
amazement and growing dismay. But he did not wait to hear anything she
might have to say.

"It's like this, you see," he went on hurriedly. "Captain Dove's
absolutely at the end of his wits for money, and now--I can pay him his
price for you if you'll keep your promise to me by and by. Otherwise I
can't; no matter how willing I might be, I can't, I swear to you.

"He feels, too, that you owe it to him to make up in one way or another
for some part at least of what he and I have lost through your--your
interfering so much lately in his affairs. And, if you don't back me up
now, he'll have to take the _Olive Branch_ East as best he can. He'll
take you too, and--you'll never come back.

"You don't understand. I'm not really trying to force you to marry me,
but to save you from a fate far worse than the worst you could imagine.
You don't understand that it's really freedom I'm offering you, and that
your only option is slavery.

"You'd rather have a white man--even me!--for your husband, wouldn't
you? than a yellow one--or brown--or maybe black!"




CHAPTER XIII

A MASTERSTROKE


Sallie sat down quickly in a cushioned chair, and lay back, trembling
like a captured bird.

Slyne was not beyond feeling somewhat ashamed of himself, but found easy
solace in the reflection that all he had said was for her good as well
as his own. He could see that his last brutal argument had struck home.
For Sallie could no longer doubt, now, in the lurid light of her recent
experiences, that Captain Dove looked upon her as a mere chattel, to be
turned into cash as soon as occasion should offer.

In a little she looked up at him again out of pleading, desperate eyes.
Some most unusual impulse of pity stirred him. She was only a young girl
yet, and her helplessness spoke its own appeal, even to him. He made up
his mind again, quite apart from any question of policy, to deal with
her as generously as might be practicable.

"Will Captain Dove let me go now if I promise to marry you, Jasper?" she
asked. And he nodded solemnly.

"And not unless I do?" she insisted. "You _know_ I didn't--before,
although you say I did."

"I swear to God, Sallie," he declared, "that I can't raise the money the
Old Man wants any other way. And--I won't say another word about what's
past and done with.

"If you'll really promise to marry me," he said eagerly, "I'll prove to
you that all I have told you is true before you need even leave Captain
Dove; I won't ask you to go a step farther with me until you're
perfectly satisfied; I'll take you safely to your own home as soon as
you _are_ satisfied that you can trust me. And I won't ask you to keep
your promise till--"

An irrepressible light of longing had leaped up behind the despair in
her eyes.

"You say that all I must do in the meantime is to sign some papers," she
interrupted. "You say you won't ask me to marry you right away. Will you
wait--a year?"

"A year! I couldn't, Sallie!" he cried, and her pale lips drooped
piteously again.

"How long, then?" she asked in a whisper. "Six months?"

He had made up his mind to be generous, and he felt that he had not
failed in his intention as he answered, "Three months, and not a day
longer, Sallie."

She sat still and silent for a while, considering that, and then, "All
right, Jasper," she agreed. "Take me safe home, and I'll marry you three
months from the day we get there--if we're both alive when the time
comes."

He turned away from her for a moment. He had won all he wanted in the
meantime, and he could scarcely contain himself. When he presently held
out a hand to her, she took it, to bind that bargain.

"And you won't have any cause to regret it, Sallie," he assured her, his
voice somewhat hoarse in spite of his effort to speak quite naturally.

"So now, as soon as you're ready, we'll all go ashore together, and--"

"I'll be ready in twenty minutes," she told him, clasping her hands at
her heart, her eyes very eager. "And, Jasper--you must let me take
Ambrizette with me."

"You're free now to do as you like," he answered, and left her. He felt
as if he were treading on air on his way back to the mid-ship saloon.

Captain Dove, in the same _négligé_ costume, was busy at breakfast when
Slyne walked in upon him again, but looked up from his plate for long
enough to mumble a malicious question.

"Yes, I've fixed it all up with her," Slyne answered with assumed
nonchalance. "You can always trust me to know how to handle a woman,
Dove."

Captain Dove shot a derisive glance in his direction. "Is she willing to
marry you after all, then?" he demanded, feigning a surprise by no means
complimentary.

"Not just at once, of course," returned his companion, and left the old
man to infer whatever he pleased.

In response to a shouted order of Captain Dove's a slatternly
cook-steward brought Slyne a steaming platter of beans with a bit of
bacon-rind on top, and an enamelled mug containing a brew which might,
by courtesy, have been called coffee. There was a tray of broken ship's
biscuits, a tin containing some peculiarly rank substitute for butter,
upon the table, with the other equally uninviting concomitants of a
meagre meal.

"_Tchk-tchk!_" commented Slyne, and sat down to satisfy his hunger as
best he might; while Captain Dove, having overheard that criticism, eyed
him inimically, and proceeded to puff a peculiarly rank cigar in his
face.

"You might as well be getting dressed now," said Slyne indifferently.
"By the time I'm through here, Sallie will be ready to go ashore."

Captain Dove looked very fiercely at him, but without effect.

"Sallie won't stir a step from the ship," the old man affirmed, "till
you've handed over the cash."

Slyne looked up, in mild surprise.

"But, dear me! Dove," he remarked, "you don't expect that the London
lawyer's going to take my word for a girl he's never even seen? Until
he's satisfied on that point, he won't endorse my note to you. So we've
_got_ to take her along with us. I'm doing my best to give you a square
deal; and all I ask in return is a square deal from you."

"You'd better not try any crooked games with me," growled Captain Dove,
and sat for a time sunk in obviously aggravating reflections.

"If we get on his soft side," suggested Slyne insidiously, "there's no
saying how much more we might both make."

Captain Dove rose and retired into his sleeping-cabin without further
words; while Slyne, picking out with a two-pronged fork the cleanest of
the beans on his plate, smiled sneeringly to himself.

"What's the latest long-shore fashion, Slyne?" the old man asked after
an interval. Slyne knew by his tone that he had dismissed dull care from
his mind and was prepared to be quarrelsome again.

"It wouldn't suit a figure like yours," he answered coolly, and was
gratified to hear another hoarse growl. For, strange though it may seem,
Captain Dove was not without vanity. "All you really need to worry about
is how to keep sober. And I want it to be understood from the start--"

"Not so much of it now!" snarled Captain Dove from his cabin. "You
attend to your own business--and I'll attend to mine. I know how to
behave myself--among gentlemen. And, don't you forget, either, that I'm
going ashore to play my own hand. I've a card or two up my sleeve,
Mister Slyne, that will maybe euchre your game for you--if you try to
bluff too high."

Slyne swore hotly, under his breath. He would have given a great deal to
know exactly what the old man meant by that mysterious threat, and only
knew that it would be useless to ask him. There was nothing for it but
to put up with his capricious humours, as patiently as might
be--although Slyne shivered in anticipation of the strain that might
entail--till he could be dispensed with or got rid of altogether.

Nor, as it presently appeared, were his fears at all ill-founded. For
Captain Dove emerged from his cabin got up for shore-going in a guise at
sight of which Slyne could by no means suppress an involuntary groan.

"I'm all ready now," Captain Dove announced. "Will you pay for a cab if
I call one?"

"My car's waiting," Slyne returned, and, as the old man whistled
amazedly over that further and unexpected proof that his former
accomplice's fortunes had changed for the better, "You look like a fool
in that outfit," said Slyne. "The right rig-out for motoring is a tweed
suit and a soft cap."

Captain Dove was very visibly annoyed. He had been at particular pains
to array himself properly. "You want to be the only swell in the party,
of course!" he grunted. "You're jealous, that's what's the matter with
you." And he fell to polishing his furry, old-fashioned top-hat with a
tail of the scanty, ill-fitting frock-coat he had donned along with a
noisome waistcoat in honour of the occasion.

Slyne shrugged his shoulders, despairingly, and, having made an end of
his unappetising meal, prepared for the road. Then he lighted a cigar
very much at his leisure, while Captain Dove regarded him grimly, and
led the way on deck without further words.

Sallie was ready and waiting at the companion-hatch on the poop, as
pretty as a picture in the sables Captain Dove had given her a year
before--after a very lucrative season of poaching on the Siberian coast.
As soon as she caught sight of them she came forward, followed by
Ambrizette, whose appearance, in cloak and turban, was even a worse
offence to Slyne's fastidious taste than Captain Dove's had been.

"What a calamitous circus!" he muttered between set teeth. "I must get
rid of those two somehow--and soon. But till then--

"My car's at the back of those coal-wagons there," he told Captain Dove
with great dignity, and Captain Dove turned to the engine-room hatch.

"Below there!" he called down. "Is that Mr. Brasse? I'm off now, Brasse.
You'll carry out all my instructions, eh? And--don't quarrel with Da
Costa, d'ye hear?"

"Ay, ay, sir," answered a dreary voice from the depths below, and
Captain Dove faced about again to find Sallie, flushed and anxious,
waiting with Ambrizette at the gangway.

"Come on," he ordered irascibly, and Sallie followed him down the
plank. Ambrizette shuffled fearfully after her, and Slyne came last, his
chin in the air, triumphant.

He led the way to his car, and was gratified to observe its salutary
effect on Captain Dove's somewhat contemptuous demeanour. The little
policeman in charge of it pending its opulent owner's return, came
forward, touching his képi, which further impressed Captain Dove,
uncomfortably. Slyne handed Sallie into the tonneau, and Ambrizette
after her, tossed the policeman a further tip which secured his
everlasting esteem, took his own seat at the wheel, and was hastily
followed by Captain Dove.

"Where are we bound for?" asked Captain Dove, holding his top-hat on
with both hands, as Slyne took the road toward Sampierdarena at a round
pace.

"Don't talk to the man at the wheel," answered Slyne, and laughed.
"We've a hundred miles or so ahead of us. Better chuck that old tile of
yours away and tie a handkerchief round your head; you'll find that less
uncomfortable."

The old man, at a loss for any more effective retort, pulled his
antiquated beaver down almost to his ears, folded his long arms across
the chest of his flapping frock-coat, and sat silent, scowling at the
baggy umbrella between his knees. Nor did he open his mouth again during
the swift journey.

But when they at length reached their destination and Slyne stopped the
car quietly before the imposing pile that forms the Hôtel de Paris,
Captain Dove's jaw dropped and his mouth opened mechanically.

A resplendent porter came hurrying forward and bowed most humbly to the
magnificent Slyne.

"Take this lady and her maid straight up to the suite next mine,"
ordered Slyne as Sallie alighted, while Captain Dove listened, all ears.
"And ask Mr. Jobling to join me in my sitting-room. He's still here, I
suppose?"

He gave vent to a heartfelt sigh of relief as the man, already preceding
his charges indoors, paused to answer in the affirmative.

"I needn't book a room for you," he told Captain Dove, with calculated
indifference. "But Sallie must have somewhere to leave Ambrizette.

"Hey! you. Call my chauffeur to take the car round to the garage."

Captain Dove followed him toward the bureau, attracting not a few
glances of mingled surprise and amusement from the elaborate idlers in
its neighbourhood. Slyne was furious.

"I can't have him tagging about after me in that ghastly get-up!" he
told himself on the way to the elevator; and cuffed the elevator-boy's
ears at the sound of a mirthful sneeze with which that unfortunate youth
had become afflicted. "Though how the deuce I'm to help myself I don't
know."

In the corridor at which they got out he caught sight of Mr. Jobling
approaching, and hurried Captain Dove into the sitting-room of his
suite.

"Give me five minutes to change my clothes," he requested of the old
man. "And don't get straying about, or you'll lose yourself."

Mr. Jobling met him on the threshold as he shut the door. That gentleman
had marvellously recovered from his over-night's nervous break-down. A
sound sleep, a visit from the barber, a bath and a liberal breakfast had
all helped to alter him outwardly and inwardly for the better. He was
once more the respectably prosperous, self-confident solicitor.

"I believe you've been out all night," he observed in a jocular tone of
reproof, a waggish forefinger uplifted.

"I've covered a couple of hundred miles in the car while you've been
asleep," answered Slyne, turning into his dressing-room. "I've brought
the girl back with me--and the old man, her guardian. We're going to
have trouble with him unless we're very careful. So listen, and I'll
tell you how things stand."

Mr. Jobling composed his features into their most professional aspect,
but that gave place by degrees to a variety of other expressions, while
Slyne, busy changing his clothes, related all he himself knew as to
Sallie's past history.

"And now the old man thinks he is entitled to put a price on her," Slyne
concluded. "She's promised to marry me, but he won't let her go till I
hand him a hundred thousand dollars."

Mr. Jobling lay back limply in his chair. In all his career he had
never, he asserted, heard a more scandalous suggestion.

"Never mind about that," Slyne cut him short. "The money's no object to
me. But you can understand what a difficult fellow he is to deal with.
And what I'm going to do, merely as a precaution against his playing us
false in the end, is to give him my note of hand for the amount he
demands, endorsed by you, and payable the day I marry his adopted
daughter."

Mr. Jobling sank still lower in his seat.

"In return for that," Slyne went on, "he must sign a clear deliverance
from any further claim on any of us, subject, of course, to due payment
of the note.

"Then, I want a document drawn up to confirm my engagement to the girl
and granting me the fullest possible power of attorney on her behalf
both before and after our marriage. She's so simple and inexperienced
that I must do everything for her.

"And, lastly, you'd better make out a brief private agreement between
yourself and me--just as a matter of form, you know--to the effect that
you are willing to act in my interests throughout, in return for a
commission of ten per cent. on the accumulated revenues of the Jura
estates at the date of my marriage."

Mr. Jobling looked at him for a time as a man suddenly bereft of his
spine might.

"There's no time to spare," Slyne mentioned. "I want all that sort of
thing settled right off the reel--before lunch.

"If the old man makes any kick about anything, you must back me up in
all I say. Although if he tries to raise his price by a few thousand
dollars, we needn't stick at that. The great thing is to get him to sign
the deliverance in return for our note. The girl has already agreed--"

"And what if _I_ refuse?" croaked his companion with the courage of
desperation. It was evident that Mr. Jobling saw through his daring
scheme. "What if I insist on my fair share? What if I--"

Slyne silenced him with a contemptuous gesture.

"Whatever you do will make no difference to anyone in the wide world but
yourself," said Slyne. "If you do what you're told you'll get a great
deal more than you deserve out of it. If you don't--D'ye think I'd have
taken you into the team if I didn't know how to drive you!" he asked,
his eyes beginning to blaze. "Why, my good fellow, if you refuse, if
you don't travel up to your collar, if you so much as shy at anything
you see or hear--I won't even hurt you; I'll just hand you over to the
police.

"So make up your mind now, quick!"

"You've nothing against me," quavered the lawyer.

"No, I've nothing--not very much, at least, yet," Slyne agreed, knotting
his tie neatly before the glass. "But--that may be because you haven't
embezzled any of my money--yet." He had most opportunely recalled what
the detective Dubois had told him about his new friend.

Mr. Jobling's face was almost green. He got up with an evident effort.

"I was only joking," he declared with a most ghastly grin. "I'll be
quite satisfied with ten per cent. of the accumulated income--in fact,
we'll call it a couple of hundred thousand pounds, if you like."

"All right," Slyne agreed imperturbably. "Make it that amount if you'd
rather. How long will it take you to get the papers drawn out? It's
nearly one o'clock. And--you won't be safe till they're signed."

"An hour," said Mr. Jobling. "I'm a quick writer."

"All right," Slyne repeated. "We'll lunch at two--after they're all
signed. So--off you go, and get busy."

The stout solicitor hurried away, cowed and obedient again, and Slyne,
very smart in an almost new flannel suit, rejoined Captain Dove.

"I'm _too_ fashionable, that's what's the matter with me!" declared
Captain Dove with sudden conviction at sight of him, and gazed very
bitterly at his own image in an inconvenient mirror.

"Never mind about that," Slyne advised soothingly. "It's not as if you
were staying here, you know. You'll be back on board your ship by
supper-time. And now, I must tell you how we've got to handle this
lawyer-fellow when he fetches in the raft of papers he'll want us all to
sign."

Captain Dove listened gloomily while he went on to explain, at
considerable length, and in his most convincing manner, that they must
match their combined wits against the lawyer's for their own profit.

"It's not that I don't trust him," said Slyne, "but--I'll feel more
secure after everything's settled in writing and signed. He can't go
back on us then."

"He'd better not!" Captain Dove commented. "I'll wring his neck for him
if he tries--"

"And, as for Sallie," Slyne cut him short, "I've made things quite--"

"Sallie will do whatever I tell her," growled Captain Dove. "And don't
you attempt to interfere between me and her--till you've paid me my
money, Slyne. Where is she? Fetch her in here."

Slyne had no farther to go to do that than to the next room, where he
found Sallie at the window, gazing pensively out at the sea. But he
delayed there for some time to make it still more clear to her that her
only hope of helping herself lay in abetting him blindly.

When he at length returned to his own sitting-room with her, he found
Captain Dove staring fixedly at another arrival there, an overwhelmingly
up-to-date if rather imbecile-looking young man, whose general
gorgeousness, combined with a very vacant, fish-like eye much magnified
by a monocle, had evidently reduced the would-be fashionable seaman to a
stricken silence.

Slyne, who had at first shot a most malevolent glance at the intruder,
was stepping forward to greet him just as Mr. Jobling put in an
appearance with a sheaf of papers in one hand.

"How d'ye do, Lord Ingoldsby?" said Slyne quite suavely to the young man
with the eye-glass. He had caught sight of Mr. Jobling in the doorway,
and turned to Sallie, his quick mind bent on a masterstroke.

"May I introduce to you the Marquis of Ingoldsby," he remarked to her in
the monotone of convention; and, as she bowed slightly in response to
that very modern young gentleman's ingratiating wriggle and grin, Slyne,
one eye on Captain Dove's astonished countenance, completed the
formality.

"This is Lady Josceline Justice," said he to his smirking lordship, and
breathed delicately into a somewhat extensive ear the further
information, "the late Earl of Jura's daughter, you know--and my
_fiancée_."




CHAPTER XIV

"SALLIE HARRIS"


Sallie's first startled impulse was to deny the new identity Slyne had
so glibly bestowed on her. It seemed too preposterous to be believable;
and she was very suspicious of him. A little flushed, more than a little
afraid, and yet in some sense convinced in spite of herself by the
outward and visible signs about her that all these strange happenings
must have at least some foundation of fact, she sought to read the
others' thoughts in their faces.

The Marquis of Ingoldsby was gaping at her, in open wonder and
admiration. Slyne's features wore a subdued expression of triumph, and
Captain Dove's a dazed, incredulous frown. Mr. Jobling was beaming about
him, so apparently satisfied with her, so respectably prosperous-looking
himself that her doubts as to Slyne's good faith began to give way. When
the lawyer was in turn presented to her and also addressed her by that
new name, she could scarcely disclaim it.

"You'll stay and have luncheon with us, Lord Ingoldsby?" Slyne remarked,
touching the bell; and his lordship left off gaping at Sallie to look
him over with all the solemn sagacity of a young owl in broad daylight.

"Er--all right," his lordship at length agreed. "Don't mind if I do.

"Though I have some--er--friends waitin' for me," he added as an
afterthought, "that I promised to take for a run in your car, if--"

"You'll have time enough after lunch," Slyne suggested, and drew the
noble marquis toward the window.

"The Marquis of Ingoldsby!" muttered Captain Dove. "A run in Slyne's
car! And--_Lady Josceline Justice!_" He dug his knuckles forcibly into
his blinking eyes, and, "I seem to be wide enough awake," said he in a
stage aside as several waiters arrived on the scene.

While they were setting the table Sallie tried to collect her thoughts.
Slyne had told her nothing till then, but that he had found out who her
folk were. And she had come away from the _Olive Branch_ blindly, only a
little less distrustful of him than of Captain Dove's cruel intentions
toward her if she had remained on board. Even now, she scarcely dared to
believe--

In response to a sign from Slyne she took her place at the flower-decked
table. The Marquis of Ingoldsby immediately settled himself at her side;
he also was obviously a young man who knew what he wanted, and meant to
have that at all hazards and, while the others were seating themselves,
he ogled her killingly.

Slyne had sat down at her other hand, leaving Mr. Jobling and Captain
Dove to keep one another company behind the great silver centre-piece
which adorned the circular table. The marquis, leaning on one elbow, had
turned his back on Mr. Jobling, and Slyne turned his on Captain Dove.

"This is a little bit of all right!" his lordship remarked to Sallie,
with a confidential grin. "Only--I wish--How is it that we haven't met
before, Lady Josephine? But never mind that. Let's be pals now. Shall
we, eh?"

"I don't know," Sallie answered at random and since he seemed to expect
some reply to that fatuity. She had met a good many men in her time, but
never one quite like this Lord Ingoldsby--who actually seemed anxious to
look and act like a cunning fool.

A waiter intervened between them. But his lordship waved that
functionary away.

"Do let's," he implored with child-like insistence. "It would be so
deevy to be pals with you. And I'm beastly dull here, all by myself,
don't y'know. So--

"Eh?" He glared at Slyne, who had bluntly interrupted his _tête-à-tête_.
"No, I _don't_ want any oysters--I told that waiter-chap so. And I
_don't_ know any 'lady of the camellias.' I can't imagine what you're
talkin' about at all, I'm sure."

"I saw her again last night, at the Casino," said Slyne, imperturbably,
and went on to entertain Sallie with a long if not over-truthful account
of his own over-night's doings there. So that, for all his lordship's
lack of manners, it was some time before that spoiled youth again
succeeded in monopolising her attention. At every turn Slyne was ready
to balk him, and, but for his native self-conceit coupled with a certain
blind obstinacy, he must very soon have understood what was perfectly
plain to Sallie, that he was there merely on sufferance, to serve some
purpose of Slyne's.

"Goin' to be here long, Lady Josephine?" he managed to break in at last.
Slyne had turned to give a departing waiter some order.

"I don't know," Sallie answered again, since she could say nothing else.

"Hope to goodness you are," declared his lordship. "Stay for a week or
two, anyhow: and,"--he lowered his voice to a husky whisper, leaning
toward her--"let _me_ trot you about a bit, eh? You'll maybe see more
than enough of _him_ by and by!" He indicated Slyne with an eloquent
elbow, and further expressed his sentiments by means of an ardent sigh.

Beyond the blossom-laden épergne, Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove, almost
cut off from other intercourse by that barrier, were exchanging coldly
critical glances. Neither seemed to be quite at his ease with the other,
and both had, of course, a great many urgent questions to put to Slyne
as soon as the Marquis of Ingoldsby should be gone. So that the
luncheon-party must have proved a very dull affair to them, and they
were no doubt glad when it was over.

Slyne signalled to Sallie as soon as coffee was served, and she rose to
leave the room. She was quite accustomed to being promptly dispensed
with whenever her company might have been inconvenient.

"Oh, I say!" protested Lord Ingoldsby. "You're not goin' yet, Lady J.
Half a mo'. Won't you come for a spin with me now that the car's mine?
Just say the word and I'll drop my other engagement. And then we could
dine at--"

"Lady Josceline will be engaged with her lawyer all afternoon," Slyne
cut him short with the utmost coolness, "and she's leaving Monte Carlo
again to-night."

The Marquis of Ingoldsby glowered at him.

"I'll see you in Paris, then, Lady J.," he went on, pointedly ignoring
Slyne, "or in London, at least, later on. Well, good-bye--if you must be
goin'."

He bowed her out of the room, and then, snatching up his hat and cane
with very visible annoyance, included the others in a curt nod of
farewell and made off himself.

He passed her before she had closed her own door--and would gladly have
paused there.

"You won't forget me, will you?" she heard him ask eagerly from behind
her. But she did not delay to answer that question.

A few minutes later, Slyne knocked at her door and entered, followed by
the other two men. He had brought with him the papers which Mr. Jobling
had prepared. Mr. Jobling carried an inkstand, and Captain Dove a
decanter of brandy. Slyne seated himself at the table and waved Sallie
back to her chair by the window.

"We're going to talk business for a few minutes," he told her, "and then
get everything settled in writing--to keep you safe.

"Fire ahead now, Dove. You want to know--"

"Is Sallie really--"

"_I_ don't know anyone of that name now. D'you mean Lady Josceline?"

Captain Dove glared at him, and then at the lawyer, and then at Sallie
herself.

"Is that really who I am now, Jasper?" she asked, a most wistful
inflection in her low voice.

"You needn't believe _me_," he answered her. "Ask Mr. Jobling. He'll
tell you."

Mr. Jobling coughed importantly. "I'll tell you all I know myself, Lady
Josceline," he promised her, and proceeded to repeat in part what he had
told Slyne on the terrace the night before concerning the Jura family,
but without a single word of the fortune awaiting the next of kin.
Captain Dove's face expressed the extreme of astonishment as he too sat
listening with the closest attention.

"That's as far as my present knowledge goes," the lawyer finished
blandly. "And now--I understand that Captain Dove is prepared to supply
the proof required in conclusion.

"How long have you known Lady Josceline, Captain Dove?"

Captain Dove frowned as if in deep thought, and Slyne looked very
crossly at him.

"About three quarters of an hour," the old man answered, and, glancing
at Slyne, chuckled hoarsely. "She's only been Lady Josceline for so
long."

Mr. Jobling nodded understanding and the creases on his fleshy forehead
disappeared again.

"And before that--?" he suggested, politely patient.

"Before that she was--what she still is so far's I'm concerned--Saleh
Harez, my adopted daughter."

"Sallie--_Harris!_" Mr. Jobling ejaculated. "Dear me! Did you say
Sallie--er--Harris?"

"I said Saleh Harez," affirmed Captain Dove, and filled the glass at his
elbow again. "But all that concerns you, so far's I can see, is that
I've known her ever since she was knee-high to me. I've been a father to
her all those years, and she's my adopted daughter. So now, you can take
it from me, Mr. Jobling, that I'm the joker, and both bowers too, in
this merry little game."

"Which makes it all the more unfortunate for you that you haven't a
single penny to stake on your hand," Slyne put in, while the lawyer
looked somewhat blankly from one to the other of them. "So--don't waste
any more time bluffing, but tell Jobling how you found Sal--Lady
Josceline."

Captain Dove darted a very evil look at his friendly adviser. "And what
if I refuse?" he asked.

Slyne almost smiled. "Why cut off your own nose to spite your face?" he
returned. "You won't refuse, because it would cost you a hundred
thousand dollars to do so."

Captain Dove stroked his chin contemplatively, and his face slowly
cleared.

"A hundred and fifty thousand, you mean," he said in a most malevolent
tone.

Slyne got up from the table as if in anger, and for some time the two
wrangled over that point, the stout solicitor gazing at them with
evident dismay, while Sallie awaited the upshot of it all with bated
breath. She knew it was over the price to be paid for her that they were
disputing, but that knowledge had ceased to be any novelty. The wrathful
voices of the two disputants seemed to come from a great distance. She
felt as if the whole affair were a dream from which she might at any
moment awake on board the _Olive Branch_ again.

"There isn't money enough in it to pay you so much for a mere
affidavit," she heard Slyne say, and Mr. Jobling, under his glance,
confirmed that statement emphatically.

"A hundred and twenty-one thousand is the last limit--a thousand down,
to bind the bargain, and the balance the day of my wedding with Sallie,"
Slyne declared. "If that doesn't satisfy you--there's nothing more to be
said. And I'll maybe find other means--"

"Show me even the first thousand," requested Captain Dove, and Slyne
counted out on to the table, at a safe distance from the old man's
twitching fingers, five thousand francs of the amount Lord Ingoldsby had
paid him for his car.

"All right," said Captain Dove gruffly, and snatched at the notes. But
Slyne picked them up again.

"As soon as you've given Jobling your statement," he said, "and signed
whatever other documents he may think necessary, I'll hand you these and
my note of hand, endorsed by him, for the balance remaining due you."

Mr. Jobling picked up a pen and Slyne pushed a sheet of foolscap toward
him. Captain Dove, with a grunt of disgust, sat back in his chair and,
while the lawyer wrote rapidly, related how he had found Sallie.

When he had finished, Mr. Jobling read his statement over aloud, and
chuckled ecstatically. His own eyes were shining.

"That settles it, Lady Josceline," said he triumphantly, turning to
Sallie. "I'll stake my professional reputation on your identity now. You
need have no further doubt--"

"And just to clinch the matter," growled Captain Dove, "you'd better add
this to your affidavy:--The clothes the kid was wearing when I fetched
her off that dhow were all marked with the moniker 'J. J.' and some sort
of crest. But--they were all lost when the ship I commanded then
was--went down at sea."

Mr. Jobling groaned. "How _very_ unfortunate!" he remarked before he
resumed his writing. And Slyne stared fixedly at the old man until the
lawyer had finished.

"Now," said Mr. Jobling, adjusting his pince-nez and beaming about him
again, "we can call in a couple of witnesses and--"

"We'll witness each other's signatures." Slyne disagreed. "Better not
bring in any outsiders."

The stout solicitor frowned over that, but finally nodded concurrence.
And Captain Dove took the pen from him, only to hand it to Slyne.

"Gimme my thousand dollars and your joint note for the balance first,"
he requested unamiably.

Slyne signed the new note Mr. Jobling pushed across the table, and Mr.
Jobling endorsed it. Captain Dove read it over carefully before he
pocketed it, and also counted with great caution the bills Slyne tossed
to him. Then he in his turn signed, without reading it, the statement
the lawyer had drawn up from his dictation, and the more lengthy
agreement between Sallie and Jasper Slyne.

Slyne and Jobling added their names to that, and Slyne attached his
careful signature to a promise to pay the solicitor the percentage
agreed upon. Captain Dove witnessed it and then called Sallie from her
seat in the window-alcove, and she came forward with anxious eyes, to
fulfil the undertaking she had finally had to give Jasper Slyne as the
price of his help in her most unhappy predicament.

She did not know--nor did she greatly care then--what was contained in
the contract he laid before her without a word. She took from him
without demur the pen he held out to her. She had promised to do all he
told her and give him whatever he asked--except, for the present,
herself.

"Sign 'Josceline Justice' at the foot of each page," he said gently, and
she did so without a word. For she would not for all the world contained
have broken any promise she had given. Then Mr. Jobling desired her to
witness the two other men's signatures.

As she handed him back the pen she had a final question to ask him.

"You said my father and mother are both dead, and my step-brother too.
Is there no one else--"

"No one you need worry about in the least," he assured her,
misunderstanding. "There was a beggarly American who lodged a claim to
the title and--to the title; his name was Carthew, I think--yes, Justin
Carthew. But even if I--if he hadn't gone and got lost while looking for
you, his claim would be quite ineffectual now. You're your father's
daughter, Lady Josceline. Justin Carthew was a dozen or more degrees
removed from the trunk of your family tree. He had only the faintest
tinge of blue blood in his veins. He was an absolute outsider. We'll
hear no more about _him_ now."

"You mean that it's an absolutely sure thing for her," Captain Dove
suggested, and Mr. Jobling looked pained.

"I can't afford to risk anything on uncertainties, sir," he answered
stiffly. "And I'll stake my professional reputation on--"

"Oh, never mind about all that," Slyne broke in, folding his share of
the papers together and pocketing them. "The syndicate's safely floated.
And now--as to our next move.

"You'd better get away back to Genoa by the five o'clock train, Dove.
And you must take Ambrizette with you; I'll get Sal--Lady Josceline
another maid in Paris--one who won't attract quite so much attention to
us as that damned dwarf would.

"Jobling and I will go on there by the night-mail, on our way to London
with--Lady Josceline. You can take the _Olive Branch_ round to some safe
English port and lay her up there in the meantime. As soon as you land,
you can rejoin us--at Jobling's address. By that time we'll probably be
ready to redeem our note to you."

"By that time," Captain Dove returned with concentrated bitterness,
"you'll have found some way to give me the slip altogether. D'ye take me
for a blind idiot, Slyne? D'ye think I'm going to let Sallie out of my
sight, with you?"

Slyne was visibly disconcerted. "But--aren't you going to take your ship
round to England?" he asked, in genuine surprise. "You can't very well
leave her lying in Genoa!"

"I'll attend to my own end of the business," said Captain Dove with
angry decision. "If you're going to London by train to-night, so am I.
If you like to come back on board with me, I'll sail you round. But I'm
not the only man on the _Olive Branch_ who can sail a ship. Why, I've
half a dozen broken captains--and most of 'em with extra masters'
certificates, too--among my crew.

"I've left Brasse and Da Costa in charge, and they'll work her across
the Bay if I tell them to. I've only to send them a wire. And all you
have to do now is to say which way you want to travel--with me; for I'm
going to stick to you like a leech till the day you pay me off."

Slyne walked to the window, humming a tune. But it was obviously costing
him all of his refreshed fortitude to refrain from expressing his real
sentiments toward Captain Dove. His face, as he stood glaring blindly
out at the beautiful scene before him, was like that of a wild beast
balked of its fair prey. But from between his bared, set teeth the
careless hum came unbroken.

"I think you're foolish," was all he said when he turned again,
convinced that it would be a waste of time to argue the matter with the
old man, "but--suit yourself. Jobling and I _must_ get to London with
Sal--Lady Josceline at the earliest possible moment. If you insist on
travelling with us to-night--so be it. All I want you to understand is
that there's to be no more drinking, and that you must be advised by me
in every other particular. This isn't really the sort of game you're
liable to shine in. It would be far better for all of us if you'd stay
on board your ship."

Captain Dove's weather-beaten countenance was turning slowly purple. He
was striving after speech. Slyne, outwardly cool and contemptuous of his
visible fury, stood gazing down at him, hands in pockets. Mr. Jobling
was wriggling restlessly in his chair, glancing from one to the other,
prepared to flee from the coming storm.

Still without a word, Captain Dove reached again for the
brandy-decanter, directly defying Slyne. Slyne stepped forward and
snatched it out of his hand.

Simultaneously, the old man and Mr. Jobling sprang from their seats, the
former making for Slyne and the latter for the door, which opened just
as he reached it, so that he all but fell over a boy in buttons who had
knocked and entered carrying a telegram on a tray.

Slyne had not moved. Captain Dove, almost at his throat, spun round on
one heel.

"For me?" Mr. Jobling exclaimed anxiously as he ripped the envelope
open. And a slow pallor overspread his puffy pink features while he was
perusing its contents.

"From Mullins, my managing clerk," he mumbled as he passed the message
to Slyne, who looked it over indifferently, and then re-read it aloud in
a low but very ominous voice: "'_American claimant landed at Genoa
yesterday. Now on way to London. Court granted decree in his favour._'
Handed in at Chancery Lane, in London,"--he pulled out his watch--"fifty
minutes ago."

The page-boy had disappeared. Slyne pushed suddenly past Mr. Jobling and
set his back against the door. Captain Dove was approaching the
terrified solicitor softly, on tiptoe, his fists clenched, all his
tobacco-stained fangs displayed in a grin of fury. One of his long arms
shot out just as the door opened behind Slyne's back and a voice
announced:

"M. Dubois."




CHAPTER XV

THE LAW--AND THE PROFITS


Sallie saw how Jasper Slyne's face blanched at sight of that very
untimely intruder, whose keen eyes seemed to take in the situation there
at a glance.

Mr. Jobling had fallen backward into a convenient armchair and, with
both hands clapped to his nose, was moaning most piteously. Captain Dove
was standing over him, with features inflamed, in a very bellicose
posture and glaring at the new-comer, toward whom Slyne had turned
inquiringly.

"You're--looking for some one, M. Dubois?" Slyne asked, in a tone of
polite surprise, which, Sallie knew, was assumed.

"A thousand pardons," returned that individual. "I am indeed looking for
some one--whom I thought to find here. I had no intention, however, of
intruding upon a lady--" He bowed profusely to Sallie. "It may be," he
suggested, "that I have mistaken the number. Is not this the suite 161?"

"One hundred and sixty," Slyne told him, and evidently did not think it
worth while to add that the next suite was his own.

"A thousand pardons," repeated M. Dubois, very penitently. "I am too
stupid! But mademoiselle will perhaps be so gracious as to forgive me
this time."

He bowed to Sallie again and to Slyne, and disappeared, sharply scanning
the latter's face to the last.

"Who's that son of a sea-cook?" snapped Captain Dove, and Mr. Jobling
looked wanly up out of one eye.

"A French detective," Slyne answered reflectively. But Sallie felt sure
that he was afraid of M. Dubois, and wondered why.

"Well, he has nothing against me that I'm aware of," the old man
declared. "And now--what about this wire? Does it mean that some other
fellow has scooped the pool--and that I've had all my trouble for
nothing, eh?" He clenched his fist again and shook it in the lawyer's
face.

"No, no," gasped Mr. Jobling. "Don't be so hasty. It makes no difference
at all, now that we have Lady Josceline with us. I told you that the
American, Carthew, is of no account against her--and how he has ever
cropped up again I can't conceive. In any case--"

"In any case, you'd better be off to your room and ring for a bit of
beefsteak to doctor that eye with," Slyne interposed in a tone of
intense annoyance.

"And I wish to goodness, Dove!" he added savagely, "that you would
behave a little more like a reasonable human being and less--"

"Less of your lip, now!" snarled the old man. "And _don't_ keep on
saying that. Just take it from me again, both of you, that you'd better
not be so slow again in telling me--"

"You didn't give me time," Mr. Jobling protested.

Slyne opened the door. "Come on," he urged. "You've got to get your kit
packed, Jobling. We'll be leaving before very long now."

"Have you made up your mind to come with us, Dove?"

Captain Dove nodded, most emphatically. "I'll send word to Brasse and Da
Costa at once," he remarked, "and then I'll be ready to start whenever
you are."

He left the room after Mr. Jobling, and Slyne, in the doorway, looked
back at Sallie, the reassuring smile on his lips belied by his cold,
calculating eyes.

"And how about you, Sallie?" he asked. "Have you made up your mind? Are
you satisfied--so far? Or--would you rather go back to the _Olive
Branch_?

"If you would--I'll let you off your promise, even now! And don't forget
that this will be your last chance to recall it."

"You know I can't go back to the _Olive Branch_, Jasper," she answered
slowly. "But--"

He did not give her time to say more. "That's settled for good, then,"
he asserted. "Your promise stands, and I know you'll keep it when the
time comes--after I've done my part.

"I'm only sorry I haven't been able to get rid of Captain Dove right
away, but it won't be long now till--You needn't worry any more about
him. I'll see that he behaves better.

"If there's anything else I can do for your comfort, you must let me
know. And now, I'll leave you to your own devices until it's time to
start on our travels. Better get a rest while you can, eh? We've a very
busy week ahead of us."

She saw that he did not intend to tell her any more in the meantime, and
was glad to see him go. Then she called Ambrizette in for company, and
sat down by the window again, to try to sort out for herself the
bewildering tangle that life had once more become within a few hours.

Gazing out across the familiar sea with wistful, far-away eyes, she
mused for a time over what Captain Dove had told Mr. Jobling of her
history, and strove to piece together with that all she herself could
recall of that dim and always more mysterious past out of which she had
come to be Captain Dove's property, bought and paid for, at a high
price, as he had repeated several times.

Her own earliest vague, disconnected, ineffectual memories were all of
some dark, savage mountain-country; of endless days of travel; of
camp-fires in the cold, and hungry camels squealing for fodder; of the
fragrant cinnamon-smell of the steam that came from the cooking-pots.

Before, or, it might have been, after that, she had surely lived on some
seashore, in a shimmering white village with narrow, crooked lanes for
streets and little flat-roofed houses huddled together among hot
sandhills where the _suddra_ grew and lean goats bleated always for
their kids.

Then, as if in a very vexing dream, she could almost but never quite
see, through the thickening mist of the years, once-familiar
faces--white men, with swords, in ragged uniforms, and big brown ones
with wicked eyes and long, thin guns, glaring down at her over a high
wall, through smoke and fire, and fighting, and the acrid reek of
powder....

And there remembrance grew blank altogether, until it connected with
Captain Dove, on the deck of a slaving-dhow far out of sight of any
land. She had been only a little child when he had carried her up the
side of his own ship in his arms, while she laughed gleefully in his
face and pulled at his shaggy moustache, but she could still remember
some of the incidents of that day.

She had lived on board his successive ships ever since. And ever since,
until recently, he had always been very good to her, in his own queer,
gruff way. He had always treated her as though she were a child of his
own, shielding her, in so far as he could, from even the knowledge of
all the evil which he had done up and down the world. She had grown up
in the belief that his despotic guardianship was altogether for her good
and not to be disputed.

But now--she was no longer a child. And all her old, unquestioning faith
in his inherent good intentions, toward her at least, was finally
shattered. She knew now that he really looked upon her as a mere
chattel, with a cash value--just as if she had been one of the hapless
cargo of human cattle confined in the pestiferous hold of the dhow on
whose deck he had found her at play. She knew now that he had bought and
paid for them as well as her, and sold them again at a fat profit, far
across the seas--all but the dumb, deformed black woman whom he had
picked from among them to act as her nurse.

And if it did not occur to her to question either his power or his
perfect right to dispose of her future also as he might see fit, had not
all her experience gone to prove that might is right everywhere, that
law and justice are merely additional pretexts devised by the strong for
oppressing the weak? She had had to choose between remaining on board
the _Olive Branch_, or paying Jasper Slyne his price for the chance of
escape he had offered her in pursuance of his own aims.

She disliked and distrusted Slyne scarcely less than before. But she did
not see how she could have chosen otherwise. And, in any case,--it was
too late now to revoke the promise she had made him.

She was still afraid to place any faith in the promises he had made
her. She had no idea how he had come at his alleged discovery of her
real identity. But Mr. Jobling's obvious belief in that recurred to her
mind, and she fell to wondering timidly what life would be like as Lady
Josceline Justice.

Her impressions on that point were very hazy, however, and she had still
to puzzle out the problem added by Justin Carthew. But she finally gave
up the attempt to solve that at the moment, contenting herself with the
tremulous hope that she might soon be on her way toward that dear,
unknown, dream-home for which her hungry heart had so often ached.

Of the exorbitant price so soon to be paid for the brief glimpse of
happiness Slyne had agreed to allow her, she took no further thought at
all. She had already made up her mind to meet that without complaint.

An hour or more later, when Slyne looked in to tell her that it was time
to start, she was still seated at the window, gazing out over the
steel-grey sea with wistful, far-away eyes.

At his instigation she veiled herself very closely. And he had brought
with him a hooded cloak for Ambrizette. No one took any particular
notice of the inconspicuous party which presently left the Hôtel de
Paris in a hired car, as if for an excursion along the coast.

At a station fifty miles away they left the car and caught the
night-mail for Paris. Slyne's baggage was on board it, in the care of a
sullen chauffeur, and there were also berths reserved for them all.

"Did you see any more of Dubois?" Sallie heard Slyne ask the man, who
shook his head indifferently in reply.

The long night-journey passed without other incident than a dispute
between Captain Dove and the sleeping-car attendant, which raged until
Slyne threatened to have the train stopped at the next station and send
for the police. And the sun was shining brightly when they reached
Paris.

Mr. Jobling went straight on to London, but Slyne took Sallie and
Captain Dove to a quiet but expensive hotel, where they remained for a
few days, which passed in a perfect whirl of novelty and excitement for
her. And when they in their turn crossed the Channel, she had for
baggage at least a dozen new trunks containing the choicest spoils of
the Rue de la Paix. Slyne had pooh-poohed all her timid protests against
his lavish expenditure on her account, and had also provided for Captain
Dove and Ambrizette in their degree. He had evidently a fortune at his
disposal, and was bent on showing her how generous he could be.

He was also unostentatiously displaying other good qualities which had
all gone to make those days pass very pleasantly for her. She could not
fail to appreciate the courtesy and consideration which he consistently
showed her now. His patience with Captain Dove, a trying companion at
the best of times and doubly troublesome idle, more than once made her
wonder whether he could be the same Jasper Slyne she had known on the
_Olive Branch_. Prosperity seemed to have improved him almost beyond
recognition.

He had a cabin at her disposal on the Calais-Dover steamer but she
stayed on deck throughout the brief passage, glad to breathe the salt
sea-air again, while he entertained her with descriptions of London and
she watched the twinkling lights that were guiding her home.

And then came London itself, at last, somewhat grey, and cold, and
disconsolate-looking on a wet winter morning.

But after breakfast in a cosy suite at the Savoy, a blink of sunshine
along the Embankment helped to better that first hasty impression. And
then Slyne took Captain Dove and her in a taxicab along the thronged and
bustling Strand to Mr. Jobling's office in Chancery Lane.

They got out in front of a dingy building not very far from Cursitor
Street. It was raining again, and Sallie, looking up and down the
narrow, turbid thoroughfare, felt glad that she did not need to live
there.

Indoors, the atmosphere was scarcely less depressing. A dismal passage
led toward a dark stairway, up which they had to climb flight after
flight to reach at last a dusty, ill-smelling, gas-lighted room,
inhabited only by a shabby, shock-headed hobbledehoy of uncertain age
and unprepossessing appearance, perched on a preposterously high stool
at a still higher desk, behind a cage-like partition.

"I want to see Mr. Jobling, at once," Slyne announced to him. And Mr.
Jobling's "managing clerk" looked slowly round, with a snake-like and
disconcerting effect due to a very long neck and a very low collar.

"Show Mr. Slyne in immediately, Mullins," ordered a pompous voice from
within; and Mr. Jobling himself, a blackcoated, portly, important
personage there, came bustling out from his private office to welcome
his visitors.

"How d'ye do, how d'ye do, Lady Josceline!" he exclaimed, and cocked an
arch eyebrow at Sallie's most becoming costume; although the effect he
intended was somewhat impaired by the fact that he was still suffering
from a black eye, painted over in haste--and by an incompetent artist.

"I can see now what's been keeping _you_ in Paris!" he added
facetiously, and, having shaken hands with Slyne, who seemed to think
that superfluous, turned to receive Captain Dove with the same
politeness.

"Phew!" whistled Mr. Jobling and drew back and stared at the old man.
"I'd _never_ have recognised you in that rig-out."

Captain Dove pulled off a pair of smoked glasses he had been wearing,
the better to look him, with offensive intent, in his injured eye. For
Captain Dove was still enduring much mental as well as physical
discomfort in a disguise which he had only been induced to adopt a
couple of days before, and after an embittered quarrel with Slyne. The
stiff white collar round his corded neck was still threatening to choke
him and then cut his throat. He had been infinitely more at his ease in
his scanty, short-tailed frock-coat and furry top-hat than he was in the
somewhat baggy if more becoming black garb he had donned in its place,
with a soft wide-awake always flapping about his ears.

"Come inside," Mr. Jobling begged hurriedly, and, looking round as he
followed them into his sanctum, "Mullins!" he snapped, "don't stand
there staring. Get on with your work, at once.

"You're later than I expected," he remarked to Slyne as he closed the
door, "but just in time. The Court's closed, of course, for the
Christmas vacation, but I've filed an application for a hearing in
Chambers, and--"

He paused as a telephone-bell rang shrilly outside, and a moment later
the shock head of his "managing clerk" protruded into the room, almost
as if it did not belong to a body at all.

"Mr. Spettigrew says that our application in Chambers will be heard by
Mr. Justice Gaunt, in 57B, at eleven-thirty sharp this forenoon,"
announced that youth and, with a final wriggle of his long neck,
withdrew.

"Devil take him!" exclaimed Captain Dove, somewhat startled and much
incensed. "I wouldn't keep a crested cobra like that about me for--"

"Let's see those accounts of yours, now," said Slyne, disregarding that
interruption, and Mr. Jobling, having first looked at his watch,
produced from another drawer a great sheaf of papers, all carefully
docketed. He slipped off the top one and somewhat reluctantly handed
that to his friend.

Slyne took it from him eagerly, and sat for a time gloating over it with
eyes which presently began to glow.

But when Captain Dove, growing restless, would have glanced over his
shoulder to see what was tickling his fancy so, he frowned and folded
that document up and returned it to Mr. Jobling.

"Give it here, now!" growled Captain Dove, menacing Mr. Jobling with a
clenched fist; and the lawyer, after an appealing, impotent glance at
Slyne, had no recourse but to comply with that peremptory order.

"Are you quite sure of your figures?" Slyne asked, with a scowl. He
seemed conscious that he, in his haste, had made a false step. And Mr.
Jobling nodded with nervous assurance.

"I have inside sources of information as to the revenue of the estates,"
he replied, "and a note of all the investments. I've allowed a wide
margin for all sorts of incidentals. I think you'll find, in fact, that
Lady Josceline's inheritance will amount to even more than I've
estimated."

Slyne smiled again, more contentedly. Nor was his complaisance overcome
even when Mr. Jobling put to him a half-whispered petition for a
further small cash advance to account of expenses.

"I wasn't even able to pay Mullins' wages with what you gave me in
Paris," said the stout solicitor vexedly. "Fees and so on swallowed it
all up, and--I'm actually short of cab-fares!"

"Why don't you fire Mullins, then?" demanded Slyne with a shade of
impatience. "I've just got rid of my chauffeur because he was costing me
more than he was worth."

"But I can't afford to get rid of Mullins. Just at the moment he's very
useful to me. It would create a bad impression if I had to run my own
errands. And--the fact is, he knows far too much. I'll pay him off and
shut his mouth by and by, when I have more time to attend to such
matters."

"How much do you want?" Slyne inquired with a frown evidently meant to
warn his friend to be modest.

"Can you spare twenty pounds--to go on with?"

Slyne hesitated, but only for a few seconds. Then he pulled out a
pocket-book and surreptitiously passed that sum to the penniless man of
law, who accepted it with no more than a nod of thanks.

"I'll pay Mullins now," he remarked, and immediately hurried out of the
room. Captain Dove was gasping for breath and showed every other symptom
of a forthcoming explosion.

As soon as the door shut behind him, the old man gave open vent to his
wrath. And a most furious quarrel followed between Slyne and him.
Sallie, too, learned then, for the first time, of the vast inheritance
which would be hers, of Slyne's cunning plan to buy Captain Dove out for
a mere pittance, and how he himself expected to profit through marrying
her.

But she was not overwhelmed with surprise by that belated discovery. She
had almost anticipated the final disclosure of some such latent motive
behind all Slyne's professions to her. The only difference it might make
would be to Captain Dove. Slyne and he were still snarling at each other
when Mr. Jobling walked jauntily in again. But at sight of him Captain
Dove began to subside.

"We mustn't be late. Mr. Spettigrew will be expecting us now. I've sent
Mullins on ahead with my papers," observed Mr. Jobling breezily, and
went on to explain that Mr. Justice Gaunt, by nature a somewhat
cross-grained old limb of the law, had been very ill-pleased over being
bothered again, and at a moment when most of his colleagues were
enjoying a holiday, about any such apparently endless case as that of
the Jura succession, which had been cropping up before him, at more or
less lengthy intervals, for quite a number of years, and concerning
which he had, only a few days before, made an order of court in favour
of Justin Carthew.

Captain Dove clapped his soft felt hat on his head with a very
devil-may-care expression.

"Come on, then," said he grimly, and Mr. Jobling was not slow to lead
the way. So that they reached Mr. Justice Gaunt's chambers punctually at
the hour appointed, and were ushered into his lordship's presence by Mr.
Spettigrew, the learned counsel retained by Mr. Jobling on Sallie's
behalf, a long, lifeless-looking gentleman in a wig and gown and
spectacles. And his lordship smiled very pleasantly as Sallie raised her
heavy veil at counsel's crafty request.

"Pray be seated, my dear young lady," his lordship begged with fatherly,
old-fashioned kindness, and indicated a chair meant for counsel, much
nearer his own than the rest. Nor did he often take his eyes from her
face throughout the course of a long and convincing dissertation by Mr.
Spettigrew, on her past history, present position in life, and claims on
the future, with some reference to the rival claims of Mr. Justin
Carthew.

"And I have full proof to place before you, at once, if you wish it,
m'lud," concluded Mr. Spettigrew in his most professional drone, "in
support of the fact that the lady before you is the lawful daughter of
the late earl and the countess, his second wife, who died in the desert.
Mr. Justin Carthew, on the other hand, is related to the family in a
very different and distant degree, and there are, as y'r ludship has
been good enough to agree, no other survivors.

"I beg leave now to request that y'r ludship will rescind the authority
granted to Mr. Justin Carthew, and admit my client's petition _ad
referendum_."

"Produce your proofs," ordered his lordship, and Mr. Spettigrew
extracted from a capacious black bag a pile of papers at which Mr.
Justice Gaunt looked with no little disgust.

"What are they, in chief?" asked Mr. Justice Gaunt, turning over page
after page of closely written law-script, as gingerly as if he believed
that one might perhaps explode and blow him to pieces. And Mr.
Spettigrew launched forth again into a long list of certificates,
records, researches, findings, orders of court, sworn statements and
affidavits, by Captain Dove--"Then trading in his own ship, m'lud, now
retired and devoting his time to mission-work among deep-sea sailors;"
by Mr. Jasper Slyne, gentleman; by Mr. Jobling, whom he did not pause
to describe; by a couple of dozen other people, living or dead, at home
or abroad; all in due legal form and not to be controverted.

"I think you'll find them in perfect order, and absolutely conclusive,
m'lud," counsel came to a finish triumphantly, and sat down, greatly to
the relief of all present.

"H'm!" said his lordship, still gravely regarding Sallie: whose eyes had
nothing to conceal from him. "And so this is the long-lost Lady
Josceline!"

His searching glance travelled slowly to Captain Dove's face, and then
to Slyne's; both of whom met it without winking, although Captain Dove
was no doubt glad of the protection of his smoked glasses.

"I'll have to go through the proofs, of course," said his lordship
reflectively and let his gaze rest on Sallie again. "But--if
everything's as you say, I don't think it will be long before Lady
Josceline finds herself in full enjoyment of all her rights and
privileges. If everything's as you say, I'll do whatever lies in my
power to expedite matters; I think I can promise you that the case will
be called immediately the vacation is over. Meanwhile, however, and till
I have looked through the proofs, I can make no further order."

He rose, and they also got up from their chairs as he came round from
behind his desk and confronted Sallie, a tall, stooping old man with a
wrinkled face and tired but kindly eyes.

She looked up into them frankly, and he laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Yours has been a very sad history so far, my dear young lady," he said,
his head on one side, still studying her. "I hope it will be all the
brighter henceforth. I knew--the last Earl of Jura--when we were both
young men--before he married. You remind me of him, as he was then, in
many respects. Good day to you now; my time here is not my own, you
know. But some day, perhaps you will allow me to pay my respects to
you--at Justicehall, since we're to be neighbours; my own home isn't
very far from yours."

Outside in the corridor, Mr. Jobling shook hands rapturously with every
one, even with Captain Dove.

"We've turned the trick already," he declared. "You heard what his
lordship said. With him on our side, the whole thing's as good as
settled. All we have to do now is to wait until the Courts take up again
and confirm--"

"How long will that be?" Slyne inquired. He, too, was smiling
ecstatically.

"Not much more than a fortnight," the lawyer informed him. "It will soon
pass. We must just be patient."

"We must keep very quiet, too," said Slyne, "unless we want to give the
whole show away to the enemy in advance. We must clear off out of London
till then. I'll tell you what, Jobling! Why shouldn't we all go down to
Scotland to-night?"

Mr. Jobling nodded agreement. "An excellent idea," he declared. "There's
nothing to keep us here."

"That's settled, then," Slyne asserted. "And we'll all dine together at
the Savoy before we start. I think we can afford to celebrate the
occasion, eh! And I want to show Lady Josceline a few of her future
friends."




CHAPTER XVI

"PLEASURES AND PALACES"


The Duchess of Dawn was dining a number of notabilities at the Savoy, on
her way to a command performance at the Gaiety; a fact of which the
fashionable world was well aware, because the young duchess is a great
lady in London as well as elsewhere, and all her doings are chronicled
in advance. The fashionable world had promptly decided to dine there
too, and telephoned in breathless haste for tables. It filled the
restaurant at an unusually early hour, and a disappointed overflow
displayed itself in the _foyer_.

The Duchess of Dawn is one of the most beautiful women in England. The
eyes of the fashionable world were focussed on her and her guests, among
whom were a minor European prince and a famous field-marshal who had not
been on show in London for long, until there appeared from the crowded
_foyer_, upon the arm of an old-young man of distinguished appearance
and faultless _tenue_, a tall, slender girl, at whom, as she passed,
every one turned to gaze, with undisguised admiration or envy, according
to sex and temperament.

She was gowned to distraction, and by an artist in women's wear. Her
beautiful bare arms and shoulders and bosom were free of superfluous
ornament. Her pure, proud, sensitive features were faintly flushed,--as
though, if that were conceivable, she was wearing evening dress for the
first time, and found it trying,--but her curved crimson lips were
slightly parted in a most bewitching smile, and, from under their
drooping lashes, her radiant eyes looked a demure, amused, impersonal
defiance at the frankly curious faces upturned toward her. The shaded
lights made most enchanting lights and shadows among her hair, red-gold
and heaped about her head in heavy coils, as she moved modestly through
the thronged room toward a corner where, about a beautifully decorated
table, four motionless waiters were standing guard over four empty
chairs.

She sat down there, her back to the bulk of the company, and her escort
took the seat opposite. A portly, prosperous-looking, elderly man, with
something a little suspicious about one of his eyes, and a squat,
queerly-shaped old fellow in semi-clerical garb and wearing smoked
glasses, completed the party. Their waiters began to hover about them,
and the fashionable world went on with its dinner.

"Who was that _lovely_ girl?" the Duchess of Dawn demanded of her
_vis-à-vis_, the veteran soldier, and he, reputed among women to have no
heart at all, recalled himself with an evident start from the reverie
into which he had fallen. He almost blushed, indeed, under the duchess's
blandly discerning smile.

"I don't know, I'm sure, duchess," he returned, smiling also, in spite
of himself, and beckoned to a servant behind him, whom he despatched on
some errand.

"She's registered as Miss Harris, your lordship," the man announced in
an undertone when he returned.

"Miss Harris!" echoed the prince, who was also a soldier. He had
overheard. And, as he in turn caught the duchess's eyes, he lay back
laughing, a little ruefully. But the man opposite him, the master of
armies, was not amused.

"I'd like to know who and what those three fellows with Miss Harris may
be," said he.

       *       *       *       *       *

At their table in the corner, they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying
themselves. The three men were toasting Sallie and each other with equal
good-will. And even Sallie had dismissed from her mind the last of her
lingering doubts as to the reality and endurance of her part in that
most amazing new life, had put the past with all its horrors resolutely
behind her, was too much interested in the entertaining present to
trouble about the future at the moment.

Captain Dove had seemingly forgotten, for the time being at any rate,
his grievance against Slyne, and was in his most lamb-like mood. While
Slyne did not even demur against the quantities of expensive wine the
old man consumed during dinner. Mr. Jobling, too, was displaying
symptoms of convivial hilarity when they at length left the restaurant.
But most of the other tables were empty by then.

Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove, arm in arm, affectionately maintained each
other as far as their sitting-room, while Slyne accompanied Sallie to
her own door. He had been making himself most agreeable to her, and had
pointed out a number of the notorieties and one or two of the
celebrities present; although it had somewhat startled her to be told
that she would very soon be on familiar terms with them all.

"Aren't you glad now that you agreed to the bargain we made on the
_Olive Branch_--and in Monte Carlo?" he asked by the way. He was smiling
gaily.

She smiled back at him, and, "I'm not sorry--so far, Jasper," she
answered, looking deep into his eyes.

He nodded, as if quite satisfied, and turned away to escape that
embarrassing scrutiny.

"We'll be starting in half an hour or so," he informed her from a safe
distance, and, "I'll be all ready," she called cheerfully after him.

A little before eleven he came in again and they all set out for the
station to catch their train.

It was a cold, clear, frosty night, and the Strand was at its busiest as
Sallie looked out at it from the taxi into which Slyne and Ambrizette
had followed her at the hotel portico. Another, containing Captain Dove
and their legal adviser, still on the most amicable terms, although
Captain Dove as a rule could not stand anyone afflicted with hiccough,
crawled close behind them through the turmoil until, at the Gaiety
corner, a policeman delayed it to let the cross-traffic through.

A crowd had gathered there to gaze at the royalties who would presently
be coming out of the theatre. Slyne drew Sallie back from the open
window at sight of two men, one of whom seemed all shirt-front, looking
down at the congested street from the empty steps of the principal
entrance.

"That ass Ingoldsby!" he explained to Sallie, and was evidently a good
deal disturbed. "And--Dubois, as well," he added. "I thought I had
shaken him off in Paris. I'm sure he saw me, too."

A little farther on he stopped the taxi and beckoned to one of those
street-arabs who make a living about the kerb.

"Go to the gentleman with the beard, on the steps of the Gaiety," he
instructed that very alert messenger, "and say to him that a friend
wants a word with him here."

Sallie observed the suppressed grimace of surprise on the face of the
individual who almost at once arrived in the wake of his ragged Mercury:
and Slyne, having tossed the latter a shilling, held out his hand to M.
Dubois.

"Charmed to see you in London, _mon confrère_," said he. "Have you yet
discovered your man?"

"I am hard at his heels," the detective answered, his eyes searching
Slyne's as if, Sallie thought, for some sign that that shaft had hit
home.

But Slyne's expression was one of ingenuous simplicity. He bowed, as if
with deep respect.

"I caught a glimpse of some one most amazingly like myself, one day on
the Faubourg St. Honoré, as I was passing through Paris," he mentioned
reflectively.

"Thanks," returned Dubois. "It was he, no doubt. And--he's in London
now."

Slyne did not wince, even at that.

"He was dining at the Savoy to-night," said Dubois indifferently. "How
does your own affair progress?"

"_Assez bien_," Slyne answered in an even voice. "I have followed my
quarry home and am awaiting developments."

"You will be in London for a little, then?"

"For the next week or ten days, I expect," Slyne lied with perfect
aplomb.

"We shall meet again, in that case," declared the detective, glancing at
Sallie; and, "_Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur_," Slyne returned
deferentially.

"To Grosvenor Square now--and hurry along," he directed the driver in a
voice his enemy could not fail to hear. And the taxicab swung into Drury
Lane, on its way west.

For a few minutes he sat silent, with bent head, biting at his
moustache. Then he looked round at Sallie.

"That fellow takes me for another man," he told her querulously. "He's
been dogging me ever since he first saw me at Monte Carlo. You've no
idea, Sallie, what a dangerous risk I had to run there--for your sake."

"You haven't told me much about--anything, Jasper," she reminded him.
And he proceeded to describe in lurid detail the fate which would
undoubtedly have befallen him had M. Dubois been able then to fasten on
him responsibility for the misdeeds of that criminal whom he so
unfortunately resembled.

Sallie listened in silence. She had been wondering whether M. Dubois
could be in any way concerned with her affairs. She gathered that he was
interested only in Slyne. The latter's story of grave risk run for her
sake fell somewhat flat, since it seemed to rest on the mere possibility
of his having been mistaken for somebody else. She could scarcely
believe that his fear of M. Dubois had no other foundation. She even
ventured to suggest that he could easily have proved the detective in
the wrong.

"He wouldn't have paid the slightest attention to anything I could say,"
Slyne assured her tartly. "He wouldn't have asked any questions or
listened to any statement of mine. You don't know anything about the
outrages that are committed every day by fellows like that on men like
myself who have no fixed residence, Sallie; and no powerful friends to
whom to appeal against such infernal injustice. I can't tell you how
thankful I'll be, on your account as well as my own, when we're married
and safely settled down, with a home of our own to feel safe in!

"Look, there's where we'll live when we're in London."

Sallie looked out. They were whirling past one of the most imposing
houses in Grosvenor Square. "Is it an hotel?" she asked, and observed
that all but one or two of its topmost windows were dark.

"It's the Earl of Jura's town house," said Slyne, apparently somewhat
piqued by her seeming indifference. "It's yours now--or will be as soon
as the Chancery Court wakes up again."

Sallie glanced back and caught another glimpse of it as the taxicab
slowed again to take the corner of the square. Slyne had picked up the
speaking-tube.

"Get us to the station now, as fast as you can," he told the driver: and
then, having glanced at his watch, lighted a cigarette. He seemed to
have no more to say at the moment, and Sallie was busy with thoughts of
her own. She was wondering whether Justin Carthew could be living in
that great house. She could not understand.... But she did not dare to
ask Jasper Slyne for any information, since he had shown her more than
once already that he did not intend to tell her any more than he thought
fit.

When they finally reached the station they found Mr. Jobling awaiting
them there and very anxious over their late arrival.

"We drove round by Grosvenor Square," Slyne told the lawyer
nonchalantly. "And--we're in lots of time."

Mr. Jobling looked cross. "Five minutes more would have lost you the
train," he remarked somewhat sourly. "And where would Captain Dove and I
have been then!"

As it was, however, they found Captain Dove in his berth, sound asleep,
although still fully dressed. And, as Slyne ushered Sallie into the
double compartment reserved for her and Ambrizette, "Don't go to bed
just yet," he begged. "I want to show you something by and by. You'll
have lots of time for a long sleep before we arrive."

"All right, Jasper," she agreed. "I'll wait up till you come for me."

When he at length knocked at her door again, Mr. Jobling was still with
her. She came out between them into the narrow corridor. Slyne rubbed
clear one steamy window to let her see the wintry landscape through
which they were travelling at express speed. And Sallie looked out
delighted, at the sleeping English countryside as its broad grass-lands
and bare brown acres, coverts and coppices, hedgerows and lanes, with
here and there a grange or a group of cottages, all still and silent,
flashed into sight and so disappeared; until, overlooking them all from
a knoll on the near bank of a broad, winding river, there loomed up a
most magnificent mansion, embedded, in lordly seclusion, among many
gnarled and age-old oaks, with gardens terrace on terrace about it, tall
fountains among their empty flower-beds, a moss-grown sun-dial at the
edge of a quiet, silver lake.

The moon was shining full on its innumerable windows, so that it seemed
to be lighted up from within, although, in reality, all were shuttered
and dark. Aloof and very stately it stood on that windless night, an
empty palace which came and went in a few moments, wing after wing, with
and Francesco loosened the sword in the scabbard anticipating an
ambush, when he pushed it back with a puzzled look. Before a wayside
shrine, almost entirely concealed by weeds, there knelt a grotesque
figure at orisons. He either had not heard the tramp of Francesco's
steed, or ignored it on purpose, for not until the latter called to
him did he turn, and with much relief Francesco recognized his former
guide from the camp of the Duke of Spoleto.

"Where is the camp of the duke?" he queried curtly, impatient with the
man's exhibition of secular godliness.

"Many miles away," replied he of the goat's-beard, as he arose and
kissed a little holly-wood cross that he carried.

"Lead me to it!"

The godly little man flopped again, scraped some dust together with
his two hands, spat upon it, then smeared his forehead with the stuff,
uttering the names of sundry saints.

Francesco had come to the end of his patience.

"Get up, my friend," he said, "we have had enough praying for one
day!"

The goatherd offered to anoint him with dust and spittle, pointing a
stumpy forefinger, but Francesco was filled with disgust. He caught
the man by the girdle and lifted him to his feet.

"Enough of this!" he said. "Is the devil so much your master?"

The goatherd blinked red-lidded and pious eyes, while he scanned the
horizon. Then he pointed with his holly staff to a blue hill that rose
against the eastern sky.

"How far?" queried Francesco.

The goatherd was anointing himself with spittle.

"Each mile in these parts grows more evil," he said, tracing the sign
of the cross. "It behooves a Christian to be circumspect!"

Francesco prodded him with his scabbard.

"How far?"

"Some ten leagues," replied the gnome. "The day is clear, and the
place looks nearer than it is!"

It occurred to Francesco that there must be some human abode close by,
as the goatherd, entirely familiar with the region, would not wander
too far from habitations of the living. And upon having made known his
request, the little man preceded him at a lively pace. At a lodge in
the forest deeps they halted, and here Francesco and his guide rested
during the hot hours of noon, partaking of such food as the liberality
of their host, an old anchorite, set before them.

After men and steed had rested, they set out anew.

The goatherd's inclination to invoke untold saints, whenever there
seemed occasion and whenever there was not, was curbed by a hard line
round Francesco's lips, and they plunged into the great silence. A
sense of green mystery encompassed them, as they traversed the green
forest-aisles. The sky seemed to have receded to a greater distance.
Everywhere the smooth dark trunks converged upon one another, sending
up a tangle of boughs that glittered in the soft sheen of the
sunlight. Withered bracken stood in thin silence, and here and there a
dead bough lay like a snake with its head raised to strike.

The silence was immense, and yet it was a stillness that suggested
sounds. It resembled the silence of a huge cavern, out of which came
strange whisperings; innumerable crepitations seemed to come from the
dead leaves. Francesco fancied he could hear the trees breathing, and
from afar he caught the wild note of a bird.

The sun was low when they came at last to the edge of the forest and
saw a hill rise steeply against the sky. It was covered with silver
birches, whose stems looked like white threads in the level light of
the setting sun. And rising against the sky-line from amidst the
fretwork of birch-boughs Francesco saw the well-remembered outlines of
the ruined tower wherein he had spent a memorable night.

The valley before them was flooded with golden light, and, as they
crossed it, Francesco felt a curious desire for physical pain,
something fierce and tangible to struggle with, to drown the
ever-pulsing memory of the woman who had gone from him.

As the dusk deepened they went scrambling up the hillside amid the
birches, whose white stems glimmered upwards into the blue gloom of
the twilight. Francesco's thoughts climbed ahead of him, hurrying to
deal with the unknown dangers that might be awaiting him. He had to
dismount, pull his steed after him; but the scramble upwards gave him
the sense of effort and struggle that he needed. It was like scaling a
wall to come to grips with an enemy, whose wild eyes and sword-points
showed between the crenelations.

At last they had reached the high plateau. A dog barked. The wood
suddenly swarmed with bearded and grotesque forms. They did not
recognize in Francesco the monk who had spent a night in their midst.
The goatherd had maliciously disappeared, as if to revenge himself for
his interrupted orisons. With glowering faces they thronged around
Francesco, a babel of voices shouting questions and threatening the
intruder.

He waved them contemptuously aside, and his demeanor seemed to raise
him in their regards.

At his request to be forthwith conducted into the presence of the
duke, one pointed to a low building at the edge of the plateau. Wisps
of smoke curled out of it and vanished into the night.

"The duke and the Abbot are at orisons," the man said with a grimace,
the meaning of which was lost upon Francesco. "He will not return
before midnight."

"I will await him here," said the newcomer, dismounting and leading
his steed to a small plot of pasture, where the grass was tall and
untrodden. Then, spent as he was, he requested food and drink, and as
he joined the band of outlaws, listening to their jokes and banter, he
thought he could discern among them many a one whom Fate had, like
himself, buffeted into a life, not of his forming, not of his choice.




CHAPTER V

THE ABBEY OF FARFA


The great vaults of the Abbey of Farfa resounded with glee and
merriment.

Before a low, massive stone table, resembling a druidical altar,
surrounded by giant casks filled with the choicest wines of Italy,
Greece and Spain, there sat the Duke of Spoleto and the Abbot
Hilarius, discoursing largely upon the vanities of the world, and
touching incidentally upon questions pertaining to the welfare of
Church and State. A single cresset shed an unsteady light over the
twain, while a lean, cadaverous friar glided noiselessly in and out
the transepts, obsequiously replenishing the beverage as it
disappeared with astounding swiftness in the feasters' capacious
stomachs. And each time he replenished the vessels, he refilled his
own with grim impartiality, watching the Abbot and his guest from a
low settle in a dark recess.

The vault was of singular construction and considerable extent. The
roof was of solid stone masonry and rose in a wide semicircular arch
to the height of about twelve feet, measured from the centre of the
ceiling to the ground floor.

The transepts were divided by obtusely pointed arches, resting on
slender granite pillars, and the intervening space was filled up with
drinking vessels of every conceivable shape and size.

The Abbot of Farfa was a discriminating drinker, boasting of an
ancestral thirst of uncommonly high degree, the legacy of a Teutonic
ancestor who had served the Church with much credit in his time.

They had been carousing since sunset.

The spectral custodian had refilled the tankards with amber liquid.
Thereof the Abbot sipped understandingly.

"Lacrymae Christi," he turned to the duke. "Vestrae salubritati bibo!"

The duke raised his goblet.

"Waes Hael!" and he drained its contents with a huge gulp.

"I would chant twenty psalms for that beverage," he mused after a
while.

The Abbot suggested "Attendite Populi!"--"It is one of the longest,"
he said, with meaning.

"Don't trifle with a thirsty belly," growled the duke. "In these
troublous times it behooves men to be circumspect!"

"Probatum est," said the Abbot. "It is a noble vocation! Jubilate
Deo!"

And he raised his goblet.

The Duke of Spoleto laid a heavy hand upon his arm.

"It is a Vigil of the Church!"

The Abbot gave himself absolution on account of the great company.

"There's no fast on the drink!" he said with meaning. "Nor is there
better wine between here and Salamanca!"

The duke regarded his host out of half-shut watery eyes.

"My own choice is Chianti!"

"A difference of five years in purgatory!"

Thereupon the duke blew the froth of his wine in the Abbot's face.

"Purgatory!--A mere figure of speech!"

The Abbot emptied his tankard.

"The figures of speech are the pillars of the Church!"

He beckoned to the custodian.

"Poculum alterum imple!"

The lean friar came and disappeared noiselessly.

They drank for a time in heavy silence. After a time the Abbot
sneezed, which caused Beelzebub, the Abbot's black he-goat, who had
been browsing outside, to peer through the crescent-shaped aperture in
the casement and regard him quizzically.

The duke, who chanced to look up at that precise moment, saw the red
inflamed eyes of the Abbot's tutelar genius, and, mistaking the goat
for another presence, turned to his host.

"Do you not fear," he whispered, "lest Satan may pay you a visit
during some of your uncanonical pastimes?"

"Uncanonical!" roared the Abbot. "I scorn the charge! I
scorn it with my heels! Two masses daily,--morning and
evening--Primes,--Nones,--Vespers,--Aves,--Credos,--Paters--"

"Excepting on moonlight nights," the duke blinked.

"Exceptis excipiendis," replied the Abbot.

"Sheer heresy!" roared the duke. "The devil is apt to keep an eye on
such exceptions. Does he not go about like a roaring lion?"

"Let him roar!" shouted the Abbot, bringing his fist down upon the
table, and looking about in canonical ire, when the door opened
noiselessly and in its dark frame stood Francesco.

He had waited at the camp for the return of the duke until his misery
and restlessness had mastered every other sensation. Sleep, he felt,
would not come to his eyes, and he craved for action. He should have
liked nothing better than to mount his steed on the spot, ride
single-handed into Anjou's camp and redeem his honor in the eyes of
those who regarded him a bought instrument of the Church. The memory
of Ilaria wailed through the dark chambers of his heart. He felt at
this moment, more than ever, what she had been to him, and to himself
he appeared as a derelict, tossed on a vast and shoreless sea.

For a moment he gazed as one spellbound at the drinkers, then he
strode up to the duke and shook him soundly.

"To the rescue, my lord duke!" he shouted, in the excess of his
frenzy, till the vaults re-echoed his cry from their farthest
recesses. "Conradino has been betrayed by the Frangipani!"

At the sound of the name he hated above all on earth, the duke's
nebulous haze fell from him like a mantle.

With a great oath he arose.

"Where is the King?"

"They have taken him to Rome,--or Naples,--or to some fortress near
the coast," Francesco replied.

"Into whose hands was he delivered?"

"Anjou's admiral,--Robert of Lavenna!"

The duke paused a moment, as if endeavoring to bring order into the
chaos of his thoughts. He scanned Francesco from head to toe, as if
there was something about the latter's personality which he could not
reconcile with his previous acquaintance.

At last Francesco's worldly habit flashed upon him.

"What of the Cross?" he flashed abruptly.

"There is blood upon it!" retorted Francesco.

"All is blood in these days," the duke said musingly. "Are you with
us?"--

"I have broken the rosary!"--

The duke extended his broad hand, in which Francesco's almost
disappeared as he closed upon it.

There was a great wrath in his eyes.

"We ride at sun-rise!"

"Our goal?"--

"To Naples!"--

The dawn was streaking the east with faint gold, and transient
sunshafts touched the woods, when Francesco stood before the doorway
of his lodge of pine boughs. The men of the Duke of Spoleto were
gathering in on every side, some girding their swords, others
tightening their shield-straps, as they came.

The duke ordered a single horn to sound the rally.

The glade was full of stir and action. Companies were forming up,
shoulder to shoulder; spears danced and swayed; horses steamed in the
brisk morning air.

At last the tents sank down, and, as the sun cleared the trees, the
armed array rolled out from the woods into a stretch of open land,
that sloped towards the bold curves of a river.

On that morning Francesco felt almost happy, as his fingers gripped
his sword and he cantered along by the side of the duke. The great
heart of the world seemed to beat with his.

"The day of reckoning has come at last!" he said to the leader of the
free lances.

The duke's features were hard as steel. Yet he read the other's humor
and joined him with the zest of the hour.

"You smile once more!" said the grim lord of the woods, turning to the
slender form in the saddle.

"I shall smile in the hour when the Frangipani lies at my feet,"
Francesco replied with heaving chest. "It is good to be strong!"

The duke's horsemen were scouring ahead, keeping cover, scanning the
horizon for the Provencals. By noon they had left the open land,
plunged up hills covered thick with woods. The duke's squadrons sifted
through, and he halted them in the woods under the brow of the hill.

Below lay a broad valley running north and south, chequered with
pine-thickets and patches of brushwood. On a hill in the centre stood
a ruined tower. Towards the south a broad loop of the river closed the
valley, while all around on the misty hills shimmered the giants of
the forest, mysterious and silent. The duke's outriders had fallen
back and taken cover in the thickets. Down the valley could be seen a
line of spears, glittering snake-like towards the tower on the hill.
Companies of horse were crossing the river, pushing up the slopes,
mass on mass. In the midst of the flickering shields and spears blew a
great banner with the Fleur-de-Lis.

It was a contingent of Charles of Anjou, which had been on the march
since dawn. They had thrown their advance guard across the river and
were straggling up the green slopes, while the main host crossed the
ford.

The sound of a clarion re-echoed from crag to crag: and down towards
the river played the whirlwind, with dust and clangor and the shriek
of steel. Spears went down like trampled corn. The battle streamed
down the bloody slope, for nothing could stand that furious charge.

The river shut in the broken host, for the ford was narrow, not easy
of passage. From the north came the thundering ranks of horse, and on
the south the waters were calm and clear. The Provencals, streaming
like smoke blown from a fire by a boisterous wind, were hurled in rout
upon the water. They were hurled over the banks, slain in the
shallows, drowned in struggling to cross at the ford. Some few hundred
reached the southern bank, and scattered fast for the sanctuary of the
woods.

In less than half an hour from the first charge the duke's men had won
the day. They gave no quarter; slew all who stood.

The duke rode back up the hill, Francesco by his side, amid the cheers
of his men.

Southwest they rode towards the sea, their hundred lances aslant under
the autumnal sky. They were as men challenging a kingdom with their
swords, and they tossed their shields in the face of fate. The
audacity of the venture set the hot blood spinning in their hearts.
To free Conradino from Anjou's clutches; to hurl damnation in the
mouth of the Provencals.

As for Francesco, he was as a hound in leash. His sword thirsted in
its scabbard; he had tasted blood, and was hot for the conflict.

On the fourth day they came upon the ruins of Ninfa, a town set upon a
hill in a wooded valley. Vultures flapped heavenward as they rode into
the gate; lean, red-eyed curs snarled and slinked about the streets.
Francesco smote one brute through with his spear, as it was feeding in
the gutter on the carcass of a child. In the market square the
Provencals had made such another massacre as they had perpetrated in
Alba. The horrible obscenity of the scene struck the duke's men dumb
as the dead. The towns-folk had been stripped, bound face to face,
left slain in many a hideous and ribald pose. The vultures' beaks had
emulated the sword. The stench from the place was as the breath of a
charnel house, and the duke and his men turned back with grim faces
from the brutal silence of that ghastly town.

Near one of the gates a wild, tattered figure darted out from a
half-wrecked house, stood blinking at them in the sun, then sped away,
screaming and whimpering at the sight of the duke, as though possessed
with a demon. It was a woman, still retaining the traces of her former
great beauty, gone mad, yet the only live thing they found in the
town.

The duke had reined in his steed at the sight, gone white to the roots
of his hair. Then he covered his face with his hands, and Francesco
heard him utter a heart-rending moan.

When his hands fell, after a lapse of time, he seemed to have aged
years in this brief space.

"Forward, my men," he shouted with iron mouth. "The Frangipani shall
not complain of our swords!"

They passed out of Ninfa through the opposite gate. At dark they
reached the moors, and soon the entire host swept silently into the
ebony gloom of the great forests, which seemed sealed up against the
moon and stars.




CHAPTER VI

RETRIBUTION


Beneath the dark cornices of a thicket of wind-stunted pines stood a
small company of men, looking out into the hastening night. The
half-light of evening lay over the scene, rolling wood and valley into
a misty mass, while the horizon stood curbed by a belt of heavy
thunder-clouds. In the western vault, a vast rent in the wall of gray
shot out a blaze of translucent gold that slanted like a spear shaft
to a sullen sea.

The walls of Astura shone white and ghostly athwart the plains.
Sea-gulls came screaming to the cliffs. Presently out of the blue
bosom of an unearthly twilight a vague wind arose. Gusts came,
clamored, and died into nothingness. The world seemed to shudder. A
red sword flashed sudden out of the skies and smote the hills. Thunder
followed, growling over the world. The lurid crater of Vesuvius poured
gold upon the sea, whose hoarse underchant mingled with the fitful
wind.

A storm came creeping black out of the west. The sea grew dark. The
forests began to weave the twilight into their columned halls. A
sudden gust came clamoring through the woods. The myriad boughs tossed
and jerked against the sky, while a mysterious gloom of trees rolled
back against the oncoming night.

The men upon the hill strained their eyes towards the sea, where the
white patch of a sail showed vaguely through the gathering gloom.
Their black armor stood out ghostly against the ascetic trunks of the
trees. Grim silence prevailed, and so immobile was their attitude,
that they might have been taken for stone images of a dead, gone age.

The wind cried restlessly amid the trees, gusty at intervals, but
tuning its mood to a desolate and constant moan. The woods seemed full
of a vague woe and of troubled breathings. The trees seemed to sway to
one another, to fling strange words with the tossing of hair and
outstretched hands. The furze in the valley, swept and harrowed,
undulated like a green lagoon.

Between the hills and the cliff lay the marshes, threaded by a meagre
stream that quavered through the green. A poison mist hung over them
despite the wind. The mournful clangor of a bell came up from the
valley, with a vague sound as of voices chanting.

After a time the bell ceased pulsing. In its stead sounded a faint
eerie whimper, an occasional shrill cry that startled the moorlands,
leaped out of silence like a bubble from a pool where death has been.

The men were shaken from their strained vigilance as by a wind. The
utter gray of the hour seemed to stifle them, then a sound stumbled
out of the silence and set them listening. It dwindled and grew again,
came nearer: it was the smite of hoofs in the wood-ways. The rider
dismounted, tethered his foam-flecked steed to a tree and stumbled up
to where the Duke of Spoleto and Francesco stood, their gaze riveted
upon the ghostly masonry of Astura.

Panting and exhausted he faced the twain.

"They have all died on the scaffold," he said with a hoarse, rasping
voice. "The Swabian dynasty is no more."

With a cry and a sob that shook his whole being, Francesco covered his
face with his hands.

For a moment the duke stared blankly at the speaker.

"And the Frangipani?" he asked, his features ashen-gray and drawn.

The messenger pointed to Astura.

"There is feasting and high glee: the Pontiff's bribe was large."--

Francesco trembled in every limb.

"Such a day was never seen in Naples," the messenger concluded with a
shudder. "To a man they died under the axe--the soil was dyed crimson
with their blood."

There was a silence.

The messenger pointed to the sea, which had melted into the indefinite
background of the night.

Dim and distant, like a pearl over the purple deeps, one sail after
another struck out of the vague west. They came heading for the land,
the black hulls rising and falling against the tumultuous blackness of
the clouds.

A red gleam started suddenly from the waves. A quick flame leaped up
like a red finger above the cliff.

The duke ignited a pine-wood torch. The blue resinous light spluttered
in the wind.

Three times he circled it above his head, then he flung it into the
sea.

"Bernardo Sarriano and the Pisan galleys," he turned to Francesco.
"They are heading for the Cape of Circé."

A shout of command rang through the woods.

As with phantom cohorts the forest-aisles teemed with moving shadows.

A ride of some five miles lay between them and the Cape of Circé. Much
of that region was wild forest land and moor; bleak rocky wastes let
into woods and gloom. Great oaks, gnarled, vast, terrible, held giant
sway amid the huddled masses of the underbrush. Here the wild boar
lurked and the wolf hunted. But for the most it was dark and
calamitous, a ghostly wilderness forsaken by man.

As they rode along they struck the occasional trail of the Crusaders
of the Church. A burnt hamlet, a smoking farmhouse with a dun mist
hanging over it like a shroud, and once they stumbled upon the body of
a dead girl. They halted for a brief space to give her burial. The
duke's men dug a shallow grave under an oak and they left her there
and went on their way with greater caution.

"There is one man on earth to whom I owe a debt," the duke, leading
the van beside Francesco, turned to the latter, "a debt that shall be
paid this night, principal and interest."

Francesco looked up into the duke's face, and by the glare of the now
more frequent lightnings he saw that it was drawn and gray.

"There lies his lair," the duke pointed to the white masonry of
Astura, as it loomed out of the night, menacing and spectral, as a
thunderbolt hissed into the sea, and again lapsed into gloom.
"Betrayer of God and man,--his hour is at hand!"--

The duke's beard fairly bristled as he uttered these words, and he
gripped the hilt of his sword as if he anticipated a conflict with
some wild beast of the forest, some mythical monster born of night and
crime.

Francesco made no reply. He was bowed down beneath the gloom of the
hour, oppressed with unutterable forebodings. He too had an account to
settle: yet, whichever way the tongue inclined in the scales, life
stretched out from him as a sea at night. He dared not think of
Ilaria, far away in the convent of San Nicandro by the sea; yet her
memory had haunted him all day, knocked at the gates of his
consciousness, dominated the hours. Compared with the ever present
sense of her loss, all in life seemed utterly trifling, and he longed
for annihilation only.

Yet a kindred note which he sounded in the duke's soul found him in a
more receptive mood for the latter's confidences; once life had
seemed good to him; he had thought men heroes, the world a faerie
place. Thoughts had changed with time, and that for which he once
hungered he now despised. Cursed with perversities, baffled and
mocked, the eternal trivialities of life made the soul sink within
him. Not all are mild earth, to be smitten and make no moan. There are
sea spirits that lash and foam, fire spirits that leap and burn,--was
he to be cursed because he was born with a soul of fire?

They were now in the midst of the great wilderness. On all sides
myriads of trees, interminably pillared; through their tops the wind
sighed and pined like the soft breath of a sleeping world. Away on
every hand stretched oblivious vistas, black under multitudinous green
spires.

The interminable trees seemed to vex the duke's spirit, as their
trunks crowded the winding track and seemed to shut in the twain as
with a never ending barrier. And behind them, with the muffled tread
of a phantom army, came the duke's armed array striding through the
night.

"Have you too suffered a wrong at the hands of the Frangipani?"
Francesco at last broke the silence, turning to his companion.

The latter jerked the bridle of his charger so viciously that the
terrified animal reared on its haunches and neighed in protest.

"Man, know you whereof you speak?" the duke snarled, as he came closer
to Francesco. "He has made the one woman the Duke of Spoleto ever
loved--a wanton!"--

They pushed uphill through the solemn shadows of the forest. A sound
like the raging of a wind through a wood came down to them faintly
from afar. It was a sullen sound, deep and mysterious as the hoarse
babel of the sea, smitten through with the shrill scream of trumpets,
like the cry of gulls above a storm. Yet in the aisles of the pine
forest it was still as death.

Then, like a spark struck from flint and steel falling upon tinder, a
red glare blazed out against the background of the night. A horn
blared across the moorlands; the castle bell began to ring, jerkily,
wildly, a bell in terror. Yellow gleams streaked the fretted waters,
and again the trumpet challenged the dark walls, like the cry of a
sea-bird driven by the storm.

The duke and Francesco looked meaningly at each other. The sound
needed no words to christen it; they knew that the Pisans had
attacked. They heard the roar and the cries from the rampart, the
cataractine thunder of a distant battle.

Pushing on more swiftly as the woods thinned, the din grew more
definite, more human, more sinister in detail. It stirred the blood,
challenged the courage, racked conjecture with the infinite chaos it
portended. Victory and despair were trammelled up together in its
sullen roar; life and death seemed to swell it with the wind sound of
their wings. It was stupendous, chaotic, a tempest cry of steel and
passions inflamed.

The duke's face kindled to the sound as he shouted to his men to
gallop on. Yet another furlong, and the spectral trunks dwindled, the
sombre boughs seemed to mingle with the clouds, while gray, indefinite
before them, engulfing the lightnings of heaven, loomed the great
swell of the Tyrrhene, dark and restless under the thunderclouds, that
came nearer and nearer. Ghostly the plains of Torre del Greco
stretched towards the Promontory of Circé, and, solitary and
impregnable, the Castello of Astura rose upon its chalk-cliffs, white
in the lightnings which hissed around its summit.

The duke's men had come up, forming a wide semicircle around the
leaders. At their feet opened a deep ravine, leading into the plain;
half a furlong beyond, although it seemed less than a lance's throw
across, rose the castle of the Frangipani, washed by the waves of the
Tyrrhene. The Pisans had attacked the southern acclivity, and the
defenders, roused from their feast of blood, had poured all their
defences towards the point of attack, leaving the northern slope to
look to itself.

As they rode down the ravine there came from the bottom of the valley
the sharp yelp of a dog. It was instantly answered by a similar bark
from the very top of the castello.

"No two dogs ever had the same voice," the duke turned to Francesco.
"They must be hell-hounds, whom the fiend has trained to one tune. But
what is that yonder? A goat picking its way?"

"A goat walking on its hind legs!"

"Are there horns on its head?"

"No!"--

"Then it is not the Evil One! Forward, my men!"

The pause that preceded the breaking of the storm had been unnaturally
long. Save for the gleam of the lightnings, the waters had grown to an
inky blackness. There came one long moment, when the atmosphere sank
under the weight of a sudden heat. Then the ever increasing thunder
rushed upon the silence with a mighty roar and out of the west, driven
by the hurricane, came a long line of white waves, that rose as they
advanced, till the very Tritons beat their heads and the nymphs
scurried down to greener depths.

And now a sudden streak of fire hissed from the clouds, followed by a
crash as if all the bolts of heaven had been let off at once. From the
ramparts of Astura came cries of alarm, the din of battle, the blaring
of horns, the shouting of commands.

The duke and Francesco had dismounted and were gazing up towards the
storm-swept ramparts. Shrieks and curses rolled down upon them like
the tumbling of a cascade.

Then they began to scale the ledge, the path dwindling to a goat's
highway.

Above them rose a sheer wall on which there appeared not clinging
space for a lizard. The abyss below was ready to welcome them to
perdition if their feet slipped.

After a brief respite they continued, the duke's men scrambling up
behind them, looking like so many ants on the white chalk-cliffs. The
air was hot to suffocation; the storm roared, the thunder bellowed in
deafening echoes through the skies, and the heavens seemed one blazing
cataract of fire, reflected in the throbbing mirror of the sea.

They had reached a seam in the rock, where they paused for a moment to
let their brains rest. There was hardly room for the duke and
Francesco on the ledge, so narrow was the rocky shelf, and the latter
was pushing close against the wall when he was suddenly forced to look
up. He heard the din of the encounter above. The Pisans, having
attacked the Frangipani from the south, were driving them out at the
north. Suddenly two bodies whizzed by him, thrust over the ramparts in
the fierceness of the assault. Another came; he seemed to have jumped
for life, for he kept feet foremost for a distance through the air,
before he began to whirl. These fell clear of the scaling party, and
were impaled on the broken tops of the stunted trees, that bossed the
side of the precipice. One came so near the duke that his flight
downward almost blew him off his narrow perch. His head struck the
ledge, while his body caught in the bushes, hung a moment, then dashed
after its comrades below.

Just then the end of a rope fell dangling by their side, let down from
the ramparts above. The duke tried to grasp it, but it shifted beyond
the gap. Down the rope came a man, then another; they both gained a
foothold on the narrow ledge. No sooner were their feet on it, than
the duke sent them headlong to the bottom. Then grasping the rope
without waiting to see if a third or fourth were coming down, he
shouted to Francesco to follow. Perilous as was the task, it was no
more so than to follow the steep and narrow goat's trail, and in a
brief space of time they swung into a courtyard which was deserted.
Anticipating no attack on this side, the defenders of Astura had
turned their whole attention to the southern slope, where the Pisans
were scaling the walls. The roar of the conflict seemed to grow with
the roar of the hurricane, and, as one by one the duke's men leaped
into the dark square, and the muster was complete, Count Rupert turned
to Francesco.

"I feared lest they might clean out the nest before our arrival," he
said, then, pointing to a distant glare of torches, he gave the word.
They caught the unwary defenders in the rear. No quarter was to be
given; the robber brood of Astura was to be exterminated.

"Conradino!" was the password, and above the taunts and cries of
Frangipani's hirelings it filled the night with its clamor, rode on
the wings of the storm, like the war-cry of a thousand demons.

Notwithstanding the fact that a few of the most daring among the Pisan
admiral's men had scaled the ramparts and, leaping into the
Frangipani's stronghold, had tried to pave a way for those lagging
behind, their companions-in-arms were in dire straits. For those of
Astura poured boiling pitch upon the heads of the attacking party,
hurled rocks of huge dimensions down upon them which crushed into a
mangled mass scores of men, unable to retain the vantage they had
gained under the avalanche of arrows, rocks and fire.

In a moment's time the situation was changed.

Noiselessly as leopards, the duke's men fell upon their rear, raising
their war-cry as they leaped from the shadows. Those on the ramparts,
forced to grapple with the nearer enemy, abandoned their tasks. The
Pisans, profiting by the lull, swarmed over the walls. Taken between
two parties, a deadly hand-to-hand conflict ensued. Above the din and
the roar of the hurricane, of the clashing of arms, above the cries
of the wounded, the death-rattle of the dying, sounded the voice of
the Duke of Spoleto.

"Onward, my men! Kill and slay!"

Side by side the duke and Francesco leaped into the thickest of the
fray, both animated by the same desire to come face to face with the
lords of Astura, spurning a lesser enemy.

For a time they seemed doomed to disappointment. Had the Frangipani
been slain?

The zest of the conflict pointed rather to their directing the
defence. Else their mercenaries would have left Astura to its fate.

Suddenly an unearthly voice startled the combatants.

"Guard, devil, guard!"

There was the upflashing of a sword, and a hoarse challenge frightened
the night.

Giovanni Frangipani saw a furious face glaring dead white from under
the shadow of a shield.

He stopped in his onward rush, blinked at the duke as one gone mad.

"Damnation, what have we here?"

"By the love of God, I have you now!"

"Fool, are you mad?"

The hoarse voice echoed him, the eyes flashed fire.

"Guard, ravisher,--guard!"

"Ten thousand devils! Who are you?"

"Your obedient servant,--the Duke of Spoleto!"

The Frangipani growled like a trapped bear.

He raised his sword, put forward his shield.

"On with you, dog!" he roared. "Join your wanton under the sod!"

"Ha, say you so?" cried the duke, closing in.

Their swords flashed, yelped, twisted in the air. A down cut hewed the
dexter cantrel from the Frangipani's shield. His face with a gashed
cheek glared at the duke from under his upreared arm. So close were
they that blood spattered in the duke's face as the Frangipani blew
the red stream from his mouth and beard.

[Illustration: "'They lied,' he cried. 'Give me but life.'"]

The duke broke away, wheeled and came again. He lashed home, split the
Frangipani's collar-bone even through the rags of his hauberk. The
Frangipani yelped like a gored hound. Rabid, dazed, he began to make
blind rushes that boded ill for him. The swords began to leap and to
sing, while blinding flashes of lightning followed each other in quick
succession and thunder rolled in deafening echoes through the heavens.
Cut and counter-cut rang through the night, like the cry of axes,
whirled by woodmen's hands.

Suddenly the Frangipani parried an upper cut and stabbed at the duke.
The sword point missed him a hair's breadth. Before he could guard the
duke was upon him like a leopard. Both men smote together, both swords
met with a sound that seemed to shake the rocks. The Frangipani's
blade snapped at the hilt.

He stood still for a moment as one dazed, then plucked out his poniard
and made a spring. A merciless down cut beat him back. His courage,
his assurance seemed to ebb from him on a sudden, as though the blow
had broken his soul. He fell on his knees and held up his hands, with
a thick, choking cry.

"Mercy! God's mercy!"

"Curse you! Had you pity on your victims?"

Thunder crashed overhead; the girdles of the sky were loosed. A
torrent of rain beat upon the Frangipani's streaming face; he tottered
on his knees, but still held his hands to the heavens.

"They lied," he cried. "Give me but life."--

The duke looked at him and heaved up his sword.

Giovanni Frangipani saw the white face above him, gave a great cry and
cowered behind his hands. It was all ended in a moment. The rain
washed his gilded harness as he lay with his blood soaking into the
crevices of the rocks.--

Francesco had witnessed neither the fight nor the ending. Impelled by
an insensate desire to find Raniero, to have a final reckoning for all
the baseness and insults he had heaped upon him in the past, for his
treachery and cruelty to Ilaria, he had made his way to the great
hall.

The door was closed and locked from within.

Francesco dealt it a terrific blow. Its shattered framework heaved
inward and toppled against the wall.

In the doorway stood Raniero and looked out at his opponent. He did
not recognize Francesco. His face was sullen; the glitter of his
little eyes mimicked the ring gleams of his hauberk. He put out the
tip of a tongue and moistened his lips.

Francesco's face was as the face of a man who has but one purpose left
in life and, that accomplished, cares not what happens. Raising his
vizor, he said:

"I wait for you!"

Raniero broke into a boisterous laugh.

"The bastard! The monk! Go home, Francesco, and don your lady's
attire! What would you with a sword?"

Francesco's mouth was a hard line. He breathed through hungry
nostrils, as he went step by step toward Raniero.

Then with a swift shifting of his sword from right to left he smote
him on each cheek, then, lowering his vizor, he put up his guard.

With an oath Raniero's sword flashed, feinted, turned with a cunning
twist, and swept low for Francesco's thigh.

Francesco leaped back, but was slashed by the point a hair's breadth
above the knee. It was a mere skin wound, but the pain of it seemed to
snap something that had been twisted to a breaking point within him.
He gave a great cry and charged down Raniero's second blow.

Their shields met and clashed, and Raniero staggered. Francesco rushed
him across the hall as a bull drives a rival about a yard. Raniero
crashed against the wall, and Francesco sprang back to use his sword.
The blow hewed the top from Raniero's shield and smote him slant-wise
across the face.

Raniero gathered himself and struck back, but the blow was caught on
Francesco's shield. Francesco thrust at him, before he could recover,
and the point slipped under the edge of Raniero's gorget. He twisted
free and blundered forward into a fierce exchange of half-arm blows.
Once he struck Francesco upon the mouth with the pommel of his sword,
and was smitten in turn by the beak of Francesco's shield.

Again Francesco rushed Raniero to the wall, leaped back and got in his
blow. Raniero's face was a red blur. He dropped his shield, put both
his hands to his sword and swung great blows at Francesco, with the
huge rage of a desperate and tiring man. Francesco led him up and down
the hall. Raniero's breath came in gasps, and his strength began to
wane.

Francesco bided his chance and seized it. He ran in, after Raniero had
missed him with one of his savage sweeping blows, and rushed him
against the wall. Then he struck and struck again, without uttering a
word, playing so fast upon Raniero that he had his man smothered,
blundering and dazed. The end came with a blow that cut the crown of
Raniero's helmet. He threw up his hands with a spasmodic gesture,
lurched forward, fell, rolled over on his back and lay still.

For a moment Francesco stood over him, the point of his sword on
Raniero's throat. He seemed to waver; then all the misery the
Frangipani had inflicted on Ilaria rushed over him as in a blinding
cloud.

His sword went home. A strange cry passed through the hall, then all
was still. The torch spluttered once more and went out. Francesco was
in the darkness beside the dead body of Raniero.--

Meanwhile the Pisans had succeeded in scaling the walls. The clamor of
the fight grew less and less, as one by one the defenders of Astura
were relentlessly struck down and hurled over the ramparts. The storm
had increased in violence, the heavens were cataracts of fire.--

In the blood-drenched court the duke and the Pisan admiral shook
hands. Everything living had been slain. Astura was a castle of the
dead.

"God! What work!" exclaimed the Pisan. It was the testimony wrung from
him by the stress of sheer hard fighting.

"One of the viper-brood still lives," the duke turned to his
companion, kicking with the tip of his steel boot the lifeless form of
Giovanni Frangipani.

The Pisan turned to a man-at-arms.

"Take twenty men! Scour the lair from vault to pinnacle! We must have
that other,--dead or alive!"

The rain had ceased for the time. New thunder-clouds came rolling out
of the west. Flambeaux flared in the court. Black shadows danced along
the ghostly walls. The wind moaned about the crenelated turrets;
sentinels of the Pisans stood everywhere, alert for ambush.

The duke and his companions approached the door leading into the great
hall. It lay in splinters. Stygian darkness held sway within.

Suddenly the duke paused, as if turned to stone, at the same time
plucking his companion back by the sleeve of his surcoat.

Noiselessly as a ghost out of the door came the form of a woman. She
was tall, exquisitely proportioned, and young. For a moment she paused
on the threshold and looked out into the night. Almost immediately a
second form followed, and paused near the first: that of a man. The
woman seemed to stare blindly at the duke, with wide, unseeing eyes,
as one who walks in a sleep.

With a choked, inarticulate outcry the duke snatched bow and arrow
from the nearest sentry, and ere the Pisan could grasp the meaning of
what he saw, or prevent, he set and sped the bolt. A moan died on the
stillness. A form collapsed, shuddered and lay still.

The duke dropped bow and arrow, staring like a madman, then rushed
towards the prostrate form.

Bending over it, a moan broke from his lips, as he threw his arms
about the lifeless clay of her he had loved in the days of yore, ere
the honeyed treachery of the Frangipani had sundered and broken their
lives. The woman of the Red Tower had expiated her guilt.

He saw at once that no human agency might here avail. Death had been
instantaneous. The arrow had pierced the heart.

The duke knelt long by her side, and the strong man's frame heaved
with convulsive sobs, as he closed the eyes and muttered an Ave for
her untimely departed soul.

When he arose, he looked into the pale face of Francesco, whose
blood-stained sword and garments told a tale his lips would not. He
understood without a word. Silently he extended his hand to the duke,
then, taking off his own mantle, he covered therewith the woman's
body.

It was midnight when the Pisans and the duke's men groped their way
cautiously down the steep winding path to the shore. The Pisans made
for their ships and Spoleto's men for the dusk of their native woods,
carrying on a hurriedly constructed bier the body of the woman of the
Red Tower.

Not many minutes had passed after their perilous descent when a sphere
of fire shot from the clouds, followed by a crash as if the earth had
been rent in twain, and the western tower of Astura was seen toppling
into the sea.

Bye and bye sea and land reflected a crimson glow, which steadily
increased, fanned by the gale, until it shone far out upon the sea.

Astura was in flames, the funeral pyre of the Frangipani.




CHAPTER VII

THE QUEST


As the world grew gray with waking light, Francesco came from the
woods and heard the noise of the sea in the hush that breathed in the
dawn. The storm had passed over the sea and a vast calm hung upon the
lips of the day. In the east a green streak shone above the hills. The
sky was still aglitter with sparse stars. An immensity of gloom
brooded over the sea.

Gaunt, wounded, triumphant, Francesco rode up beneath the banners of
the dawn, eager yet fearful, inspired and strong of purpose. Wood and
hill slept in a haze of mist. The birds were only beginning in the
thickets, like the souls of children yet unborn, calling to eternity.
Beyond in the cliffs, San Nicandro, wrapped round with night, stood
silent and sombre athwart the west.

Francesco climbed from the valley as the day came with splendor, a
glow of molten gold streaming from the east. Wood and hillside
glimmered in a smoking mist, dew-bespangled, wonderful. As the sun
rose, the sea stretched sudden into the arch of the west, a great
expanse of liquid gold. A mysterious lustre hovered over the cliffs,
waves of light bent like saffron mist upon San Nicandro.

The dawn-light found an echo in Francesco's face. He came that
morning the ransomer, the champion, defeated in life and hope and
happiness, yet with head erect, as if defying Fate. His manhood smote
him like the deep-throated cry of a great bell, majestic and solemn.
The towers on the cliff were haloed with magic hues. Life, glory, joy,
lay locked in the gray stone walls. His heart sang in him; his eyes
were afire.

As he walked his horse with a hollow thunder of hoof over the narrow
bridge, he took his horn and blew a blast thereon. There was a sense
of desolation, a lifelessness about the place that smote his senses
with a strange fear. The walls stared void against the sky. There was
no stir, no sound within, no watchful faces at portal or wicket. Only
the gulls circled from the cliffs and the sea made its moan along the
strand.

Francesco sat in the saddle and looked from wall to belfry, from tower
to gate. There was something tragic about the place, the silence of a
sacked town, the ghostliness of a ship sailing the seas with a dead
crew upon her decks. Francesco's glance rested on the open postern, an
empty gash in the great gate. His face darkened and his eyes lost
their sanguine glow. There was something betwixt death and worse than
death in all this calm.

He dismounted and left his steed on the bridge. The postern beckoned
to him. He went in like a man nerved for peril, with sword drawn and
shield in readiness. Again he blew his horn. No living being answered,
no voice broke the silence.

The refectory was open, the door standing half ajar. Francesco thrust
it full open with the point of his sword and looked in. A gray light
filtered through the narrow windows. The nuns lay huddled on benches
and on the floor. Some lay fallen across the settles, others sat with
their heads fallen forward upon the table; a few had crawled towards
the door and had died in the attempt to escape. The shadow of death
was over the whole.

Francesco's face was as gray as the faces of the dead. There was
something here, a horror, a mystery, that hurled back the warm courage
of the heart.

With frantic despair he rushed from one body to the other, turning the
dead faces to the light, fearing every one must be that of his own
Ilaria. But Ilaria was not among them; the mystery grew deeper, grew
more unfathomable. For a moment, Francesco stood among the dead nuns
as if every nerve in his body had been suddenly paralyzed, when his
eyes fell upon a crystal chalice, half overturned on the floor. It
contained the remnants of a clear fluid. He picked it up and held it
to his nostrils. It fell from his nerveless fingers upon the stone and
broke into a thousand fragments, a thin stream creeping over the
granite towards the fallen dead. It was a preparation of hemlock and
bitter almonds. He stared aghast, afraid to move, afraid to call. The
nuns had poisoned themselves.

Like a madman he rushed out into the adjoining corridor, hither and
thither, in the frantic endeavor to find a trace of Ilaria. Yet not a
trace of her did he find. But what he did discover solved the mystery
of the grewsome feast of death which he had just witnessed. In a
corner where he had dropped it, there lay a silken banderol belonging
to a man-at-arms of Anjou's Provencals. They had been here, and the
nuns, to escape the violation of their bodies, had died, thus cheating
the fiends out of the gratification of their lusts.

The terrible discovery unnerved Francesco so completely that for a
time he stood as if turned to stone, looking about him like a
traveller who has stumbled blindly into a charnel house. Urged by
manifold forebodings, he then rushed from room to room, from cell to
cell. The same silence met him everywhere. Of Ilaria he found not a
trace. Had the fiends of Anjou carried her away, or had she, in
endeavoring to escape, found her death outside of the walls of San
Nicandro?

He dared not think out the thought.

The shadows of the place, the staring faces, the stiff hands clawing
at things inanimate, were like the phantasms of the night. Francesco
took the sea-air into his nostrils and looked up into the blue
radiance of the sky. All about him the garden glistened in the dawn;
the cypresses shimmered with dew. The late roses made very death more
apparent to his soul.

As he stood in deep thought, half dreading what he but half knew, a
voice called to him, breaking suddenly the ponderous silence of the
place. Guided by its sound, Francesco unlatched the door and found
himself face to face with the Duke of Spoleto.

For a moment they faced each other in silence.

Then he gave a great cry.

"Ever, ever night!" he said, stretching out his hands despairingly as
to an eternal void.

The duke's eyes seemed to look leagues away over moor and valley and
hill, where the blackened ruins of Astura rose beneath a dun smoke
against the calm of the morning sky.

A strange tenderness played upon his lips, as if with the extinction
of the Frangipani brood peace had entered his soul.

"A man is a mystery to himself," he said.

"But to God?"

"I know no God, save the God, my own soul! Let me live and
die,--nothing more! Why curse one's life with a 'to be?'"

Francesco sighed heavily.

"It is a kind of Fate to me!" he said, "inevitable as the setting of
the sun, natural as sleep. Not for myself do I fear it alone,--but I
should not like to think that I should never see her again."

The duke's eyes had caught life on the distant hillside, life surging
from the valleys, life and the glory of it. Harness, helm and shield
shone in the sun. Gold, azure, silver, scarlet were creeping from the
bronzed green of the wilds. Silent and solemn the host rolled slowly
into the full splendor of the day.

The duke's face had kindled.

"Grapple the days to come!" he said. "Let Scripture and ethics rot! My
men are at your command! Let them ride by stream and forest, moor and
mere! Let them ride in quest of your lost one, ride like the wind!"

Francesco looked at the duke through a mist of tears.

"You know?" he faltered.

"For this I came!" replied the duke, extending his hand. "You will
find her whom your heart seeks. Like a golden dawn shall she rise out
of the past. Blow your horn! Let us not tarry!"




CHAPTER VIII

THE ANCHORESS OF NARNI


Six days had passed. Once more the sun had tossed night from the sky
and kindled hope in the hymning east. The bleak wilderness barriered
by sea and crag had mellowed into the golden silence of the autumnal
woods. The very trees seemed tongued with prophetic flame. The world
leaped radiant out of the dawn.

Through the reddened woods rode Francesco, the Duke of Spoleto silent
by his side. Gloom still reigned on the pale, haggard face and there
was no lustre in the eyes that challenged ever the lurking shade of
Death. Six nights and six days had the quest been baffled. Near and
far armor glimmered in the reddened sanctuaries of the woods. Not a
trumpet brayed, though a host had scattered in search of a woman's
face.

On the seventh day, the trees drew back before Francesco where the
shimmering waters of the Nera streaked the meads. Peace dwelled there
and calm eternal, as of the Spirit that heals the throes of men. Rare
and golden lay the dawn-light on the valleys. The songs of the birds
came glad and multitudinous as in the burgeoning dawn of a glorious
day.

Francesco had halted under a great oak. His head was bare in the
sun-steeped shadows, his face was the face of one weary with long
watching under the voiceless stars. Great dread possessed him. He
dared not question his own soul.

A horn sounded in the woods, wild, clamorous and exultant. It was as
the voice of a prophet, clearing the despair of a godless world. Even
the trees stood listening. Far below, in the green shadows of the
valley, a horseman spurred his steed.

Francesco's eyes were upon him. Yet he dared not hope, gripped by a
great fear.

"I am even as a child," he said.

The duke's lips quivered.

"The dawn breaks,--the night is past. Tidings come to us. Let us ride
out!"

Francesco seemed lost in thought. He bowed his head and looked long
into the valley.

"Am I he who slew Raniero Frangipani?"

"Courage!" said the duke.

"My blood is as water, my heart as wax. Death and destiny are over my
head!"

"Speak not to me of destiny and look not to the skies! I have closed
my account with Heaven! In himself is man's power! You have broken the
crucifix! Now trust your own soul. So long as you did serve a
superstition had you lost your true heaven!"

"And yet--"

"You have played the god, and the Father in Heaven must love you for
your strength! God does not love a coward! He will let you rule your
destiny--not destiny your soul!"

"Strange words--"

"But true! Were I God, should I love the monk puling prayers in a den?
Nay--that man should I choose who dared to follow the dictates of his
own soul and strangle Fate with the grip of truth. Great deeds are
better than mumbled prayers!"

The horseman in the valley had swept at a gallop through a sea of
sun-bronzed fern. His eyes were full of a restless glitter, as the
eyes of a man, whose heart is troubled. He sprang from the saddle,
and, leading his horse by the bridle, bent low before the twain.

"Tidings, my lord!"

"I listen!"--

The horseman looked for a moment in Francesco's face but, hardened as
he was, he dared not abide the trial. There was such a stare of
desperate calm in the dark eyes, that his courage failed and quailed
from the truth. He hung his head and stood mute.

"I listen--"

"My lord--"

"For God's sake, speak out!"

"My lord--"

"The truth!"--

"She lives--"

A great silence fell within the hearts of the three, an ecstasy of
silence, such as comes after the wail of a storm. The duke's lips were
compressed, as if he feared to give expression to his feelings.
Francesco's face was as the face of one who thrusts back hope out of
his soul. He sat rigid on his horse, a stone image fronting Fate,
grim-eyed and steadfast. All his life had been one long sacrifice, one
long denial,--had it all been in vain?

There were tears in the eyes of the man-at-arms.

"What more?"

The horseman leaned against his horse, his arm hooked over its neck.

He pointed to the valley.

"Yonder lies Narni. Beyond the Campanile of St. Juvenal is a
sanctuary. You can see it yonder by the ford. Two holy women dwell
therein. To them, my lord, I commend you!"

"You know more!"

The voice that spoke was terrible.

"Spare me, my lord! The words are for women's lips, not for mine!"

"So be it!"

The three rode in silence, Francesco and the duke together, looking
mutely into each other's face. Francesco's head was bowed to his
breast. The reins lay loose on his horse's neck.

A gray cell of roughly hewn stone showed amidst the green boughs
beyond the water. At its door stood a woman in a black mantle. A cross
hung from her neck and a white kerchief bound her hair. She stood
motionless, half in the shadow, watching the horsemen as they rode
down to the rippling fords.

Autumn had touched the sanctuary garden, and Francesco's eyes beheld
ruin as he climbed the slope. The woman had come from the cell, and
now stood at the wicket-gate with her hands folded as if in prayer.

The horseman took Francesco's bridle. The latter went on foot alone to
speak with the anchoress.

"My lord," she said, kneeling at his feet, "God save and comfort
you!"--

The man's brow was twisted into furrows. His right hand clasped his
left wrist. He looked over the woman's head into the woods, and
breathed fast through clenched teeth.

"Speak!" he said.

"My lord, the woman lives!"

"I can bear the truth!"

The anchoress made the sign of the cross.

"She came to us here in the valley, my lord, tall and white as a lily,
her hair loose upon her neck. Her feet were bare and bleeding, her
soles rent with thorns. And as she came, she sang wild snatches of a
song, such as tells of love, and of Proserpina, Goddess of Shades. We
took her, my lord, gave her meat and drink, bathed her torn feet, and
gave her raiment. She abode with us, ever gentle and lovely, yet
speaking like one who had suffered, even to the death. And yet,--even
as we slept, she stole away from us last night, and now is gone!"--

The woman had never so much as raised her eyes to the man's face. Her
hands held her crucifix, and she was ashen pale, even as new-hewn
stone.

"And is this all?"

The man's voice trembled in his throat. His face was terrible to
behold in the sun.

"Not all, my lord!"

"Say on!"

The anchoress had buried her face in her black mantle. Her voice was
husky with tears.

"My lord, you seek one bereft of reason!"

"Mad!"

"Alas!"

A great cry came from Francesco's lips.

"My God! This, then, is the end!"




CHAPTER IX

THE DAWN


An undefined melancholy overshadowed the world. Autumn breathed in the
wind. The year, red-bosomed, was rushing to its doom.

On the summit of a wood-crowned hill, rising like a pyramid above moor
and forest, stood two men silent under the shadows of an oak. In the
distance glimmered the sea, and by a rock upon the hillside, armed
men, a knot of spears, shone like spirit sentinels athwart the west.
Mists were creeping up the valleys, as the sun went down into the sea.
A few sparse stars gleamed out like souls still tortured by the
mysteries of life. An inevitable pessimism seemed to challenge the
universe, taking for its parable the weird afterglow of the west.

Deep in the woods a voice sang wild and solitary in the gathering
gloom. Like the cry of a ghost, it seemed to set the silence
quivering, the leaves quaking with windless awe. The men who looked
towards the sea heard it, a song that echoed in the heart like woe.

The duke pointed into the darkening wood.

"Trust your own heart: self is the man! Through a mistaken sense of
duty have you been brought nigh unto death and despair! Trust not in
sophistry: the laws of men are carven upon stone, the laws of Heaven
upon the heart! Be strong! From henceforth, scorn mere words! Trample
tradition in the dust! Trust yourself, and the God in your heart!"

The distant voice had sunk into silence. Francesco listened for it
with hands aloft.

"I must go," he said.

"Go!"--

"I must be near her through the night!"

"The moon stands full upon the hills! I will await you here!"

Dim were the woods that autumn evening, dim and deep with an ecstasy
of gloom. Stars flickered in the heavens; the moon came and enveloped
the trees with silver flame. A primeval calm lay heavy upon the bosom
of the night. The spectral branches of the trees pointed rigid and
motionless towards the sky.

Francesco had left the duke gazing out upon the shimmering sea. The
voice called to him from the woods with plaintive peals of song. The
man followed it, holding to a grass-grown track that curled at random
into the gloom. Moonlight and shadow lay alternate upon his armor.
Hope and despair battled in his face. His soul leaped voiceless and
inarticulate into the darkened shrine of prayer.

The voice came to him clearer in the forest calm. The gulf had
narrowed, the words flew as over the waters of Death. They were pure,
yet meaningless, passionate, yet void; words barbed with an utter
pathos, that silenced desire.

For an hour Francesco roamed in the woods, drawing ever nearer, the
fear in him increasing with every step. Anon the voice failed him by a
little stream that quivered dimly through the grass. A stillness that
was ghostly held the woods. The moonlight seemed to shudder on the
trees. A stupendous silence weighed upon the world.

A hollow glade opened suddenly in the woods, a white gulf in a forest
gloom. Water shone there, a mere rush-ringed and full of mysterious
shadows, girded by the bronzed foliage of a thousand oaks. Moss grew
thick about the roots, dead leaves covered the grass.

And ever and anon a dead leaf dropped silently to earth, like a hope
that has died on the Tree of Life.

Francesco knelt in a patch of bracken and looked out over the glades.
A figure went to and fro by the water's brim, a figure pale in the
moonlight, as the form of the restless dead. The man kneeling in the
bracken pressed his hands over his breast; his face seemed to start
out of the gloom as the face of one who struggles in the sea,
submerged, yet desperate.

Francesco saw the woman halt beside the mere. He saw her bend, take
water in her palms and dash it in her face. Standing in the moonlight,
she smoothed her hair between her fingers, her hands shining white as
ivory against the dark bosom of her dress. She seemed to murmur to
herself the while, words wistful and full of woe. Once she thrust her
hands to the sky and cried: "Francesco! Francesco!" The man kneeling
in the shadows quivered like a wind-shaken reed.

The moon climbed higher and the woman by the mere spread her cloak
upon a patch of heather and laid herself thereon. Not a sound broke
the silence; the woods were mute, the air lifeless as the steely
water. An hour passed. The figure on the heather lay still as an
effigy on a tomb. The man in the bracken cast one look at the stars,
then crossed himself and crept out into the moonlight.

Holding the scabbard of his sword, he skirted the mere with shimmering
armor, went down upon his knees and crawled slowly over the grass.
Hours seemed to elapse before the black patch of heather spread crisp
and dry beneath his hands. Breathing through dilated nostrils, he
trembled like one who creeps to stab a sleeping friend. The moonlight
seemed to shower sparks upon him, as with supernatural glory. Tense
anguish seemed to fill the night with sound.

Two more paces and he was close at the woman's side. The heather
crackled beneath his knees. He held his breath, crept nearer, and
knelt so near that he could have kissed Ilaria's face. Her head lay
pillowed on her arm. Her hair spread as in a dusky halo beneath it.
Her bosom moved with the rhythmic calm of dreamless sleep. Her lips
were parted in a smile. One hand was hid in the dark folds of her
robe.

Francesco knelt with upturned face, his eyes shut to the sky. He
seemed like one faint with pain; his lips moved as in prayer. A
hundred inarticulate pleadings surged heavenward from his heart.

Again he bent over her and watched the pure girlish face as she slept.
A strange calm fell for a time upon him; his eyes never wavered from
the white arm and the glimmering hair. Vast awe held him in thrall. He
was as one who broods tearless and amazed over the dead, calm face of
one beloved above all on earth.

Hours passed and Francesco found no sustenance, save in prayer. The
unuttered yearnings of a world seemed molten in his soul. The moon
waned. The stars grew dim. Strange sounds stirred in the forest-deeps;
the mysterious breathing of a thousand trees. Life ebbed and flowed
with the sigh of a moon-stupored sea. Visions blazed in the night-sky
and faded away.

Hours passed. Neither sleeper nor watcher stirred. The night grew
faint. The water flickered in the mere. The very stars seemed to gaze
upon the destinies of two wearied souls.

Far and faint came the quaver of a bird's note. Gray and mysterious
stood the forest spires. Light! Light at last! Spears of amber darting
in the east. A shudder seemed to shake the universe. The great vault
kindled. The sky grew luminous with gold.

It was the dawn.

Ilaria stirred in her sleep. Her mouth quivered, her hair stirred
sudden under the heather, like tendrils of gold shivering in the sun.

Even as the light increased, Francesco knelt and looked down upon her.
Hope and life, glorious, sudden, seemed to fall out of the east, a
radiant faith begotten of spirit-power. Banners of gold were streaming
in the sky. The gloom fled. A vast expectancy hung solemn, breathless,
upon the red lips of the day.

A sigh, and the long, silken lashes quivered. The lips moved, the eyes
opened.

"Ilaria! Ilaria!"

Sudden silence followed, a vast hush as of undreamed hope. The woman's
eyes were silently searching the man's face. He bent and cowered over
her as one who weeps. His hands touched her body, yet she did not
stir.

"Ilaria! Ilaria!"

It was a hoarse, passionate outcry that broke the golden stupor of the
dawn. A sudden light leaped lustrous into the woman's eyes, her face
shone radiant in its etherealized beauty.

"Francesco!"

"Ah! At last!"

A great shudder passed through her body. Her eyes grew big with fear.

"Speak to me!"

"Ilaria!"

"Raniero?"

"Dead!"

A great silence held for a moment. The woman's head sank upon the
man's shoulder. Madness had passed. Her eyes were fixed upon his with
a wonderful earnestness, a splendid calm.

"Is this a dream?"

"It is the truth!"

Through the forest aisles rode the Duke of Spoleto.

He saw and paused.

"I return beyond the Alps to join the forces of Rudolf of Hapsburg. My
men are at your disposal. I shall wait for you on yonder hillock."

He wheeled about and was gone.

Again silence held for a pace.

Presently Ilaria gave a great sigh and looked strangely at the sun.

"I have dreamed a dream," she crooned, "and all was dark and fearful.
Death seemed near; lurid phantoms,--things from hell! I knew not what
I did, nor where I wandered, nor what strange stupor held my soul. All
my being cried out to you--yet all was dark about me, horrible
midnight, peopled with foul forms! Oh, that night,--that night--"

Shivering, she covered her eyes as if trying to banish the memory.

"It has passed," she breathed after a pause, during which Francesco
had taken her in his arms, kissing her eyes, her lips, and the
sylph-like, flower-soft face. "I see the dawn!"

"Our dawn!"--Francesco replied, pointing to the hillock beyond.

For a time there was a great silence, as if the fates of two souls
were being weighed in the scales of destiny.

It was Francesco who spoke.

"How you have suffered!"

She crept very close to him, smiling up at him with the old-time smile
through tear-dimmed eyes.

"It counts for naught now! Are not you with me?"

The sky burned azure above the tree-tops. Transient sunshafts quivered
through the vaulted dome of breathless leaves, as slowly Francesco and
Ilaria strode towards the camp of the Duke of Spoleto on the
sun-bathed hillock above the Nera.


                    The End.


       *       *       *       *       *


POLLYANNA

_By Eleanor H. Porter_

Author of "Miss Billy," "Miss Billy's Decision," etc.

_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, net $1.25; postpaid $1.40_

"Enter Pollyanna! She is the daintiest, dearest, most irresistible
maid you have met in all your journeyings through Bookland. And you
forget she is a story girl, for Pollyanna is so real that after your
first introduction you will feel the inner circle of your friends has
admitted a new member. A brave, winsome, modern American girl,
Pollyanna walks into print to take her place in the hearts of all
members of the family."

_Of "Miss Billy" the critics have written as follows:_

     "To say of any story that it makes the reader's heart feel warm
     and happy is to pay it praise of sorts, undoubtedly. Well,
     that's the very praise one gives 'Miss Billy.'"--_Edwin L.
     Shuman in the Chicago Record-Herald._

     "The story is delightful and as for Billy herself--she's _all
     right_!"--_Philadelphia Press._

     "There is a fine humor in the book, some good revelation of
     character and plenty of romance of the most unusual
     order."--_The Philadelphia Inquirer._

     "There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss Billy,'
     some inexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to demand
     the individual attention of the reader from the moment we open
     the book until we reluctantly turn the last page."--_Boston
     Transcript._

     "The book is a wholesome story, as fresh in tone as it is
     graceful in expression, and one may predict for it a wide
     audience."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._

     "Miss Billy is so carefree, so original and charming, that she
     lives in the reader's memory long after the book has been laid
     aside."--_Boston Globe._

     "You cannot help but love dear 'Billy;' she is winsome and
     attractive and you will be only too glad to introduce her to
     your friends."--_Brooklyn Eagle._


       *       *       *       *       *


THE CAREER OF DR. WEAVER

_By Mrs. Henry W. Backus_

_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, net $1.25; postpaid $1.40_

A big and purposeful story interwoven about the responsibilities and
problems in the medical profession of the present day. Dr. Weaver, a
noted specialist, and head of a private hospital, had allowed himself
to drift away from the standards of his youth in his desire for wealth
and social and scientific prestige. When an exposé of the methods
employed by him in furthering his schemes for the glorifying of the
name of "Weaver" in the medical world is threatened, it is frustrated
through the efforts of the famous doctor's younger brother, Dr. Jim.
The story is powerful and compelling, even if it uncovers the problems
and temptations of a physician's career. Perhaps the most important
character, not even excepting Dr. Weaver and Dr. Jim, is "The Girl,"
who plays such an important part in the lives of both men.

     "The story becomes one of those absorbing tales of to-day which
     the reader literally devours in an evening, unwilling to leave
     the book until the last page is reached, and constantly alert,
     through the skill of the author, in following the characters
     through the twisted ways of their career."--_Boston Journal._

     "The story is well-written, unique, quite out of the usual
     order, and is most captivating."--_Christian Intelligencer._


       *       *       *       *       *


THE HILL OF VENUS

_By Nathan Gallizier_

Author of "Castel del Monte," "The Sorceress of Rome," "The Court of
Lucifer," etc.

_12mo, cloth decorative, with four illustrations in color, net $1.35;
postpaid $1.50_

This is a vivid and powerful romance of the thirteenth century in the
times of the great Ghibelline wars, and deals with the fortunes of
Francesco Villani, a monk, who has been coerced by his dying father to
bind himself to the Church through a mistaken sense of duty, but who
loves Ilaria, one of the famous beauties of the Court at Avellino. The
excitement, splendor and stir of those days of activity in Rome are
told with a vividness and daring, which give a singular fascination to
the story.

_The Press has commented as follows on the author's previous books_:

     "The author displays many of the talents that made Scott
     famous."--_The Index._

     "The book is breathless reading, as much for the adventures,
     the pageants, the midnight excursions of the minor characters,
     as for the love story of the prince and Donna
     Lucrezia."--_Boston Transcript._

     "Mr. Gallizier daringly and vividly paints in glowing word and
     phrases, in sparkling dialogue and colorful narrative, the
     splendor, glamor and stir in those days of excitement,
     intrigue, tragedy, suspicion and intellectual activity in
     Rome."--_Philadelphia Press._

     "A splendid bit of old Roman mosaic, or a gorgeous piece of
     tapestry. Otto is a striking and pathetic figure. Description
     of the city, the gorgeous ceremonials of the court and the
     revels are a series of wonderful pictures."--_Cincinnati
     Enquirer._

     "The martial spirit of these stirring times, weird beliefs in
     magic and religion are most admirably presented by the author,
     who knows his subject thoroughly. It belongs to the class of
     Bulwer-Lytton's romances; carefully studied, well wrought, and
     full of exciting incident."--_Cleveland Enquirer._

     "Romance at its best."--_Boston Herald._


       *       *       *       *       *


THE WHAT-SHALL-I-DO GIRL

Or, The Career of Joy Kent

_By Isabel Woodman Waitt_

_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by Jessie Gillespie. Net $1.25;
postpaid $1.40_

When Joy Kent finds herself alone in the world, thrown on her own
resources, after the death of her father, she looks about her, as do
so many young girls, fresh from the public schools, wondering how she
can support herself and earn a place in the great business world about
her. Still wondering, she sends a letter to a number of girls she had
known in school days, asking that each one tell her just how she had
equipped herself for a salary-earning career, and once equipped, how
she had found it possible to start on that career. In reply come
letters from the milliner, the stenographer, the librarian, the
salesgirl, the newspaper woman, the teacher, the nurse, and from girls
who had adopted all sorts of vocations as a means of livelihood. Real
friendly girl letters they are, too, not of the type that preach, but
of the kind which give sound and helpful advice in a bright and
interesting manner. Of course there is a splendid young man who also
gives advice. Any "What-shall-I-do" young girl can read of the careers
suggested for Joy Kent with profit and pleasure, and, perhaps, with
surprise!


       *       *       *       *       *


THE HARBOR MASTER

_By Theodore Goodridge Roberts_

Author of "Comrades of the Trails," "Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery,"
etc.

_12mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color by John
Goss. Net $1.25; postpaid $1.40_

The scene of the story is Newfoundland. The story deals with the love
of Black Dennis Nolan, a young giant and self-appointed skipper of the
little fishing hamlet of Chance Along, for Flora Lockhart, a beautiful
professional singer, who is rescued by Dennis from a wreck on the
treacherous coast of Newfoundland, when on her way from England to the
United States. The story is a strong one all through, with a mystery
that grips, plenty of excitement and action, and the author presents
life in the open in all its strength and vigor. Mr. Roberts is one of
the younger writers whom the critics have been watching with interest.
In "The Harbor Master" he has surely arrived.

_Of Mr. Roberts' previous books the critics have written as follows_:

     "The action is always swift and romantic and the love is of the
     kind that thrills the reader. The characters are admirably
     drawn and the reader follows with deep interest the adventures
     of the two young people."--_Baltimore Sun._

     "Mr. Roberts' pen has lost none of its cunning, while his style
     is easier and breezier than ever."--_Buffalo Express._

     "It is a romance of clean, warm-hearted devotion to friends and
     duty. The characters are admirable each in his own or her own
     way, and the author has made each fit the case in excellent
     fashion."--_Salt Lake City Tribune._

     "In this book Mr. Roberts has well maintained his reputation
     for the vivid coloring of his descriptive pictures, which are
     full of stirring action, and in which love and fighting hold
     chief place."--_Boston Times._

     "Its ease of style, its rapidity, its interest from page to
     page, are admirable; and it shows that inimitable power--the
     story-teller's gift of verisimilitude. Its sureness and
     clearness are excellent, and its portraiture clear and
     pleasing."--_The Reader._


       *       *       *       *       *


AT THE SIGN OF THE TOWN PUMP

The Further Adventures of Peggy of Spinster Farm

_By Helen M. Winslow_

_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, net $1.25; postpaid $ 1.40_

Miss Winslow calls us again away from the strenuous and noisy
confusion of modern cities to the charm and contentment of life "under
the greenwood tree." Peggy's adventures had only just begun in the
first book. In this new record of life at Spinster Farm and "Elysium,"
"At the Sign of the Town Pump," there is plenty of romantic adventure
of the kind that proves truth to be stranger sometimes than fiction.
There is humor, too, in even greater quantities than in the preceding
book, sparkling humor that places the author well up in the list of
our New England humorists. "At the Sign of the Town Pump" will be
welcomed not only by those who enjoyed making the acquaintance of
Spinster Farm, but by thousands of new readers who appreciate a clever
story and a fascinating heroine.

_On "Peggy at Spinster Farm" the Press opinions are as follows_:

     "Very alluring are the pictures she draws of the old-fashioned
     house, the splendid old trees, the pleasant walks, the gorgeous
     sunsets, and--or it would not be Helen Winslow--the
     cats."--_The Boston Transcript._

     "'Peggy at Spinster Farm' is a rewarding volume, original and
     personal in its point of view, redolent of unfeigned love for
     the country and the sane, satisfying pleasures of country
     life."--_Milwaukee Free Press._

     "It is an alluring, wholesome tale."--_Schenectady Star._

     "Is a story remarkably interesting, and no book will be found
     more entertaining than this one, especially for those who enjoy
     light-hearted character sketches, and startling and unexpected
     happenings."--_Northampton Gazette._

     "An exceptionally well-written book."--_Milwaukee Evening
     Wisconsin._

     "The Spinster and Peggy have a quiet sense of humor of their
     own and they convey their experiences with a quaint enjoyment
     that holds us irresistibly."--_The Argonaut._

     "This is a thoroughly enjoyable story. Mary Wilkins at her best
     was never more interesting, and she has never produced a book
     more normal and as wholesome as this."--_Journal of Education._


       *       *       *       *       *


Selections from L. C. Page and Company's List of Fiction


 WORKS OF ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

 _Each one vol., library 12mo, cloth decorative_ $1.50


 THE FLIGHT OF GEORGIANA

 A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER. Illustrated by H.
 C. Edwards.

 "A love-story in the highest degree, a dashing story, and a
 remarkably well finished piece of work."--_Chicago
 Record-Herald._


 THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER

 Being an account of some adventures of Henri de Launay, son of
 the Sieur de la Tournoire. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.

 "Mr. Stephens has fairly outdone himself. We thank him
 heartily. The story is nothing if not spirited and
 entertaining, rational and convincing."--_Boston Transcript._


 THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT

 (40th thousand.)

 "This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done.
 Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure
 of this praise, which is generous."--_Buffalo News._


 CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW

 OR, THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE. (52d thousand.) A romance of
 Elizabethan London. Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other
 artists.

 Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we had
 anything so good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.


 THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON

 A ROMANCE OF PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778. (53d thousand.)
 Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.

 A stirring romance of the Revolution, with its scenes laid on
 neutral territory.


 PHILIP WINWOOD

 (70th thousand.) A Sketch of the Domestic History of an
 American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events
 that occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in New
 York and London. Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.


 AN ENEMY TO THE KING

 (70th thousand.) Illustrated by H. De M. Young.

 An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
 adventures of a young French nobleman at the court of Henry
 III., and on the field with Henry IV.


 THE ROAD TO PARIS

 A STORY OF ADVENTURE. (35th thousand.) Illustrated by H. C.
 Edwards.

 An historical romance of the eighteenth century, being an
 account of the life of an American gentleman adventurer.


 A GENTLEMAN PLAYER

 HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH. (48th
 thousand.) Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.

 The story of a young gentleman who joins Shakespeare's company
 of players, and becomes a protégé of the great poet.


 CLEMENTINA'S HIGHWAYMAN

 Illustrated by A. Everhart.

 The story is laid in the mid-Georgian period. It is a dashing,
 sparkling, vivacious comedy.


 TALES FROM BOHEMIA

 Illustrated by Wallace Goldsmith.

 These bright and clever tales deal with people of the theatre
 and odd characters in other walks of life which fringe on
 Bohemia.


 A SOLDIER OF VALLEY FORGE

 By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS AND THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS.

 With frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill.

 "The plot shows invention and is developed with originality,
 and there is incident in abundance."--_Brooklyn Times._


 THE SWORD OF BUSSY

 By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS AND HERMAN NICKERSON.

 With frontispiece by Edmund H. Garrett.
  (2) Any person, being a British subject, who, without the license
  of Her Majesty, is about to quit Her Majesty's dominions with the
  intent to accept any commission or engagement in the military or
  naval service of any foreign state at war with a friendly state:

  (3) Any person who has been induced to embark under a
  misrepresentation or false representation of the service in which
  such person is to be engaged, with the intent or in order that
  such person may accept or agree to accept any commission or
  engagement in the military or naval service of any foreign state
  at war with a friendly state:

Such master or owner shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and
the following consequences shall ensue; that is to say,--

  (1) The offender shall be punishable by fine and imprisonment, or
  either of such punishments, at the discretion of the court before
  which the offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may
  be either with or without hard labour: and

  (2) Such ship shall be detained until the trial and conviction or
  acquittal of the master or owner, and until all penalties
  inflicted on the master or owner have been paid, or the master or
  owner has given security for the payment of such penalties to the
  satisfaction of two justices of the peace, or other magistrate or
  magistrates having the authority of two justices of the peace: and

  (3) All illegally enlisted persons shall immediately on the
  discovery of the offence be taken on shore, and shall not be
  allowed to return to the ship.


_Illegal Shipbuilding and Illegal Expeditions._

[Sidenote: Penalty on illegal Shipbuilding and illegal Expeditions.]

8. If any person within Her Majesty's dominions, without the license of
Her Majesty, does any of the following acts; that is to say,--

  (1) Builds or agrees to build, or causes to be built any ship with
  intent or knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe that
  the same shall or will be employed in the military or naval
  service of any foreign state at war with any friendly state: or

  (2) Issues or delivers any commission for any ship with intent or
  knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe that the same
  shall or will be employed in the military or naval service of any
  foreign state at war with any friendly state: or

  (3) Equips any ship with intent or knowledge, or having reasonable
  cause to believe that the same shall or will be employed in the
  military or naval service of any foreign state at war with any
  friendly state: or

  (4) Despatches, or causes or allows to be despatched, any ship
  with intent or knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe
  that the same shall or will be employed in the military or naval
  service of any foreign state at war with any friendly state:

Such person shall be deemed to have committed an offence against this
Act, and the following consequences shall ensue:

  (1) The offender shall be punishable by fine and imprisonment or
  either of such punishments, at the discretion of the court before
  which the offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may
  be either with or without hard labour.

  (2) The ship in respect of which any such offence is committed,
  and her equipment, shall be forfeited to Her Majesty.

Provided that a person building, causing to be built, or equipping a
ship in any of the cases aforesaid, in pursuance of a contract made
before the commencement of such war as aforesaid, shall not be liable to
any of the penalties imposed by this section in respect of such building
or equipping if he satisfies the conditions following; (that is to say,)

  (1) If forthwith upon a proclamation of neutrality being issued by
  Her Majesty he gives notice to the Secretary of State that he is
  so building, causing to be built, or equipping such ship, and
  furnishes such particulars of the contract and of any matters
  relating to, or done, or to be done under the contract as may be
  required by the Secretary of State:

  (2) If he gives such security, and takes and permits to be taken
  such other measures, if any, as the Secretary of State may
  prescribe for ensuring that such ship shall not be despatched,
  delivered, or removed without the license of Her Majesty until the
  termination of such war as aforesaid.

[Sidenote: Presumption as to Evidence in case of Illegal Ship.]

9. Where any ship is built by order of or on behalf of any foreign state
when at war with a friendly state, or is delivered to or to the order of
such foreign state, or any person who to the knowledge of the person
building is an agent of such foreign state, or is paid for by such
foreign state or such agent, and is employed in the military or naval
service of such foreign state, such ship shall, until the contrary is
proved, be deemed to have been built with a view to being so employed,
and the burden shall lie on the builder of such ship of proving that he
did not know that the ship was intended to be so employed in the
military or naval service of such foreign state.

[Sidenote: Penalty on aiding the Warlike Equipment of Foreign ships.]

10. If any person within the dominions of Her Majesty, and without the
license of Her Majesty,--

By adding to the number of guns, or by changing those on board for other
guns, or by the addition of any equipment for war, increases or
augments, or procures to be increased or augmented, or is knowingly
concerned in increasing or augmenting the warlike force of any ship
which at the time of her being within the dominions of Her Majesty was a
ship in the military or naval service of any foreign state at war with
any friendly state,--

  Such person shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and
  shall be punishable by fine and imprisonment, or either of such
  punishments, at the discretion of the court before which the
  offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may be either
  with or without hard labour.

[Sidenote: Penalty on fitting out Naval or Military Expeditions without
License.]

11. If any person within the limits of Her Majesty's dominions, and
without the license of Her Majesty,--

Prepares or fits out any naval or military expedition to proceed against
the dominions of any friendly state, the following consequences shall
ensue:

  (1) Every person engaged in such preparation or fitting out, or
  assisting therein, or employed in any capacity in such expedition,
  shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and shall be
  punishable by fine and imprisonment, or either of such
  punishments, at the discretion of the court before which the
  offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may be either
  with or without hard labour.

  (2) All ships, and their equipments, and all arms and munitions of
  war, used in or forming part of such expedition, shall be
  forfeited to Her Majesty.

[Sidenote: Punishment of Accessories.]

12. Any person who aids, abets, counsels, or procures the commission of
any offence against this Act shall be liable to be tried and punished as
a principal offender.

[Sidenote: Limitation of Term of Imprisonment.]

13. The term of imprisonment to be awarded in respect of any offence
against this Act shall not exceed two years.


_Illegal Prize._

[Sidenote: Illegal Prize brought into British Ports restored.]

14. If during the continuance of any war in which Her Majesty may be
neutral, any ship, goods, or merchandize captured as prize of war within
the territorial jurisdiction of Her Majesty, in violation of the
neutrality of this realm, or captured by any ship which may have been
built, equipped, commissioned, or despatched, or the force of which may
have been augmented, contrary to the provisions of this Act are brought
within the limits of Her Majesty's dominions by the captor, or any agent
of the captor, or by any person having come into possession thereof with
the knowledge that the same was prize of war so captured as aforesaid,
it shall be lawful for the original owner of such prize, or his agent,
or for any person authorised in that behalf by the Government of the
foreign state to which such owner belongs, to make application to the
Court of Admiralty for seizure and detention of such prize, and the
court shall, on due proof of the facts, order such prize to be restored.

Every such order shall be executed and carried into effect in the same
manner, and subject to the same right of appeal as in the case of any
order made in the exercise of the ordinary jurisdiction of such court;
and in the meantime and until a final order has been made on such
application the court shall have power to make all such provisional and
other orders as to the care or custody of such captured ship, goods, or
merchandize, and (if the same be of perishable nature, or incurring risk
of deterioration) for the sale thereof, and with respect to the deposit
or investment of the proceeds of any such sale, as may be made by such
court in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction.


_General Provision._

[Sidenote: License by Her Majesty, how granted.]

15. For the purpose of this Act, a license by Her Majesty shall be under
the sign manual of Her Majesty, or be signified by Order in Council or
by proclamation of Her Majesty.


_Legal Procedure._

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in respect of Offences by Persons against Act.]

16. Any offence against this Act shall, for all purposes of and
incidental to the trial and punishment of any person guilty of any such
offence, be deemed to have been committed either in the place in which
the offence was wholly or partly committed, or in any place within Her
Majesty's dominions in which the person who committed such offence may
be.

[Sidenote: Venue in respect of Offences by Persons. 24 & 25 Vict. c.
97.]

17. Any offence against this Act may be described in any indictment or
other document relating to such offence, in cases where the mode of
trial requires such a description, as having been committed at the place
where it was wholly or partly committed, or it may be averred generally
to have been committed within Her Majesty's dominions, and the venue or
local description in the margin may be that of the county, city, or
place in which the trial is held.

[Sidenote: Power to remove Offenders for Trial.]

18. The following authorities, that is to say, in the United Kingdom any
judge of a superior court, in any other place within the jurisdiction of
any British court of justice, such court, or, if there are more courts
than one, the court having the highest criminal jurisdiction in that
place, may, by warrant or instrument in the nature of a warrant in this
section included in the term "warrant," direct that any offender charged
with an offence against this Act shall be removed to some other place in
Her Majesty's dominions for trial in cases where it appears to the
authority granting the warrant that the removal of such offender would
be conducive to the interests of justice, and any prisoner so removed
shall be triable at the place to which he is removed, in the same manner
as if his offence had been committed at such place.

Any warrant for the purposes of this section may be addressed to the
master of any ship or to any other person or persons, and the person or
persons to whom such warrant is addressed shall have power to convey the
prisoner therein named to any place or places named in such warrant, and
to deliver him, when arrived at such place or places, into the custody
of any authority designated by such warrant.

Every prisoner shall, during the time of his removal under any such
warrant as aforesaid, be deemed to be in the legal custody of the person
or persons empowered to remove him.

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in respect of Forfeiture of Ships for Offences
against Act.]

19. All proceedings for the condemnation and forfeiture of a ship, or
ship and equipment, or arms and munitions of war, in pursuance of this
Act shall require the sanction of the Secretary of State or such chief
executive authority as is in this Act mentioned, and shall be had in the
Court of Admiralty, and not in any other court; and the Court of
Admiralty shall, in addition to any power given to the court by this
Act, have in respect of any ship or other matter brought before it in
pursuance of this Act all powers which it has in the case of a ship or
matter brought before it in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction.

[Sidenote: Regulations as to Proceedings against the Offender and the
Ship.]

20. Where any offence against this Act has been committed by any person
by reason whereof a ship, or ship and equipment, or arms and munitions
of war, has or have become liable to forfeiture, proceedings may be
instituted contemporaneously or not, as may be thought fit, against the
offender in any court having jurisdiction of the offence, and against
the ship, or ship and equipment, or arms and munitions of war, for the
forfeiture in the Court of Admiralty; but it shall not be necessary to
take proceedings against the offender because proceedings are instituted
for the forfeiture, or to take proceedings for the forfeiture because
proceedings are taken against the offender.

[Sidenote: Officer authorised to seize offending Ships.]

21. The following officers, that is to say,--

  (1) Any officer of customs in the United Kingdom, subject
  nevertheless to any special or general instructions from the
  Commissioners of Customs or any officer of the Board of Trade,
  subject nevertheless to any special or general instructions from
  the Board of Trade;

  (2) Any officer of customs or public officer in any British
  possession, subject nevertheless to any special or general
  instructions from the governor of such possession;

  (3) Any commissioned officer on full pay in the military service
  of the Crown, subject nevertheless to any special or general
  instructions from his commanding officer;

  (4) Any commissioned officer on full pay in the naval service of
  the Crown, subject nevertheless to any special or general
  instructions from the Admiralty or his superior officer, may seize
  or detain any ship liable to be seized or detained in pursuance of
  this Act, and such officers are in this Act referred to as the
  "local authority"; but nothing in this Act contained shall
  derogate from the power of the Court of Admiralty to direct any
  ship to be seized or detained by any officer by whom such court
  may have power under its ordinary jurisdiction to direct a ship to
  be seized or detained.

[Sidenote: Powers of Officers authorised to seize Ships.]

22. Any officer authorised to seize or detain any ship in respect of any
offence against this Act may, for the purpose of enforcing such seizure
or detention, call to his aid any constable or officers of police, or
any officers of Her Majesty's army or navy or marines, or any excise
officer or officers of customs, or any harbour-master or dock-master, or
any officers having authority by law to make seizures of ships, and may
put on board any ship so seized or detained any one or more of such
officers to take charge of the same, and to enforce the provisions of
this Act, and any officer seizing or detaining any ship under this Act
may use force, if necessary, for the purpose of enforcing seizure or
detention, and if any person is killed or maimed by reason of his
resisting such officer in the execution of his duties, or any person
acting under his orders, such officer so seizing or detaining the ship,
or other person, shall be freely and fully indemnified as well against
the Queen's Majesty, Her heirs and successors, as against all persons so
killed, maimed, or hurt.

[Sidenote: Special Power of Secretary of State or Chief Executive
Authority to detain Ship.]

23. If the Secretary of State or the chief executive authority is
satisfied that there is a reasonable and probable cause for believing
that a ship within Her Majesty's dominions has been or is being built,
commissioned, or equipped contrary to this Act, and is about to be taken
beyond the limits of such dominions, or that a ship is about to be
despatched contrary to this Act, such Secretary of State or chief
executive authority shall have power to issue a warrant stating that
there is reasonable and probable cause for believing as aforesaid, and
upon such warrant the local authority shall have power to seize and
search such ship, and to detain the same until it has been either
condemned or released by process of law, or in manner herein-after
mentioned.

The owner of the ship so detained, or his agent, may apply to the Court
of Admiralty for its release, and the court shall as soon as possible
put the matter of such seizure and detention in course of trial between
the applicant and the Crown.

If the applicant establish to the satisfaction of the court that the
ship was not and is not being built, commissioned, or equipped or
intended to be despatched contrary to this Act, the ship shall be
released and restored.

If the applicant fail to establish to the satisfaction of the court that
the ship was not and is not being built, commissioned, or equipped, or
intended to be despatched contrary to this Act, then the ship shall be
detained till released by order of the Secretary of State or chief
executive authority.

The court may in cases where no proceedings are pending for its
condemnation release any ship detained under this section on the owner
giving security to the satisfaction of the court that the ship shall not
be employed contrary to this Act, notwithstanding that the applicant may
have failed to establish to the satisfaction of the court that the ship
was not and is not being built, commissioned, or intended to be
despatched contrary to this Act. The Secretary of State or the chief
executive authority may likewise release any ship detained under this
section on the owner giving security to the satisfaction of such
Secretary of State or chief executive authority that the ship shall not
be employed contrary to this Act, or may release the ship without such
security if the Secretary of State or chief executive authority think
fit so to release the same.

If the court be of opinion that there was not reasonable and probable
cause for the detention, and if no such cause appear in the course of
the proceedings, the court shall have power to declare that the owner is
to be indemnified by the payment of costs and damages in respect of the
detention, the amount thereof to be assessed by the court, and any
amount so assessed shall be payable by the Commissioners of the Treasury
out of any moneys legally applicable for that purpose. The Court of
Admiralty shall also have power to make a like order for the indemnity
of the owner, on the application of such owner to the court, in a
summary way, in cases where the ship is released by the order of the
Secretary of State or the chief executive authority, before any
application is made by the owner or his agent to the court for such
release.

Nothing in this section contained shall affect any proceedings
instituted or to be instituted for the condemnation of any ship detained
under this section where such ship is liable to forfeiture subject to
this provision, that if such ship is restored in pursuance of this
section all proceedings for such condemnation shall be stayed; and where
the court declares that the owner is to be indemnified by the payment of
costs and damages for the detainer, all costs, charges, and expenses
incurred by such owner in or about any proceedings for the condemnation
of such ship shall be added to the costs and damages payable to him in
respect of the detention of the ship.

Nothing in this section contained shall apply to any foreign
non-commissioned ship despatched from any part of Her Majesty's
dominions after having come within them under stress of weather or in
the course of a peaceful voyage, and upon which ship no fitting out or
equipping of a warlike character has taken place in this country.

[Sidenote: Special Power of Local Authority to detain Ship.]

24. Where it is represented to any local authority, as defined by this
Act, and such local authority believes the representation, that there is
a reasonable and probable cause for believing that a ship within Her
Majesty's dominions has been or is being built, commissioned, or
equipped contrary to this Act, and is about to be taken beyond the
limits of such dominions, or that a ship is about to be despatched
contrary to this Act, it shall be the duty of such local authority to
detain such ship, and forthwith to communicate the fact of such
detention to the Secretary of State or chief executive authority.

Upon the receipt of such communication the Secretary of State or chief
executive authority may order the ship to be released if he thinks there
is no cause for detaining her, but if satisfied that there is reasonable
and probable cause for believing that such ship was built, commissioned,
or equipped or intended to be despatched in contravention of this Act,
he shall issue his warrant stating that there is reasonable and probable
cause for believing as aforesaid, and upon such warrant being issued
further proceedings shall be had as in cases where the seizure or
detention has taken place on a warrant issued by the Secretary of State
without any communication from the local authority.

Where the Secretary of State or chief executive authority orders the
ship to be released on the receipt of a communication from the local
authority without issuing his warrant, the owner of the ship shall be
indemnified by the payment of costs and damages in respect of the
detention upon application to the Court of Admiralty in a summary way in
like manner as he is entitled to be indemnified where the Secretary of
State having issued his warrant under this Act releases the ship before
any application is made by the owner or his agent to the court for such
release.

[Sidenote: Power of Secretary of State or Executive Authority to grant
Search Warrant.]

25. The Secretary of State or the chief executive authority may, by
warrant, empower any person to enter any dockyard or other place within
Her Majesty's dominions and inquire as to the destination of any ship
which may appear to him to be intended to be employed in the naval or
military service of any foreign state at war with a friendly state, and
to search such ship.

[Sidenote: Exercise of Powers of Secretary of State or Chief Executive
Authority.]

26. Any powers or jurisdiction by this Act given to the Secretary of
State may be exercised by him throughout the dominions of Her Majesty,
and such powers and jurisdiction may also be exercised by any of the
following officers, in this Act referred to as the chief executive
authority, within their respective jurisdictions; that is to say,

  (1) In Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant or other the chief governor
  or governors of Ireland for the time being, or the chief
  secretary to the Lord Lieutenant:

  (2) In Jersey by the Lieutenant Governor:

  (3) In Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, and the dependent islands by
  the Lieutenant Governor:

  (4) In the Isle of Man by the Lieutenant Governor:

  (5) In any British possession by the Governor:

A copy of any warrant issued by a Secretary of State or by any officer
authorised in pursuance of this Act to issue such warrant in Ireland,
the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man shall be laid before Parliament.

[Sidenote: Appeal from Court of Admiralty.]

27. An appeal may be had from any decision of a Court of Admiralty under
this Act to the same tribunal and in the same manner to and in which an
appeal may be had in cases within the ordinary jurisdiction of the court
as a Court of Admiralty.

[Sidenote: Indemnity to Officers.]

28. Subject to the provisions of this Act providing for the award of
damages in certain cases in respect of the seizure or detention of a
ship by the Court of Admiralty no damages shall be payable, and no
officer or local authority shall be responsible, either civilly or
criminally, in respect of the seizure or detention of any ship in
pursuance of this Act.

[Sidenote: Indemnity to Secretary of State or Chief Executive
Authority.]

29. The Secretary of State shall not, nor shall the chief executive
authority, be responsible in any action or other legal proceedings
whatsoever for any warrant issued by him in pursuance of this Act, or be
examinable as a witness, except at his own request, in any court of
justice in respect of the circumstances which led to the issue of the
warrant.


_Interpretation Clause._

[Sidenote: Interpretation of Terms.]

30. In this Act, if not inconsistent with the context, the following
terms have the meanings herein-after respectively assigned to them; that
is to say,

[Sidenote: "Foreign State:"]

  "Foreign state" includes any foreign prince, colony, province, or
  part of any province or people, or any person or persons
  exercising or assuming to exercise the powers of government in or
  over any foreign country, colony, province, or part of any
  province or people:

[Sidenote: "Military Service:"]

  "Military service" shall include military telegraphy and any other
  employment whatever, in or in connection with any military
  operation:

[Sidenote: "Naval Service:"]

  "Naval service" shall, as respects a person, include service as a
  marine, employment as a pilot in piloting or directing the course
  of a ship of war or other ship when such ship of war or other ship
  is being used in any  military or naval operation, and any
  employment whatever on board a ship of war, transport, store ship,
  privateer or ship under letters of marque; and as respects a ship,
  include any user of a ship as a transport, store ship, privateer
  or ship under letters of marque:

[Sidenote: "United Kingdom:"]

  "United Kingdom" includes the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands,
  and other adjacent islands:

[Sidenote: "British Possessions:"]

  "British possession" means any territory, colony, or place being
  part of Her Majesty's dominions, and not part of the United
  Kingdom, as defined by this Act:

[Sidenote: "The Secretary of State:"]

  "The Secretary of State" shall mean any one of Her Majesty's
  Principal Secretaries of State:

[Sidenote: "Governor:"]

  "The Governor" shall as respects India mean the Governor General
  or the Governor of any presidency, and where a British possession
  consists of several constituent colonies, mean the Governor
  General of the whole possession or the Governor of any of the
  constituent colonies, and as respects any other British possession
  it shall mean the officer for the time being administering the
  government of such possession; also any person acting for or in
  the capacity of a governor shall be included under the term
  "Governor":

[Sidenote: "Court of Admiralty:"]

  "Court of Admiralty" shall mean the High Court of Admiralty of
  England or Ireland, the Court of Session of Scotland, or any
  Vice-Admiralty Court within Her Majesty's dominions:

[Sidenote: "Ship:"]

  "Ship" shall include any description of boat, vessel, floating
  battery, or floating craft; also any description of boat, vessel,
  or other craft or battery, made to move either on the surface of
  or under water, or sometimes on the surface of and sometimes under
  water:

[Sidenote: "Building:"]

  "Building" in relation to a ship shall include the doing any act
  towards or incidental to the construction of a ship, and all words
  having relation to building shall be construed accordingly:

[Sidenote: "Equipping:"]

  "Equipping" in relation to a ship shall include the furnishing a
  ship with any tackle, apparel, furniture, provisions, arms,
  munitions, or stores, or any other thing which is used in or about
  a ship for the purpose of fitting or adapting her for the sea or
  for naval service, and all words relating to equipping shall be
  construed accordingly:

[Sidenote: "Ship and Equipment:"]

  "Ship and equipment" shall include a ship and everything in or
  belonging to a ship:

[Sidenote: "Master:"]

  "Master" shall include any person having the charge or command of
  a ship.

_Repeal of Acts, and Saving Clauses._

[Sidenote: Repeal of Foreign Enlistment Act. 59 G. 3, c. 69.]

31. From and after the commencement of this Act, an Act passed in the
fifty-ninth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third,
chapter sixty-nine, intituled "An Act to prevent the enlisting or
engagement of His Majesty's subjects to serve in foreign service, and
the fitting out or equipping, in His Majesty's dominions, vessels for
warlike purposes, without His Majesty's license," shall be repealed:
Provided that such repeal shall not affect any penalty, forfeiture, or
other punishment incurred or to be incurred in respect of any offence
committed before this Act comes into operation, nor the institution of
any investigation or legal proceeding, or any other remedy for enforcing
any such penalty, forfeiture, or punishment as aforesaid.

[Sidenote: Saving as to Commissioned Foreign Ships.]

32. Nothing in this Act contained shall subject to forfeiture any
commissioned ship of any foreign state, or give to any British court
over or in respect of any ship entitled to recognition as a commissioned
ship of any foreign state any jurisdiction which it would not have had
if this Act had not passed.

[Sidenote: Penalties not to extend to Persons entering into Military
Service in Asia. 59 G. 3, c. 69, s. 12.]

33. Nothing in this Act contained shall extend or be construed to extend
to subject to any penalty any person who enters into the military
service of any prince, state, or potentate in Asia, with such leave or
license as is for the time being required by law in the case of subjects
of Her Majesty entering into the military services of princes, states,
or potentates of Asia.




APPENDIX X

      THE NAVAL PRIZE ACT, 1864
      27 & 28 VICT., CHAPTER 25
      An Act for regulating Naval Prize of War.
      [_23rd June 1864._]


Whereas it is expedient to enact permanently, with Amendments, such
Provisions concerning Naval Prize, and Matters connected therewith, as
have heretofore been usually passed at the Beginning of a War:

Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and
with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of
the same, as follows:

_Preliminary._

[Sidenote: Short Title.]

1. This Act may be cited as the Naval Prize Act, 1864.

2. In this Act--

[Sidenote: Interpretation of Terms.]

  The Term "the Lords of the Admiralty" means the Lord High Admiral
  of the United Kingdom, or the Commissioners for executing the
  Office of Lord High Admiral:

  The Term "the High Court of Admiralty" means the High Court of
  Admiralty of _England_:

  The Term "any of Her Majesty's Ships of War" includes any of Her
  Majesty's Vessels of War, and any hired armed Ship or Vessel in
  Her Majesty's Service:

  The Term "Officers and Crew" includes Flag Officers, Commanders,
  and other Officers, Engineers, Seamen, Marines, Soldiers, and
  others on board any of Her Majesty's Ships of War:

  The Term "Ship" includes Vessel and Boat, with the Tackle,
  Furniture, and Apparel of the Ship, Vessel, or Boat:

  The Term "Ship Papers" includes all Books, Passes, Sea Briefs,
  Charter Parties, Bills of Lading, Cockets, Letters, and other
  Documents and Writings delivered up or found on board a captured
  Ship:

  The Term "Goods" includes all such Things as are by the Course of
  Admiralty and Law of Nations the Subject of Adjudication as Prize
  (other than Ships).


I.--Prize Courts.

[Sidenote: High Court of Admiralty and other Courts to be Prize Courts
for Purposes of Act.]

3. The High Court of Admiralty, and every Court of Admiralty or of
Vice-Admiralty, or other Court exercising Admiralty Jurisdiction in Her
Majesty's Dominions, for the Time being authorised to take cognizance of
and judicially proceed in Matters of Prize, shall be a Prize Court
within the Meaning of this Act.

Every such Court, other than the High Court of Admiralty, is comprised
in the Term "Vice-Admiralty Prize Court," when hereafter used in this
Act.

_High Court of Admiralty._

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of High Court of Admiralty.]

4. The High Court of Admiralty shall have Jurisdiction throughout Her
Majesty's Dominions as a Prize Court.

The High Court of Admiralty as a Prize Court shall have Power to enforce
any Order or Decree of a Vice-Admiralty Prize Court, and any Order or
Decree of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in a Prize Appeal.

_Appeal; Judicial Committee._

[Sidenote: Appeal to Queen in Council, in what Cases.]

5. An Appeal shall lie to Her Majesty in Council from any Order or
Decree of a Prize Court, as of Right in case of a Final Decree, and in
other Cases with the Leave of the Court making the Order or Decree.

Every Appeal shall be made in such Manner and Form and subject to such
Regulations (including Regulations as to Fees, Costs, Charges, and
Expenses) as may for the Time being be directed by Order in Council, and
in the Absence of any such Order, or so far as any such Order does not
extend, then in such Manner and Form and subject to such Regulations as
are for the Time being prescribed or in force respecting Maritime Causes
of Appeal.

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of Judicial Committee in Prize Appeals.]

6. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council shall have Jurisdiction
to hear and report on any such Appeal, and may therein exercise all such
Powers as for the Time being appertain to them in respect of Appeals
from any Court of Admiralty Jurisdiction, and all such Powers as are
under this Act vested in the High Court of Admiralty, and all such
Powers as were wont to be exercised by the Commissioners of Appeal in
Prize Causes.

[Sidenote: Custody of Processes, Papers, &c.]

7. All Processes and Documents required for the Purposes of any such
Appeal shall be transmitted to and shall remain in the Custody of the
Registrar of Her Majesty in Prize Appeals.

[Sidenote: Limit of Time for Appeal.]

8. In every such Appeal the usual Inhibition shall be extracted from the
Registry of Her Majesty in Prize Appeals within Three Months after the
Date of the Order or Decree appealed from if the Appeal be from the High
Court of Admiralty, and within Six Months after that Date if it be from
a Vice-Admiralty Prize Court.

The Judicial Committee may, nevertheless, on sufficient Cause shown,
allow the Inhibition to be extracted and the Appeal to be prosecuted
after the Expiration of the respective Periods aforesaid.

_Vice-Admiralty Prize Courts._

[Sidenote: Enforcement of Orders of High Court, &c.]

9. Every Vice-Admiralty Prize Court shall enforce within its
Jurisdiction all Orders and Decrees of the Judicial Committee in Prize
Appeals and of the High Court of Admiralty in Prize Causes.

[Sidenote: Salaries of Judges of Vice-Admiralty Prize Courts.]

10. Her Majesty in Council may grant to the Judge of any Vice-Admiralty
Prize Court a Salary not exceeding Five Hundred Pounds a Year, payable
out of Money provided by Parliament, subject to such Regulations as seem
meet.

A Judge to whom a Salary is so granted shall not be entitled to any
further Emolument, arising from Fees or otherwise, in respect of Prize
Business transacted in his Court.

An Account of all such Fees shall be kept by the Registrar of the Court,
and the Amount thereof shall be carried to and form Part of the
Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

[Sidenote: Retiring Pensions of Judges, as in 22 & 23 Vict. c. 26.]

11. In accordance, as far as Circumstances admit, with the Principles
and Regulations laid down in the Superannuation Act, 1859, Her Majesty
in Council may grant to the Judge of any Vice-Admiralty Prize Court an
annual or other Allowance, to take effect on the Termination of his
Service, and to be payable out of Money provided by Parliament.

[Sidenote: Returns from Vice-Admiralty Prize Courts.]

12. The Registrar of every Vice-Admiralty Prize Court shall, on the
First Day of _January_ and First Day of _July_ in every year, make out a
Return (in such Form as the Lords of the Admiralty from Time to Time
direct) of all cases adjudged in the Court since the last half-yearly
Return, and shall with all convenient Speed send the same to the
Registrar of the High Court of Admiralty, who shall keep the same in the
Registry of that Court, and who shall, as soon as conveniently may be,
send a Copy of the Returns of each Half Year to the Lords of the
Admiralty, who shall lay the same before both Houses of Parliament.

_General._

[Sidenote: General Orders for Prize Courts.]

13. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, with the Judge of the
High Court of Admiralty, may from Time to Time frame General Orders for
regulating (subject to the Provisions of this Act) the Procedure and
Practice of Prize Courts, and the Duties and Conduct of the Officers
thereof and of the Practitioners therein, and for regulating the Fees to
be taken by the Officers of the Courts, and the Costs, Charges, and
Expenses to be allowed to the Practitioners therein.

Any such General Orders shall have full Effect, if and when approved by
Her Majesty in Council, but not sooner or otherwise.

Every Order in Council made under this Section shall be laid before both
Houses of Parliament.

Every such Order in Council shall be kept exhibited in a conspicuous
Place in each Court to which it relates.

[Sidenote: Prohibition of Officer of Prize Court acting as Proctor, &c.]

14. It shall not be lawful for any Registrar, Marshal, or other Officer
of any Prize Court, or for the Registrar of Her Majesty in Prize
Appeals, directly or indirectly to act or be in any manner concerned as
Advocate, Proctor, Solicitor, or Agent, or otherwise, in any Prize Cause
or Appeal, on pain of Dismissal or Suspension from Office, by Order of
the Court or of the Judicial Committee (as the Case may require).

[Sidenote: Prohibition of Proctors being concerned for adverse Parties
in a Cause.]

15. It shall not be lawful for any Proctor or Solicitor, or Person
practising as a Proctor or Solicitor, being employed by a Party in a
Prize Cause or Appeal, to be employed or concerned, by himself or his
Partner, or by any other Person, directly or indirectly by or on behalf
of any adverse Party in that Cause or Appeal, on pain of Exclusion or
Suspension from Practice in Prize Matters, by Order of the Court or of
the Judicial Committee (as the Case may require).


II.--PROCEDURE IN PRIZE CAUSES.

_Proceedings by Captors._

[Sidenote: Custody of Prize Ship.]

16. Every Ship taken as Prize, and brought into Port within the
Jurisdiction of a Prize Court, shall forthwith and without Bulk broken,
be delivered up to the Marshal of the Court.

If there is no such Marshal, then the Ship shall be in like Manner
delivered up to the Principal Officer of Customs at the Port.

The Ship shall remain in the Custody of the Marshal, or of such Officer,
subject to the Orders of the Court.

[Sidenote: Bringing in of Ship Papers.]

17. The Captors shall, with all practicable Speed after the Ship is
brought into Port, bring the Ship Papers into the Registry of the Court.

The Officer in Command, or One of the Chief Officers of the Capturing
Ship, or some other Person who was present at the Capture, and saw the
Ship Papers delivered up or found on board, shall make Oath that they
are brought in as they were taken, without Fraud, Addition, Subduction,
or Alteration, or else shall account on Oath to the Satisfaction of the
Court for the Absence or altered Condition of the Ship Papers or any of
them.

Where no Ship Papers are delivered up or found on board the captured
Ship, the Officer in Command, or One of the Chief Officers of the
capturing Ship, or some other Person who was present at the Capture,
shall make Oath to that Effect.

[Sidenote: Issue of Monition.]

18. As soon as the Affidavit as to Ship Papers is filed, a Monition
shall issue, returnable within Twenty Days from the Service thereof,
citing all Persons in general to show Cause why the captured Ship should
not be condemned.

[Sidenote: Examinations on Standing Interrogatories.]

19. The Captors shall, with all practicable Speed after the captured
Ship is brought into Port, bring Three or Four of the Principal Persons
belonging to the captured Ship before the Judge of the Court or some
Person authorised in this behalf, by whom they shall be examined on Oath
on the Standing Interrogatories.

The Preparatory Examinations on the Standing Interrogatories shall, if
possible, be concluded within Five Days from the Commencement thereof.

[Sidenote: Adjudication by Court.]

20. After the Return of the Monition, the Court shall, on Production of
the Preparatory Examinations and Ship Papers, proceed with all
convenient Speed either to condemn or to release the captured Ship.

[Sidenote: Further Proof.]

21. Where, on Production of the Preparatory Examinations and Ship
Papers, it appears to the Court doubtful whether the captured Ship is
good Prize or not, the Court may direct further Proof to be adduced,
either by Affidavit or by Examination of Witnesses, with or without
Pleadings, or by Production of further Documents; and on such further
Proof being adduced the Court shall with all convenient Speed proceed to
Adjudication.

[Sidenote: Custody, &c. of Ships of War.]

22. The foregoing Provisions, as far as they relate to the Custody of
the Ship, and to Examination on the Standing Interrogatories, shall not
apply to Ships of War taken as Prize.

_Claim._

[Sidenote: Entry of Claim; Security for Costs.]

23. At any Time before Final Decree made in the Cause, any Person
claiming an Interest in the Ship may enter in the Registry of the Court
a Claim, verified on Oath.

Within Five Days after entering the Claim, the Claimant shall give
Security for Costs in the Sum of Sixty Pounds; but the Court shall have
Power to enlarge the Time for giving Security, or to direct Security to
be given in a larger Sum, if the Circumstances appear to require it.

_Appraisement._

[Sidenote: Power to Court to direct Appraisement.]

24. The Court may, if it thinks fit, at any Time direct that the
captured Ship be appraised.

Every Appraisement shall be made by competent Persons sworn to make the
same according to the best of their Skill and Knowledge.

_Delivery on Bail._

[Sidenote: Power to Court to direct Delivery to Claimant on Bail.]

25. After Appraisement, the Court may, if it thinks fit, direct that the
captured Ship be delivered up to the Claimant, on his giving Security to
the Satisfaction of the Court to pay to the Captors the appraised Value
thereof in case of Condemnation.

_Sale._

[Sidenote: Power to Court to order Sale.]

26. The Court may at any Time, if it thinks fit, on account of the
Condition of the captured Ship, or on the Application of a Claimant,
order that the captured Ship be appraised as aforesaid (if not already
appraised), and be sold.

[Sidenote: Sale on Condemnation.]

27. On or after Condemnation the Court may, if it thinks fit, order that
the Ship be appraised as aforesaid (if not already appraised), and be
sold.

[Sidenote: How Sales to be made.]

28. Every Sale shall be made by or under the Superintendence of the
Marshal of the Court or of the Officer having the Custody of the
captured Ship.

[Sidenote: Payment of Proceeds to Paymaster General or Official
Accountant.]

29. The Proceeds of any Sale, made either before or after Condemnation,
and after Condemnation the appraised Value of the captured Ship, in case
she has been delivered up to a Claimant on Bail, shall be paid under an
Order of the Court either into the Bank of _England_ to the Credit of
Her Majesty's Paymaster General, or into the Hands of an Official
Accountant (belonging to the Commissariat or some other Department)
appointed for this Purpose by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury or by the Lords of the Admiralty, subject in either case to
such Regulations as may from Time to Time be made, by order in Council,
as to the Custody and Disposal of Money so paid.

_Small armed Ships._

[Sidenote: One Adjudication as to several small Ships.]

30. The Captors may include in One Adjudication any Number, not
exceeding Six, of armed Ships not exceeding One hundred Tons each, taken
within Three Months next before Institution of Proceedings.

_Goods._

[Sidenote: Application of foregoing Provisions to Prize Goods.]

31. The foregoing Provisions relating to Ships shall extend and apply,
_mutatis mutandis_, to goods taken as Prize on board Ship; and the Court
may direct such goods to be unladen, inventoried, and warehoused.

_Monition to Captors to proceed._

[Sidenote: Power to Court to call on Captors to proceed to
Adjudication.]

32. If the Captors fail to institute or to prosecute with Effect
Proceedings for Adjudication, a Monition shall, on the Application of a
Claimant, issue against the Captors, returnable within Six Days from the
Service thereof, citing them to appear and proceed to Adjudication; and
on the Return thereof the Court shall either forthwith proceed to
Adjudication or direct further Proof to be adduced as aforesaid and then
proceed to Adjudication.

_Claim on Appeal._

[Sidenote: Person intervening on Appeal to enter Claim.]

33. Where any Person, not an original Party in the Cause, intervenes on
Appeal, he shall enter a Claim, verified on Oath, and shall give
Security for Costs.


III.--SPECIAL CASES OF CAPTURE.

_Land Expeditions._

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of Prize Court in case of Capture in Land
Expedition.]

34. Where, in an Expedition of any of Her Majesty's Naval or Naval and
Military Forces against a Fortress or Possession on Land, Goods
belonging to the State of the Enemy or to a Public Trading Company of
the Enemy exercising Powers of Government are taken in the Fortress or
Possession, or a Ship is taken in Waters defended by or belonging to the
Fortress or Possession, a Prize Court shall have Jurisdiction as to the
Goods or Ship so taken, and any Goods taken on board the Ship as in case
of Prize.

_Conjunct Capture with Ally._

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of Prize Court in case of Expedition with Ally.]

35. Where any Ship or Goods is or are taken by any of Her Majesty's
Naval or Naval and Military Forces while acting in conjunction with any
Forces of any of Her Majesty's Allies, a Prize Court shall have
Jurisdiction as to the same as in the case of Prize, and shall have
Power, after Condemnation, to apportion the due share of the Proceeds to
Her Majesty's Ally, the proportionate Amount and the Disposition of
which Share shall be such as may from Time to Time be agreed between Her
Majesty and Her Majesty's Ally.

_Joint Capture._

[Sidenote: Restriction on Petitions by asserted joint Captors.]

36. Before Condemnation, a Petition on behalf of asserted joint Captors
shall not (except by special Leave of the Court) be admitted, unless and
until they give Security to the Satisfaction of the Court to contribute
to the actual Captors a just Proportion of any Costs, Charges, and
Expenses or Damages that may be incurred by or awarded against the
actual Captors on account of the Capture and Detention of the Prize.

After Condemnation, such a Petition shall not (except by special Leave
of the Court) be admitted unless and until the asserted joint Captors
pay to the actual Captors a just Proportion of the Costs, Charges, and
Expenses incurred by the actual Captors in the Case, and give such
Security as aforesaid, and show sufficient Cause to the Court why their
Petition was not presented before Condemnation.

Provided, that nothing in the present Section shall extend to the
asserted Interest of a Flag Officer claiming to share by virtue of his
Flag.

_Offences against Law of Prize._

[Sidenote: In case of Offence by Captors, Prize to be reserved for
Crown.]

37. A Prize Court, on Proof of any Offence against the Law of Nations,
or against this Act, or any Act relating to Naval Discipline, or against
any Order in Council or Royal Proclamation, or of any Breach of Her
Majesty's Instructions relating to Prize, or of any Act of Disobedience
to the Orders of the Lords of the Admiralty, or to the Command of a
Superior Officer, committed by the Captors in relation to any Ship or
Goods taken as Prize, or in relation to any Person on Board any such
Ship, may, on Condemnation, reserve the Prize to Her Majesty's Disposal,
notwithstanding any Grant that may have been made by Her Majesty in
favour of Captors.

_Pre-emption._

[Sidenote: Purchase by Admiralty for Public Service of Stores on board
Foreign Ships.]

38. Where a Ship of a Foreign Nation passing the Seas laden with Naval
or Victualling Stores intended to be carried to a Port of any Enemy of
Her Majesty is taken and brought into a Port of the United Kingdom, and
the Purchase for the Service of Her Majesty of the Stores on board the
Ship appears to the Lords of the Admiralty expedient without the
Condemnation thereof in a Prize Court, in that Case the Lords of the
Admiralty may purchase, on the Account or for the Service of Her
Majesty, all or any of the Stores on board the Ship; and the
Commissioners of Customs may permit the Stores purchased to be entered
and landed within any Port.

_Capture by Ship other than a Ship of War._

[Sidenote: Prizes taken by Ships other than Ships of War to be Droits of
Admiralty.]

39. Any Ship or Goods taken as Prize by any of the Officers and Crew of
a Ship other than a Ship of War of Her Majesty shall, on Condemnation,
belong to Her Majesty in Her Office of Admiralty.


IV.--PRIZE SALVAGE.

[Sidenote: Salvage to Re-captors of British Ship or Goods from Enemy.]

40. Where any Ship or Goods belonging to any of Her Majesty's Subjects,
after being taken as Prize by the Enemy, is or are retaken from the
Enemy by any of Her Majesty's Ships of War, the same shall be restored
by Decree of a Prize Court to the Owner, on his paying as Prize Salvage
One Eighth Part of the Value of the Prize to be decreed and ascertained
by the Court, or such Sum not exceeding One Eighth Part of the estimated
Value of the Prize as may be agreed on between the Owner and the
Re-captors, and approved by Order of the Court; Provided, that where the
Re-capture is made under circumstances of Special Difficulty or Danger,
the Prize Court may, if it thinks fit, award to the Re-captors as Prize
Salvage a larger Part than One Eighth Part, but not exceeding in any
Case One Fourth Part, of the Value of the Prize.

Provided also, that where a Ship after being so taken is set forth or
used by any of Her Majesty's Enemies as a Ship of War, this Provision
for Restitution shall not apply, and the Ship shall be adjudicated on as
in other Cases of Prize.

[Sidenote: Permission to re-captured Ship to proceed on Voyage.]

41. Where a Ship belonging to any of Her Majesty's Subjects, after being
taken as Prize by the Enemy, is retaken from the Enemy by any of Her
Majesty's Ships of War, she may, with the Consent of the Re-captors,
prosecute her Voyage, and it shall not be necessary for the Re-captors
to proceed to Adjudication till her Return to a Port of the United
Kingdom.

The Master or Owner, or his Agent, may, with the Consent of the
Re-captors, unload and dispose of the Goods on board the Ship before
Adjudication.

In case the Ship does not, within Six Months, return to a Port of the
United Kingdom, the Re-captors may nevertheless institute Proceedings
against the Ship or Goods in the High Court of Admiralty, and the Court
may thereupon award Prize Salvage as aforesaid to the Re-captors, and
may enforce Payment thereof, either by Warrant of Arrest against the
Ship or Goods, or by Monition and Attachment against the Owner.


V.--PRIZE BOUNTY.

[Sidenote: Prize Bounty to Officers and Crew present at Engagement with
an Enemy.]

42. If, in relation to any War, Her Majesty is pleased to declare, by
Proclamation or Order in Council, Her Intention to grant Prize Bounty to
the Officers and Crews of Her Ships of War, then such of the Officers
and Crew of any of Her Majesty's Ships of War as are actually present at
the taking or destroying of any armed Ship of any of Her Majesty's
Enemies shall be entitled to have distributed among them as Prize Bounty
a Sum calculated at the Rate of Five Pounds for each Person on board the
Enemy's Ship at the Beginning of the Engagement.

[Sidenote: Ascertainment of Amount of Prize Bounty by Decree of Prize
Court.]

43. The Number of the Persons so on board the Enemy's Ship shall be
proved in a Prize Court, either by the Examinations on Oath of the
Survivors of them, or of any Three or more of the Survivors, or if there
is no Survivor by the Papers of the Enemy's Ship, or by the Examinations
on Oath of Three or more of the Officers and Crew of Her Majesty's Ship,
or by such other Evidence as may seem to the Court sufficient in the
Circumstances.

The Court shall make a Decree declaring the Title of the Officers and
Crew of Her Majesty's Ship to the Prize Bounty, and stating the Amount
thereof.

The Decree shall be subject to Appeal as other Decrees of the Court.

[Sidenote: Payment of Prize Bounty awarded.]

44. On Production of an official Copy of the Decree the Commissioners of
Her Majesty's Treasury shall, out of Money provided by Parliament, pay
the Amount of Prize Bounty decreed, in such Manner as any Order in
Council may from Time to Time direct.


VI.--MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS.

_Ransom._

[Sidenote: Power for regulating Ransom by Order in Council.]

45. Her Majesty in Council may from Time to Time, in relation to any
War, make such Orders as may seem expedient, according to Circumstances,
for prohibiting or allowing, wholly or in certain Cases, or subject to
any Conditions or Regulations or otherwise, as may from Time to Time
seem meet, the ransoming or the entering into any contract or Agreement
for the ransoming of any Ship or Goods belonging to any of Her Majesty's
Subjects, and taken as Prize by any of Her Majesty's Enemies.

Any Contract or Agreement entered into, and any Bill, Bond, or other
Security given for Ransom of any Ship or Goods, shall be under the
exclusive Jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty as a Prize Court
(subject to Appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council), and
if entered into or given in contravention of any such Order in Council
shall be deemed to have been entered into or given for an illegal
Consideration.

If any Person ransoms or enters into any Contract or Agreement for
Ransoming any Ship or Goods, in contravention of any such Order in
Council, he shall for every such Offence be liable to be proceeded
against in the High Court of Admiralty at the Suit of Her Majesty in Her
Office of Admiralty, and on Conviction to be fined, in the Discretion of
the Court, any Sum not exceeding Five hundred Pounds.

_Convoy._

[Sidenote: Punishment of Masters of Merchant Vessels under Convoy
disobeying Orders or deserting Convoy.]

46. If the Master or other Person having the Command of any Ship of any
of Her Majesty's Subjects, under the Convoy of any of Her Majesty's
Ships of War, wilfully disobeys any lawful Signal, Instruction, or
Command of the Commander of the Convoy, or without Leave deserts the
Convoy, he shall be liable to be proceeded against in the High Court of
Admiralty at the Suit of Her Majesty in Her Office of Admiralty, and
upon Conviction to be fined, in the Discretion of the Court, any Sum not
exceeding Five hundred Pounds, and to suffer Imprisonment for such Time,
not exceeding One Year, as the Court may adjudge.

_Customs Duties and Regulations._

[Sidenote: Prize Ships and Goods liable to Duties and Forfeiture.]

47. All Ships and Goods taken as Prize and brought into a Port of the
United Kingdom shall be liable to and be charged with the same Rates and
Charges and Duties of Customs as under any Act relating to the Customs
may be chargeable on other Ships and Goods of the like Description; and

All Goods brought in as Prize which would on the voluntary Importation
thereof be liable to Forfeiture or subject to any Restriction under the
Laws relating to the Customs, shall be deemed to be so liable and
subject, unless the Commissioners of Customs see fit to authorise the
Sale or Delivery thereof for Home Use or Exportation, unconditionally or
subject to such Conditions and Regulations as they may direct.

[Sidenote: Regulations of Customs to be observed as to Prize Ships and
Goods.]

48. Where any Ship or Goods taken as Prize is or are brought into a Port
of the United Kingdom, the Master or other Person in charge or command
of the Ship which has been taken or in which the Goods are brought
shall, on Arrival at such Port, bring to at the proper Place of
Discharge, and shall, when required by any Officer of Customs, deliver
an Account in Writing under his Hand concerning such Ship and Goods,
giving such Particulars relating thereto as may be in his Power, and
shall truly answer all Questions concerning such Ship or Goods asked by
any such Officer, and in default shall forfeit a Sum not exceeding One
hundred Pounds, such Forfeiture to be enforced as Forfeitures for
Offences against the Laws relating to the Customs are enforced, and
every such Ship shall be liable to such Searches as other Ships are
liable to, and the Officers of the Customs may freely go on board such
Ship and bring to the Queen's Warehouse any Goods on board the same,
subject, nevertheless, to such Regulations in respect of Ships of War
belonging to Her Majesty as shall from Time to Time be issued by the
Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.

[Sidenote: Power for Treasury to remit Customs Duties in certain cases.]

49. Goods taken as Prize may be sold either for Home Consumption or for
Exportation; and if in the former Case the Proceeds thereof, after
payment of Duties of Customs, are insufficient to satisfy the just and
reasonable claims thereon, the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury
may remit the whole or such Part of the said Duties as they see fit.

_Perjury._

[Sidenote: Punishment of Persons guilty of Perjury.]

50. If any Person wilfully and corruptly swears, declares, or affirms
falsely in any Prize Cause or Appeal, or in any Proceeding under this
Act, or in respect of any Matter required by this Act to be verified on
Oath, or suborns any other Person to do so, he shall be deemed guilty of
Perjury, or of Subornation of Perjury (as the Case may be), and shall be
liable to be punished accordingly.

_Limitation of Actions, &c._

[Sidenote: Actions against Persons executing Act not to be brought
without Notice, &c.]

51. Any Action or Proceeding shall not lie in any Part of Her Majesty's
Dominions against any Person acting under the Authority or in the
Execution or intended Execution or in pursuance of this Act for any
alleged Irregularity or Trespass, or other Act or Thing done or omitted
by him under this Act, unless Notice in Writing (specifying the Cause of
the Action or Proceeding) is given by the intending Plaintiff or
Prosecutor to the intended Defendant One Month at least before the
Commencement of the Action or Proceeding, nor unless the Action or
Proceeding is commenced within Six Months next after the Act or Thing
complained of is done or omitted, or, in case of a Continuation of
Damage, within Six Months next after the doing of such Damage has
ceased.

In any such action the Defendant may plead generally that the Act or
Thing complained of was done or omitted by him when acting under the
authority or in the Execution or intended Execution or in pursuance of
this Act, and may give all special Matter in Evidence; and the Plaintiff
shall not succeed if Tender of sufficient Amends is made by the
Defendant before the Commencement of the Action; and in case no Tender
has been made, the Defendant may, by Leave of the Court in which the
Action is brought, at any Time pay into Court such Sum of Money as he
thinks fit, whereupon such Proceeding and Order shall be had and made in
and by the Court as may be had and made on the Payment of Money into
Court in an ordinary Action; and if the Plaintiff does not succeed in
the Action, the Defendant shall receive such full and reasonable
Indemnity as to all Costs, Charges, and Expenses incurred in and about
the Action as may be taxed and allowed by the proper Officer, subject to
Review; and though a Verdict is given for the Plaintiff in the Action he
shall not have Costs against the Defendant, unless the Judge before whom
the Trial is had certifies his Approval of the Action.

Any such Action or Proceeding against any Person in Her Majesty's Naval
Service, or in the Employment of the Lords of the Admiralty, shall not
be brought or instituted elsewhere than in the United Kingdom.

_Petitions of Right._

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of High Court of Admiralty on Petitions of Right
in certain Cases, as in 23 & 24 Vict. c. 34.]

52. A Petition of Right, under The Petitions of Right Act, 1860, may, if
the Suppliant thinks fit, be intituled in the High Court of Admiralty,
in case the Subject Matter of the Petition or any material part thereof
arises out of the Exercise of any Belligerent Right on behalf of the
Crown, or would be cognizable in a Prize Court within Her Majesty's
Dominions if the same were a Matter in dispute between private Persons.

Any Petition of Right under the last-mentioned Act, whether intituled in
the High Court of Admiralty or not, may be prosecuted in that Court, if
the Lord Chancellor thinks fit so to direct.

The Provisions of this Act relative to Appeal, and to the framing and
Approval of General Orders for regulating the Procedure and Practice of
the High Court of Admiralty, shall extend to the Case of any such
Petition of Right intituled or directed to be prosecuted in that Court;
and, subject thereto, all the Provisions of The Petitions of Right Act,
1860, shall apply, _mutatis mutandis_, in the Case of any such Petition
of Right; and for the Purposes of the present Section the Terms "Court"
and "Judge" in that Act shall respectively be understood to include and
to mean the High Court of Admiralty and the Judge thereof, and other
Terms shall have the respective Meanings given to them in that Act.

_Orders in Council._

[Sidenote: Power to make Orders in Council.]

53. Her Majesty in Council may from Time to Time make such Orders in
Council as seem meet for the better Execution of this Act.

[Sidenote: Order in Council to be gazetted, &c.]

54. Every Order in Council under this Act shall be published in the
_London Gazette_, and shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament
within Thirty Days after the making thereof, if Parliament is then
sitting, and, if not, then within Thirty Days after the next Meeting of
Parliament.

_Savings._

[Sidenote: Not to affect Rights of Crown; Effect of Treaties, &c.]

55. Nothing in this Act shall--

  (1) give to the Officers and Crew of any of Her Majesty's Ships of
  War any Right or Claim in or to any Ship or Goods taken as Prize
  or the Proceeds thereof, it being the intent of this Act that such
  Officers and Crews shall continue to take only such Interest (if
  any) in the Proceeds of Prizes as may be from Time to Time granted
  to them by the Crown; or

  (2) affect the Operation of any existing Treaty or Convention with
  any Foreign Power; or

  (3) take away or abridge the Power of the Crown to enter into any
  Treaty or Convention with any Foreign Power containing any
  Stipulation that may seem meet concerning any Matter to which
  this Act relates; or

  (4) take away, abridge, or control, further or otherwise than as
  expressly provided by this Act, any Right, Power, or Prerogative
  of Her Majesty the Queen in right of Her Crown, or in right of Her
  Office of Admiralty, or any Right or Power of the Lord High
  Admiral of the United Kingdom, or of the Commissioners for
  executing the Office of Lord High Admiral; or

  (5) take away, abridge, or control, further or otherwise than as
  expressly provided by this Act, the Jurisdiction or Authority of
  a Prize Court to take cognizance of and judicially proceed upon
  any Capture, Seizure, Prize, or Reprisal of any Ship or Goods, or
  to hear and determine the same, and, according to the Course of
  Admiralty and the Law of Nations, to adjudge and condemn any Ship
  or Goods, or any other Jurisdiction or Authority of or
  exerciseable by a Prize Court.

_Commencement._

[Sidenote: Commencement of Act.]

56. This Act shall commence on the Commencement of The Naval Agency and
Distribution Act, 1864.




APPENDIX XI

      THE PRIZE COURTS ACTS, 1894
      57 & 58 VICT., CHAPTER 39
      An Act to make further provision for the establishment of
      Prize Courts, and for other purposes connected therewith.
      [_17th August 1894._]


Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the
advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in
this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as
follows:

[Sidenote: Short Title.]

1. This Act may be cited as the Prize Courts Act, 1894.

[Sidenote: Constitution of Prize Courts in British Possessions.]

2.--(1) Any commission, warrant, or instructions from Her Majesty the
Queen or the Admiralty for the purpose of commissioning or regulating
the procedure of a prize court at any place in a British possession may,
notwithstanding the existence of peace, be issued at any time, with a
direction that the court shall act only upon such proclamation as
herein-after mentioned being made in the possession.

(2) Where any such commission, warrant, or instructions have been
issued, then, subject to instructions from Her Majesty, the Vice-Admiral
of such possession may, when satisfied, by information from a Secretary
of State or otherwise, that war has broken out between Her Majesty and
any foreign State, proclaim that war has so broken out, and thereupon
the said commission, warrant, and instructions shall take effect as if
the same had been issued after the breaking out of such war and such
foreign State were named therein.

[Sidenote: 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.]

(3) The said commission and warrant may authorise either a
Vice-Admiralty Court or a Colonial Court of Admiralty, within the
meaning of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, to act as a prize
court, and may establish a Vice-Admiralty Court for that purpose.

(4) Any such commission, warrant, or instructions may be revoked or
altered from time to time.

(5) A court duly authorised to act as a prize court during any war
shall after the conclusion of the war continue so to act in relation to,
and finally dispose of, all matters and things which arose during the
war, including all penalties and forfeitures incurred during the war.

[Sidenote: Rules of Court for and Fees in Prize Courts. 27 & 28 Vict. c.
25.]

3.--(1) Her Majesty the Queen in Council may make rules of court for
regulating, subject to the provisions of the Naval Prize Act, 1864, and
this Act, the procedure and practice of prize courts within the meaning
of that Act, and the duties and conduct of the officers thereof, and of
the practitioners therein, and for regulating the fees to be taken by
the officers of the courts, and the costs, charges, and expenses to be
allowed to the practitioners therein.

(2) Every rule so made shall, whenever made, take effect at the time
therein mentioned, and shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament,
and shall be kept exhibited in a conspicuous place in each court to
which it relates.

[Sidenote: 27 & 28 Vict. c. 25.]

(3) This section shall be substituted for section thirteen of the Naval
Prize Act, 1864, which section is hereby repealed.

[Sidenote: 53 & 54 Vict c. 27.]

(4) If any Colonial Court of Admiralty within the meaning of the
Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, is authorised under this Act or
otherwise to act as a prize court, all fees arising in respect of prize
business transacted in the court shall be fixed, collected, and applied
in like manner as the fees arising in respect of the Admiralty business
of the court under the said Act.

[Sidenote: As to Vice-Admiralty Courts.]

4. Her Majesty the Queen in Council may make rules of court for
regulating the procedure and practice, including fees and costs, in a
Vice-Admiralty Court, whether under this Act or otherwise.

[Sidenote: Repeal of 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 79, s. 25.]

5. Section twenty-five of the Government of India Act, 1800, is hereby
repealed.




APPENDIX XII

      NAVAL PRIZE BILL OF 1911
      _Passed by the House of Commons, but thrown out by the House
      of Lords_
      A Bill to Consolidate, with Amendments, the Enactments
      relating to Naval Prize of War.


Whereas at the Second Peace Conference held at The Hague in the year
nineteen hundred and seven a Convention, the English translation whereof
is set forth in the First Schedule to this Act, was drawn up, but it is
desirable that the same should not be ratified by His Majesty until such
amendments have been made in the law relating to naval prize of war as
will enable effect to be given to the Convention:

And whereas for the purpose aforesaid it is expedient to consolidate the
law relating to naval prize of war with such amendments as aforesaid and
with certain other minor amendments:

Be it therefore enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and
with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of
the same, as follows:--


PART I.--COURTS AND OFFICERS.

_The Prize Court in England._

[Sidenote: The High Court. [54 & 55 Vict. c. 53, s. 4.]]

1.--(1) The High Court shall, without special warrant, be a prize court,
and shall, on the high seas, and throughout His Majesty's Dominions, and
in every place where His Majesty has jurisdiction, have all such
jurisdiction as the High Court of Admiralty possessed when acting as a
prize court, and generally have jurisdiction to determine all questions
as to the validity of the capture of a ship or goods, the legality of
the destruction of a captured ship or goods, and as to the payment of
compensation in respect of such a capture or destruction.

For the purposes of this Act the expression "capture" shall include
seizure for the purpose of the detention, requisition, or destruction of
any ship or goods which, but for any convention, would be liable to
condemnation, and the expressions "captured" and "taken as prize" shall
be construed accordingly, and where any ship or goods have been so
seized the court may make an order for the detention, requisition, or
destruction of the ship or goods and for the payment of compensation in
respect thereof.

(2) Subject to rules of court, all causes and matters within the
jurisdiction of the High Court as a prize court shall be assigned to the
Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the Court.

[Sidenote: Power of High Court to enforce decrees of other courts. [27 &
28 Vict. c. 25. s. 4.]]

2. The High Court as a prize court shall have power to enforce any order
or decree of a prize court in a British possession, and any order of the
Supreme Prize Court constituted under this Act in a prize appeal.

_Prize Courts in British Possessions._

[Sidenote: Prize courts in British possessions. [57 & 58 Vict. c. 39. s.
2 (1) and (3). 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27, s. 2 (3) and s. 9.] 53 & 54 Vict. c.
27.]

3. His Majesty may, by commission addressed to the Admiralty, empower
the Admiralty to authorise, and the Admiralty may thereupon by warrant
authorise, either a Vice-Admiralty court or a Colonial Court of
Admiralty, within the meaning of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act,
1890, to act as a prize court in a British possession, or may in like
manner establish a Vice-Admiralty court for the purpose of so acting;
and any court so authorised shall, subject to the terms of the warrant
from the Admiralty, have all such jurisdiction as is by this Act
conferred on the High Court as a prize court.

Commissions. [57 & 58 Vict. c. 39, s. 2 (1), (2).]

4.--(1) Any commission, warrant, or instructions from His Majesty the
King or the Admiralty for the purpose of commissioning a prize court at
any place in a British possession may, notwithstanding the existence of
peace, be issued at any time, with a direction that the court shall act
only upon such proclamation as herein-after mentioned being made in the
possession.

(2) Where any such commission, warrant, or instructions have been
issued, then, subject to instructions from His Majesty the Vice-Admiral
of such possession may, when satisfied by information from a Secretary
of State or otherwise that war has broken out between His Majesty and
any foreign State, proclaim that war has so broken out, and thereupon
the said commission, warrant, and instructions shall take effect as if
the same had been issued after the breaking out of such war and such
foreign State were named therein.

(3) Any such commission, warrant, or instructions may be revoked or
altered from time to time.

[Sidenote: Enforcement of orders.]

5. Every prize court in a British possession shall enforce within its
jurisdiction all orders and decrees of the High Court and of any other
prize court in a British possession in prize causes, and all orders of
the Supreme Prize Court constituted under this Act in prize appeals.

[Sidenote: Remuneration of certain judges of prize courts in a British
possession. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, ss. 10, 11.] 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.]

6.--(1) His Majesty in Council may, with the concurrence of the
Treasury, grant to the judge of any prize court in a British possession,
other than a Colonial Court of Admiralty within the meaning of the
Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, remuneration, at a rate not
exceeding five hundred pounds a year, payable out of money provided by
Parliament, subject to such regulations as seem meet.

(2) A judge to whom remuneration is so granted shall not be entitled to
any further emolument, arising from fees or otherwise, in respect of
prize business transacted in his court.

(3) An account of all such fees shall be kept by the registrar of the
court, and the amount thereof shall be carried to and form part of the
Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

[Sidenote: Returns from prize courts in British possessions. [27 & 28
Vict. c. 25, s. 12.]]

7. The registrar of every prize court in a British possession shall, on
the first day of January and first day of July in every year, make out a
return (in such form as the Admiralty from time to time direct) of all
cases adjudged in the court since the last half-yearly return, and shall
with all convenient speed send the same to the Admiralty registrar of
the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court, who
shall keep the same in the Admiralty registry of that Division, and who
shall as soon as conveniently may be, send a copy of the returns of each
half year to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty shall lay the same before
both houses of Parliament.

[Sidenote: Fees. [57 & 58 Vict. c. 39 s. 3 (4).] 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.]

8. If any Colonial Court of Admiralty within the meaning of the Colonial
Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, is authorised under this Act or otherwise
to act as a prize court, all fees arising in respect of prize business
transacted in the court shall be fixed, collected, and applied in like
manner as the fees arising in respect of the Admiralty business of the
court under the first-mentioned Act.

_Appeals._

[Sidenote: Appeals to Supreme Prize Court. [54 & 55 Vict. c. 53, s. 4
(3).]]

9.--(1) Any appeal from the High Court when acting as a prize court, or
from a prize court in a British possession, shall lie only to a court
(to be called the Supreme Prize Court) consisting of such members for
the time being of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as may be
nominated by His Majesty for that purpose.

(2) The Supreme Prize Court shall be a court of record with power to
take evidence on oath, and the seal of the court shall be such as the
Lord Chancellor may from time to time direct.

(3) Every appeal to the Supreme Prize Court shall be heard before not
less than three members of the court sitting together.

(4) The registrar and other officers for the time being of the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council shall be registrar and officers of the
Supreme Prize Court.

[Sidenote: Procedure on, and conditions of, appeals. [27 & 28 Vict. c.
25, s. 5.]]

10.--(1) An appeal shall lie to the Supreme Prize Court from any order
or decree of a prize court, as of right in case of a final decree, and
in other cases with the leave of the court making the order or decree or
of the Supreme Prize Court.

(2) Every appeal shall be made in such manner and form and subject to
such conditions and regulations (including regulations as to fees,
costs, charges, and expenses) as may for the time being be directed by
order in Council.

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of the Supreme Prize Court in prize appeals. [27
& 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 6; 54 & 55 Vict. c. 53, s. 4 (3).]]

11. The Supreme Prize Court shall have jurisdiction to hear and
determine any such appeal, and may therein exercise all such powers as
are under this Act vested in the High Court, and all such powers as were
wont to be exercised by the Commissioners of Appeal or by the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council in prize causes.

_Rules of Court._

[Sidenote: Rules of court. [57 & 58 Vict c. 39, s. 3.]]

12. His Majesty in Council may make rules of court for regulating,
subject to the provisions of this Act, the procedure and practice of the
Supreme Prize Court and of the Prize Courts within the meaning of this
Act, and the duties and conduct of the officers thereof, and of the
practitioners therein, and for regulating the fees to be taken by the
officers of the courts, and the costs, charges, and expenses to be
allowed to the practitioners therein.

_Officers of Prize Courts._

[Sidenote: Prohibition of officer of prize court acting as advocate, &c.
[27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, ss. 14, 15.]]

13. It shall not be lawful for any registrar, marshal, or other officer
of the Supreme Prize Court or of any other prize court, directly or
indirectly to act or be in any manner concerned as advocate, proctor,
solicitor, or agent, or otherwise, in any prize appeal or cause.

[Sidenote: Protection of persons acting in execution of Act. [27 & 28
Vict. c. 25, s. 51.]]

14. The Public Authorities Protection Act, 1893, shall apply to any
action, prosecution, or other proceeding against any person for any act
done in pursuance or execution or intended execution of this Act or in
respect of any alleged neglect or default in the execution of this Act
whether commenced in the United Kingdom or elsewhere within His
Majesty's dominions.

_Continuance of Proceedings._

[Sidenote: Continuance of proceedings after conclusion of war. [57 & 58
Vict. c. 39, s. 2 (5).]]

15. A court duly authorised to act as a prize court during any war shall
after the conclusion of the war continue so to act in relation to, and
finally dispose of, all matters and things which arose during the war,
including all penalties, liabilities and forfeitures incurred during the
war.


Part II.--PROCEDURE IN PRIZE CAUSES.

[Sidenote: Custody of ships taken as prize. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s.
16.]]

16. Where a ship (not being a ship of war) is taken as prize, and is or
is brought within the jurisdiction of a prize court, she shall forthwith
be delivered up to the marshal of the court, or, if there is no such
marshal, to the principal officer of customs at the port, and shall
remain in his custody, subject to the orders of the court.

[Sidenote: Bringing in of ship papers. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 17.]]

17.--(1) The captors shall in all cases, with all practicable speed,
bring the ship papers into the registry of the court.

(2) The officer in command, or one of the chief officers of the
capturing ship, or some other person who was present at the capture and
saw the ship papers delivered up or found on board, shall make oath that
they are brought in as they were taken, without fraud, addition,
subduction, or alteration, or else shall account on oath to the
satisfaction of the court for the absence or altered condition of the
ship papers or any of them.

(3) Where no ship papers are delivered up or found on board the captured
ship, the officer in command, or one of the chief officers of the
capturing ship, or some other person who was present at the capture,
shall make oath to that effect.

[Sidenote: Examination of persons from captured ship. [27 & 28 Vict. c.
25, s. 19.]]

18. The captors shall also, unless the court otherwise directs, with all
practicable speed after the captured ship is brought into port, bring a
convenient number of the principal persons belonging to the captured
ship before the judge of the court or some person authorised in this
behalf, by whom they shall be examined on oath.

[Sidenote: Delivery of ship on bail. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 25.]]

19. The court may, if it thinks fit, at any time after a captured ship
has been appraised direct that the ship be delivered up to the claimant
on his giving security to the satisfaction of the court to pay to the
captors the appraised value thereof in case of condemnation.

[Sidenote: Power to order sale. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, ss. 26 & 27.]]

20. The court may at any time, if it thinks fit, on account of the
condition of the captured ship, or on the application of a claimant, or
on or after condemnation, order that the captured ship be appraised (if
not already appraised), and be sold.

[Sidenote: Power to award compensation notwithstanding release of ship.]

21. Where a ship has been taken as prize, a prize court may award
compensation in respect of the capture notwithstanding that the ship has
been released, whether before or after the institution of any
proceedings in the court in relation to the ship.

[Sidenote: Application and effect of Part II. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s.
31.]]

22.--(1) The provisions of this Part of this Act relating to ships shall
extend and apply, with the necessary adaptations, to goods taken as
prize.

(2) The provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect subject to
any rules of court dealing with the subject-matter thereof.


Part III.--INTERNATIONAL PRIZE COURT.

[Sidenote: Appointment of British judge and deputy judge of
International Court. [_See_ 39 & 40 Vict. c. 59, s. 6.]]

23.--(1) In the event of an International Prize Court being constituted
in accordance with the said Convention or with any Convention entered
into for the purpose of enabling any power to become a party to the said
Convention or for the purpose of amending the said Convention in matters
subsidiary or incidental thereto (hereinafter referred to as the
International Prize Court), it shall be lawful for His Majesty from time
to time to appoint a judge and deputy judge of the court.

(2) A person shall not be qualified to be appointed by His Majesty a
judge or deputy judge of the court unless he has been, at or before the
time of his appointment, the holder, for a period of not less than two
years, of some one or more of the offices described as high judicial
offices by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, as amended by any
subsequent enactment.

[Sidenote: Payment of contribution towards expenses of International
Prize Court.]

24. Any sums required for the payment of any contribution towards the
general expenses of the International Prize Court payable by His Majesty
under the said Convention shall be charged on and paid out of the
Consolidated Fund and the growing proceeds thereof.

[Sidenote: Appeals to International Prize Court.]

25. In cases to which this Part of this Act applies an appeal from the
Supreme Prize Court shall lie to the International Prize Court.

[Sidenote: Transfer of cases to the International Prize Court.]

26. If in any case to which this Part of this Act applies final judgment
is not given by the prize court, or on appeal by the Supreme Prize
Court, within two years from the date of the capture, the case may be
transferred to the International Prize Court.

[Sidenote: Rules as to appeals and transfers to International Prize
Court.]

27. His Majesty in Council may make rules regulating the manner in which
appeals and transfers under this Part of this Act may be made and with
respect to all such matters (including fees, costs, charges, and
expenses) as appear to His Majesty to be necessary for the purpose of
such appeals and transfers, or to be incidental thereto or consequential
thereon.

[Sidenote: Enforcement of orders of International Prize Court.]

28. The High Court and every prize court in a British possession shall
enforce within its jurisdiction all orders and decrees of the
International Prize Court in appeals and cases transferred to the Court
under this Part of this Act.

[Sidenote: Application of Part III.]

29. This part of this Act shall apply only to such cases and during such
period as may for the time being be directed by Order in Council, and
His Majesty may by the same or any other Order in Council apply this
Part of this Act subject to such conditions, exceptions and
qualifications as may be deemed expedient.


Part IV.--PRIZE SALVAGE AND PRIZE BOUNTY.

_Prize Salvage._

[Sidenote: Salvage to re-captors of British ship or goods from enemy.]

30. Where any ship or goods belonging to any of His Majesty's subjects,
after being taken as prize by the enemy, is or are retaken from the
enemy by any of His Majesty's ships of war, the same shall be restored
by decree of a prize court to the owner.

[Sidenote: Permission to recaptured ship to proceed on voyage and
postponement of proceedings. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 41.]]

31.--(1) Where a ship belonging to any of his Majesty's subjects, after
being taken as prize by the enemy, is retaken from the enemy by any of
His Majesty's ships of war, she may, with the consent of the
re-captors, prosecute her voyage, and it shall not be necessary for the
re-captors to proceed to adjudication till her return to a port of His
Majesty's dominions.

(2) The master or owner, or his agent, may, with the consent of the
re-captors, unload and dispose of the goods on board the ship before
adjudication.

(3) If the ship does not, within six months, return to a port of His
Majesty's dominions, the re-captors may nevertheless institute
proceedings against the ship or goods in the High Court, or in any prize
court in a British possession, and the court may thereupon award prize
salvage as aforesaid to the re-captors, and may enforce payment thereof,
either by warrant of arrest against the ship or goods, or in the same
manner as a judgment of the court in which the proceedings are
instituted may be enforced.

_Prize Bounty._

[Sidenote: Prize bounty to officers and crew present in case of capture
or destruction of enemy's ship. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 42.]]

32. If, in relation to any war, His Majesty is pleased to declare, by
proclamation or Order in Council, his intention to grant prize bounty to
the officers and crews of his ships of war, then such of the officers
and crew of any of His Majesty's ships of war as are actually present at
the taking or destroying of any armed ship of any of His Majesty's
enemies shall be entitled to have distributed among them as prize bounty
a sum calculated at such rates and in such manner as may be specified in
the proclamation or Order in Council.

[Sidenote: Ascertainment of amount of prize bounty. [27 & 28 Vict. c.
25, s. 43.]]

33.--(1) A prize court shall make a decree declaring the title of the
officers and crew of His Majesty's ship to the prize bounty, and stating
the amount thereof.

(2) The decree shall be subject to appeal as other decrees of the court.


Part V.--SPECIAL CASES OF JURISDICTION.

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in case of capture in land expedition. [27 & 28
Vict. c. 25, s. 34.]]

34. Where, in an expedition of any of His Majesty's naval or naval and
military forces against a fortress or possession on land goods belonging
to the state of the enemy, or to a public trading company of the enemy
exercising powers of government, are taken in the fortress or
possession, or a ship is taken in waters defended by or belonging to the
fortress or possession, a prize court shall have jurisdiction as to the
goods or ships so taken, and any goods taken on board the ship, as in
case of prize.

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in case of prize taken in expedition with ally.
[27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 35.]]

35. Where any ship or goods is or are taken by any of His Majesty's
naval or naval and military forces while acting in conjunction with any
forces of any of His Majesty's allies, a prize court shall have
jurisdiction as to the same as in case of prize, and shall have power,
after condemnation, to apportion the due share of the proceeds to His
Majesty's ally, the proportionate amount and the disposition of which
share shall be such as may from time to time be agreed between His
Majesty and His Majesty's ally.

[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of High Court on petitions of right as under 23
& 24 Vict. c. 34. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 52.]]

36.--(1) In any case where a petition of right under the Petitions of
Right Act, 1860, is presented and the subject-matter of the petition or
any material part thereof arises out of the exercise of any belligerent
right on behalf of the Crown, or would be cognizable in a prize court
within His Majesty's dominions if the same were a matter in dispute
between private persons, the petition may, if the subject thinks fit, be
intituled in the High Court as a prize court.

(2) Any petition of right under the last-mentioned Act, whether
intituled in the High Court or not, may be prosecuted in that court if
the Lord Chancellor thinks fit so to direct.

(3) The provisions of this Act relative to appeal, and to the making of
orders for regulating the procedure and practice of the High Court as a
prize court, shall extend to the case of any such petition of right
intituled or directed to be prosecuted in that court; and, subject
thereto, all the provisions of the Petitions of Right Act, 1860, shall
apply with such adaptations as may be necessary in the case of any such
petition of right; and for the purposes of this section the terms
"court" and "judge" in that Act shall respectively be understood to
include the High Court as a prize court and the judges thereof, and
other terms shall have the respective meanings given to them in that
Act.


Part VI.--OFFENCES.

her eyes.  It was the first he had ever seen bent on him, and he was
struck afresh with the pure unsullied beauty of this girl’s face.  Truth
to tell, his first attraction towards her had been the rumour of her
fortune, for he was more deeply in debt than he wished the world to
know; but something in the remoteness and isolation in which she seemed
to wrap herself piqued and interested him; for his jaded palate required
fresh food when it was to be had, and the vein of manliness and strength
which his life had never altogether warped or destroyed responded to the
sincerity he read in Lady Geraldine’s fair face.

The curtain was down now.  For a few minutes he spoke of the play and
the water apparatus, worked by a windmill on the roof, which was
exciting so much interest in London.  Geraldine’s eyes meantime
travelled round the box.  She saw her mother engrossed in gay talk with
a small circle of admirers; but one of these edged himself somewhat away
from the rest, and finally stood apart, leaning against the wall of the
box and surveying the house from that vantage point.

Geraldine’s eyes were riveted with some interest upon this newcomer,
whom she was certain she had never seen before.  In some indefinable way
he was different from the men she had been used to meet at such places.
For one thing, he wore his own hair; and the floating brown curls, like
Cavalier love-locks, seemed to her infinitely more becoming than the
mass of false hair which was so much in vogue in all ranks save the
lowest.  His dress, too, though far more simple than that of the beaux
fluttering round her mother, seemed to her far more graceful and
distinguished.  His stockings, breeches, and vest were all of white,
with a little silver frosting.  His coat was of pale blue, with silver
buttons; and his lace cravat, though small and unostentatious, was rich
in quality, and fastened by a beautiful pearl.  He carried neither muff
nor snuff-box, cane nor toothpick.  He did not simper nor ogle, nor look
as though he desired to attract the eyes of the house upon himself.  But
he was, notwithstanding, a rather notable figure as he stood looking
gravely and thoughtfully downwards; there was something very graceful in
his attitude, and in the carriage of his head, and his features were so
remarkably handsome that Lady Romaine turned her eyes upon him many
times, and exerted all her artifices to draw him back to her immediate
neighbourhood.  But he was perfectly unconscious of this, not hearing
the chatter which went on about him, lost in some reverie of his own,
which brought a peculiar dreamy softness into his eyes.

Lord Sandford, following the direction of Geraldine’s glance, looked at
this motionless figure, then back at the girl, and laughed.

"Lady Geraldine, pray permit me to present to you my newly-made friend
and comrade, Sir Grey Dumaresq, who, I doubt not, is dying to make his
bow to so fair a lady."

She flashed him a glance half merry, half reproachful, and he suddenly
laid his hand upon his lips, a laugh rolling from them hearty and full.

"I’ faith I had forgot!  How shall I teach my rebel tongue a new
language?  But Sir Grey will atone for all my defects.—Here is a lady,
if you will believe it, O friend, who loves not the sugared and honeyed
phrase of adulation, but seeks in all things truth, virtue, and I know
not what else beside.  It is whispered to me that she is a mistress of
all the _belles lettres_, and perchance a poetess herself."

"Nay, my lord," answered Geraldine, with a blush and a smile—"only one
who loves the poesy of those who have lived before, and left their
treasures for us who come after, and would fain drink in all the beauty
of their thoughts and of their lives."

Lord Sandford good-naturedly yielded his seat to Grey, whose sensitive
face had lighted at the girl’s words.

"Methought I had come to a world where naught was dreamed of save
fashion and frippery, false adulation and falser scorn.  I am well-nigh
stunned by the clamour of tongues, the strife of parties, the bustle of
this gay life of fashion."

"Oh, and I too—I too!" breathed the girl softly: and he flashed at her a
quick, keen glance of sympathy and interest.

"I was bred in the country; my grandam brought me up.  I lived with my
books, amid silvan solitudes, the songs of birds, the scent of flowers.
This great glittering world of folly and fashion is like a fiery wheel
going round in my head.  Ofttimes I could cry aloud for mercy, the pain
and bewilderment are so great.  I know there must be noble men and good
in this strange Pandemonium; but I know not where to find them, and my
heart grows sick.  Would that I could go back to my books and my dreams!
But alas! a maiden may not choose for herself."

"Still there is life here," spoke Grey quickly, "and it behoves us to
know men as well as books.  I have studied both.  I will study them
again.  I would fain learn all that life has to teach, whether for weal
or woe.  No hermit-monk was ever truly a man. Yet there be times when
one shrinks in amaze from all one sees and hears."

The chord of sympathy was struck.  They passed from one thing to
another.  She found one at last who knew and loved the poets of her
childhood’s dreams—who could talk of Spenser and Sidney, of Watson,
Greville, and Drayton, quoting their verses, and often lighting upon her
favourite passages.  Here was a man who knew Milton and Clarendon,
Hobbes, Herbert, Lovelace and Suckling, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and
Izaak Walton.  He had read eagerly, like herself, poetry and prose,
drama and epic, lyric and sonnet.  He could speak of Poetry as one who
had loved and courted her as a mistress.  The girl longed to ask him if
he had written himself, but maiden shyness withheld her.  Yet her eyes
brightened as she talked, and the peach-like colour rose and deepened in
her cheeks; and Lord Sandford, turning back once again from the mother
to look at the daughter, was struck dumb with admiration and delight.

"There is a rose worth winning and wearing, though the stem may not be
free from a sharp thorn," he said to himself; and Lady Romaine, who
chanced to catch sight of Geraldine during a shifting of the admirers
who surrounded her, gave something very like a start, and felt a curious
thrill run through her in which pride and envy were blended.

"Gracious!  I did not know I had so handsome a daughter!  I must wed her
as fast as may be, else shall I find my beaux going from me to her," was
her unspoken thought; and aloud she said, tapping Lord Sandford with her
fan, "Pray tell my daughter that I am about to depart.  We have had
enough of the naiads and dryads, and I am tired and hungry.  Who will
come home with me to supper—to take pot-luck with us?"

There was an eager clamour in response; but when the supper-party
assembled round Lady Romaine’s chocolate tables in her favourite private
parlour, she noted that Geraldine had disappeared to bed, and that Sir
Grey Dumaresq had not availed himself of her open invitation.




                             *CHAPTER VII.*

                             *A FAIR FACE.*


If Grey Dumaresq was a man who craved a variety of experiences, and
wished to see life under different aspects, he was getting his wish now;
for the gay world of fashion, into which he suddenly found himself
plunged, differed _in toto_ from any of his former experiences; and so
swift was the pace, and so shifting the throng amid which he moved, that
he often felt as though his breath were fairly taken away, and as though
he had suddenly stepped into a new existence.

Lord Sandford had chanced upon the young baronet at a moment when a
blank had been made in his own life by the sudden and violent death of
one who had been his boon companion and friend.  The gay young man, who
had fallen in a foolish duel a few weeks before, had been the inmate of
his house and the companion in all his freaks and follies; so much so,
that without him the young nobleman felt for the moment bewildered and
lost, and had absented himself from town with a view to "getting over
it," as he hoped: for he despised himself for any sign of weakness, and
would not for worlds have had his comrades and boon companions know how
the loss had affected him.

Then, as it seemed just by a lucky chance, this young and attractive man
had fallen as from the very skies at his feet.  Grey Dumaresq, new to
the world of London, curious and speculative, willing to see all, learn
all, participate in all, seemed exactly the person to fill the gap in
his life.  Grey had no place of abode; why, then, should he not occupy
the vacant chambers in the wing of the great mansion in the Strand which
Lord Sandford used as his customary lodging, when he was not spending
his time with friends, or making one of a gay party elsewhere?  Grey had
no valid reason for declining the invitation pressed upon him. Lord
Sandford was a masterful man, and his strong personality impressed
itself upon Grey with something between attraction and repulsion.  But,
on the whole, attraction seemed the stronger power, and curiosity to
know more of this man and his life held Grey’s soul in thrall.  He had
always experienced a vivid curiosity to taste life in its various forms,
to know and understand the thoughts, the feelings, the aspirations, the
ambitions of other men.  His travels had given him insight into many
matters; but he felt that these new experiences were likely to be more
searching, more exciting, more full of keen personal interest.  He had
been, as it were, a spectator heretofore; now he was to be a
participator.

He had not meant to be any man’s guest; he had meant to take a modest
lodging of his own, and look about him for something in the way of
employment, but Lord Sandford had roared with laughter over such a
notion.

"What!  Sir Grey Dumaresq going cap in hand to some proud place-giver to
ask for patronage, or I know not what!  Gadzooks, man, with that face,
that figure, that horse, and a purse full of guineas, you can do better
than that!  Trust yourself to me. I’ll show you where fame and fortune
lie.  You shall redeem your rat-infested old house in a very brief
while, if you will but trust yourself to my guidance.  You be Damon to
my Pythias—or is it t’other way round, eh?—and I’ll show you the royal
road to the goal you want."

For lack of any definite plans, Grey had consented for the nonce to
accept Lord Sandford’s advice, and had quickly found himself installed
in some gloomy and stately yet luxurious chambers in a vast house, of
which only a portion was open for use, and the rest given over to a
neglect and decay that Hartsbourne itself could scarcely rival.

"But we shall change all that some day," spoke Lord Sandford, with a
careless laugh, as Grey expressed his surprise at the vast rooms and
long galleries shut up and infested by rats and spiders. "Oh yes, we
shall change all that some day; but what does a bachelor want with such
a house as this?  What should I be the better for a crowd of liveried
servants, eating off their heads, idling away their time dicing and
drinking?  What have I to give an army of scullions and cooks to do—I
who seldom take a meal at home after my morning chocolate?  No, no; I
know a trick worth two of that. I don’t ruin myself to keep a crew of
fat, lazy rogues about me, cheating me at every turn.  Half a dozen
fellows and a few kitchen wenches do well enow for me; but when Lady
Sandford comes to her husband’s home—ah well! then we shall see the
difference."

But though he talked jestingly from time to time of the Lady Sandford
that was to be, he gave Grey no hint as to whether his fancy inclined
more to one or another of the many gay maidens with whom he chatted and
flirted, danced and romped, in the fashion of the day; and so
bewildering and dazzling were these young madams and their surroundings
that the newcomer was lost in a maze of wonder and bewilderment, and
found it hard to distinguish one face from another, until he met one,
different from all the rest.

But Grey was not left idle; he had small time for musing.  The very
first day of his sojourn in London he was surrounded by a fluttering
crowd of tailors, glove-sellers, barbers, fencers, sellers and purveyors
of every imaginable ware, who all professed their eagerness to serve
him, and quoted Lord Sandford as a patron who could swear to their
honesty and the excellence of their goods.

Into the midst of this motley throng Lord Sandford thrust himself,
laughing his great hearty laugh, and quickly sent to the right-about
two-thirds of the importunate crowd—a jest here, a keen thrust there, a
slap on back or shoulder in another quarter, emphasizing his forcible
hints.  And when the room was cleared of all but the lucky few, he flung
himself into an armchair with another laugh, telling Grey he was sorry
his knaves of servants, who looked for perquisites everywhere, had let
in this flood of rogues upon him, but added that he must needs have the
wherewithal to cut a proper figure in London town, and forthwith set
about the business of ordering an outfit for the young man which almost
took his guest’s breath away.

"Poof!" he cried, when the latter strove to remonstrate, "you have
plenty of money; and these rascals can wait if it suits your pleasure.
Father’s memory!  Oh, be hanged to all such mawkish sentiment!  You need
not think less of your father because you wear a blue coat in lieu of a
black! Rabbit me! but you are of a different world from this if you keep
alive your father’s memory for six months after his decease!  No, no;
you must cut a figure.  Sir Hugh’s name is clean forgot by now. I’ll eat
my boots if ’tis not so.  I’ll have you as gay as my fancy paints you.
No black—no sables for the gentleman, I tell you.  Let us see those
other patterns.  Ah! here is something more like."

Grey submitted.  In sooth, he cared but little for the colour of his
clothes, or the set of his hat, or the cut of his coat.  He let Lord
Sandford have his way for the most part, only insisting here and there
upon soft and tender tints, and showing a predilection for white, which
his friend quite approved.

"You shall be a foil to me, not a rival.  I have learned that art from
the ladies.  I like to blaze like old Sol in his strength; you shall
rather recall gentle Luna amid her galaxy of stars.  Faugh! One’s tongue
gets into this silly trick of speech, so that one cannot drop it even
betwixt man and man!  But you are right to think that white becomes you
well.  You will look a pretty fellow, in all conscience, when you have
added a peruke to your other adornments."

But here Grey stood firm.  Nothing would induce him to cumber his head
with one of those mountains of hair.  In vain the perruquiers displayed
their wares; in vain Lord Sandford bantered and laughed, and made out
that he would be reckoned as a mad fellow by the young bloods of the
city.  Grey would not yield an inch.  He had always found his own hair
sufficient and comfortable, and he would wear it to the end.  And as the
discomfited perruquier at last departed, Lord Sandford broke into
another of his great laughs.

"I’ faith you are right, man.  I like you the better that you have the
courage of your opinions, and care no whit for fashion.  You’ll be a
match for more than the perruquiers yet.  There’s a fighting strain in
your blood.  I can see it in the glint of your eye. Well, you shall not
lack opportunity to fight as well as to laugh here in London town; but
we’ll not have cold steel or hot lead again.  I’ve seen enough of that
cursed duelling to last me for a lifetime."

Grey was quickly to discover the nature of the battles in which he was
to take a part, and at the first he shrank from them with an instinctive
aversion he could not well have defined, being no grave moralist or
philosopher.  Contests of skill or of luck at the gaming tables were all
the rage of the day with the young dandies of the town, and the man who
could keep a steady head, and in some cases a steady hand, was certain
in the long run to obtain advantage over his fellows.  At one club a
game something like our modern billiards was all the rage; and, of
course, a man who was moderate in his cups could score heavily over the
reckless, dissipated bloods, who were seldom sober after sundown.  Dice
and cards had their vogue at other places; and though some of the games
played were those purely of chance, others required no small skill and a
clear head to ensure success, and it was here that Lord Sandford’s
strong head and Grey’s cool blood and temperate habits gave them the
advantage.

The young man had not been a fortnight in town before finding his
capital doubled, as well as all bills paid to the astonished tradesmen,
who seldom looked to receive their money within a twelvemonth.  He was
disposed to be troubled at this easy fashion of making money; but Lord
Sandford laughed him to scorn.

"Zounds, man, what does it matter?  Those young popinjays are bound to
lose their money to some one. Why not then to honest fellows like you
and me, who pay our bills and do good to the community with the money?
Scruples!  Faugh! you must rid yourself of them!  Sir Hugh Dumaresq’s
son need not trouble himself thus.  Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die.  Isn’t that good Scripture?"  But the reckless young lord paled
a little at the sound of his own words.  He had seen sudden death once
too often for his peace of mind of late.

In sooth, Grey felt but little scruple in taking his winnings.  The
young man was not greatly in advance of his age, although he was indued
with a nature more finely strung and aspirations more lofty than
belonged to most.  Gambling was so much a matter of course both in this
and in other lands, and the devotees of the amusement so numerous and so
bent upon their sport, that it would have needed stronger convictions
than Grey as yet possessed to make any stand on such a point.  He took
the same risks as the others, and if his coolness of head, steadiness of
hand, and quick observation and memory served to make for success in his
case, he rather regarded this as a witness to his superiority, and felt
only a small sense of reluctance in pocketing his gains; which
reluctance he could only attribute to a lingering memory of words spoken
by his mother when he was a growing boy, and news came to them from time
to time of Sir Hugh’s losses over cards, and the necessity for further
retrenchments upon the already impoverished estate.

But the cases being so dissimilar, Grey did not see that he need debar
himself from this easy highroad to fortunes, as it then seemed.  Nobody
was dependent upon him.  Nobody was there to grieve over his troubles or
to rejoice over his success.  His honest serving-man was in sooth the
only being in any way deeply attached to him; and Dick was as delighted
at his master’s brave appearance, and at the golden stream running into
his pocket, as though he had achieved some great success or triumph.

There was one way by which Grey had pocketed considerable sums of money
that was very congenial to him, and had given him some very happy hours.
This was the speed and strength of his horse, which Lord Sandford had
made boast of, vowing in the hearing of some of the smartest dandies of
the town that Don Carlos would beat any steed against whom he was
pitted—a challenge eagerly taken up by the young bloods, proud of their
own horses and horsemanship, to whom trials of skill and strength, and
contests over which wagers might freely be exchanged, were as the very
salt of life.

So either out at Hampstead, or at Richmond or Hampton Court, Don Carlos
had been set to show the metal of which he was made, and had come off
easy victor in every race and every match, whether flat running, or
leaping, or a course of the nature of a steeplechase had been elected.
His strength and speed, sagacity and endurance, had never once failed
him, and already he was the talk of the town, and Grey could have sold
him for a great price had he been willing to part with his favourite.

Many bright eyes had smiled upon the young centaur, many languishing
glances had been cast at him.  He had been called up again and again to
be presented to some high-born dame, or some bevy of laughing maidens,
and he had bowed with courtly grace, and received their sugared
compliments with suitable acknowledgments.  But no face had attracted
him as that face he had seen once at the water theatre, almost upon his
first appearance in the gay world. He knew that it belonged to Lady
Geraldine Romaine; and often his eyes roved round some gay assemblage,
searching half unconsciously for a sight of her tall and graceful
figure, and the sweet, earnest face, so different from the laughing and
grimacing crowd in which he now moved.  Grey had not known much of
women, so far.  His college life first, and then his roving career of
adventure, had hindered him from making friendships save with those of
his own sex; and his deep love for his mother had preserved as a living
power his chivalrous belief in women, and a resolute determination to
disbelieve the idle, malicious, and vicious tales he heard of them on
all sides.  Womanhood was sacred to him, and should be sacred to the
world.  That was his inalienable conviction; and he had striven to be
blind and deaf to much of what had often been passing around him, that
he might not sink to the level of the men he met, who would tear to
tatters a woman’s reputation for an evening’s pastime, or revel in every
ugly bit of scandal or tittle-tattle that the young beaux’ valets
learned from the lackeys of other fine folk, and retailed with additions
at the door of the theatre, the gates of the Park, or on the staircases
of the fashionable houses whither their masters and mistresses flocked
for amusement, unconscious or heedless of the gossip spread abroad about
them by their servants at the doors.

Grey took no pleasure in the society of these fashionable dames.  His
tongue had not learned the trick of the artificial language then in
vogue.  He was disgusted by the gross flattery every lady looked to
receive, and the lisping platitudes of the attendant beaux filled him
with scorn.  It was small wonder that he chose rather the society of men
of more virility and stronger fibre, such as Lord Sandford and his
chosen friends; for though many of them were wild young rakes, and not a
few had a very doubtful record, yet Grey knew little enough about that,
and found them not without attraction, although the higher part of his
nature revolted from much that he saw and heard.  Nevertheless, he
regarded it all as a part of the experience in life which he craved, and
he might have become in a short while just such another as these, had it
not been for an incident which suddenly arrested him in his career of
dissipation, and turned his thoughts into different channels.

It had been early June when he came to town, and now July had come, with
its sultry suns and breathless nights, when Grey ofttimes felt after an
evening over cards that it was mockery to go to bed, and lounged away
the residue of the night at his open window, enjoying the only coolness
and freshness that was to be had, as the wind came whispering from the
river charged with refreshing moisture.

Sometimes the river seemed to call him; and at such times he would lay
aside his finery, clothe himself in some plainer habit, and betake
himself through the silent house, where the night watchman was always
found slumbering at his post, out through the big courts and down to the
river steps, where a few light wherries were always kept moored, one of
which he would select, and shoot out upon the glimmering river to meet
the new day there.

Some of his happiest hours were spent thus; and at such times as these
he felt rising within him a vague sense of unrest and of disgust.  He
had come to the world of London to conquer fate, to make for himself a
name and a career; and here he was wasting day after day in
coffee-houses or clubs, with a crowd of idlers whose thoughts never rose
above the fancy of the hour, whose only ambition was to kill time as
easily and pleasantly as possible, and to line their pockets with gold,
that they might have more to throw away on the morrow.

Was this what he would come to?  Was this what he was made for?  Would
he become like unto them, a mere roisterer and boon companion, a man
without aspirations and without ambition?  His cheeks burned at the
thought; and he sent his light craft spinning rapidly up the stream as
the questions formed themselves.

It was an exquisite summer morning.  The bells in the many towers and
steeples of the city had chimed the hour of five.  The sun had long been
up, yet the glamour and glory of the new-born day still lay upon the
sleeping city and the dewy meadows of the opposite shore.  Grey rowed on
rapidly, yet drinking in the beauty of all he saw.  He knew not how far
he had rowed; he had lost count of his surroundings; he was absorbed in
a deep reverie, when he was suddenly brought up breathless and wondering
by the sound of a voice singing—a voice so clear and sweet and true that
he asked himself whether it could be any creature of earth that sang, or
whether it might be some nymph or mermaid such as sailors spoke of in
their wondrous tales.

He gazed about him.  He saw that he was passing a garden, and that a
group of weeping willows overhung the water at this spot.  The singing
seemed to come from thence.  Burning curiosity possessed him, and he
very slowly and softly rowed himself onwards, till the prow of his boat
met the drooping boughs with a soft rustle.  The song ceased suddenly.
Grey turned in his seat, and drew himself within the sheltering shade;
as he did so, a quick exclamation broke from him.  He dropped his oars
as he exclaimed,—

"The Lady Geraldine!"

                     *      *      *      *      *

How had it come about?  Grey never could have said.  But now it was all
told—the story of his chequered life.  She had been silent at the
first—not exactly resentful of his intrusion, not unwilling to let him
have speech of her again, but quiet, with a maidenly reserve and dignity
which had acted upon him like a charm.  It brought back to him the
memory of his mother, and her noble dignity.  The look in her eyes
recalled those things that he had learned at her knee, and those
aspirations after true greatness of life which she had cherished and
fostered. Suddenly his present life looked to him utterly sordid, mean,
and unworthy; and in a burst of confidence, for which he could have
given no reason, he told her all his tale, encouraged by the soft and
earnest glances of her beautiful eyes, although she scarcely spoke a
word from beginning to end.

And now she looked at him with a great compassion in her face.

"Oh, it is sad, it is sad!" she said in her earnest musical tones.  "I
know a little how sad it is.  I see it too.  But you are a man.  You are
strong, you are your own master.  Why do you let yourself be made the
sport and plaything of fate?  Oh, do not do it! Rise to your calling as
a man, as a gentleman, as a Christian!  You can—I know you can!  I read
it in your face!  What is Lord Sandford to you? The acquaintance of a
few weeks.  What are his comrades to you?  You know that in your heart
you despise them.  Then will you make yourself as one of them?  Will you
sink to their level?  Oh no, no, no!  Break the fetters; they cannot be
fast riveted yet.  Break them, and stand a free man, and then see what
the world has to offer you."

She was gazing at him now, not shyly, not as a maiden archly coquetting
with a handsome young swain, but as a woman yearning to reclaim one
whose footsteps had well-nigh slipped in the mire, and whose whole soul
was stirred by the effort.

Grey listened like a man who dreams; and yet his eyes were on fire, and
his heart was kindled to a great flame—shame at his own weakness,
yearnings after vanished memories and half-forgotten aspirations
struggling together with some new and utterly unknown emotion which
seemed to come surging over him like a flood, leaving him speechless,
motionless.

She had risen, and now held out her hand.

"You will triumph yet.  I am assured of it.  And I shall pray God to
give you His strength and grace. Farewell, sir; we may meet again
sometimes.  I shall hear of you.  I shall listen to hear naught but
good. Your mother’s voice shall plead through mine.  Give up evil
companions; give up idle dissipation, and all that it brings in its
train.  Lead the higher life of the Courteous Knight, the Spotless
Knight, the Knight of the Holy Grail.  Did we not speak of them all when
first we met, and methought you looked such a one yourself?  Be true to
that better self; and so I say farewell again.  May God be with you!"

She was gone, and Grey stood looking after her as a man who sees a
vision.




                            *CHAPTER VIII.*

                        *A STARTLING DISCOVERY.*


As Grey Dumaresq drifted downstream with the tide that sunny July
morning, he felt as though something new and wonderful had come into his
life, as though some great and marvellous change had fallen upon him,
which, for good or ill, must leave its mark upon his life.

He did not try to analyze the strange feelings which possessed him.  For
a time he did not even consciously think.  He seemed to be drifting
along a shining pathway—drifting, he scarce knew whither, and did not
care to ask.  His heart was strangely heavy, and yet strangely light.  A
curious loathing and shame at himself was blended with a sense of
exultant triumph, which held him in a mood of ecstasy.  For a long while
he drifted onwards, scarce thinking or knowing whither he went, till a
sudden consciousness that he was passing Lord Sandford’s house brought
him to himself with a sense of shock. He had left that house only two
hours before; yet it might have been as many years that had rolled over
his head, so different were his feelings, so changed was his outlook
upon life.

He moored his boat, and went up to his room. Before long he would be
expected to drink coffee or chocolate at his friend’s levee, meet all
those of his comrades who had energy to pay their customary _devoirs_ to
their patron, and discuss the plans for the ensuing day and night.  Grey
dashed some cold water over his hot head, and sat down to think.

What would Lord Sandford say if he suddenly expressed his intention of
giving up gambling in all its many insidious forms, in order to enter
upon a life totally different from that of the past weeks? It was not as
though he had any alternative plan to unfold to him.  He was as ignorant
how his fortune was to be made now, after several weeks in gay London
town, as he had been on his first approach to that city.  He could
almost hear the great guffaw of laughter with which Lord Sandford would
greet his confession.  He half feared the powerful personality and the
imperious temper of the man who had been a good friend to him, and who
had the reputation of being a dangerous enemy when his will was crossed.
Grey knew that this man liked him—went near to loving him—would not
easily let him go.  He knew that he would appear both ungrateful and
capricious; and the young man writhed at the thought of seeming either
the one or the other.  But yet he must break away.  Pacing up and down
the room, he seemed to see the soft earnest eyes of the Lady Geraldine
bent upon him.  He had pledged his word to her, and in spirit to his
dead mother.  From that pledge there was no drawing back.  Yet how could
the break best be made?

He thought over the engagements already entered into.  Was it needful
that these should be kept? He thought not—at least not those which were
but promises to meet at such and such clubs or coffee-houses for the
purposes of card-playing and similar recreations.  But there was one
engagement that Grey did not see his way honourably to break. He had
promised to ride Don Carlos the following Saturday in a course against
three other picked horses, and heavy wagers, he knew, had been laid upon
or against his steed.  This engagement he felt he could not break; but
the rest he would.  He might even make the excuse that Don Carlos wanted
attention, and that he was going to take him into the country for
purposes of training; and, once away from Sandford House, he ought to be
able to pen a letter to the master which might excuse his return, and
explain the nature of the change which had come over him.

Yes, that would be the way.  He would not go open-mouthed to him this
morning, to be perhaps scoffed or cajoled into some rash compromise.
Grey knew that his ability to see both sides of a question often led him
into difficulties and the appearance of vacillation.  Surely he could
keep his pledge if he made the break with a certain diplomatic skill.
Not only would it be easier to himself, but it might prove the safer
method also.

When he saw Lord Sandford in the midst of his friends, laughing at the
last bit of scandal, passing jokes over the latest repartee of the
redoubtable Duchess of Marlborough to the meek Queen, discussing the
rivalries of the ministers, and the other rivalries (to them more
important) of the reigning beauties of the gay world, Grey felt that it
would indeed be impossible to speak in this company of any of those
things which were in his mind.  He contented himself by standing aloof,
looking out of the window and sipping his chocolate, whilst the gay
flood of talk surged around him, and he caught a word here and a phrase
there, but always heard when Lord Sandford’s resonant tones dominated
those of all others.

"Talk of rival beauties; we shall see sport to-night.  Lady Romaine and
Lady Saltire—dearest friends and dearest foes—are to go to Vauxhall
Gardens to-night, each in a new toilet specially designed and ordered
for the occasion.  It will be a ladies’ battle, in very truth; and
public opinion must needs decide which of the rival queens is fairest to
look upon.  I have promised both the dear creatures to be there, to give
my admiration to both alike. Shall I risk the undying enmity of either
by giving the palm to one?  No such fool, gentlemen—no such fool is
Sandford.  I vow I will have ready such a pretty speech or couplet for
each that she shall go away with a better opinion of me than ever!  Ha,
ha, ha!  I love to see the pretty dears, tricked out in their finery,
and ready to tear each other’s eyes out!  So, gentlemen, I cancel all
previous engagements for to-night.  I am for Vauxhall, and Heaven only
knows how late we shall be detained there by the battle of beauty."

"We will all be there!" cried the young bloods, who were at all times
ready to follow Lord Sandford to whatever place of entertainment he
elected to go; and one voice followed with a laughing question,—

"Will the snow maiden be there in the train of her mother?"

Grey felt himself start, and was glad his face was turned away.  He
would not for worlds that the sharp mocking eyes of Lord Sandford should
see him at this moment, albeit he had no notion of any sort that he had
special interest in his spotless Lady Geraldine.

[Illustration: He stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the
fair Geraldine (page 155).]

"I trow so," was the carelessly-spoken reply of Lord Sandford, as he
adjusted his wig and suffered his valet to spray some delicate perfume
over his person, as a finishing touch to his toilet.  "The Lady
Geraldine is no longer to lead the life of a nun.  It has been decreed
that she is to show her lovely face abroad, and add thereby a lustre to
her mother’s charms."

"A lustre her ladyship would well dispense with," laughed another.  "She
would sooner pose as the stepmother than the mother of a grown-up
daughter—ha, ha!  How comes it that this young beauty hath never been
shown before to the world?  Other damsels make their _début_ at sixteen;
but the Lady Geraldine can scarce be less than twenty, and has the
dignity of matronhood."

"A vast deal more dignity than the most part of our matrons do show
forth," spoke Lord Sandford incisively.  "Doubtless she learned it from
her grandam, her mother’s mother and her father’s aunt; for my Lord and
my Lady Romaine are cousins, and Mrs. Adair was trusted and revered by
both.  Young children are in the way of such gay ladies of fashion,
wherefore the babe was sent to its grandam, and remained with her till
the virtuous and discreet old lady died, having bequeathed her store of
wisdom and discretion to the beautiful maid she had reared."

"And her fortune too," sniggered one gay dandy. "Do not forget that
item, my lord.  It is whispered that it will make the biggest of her
charms.  What is the figure?  Doth anybody know?"

All disclaimed any precise information, and Lord Sandford spoke no word;
his brow was slightly furrowed, and there was a subdued gleam in his eye
which warned those who saw it that something in the conversation was not
to his mind.  They therefore hastened to change it, and many of them
said adieu and sauntered away.  Only a small knot remained with their
patron, discussing the plans for the day; and Grey stood still in the
embrasure of the window, his heart still beating with curious violence
and rapidity.  When those men were speaking of Geraldine, he had scarce
been able to keep his fingers from their throats.  What business had
they taking her pure name upon their lips?  And why had they spoken of
her fortune?  Could it be true that she was so great an heiress?  He
hated to believe it; yet what was it to him?  He was wakened from his
reverie by a quick question from Lord Sandford, which he heard as
through the mists of a dream, and answered,—

"’Tis true I am not quite myself.  I slept not at all last night, and
have been on the river well-nigh since sunrise to rid me of the vapours.
Methinks I will seek some sleep in mine own rooms ere night. Reckon not
on me for to-day’s pastime."

"Ay, you have the air of a man squeamish and in need of rest.  Go get
thee a good sleep, friend Grey, for we must keep you in fettle for the
match on Saturday.  Man and beast must come to the field strong and
robust, with nerve and wind and muscle true and taut.  But you must make
one of our party to Vauxhall to-night.  There will be many bright eyes
on the lookout for the gay cavalier, as the ladies call you for your
love-locks.  You must not fail us there."

For a moment Grey hesitated, prudence and passion fighting together for
mastery.  But the overwhelming desire to see Geraldine again—perhaps to
speak a word of farewell—overcame him, and he answered briefly as he
strolled through the room on his way out,—

"I shall be ready enough for that; you can reckon on me."

How the day passed Grey never knew, and it was still broad daylight when
he and his comrades started for the gardens of Vauxhall, where it was
the fashion to spend the evening hours when nothing more attractive
offered, and where such music and such illuminations as the times had to
offer were to be enjoyed, and where ladies and their attendant beaux
fluttered about like so many gay butterflies, and found opportunity as
the dusk fell for walks and talks of a more private nature in the bosky
alleys and shady paths than they could hope to gain in crowded routs and
card-parties.  Supper could be obtained too, and pleasant little parties
made up; and the fashionable world found it agreeable on these hot
summer nights to take their pleasure out in the open air.

Grey detached himself from his friends upon the first opportunity, and
wandered alone through the gardens, avoiding encounters with persons he
knew, though often accosted with laugh and jest and challenge by masked
ladies, or young bloods eager to make friends with one whose face and
figure began to be known, owing to his successes in horsemanship with
Don Carlos, and his friendship with Lord Sandford.  But Grey made small
response to overtures, quickly shook himself free, and pursued his
solitary ramble, till at length a sound of gay voices, laughter, and
almost uproarious mirth, in which the tones of Lord Sandford could
plainly be heard, drew him to a wide open space where an illuminated
fountain seemed to have drawn a great concourse of people; and there,
amid a tossing crowd of gaudy gallants, and ladies with towering heads,
mincing, giggling, uttering little shrieks, little jests, or playing off
an infinitude of coquetries and artifices to attract admiration, he
beheld the stately white-robed figure around which his thoughts and
fancies had been playing all through the long hours of the day.

He saw not the rival queens of beauty in their gorgeous apparel.  He saw
not the surging crowd that eddied around them, appraising, flattering,
admiring, laughing.  He only saw one white figure, standing aloof and
for the moment alone, the moonbeams glimmering upon the shining
whiteness of her dress, the fair face bent, as though in some sort of
sorrow or shame.  He saw it, and he was instantly at her side.

Whether or not he spoke, he knew not.  He offered his arm, and the next
moment he was leading her away from that giddy, mocking crowd; and he
felt the clinging clasp of her fingers thrilling him to his heart’s
core.  He heard the breath of relief as the chorus of flippant merriment
died away in the distance. He paused, and a quick exclamation escaped
his lips.

"This is no place for you, Lady Geraldine.  Why do they bring you
hither?"

She answered not, but turned her gaze for a moment towards him, and then
dropped her eyes. With an impulse for which he could not account, he
covered the fingers which lay upon his arm with his own disengaged hand,
and passionate words sprang to his lips.

"Give me only the right, fair lady, and I will save you from them all.
I ask only to live and die as your knight—your champion—without
wages—without reward!"

Then he was silent.  His breath came thick and fast.  He felt the quiver
of the hand he held.  He knew not how long the silence lasted, it was so
strangely sweet, so full of mysterious meaning.

"I thank you, sir.  I trow that you speak truth, and that your words are
not idle froth—gone in a moment—as the words of so many of yonder
gallants. But it may not be.  I may not give you such a right. A maiden
is not free to choose her friends; and the knights of chivalry are long
since vanished from the earth.  I would that I might call you friend,
that sometimes we might meet and hold converse together. I trust that I
may learn a good report of you, that one day I may speak with pride of
having known you in your youth.  But that must suffice us.  Let it be
enough for both.  I may not—"

She hesitated, and her voice died into silence. She spoke with a
repressed emotion which he scarcely understood.  The tumult of his own
heart was such that he could not seek to gauge the depths of her
feelings.

"If I may not be your knight, let me at least be your friend—your
servant!" he pleaded.  "And if there is anything wherein I can serve
you—"

She seemed struck by the phrase.  She lifted her bent head and gazed
earnestly at him; but the words she spoke seemed strange.

"You are the friend of Lord Sandford; is it not so?"

"I have been his comrade these many weeks.  He has shown me much
kindness and good-fellowship. I owe him gratitude."

"And you must know him well, I doubt not.  Tell me, Sir Grey—and I pray
you deceive me not—what kind of a man is this same Lord Sandford?  Is he
leal and true, faithful, loving, and loyal?  Is he better than the crowd
who follow at his heels and ape his manners, use his name as a
watchword, and fawn upon his favour?  Tell me, what think you of him?  A
friend must needs speak sooth."

"Lady, you have asked a hard question, inasmuch as I know but little of
the man, albeit I have lived with him above a month.  He attracts me,
and yet there be moments when he repels me too.  He is a good friend—I
would not speak a word against him; yet it is said that he can be a
bitter and an unscrupulous enemy; and those who have lost his favour
withdraw themselves as speedily as possible from his notice, fearful
lest some evil may befall them."

"Is he then cruel and rancorous?"

"I can believe that he might be, were his passions roused.  He has that
forceful nature which tends to vehement liking and bitter hatred.  I
have experienced the one; I have not tasted of the other.  For the rest,
he is a man of parts, and can do all well to which he puts his hand.
Methinks he would be strong enough to break off his reckless and vicious
habits, had he but motive sufficient to make him! desire to do so.  But
for the nonce he floats with the current, and lives as the world lives.
More I cannot say."

At that moment a swift, firm tread was heard approaching along the dim
alley; and Geraldine looked hastily round, her hand dropping from Grey’s
arm.

"It is he!" she whispered, and there was a catch in her voice which the
young man heard without understanding.  He faced round, and beheld the
towering figure of Lord Sandford beside them.

"Well chanced upon!" quoth he in his resonant tones.  "I was sent by
your mother in search of you, Lady Geraldine.  The court of beauty has
sat.  To her has been adjudged the prize.  She now desires the presence
of her daughter, to share her triumph. We shall sup anon, and the table
will not be complete without one gracious and lovely presence. Lady
Geraldine, honour me by accepting my escort.—Grey, will you join us?"

He spoke the last words over his shoulder, and there was a note in his
voice which the young man had never heard before, and which he did not
fully understand.  It seemed to sting him, but he knew not why.

"I thank you—no," he answered.  "I am going home."

And then he stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the fair
Geraldine, who threw him one strange, half-appealing glance over her
shoulder, but spoke no word of farewell.

Grey had meant to go home, but somehow he could not bring himself to do
so.  His brain seemed on fire, and his heart with it.  He knew not what
ailed him, but a fever was consuming him.  He left the gardens, but
walked on and on, not knowing or caring whither he went.  The night was
far spent, and the dawn was beginning to blush in the eastern sky,
before he found himself in the region of Sandford House again.

The place was still and deserted.  The revellers and roisterers seemed
all at home.  A watchman dozed at his post, thankful for the peace of
the streets, and Grey met no interruption, till suddenly, round a
corner, he came face to face with his host, who gave him a look, uttered
a short laugh, and linked his arm within his.

"Well met, friend Grey!  You too have had no desire to woo the somnolent
god?  We find metal more attractive elsewhere.  Say now, what think you
of the future Lady Sandford?  Methought you had eyes but for her
to-night.  Will she not queen it right royally here—the beautiful
stately creature? You have taste, Grey, and I am well pleased that you
have.  Those painted, patched, and powdered Jezebels, smirking and
ogling and running all over the town for the adulation of the crowd, are
as little to your mind as to mine.  We can flatter and fool and make
mock with the best; but when it comes to marriage!  Faugh! one’s soul
sickens at the thought.  What man in his senses would trust his
happiness or his honour in the hands of that tawdry crew?  Gilt and
tinsel do very well to play with; but when one desires to purchase, one
asks for gold."

Grey’s heart seemed to stand still within him.  He felt growing numb and
cold.  As they passed beneath the gateway, and the lamp shone upon his
face, Lord Sandford saw that it was white as death, and a strange gleam
came into his own eyes.

"Come, my friend, you do not answer.  What think you of the wife that I
have chosen?  What think you of the Lady Geraldine Adair?  Is she not a
matchless creature?  Who would have believed such a sport could come
from such a tree?"

Grey commanded himself by a great effort.

"Is the Lady Geraldine Adair, then, your affianced wife?"

"That, or next door to it.  My suit is approved of her parents.  We
shall be betrothed ere long.  I thought you might be learning as much
from her own lips to-night.  Did I not hear my name pass between you
twain?"

"She did ask some question anent you," answered Grey, who had no desire
to fence or parry—he felt too stunned and bewildered; "but she spoke not
of any troth-plight.  Why should she?"

"True, why should she?  She is not one of your empty-headed chatterers.
She wears not her heart upon her sleeve.  And your acquaintance is of
the slightest; is it not so?  Have you met before, since that evening in
the water theatre when I did first present you to each other?"

"I have seen her but once between," answered Grey, still in the same
quiet, stunned fashion; and when they had entered the house, he made
excuse to go at once to his room, declining all proffer of refreshment
or further converse.

Lord Sandford looked after him with an intent look upon his face, which
slowly clouded over, till there was something almost malignant and
ferocious in his aspect.

"So it is as I thought.  He has been hit, and hard hit.  Where can he
have seen her in the interim?  They would not have been standing thus,
talking thus, if some bond had not been established between them.  Yet I
thought I had kept an eye upon him.  I knew there might be danger.  I
saw it the first moment that they met.  There is something akin in their
natures.  They feel it themselves. Hr-r-r-rr! that must be put a stop
to.  I will have no rival in Geraldine’s heart.  She does not love me
yet; but she fears me a little, and she thinks of me. That is no bad
basis to build upon.  I shall win her yet, if I have a fair field.  But
a rival—no, that must not be!  And yet I read somewhat in her eyes
to-night which had not been there before.  The fiend take all false
friends!  I must rid myself of this one, and that speedily.  I have
liked him; but he shall not stand in my way.  Well, ’tis I have made
him: I can quickly unmake him.  Let me but think of the way and the
means.  Grey Dumaresq, you are a pretty fellow and a pleasant comrade;
but you shall never be suffered to stand in the light of Sandford’s
hopes and plans and desires.  Look to yourself, my friend; for evil is
abroad for you!"




                             *CHAPTER IX.*

                      *"A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS."*


"Master, master, wake up!  What ails you? Have you forgot the day, and
what has to be done?"

Dick, with an expression of uneasiness and determination upon his face,
was shaking Grey somewhat vehemently by the shoulder.  The latter seemed
to find it hard to wake; and when his eyes opened at last, there was a
lack-lustre expression in them that was strange and unnatural.  Dick’s
honest face clouded over yet more.

"I was certain there was some devilry afoot when they all came here last
night.  I have never seen my master in such a mad mood of merriment," he
muttered half aloud, as he turned away to get a brimming glass of pure
cold water from the table.  "What has come over them, I don’t know.  But
I like not the change. I liked not the look in Lord Sandford’s eyes.  He
is a great man, I doubt it not; but I wish my master had chanced upon
another as a friend and comrade in this great Babylon of a city.  There
is more going on here than I well understand."

"What are you grumbling over there to yourself, Dicon?" asked Grey from
his bed, and his voice sounded more natural and quiet than his servant
had heard it yet; "and where am I?  For sure this room is strange to
mine eyes, nor have I any recollection of it overnight; and how come you
to be here, for that matter, honest Dicon?  Methought you were at
Hampstead, watching over Don Carlos, that he might be ready for
Saturday’s race."

"Yes, master, and so I am; and this is the hostelry at Hampstead where I
have taken up my quarters with the horse; and hither it was that you
came yestere’en, with Lord Sandford and his friends, to be ready for the
match to-day.  But beshrew me if I did think yesterday you would be fit
for the saddle to-day!  Is it strange I should mutter and grumble to
myself when such things happen?"

"Nay now, what things, good Dicon?  I pray you tell me," spoke Grey, as
he drained at one draught the ice-cold water, and drew a long breath of
relief. "I feel like a man waking from a strange and fevered dream; for,
in sooth, I know but little of what has been passing these last days.
Some strange madness seems to have possessed me.  I had meant to say
farewell to Lord Sandford and his world, and seek mine own fortunes in
some other field.  Yet methinks I have not made the break.  I have
visions of wild orgies and furious gaming—such as I held aloof from
before.  Dicon, I fear me I have made a desperate fool of myself, and of
my fortunes too.  Tell me, what money have I with me now?"

"Not much, master.  I took what you had—a matter of some twenty guineas
perhaps.  I have it safe in a bag.  But surely that is not all.  You had
won a fortune, you did tell me—"

"Ay, and now I have lost it.  I can recollect how the guineas flew, and
how the stakes were doubled, and how I lost again and yet again.  I take
it I am a ruined man, good Dicon.  These twenty guineas saved from the
wreck are all the fortune I possess, and belike it is better so—better
so."

"Better!" echoed the dismayed Dick; "nay, my master.  But you will win
it back again.  The luck cannot always be against you.  Think how it was
at the first!"

"Yes, Dicon, and perchance it had been better had the luck been worse.
I love not such gains as these. Besides, there is somewhat in this
beyond my ken. Lord Sandford desired my friendship and company then, and
luck was with me.  Now that he desires it no more, the luck has changed,
and that so strangely and desperately that one might almost say there
was magic in it."

Dick’s jaw dropped; he longed to know more, but feared to intrude too
much upon his master’s secrets. Grey, however, knew how faithful and
attached was his stanch henchman, and as he went through his morning
toilet he told him a little of the events of the past three days, in as
far as he himself could remember them.

"I have offended Lord Sandford doubly," he said, "though he will not
openly admit it.  But I know—I feel the change.  I trow that he is my
enemy. Nay, Dicon, look not so aghast; it will matter little in the
future, since to-day I take my leave of him, and most like in this great
whirling world our paths will not again cross, either for weal or woe."

"But how?—what?  He did seem to love you well."

"I think he did; but a mischance befell.  He did not tell me of his
troth-plight to a fair lady—a lady of surpassing beauty, and of a virtue
and purity which make her like a bright particular star amid the painted
dames and mincing damsels of this giddy London town. Twice or thrice did
I meet her and pay homage to her wondrous beauty and goodness.  It was
words she spoke to me that decided me, ere ever any ill-blood had been
aroused, to leave off from this life of pleasure-seeking and
distraction, and seek a nobler career than that of the butterfly dandy
fluttering round the town.  But Lord Sandford thought that there was
somewhat more than this betwixt us.  Of that I am assured.  A flame of
jealousy swept over him; and when I told him of my resolution, I trow
that his suspicions received confirmation.  I did not see it then, but I
see it now.  He thought I left him to pursue my ends alone, and,
perchance, to seek to win the lady of his choice.  But he spoke nothing
of this—only insisted that for this week my engagements should be kept,
and that after to-day’s race I might go my own way, an I was so
resolved.  He was not unkindly; yet there was something strange and
stern in his bearing and language, and you have seen how his imperious
temper and will sweep all before them.  I myself was strangely dazed and
something sorrowful.  I scarce do know why my heart was so heavy within
me.  I let him have his way; and you behold what that way has been.  I
am a ruined man, beggared of all my winnings; and methinks my Lord
Sandford has plotted for this very thing."

"It is a shame!  Would I could take my horsewhip to him—"

"Nay, nay, good Dicon; be not so wroth," spoke Grey calmly and quietly.
"In sooth, I know not that I owe him aught but thanks.  When all is said
and done, it was but ill-gotten gain.  I would sooner face life with
none of it upon me.  I had a few guineas to start with—well, it was more
than a few; yet had I spent my time in London, I should have had but
little left by now.  I have learned many lessons, and I shall start
clear of debt, and without my pockets filled with other men’s gold."

Dick was scarce moralist enough to understand or appreciate his master’s
scruples—scruples new, indeed, to Grey himself—but the faithful fellow
was ready to accept any verdict and any decision made by the man he
loved and served; and as he put the finishing touches to the workmanlike
riding toilet which he had in readiness, he remarked with a short
laugh,—

"Faith, master, you and I betwixt us, with Don Carlos and my good nag
for company, and a few guineas in our pockets, need not fear the future;
and I trow it will be well for you to be quit for ever of my Lord
Sandford’s company.  I liked him not greatly for your friend; I hate him
with a goodly hatred since he shows himself your foe.  Shall we turn our
backs upon him and upon London town, and seek our fortunes with the army
over the water, where his Grace of Marlborough will give you welcome?"

"I scarce know what the future will bring for me, Dicon," was the reply,
spoken gravely, yet with a certain listless indifference not lost upon
the servant; "I have made no plans as yet.  Let us see what this day
brings forth first."

"I wager it will fill our pockets anew with gold!"

"I will not touch their gold!" spoke Grey with eyes that suddenly
flashed fire.  "I have cancelled all my wagers.  I will take nothing at
their hands. I will ride Don Carlos and ride my best for mine own honour
and that of the good steed I shall bestride; but their money will I not
touch.  I have done with all that.  Nay, stare not in such amaze, good
Dicon.  I have not taken leave of my senses; rather, I trow, I have come
to my better mind.  Now get me somewhat to eat here, and then we will to
the stables to see my beauty. This match once over, we turn a new page
in our life’s story.  Who knows what the next will be?"

It was not much that Grey could eat.  The three days which had passed
since he and Lord Sandford had come to an understanding, which was
well-nigh a rupture, had left a mark upon him.  Moreover there was a
weary ache at his heart which he did not fully understand, and which was
harder to bear than aught beside.  Dimly he knew that it had some
connection with the Lady Geraldine Adair; but he feared to search too
deeply into that matter.  She was as far removed from him as the moon in
the heavens, and he believed her plighted to another, and that one a man
who had stood his friend, even though suspicion, jealousy, and an
imperious temper had changed friendship into something very like enmity.
Grey never for a moment dreamed of regarding himself as an aspirant for
that fair hand; but he knew that the motive which was urging him to
change the manner of his life and become a worthier and a better man was
the hope that she might watch his career, and hear a whisper of his fame
or his success; or that he might win some laurels in the fields of
literature, art, or politics, which he might perchance in some sort lay
at her feet.

This, however, lurked in the background of his thoughts.  He scarcely
owned to himself that he expected ever to look upon that fair face
again; hence the sensation of heart sickness which had rendered him
well-nigh desperate for a few days, and had helped him to squander
without a qualm the hoard which his previous successes had accumulated.
And now the end of this mad life of gay folly had come. He had drained
the cup to the dregs, and found it bitter to the taste.  He had neither
liking nor respect for the companions with whom he had associated.
Towards Lord Sandford his feelings were very mixed. The power of the man
was too great to be shaken off entirely, nor could he despise or dislike
him.  But the tie of friendship had snapped asunder.  A chasm had opened
between them, and he felt that he was regarded, if not as a foe, yet as
something akin, and it needed not Dick’s words of warning to tell him
that the less he saw of this man in the future the better it would be
for himself.

Sounds of laughter and revelry greeted his ears as he slipped quietly
out towards the paddock and shed where his horse had been stabled these
past weeks, tended and exercised by Dick, and ready for whatever demand
might be made upon him.  He greeted his master with a neigh of
recognition, dropped his nose in the extended hand, and stood tranquil
and content under Grey’s quiet caresses.  The glossy coat was satin
smooth, the delicate tracery of veins could be distinctly seen, and each
muscle stood out hard and taut; there was no superfluous flesh, but a
firmness and excellence of condition that brought a smile of
satisfaction to Grey’s face.  He turned with a smile to Dick, who stood
by beaming.

"Not much fear of him to-day, eh, Dicon?"

"He would jump the moon, master, if you asked it of him," was the proud
and confident answer.

"How do the others look?  Have you seen them?"

"Pretty bits of horseflesh every one; and there is a black stallion of
Mr. Artheret’s that will take some beating.  But he’s too heavy for some
of the jumps. He don’t take off fast enough.  And he’s a nasty temper
too.  There’s a gray Arab with pace; but he falls away behind, as they
all do.  I don’t think Don Carlos will be troubled long by him.  None of
the others will take much beating.  Pretty to look at, but not trained
for what they’ve got to do.  Lord Sandford was here yesterday early,
looking at the jumps, and he had several of them made stiffer; but
there’s nothing Don Carlos cannot sail over like a bird!"

"Let us go and see," said Grey.  "I will take a canter on the turf to
warm myself to the saddle. Soh, boy, soh!" as he lightly vaulted to his
seat, and the horse curveted beneath him.  "We will take a look at these
obstructions.  The stiffer they are, the better you and I will be
pleased—eh, my beauty?"

Dick mounted his nag, and rode beside his master to the course, where
the horses were to be matched against each other when Lord Sandford and
his friends should have finished their merry meal, and be ready to
witness the exhibition.  It was a fine stretch of ground which had been
chosen—nearly a mile in length, and with several natural obstacles,
which had been increased in some cases artificially, to test better the
strength and skill of horse and rider.  A stream of water with rather
awkward banks ran across the course in one place, and in another was a
dip in the ground filled with gorse bushes—a nasty place to get
entangled in, if the horse could not be persuaded to clear the whole
thing with a flying leap.  A broken stone wall with a ditch in front was
another obstacle; and the last was a barrier entirely artificial, made
of hurdles and bushes high enough to tax the mettle of any horse, though
not absolutely insurmountable. Still it was a formidable object enough,
and Grey looked at it critically, walking Don Carlos up and down, to let
the creature take his own observations with regard to the leap he was to
make.

"It was here they were busy yesterday, but I could not see all they did.
I was afraid to leave Don Carlos with so many strangers about.  Some of
the grooms with the other horses looked up to mischief. But I heard them
say afterwards that Lord Sandford had not been satisfied with the field
as it was.  He said they must have something that really would be a
test, or the black stallion and Don Carlos were like to come in
together."

But now a horn blew gaily, and horsemen were seen approaching from many
quarters.  In the neighbourhood of the inn all was bustle and
excitement, whilst from all sides there appeared streams of people
converging to this spot.  Some fine carriages had been driven out from
London, with bedecked ladies eager to witness the contest.  Others had
stayed the night in the neighbourhood to be ready; and all the natives
of the place who could get a holiday had come to gape at the fine folks,
and see the grand gentlemen racing their own horses.

Indeed the hour for the contest had well-nigh come.  Grey could see that
the other horses were assembling, their riders decked in every colour of
the rainbow, quite eclipsing the quiet and workmanlike suit of buff
which he wore.  But Grey’s taste had always disinclined him to gaudy
colours.  The soft leather, finely chased and stamped in gold, pleased
his eye more than rich-hued cloths or velvets.  His breeches were of
white buckskin cut by Lord Sandford’s own tailor, and he wore long boots
fitted with silver spurs, albeit he scarcely ever had need of the latter
when he bestrode Don Carlos.  His scarf was of white silk fringed with
gold, and his only adornment was a cravat of fine lace, fastened with a
diamond clasp.  His cocked hat matched his buff coat, and was adorned
with a white plume.  Altogether, as he rode forward to his place, it
would have been hard to find a fault with his dress or person; and the
ladies behind their fans audibly praised his elegant figure, graceful
seat, and distinguished and handsome face.

Grey, all unconscious of the favour bestowed upon him, rode up and
saluted courteously the gentlemen who were to meet him and each other in
rivalry. Lord Sandford, splendidly mounted, was to act as judge at the
winning post.  Another of his friends was to be starter; and gentlemen
were posted at various points along the course to see that all the rules
laid down were observed, and that no rider deviated from the
well-pegged-out route prescribed for all.  The spectators scattered
hither and thither, taking up stations wherever their fancy prompted.
The course seemed marked out by a glittering border extending down both
sides.  The sun shone brilliantly in the sky, and all nature seemed in
gladsome mood.

Grey cast a keen look at the seven rival steeds as they were brought
into line for the start.  He picked out in a moment the two of whom
Dicon had spoken, and saw that he had judged well.  Then he gave his
whole mind to the task in hand, checked with hand and voice the prancing
of the excited Don Carlos, and brought him up to his appointed place
docile and motionless.

The word was given, but the black stallion had bounded off a few seconds
too soon, and had to be recalled.  A second start was spoiled by two
other competitors, who suddenly reared at each other, and strove to
fight.  One iron hoof, indeed, inflicted such a wound upon the shoulder
of his neighbour that that horse had to be taken away limping and
bleeding.

It was trying to all, horses and riders alike; but at the third start
all got off, though Grey saw that again the black stallion had made his
bound a second too soon.  This gave him a few yards the advantage,
which, as his rider pressed him hard from the first, and his temper was
evidently up, he increased in the next minute to more than a length.
The Arab and Don Carlos were neck and neck, and sailed over the first
easy jump side by side, the stallion having cleared it with a tremendous
bound a couple of seconds earlier.

The water jump was next, and it was obvious that one spot offered
greater advantages to the horse than any other.  The stallion made for
this spot with a rush, took off and bounded clear over, just as Don
Carlos and the Arab came rushing up neck and neck, each rider desirous
of the advantage of the sound bank.  Grey set his teeth and glanced at
his adversary.  A collision at the leap might be fatal to one or both,
so far as the race went.  His rival would not budge an inch—that he saw.
With a muttered oath between his teeth, he pulled his left rein, and
used his knees.  Don Carlos felt, and instantly understood: swerving
slightly, he gathered himself together, and rose magnificently where the
water was wider and the bank less safe; but he landed safely, and with a
hardly perceptible scramble found his feet again, and amid the plaudits
of the people raced on after the Arab, who, having got a momentary
advantage, was now slightly in advance.

The black stallion had just reached the downward dip leading to the deep
ditch filled with gorse bushes. His rider had had perforce to pull him
up somewhat, lest he should slip and fall, for the ground was sandy and
treacherous.  But Don Carlos had been born and bred to this sort of wild
work, and dashing onwards and downwards with the agility of a deer, came
neck and neck with his rival, and having passed the Arab, cleared with a
bound the treacherous gully, landing true and safe upon the opposite
side.  The Arab followed in his tracks, his rider taking advantage of
the lead given; but the black stallion slipped and snorted, could not be
made to try the leap till another of the horses came up and took it,
after which he sprang across with a vicious energy which tried the
horsemanship of his rider, and tore like a wild thing after the leading
pair.

These had cleared one after the other the wall and ditch; but the Arab
was showing signs of distress, whilst Don Carlos looked fresh and eager
as at the start.  There now remained only a quarter of a mile of smooth
sward, and then the last critical jump; and Grey, knowing himself first,
and not knowing what had betided his rivals, sailed happily onward,
secure of victory, though he heard behind him the thud of flying horse
hoofs, and knew that the black stallion was not beaten yet.  It was he
who snorted with such excitement and fury, and seemed to awaken thunders
with his iron-shod hoofs.

One glance over his shoulder, and Grey passed his whip very lightly
across the neck of Don Carlos. The gallant animal sprang forward like an
arrow from a bow, showing how well within himself he had been travelling
so far.  The sound of other beating hoofs was fainter now.  Grey looked
keenly at the great obstacle looming up in his path, and measured the
height at various places, deciding where the leap could best be taken.

He felt the tension of the muscles beneath him. Don Carlos was gathering
himself together for the leap.  He would not fail, falter, or refuse.
The great mass seemed rushing up against him.  He felt the slackening
with which Don Carlos faced his task, the motion of his flanks as he
took off and rose. Then what was it happened?  The sound of a click,
sharp and clear—a sickening sensation of falling, sinking, struggling,
plunging.  Grey felt for a moment as though the end had come.  He and
his horse seemed falling into the very bowels of the earth. A black
shadow almost overhead showed him that the stallion had cleared the
barrier, and the air was full of shouts, screams, cheers, and cries.

Next moment he felt strong hands lifting and dragging him upwards.
Dick’s white face looked into his own, and the first words he heard were
hissed in his ear by his faithful henchman.

"Foul play, foul play, my master.  That ditch was dug and concealed—ay,
and more than concealed; it has been an old well at some time, and it
will open with a spring.  You have been grossly tricked and cozened.  It
has been a trap cleverly laid and baited. But let me only get at them—my
Lord Sandford—"

Dick almost choked in his fury; but Grey was now on his feet, and his
one thought was for the good horse, who had dropped downwards into this
unseen, unsuspected pit, and was gasping in affright, but might possibly
have escaped serious injury.  He himself felt little ill effects, having
had a marvellous escape.  But his soul was stirred within him, and in
getting out the horse he saw plainly that Dick had been right, and that
some sort of old trap-door concealed an opening into the ground which
might have been at one time a well, but was now silted up with sand.  By
luring the foremost rider to this particular spot to take the leap, any
astute enemy aware of the nature of the ground could almost certainly
ensure his overthrow and defeat; and Grey had his suspicions that Lord
Sandford had hoped that he might then and there break his neck—a thing
which might very well have happened.

There was a crowd round the spot now, and great horror was expressed by
many at sight of the unsuspected well, no voice being louder than Lord
Sandford’s in proclaiming astonishment and indignation. But Grey took no
notice of the clamour, only busying himself about his horse; and
presently, with some difficulty, the sagacious and docile creature was
got out, and it appeared that no limb was broken, though one hock was
deeply cut, and one shoulder badly strained.

Grey stood in silent thought awhile, his hand upon the neck of his
favourite, who stood with drooping head and dejected mien, as though
wondering whether he would ever be whole and sound again.  Dick was
binding up the wound, his face like a thunder-cloud. A knot of persons
of all ranks stood watching at a little distance; but Grey had
courteously waved away all proffers of help, and indicated that he
desired no attentions.

"Dicon," he said in a low tone, "we must now part for a while.  Don
Carlos will need you more than I.  He is now my sole fortune, and must
be respected as such.  Take him and your own nag, and walk them both by
easy stages to Hartsbourne. There are paddocks enough and to spare, and
I surely have the right to pasture my horse in one; but if the thing
should come to my kinsman’s ears, give him what is due in money, and I
will repay you.  Old Jock Jarvis will be your friend.  He will rejoice
in your company and give you house-room with him, and it is not so far
but that I can get news of you from time to time.  Your good horse will
bring you to London in three hours or less any day you have a mind to
come; and you can watch for me what goes on yonder, and bring me word
again."

It was a grief to Dick to part from his master; but he saw the need, and
he loved the horse only second to Grey himself.

"I will do your behest, master.  Nay, I want no money; I have plenty for
all my needs.  I too have made some modest wealth here in this great
city. Only tell me where I may find you, and I will be gone, and do what
can be done for the poor beast."

"You shall always get news of me at Wills’ Coffee House, good Dicon,"
was the answer.  "Where I go and how I live, I know not yet; but I will
leave word there for you.  So now, farewell.  I turn a new page in my
life from this day forth."




                              *CHAPTER X.*

                           *"THE OLD LION."*


Grey Dumaresq, having settled matters with his servant, and adjusted the
disarray of his own dress and person, turned towards a group of men who
were standing round Lord Sandford, making believe to laugh and jest, but
showing some vague symptoms of uneasiness as they cast sidelong glances
in the direction of their erstwhile comrade.

Grey walked straight up to Lord Sandford, and looked him full in the
eyes.  Did the glance of the other quail ever so little before his?  He
thought so, but could scarce be certain.

"My lord," he said, "I have to thank you for many acts of kindness and
courtesy, and a certain liberality of treatment which I have received at
your hands and within your doors.  In taking my farewell, I wish freely
to acknowledge all this debt.  But other matters which I need not
specify, yet which are well understood by your lordship, have transpired
to change the relations betwixt us; and I wish to add that I desire to
be beholden to no man.  In the rooms allotted to me in your lordship’s
house there is a quantity of wearing apparel, jewels, trinkets, for
which I have no more use.  I pray you have them sold, and the amount
thus realized will reimburse you for all charges you have been at in my
maintenance during the time I have dwelt beneath your roof. That is all
I have to say.—Gentlemen, I wish you a very good day."

And lifting his hat with quiet dignity and grace, Grey made them a
general salute and turned upon his heel.

But Lord Sandford’s voice came thundering after him. "Do you desire to
insult me, sir?  Am I a beggarly inn-keeper, that I should sell a
guest’s belongings to pay my bill?  What do you mean by such words?  Do
you desire that I should demand satisfaction for them at your hands?"

Grey did not know whether this man desired to fasten a quarrel upon him
or not, and, truth to tell, he did not care.  He just turned his head
over his shoulder, and threw back an answer in tones of scarcely veiled
contempt.

"That is for your lordship to decide.  I shall have pleasure in giving
any satisfaction demanded at any time, and in any place appointed.  For
the rest, a man who has sought to compass the death of a comrade by a
foul trick need scarcely fear to soil his hands by the touch of his
gold.  Again I wish you good-day, my lord."

And without so much as turning his head again, Grey Dumaresq walked off,
his head held high, neither observing nor returning the many salutes and
bright arch glances shot at him from the lane of bystanders through
which he needs must pass, but walking like a man in a dream, and so
disappearing from view along the white road which led Londonwards.

Round Lord Sandford men were buzzing like bees disturbed.

"Insolent young jackanapes!"  "What did he mean?"  "What was his motive
in such an insult?"  "What will you do, my lord?"  "Whither has he gone?
Whither will he go?"  "Is it true that he is ruined?"  "He has lost his
horse, at least. None will give him a score of guineas for the beast
now."  "How did it chance?"  "Was it an accident?"  "What meant he by
his words?"  All were pouring out these and like questions; but there
was none to answer them, till Lord Sandford himself spoke.

"The fellow’s wits are gone astray," he cried in his loud, dominating
tones.  "It is the Dumaresq blood.  Sir Hugh was just such another—mad
as a March hare half his time, flinging his gold to the winds, and
quarrelling with every man he met.  Like father, like son.  It has been
coming on for days. I misdoubted me if ever he would ride this race. He
came and told me he must reform.  That was ever his father’s cry, and he
would disappear into the country for a while, and reappear again as gay
as ever.  ’Tis the same with the son.  I saw it then, and I strove to
combat the madness; but ’tis ill dealing with the lunatic.  You see what
we get for our pains!  Tush! let the fellow alone.  I did wrong to
answer him.  Let him go his own way, and we will think of him no more."

And Lord Sandford, with a heavy cloud upon his brow, and a look about
the corners of his mouth which warned those about him to say no more,
but leave matters as they were, flung away from them, and made his way
back alone to the inn, from which he was presently seen to issue forth
in his gorgeous chariot, driving furiously along the road which led to
St. Albans.

His boon companions, thus left to their own devices, went over to the
spot where the strange thing had befallen at the race, and where the
country folk had gathered with shakings of the head and questionings
beneath their breath; and there, plain for all men to see, was the
yawning hole with the open trap hanging down, and the marks of the heavy
fall of the good horse, whose escape with whole bones was little short
of a miracle.

An old countryman was holding forth to a knot of eager questioners, now
swelled by Lord Sandford’s friends.

"I mind well when there was a house here; ’twas pulled down when I were
a young chap.  And the well must ha’ bin hereabouts.  That old trap has
been in the ground ever since I can mind; but there be no water now, and
the sand has pretty nigh silted it up.  I’ve a-looked in many a time,
and the hole gets less and less deep.  When I saw them setting up the
brushwood and things here, I made sure they had covered the trap well.
I walked about it, but never saw sign of it.  If I’d a thought of
danger, I’d ha’ told one of the fine folks.  I suppose they never seed
it.  The grass and stuff do grow long and rank this time o’ year.  And
so the gentleman’s horse trod on it, and it gave way with him.  Mercy
me, but ’tis a wonder he didn’t break his neck then and there!"

Lord Sandford’s comrades looked each other in the eyes, and drew a
little away.  All knew that something strange had passed upon him of
late, and that there was some rupture betwixt him and the man who had
but lately accused him of seeking to compass his death.

"Did he know?"  "Was it plot or plan of his?" whispered one and another;
but none could give the answer.

                     *      *      *      *      *

A wild, wet September day was drawing to its close, amid pelting squalls
of cold rain, when a tall young man, gaunt and hollow-eyed, pushed his
way into a small coffee-house in an obscure thoroughfare somewhere in
the region of Drury Lane, and took a seat in a dark corner as near to
the stove as he could get, for he looked pinched with cold, and his
plain and rather threadbare black suit was pretty well wet through.  As
soon as he was seated, he drew from his breast a roll of paper, which he
regarded with solicitude.  That at least was dry, and he heaved a sigh
that sounded like one of satisfaction.

In this narrow street the daylight had completely faded, though it was
not yet six o’clock.  The room was furthermore darkened by clouds of
tobacco smoke which the guests were puffing forth.  The smell of coffee
mingled with the ranker fumes of the tobacco, and the clink of cup and
spoon made ceaseless accompaniment to the talk, which went on in a
continuous stream.

Grey (for it was he) leaned his head on his hand wearily, and fell into
something like a doze as he sat in his shadowy corner.  He was exhausted
in mind and in body.  He was faint with hunger, and yet half afraid to
order food; for his funds were dwindling almost to the vanishing point,
and as yet he had found no means of replenishing his exchequer. But he
had not been able to resist the temptation to escape from the buffetings
of the tempest, and when the boy in attendance upon the guests came to
ask his pleasure, he ordered some coffee and bread, and devoured it with
a ravenous appetite when it was set before him.

The pangs of hunger stayed, if not appeased, he began to look about him,
and to wonder into what manner of company he had thrust himself.  He had
never before been inside this house, though he had, in the first days of
his new career, taken his meals in some of the numerous coffee or
chocolate houses, or the taverns which abounded throughout the town.
Latterly he had generally bought his food at the cheapest market, and
had eaten it in the attic to which he had removed himself and his few
belongings.  He was beginning to wonder how long he should be able even
to retain that humble abode as his own.  Dame Fortune’s smiles seemed
quite to have deserted him, and abject poverty stared him grimly in the
face.

A smoking lamp had been brought in, and hung overhead, lighting up the
faces of the company with its yellow glare.  There was something strange
and Rembrandt-like in the effect of the picture upon which Grey’s eyes
rested.  Leaning back dreamily with his head against the wall, he could
almost fancy himself back in one of those foreign picture galleries, in
which heretofore he had delighted, and where so many hours of his time
had been spent.

But this was a living picture, shifting, changing, breaking up into
groups and re-forming again; and the hum of talk went on unceasingly, as
one after another took up the word and launched forth his opinions,
generally in florid and flowery language, and with much gesticulation
and indignation.

What first struck Grey as strange was the anger which seemed to possess
all these men.  That they were in no good case was well-nigh proved by
the shabbiness of their dress, and by the fact of their being gathered
in this very humble and cheap place of resort, which would not tempt any
but those in adverse circumstances.  But over and above their poverty,
they seemed to be railing at neglect or injustice of some sort, and ever
and anon would break out into virulent abuse of some person or persons,
whose names were unknown to Grey, but who evidently were characters well
known to the others of the company.

"There is no such thing as justice left, or purity of taste, or any such
thing!" shouted a handsome, well-proportioned fellow, whose face had
attracted Grey’s notice several times, and seemed dimly familiar to him.
"Look at the mouthing mountebanks that walk the boards now!  They strut
like peacocks, they gibber like apes.  They have neither voice, nor
figure, nor talent, nor grace.  But, forsooth, because some fine dame
has smiled upon them, or they are backed by a nobleman’s patronage, they
can crow it over the rest of us like a cock upon his dunghill, and we,
who have the talent and the gifts, may rot like rats in our holes!"

"Shame! shame! shame!" cried an admiring chorus.

"Look at me!" thundered the young man, his eyes flashing.  "Who dares
say I cannot act?  Have I not held spellbound, hanging on my lips, whole
houses of beauty and fashion?  Have I lost my skill or cunning?  Has my
voice or has my grace departed from me?  Wherefore, then, do I sit here
idle and hungry, whilst men not fit to black my boots hold the boards
and fill their pouches with gold?  Why such injustice, I say?"

A chorus of indignation again arose; but out of the shadows came a deep
voice.

"The answer is easy, friend Lionel; arrogance and drink have been the
cause of your downfall.  How could any manager continue to engage you?
How many times has it happened that you have come to the theatre sodden
with drink?  How many representations have you spoiled by your bestial
folly? They were patient with you.  Oh yes, they were very patient; for
they knew your gifts and recognized them.  But you met friendly rebuke
or warning with haughtiness and scorn.  You would listen to no counsel;
you would heed no warnings.  The end should have been plain to you from
the beginning, an you would not mend your ways.  I told you how it needs
must be; and now the time has come when you see it for yourself.  Worse
men are put in the parts that you excelled in, because they can be
depended upon.  No drunkard can ever become great.  Put that in your
pipe and smoke it, Lionel Field."

At the sound of this new voice, speaking out of the shadows of the
ingle-nook, a great hush had fallen upon the room.  Grey leaned forward
to obtain a view of the speaker, and the firelight played upon the
striking features and iron-gray hair of a very remarkable-looking old
man of leonine aspect, whose voice was of that penetrating quality which
makes itself heard without being raised; and it was plain that something
in the personality of the man lifted him above his fellows, for all
listened in silence whilst he spoke, and even the arrogant young actor
looked for the moment abashed.

"Who is it?" whispered Grey to the man next him; and the answer came
readily, though spoken in a cautious whisper.

"His name is Jonathan Wylde.  Once he, too, was a famous actor; but long
illness crippled his limbs, and he has fallen into poverty.  He is
always called the Old Lion, and methinks the name suits him well.  He is
a very lion for courage, else would he not dare to rebuke Master Lionel
Field.  For he is one who is ready with his fist, or with knife or
bludgeon, and it is ill work meeting him when he is in his cups."

Grey looked with interest and attention at the old man in the shadows;
but he was leaning back again, and spoke no more.  The talk surged round
him again from the rest; they spoke of the plays that were being enacted
at the various theatres, and of those who were playing the various
_rôles_.  Some of them stood up and rolled forth bits of Congreve’s
witty and sparkling dramas, and disputed as to whether the "Old
Bachelor" or the "Way of the World" were his happiest effort; whilst
some declared that the "Double Dealer" was the best of all.  They talked
excitedly of the revival at Drury Lane of Farquhar’s "Love and a
Bottle," which had scored such a success some fourteen or fifteen years
previously.  And there were some who lauded and some who depreciated
Colley Cibber and his "Careless Husband" and "Love’s Last Shift," which
were favourites throughout the town.

It was a new world to Grey; but he listened with a certain fascination,
for the drama had always attracted him, and he watched the gestures of
the actors and listened to their mouthing periods with something between
wonder and amusement.  He could understand that these men had been
failures. Only Lionel Field appeared to have any true histrionic gift,
and the cause of his downfall was plain to be read after the speech of
the "Old Lion."  From time to time, as the light flickered upon the
striking face in the ingle, Grey caught a fine-lipped smile upon it, and
once or twice he thought the old actor’s eyes met his in a gleam of
humour.  But of that he could not be sure—it might be but the trick of
the firelight; and presently wearied nature asserted itself, and the
young man passed from drowsiness to actual sleep, and knew nothing more
till a sharp grip upon his arm roused him to a sense of his
surroundings.

It was the tapster who thus shook him; and when he opened his eyes, Grey
saw—or thought, at least—that the room was empty.  What the time was he
had no idea; but it must be late, and he rose hastily to his feet with a
muttered apology at having overstayed the closing time.

At that moment there emerged out of the shadows of the ingle-nook a bent
figure, dignified even in its infirmity, and the voice which Grey had
heard before spoke in quietly authoritative accents.

"Bring hither coffee and a dish of eggs for two. The wind and rain yet
howl around the house.  This gentleman will sup with me ere we go home.
Go and serve us quickly, for we have both a good stomach, and would eat
ere we depart hence."

The tapster vanished quickly to do the bidding of the guests, and Grey
turned a wondering glance upon the Old Lion, whose face, framed in its
shaggy gray hair, looked more leonine than ever, the bright eyes shining
out of deep caverns from under bushy brows, the rugged features full of
power, not unmixed with a curious underlying ferocity.  But the glance
bent upon Grey was kindly enough.

"Sit down, young man; I would know more of you.  I have a gift for
reading faces.  I have marked yours ever since you entered this room.
Tell me your name.  Tell me of yourself, for you were not born to the
state to which you have now fallen."

"My name is Grey," was the ready answer.  Grey had dropped his title and
patronymic with his fallen fortunes, and used his mother’s name alone.
"My father was a country gentleman.  I was gently reared, and was at one
time a scholar at Oxford, where I dreamed many dreams.  Afterwards I
travelled abroad, returning to find my father dead and my home in the
hands of a kinsman to whom it was mortgaged by my father.  The small
fortune I received I squandered foolishly in a few weeks of gay living
with young bloods of the town.  I wakened from my dream to find myself
well-nigh penniless, disgusted alike with myself and those I had called
my friends. I have ever been something ambitious.  I misdoubt me I am a
fool; but I did think that I might win laurels upon the field of
literature.  I have never lost the trick of rhyming, and jotting down
such things as pleased my fancy, whether in prose or in verse. Do I
weary you with my tale?"

"No, sir—far from it.  Let me hear you to the end.  I did see you take
forth a roll of paper from your breast as you came in.  That action,
together with your face, told me much.  You have the gift of a creative
fancy.  You have written a poem or a play."

"Neither the one nor the other, but a romance," answered Grey, the
colour flushing his face as it flushes that of a maiden when the love of
her heart is named by her.  "I scarce know how to call it, but methinks
it savours more of a romance than of aught besides.  When I was rudely
awakened from my pleasure-loving life, saw the folly and futility
thereof, and desired to amend, I did take a quiet lodging high up in a
building off Holborn, and there I did set myself to the task, and right
happy was I in it.  I had a score of gold pieces still left me, and my
needs I did think modest; though, looking back, they seem many to me
now.  The weeks fled by, and my work reached its close.  When my romance
was finished, my money was all but spent.  For the past week or more I
have been seeking a publisher for it.  In my folly I did think that it
would bring me gold as fast as I wanted.  My eyes have been rudely
opened these last days."

The Old Lion nodded his head many times.

"You made a mistake in seeking a publisher, young sir.  You should first
have sought a patron."

Grey’s face flushed slightly, and he hesitated before he spoke.

"Others have said the same to me; but there are difficulties.  I have
not learned to go cap in hand to cringe for patronage to the great ones
of the earth."  But, as Grey saw a slight smile flicker in the old man’s
eyes, he added rather hastily, "And then I desire not to be known and
recognized by those whom I did know ha my former life.  There is scarce
an antechamber in those fine houses where patrons dwell where I might
not meet the curious and impertinent regard of those who would know me
again. That I will not brook."  And now Grey’s eyes flashed, thinking of
Lord Sandford, and how he would chuckle to hear how low his rival had
fallen.  "No; if I am to succeed at all, I must needs do so without a
patron. If I fail, there is one resource left.  Able-bodied paupers are
sent to the wars.  I can go thither and fight."

Again a smile flickered over the Old Lion’s face; but the tapster was
entering with the smoking viands, and the gleam in Grey’s eyes bespoke
the wolf within him.

"Set to, my friend, and make a good meal.  When we have cleared the
trenchers, you shall come with me to my lodging.  I would hear the end
of your tale; but that can wait till after supper."




                             *CHAPTER XI.*

                           *THE LION’S DEN.*


"Welcome to the Lion’s Den!" spoke the man Wylde, as he threw open the
door of a room which he had unlocked, and kicking a smouldering log upon
the hearth, evoked a cheery blaze, by the aid of which he lighted a lamp
that swung over a table littered with books, papers, and quills.

Grey stepped within the threshold, and looked about him with curious
eyes.  The house they had entered a few minutes before was a tall and
narrow one in Harpe Alley, leading from Shoe Lane.  It was not an old
house, for it came within the area of the great fire of fifty years
back, and had been rebuilt, like the whole of the surrounding buildings,
with greater speed than discretion.  Grey had once come across Sir
Christopher Wren in his other life, and had talked with him of the
short-sighted policy observed in the rebuilding of the city.  The great
architect declared that had his plans been carried out, London would
have been the finest city in the world: but the haste and false economy
of the citizens and city companies had thwarted his plans, and the old
lines of narrow and crooked streets were kept as before, to the cost of
succeeding generations.

This house had been hastily run up, like those surrounding it, and the
tempest from without rattled and shook the walls and windows as though
to drive them in.  But the room itself, though no more than an attic,
bore an air of comfort very pleasant to the eyes of the homeless Grey,
whose own quarters only contained the barest necessities of life; for
there were some rough shelves full of books in one corner, and a rug
before the fire gave a look of comfort to the place.  Two armchairs of
rude pattern, but furnished with down cushions, seemed to invite repose;
and everything was scrupulously clean, even to the boards of the floor.

"’A poor thing, but mine own,’" spoke the Old Lion, with his grim smile,
as he motioned to Grey to take one chair, and he himself pulled up the
other. "I have dwelt here two years and more now, and I have not been
unhappy; albeit I never thought to end my days in a garret, as belike I
shall do now."

"Fortune has been hard upon you," spoke Grey earnestly.  "You have the
gifts and the powers; it is cruel that your limbs should have become
crippled."

"We must take the rough and the smooth of life as we find it," answered
the other.  "I have had my moments of rebellion—I have them still; but I
seek the consolations of philosophy; and I have never yet wanted for
bread or shelter.  But there be times when the future looks dark before
me.  Those who remember me, and pity my misfortunes, drop away one by
one.  I lacked not for patrons at the first. When I could not longer
tread the boards, I was ofttimes engaged to make men laugh or weep at
some gay rout at a nobleman’s house.  Then, too, my jests and quips were
in request at gay supper-parties, and I was paid to set the table in a
roar, which in all sooth was not difficult when the wine-bottle was
going round and round.  Oh, I knew gay times for many a year after my
stage career closed. But patrons have died off one by one.  I am more
crippled than I was, and the young wits are pushing to the front, whilst
the Old Lion has been crowded out.  My pen still serves me in a measure.
I can turn an epigram, or write a couplet, or even make shift to pen a
sonnet that lacks not the true ring.  Grist yet comes to the mill, but
more and more slowly.  There come moments when I wonder what will be the
end of the Old Lion’s career—the poorhouse, or a death by slow
starvation in some garret!"

"No, no," cried Grey almost fiercely; "that would be shame indeed.
Surely, if nothing better turn up, there must be places of refuge for
fallen genius. Have not almshouses been built, again and again, by the
well-disposed for such men as sickness has laid aside?  You smile, but
in sooth it is so."

"Ay, and how many are there to claim the benefits of pious founders?
Yet no matter.  I brought you not here to talk of my troubles, but of
yours.  That romance of which you speak—"

"It would seem the world cares little for such things.  I did hear the
same tale everywhere.  Was it a pamphlet I had to give them, a lampoon
upon some great man, an attack against the Tories, the Whigs, the
Dissenters?  If so, they would read it; for there was great eagerness
amongst the people to read such things, and no matter what side was
attacked, there were hundreds eager to buy and to read.  But a
romance—no; that was a mistake altogether.  A writer of successful
pamphlets might perhaps find readers for a merry tale, or even a
romance; but for an unknown aspirant to fame—no, that was another
matter.  No one would buy it; no one would even read it; though there
were one or two who took it and glanced through some pages, praised the
style and the easy flow of words, and advised me to take to
pamphleteering, promising that they would read anything like that."

"That is it, that is it!" cried the Old Lion, rising and pacing up and
down the room with his halting stride.  "Write a filthy lampoon, a
scurrilous libel, a fiery diatribe against any great or notable man, and
all the world will read and set themselves agog to know the writer.
Look at Swift, with his ’Tale of a Tub;’ look at De Foe, with his crowd
of pamphlets—men of talent, I do not doubt or deny, but full of gall and
bitterness.  Yet they are read by all the world.  Fame, if not fortune,
has come to them, and fortune will doubtless follow.  The late King,
they say, would have made Swift a bishop.  The Queen will not: his
ribald wit disgusts her; but he has admirers and patrons everywhere.  It
is the bold and unscrupulous who flourish like the grass of the field.
True poetry and literary beauty are not asked, or even desired.  A pen
dipped in gall is a pen dipped in gold in these days of party strife.
And the genius that wields not this bitter pen sits in dust and ashes,
asking bread, and that well-nigh in vain."

"How should I write these party diatribes—I who know little of their
cries?  Whig or Tory, Tory or Whig—what care I?  The Tory of one
Parliament is the Whig of the next.  Have not Lords Marlborough and
Godolphin gone over to the Whigs? The Queen herself, they say, is
changing slowly."

"Nay, the Queen herself will never change!" cried Wylde, with an
emphatic gesture.  "The Duchess has changed, and she seeks to use her
influence with the Queen to make her change also, and give up her Tory
advisers altogether.  But she will not succeed.  The Queen may be timid
and gentle, but she has all her father’s tenacity and obstinacy.  Let my
Lady of Marlborough look to it!  She may strain the cord to breaking
point.  Already they say that the new favourite, Mrs. Masham, is ousting
her kinswoman, the Duchess, from the foremost place in the Queen’s
affections.  Favourites have fallen ere this through too great
arrogance.  The victories of Ramillies and Oudenarde, and the successes
that have followed, make the Duke the idol of the nation and the
favourite of the Queen yet; but the day may come when this may change,
and then the high Tories may come in once more with a rush."

"I should be sorry for the Duke to lose favour," spoke Grey
thoughtfully.  "I did see him once, and had speech with him after the
battle of Ramillies, and a more gracious and courtly gentleman it has
never been my lot to meet."

Suddenly the Old Lion’s eyes flashed fire.

"You have seen and had speech with the Duke on the field of Ramillies?
You saw the battle, or something of it?  Speak!  Tell me all!  I must
hear this tale.  It may mean much to us both."

"In sooth it is little I can tell you of the battle, for I was in the
thick of it myself.  It was by accident that my servant and I came upon
the rival armies; and another happy accident gave me the chance of doing
a small service for the Duke.  After the battle, when we were hard by
Louvain, he called me to him, and spoke many gracious words. I would
fain hope that some day I may see him again."

"You had speech with him?  You saw his manner and his port?  Tell
me—show me—how did he carry himself?"

Grey rose to his feet, laughing.  He humoured the whim of the old actor.
He was not lacking in the histrionic gift, and threw himself into his
part with good will.  He uttered quick commands, as though to his
officers; he threw out his arms, as though directing one man here,
another there.  He recalled numbers of words spoken by the General, and
these he reproduced faithfully and with an excellent imitation of
Marlborough’s polished, courteous, yet commanding air.  Then he let his
face soften, and addressed the old man as he himself had been addressed,
with words of thanks and with promises of friendship.  Finally, throwing
off the mask, he broke into a laugh, and was astonished at the eager
change which had come upon the Old Lion.

"Boy!" he cried, with a new access of energy, "I trow I see for both of
us a way to fame and fortune."

Grey’s eyes lighted as he eagerly asked his meaning.

"That is soon told.  Have you heard how, after the victory of Blenheim,
none could be found to hymn the praises of the great General till the
poet Addison was introduced to notice, and penned his immortal lines?
Now, since the victory of Ramillies, I have burned with desire to show
the world by somewhat more than verse alone the power and genius of
England’s mighty soldier.  See here!"

The old man rose and crossed to his table, where he fetched from a
drawer a scroll covered with writing, which he put in the hands of his
companion.  Grey saw that it was a dialogue cast in dramatic form, and
though he could not read it then and there, he could see, by casting his
eyes over it, that there were many very fine periods in it, and that it
was filled with descriptive passages of some great battle, and the
energy and glory of the General in command. He raised his eyes
inquiringly to the impassioned face of the author, which was working
with excitement.

"See you not something of the form?  It is a dramatic interlude.  It
should be played upon the stage during the intervals of the play.  Time
sits aloft, aged and grim, his scythe in his hand, his hour-glass beside
him, and he speaks of the decay of mankind—that the world’s greatness is
vanishing, its men of genius growing ever fewer and fewer.  That is my
part.  I take the _rôle_ of Time.  To him then enters one in the guise
of youth—one in the flush of manhood’s prime—one who has seen great and
doughty deeds, and comes to rehearse the same in the ears of old Time,
to bid him change his tune, to tell him that giants yet live upon the
earth.  This youth comes with songs of victory; he speaks of what he has
seen; he describes in burning words and glowing colours that last great
fight wherein England’s General put to flight the hosts of the haughty
monarch of France.  For months has this been written; for months have I
gone about seeking the man to take the part of youth and manhood. But I
have sought in vain.  All those whom I would have chosen have other work
to do, and did but laugh at me.  Those who would gladly do my bidding, I
will none of.  You saw how they did mouth and rant to-night, thinking to
show their talent, when they only displayed their imbecile folly. But
here have I found the very man for whom I have long waited.  You have
youth, beauty—that manly beauty which transcends, to my thinking, the
ephemeral loveliness of woman; you have the gift; you have seen the
great hero: you have caught the very trick of his words and speech.  Oh,
I know it!  Once did I hear him address the House of Lords, and when you
spoke I seemed to see and hear him again.  The great world of fashion
will go mad over you.  We shall draw full houses; we shall succeed.  I
know it!  I feel it!  The Old Lion is not dead yet!  He shall roar again
in his native forest.  Say, boy, will you be my helper in this thing?
And in the gains which we shall make we will share and share alike."

It was a very different sort of fame from anything Grey had pictured for
himself, and for a moment he hesitated; for he realized that were this
dramatic sketch to take hold of the imagination of the town, and draw
fashionable audiences, he could scarcely avoid recognition, disguise
himself as he might.  But as against this there was the pressing need of
the moment.  He was well-nigh penniless; his romance seemed likely to be
but so much waste paper.  He was hiding now even from Dick, who
periodically visited London to see him, lest the honest fellow should
insist upon maintaining him from his own small hoard.  Here was an
opening, as it seemed, to something like prosperity; and the alternative
of being drafted into the army as a pauper recruit was scarcely
sufficiently attractive to weigh in the balance.  Moreover, there was
something so earnest and pathetic in the glance bent upon him by the Old
Lion that he had not the heart to say him nay, and he held out his hand
with a smile.

"I will be your helper; and as for the gains, let them be yours, and you
shall give me what wage I merit.  The play is yours, the thought is
yours: it is for you to reap the harvest.  I am but the labourer—worthy
of his hire, and no more."

The compact was sealed, and the old man then insisted that Grey should
take his bed for the night, as he must sit up and remodel his play upon
lines indicated by the young man, who had seen the field of Ramillies
and the disposition of troops.  Grey furnished him with sundry diagrams
and notes, and left him perfectly happy at his task, which would
doubtless occupy him during the night, whilst the weary guest slumbered
peacefully upon the humble bed in the little alcove beyond the larger
room.

When Grey awoke next morning, the sun was shining; a frugal but
sufficient meal was spread upon the table; a fire was blazing cheerily
upon the hearth; and there was the Old Lion, with his manuscript before
him, muttering beneath his breath, and throwing out his hand in telling
gesture, making so fine a picture with his leonine face and shaggy mane
of hair that Grey watched him awhile in silence before advancing.

"Good-morrow, and welcome to you, my son," was the greeting be received.
"I have had a beautiful night.  The muse was hot upon me.  The rounded
periods seemed to flow from my pen without effort. Let us to breakfast
first; then shall you read what I have written, and together we will
amend it, if need be.  But first shall you remove hither from that
unsavoury lodging of which you did speak. Here is money: pay your
reckoning, and bring hither any goods and chattels you may value.  We
must dwell together these next weeks.  We will work hard, and before the
week closes I will have some manager here to listen to our rendering of
this scene.  We will have the world crowding to see and hear us
yet!—King Fortune, I salute thee, and I thank thee from my heart that
thou didst send this goodly youth to me, and didst prompt my heart from
the first to take note of him and seek his friendship."

The removal of Grey’s simple belongings took but little time, and lucky
did he feel himself to be able to call this comfortable abode his home.
A small attic upon the same floor of the house made him a sleeping
chamber at very small cost, and his days were spent in the sunny south
garret, which was called the Lion’s Den; and there they studied, and
wrote, and rehearsed this eulogy upon the Duke, and the prowess of the
English arms, the old man introducing here and there allusions and
innuendoes which Grey scarcely understood, but which Wylde declared
would bring down thunders of applause from the house—as, indeed, proved
to be the case.

Grey had a faint misgiving at the first that no manager might be
forthcoming to admit the dialogue to his boards; but there the old actor
knew his ground.  He succeeded in inviting two of the most successful
managers to listen to a performance in the attic, without the
accessories which would add much to the effect upon the stage; and even
so the scene proved so telling, the acting of the Old Lion was so superb
in its quiet dignity, and Grey (who had learned and studied patiently
and diligently) went through his part with such spirit, such power, such
dramatic energy, that even his instructor was surprised at his success,
and the managers exchanged glances of astonishment and pleasure.

It was just the sort of piece to catch the public favour at this
juncture.  Marlborough was still the idol of the nation, and might be
expected home some time before the winter closed—perhaps before
Christmas itself.  The nation was discussing how to do him honour, and
would flock to see a piece wherein his praises were so ably sung.

"With a wig such as the Duke wears, and with military dress, Mr. Grey
could be made to look the very image of the great General," cried one.

"He has something the same class of face—handsome, regular features,
grace of action and bearing. He does but want to be transformed from
fair to dark, and his acting of the Duke will bring down veritable
thunders of applause from all."

And then began a gratifying rivalry as to terms, in which the Old Lion
sustained his part with dignity and firmness.  Both managers desired to
secure this interlude for their respective theatres, and at the last it
was settled that the performance was to be given two nights a week at
Drury Lane, and two at Sadler’s Wells, the astute old actor retaining
the right to make his own terms at private houses upon the two remaining
nights of the working week. The costumes were to be provided by the
managers, but were to be the property of the actors, who would undertake
to replace them should any harm befall them at private representations.

When these matters had been satisfactorily settled, and certain other
details arranged, the great men took their leave in high good humour;
and the Old Lion, shaking back his mane of shaggy hair, grasped Grey by
the hands, his eyes sparkling in his head.

"Your fortune is made, young man! your fortune is made!  You will never
need to fear poverty again. What life so grand as that of the man who
can sway the multitude, make men laugh or weep at his bidding, hold them
suspended breathless upon his lips, move them to mirth, or rouse them to
the highest realm of passion?  Ah, that is life! that is life! Have I
not tasted it?  Do I not know?  And that life lies before you, my son.
What the principles of Wycliffe have done for England, the principles
of Savonarola may yet do for Italy. At any rate, his work for Italy is
not done yet.


  _December 19, 1902._

[Sidenote: Pisa's Four Monuments.]

The four chief objects of interest at Pisa are all in a group at the
northern end of the town, and a wonderfully effective group it is: the
cloistered cemetery, or Camp Santo, with its fifty-five shiploads of
earth from the Holy Land; the Baptistery, with its remarkable echo;
the Cathedral, with the pendent lamp in the nave which suggested to
Galileo the idea of the pendulum; and that wonder of the world, the
white marble Tower, which leans thirteen feet out of the perpendicular.
We all tried in vain to stand with heels and back to the inside of the
north wall on the ground floor--it cannot be done; one falls forward
at once. From the top there is a magnificent view of the city and the
surrounding plain, of the mountains on the east and the sea on the
west, of the city of Leghorn and the island of Elba.

From the windows of our hotel at Pisa we saw for the first time the
red gold of ripe oranges shining amid their dark green leaves in the
gardens, and rejoiced to think that at last we had reached a somewhat
milder climate, and were now leaving rigorous winter behind us.

The journey from Pisa to Rome is a long one, and the schedule was such
that we did not arrive till late at night. From the car windows we had
some impressive views of the Mediterranean by moonlight, and of the
solemn campagna, and, thus prepared, we crossed the Tiber at midnight,
and passed through the breach in the walls which has been made for the
railway, feeling, perhaps even more deeply than is usual, the thrill
with which all travellers except those who are utterly devoid of
imagination first enter the Eternal City.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

SOME LITTLE ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.


  _December 21, 1902._

[Sidenote: Conditions Unfavorable to Letter-writing Abroad.]

The margin of leisure left to a traveller in Europe for the writing of
letters is, after all, a very narrow one, as those of my readers who
have been abroad will readily remember. One generally moves from place
to place in such rapid succession that the feeling of being settled,
which is essential to the most satisfactory writing, is almost unknown.
Then, when one does stop for a few days in a historic city, each day
is so full of interest, and the golden opportunity to see its sights
seems so fleeting, that one hesitates to take any part of such time for
writing, to say nothing of the weariness and drowsiness of an evening
that follows a day of sightseeing.

Add to this the amount of time required of one who acts as general
director of the tour, and has to take account of all manner of business
details, and the number of questions to be answered when there are
three or four young people in the party who have read just enough
general history to make their minds bristle with interrogations at
every interesting place, and who have to be read to daily _en masse_
on the spot in order to improve the psychological moment of excited
curiosity; add also the physician's injunction to take abundance of
exercise in the open air, in order to the full recovery of health and
the laying up of strength for future work, and his earnest counsel not
to linger much at a writing desk or a study table--and it will be seen
that if the continuity of this series of letters suffers an occasional
break, it is but the natural result of the conditions of tourist life.

[Sidenote: An American Baby in Europe.]

It may interest some of my younger readers to know that the member
of our party who receives the most attention is a little blue-eyed
girl, just two years old to-day, who is the most extraordinary
traveller of her age that I ever saw or ever heard of, accepting all
the irregularities, inconveniences and discomforts of this migratory
mode of life with the serene indifference of a veteran. We naturally
supposed that, being so young, she would give us more or less trouble
on so long a journey, and this proved to be true on the cold and rough
sea voyage, but, from the day that we landed on this side of the ocean,
she has been a delight to our whole party, a maker of friends wherever
we have gone, and an immensely interesting object to the populace of
the cities through which we have passed. At Leyden, in Holland, as we
passed along the streets, we were followed all over town by an admiring
throng of Dutch children, just out of school, to whom our baby's bright
red coat and cap were no less interesting than their wooden shoes were
to us; and so we found out how the elephants and monkeys and musicians
and other people who make up the street parade of a circus may be
supposed to feel when they pass through a town followed by the motley
gang of school boys, ragamuffins, and general miscellanies of humanity.

[Sidenote: Something New in Venice.]

At Wiesbaden, in Germany, we bought one of those odd little German
baby carts with two wheels and two handles, like plow handles, between
which the person who pushes it walks, the baby really riding backwards,
instead of forwards, as in our American baby carriages. You will see
from this description that German baby carriages are like the German
language--all turned the wrong way, though it must be said for this
arrangement that the baby is not so likely to be lonesome as when
riding face forward, since she always has some one to look at. Well,
at Venice, which is almost a dead town now, so far as business is
concerned, and which has perhaps as large a leisure class--that is,
street loafers--as any city of equal size on this terraqueous planet,
a lady of our party essayed to take the baby out for an airing in her
German cart. It would appear that it was the first time since the
foundation of that pile-driven city in the sea that a pair of wheels
was ever seen on her streets. At any rate, from the moment that the
lady and the baby and the cart emerged from the hotel door they were
attended by an ever-increasing throng of unwashed Venetians, whose
interest could not have been keener had Santos Dumont's air-ship or a
Japanese jinriksha suddenly appeared in their gondola-ridden town, and
who commented in shrill Italian on this wheeled apparition. The lady is
not easily beaten when she decides to do anything, but, after standing
that for half a block or so, she made a hasty retreat to the hotel, and
wheels disappeared, probably forever, from the streets of Venice.

[Sidenote: Gondolas and Gondoliers.]

Although Venice, with its population of one hundred and sixty-three
thousand, is seven miles in circumference, and is divided by one
hundred and forty-six canals into one hundred and seventeen islands,
yet these are so joined together by means of four hundred bridges that
it is possible to walk all over the city. But the bridges are built in
steps, and cannot be used by wheeled vehicles. There are no horses or
carriages of any kind. The funereal-looking gondola, always painted
black, is the only conveyance upon these streets of water, and does
duty for cab, omnibus, wagon, cart, wheelbarrow and hearse. It is used
for pleasure riding, shopping, church-going, theatre-going, visiting,
carrying prisoners to jail, carrying the dead to the cemetery--in
short, for everything.

In propelling this black but graceful and easy-going boat, the
gondolier does not sit. He stands, on a sort of deck platform towards
the stern, and to balance his weight there is affixed to the prow a
heavy piece of shining steel, which rears itself at the front almost
like a figure-head, only this is always of the same pattern, simply
a broad, upright blade of steel, notched deeply on the front edge.
The gondolier does not pull the oar, he pushes it--there is only one
oar--and he does not change it from side to side, as in paddling a
canoe, but makes all the strokes on one side, a thing that looks very
easy, but is in fact extremely difficult. The dexterity of these men
with their long single oar is wonderful. They glide in and out among
scores of gondolas on the crowded canals without collision or jerking,
and they turn a corner within an inch.

[Sidenote: Baggage Smashing in Europe.]

These remarks upon the skill of the gondoliers, and the ease and safety
of the gondolas, remind me, by contrast, of the destructive bungling
of a porter in Cologne, who undertook to cart a load of trunks and
handbags and shawl-straps down from our hotel to the Rhine steamer, and
who, in turning a corner on a down grade, made the turn too short, and
hurled the whole lot of our belongings into the muddy street with such
violence that many of them were defaced, some permanently damaged, and
one valise broken to pieces and utterly ruined.

That German baby carriage had an exciting adventure also on the night
of our arrival in Rome. As usual, it was made the apex of the pyramid
of trunks and grip-sacks which constitute our sign manual, so to
speak, on the top of every omnibus that takes us from the station to
the hotel; but in this instance it was carelessly left untied, so
that as we went steeply down one of the seven hills of Rome, the cart
tumbled from its high perch to the stone-paved street, snapping off one
of the handles, and suffering sundry other shattering experiences. A
few days after we had the pleasure of paying a fraudulent cabinetmaker
more for repairing it than it cost in the first instance. The Italian
workmen and shopkeepers uniformly charge you more than their work and
goods are worth. I think I have had more counterfeit money passed on me
in the short time I have been in Italy than I have had in all the rest
of my life before, and the very first swindle of this kind to which I
was subjected was in a church, when the sacristan gave me a counterfeit
two-franc piece in change as I paid the admission fees to see certain
paintings and sculptures behind the high altar.

However, I am wandering from my subject; I may conclude my eulogy
on the baby above mentioned by saying that, young as she is, she
sits through the seventy or eighty minutes of the customary tedious
European dinner almost as circumspectly as a graven image might, but
reminding us of one of Raphael's cherubs in her blue-eyed combination
of sweetness, archness and dignity.

Next time we will resume our account of matters of more general
interest.




CHAPTER XXIX.

RELICS IN GENERAL, AND THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY IN PARTICULAR.


  ROME, _December 23, 1902_.

I had heard of relics before. Years ago I had read Mark Twain's account
of the large piece of the true cross which he had seen in a church in
the Azores; and of another piece which he had seen in the Cathedral
of Notre Dame in Paris, besides some nails of the true cross and a
part of the crown of thorns; and of the marble chest in the Cathedral
of San Lorenzo at Genoa, which he was told contained the ashes of St.
John, and was wound about with the chain that had confined St. John
when he was in prison; and of the interesting collection shown him in
the Cathedral of Milan, including two of St. Paul's fingers and one
of St. Peter's, a bone of Judas Iscariot (black, not white), and also
bones of all the other disciples (presumably of the normal color), a
handkerchief in which the Saviour had left the impression of his face,
part of the crown of thorns, a fragment of the purple robe worn by
Christ, a picture of the Virgin and Child painted by St. Luke, and a
nail from the cross--adding in another place that he thought he had
seen in all not less than a keg of these nails.

But I had hardly taken Mark Twain seriously in these statements, not
knowing at the time that his _Innocents Abroad_ was, notwithstanding
its broad humor, really one of the best guide-books to Europe that was
ever written.

[Sidenote: The Palladium of Venice.]

I had read repeatedly the story of the bringing of St. Mark's bones
from Alexandria, in Egypt, to their present resting-place in St. Mark's
Cathedral at Venice--a story which is related as follows in that same
lively volume:

"St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was martyred, I think.
However, that has nothing to do with my legend. About the founding of
the city of Venice--say four hundred and fifty years after Christ--(for
Venice is much younger than any other Italian city), a priest dreamed
that an angel told him that until the remains of St. Mark were brought
to Venice, the city could never rise to high distinction among the
nations; that the body must be captured, brought to the city, and
a magnificent church built over it; and that if ever the Venetians
allowed the Saint to be removed from his new resting-place, in that
day Venice would perish from off the face of the earth. The priest
proclaimed his dream, and forthwith Venice set about procuring the
corpse of St. Mark. One expedition after another tried and failed, but
the project was never abandoned during four hundred years. At last it
was secured by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and something.
The commander of the Venetian expedition disguised himself, stole the
bones, separated them, and packed them in vessels filled with lard. The
religion of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor anything in the nature
of pork, and so when the Christian was stopped at the gate of the city,
they only glanced once into the precious baskets, then turned up their
noses at the unholy lard, and let him go. The bones were buried in
the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been waiting long years
to receive them, and thus the safety and the greatness of Venice were
secured. And to this day there be those in Venice who believe that if
those holy ashes were stolen away, the ancient city would vanish like a
dream, and its foundation be buried forever in the unremembering sea."

[Sidenote: The Gift of Leo XIII. to London.]

More recently I had read of what has been well called the burlesque
enacted at Arundel Castle no longer ago than in July, 1902, in which
the Duke of Norfolk, Cardinal Vaughan, and many lesser ornaments and
dignitaries of the Romish Church, took part.

"Pope Leo XIII., in order to show his 'good-will to England,'
sent from Rome the remains of St. Edmund to garnish the new Roman
Catholic cathedral at Westminster. It was an appropriate gift, for
such buildings are usually garnished with 'dead men's bones and all
uncleanness.' But as the cathedral is not yet finished, as a further
token of good-will, the relics were committed to the care of no less
a personage than the Earl Marshal of England. They arrived at Arundel
on the evening of July 25th, and were placed for the night in Fitzalen
Chapel. The next morning the whole castle was astir betimes, for the
great event of the day, the transference of the bones to the castle
chapel, was to take place. This was accomplished in a solemn and
befitting manner. A procession was formed, and, to the measured tread
of the Earl Marshal of England, Cardinal Vaughan, several archbishops
and bishops, and a mixed company of priests and acolytes and a numerous
train of household servants and dependents, carrying banners, crosses,
crucifixes, censers, lamps, candles, torches, and other ecclesiastical
stage paraphernalia, the remains of St. Edmund were borne to their
resting-place. All went off well, and at last the curtain fell on
the finished play, to the satisfaction of every one. Unfortunately,
however, the Pope and all concerned had to reckon with English
common-sense and with English love of truth, and it was not very long
before it was proved to the world that the bones, like most relics of
the kind, were counterfeit--whoever else's bones they were, they were
not those of St. Edmund."[7]

[Sidenote: The Blood of St. Januarius.]

I had read with cordial approval Mark Twain's animadversions upon the
fraud which is regularly practiced on the people of Naples by the
priests in the Cathedral:

"In this city of Naples they believe in and support one of the
wretchedest of all religious impostures one can find in Italy--the
miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Twice a year
the priests assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and get out
this phial of clotted blood, and let them see it slowly dissolve
and become liquid; and every day for eight days this dismal farce
is repeated, while the priests go among the crowd and collect money
for the exhibition. The first day the blood liquefies in forty-seven
minutes--the church is full then, and time must be allowed the
collectors to get around; after a while it liquefies a little quicker
and a little quicker every day, as the houses grow smaller, till on
the eighth day, with only a few dozen present to see the miracle, it
liquefies in four minutes.[8]

"And here, also, they used to have a grand procession
of priests, citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the high dignitaries
of the city government, once a year, to shave the head of a made-up
Madonna--a stuffed and painted image, like the milliner's dummy--whose
hair miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve months. They
still kept up this shaving procession as late as four or five years
ago. It was a source of great profit to the church that possessed the
remarkable effigy, and the public barbering of her was always carried
out with the greatest _éclat_ and display--the more the better, because
the more excitement there was about it the larger the crowds it drew
and the heavier the revenues it produced--but at last the day came
when the Pope and his servants were unpopular in Naples, and the city
government stopped the Madonna's annual show.

"There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans--two of the silliest
possible frauds, which half the population religiously and faithfully
believed, and the other half either believed or else said nothing
about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the imposture."

[Sidenote: The House of the Virgin at Loretto.]

I had read the story of the _Casa Santa_, or Holy House, the little
stone building, thirteen and one-half feet high and twenty-eight feet
long, in which the Virgin Mary had lived at Nazareth. In 336 the
Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, made a pilgrimage
to Nazareth and built a church over the Holy House. This church fell
into decay when the Saracens again got the upper hand in Palestine,
and when the Christians lost Ptolemais the Holy House was carried by
angels through the air from Nazareth to the coast of Dalmatia. This
miraculous transportation took place in 1291. A few years later it
was again removed by angels during the night, and set down in the
Province of Ancona, near the eastern coast of Italy, on the ground
of a widow named _Laureta_. Hence the name, _Loretto_, given to the
town which sprang up around it for the accommodation of the thousands
of pilgrims who flocked thither, and which is now a place of some six
thousand inhabitants, whose principal business is begging and the sale
of rosaries, medals and images. In a niche inside the Casa Santa is a
small black image of the Virgin and Child, of cedar, attributed, of
course, to St. Luke. We did not visit Loretto, but at Bologna we had
the satisfaction of seeing a _fac-simile_ of the Casa Santa, with its
little window and fireplace, and the replica of St. Luke's handi-work
in the niche above. A large number of women, some of them handsomely
dressed, were saying their prayers and counting their beads before
the altar that had been erected in front of these images and the Holy
House, and a few were kneeling in the narrow space behind the altar,
close to the fireplace of the house. As we passed, one of these women,
in plainer garb, interrupted her devotions long enough to hold out her
hand to us, begging for pennies, but without rising from her knees.
There was nothing unusual about this, except that this beggar made her
appeal to us while actually on her knees to the image of the Virgin,
for nothing is more common in Italy than for visitors to a Roman
Catholic church to pass through such "an avenue of palms" when leaving
it.

[Sidenote: The Wonder-working Bones of St. Anne in Canada.]

I had even seen a few relics, not mere reproductions like that of the
Casa Santa at Bologna, but the relics themselves. For instance, three
summers ago, when in Quebec, I had made a special trip to the Church
of St. Anne Beaupre, some twenty miles below the city, for the purpose
of seeing the wonder-working relics of St. Anne, the alleged mother
of the Virgin Mary--a bit of her finger bone and a bit of her wrist
bone--which are devoutly kissed and adored by thousands of pilgrims
to this magnificent church from all the French and Irish portions of
Canada, and which are said to have wrought miraculous cures of all
manner of maladies, cures which are attested by two immense stacks
of canes, crutches, wooden legs, and the like, which rise from the
floor almost to the roof on either side of the entrance. In the store
in another part of the church I had got a clue to it all by seeing
the poor pilgrims buying all sorts of cheap, tawdry, worthless little
images and pictures, and especially little vials of oil of remarkable
curative virtue because it had stood for a while before the image of
St. Anne, and for which they paid probably five times as much as the
oil had cost the priests who were selling it.

[Sidenote: The Iron Crown of Lombardy.]

These, then, are potent bones and images and oils, but by far the
most interesting relic I had seen before reaching Rome itself was the
Iron Crown of Lombardy, at Monza, a little town in Northern Italy.
This is the place where the good King Humbert was assassinated on the
29th of July, 1900, and it is not without interest for other reasons.
For instance, it has a cathedral built of black and white marble
in horizontal stripes, and containing, besides the tomb of Queen
Theodolinda and other interesting objects in the nave and its chapels,
a great number of costly articles of gold and silver, set with precious
stones, in the treasury, as well as various relics, such as some of the
baskets carried by the apostles, a piece of the Virgin Mary's veil,
and one of John the Baptist's teeth. But we should never have made a
special trip to Monza in such weather as we were having at the time of
our visit, last November, had it not been for our intense desire to see
its chief treasure, the Iron Crown, the most sacred and most celebrated
diadem in the world, a relic possessing real historical interest, not
because of any probability whatever in the story of its origin, but
because of the extraordinary uses and associations of it within the
last thousand years.

[Sidenote: A Winter Trip to Monza.]

So, regardless of the wet, cold, foggy weather that we found in
Milan, and the rivers of mud and slush that were then doing duty for
streets, and the splotches of snow that lay here and there in the
forlorn-looking olive orchards, we took the electric tram, which was
comfortably heated, and ran out to Monza, a distance of some ten miles.
When we stepped into the chilly cathedral and looked about us, we could
not at first see anybody to show us around, though there were a good
many poor people saying their prayers there. Evidently the custodians
were not expecting tourists at such a season and in such weather.
But presently, in an apartment to the left, we found a number of the
priests warming their hands over a dish of twig coals covered with a
light layer of white ashes, which they kindly stirred a little to make
them give forth more heat as they saw us stretch our cold hands also
towards the grateful warmth.

[Sidenote: The Treasury of the Cathedral.]

When we asked if we could see the Iron Crown, they said we could; but
instead of going at once to the chapel in which it is kept, they got a
great bag of keys, large keys, thirty-seven in number, as the observant
statistician of our party ascertained, and led us into the treasury and
unlocked a great number of doors (one of which had seven locks), and
showed us the costly objects and precious relics above mentioned. We
were only mildly interested in these--even in the apostolic baskets,
the Virgin's veil, and John the Baptist's tooth--partly because we were
so cold and partly because of our greater interest in the more famous
relic which we had come especially to see.

[Sidenote: The Chapel of the Great Relic.]

At last one of the priests, attended by an acolyte, took up a censer,
placed a little incense on the coals with a teaspoon, and, swinging it
in his hand by the chain, led us back into the cathedral, turned to
a chapel on the left, unlocked an iron gate in a tall railing which
separated this chapel from the body of the building, closed the gate
again when our party had come inside, and, while a dozen or so of
the people who had been at their devotions crowded up to the railing
and peered curiously through, he and his attendant began to kneel
repeatedly before the altar and to swing the smoking censer on every
side. Above the altar was a strong, square steel box, over which, in
plain view, was suspended a _fac-simile_ of the Iron Crown, made of
cheaper materials, while the real crown was still concealed within the
steel safe.

[Sidenote: The Great Relic itself.]

Handing the censer to his attendant, that it might be kept swinging
without intermission, the priest produced another series of keys and
proceeded to unlock a succession of small doors in the side of the
metal safe, which proved to be a "nest" of caskets, one within another,
the last of which was a glass case. Drawing this out, he brought into
full view the venerated crown of the Lombard kings, and told us to step
up on the stool by the altar so as to see it better. It is made of six
plates of gold, joined end to end, richly chased, and set with splendid
jewels. But one would see at a glance that neither the material, nor
the workmanship, nor the gems, could account for the unique reverence
with which it has been regarded for centuries, and an indication of
which we had just seen in the service conducted by the priest. Among
the regalia in the Tower of London, and at several other places in
Europe, we had seen crowns which far surpassed this one in costliness
and beauty, but none of which, nor all of which combined, had ever
excited a thousandth part of the interest attaching to this old crown
in Monza.

[Sidenote: Why the Crown is so Sacred.]

The explanation is this: within that ring of jointed plates of gold
runs a thin band of iron, which priestly tradition says was made of one
of the spikes that fastened the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ to the
cross. It was this band of iron that we tiptoed to see, hardly noticing
the bejewelled rim of gold around it. It was on account of this band of
iron that the priest and his attendant swung their censer and performed
their ceremony as we entered. It was this band of iron that gave to the
crown its sacred place above the altar. It was for the safe keeping of
this band of iron that the steel case, with its numerous locks, was
made. It was from this band of iron that the diadem received its name,
the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

[Sidenote: How it was Used by Charlemagne and Napoleon.]

And what were the historical uses of it, referred to above, which made
it so much more interesting to us than the many other so-called nails
of the true cross elsewhere? Well, this among others: on the last
Christmas day of the eighth century, while Charlemagne was kneeling
with uncovered head before the high altar of St. Peter's in Rome,
the Pope approached him from behind, and, placing the Iron Crown of
Lombardy on his head, hailed him as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

A thousand years later on the 26th of May, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte,
"watched by an apparently invincible army which adored him and a world
which feared him," standing in the vast marble cathedral at Milan,
with fifteen thousand of his soldiers around him, lifted this same
Iron Crown of Lombardy into their view, and placed it upon his brow,
saying, "God has given it to me, let him touch it who dares!"

[Sidenote: High Reflections and Hard Cash.]

That men who, like Charlemagne and Napoleon, had reached the highest
pinnacle of human power, should seek to enhance their influence by
crowning their heads with one of the nails which, as their followers
believed, had pierced the Galilean's foot, is a richly suggestive fact.
But we must keep our tempted thoughts to another and less edifying line
at present.

When we had examined all the parts of the famous crown to our
satisfaction, we stepped to the desk in the ante-room and paid our five
francs (one dollar), the regular price for the exhibition of the Iron
Crown, then left the cathedral, bought one or two post-card pictures of
the crown, and took the tram through the dreary weather back to Milan,
well pleased with the results of our first pilgrimage to the shrine of
a real Roman Catholic relic in Italy.

[Sidenote: Rome Caps the Climax.]

But on our arrival at Rome, a month later, we found that, interesting
as were the relics which we had seen or read of elsewhere, they were
nothing to those in the Eternal City itself. In this, as in everything
else except such little matters as cleanliness and morality and
truthfulness and honesty, Rome outvies all her rivals. It is only fair
to add, however, that, since the overthrow of the papal sovereignty and
the establishment of a capable government, Rome has improved immensely
in the matter of cleanliness, and even her immorality is not so
flaunting as it was. This is attested by the Hon. Guiseppe Zanardelli,
the present Premier of Italy, who says:

"The church appears better than it once was. I no longer see in Rome
what I used often to see in my young days, ladies driving about its
streets with their coachmen and footmen in the liveries of their
respective cardinals. Has this improvement come about because the
church is really growing better? Nothing of the kind. It is because the
strong arm of the law checks the villainy of the priests." That is the
testimony of the Prime Minister of Italy.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Do American Roman Catholics Believe in the Relics?]

A few weeks after my return from Italy, while driving one afternoon
with a friend of mine, a lawyer of high intelligence and wide
information, our conversation turned to the subject of the recent death
of Pope Leo XIII., and from that drifted to the alleged liquefaction
of the blood of St. Januarius, and from that to relics in general. I
mentioned some of the facts above stated concerning the numerous pieces
of the true cross and the miracle-working bones and oils to be seen in
Roman Catholic churches in Europe. "But," he said, "surely the Roman
Catholics in America do not believe in such mediæval superstitions."
I happened to have in hand a couple of copies of a daily newspaper,
published in one of our Southern towns, dated August 9, 1903, and
August 17, 1903, respectively, containing extracts from the letters of
a Roman Catholic bishop, the highest dignitary of his church in that
State; and, for answer to my friend's remark, I cited the following
passage from the bishop's letter of July 10th, written from Munich,
concerning the abbey church of Scheyern:

"The chapel of the Holy Cross is specially sacred, as within is
preserved a very large piece of the true cross upon which Christ was
crucified, brought to Scheyern in 1156 by Count Conrad, the Crusader,
who afterwards entered the monastery as lay-brother, and lies buried
near the altar upon which the sacred relic is preserved."

Also the following passage from his letter of July 12th, written from
Eichstadt:

"I remained the guest of Prince Ahrenberg for the night, and early
in the morning, accompanied by some Benedictine students, I made a
pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Walburg. Above the altar is the large
silver receptacle into which flows the miraculous oil from her sacred
relics, which is known the world over."

[Sidenote: What America Needs is Some Relics.]

Writing from Vienna, July 20, 1903, concerning the imperial palaces,
he says, "They are awfully big and grand, and cost a lot of good
people's money," but adds that "the pride and glory of Vienna" is the
Cathedral, and then exclaims: "How often have I wished we could have
some such church in ----, so that our good people who cannot visit the
achievements of Catholic life in Europe could form some idea of the
greatness of the religion of their fathers!"

One hesitates to differ from so good an authority on such matters as
this bishop, but really would he not agree, on reflection, that what
this benighted and decaying country of ours needs to bring it up to a
level with Italy and Austria and Spain is not a big church, but some
relics? Would not some miraculous oil, or some wonder-working bones, or
a piece of the true cross, or one of the nails, if placed on exhibition
here attract far more attention than a big church, and enable "our good
people who cannot visit the achievements of Catholic life in Europe"
to form a much better "idea of the greatness of the religion of their
fathers"? Does it not seem strange that so many hundreds of these
relics should be kept in those enlightened and happy countries like
Italy, where "the achievements of Catholic life" are so well known,
and where Mother Church has for centuries had full sway, and that none
of them should be brought to these benighted Protestant regions, where
they could effect such a salutary change in the faith of the people?
But, seriously, as I added to my friend in the conversation referred
to, I have a better opinion of the intelligence of our good Roman
Catholic people in America than to believe that they put the slightest
credence in these childish superstitions. Whatever the bishop above
quoted may believe, I am confident that the intelligent Roman Catholic
people of our country have no more faith in many of these alleged
relics than we have.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _The Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, Alexander Robertson, pp. 203,
204.

[8] In July of this year, 1903, while the Roman Catholic world was
greatly exercised over the grave illness of the late Pope, Leo XIII.,
the Associated Press dispatches from Naples reported that the blood of
St. Januarius had miraculously liquefied at that unusual time in token
that the prayers offered for the Pope's recovery had been answered.
The Archbishop of Naples has up to the present time vouchsafed
no explanation of the fact that the Pope died a few days later,
notwithstanding this miraculous assurance that he would recover.




CHAPTER XXX.

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELICS AT ROME.


We reached Rome at a good time for seeing relics, as the special
services of the Christmas season were just beginning. One of the most
splendid of these ceremonies is the procession in honor of the _Santa
Culla_; that is, the cradle in which the priestly tradition says the
infant Jesus was carried into Egypt. This is the great relic and chief
distinction of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, though it contains
a number of others, such as the bodies of St. Matthew and St. Jerome,
and two little bags of the brains of Thomas á Becket, and "one of the
pictures attributed to St. Luke (and announced to be such in a papal
bull attached to the walls!), much revered for the belief that it
stayed the plague which decimated the city during the reign of Pelagius
II., and that (after its intercession had been sought by a procession
by order of Innocent VIII.) it brought about the overthrow of the
Moorish dominion in Spain."

[Sidenote: The Miraculous Snow in Summertime.]

Moreover, this church of Santa Maria Maggiore is by no means lacking
in legendary and architectural interest. It was founded A. D. 352, by
Pope Liberius and John, a Roman patrician, to commemorate an alleged
miraculous fall of snow, which covered this spot of ground and no
other, on the 5th of August, and an alleged appearance of the Virgin
Mary, in a vision, at the same time, showing them that she had thus
appropriated the site of a new temple, all of which is duly represented
in a fine painting on the wall of the church, and in two of Murillo's
most beautiful pictures in the Academy at Madrid, and commemorated
every year on the 5th of August by a solemn high mass, and by showers
of white rose leaves thrown down constantly through two holes in the
ceiling, "like a leafy mist between the priests and the worshippers."

[Sidenote: A Splendid Church.]

The worshippers of the Virgin have not been lacking in their efforts to
erect a suitably sumptuous building on the site of this "miracle." The
magnificent nave, with its avenue of forty-two columns of Greek marble,
surmounted by a frieze of mosaic pictures; the glorious pavement of
_opus Alexandrinum_, whose "crimson and violet hues temper the white
and gold of the walls"; the grand _baldacchino_, with its four porphyry
columns wreathed with gilt leaves; and the splendid tomb chamber of
Pius IX. (predecessor of the late Pope Leo XIII.), with its riot of
rich marbles and alabaster, in front of the high altar--to say nothing
of the almost incredibly costly chapels opening into the nave--combine
to give S. Maria Maggiore a proud place among the very finest of the
fine basilicas of Rome.

[Sidenote: A Dazzling Scene.]

But not all the splendors of the building, nor all the fascination of
its "miracles" and legends, nor all the spell of its other relics, can
equal the interest attaching to the "SANTA CULLA," the holy cradle. On
the afternoon of Christmas Day, we walked through the wet streets to
the front of the church, pushed back the heavy, dirty screen of padded
canvas, such as hangs at the door of every great church in Italy,
however fine, and, stepping within, found ourselves in the midst of
a scene of the most dazzling splendor. The building was brilliantly
illuminated with hundreds of electric lights and huge candles, which
were sharply reflected by the glistening marbles on every hand; the
air was heavy with clouds of incense, through the blue smoke of which
the lofty ceiling looked higher than ever, and the organ and choir
were pouring forth the richest music, while a dense crowd of people,
many thousands, all standing, watched with eager interest a small,
crate-like object, made of slats of dark wood, which rested on the
high altar, enclosed in a glass case, with a gold baby on top and gold
ornaments round about.

[Sidenote: The Holy Cradle.]

We pushed our way through the crowd, so as to get a satisfactory view
of it while the service was in progress--the genuflections, the robing
and disrobing of the archbishop, the chanting, and the rest--after
which six men, dressed in pure white from head to foot (white gloves
included), except for a red circle and cross on the breast, knelt
before the cradle, then lifted it from the altar, with its gold and
glass setting, and placing it on a kind of litter on their shoulders,
under a gilt and white canopy borne by other attendants, marched with
it thus, in procession around the church, along with a large crucifix
under another canopy, and followed by a long line of cardinals,
bishops, priests and acolytes, carrying it back finally to its place in
the sacristy, where it will remain till next Christmas Day.

[Sidenote: The Christ of Rome a Babe or a Corpse.]

We squeezed our way through the great crowd at the door, and walked
back to our hotel, wondering to what extent the usual Roman Catholic
conception of Christ had deprived that organization of real spiritual
energy; for, almost invariably, Roman Catholic art represents him
either as a dead Christ on the cross, or a babe in his mother's arms,
and hardly ever as the risen and glorified Lord, the Conqueror of
death, the Leader of his people, to whom all power is given in heaven
and on earth--the more usual Protestant conception. And we asked
ourselves whether this difference did not help to explain the greater
hopefulness, vigor and growth of Protestant Christianity in these
strenuous latter days.

[Sidenote: The Little Doll that Owns a Large Carriage.]

But we were soon to learn that the Roman Catholics did not think of the
infant Christ as lacking in power of a certain sort; on the contrary
they ascribe miraculous agency even to an image of the divine babe. On
the afternoon of December 29th, as two of our party were returning to
our hotel, they passed at the foot of the Capitoline Hill a carriage,
out of the window of which hung a ribbon or sash of cloth of gold, and
they were not a little astonished to observe that, as this carriage
rolled along, people knelt reverently before it on the street. Inside
they saw two bareheaded men holding a child on a pillow with a wealth
of lace about it. They thought perhaps it was the royal carriage with
the baby princess, but they could not imagine why _men_ should be
nursing the baby, as that is usually the employment of women, nor why
the people should kneel so reverently before the young princess, a
thing which they never did even for the king himself. The fact is that,
as they learned on the following afternoon when visiting the Church of
Ara Coeli, on the Capitoline Hill, the carriage in question belonged to
a far more important personage in Rome than any princess, though that
personage was not even a living baby, but only a doll. It was the coach
of the famous Bambino--_Il Santissimo Bambino_--which with its dress
of gold and silver tissue and its magnificent diamonds, emeralds and
rubies, is the chief attraction of this church.

[Illustration: THE BAMBINO.]

[Sidenote: The Wealth and Power of the Miraculous Bambino.]

Dr. Alexander Robertson, in his book on _The Roman Catholic Church in
Italy_, says: "The Bambino is a doll about three feet high, and it
stands on a cushion in a glass case. It is clad in rich robes with
a crown on its head, a regal order across its breast, and embroidered
slippers on its feet. From head to foot it is one mass of dazzling
jewelry, gold chains, strings of pearls, and diamond bracelets and
rings, which not only cover the neck, arms and fingers, but are
suspended, intermixed with crosses, stars, hearts, monograms, and
every kind of precious stone, to all parts of its body. The only part
unweighted with gems is its round, priest-like, wax face. But all this
display of wealth, great in itself, is really only suggestive of that
untold quantity which it has brought, and is still daily bringing,
into the coffers of the church. People are continually kneeling before
this dumb idol, offering petitions and leaving gifts, whilst letters
containing requests, accompanied with post-office orders and checks to
pay for the granting of the same, arrive by post for it from various
parts of the globe."

Hare's _Walks in Rome_ gives the following account of the Bambino and
one of its most remarkable experiences:

"It has servants of its own, and a carriage in which it drives
out with its attendants, and goes to visit the sick; for, though
an infant, it is the oldest medical practitioner in Rome. Devout
peasants always kneel as the blessed infant passes. Formerly it was
taken to sick persons and left on their beds for some hours, in the
hope that it would work a miracle. Now it is never left alone. In
explanation of this, it is said that an audacious woman formed the
design of appropriating to herself the holy image and its benefits.
She had another doll prepared of the same size and appearance as the
Santissimo, and having feigned sickness and obtained permission to have
it left with her, she dressed the false image in its clothes, and sent
it back to Ara Coeli. The fraud was not discovered till night, when the
Franciscan monks were awakened by the most furious ringing of bells
and by thundering knocks at the west door of the church, and hastening
thither, could see nothing but a wee naked pink foot peeping in from
under the door; but when they opened the door, without stood the little
naked figure of the true Bambino of Ara Coeli, shivering in the wind
and rain--so the false baby was sent back in disgrace, and the real
baby restored to its home, never to be trusted away alone any more."

[Sidenote: The Communion Table Used by Christ.]

But if I dwell on all these interesting relics and images as I have
done on the Holy Cradle and the miraculous Bambino, I shall never
finish even the brief list of them which I had in mind when I began. I
must hasten on, contenting myself with a bare mention of a few of the
more notable relics at the other churches.

On the 8th of January we paid our first visit to the great Church of
St. John Lateran,[9] and here also the relics interested us more than
anything else. Under the canopy in the centre the skulls of St. Peter
and St. Paul are preserved. Beneath the altar we saw the wooden table
on which the Apostle Peter is said to have "celebrated mass" in the
house of Pudens. The interest of this relic, however, is completely
eclipsed by that of another relic over an altar at a little distance
in the same church, viz: the cedar table used by our Lord and his
disciples in the Last Supper. This table is concealed behind a bronze
relief representing that solemn scene in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.

[Sidenote: Other Relics at St. John Lateran.]

"The Basilica claims to possess many valuable relics. Amongst these are
some portions of the manger in which Christ was cradled, the shirt and
seamless coat made for him by the Virgin; some of the barley loaves
and small fishes miraculously multiplied to feed the five thousand;
the linen cloth with which he dried the feet of his apostles; also
Aaron's rod, the rod with which Moses smote the Red Sea," etc., etc.
(_Cook's Southern Italy_, p. 114.) We did not see these, but in the
cloister behind this church we were shown a marble slab on pillars
which was once an altar, "at which the officiating priest doubted of
the Real Presence, when the wafer fell from his hand through the stone,
leaving a round hole, which still remains." Here, too, we were shown
a larger slab resting on pillars, more than six feet from the ground,
which marks the height of our Saviour; also a porphyry slab, upon which
the soldiers cast lots for his seamless robe; and some columns from
Pilate's house in Jerusalem, which were rent by the earthquake of the
crucifixion.

[Illustration: THE SCALA SANTA, ROME.]

[Sidenote: The Holy Stairs from Pilate's Palace.]

But the great relic of Pilate's House, and one of the most interesting
of all the relics in Rome, is across the street from St. John Lateran,
viz., the world-renowned _Scala Santa_, or Holy Stairway, a flight of
twenty-eight marble steps, once ascended by our Saviour in the palace
of Pilate, and brought from Jerusalem to Rome in 326 by the Empress
Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. They are covered with a wooden
casing, but holes have been left through which the marble steps can be
seen. Two of them are stained with the Saviour's blood. These spots
are covered with glass. The light was rather dim, and as we entered a
gentleman struck a match and held it over one of these glass-covered
stains to show it to his little girl, so that, passing just at that
moment, we also had a good view.

[Sidenote: The Man who Crawled Up and Walked Down.]

No foot is allowed to touch the _Scala Santa_; it must be ascended
on the knees. A number of people were going up in this way when
we entered, pausing on each step to repeat a prayer, for which
indulgences are granted by the Pope. There are stairways on each
side, by which those who have thus crawled up may walk down. The
only man I know of that ever walked down the Holy Stairs themselves,
and the most illustrious man that ever crawled up them on his knees,
was Martin Luther. When he had mounted slowly half way up, step by
step on his knees, he seemed to hear a voice saying, "The just shall
live by faith." Martin Luther rose from his knees, walked down the
staircase, and left the place a free man so far as this superstition
was concerned, and shortly afterwards became the most formidable foe
that ever assailed the falsehood and corruption of the Romish Church.

[Sidenote: The Miraculous Portrait and the Shoes of Christ.]

At the top of the Scala Santa we saw through a grating the beautiful
silver tabernacle containing the great relic which has given to this
chapel the name of _Sancta Sanctorum_, viz.: the portrait of Christ,
held by the Romish Church to be authentic, having been drawn in outline
by St. Luke and finished by an angel, whence its name "Acheiropoëton,"
_i. e._, the picture made without hands. The relic chamber here
contains fragments of the true cross, the sandals of Christ, and "the
iron bar of Hades which he brought away with him from that doleful
region,"[10] but we did not see these.

[Sidenote: The Inscription on the Cross, and the Finger of Thomas.]

A short walk beyond the Scala Santa and the Lateran brings us to the
Church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, which is specially rich in relics.
Here our party was shown a piece of the true cross of Christ and the
original plank bearing the inscription, "_Jesus, Nazarene King_," in
Hebrew, Greek and Latin, which was placed over his head; also one
of the nails used in his crucifixion, and two of the thorns of his
crown; besides a large piece of the cross of the penitent thief who was
executed with him; and, most interesting of all in some respects, the
finger used by Thomas to resolve his doubts as to the resurrection of
Christ (John xx. 24-28).

[Sidenote: A Bottle of The Blood of Christ.]

In Percy's _Romanism_ it is said that "the list of relics on the right
of the apsis of S. Croce includes the finger of S. Thomas, apostle,
with which he touched the most holy side of our Lord Jesus Christ; one
of the pieces of money with which the Jews paid the treachery of Judas;
great part of the veil and of the hair of the most blessed Virgin; a
mass of cinders and charcoal united in the form of a loaf, with the fat
of S. Lawrence, martyr; one bottle of the most precious blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ; another of the milk of the most blessed Virgin; a
little piece of the stone where Christ was born; a little piece of the
stone where our Lord sat when he pardoned Mary Magdalene; of the stone
where our Lord wrote the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai; of the
stone where reposed SS. Peter and Paul; of the cotton which collected
the blood of Christ; of the manna which fed the Israelites; of the rod
of Aaron which flourished in the desert; of the relics of the eleven
prophets!"[11]

But our party saw none of these except the finger of Thomas. It is
to be hoped that the others have been withdrawn from exhibition, for
surely superstition and vulgarity can no further go. I fear, however,
that those who are willing to pay enough can still see "one bottle of
the most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ," and "another of the
milk of the most blessed Virgin"! There is also "_una ampulla lactis
Beatae Mariae Virginis_" among the many relics to be seen in the
Church of SS. Cosmo and Damiano, near the Forum.

[Sidenote: No Women Admitted.]

It is a curious illustration of Romish wrong-headedness that women
are never allowed to enter the Chapel of St. Helena, in the Church
of S. Croce, except on the festival of the Saint, August 18th,
notwithstanding the fact that St. Helena herself was a woman, and that
the church owes its existence to her and is also indebted to her for
the piece of the true cross which it boasts, and which has given it its
name. So while men are permitted to go inside the chapel of St. Helena,
women are stopped at the entrance and only allowed to peer through the
railing. The same degrading discrimination is made in the Church of S.
Prassede (who also was a woman) as to entering the splendid chapel,
Orto del Paradiso, which contains the column of blood jasper to which
Christ was bound, and which was "given by the Saracens to Giovanni
Colonna, cardinal of this church, and legate of the Crusade, because
when he had fallen into their hands and was about to be put to death,
he was rescued by a marvellous intervention of celestial light."
Females are never allowed to enter this chapel except upon Sundays in
Lent, but are permitted to look at the relic through a grating.[12]

[Sidenote: Four Other Stones of Great Interest.]

The mention of this column reminds me of the two columns in the Church
of S. Maria Transpontina, on the other side of the Tiber, near St.
Peter's, which bear inscriptions stating that they were the pillars to
which St. Peter and St. Paul were fastened, respectively, when they
suffered flagellation by order of Nero. A little farther on towards
St. Peter's is the Piazza Scossa Cavalli, with a pretty fountain.
"Its name bears witness to a curious legend, which tells how when S.
Helena returned from Palestine, bringing with her the stone on which
Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, and that on which the Virgin Mary
sat down at the time of the presentation of the Saviour in the temple,
the horses drawing these precious relics stood still at this spot,
and refused every effort to make them move. Then Christian people,
'recognizing the finger of God,' erected a church on this spot--_S.
Giacomo Scossa Cavalli_--where the stones are still to be seen."

[Sidenote: The Hardness of St. Peter's Knees.]

While speaking of interesting stones, I must not omit to mention those
in the Church of S. Francesca Romana, near the Forum, containing the
marks of the knees of St. Peter--(which show, by the way, that this
apostle was a giant in size)--when he knelt to pray that Simon Magus
might be dropped by the demons he had invoked to support him in the
air in fulfilment of his promise to fly. One of these stones used to
lie in the _Via Sacra_, and the water which collected in the two holes
or knee prints was looked upon as so potent a remedy of disease that
groups of infirm people used to gather around them on the approach of
a shower. According to the legend, the place where Peter knelt when
he thus effected the discomfiture of Simon Magus and brought him to
the ground with such force that his thigh was fractured, never to be
healed, was the ancient _Via Sacra_. But, after the priests had removed
the stone from the roadway into the church, the inconsiderate and
iconoclastic explorers of our day, who have made so many discoveries in
their excavations about the Forum, proved that the roadway from which
this relic was taken was not the ancient _Via Sacra_ at all, but a more
modern roadway which had been mistaken for it!

[Sidenote: The Hardness of St. Peter's Head.]

In the Mamertine Prisons, which are also quite close to the Forum, a
depression on the stone wall by which we descend to the lower dungeon
is shown as the spot against which St. Peter's head rested, though our
guide had just told us that these stairs were not in existence then and
prisoners were let down into the dungeon through the hole in the middle
of the stone floor. Such trifling discrepancies do not seem to trouble
the average Italian mind.

St. Peter and St. Paul are said to have been bound in this prison for
nine months to a pillar, which is shown here. "A fountain of excellent
water beneath the floor of the prison is attributed to the prayers
of St. Peter, that he might have wherewith to baptize his gaolers,
Processus and Martinianus; but, unfortunately for this ecclesiastical
tradition, the fountain is described by Plutarch as having existed at
the time of Jugurtha's imprisonment" here, long before the time of St.
Peter.

Another miraculous spring, still flowing, is shown in the Church of SS.
Cosmo and Damiano as that which burst forth in answer to the prayers of
Felix IV., that he might have water to baptize his disciples.

[Sidenote: What the Head of St. Paul Did.]

But the most interesting of all the miraculous springs in or around
Rome are the three fountains, about two miles from the city, where the
Apostle Paul was executed. When his head was severed from his body it
bounded from the earth three times, crying out thrice, "Jesus! Jesus!
Jesus!" A fountain burst from the ground at each of the three spots
where the severed head struck. It is asserted, in proof of this origin
of the fountains, that the water of the first is still warm, of the
second tepid, and of the third cold, but we drank of them one after
another without being able to detect any difference in temperature. The
apostle's head is shown in bas relief upon the three altars above the
fountains. In the church which has been built over them we were shown
the pillar to which he was bound, and the block of marble upon which
he was decapitated, and, in the vault of another church hard by, the
prison in which he was placed just before his execution.

We could not help asking the priest who was our escort whether this
extraordinary story was still believed. His answer was: "Certainly!
There is no reason whatever to doubt it. The facts have been handed
down in an unbroken succession from eye-witnesses," a position which
he proceeded to defend at length and with great warmth when one of our
party in particular manifested much slowness to believe.

[Sidenote: St. Paul's Use of Plautilla's Veil.]

Furthermore, the opening of these three fountains was not the only
miracle wrought by the apostle after his death. Mrs. Jameson says:
"The legend of his death relates that a certain Roman matron named
Plautilla, one of the converts of S. Peter, placed herself on the road
by which S. Paul passed to his martyrdom, to behold him for the last
time; and when she saw him she wept greatly and besought his blessing.
The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she
would give him her veil to blind his eyes when he should be beheaded,
promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked
at such a promise; but Plautilla, with a woman's faith and charity,
taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, S. Paul
appeared to her and restored the veil, stained with his blood. In the
ancient representations of the martyrdom of S. Paul, the legend of
Plautilla is seldom omitted. In the picture by Giotto in the Sacristy
of S. Peter's, Plautilla is seen on an eminence in the background,
receiving the veil from the hands of S. Paul, who appears in the
clouds above; the same representation, but little varied, is executed
in bas-relief on the bronze doors of St. Peter's."

[Sidenote: The Footprints of Christ in Stone.]

About two miles northeast of the Three Fountains, and the same distance
from the city, on the Appian Way, stands the Church of St. Sebastian.
Over an altar on the right, as you enter, the attendant priest, drawing
aside a curtain, shows you a slab of dark red stone with two enormous
footprints on it. These, we are told, were made by the feet of Christ
during an interview with Peter which took place near here, on the site
of the small Church of Domine Quo Vadis. The story is as follows: After
the burning of Rome, Nero charged the Christians with having fired
the city. Straightway the first persecution broke forth, and many of
the Christians were put to death with dreadful torture. The survivors
besought Peter not to expose his life. As he fled along the Appian Way,
Christ appeared to him travelling towards the city. The fleeing apostle
exclaimed in amazement, "_Domine, quo vadis?_" (Lord, whither goest
thou?), to which, with a look of mild sadness, the Saviour replied,
"_Venio iterum crucifigi_" (I come to be crucified a second time), then
vanished, whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness, returned to
Rome, and shortly afterwards was crucified there himself.

[Sidenote: The Chains of St. Peter.]

Another relic of great interest connected with the same apostle is
shown in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome, and indeed gives
the church its name. The church is not without interest for other
reasons. For instance, it possesses portions of the crosses of St.
Peter and St. Andrew, and we are told that the high altar covers the
remains of the seven Maccabean brothers. But the basilica is specially
famous for the possession of the greatest masterpiece of sculpture
since the time of the Greeks--the majestic "Moses" of Michelangelo,
which draws thousands of sightseers who might otherwise never set foot
in the building. Nevertheless, its chief attraction, to the devout
Roman Catholic mind, is neither the bones of the Maccabees nor the
statue of Moses, but the chains referred to in the following familiar
passage of Scripture: "Peter therefore was kept in prison; but prayer
was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod
would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between
two soldiers bound with two chains; and the keepers before the door
kept the prison. And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a
light shined in the prison; and he smote Peter on the side, and raised
him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his
hands." (Acts xii. 5-7.) These two chains were presented by Juvenal,
Bishop of Jerusalem, to the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius the
younger, who placed one of them in the Basilica of the apostles in
Constantinople and sent the other to Rome, where this church was
erected as its special shrine. This was about the middle of the fifth
century. "But the Romans could not rest satisfied with the possession
of half the relic; and within the walls of this very basilica, Leo
I. beheld in a vision the miraculous and mystical uniting of the two
chains, since which they have both been exhibited here, and the day of
their being soldered together by invisible power, August 1st, has been
kept sacred in the Latin church!" "They are of unequal size, owing to
many fragments of one of them (first whole links, then only filings)
having been removed in the course of centuries by various popes and
sent to Christian princes who have been esteemed worthy of the favor!
The longest is about five feet in length. At the end of one of them is
a collar, which is said to have encircled the neck of St. Peter. They
are exposed on the day of the 'station' (the first Monday in Lent) in a
reliquary presented by Pius IX., adorned with statuettes of St. Peter
and the Angel--to whom he is represented as saying, '_Ecce nunc scio
vere_' (Acts xii. II). On the following day a priest gives the chains
to be kissed by the pilgrims, and touches their foreheads with them,
saying, 'By the intercession of the blessed Apostle Peter, may God
preserve you from evil. Amen.'"[13]

[Sidenote: The Benefits of Buying a Fac-simile of the Chains.]

In the sacristy we found a young priest doing a thriving business in
copies of the relic. We bought from him "an iron _fac-simile_ of the
chains (about the size of an ordinary watch-chain), authenticated by a
certificate testifying to its having touched the original chains. On
the back of this certificate was printed an extract from the Rules of
the Confraternity of the chains of St. Peter, from which we learned
that all associates in this brotherhood must wear such a _fac-simile_
as we had just bought, that the objects of the Confraternity are "The
propagation of the veneration of the chains of St. Peter, an increase
of devotion to the Holy See, prayers for the Pope's intention, for the
needs of Holy Church, the conversion of infidels and sinners, and the
extirpation of heresy and blasphemy," and that Pius IX. had granted to
the members of the Confraternity various indulgences, one of which is
"_A plenary indulgence and remission of all sins_[14] if one visits the
Church of San Pietro in Vincoli on January 18th[15] and June 29th,[16]
between the first vespers of the feast and sunset of the said days,
or on August 1st, or any one of the seven days following it. The usual
prayers for the Holy Father's intention," etc., are comprised in these
visits. We are told also that "the foregoing indulgences are applicable
to the souls in purgatory."

[Sidenote: The Relics in St. Peter's Cathedral.]

We may close this running account of the relics at Rome with a brief
mention of those that are to be seen in St. Peter's itself, the largest
and costliest church in the world. The construction of it extended
over one hundred and seventy-six years. The cost of the main building
alone was fifty million dollars. The annual outlay for repairs is
thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars. But it cost the Romish Church
far more than money--it cost her the loss of all the leading nations
of the world, which had been under her dominion till that time. For
the expense of the vast structure, with its "insolent opulence of
marbles," was so great that Julius II. and Leo X. were obliged to meet
the enormous outlay by the sale of indulgences, and that, as is well
known, precipitated the Reformation. So that Protestants may well feel
a peculiar interest in this mighty cathedral.

[Sidenote: The Column against which Christ Leaned in the Temple.]

It goes without saying that the popes would not allow the chief church
of Roman Catholicism to go begging in the matter of relics. And, sure
enough, we have no sooner pushed aside the heavy padded screen and
stepped within than we find on our right the Chapel of the Holy Column,
so called because it contains a pillar which is declared to have been
that against which our Lord leaned when he prayed and taught in the
temple at Jerusalem. The pillar contains this inscription: "Haec est
illa columna in qua DNS N{r} Jesus XPS appodiatus dum populo prædicabat
et Deo pno preces in templo effundebat adhaerendo, stabatque una
cum aliis undecim hic circumstantibus. De Salomonis templo in
triumphum hujus Basilicæ hic locata fuit: demones expellit et immundis
spiritibus vexatos liberos reddit et multa miracula cotidie facit.
P. reverendissimum prem et Dominum Dominum Card. de Ursinis. A. D.
MDCCCXXVIII."

[Sidenote: The Chair of St. Peter.]

At the other end of the church we are shown an ancient wooden chair,
encrusted with ivory, which we are told was the Cathedra Petri,
the episcopal throne of St. Peter and his immediate successors.
A magnificent festival in honor of this chair has been annually
celebrated here for hundreds of years.

My party seems to be made up of very determined Protestants. At any
rate, the sight of this relic leads an inquisitive person in the party
to ask whether the Bible does not say that "Peter's wife's mother lay
sick of a fever."

"Yes," replies the unfortunate gentleman to whose lot it falls to
answer all questions of all kinds.

"Then," continues the Inquisitive Person, "Peter was married?"

Unfortunate Gentleman: "Yes."

I. P.: "Do the Popes still marry?"

U. G.: "No."

I. P.: "If 'the first Pope' was married, why should not his successors
be married, and why should they insist upon a celibate clergy in every
age, in every country, and under all circumstances?"

[Sidenote: The Bones of St. Peter.]

U. G.: "These questions are becoming too hard for me. Come, let me
show you the tomb which contains the bones of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Only half of their bodies are preserved here, the other portion of St.
Peter's being in the Church of St. John Lateran and the other portion
of St. Paul's at the magnificent basilica of St. Paul's without the
walls."

"A circle of eighty-six gold lamps is always burning around the tomb of
the poor fisherman of Galilee.... Hence one can gaze up into the dome,
with its huge letters in purple-blue mosaic upon a gold ground (each
six feet long)--Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam
meam, et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum.' Above this are four colossal
mosaics of the Evangelists.... The pen of St. Luke is seven feet in
length."

But we must not permit ourselves to be diverted from our proper subject
by the vastness and splendor of the building, natural as it is to do
so when standing under this matchless dome. The four huge piers which
support the dome are used as shrines for the four great relics of the
church, viz.: 1. The lance of St. Longinus, the soldier who pierced the
Saviour's side; 2. A portion of the true cross; 3. The napkin of St.
Veronica, containing the miraculous impression of our Lord's face; and
4. The head of the apostle Andrew.

I did not see these relics myself, as I was in the East when they were
exhibited, but on April 11th, the day before Easter, other members of
my party did, that is, they saw all of them but Andrew's head, and
from a letter written me by the youngest of my correspondents in my
own family, giving not only description, but drawings of the spear
head, the cross and the handkerchief in their several frames, I infer
that, notwithstanding the great height of the Veronica balcony from
which they are exhibited, my young correspondent and his companions
fared better in the matter of a good view than Fritz in _Chronicles
of the Schönberg Cotta Family_, who says: "To-day we gazed on the
Veronica--the holy impression left by our Saviour's face on the cloth
S. Veronica presented to him to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight
of the cross. We had looked forward to this sight for days, for seven
thousand years of indulgence from penance are attached to it. But when
the moment came we could see nothing but a black board hung with a
cloth, before which another white cloth was held. In a few minutes this
was withdrawn, and the great moment was over, the glimpse of the sacred
thing on which hung the fate of seven thousand years."

FOOTNOTES:

[9] _Later._--This is the church in which the late Pope Leo XIII. is to
be buried.

[10] _The Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, Alexander Robertson, p. 113.

[11] Hare, II., 93.

[12] Hare's _Walks in Rome_, II., pp. 166, 167.

[13] Hare, II., 45.

[14] Italics not mine, but so printed in the extract.

[15] Feast of St. Peter's Chair.

[16] Feast of St. Peter.




CHAPTER XXXI.

THE LEGENDS, THE POPES, AND THE PASQUINADES.


[Sidenote: The Manufacture of St. Philomena.]

Before quitting the subject of the relics at Rome, I must give my
readers what Hare calls "the extraordinary history of the manufacture
of S. Filomena, now one of the most popular saints in Italy, and one
towards whom idolatry is carried out with frantic enthusiasm both at
Domo d'Ossola and in some of the Neapolitan States."

"In the year 1802, while some excavations were going forward in the
Catacombs of Priscilla, a sepulchre was discovered containing the
skeleton of a young female; on the exterior were rudely painted some
of the symbols constantly recurring in these chambers of the dead--an
anchor, an olive branch (emblems of Hope and Peace), a scourge, two
arrows, and a javelin; above them the following inscription, of which
the beginning and end were destroyed:

  --"LUMENA PAX TE CUM FI"--

The remains, reasonably supposed to be those of one of the early
martyrs for the faith, were sealed up and deposited in the treasury
of relics in the Lateran; here they remained for some years unthought
of. On the return of Pius VII. from France, a Neapolitan prelate was
sent to congratulate him. One of the priests in his train, who wished
to create a sensation in his district, where the long residence of the
French had probably caused some decay of piety, begged for a few relics
to carry home, and these recently discovered remains were bestowed on
him; the inscription was translated somewhat freely to signify _Santa
Philomena, rest in peace_. Another priest, whose name is suppressed,
_because of his great humility_, was favored by a vision in the broad
noonday, in which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was
pleased to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring
the Christian faith and her vow of chastity to the addresses of the
emperor, who wished to make her his wife. This vision leaving much
of her history obscure, a certain young artist, whose name is also
suppressed, perhaps because of his great humility, was informed in a
vision that the emperor alluded to was Diocletian, and at the same
time the torments and persecutions suffered by the Christian virgin
Filomena, as well as her wonderful constancy, were also revealed to
him. There were some difficulties in the way of the Emperor Diocletian,
which _incline_ the writer of the _historical_ account to incline
to the opinion that the young artist in his wisdom _may_ have made
a mistake, and that the emperor may have been not Diocletian, but
Maximian. The facts, however, now admitted of no doubt; the relics
were carried by the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples; they were
enclosed in a case of wood resembling in form the human body; this
figure was habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a crimson
tunic after the Greek fashion; the face was painted to represent
nature, a garland of flowers was placed on the head, and in the hands
a lily and a javelin with the point reversed, to express her purity
and her martyrdom; then she was laid in a half-sitting posture in a
sarcophagus, of which the sides were glass, and, after lying for some
time in state in the chapel of the Torres family in the Church of Sant'
Angiolo, she was carried in grand procession to Mugnano, a little town
about twenty miles from Naples, amid the acclamations of the people,
working many and surprising miracles by the way.... Such is the legend
of S. Filomena, and such the authority on which she has become within
the last twenty years one of the most popular saints in Italy."--_Mrs.
Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art_, p. 671.

But, after all, the most extraordinary case of saint-manufacture is
not that of Philomena, but that of _Buddha_! I have not room for the
story here, but if any one wishes to know how the papacy made Buddha a
Christian saint, he will find the whole story, with the proofs, in _A
History of the Warfare of Science and Theology_, by Andrew D. White,
LL. D., late President and Professor of History at Cornell University,
and until recently United States Ambassador to Germany.

[Sidenote: "The Courteous Spaniard."]

A few days ago we visited the Church of St. Laurence Without the Walls,
where in a silver shrine under the high altar, the remains of St.
Laurence and St. Stephen are said to rest. The walls of the portico of
the church are covered with a series of frescoes, lately repainted. One
series represents the story of St. Stephen and that of the translation
of his relics to this church. "The relics of St. Stephen were preserved
at Constantinople, whither they had been transported from Jerusalem by
the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius II. Hearing that her daughter,
Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian II., Emperor of the West, was afflicted
with a devil, she begged her to come to Constantinople, that her demon
might be driven out by the touch of the relics. The younger Eudoxia
wished to comply, but the devil refused to leave her unless St. Stephen
was brought to Rome. An agreement was therefore made that the relics
of St. Stephen should be exchanged for those of St. Laurence. St.
Stephen arrived, and the Empress was immediately relieved of her devil;
but when the persons who had brought the relics of St. Stephen from
Constantinople were about to take those of St. Laurence back with them,
they all fell down dead! Pope Pelagius prayed for their restoration
to life, which was granted for a short time, to prove the efficacy of
prayer, but they all died again ten days later! Thus the Romans knew
that it would be criminal to fulfil their promise, and part with the
relics of St. Laurence, and the bodies of the two martyrs were laid in
the same sarcophagus." And thus we know how much more the Romans think
of relics than of honor and truth. "It is related that when they opened
the sarcophagus, and lowered into it the body of St. Stephen, St.
Laurence moved on one side, giving the place of honor on the right hand
to St. Stephen; hence, the common people of Rome have conferred on St.
Laurence the title of '_Il cortese Spagnuolo_'--the courteous Spaniard."

Another series of these pictures in the portico represents the story
of a sacristan who, coming to pray in this church before day, found it
filled with worshippers, and was told by St. Laurence himself that they
were the Apostle Peter, the first martyr, Stephen, and other apostles,
martyrs and virgins from paradise, and was ordered to go and tell the
Pope what he had seen, and bid him come and celebrate a solemn mass.
The sacristan objected that the Pope would not believe him, and asked
for some visible sign. Then St. Laurence ungirt his robe and gave him
his girdle. When the Pope was accompanying him back to the basilica
they met a funeral procession. To test the powers of the girdle, the
Pope laid it on the bier, and at once the dead arose and walked.

[Sidenote: The Miracles of St. Dominic.]

That is not the only miracle of resurrection offered to our credulity
by these ecclesiastical legends. The three principal frescoes in the
chapter house of the church of St. Sisto, recently painted by the
Padre Besson, represent three miracles of St. Dominic--in each case of
raising from the dead--the subjects being a mason who had fallen from
a scaffold when building this monastery, a child, and the young Lord
Napoleone Orsini, who had been thrown from his horse and instantly
killed, and who was brought to life by St. Dominic on this spot, as
is further commemorated by an inscription on the wall. But miracles
were nothing uncommon in the history of the founder of the powerful
Dominican Order. In the refectory of St. Marco, at Florence, we had
seen the fine fresco which represents the miraculous provision made
for him and his forty friars at a time of scarcity by two angels. The
refectory in which this miracle took place is at the Church of St.
Sabina, on the Aventine, in Rome; but there are three other things at
this church which interested us hardly less than the scene of that
miracle. One of them is the huge, pumpkin-shaped, black stone, two or
three times as big as a man's head, which the devil is said to have
hurled at St. Dominic one day when he found him lying prostrate in
prayer. This stone is the most conspicuous object in the church, being
set up on a pillar about three feet high, right in the middle of the
nave. Not far away is the marble slab on which the saint was lying at
the time that the formidable missile was thrown. The adversary's aim
was not good, and the saint was not harmed. The second thing of chief
interest here is the Chapel of the Rosary, at the other end of the same
aisle in which the marble slab lies, built on the very spot where St.
Dominic had the vision in which he received the rosary from the hands
of the Virgin. The supernatural gift is commemorated in a beautiful
painting by Sassoferato. It is hardly necessary to explain to any of my
readers that a rosary is a string of beads used by Roman Catholics to
keep the count of the number of _Pater-nosters_ and _Ave-Marias_ which
they repeat, and that this manner of "vain repetitions" was first used
by the Dominicans among Roman Catholics, though the custom was really
borrowed from the Mohammedans and Brahmins, who still use rosaries. The
third object is the famous orange tree, now six hundred and seventy
years old, which is said to have been brought from Spain and planted
in the court here by St. Dominic himself, orange trees having been
unknown in Rome before that time, and "which still lives, and is firmly
believed to flourish or fail with the fortunes of the Dominican Order."
Ladies are not allowed to approach this tree, so, as there were ladies
in our party, we all contented ourselves with a look at it through a
window. Hard by, of course, there is a room where things are sold to
pilgrims and visitors. There we bought a rosary, the beads of which
are made of the fruit of the plant called the Thorn of Christ, with
the exception of the bead next to the cross, which is a tiny dried
orange from St. Dominic's tree. Enclosed in the cross are a little
piece of the wood of the tree, and some earth from the catacombs where
the bodies of Sts. Peter and Paul, and of the holy virgin martyrs,
Sts. Agnes and Cecilia, reposed for some time. The printed leaflet
which accompanies our purchase tells us that "these rosaries, when
sold or ordered, are blessed and enriched with the indulgences of the
Rosary Confraternity and the papal blessing. When blessed they may be
distributed; _but if resold they lose all the indulgences_." (Italics
ours.)

Still another relic of great interest in this convent of St. Sabina
is the crucifix of Michele Ghislieri (afterwards Pope Pius V.). "One
day, as Ghislieri was about to kiss his crucifix, in the eagerness
of prayer, the image of Christ, says the legend, retired of its own
accord from his touch, for it had been poisoned by an enemy, and a kiss
would have been death."

[Sidenote: Sundry Miracles by Other Saints, and Images.]

In the Church of St. Gregory, on the C[oe]lian Hill, the thing that
interested us most was the picture by Badalocchi, "commemorating a
miracle on this spot, when, at the moment of elevation, the Host
is said to have bled in the hands of St. Gregory, to convince an
unbeliever of the truth of transubstantiation." This is the same
Gregory who presented certain foreign ambassadors with a handful of
earth from the arena of the Coliseum as a relic for their sovereigns,
so many martyrs having suffered death there, and "upon their receiving
the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the
soil."

Not far from the Church of St. Gregory we were shown the hermitage
where St. Giovanni de Matha lived. "Before he came to reside here he
had been miraculously brought from Tunis (whither he had gone on a
mission) to Ostia, in a boat without helm or sail, in which he knelt
without ceasing before the crucifix throughout the whole of his voyage!"

Time would fail me to tell of the miraculous surgical operation
performed by Sts. Cosmo and Damian upon a man who was praying in the
church dedicated to them, and who had a diseased leg amputated without
pain by the good saints while he slept; and not only so, but had a
sound leg, which they had taken from the body of a man just buried,
substituted for the diseased one. Nor can I dwell on the miraculous
blindness with which the guard sent to seize Pope St. Martin I. was
stricken the moment he caught sight of the pontiff in St. Maria
Maggiore, or the miraculous tears shed by an image of the Virgin
attached to a neighboring wall when she saw a cruel murder committed in
the street below, or the madonnas and crucifixes that spoke to saints
on various occasions. One of these, however, is too significant to be
omitted altogether. There is in the Church of St. Agostino a sculptured
image of the Madonna and child. "It is not long since the report was
spread that one day a poor woman called upon this image of the Madonna
for help; it began to speak, and replied, 'If I had only something,
then I could help thee, but I myself am so poor!' This story was
circulated, and very soon throngs of credulous people hastened hither
to kiss the foot of the Madonna, _and to present her with all kinds of
gifts_." (Italics mine.)

[Sidenote: How the Papal Treasury was Filled, and how it was Emptied.]

The evil methods employed at various times to replenish the papal
treasury are known to all readers of history. The best known, perhaps,
is the shameless traffic in indulgences by Tetzel, which helped to
precipitate the Reformation. Hare closes his account of the execution
of Beatrice Cenci for complicity in the murder of her father with the
statement that "sympathy will always follow one who sinned under the
most terrible of provocations, and whose cruel death was due to the
avarice of Clement VIII. for the riches which the church acquired by
the confiscation of the Cenci property," and cites the petition of
Gaspare Guizza (1601), in which he claims a reward from the Pope for
his service in apprehending one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci,
on the ground that thus "the other accomplices and their confessions
were secured, and _so many thousands of crowns brought into the
papal treasury_." The venality of Pope Alexander VI., Rodrigo Borgia
(1492-1503), "the wicked and avaricious father of Cæsar and Lucretia,
who is believed to have died of the poison which he intended for one
of his cardinals," is thus hit off by Pasquino:

    "Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum;
    Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."

Of Innocent X. (1644-'55), Pasquino says, "Magis amat Olympiam quam
Olympium," referring to the shameful relations existing between this
Pope and his avaricious sister-in-law, Olympia Maidalchini, who made
it her business to secure the profits of the papacy in hard cash.
Trollope, in his _Life of Olympia_, says: "No appointment to office of
any kind was made except in consideration of a proportionable sum paid
down into her own coffers. This often amounted to three or four years'
revenue of the place to be granted. Bishoprics and benefices were sold
as fast as they became vacant. One story is told of an unlucky disciple
of Simon, who in treating with the Pope for a valuable see, just fallen
vacant, and hearing from her a price at which it might be his, far
exceeding all he could command, persuaded the members of his family to
sell all they had for the purpose of making this profitable investment.
The price was paid, and the bishopric was given him, but, with a
fearful resemblance to the case of Ananias, he died within the year,
and his ruined family saw the see a second time sold by the insatiable
and incorrigible Olympia.... During the last year of Innocent's life,
Olympia literally hardly ever quitted him. Once a week, we read, she
left the Vatican, secretly by night, accompanied by several porters
carrying sacks of coins, the proceeds of the week's extortions and
sales, to her own palace. And during these short absences she used to
lock the Pope into his chamber, and take the key with her!" She finally
"deserted him on his death-bed, making off with the accumulated spoils
of his ten years' papacy, which enabled her son, Don Camillo, to build
the Palazzo Doria Pamfili, in the Corso, and the beautiful Villa Doria
Pamfili," west of the Janiculan Hill. This villa, with its casino,
garden, lake, fountain, pine-shaded lawns and woods, and its fine view
of St. Peter's standing out against the green Campagna beyond, and
the blue Sabine mountains in the distance, is to this day one of the
loveliest villas in Italy, and the favorite resort of the latter-day
Romans and visitors to their city on the two afternoons of the week on
which it is open to pedestrians and two-horse carriages.

The notorious Simony practiced by the popes, in which, as we have just
seen, Olympia became such an adept, gave rise to the biting Latin
couplet--

    "An Petrus Romæ fuerit, sub judice lis est;
    Simonem Romæ nemo fuisse negat."

Some of the modern methods of making use of the Pope for purposes
of gain are less objectionable than those of Olympia. Dr. Alexander
Robertson, in his _Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, just published,
says: "One of the very latest novelties of the 'Pope's Shop' is a
penny-in-the-slot blessing machine. Specimens of this were lately to be
seen in the Corso, Rome, about half way between the Piazza Colonna and
the Piazza del Popolo. A penny is dropped into it. The cinematograph,
or wheel of life, goes round, when, lo! there appears a long procession
of richly clothed cardinals and monsignori, and then the Pope in a
sedan chair, accompanied by his Swiss Guards. As he is carried past
the spectator, he turns towards the window of his chair, a smile
overspreads his face, he raises his hands, and gives his blessing. On
these machines there is an inscription to the effect that the blessing
thus given and received is equivalent to that given by the Pope in
person in St. Peter's. Truly a novel way of turning an honest penny!"
We hear that a rash churchman, not liking the facts just stated,
undertook to deny them in the public prints, when up spoke some English
gentlemen, who had been in Rome recently, and bowled the churchman over
with the statement that they had themselves seen this blessing machine
on the Corso.

One never touches this subject of the vast wealth of the papacy without
calling to mind the well-known rejoinder of the great theologian,
Thomas Aquinas, when the Pope was showing him all his money and riches,
and said, "You see, Thomas, the church cannot now say what it said in
early times, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" "No," answered Aquinas,
"nor can it say, 'Rise up and walk'" (Acts iii. 6). This loss of
spiritual power, this loss of ability to minister salvation to others,
is one of the most melancholy results of the corruption of the papacy.

[Sidenote: Some Ugly Things in the Lives of the Popes.]

Dr. Alexander Robertson, in his recent book on _The Roman Catholic
Church in Italy_, which has received the hearty approval of the King
of Italy and his Prime Minister, says: "There are few, I daresay,
who have looked into the history of the popes, no matter what their
religious faith may be, who will not agree with me when I say that it
does not afford pleasant reading. One's intellect rebels against their
preposterous claims and pretensions, and one's moral sense against
their character and lives. Amongst them there were some good men, some
learned men, and some really able men; but, taking them all in all,
they were, beyond doubt, amongst the lowest class of men to be found
on the pages of history. To wade through their lives is to cross a
pestiferous moral swamp of worldliness, simony, nepotism, concubinage,
personal animosities, sanguinary feuds, forged decretals, plunderings,
poisonings, assassinations, massacres, death."[17]

One may smile at such papal peccadilloes as the vanity of Paul II.,
who was chiefly remarkable for his personal beauty, and was so vain
of his appearance that, when he was elected Pope, he wished to take
the name of Formosus. One may be amused at the intense self-esteem of
Urban VIII., of whose spoliation of ancient Rome Pasquino says, "Quod
non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini," and who, in the Barberini
palace, had the Virgin and angels represented as bringing in the
ornaments of the papacy at his coronation, and in another room a number
of the Barberini bees (the family crest) flocking against the sun, and
eclipsing it--to symbolize the splendor of the family. But our feeling
changes when we read that "he issued a bull by which the name, estates
and privileges of his house might pass to any living male descendant,
legitimate or illegitimate, whether child of prince or priest," lest
the family of Barberini might become absorbed in that of Colonna. And
we do not go far in our reading about such popes before the feeling of
amusement yields to one of sadness, indignation and horror. We need
not insist upon the story of the female Pope Joan, who is said to have
secured her election to the papal throne disguised as a man, and to
have reigned two years as John VIII., and then to have died a shameful
death; for, notwithstanding the indisputable fact that till 1600 her
head was included among the terra cotta representations of the other
popes in the Cathedral of Sienna, and was inscribed "Johannes VIII.,
Femina de Anglia," and that it was then changed into a head of Pope
Zacharias by the Grand Duke, at the request of Pope Clement VIII.,
the story is now generally discredited. But there are many other
facts, established beyond controversy, which explain fully the feeling
of the great majority of the Italian people and the verdict of the
accredited historians of the world. When the penitential Pope, Adrian
VI. (1522-'23), died of drinking too much beer, "the house of his
physician was hung with garlands by midnight revellers, and decorated
with the inscription, Liberatori Patriæ, S. P. Q. R.'" The nepotism of
the learned, brilliant and witty Paul III. "induced him to form Parma
into a duchy for his natural son Pierluigui, to build the Farnese
Palace, and to marry his grandson Ottavio to Marguerite, natural
daughter of Charles V." John XII., the first Pope who took a new name,
"scandalized Christendom by a life of murder, robbery, adultery and
incest." Of the tombs of the eighty-seven popes who were buried in the
old basilica of St. Peter's, only two were replaced when the present
building was erected, those of the two popes who lived in the time and
excited the indignation of Savonarola--"Sixtus IV., with whose cordial
concurrence the assassination of Lorenzo de' Medici was attempted,
and Innocent VIII., the main object of whose policy was to secure
place and power for his illegitimate children," sixteen in number, and
who is represented on his tomb as holding in his hand the spear of
"St. Longinus," which had pierced the side of Christ. This spear was
sent to Innocent VIII. by the Sultan Bajazet, nearly fifteen hundred
years after the crucifixion, and, as we have already seen, is now
preserved in St. Peter's as one of its four chief relics. Guicciardini
says of the death of Alexander VI.: "All Rome ran with indescribable
gladness to visit the corpse. Men could not satiate their eyes with
feeding on the carcase of the serpent who, by his unbounded ambition
and pestiferous perfidy, by every demonstration of horrible cruelty,
monstrous lust and unheard-of avarice, selling without distinction
things sacred and profane, had filled the world with venom."

"Pope Paul V. granted dispensations and pensions to any persons who
would assassinate Fra Paolo Sarpi; Pope Pius V. offered, as Mr. Froude
tells us, 'remission of sin to them and their heirs, with annuities,
honors and promotions, to any cook, brewer, baker, vintner, physician,
grocer, surgeon, or others,' who would make away with Queen Elizabeth;
and Pope Gregory XIII. offered a high place in heaven to any one who
would murder the Prince of Orange; and the poor wretch, Balthazar
Gerard, who did the infamous deed, actually told his judges 'that he
would soon be a saint in heaven, and would have the first place there
next to God,' whilst his family received a patent of nobility, and
entered into the possession of the estate of the Prince in the Franche
Comté--rewards promised for the commission of the crime by Cardinal
Granvelle." (Dr. Alexander Robertson's _Roman Catholic Church in
Italy_, p. 94.)

These are some of the things that help to explain not only the tone
of the pasquinades, not only the indictments of the world's leading
historians, which are to be presently cited, but also the present
attitude of something like twenty millions of the thirty-odd millions
of Italy's inhabitants, who have forsaken the church altogether.

What idea the people have of the Jesuits in particular is well shown
by the legend connected with the Piazza del Gesu, the great open space
in front of the Jesuit church, which is considered the windiest place
in Rome. The story is that the devil and the wind were one day taking a
walk together. "When they came to this square, the devil, who seemed to
be very devout, said to the wind, 'Just wait a minute, mio caro, while
I go into this church.' So the wind promised, and the devil went into
the Gesu, and has never come out again--and the wind is blowing about
in the Piazza del Gesu to this day."

[Sidenote: Pasquino's View of the Pope.]

One of the interesting objects in Rome is a mutilated statue called
Pasquino, which stands at the corner of the Orsini Palace, one of
the most central and public places in the city. The reason for the
interest attaching to this almost shapeless piece of marble is that
for centuries it was used for placarding those satires upon the popes
which, by their exceeding cleverness and biting truth, have made the
name of pasquinade famous the world over. No squib that was ever
affixed to that column had a keener edge than the one known as "The
Antithesis of Christ," which appeared at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, and runs as follows:

    Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world."
    The Pope conquers cities by force.

    Christ had a crown of thorns:
    The Pope wears a triple diadem.

    Christ washed the feet of his disciples:
    The Pope has his kissed by kings.

    Christ paid tribute:
    The Pope takes it.

    Christ fed the sheep:
    The Pope wishes to be master of the world.


    Christ carried on his shoulders the cross:
    The Pope is carried on the shoulders of his servants in liveries
          of gold.

    Christ despised riches:
    The Pope has no other passion than for gold.

    Christ drove out the merchants from the temple:
    The Pope welcomes them.

    Christ preached peace:
    The Pope is the torch of war.

    Christ was meekness:
    The Pope is pride personified.

    Christ promulgated the laws that the Pope tramples under foot.

[Sidenote: What the Italians now Think about it.]

"But," some one may say, "the pasquinades were written long ago, and,
while they are doubtless true descriptions of the papacy of the past,
surely no one would take the same view now." For answer I may quote
the statement of Dr. Raffaelle Mariano, Professor of Philosophy in the
University of Naples, who is not a Protestant, but, as he tells us, was
"born in the Roman Catholic Church," and was "a fervent Catholic from
infancy." Speaking of the vast difference which he found between the
teachings of the church and those of the New Testament as to what is
necessary to salvation, he says, "Therefore, Roman Catholicism is not
only not Christianity, but it is the very antithesis of Christianity,"
a statement every whit as strong as Pasquino's. Some American
Protestants, especially those who have personal friends in the Roman
Catholic Church whom they honor and love--and there are many people in
that church who are richly worthy of honor and love, and who do not
approve of the evils we have been describing any more than we do--are
sometimes disposed to think that Protestant writers are too severe in
their condemnation of the Romish Church as a system. A visit to Italy,
the centre of Romanism, would quickly disabuse these overcharitable
Protestants of that impression. We have all read of such things as
are described above in connection with the relics and legends, but
they seem far away and unreal, and almost impossible, until we come
to the home of Romanism and find them all around us. Then it ceases
to surprise us that so large a proportion of the most intelligent men
in Italy occupy a position of indifference and unbelief, or hostility
and scorn, towards the Christian religion, for Romanism is the only
Christianity that most of them know. Let it be remembered, too, that
the King, able, conscientious, patriotic, devoted to the welfare of
his people, and the Prime Minister, Zanardelli, like his predecessor,
Crispi, and the members of Parliament, and the army and navy, and the
whole government which has given Italy such wonderful stability and
prosperity since the overthrow of the papal dominion and opened before
the nation a future of so much promise, are all standing aloof from
the Pope. Let any one see one of the great pilgrimages from every
part of the country to the tomb of Victor Emmanuel, who freed Italy,
as we saw it the other day, and observe the immense popularity of the
great liberator and his successors of the house of Savoy, and let him
note the firm opposition of Italy's leading men to the papacy, and he
will see that the view of the Pope which the secular newspapers so
persistently seek to force upon the people of the English-speaking
world simply cannot be that of the thoughtful men of Italy.

By the way, I see plenty of women confessing to the priests, but
very, very few men. The textbook used in the training of priests
as father-confessors, and the standard work of the church on that
subject, approved by Pope Leo XIII., is Liguori's _Moral Philosophy_.
"On July 14, 1901, the _Asino_, a daily newspaper published in Rome,
printed in its columns, and also in the form of large bills, which it
caused to be posted up in public places in the chief cities of Italy, a
challenge offering one thousand francs to any Roman Catholic newspaper
which would have the courage to print the Latin text, with an Italian
translation, of two passages in Liguori's book, which it specified.
The challenge was never taken up, and it never will be, for any one
daring to publish the passages named would certainly be prosecuted for
outraging public decency" (Dr. Alexander Robertson, _Roman Catholic
Church in Italy_, p. 149). Hare says, "It was a curious characteristic
of the laxity of morals in the time of Julius II. (1503-'13), that her
friends did not hesitate to bury the famous Aspasia of that age in
this church (St. Gregorio), and to inscribe upon her tomb: 'Imperia,
cortisana Romana, quæ digna tanto nomine, raræ inter homines formæ
specimen dedit.'... But this monument has now been removed."[18]

Most of the facts above cited, especially those concerning the legends
and the Popes, except where specific acknowledgment is made to other
writers, have been drawn from Hare's invaluable _Walks in Rome_. Let us
conclude the list with the testimonies of a few eminent men of
unimpeachable competence and veracity as to the character and influence
of the Roman Catholic Church as a system.

[Sidenote: Macaulay, Dickens and Gladstone on the Influence of
Romanism.]

In the first chapter of his _History of England_, Lord Macaulay says:
"From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to the
time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome
had been generally favorable to science, to civilization, to good
government. But during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth
of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom,
whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth,
and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has
everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and
most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in
poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while
Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism,
have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of
a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever,
knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred
years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome
with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment
as to the tendency of papal domination. The descent of Spain, once
the first among the monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation,
the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to
a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach
the same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to
a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a
Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant
county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of
civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails.
The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the
Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of
Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is
in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French
have doubtless shown an energy and intelligence which, even when
misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a great people.
But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm
the rule, for in no country that is called Roman Catholic has the
Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little
authority as in France."

Charles Dickens, in a letter written from Switzerland, in 1845, to
his friend and biographer, Forster, says: "In the Simplon, hard
by here, where (at the bridge of St. Maurice over the Rhone) the
Protestant canton ends and a Catholic canton begins, you might
separate two perfectly distinct and different conditions of humanity
by drawing a line with your stick in the dust on the ground. On the
Protestant side--neatness, cheerfulness, industry, education, continued
aspiration, at least, after better things. On the Catholic side--dirt,
disease, ignorance, squalor and misery. I have so constantly observed
the like of this since I came abroad that I have a sad misgiving that
the religion of Ireland lies at the root of all its sorrows." Writing
from Genoa, in 1846, Dickens says, "If I were a Swiss, with a hundred
thousand pounds, I would be as steady against the Catholic canons and
the propagation of Jesuitism as any Radical among them; believing the
dissemination of Catholicity to be the most horrible means of political
and social degradation left in the world."

In connection with Dickens' remark about Ireland, we may quote the
remarkable statement of Mr. Michael McCarthy, himself a Roman Catholic,
in his book, _Five Years in Ireland_, pp. 65 and 66, where, after
describing the welcome of the Belfast Corporation to Lord Cadogan on
his first visit, in 1895, to the Protestant North of Ireland, and
their glowing statements about the peaceful and prosperous condition
of their city and district, he contrasts this happy condition with
the unhappy state of the "rest of Ireland," meaning by that the
Roman Catholic parts. "In the rest of Ireland there is no social or
industrial progress to record. The man who would say of it that it
was 'progressing and prospering,' or that 'its work people were fully
employed,' or that there existed 'a continued development of its
industries,' or that its towns 'had increased in value and population,'
would be set down as a madman. It is in this seven-eighths of Ireland
that the growing and great organization of the Catholic Church has
taken root."

Mr. Gladstone, in an article on "Italy and her Church," in the _Church
Quarterly Review_ for October, 1875, says: "Profligacy, corruption and
ambition, continued for ages, unitedly and severally, their destructive
work upon the country, through the Curia and the papal chair; and in
doing it they of course have heavily tainted the faith of which that
chair was the guardian." Elsewhere he says, "There has never been any
more cunning blade devised against the freedom, the virtue and the
happiness of a people than Romanism."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his _Marble Faun_, which, by the way, contains
the most charming of all the descriptive writing about Rome, put
the case none too strongly when he spoke of being "disgusted with
the pretense of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally
omnipresent" in the city of the popes. The new government has wrought
a great change in this respect, and Rome is in many parts of it now
quite a clean city.

There, then, are the facts as to the influence of the Roman Catholic
Church. I am, of course, very far from saying that there are no good
people in that church. As I have already stated, I believe that there
are many good people in it, but my own observation has satisfied me
that the verdict of history as to the baleful influence of the system
is absolutely correct.

"What, then," some one may ask, "do the good people in that church
think of all the immoralities and frauds that it has condoned and
fostered?" The answer is that the really good people in that church
must grieve over them and deplore them just as the good people in other
churches do.

       *       *       *       *       *

_P. S._--It is generally believed, and apparently with good reason,
that the new Pope, Pius X., is a better man than many of his
predecessors, and that he cannot be charged with the immoralities or
the ambition and avarice which characterized them. Let us hope that he
will have the courage to attempt some real reform in the lives of many
of his clergy.


FOOTNOTES:

[17] It was a bad day for the cause of truth when Foxe's _Book of
Martyrs_ was allowed to go out of general circulation. When I was a boy
it was no uncommon thing to see copies of it in American homes. Now it
is rarely seen. A new and corrected edition of it ought to be brought
out and given wide circulation. There have been not a few indications
this year that our people are forgetting some of the most instructive
history of all the past, and those who seem to be most oblivious of it
are the editors of some of the secular newspapers.

[18] There are other indications of some improvement in this matter,
but an Anglican resident in Italy, quoted by the _Review of Reviews_ as
"a painstaking and fair-minded" witness, says, "People are not shocked
by clerical immorality, but regard it as natural and inevitable." To an
Anglican friend a Roman prelate lamented that a certain cardinal was
not elected at the late conclave. But the Anglican replied, "He is a
man of conspicuous immorality." "No doubt," was the answer, "but you
Americans seem to think there is no virtue but chastity. The Cardinal
has not that, but he is an honest man."




CHAPTER XXXII.

THE OLD FORCES AND THE NEW IN THE ETERNAL CITY.


[Sidenote: An Audience with the Pope.]

Well, we have seen the Pope. Hearing that a body of Italian pilgrims
were to be received by the pontiff at the Vatican, and having assured
ourselves that the function was one which would involve no official
recognition of the Pope on our part, and that we should be merely
Protestant spectators, we gladly accepted the offer of tickets for the
audience, and, supposing in our simplicity that, as the reception was
set for noon, we should be sufficiently early if we went at eleven
o'clock, we drove up to the main entrance of the Vatican at that hour.
There was a great throng of people about the door, but our tickets
obtained for us immediate entrance along with a stream of other ladies
and gentlemen. The regulation attire for these functions is full
evening dress for gentlemen, while ladies wear black, with no hat, but
with a lace mantilla on the head. We first passed through a double line
of the famous Swiss Guards, in their extraordinary uniform of crimson,
yellow and black, designed by no less a person than Michael Angelo.
Then we were shown up the great stairway, and passing through a couple
of large rooms, one of which was adorned with Raphael's frescoes, we
found ourselves at the entrance of a long and spacious hall, already
densely crowded, as it seemed to us, but with a space kept open down
the centre between the rows of seats on either side. Looking down
this open space, we could see at the other end, on a slightly raised
platform, the pontifical throne, upholstered in red velvet, with
golden back and arms, effectively set in the midst of crimson hangings,
which swept in rich masses from the lofty ceiling to the floor.
Preceded by guards, we travelled the whole length of the hall, and
found, to our great gratification, that our seats were quite close to
the throne, so that we had an excellent position for seeing and hearing
all that was going on. We soon noticed that many of the hundreds of
people present, like some of us, had not observed the regulations as
to dress. Many others had. Mingled with the soberer attire of the
spectators, pilgrims and priests, we saw now and then a violet cassock,
as one bishop after another drifted in. Apart from these vestments,
there was no semblance of a religious gathering. It was more like a
social function, and the people were chatting gaily, the jolliest and
noisiest crowd being a group of young seminarians, prospective priests,
who occupied the same bench with us and the two or three nearest to
it. After we had been there an hour the great clock of St. Peter's
struck twelve. Instantly all the noisy young seminarians rose to their
feet and began to recite, in a lower, humming tone, their _Ave-Marias_
and _Pater-Nosters_. As soon as the reciting and counting of beads
was over, as it was in a minute, they struck in again with their gay
conversation. We had plenty of time to take it all in. The Pope is
always late, and it was an hour after the time fixed for the audience
when he appeared; but at last he did, and instantly everybody, men and
women, sprang up on the benches and chairs, frantically waving their
handkerchiefs and shouting at the top of their voices, "_Evviva il
Papa-Re! Evviva il Papa-Re!_"--"Long live the Pope-King! Long live the
Pope-King!"--the ablest performer in this part of the ceremony being a
leather-lunged young priest at my elbow, with a voice as powerful and
persistent as that of a hungry calf, and who made known his desire
for the restoration of the temporal power to the Pope with such energy
that the perspiration rolled down his fat face in shining rivulets.
I never heard anything like it except in a political convention or a
stock exchange. Accompanied by the Noble Guard, a body of picked men
renowned for their superb physique and clad in resplendent uniform, the
Holy Father was borne in on an arm-chair, carried by twelve men, also
in uniform. Occasionally he would rise to his feet with evident effort,
leaning on, or rather grasping, one arm of his chair, and bless the
people he was passing, with two fingers outstretched in the familiar
attitude that we have seen in the pictures. At such times the furious
acclamations, and waving of handkerchiefs, and clapping of hands,
would be redoubled. He passed within arm's length of us, a little knot
of Protestants, silent amid the uproar. It was a pitiful spectacle.
A pallid, feeble, tottering old man, with slender, shrunken neck,
and excessively sharp and prominent features, nose and chin almost
meeting--we now understood Zola's description: "The simious ugliness of

Accordingly, within four hours of receiving his appointment, Terence
bade his parent farewell and proceeded by rail to Devonport, where
the "Sunderland" was lying. It was nearly dark when he alighted at
Millbay station. Here he called a taxi and was whirled off to the
Dockyard, whence a picquet boat conveyed him to the cruiser, which
was lying at a buoy in the Hamoaze.

"We're off under sealed orders at six o'clock tomorrow morning,"
announced one of his new shipmates, a junior lieutenant, Teddy
Barracombe by name. "Of course, we are quite in the dark, but there's
a strong idea floating around that the ship's off to the Near East.
Just my mark! According to all accounts we'll be pretty busy in the
Dardanelles."

"That's all very fine for you," commented Oswestry, the torpedo
lieutenant, "but where do I come in? We can't use torpedoes against
fortifications, you know, and there's precious little floating about
for us to go for."

"Don't take on, Torps," said Barracombe cheerfully. "You never know
your luck. Wait and see."

"I'd rather t'were the other way about," corrected Torps. "Seeing
your torpedo leave the tube and waiting for the enemy ship to be
blown up. No Dardanelles for me. So I hope to goodness it's the North
Sea. By Jove, I do!"

As soon as the "Sunderland" was clear of the breakwater the momentous
orders were opened. It was not to the Near East; the cruiser had to
proceed to Dover and await further instructions.

All the way up Channel a rigorous watch was maintained, for hostile
submarines had made their presence unpleasantly felt off Prawle
Point, the Bill of Portland, and south of the Royal Sovereign
Lightship. The cruiser pelted under forced draught, steering a
zig-zag course in order to baffle the carefully-planned calculations
of the lurking tigers of the deep, while the guns were manned and
trained abeam ready to be laid upon the first suspicious object
resembling a periscope.

Being the first day of the month the ship's company was to be paid,
and soon after six bells final preparations for the solemn rite were
in progress.

At a quarter to one two "G's"--the officers' call--sounded, and the
first hundred men, mustering by open list, assembled in the Port
Battery. On the quarter-deck tables were placed in position, on each
of which were teak trays divided into small compartments by brass
strips. In each of these divisions a man's monthly pay and allowance
money had already been placed and checked by the paymaster and his
staff.

Owing to the conditions of war-time the captain was not present, his
duty of superintending the payment being taken by the commander. At
the tables stood the staff-paymaster, the R.N.R. assistant-paymaster,
and the chief writer.

The staff-paymaster glanced at the commander, indicating that all was
in readiness. The commander gave the word to carry on, and the
disbursing of coin began.

The assistant-paymaster called the men's names from a book. Each
seaman stepped briskly forward to the chalk line, removed his cap,
and, according to instructions, looked the accountant officer
squarely in the face and gave his name and rating. Then, receiving
his money in the crown of his cap, the recipient saluted and moved
away to make room for the next man.

All was proceeding smoothly and with the regularity of clockwork when
suddenly a diversion occurred.

The ship's company had a mascot in the shape of a young African
monkey, that had been presented to the "Sunderland" by a French
cruiser during a visit to an Algerian port. Although usually
good-tempered "Mephisto" could and did exhibit fits of sulkiness and
outbursts of insubordination that would have earned a lower deck man
ninety days' "confined to detention quarters." But the monkey being a
sort of chartered libertine, was idolized by the ship's company and
mildly tolerated by the officers.

Mephisto was lazily sunning himself under the lee of the quarter-deck
6-in gun shield when his eye caught sight of the chief writer's
silver watch, which that petty officer had occasion to consult.

Probably the monkey imagined that it was one of the tins of condensed
milk for which he had great partiality.

Getting on his four feet Mephisto ambled across the quarter-deck,
past the line of men drawn up at attention. Before he could cross the
chalk line, a symbol for which he had no respect, the chief writer
had replaced his timepiece.

Foiled in that direction the monkey made a grab at a pile of brand
new copper coins, and before any of the officers and men could
prevent, had made a rush for the weather-shrouds.

"Stop him!" yelled the commander.

A dozen men hastened to comply, jolting against each other in their
alacrity to pursue the animal, which with marvellous agility had
gained the extremity of the signal yard-arm.

Here he perched, hanging on with his hind paws while he tasted each
coin with his teeth--at first with an expression of hopefulness upon
his features that rapidly changed into one of profound disgust.

Holding the rest of the coins against his chest Mephisto hurled one
on to the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck. It landed in one of
the compartments of the pay-table, displacing a sovereign, that
rolled between the staff-paymaster and the assistant-paymaster.

Both officers simultaneously stooped to recover the errant piece of
gold. The result was that their heads met with a thud in spite of the
protection afforded by their peaked caps.

Several of the men could not conceal a grin. One broke into a laugh,
and meeting the stern glance of the commander tried to side-track
into a painful cough.

Fortunately for the culprit the commander was inwardly affected by a
similar complaint, for he, too, saw the humour of the business.

"Confound you!" shouted the staff-paymaster, removing his cap and
rubbing his bald head. "Confound you, you brute! Throwing away the
money from the public chest!"

The only reply from Mephisto was another penny that, thrown with
splendid aim, rebounded from the staff-paymaster's shiny pate.

"The ship's company will have to make up the loss," he muttered.
"They're responsible for their confounded pet."

"But you're responsible for the money, Staggles," remarked the
commander drily. "At any rate, Mephisto is paying you back by
instalments."

It wanted all the self-control at their command to keep the lookout
men's attention from the comic scene to a duty of a serious nature,
while the gun's crews temporarily forgot their duties to watch the
encounter between the mascot and the staff-paymaster.

"Catch it--oh, you rotten butterfingers!" groaned the accountant
officer to the assistant-paymaster, who, missing a coin thrown by the
animal, allowed the sum of one penny to be committed to the deep.
"Here, ship's steward, nip below and open a tin of condensed. That
may tempt the brute below."

"You're condoning an offence, Staggles," said the commander in an
undertone, with a humorous gleam in his eye.

Another coin tinkled on the deck. The commander promptly placed his
foot on it to check its career towards the side.

"Where did that go?" asked the staff-paymaster, who, curiously
enough, had a miserly regard for any money except his own, which he
spent liberally.

The commander shifted his foot and pointed to the retrieved coin; as
he did so, another penny, hurtling through the air, hit him smartly
on his bent neck and promptly slithered inside his collar and down
his back.

Unfortunately the commander was a man of a most ticklish temperament.
The contact of the metal disc with his back caused him to writhe like
a lost soul in torment. He had recently unflinchingly faced death in
a hotly-contested engagement in the North Sea, but this rear attack
completely unnerved him. His grotesque efforts to capture the elusive
coin was too much for the rest of the officers and men. They were
unable to conceal their amusement. Finally the commander dived down
below and divested himself of his uniform.

Just then the ship's steward appeared with the tin of condensed milk,
and handed the unopened can to a seaman. Away aloft the man made his
way till he gained the cross-trees. Owing to the "Sunderland"
altering her course she was swinging considerably to starboard, and
the motion made the man advance cautiously, his feet sliding along
the foot-ropes while he held on grimly with his free hand to the
spar.

Mephisto eyed the approaching delicacy with marked approval. Letting
the remaining coins drop, some of which tinkled on deck although most
of them fell overboard, he whisked along the yard-arm, and before the
seaman realized the brute's intention, snatched the can from his
grasp.

A snarl warned the bluejacket that if he advanced it would be at his
peril, and unwilling to risk an encounter with an agile monkey on the
swaying yard, he followed the precept of discretion being the better
part of valour, and regained the deck, leaving the spoils in the
hands of the elated ape.

Presently the monkey had another disappointment. The intact tin
baffled him. He tried his teeth upon it--but unavailingly, so he
began to batter it upon the metal eye of a band encircling the spar.

"There'll be an unholy mess, by Jove!" ejaculated the commander, who
had now reappeared upon the scene, for the tin showed signs of
capitulating to the strenuous frontal attacks on the part of
Mephisto.

"Bring up another tin--and take care to open it this time," ordered
the staff-paymaster recklessly, who had now taken the precaution of
covering the pay-tables with a green baize cloth.

"Bang, bang, bang!" went the tin under the muscular efforts of
Mephisto. Already large drops of the viscous fluid were descending
upon the hallowed quarter-deck, bespattering officers and men
indiscriminately, for owing to the ship's speed a strong current of
air was drifting aft and spraying the stuff far and wide.

"Clear the quarter-deck," ordered the commander. "Up aloft a couple
of hands and collar the brute. By Jove! if it gives much more
trouble, I'll have it shot."

Suddenly, above the scuffling of feet as the men doubled for'ard,
came the shout: "Submarine on the port quarter."

Sharply the bugle sounded "Action," and as the "Sunderland" began to
circle to starboard in answer to a quick movement of her helm, the
quick-firers began to bark at a pole-like object four hundred yards
off.

The unexpected detonation, as a gun was discharged fifty feet under
his nose, completed Mephisto's brief spell of unalloyed liberty.
Temporarily stunned by the terrific concussion the monkey relaxed his
grip and fell.

Just at that moment the staff-paymaster, who was scurrying below with
one of the pay-trays, happened to be passing in the direct line of
Mephisto's descent. The next instant the portly officer was rolling
on the deck in a puddle of condensed milk with the monkey's paws
clutching at his scanty crop of hair, while to complete the
staff-paymaster's discomfiture most of the money he was carrying
rolled overboard.

Regaining his feet Staff-paymaster Staggles contrived to reach the
companion, and with Mephisto still firmly attached to him,
disappeared below.

But the men's attention was now directed towards more serious
matters. An ever-diverging line that rippled the placid water denoted
the approach of a deadly torpedo. Now it was heading as if about to
hit the bows of the "Sunderland," a second later and the arrow-like
ripples seemed to be approaching directly abeam; then, as the cruiser
swung almost on her heel the wake of the formidable missile was
merged into the churning froth astern. It had missed by a bare yard.

From the fire-control platform telephone bells were clanging and men
shouting through the voice-tubes. From their elevated position the
watchers could discern a long, dark shadow that marked the position
of the submarine.

Completely circling the "Sunderland" was steadied on her helm and
steered straight for the spot. In vain the submerged craft attempted
to dive to a depth greater than that of her enemy's draught.

Terence, who was stationed on the after-bridge, felt a faint shock as
the five thousand tons vessel literally cut the luckless submarine in
twain. For a brief instant the lieutenant caught sight of the
after-portion of the "U" boat, as, rendered buoyant by the trapped
air, it drifted past. Then amidst a smother of foam and oil the
wreckage vanished.

"The eleventh to my certain knowledge," remarked the commander, as
coolly as if he were reckoning up the score at an athletic meeting.

"Any damage for'ard, Mr. Black?"

"No, sir; all as tight as a bottle as far as I can see," replied the
carpenter, who immediately after the impact had hurried below to see
if any plates had been "started."

A little later in the afternoon several of the ward-room officers
were enjoying their cups of tea and biscuits, when the
staff-paymaster entered.

"Well, Staggles, what's the shortage?" asked the commander
facetiously.

The accountant officer eyed his tormentor reproachfully, as if that
officer were responsible for his former discomfiture.

"One pound three shillings and threepence--and two tins of condensed
milk," he announced stiffly. "According to paragraph 445 of the
Admiralty Instructions there will have to be two separate reports on
the shortage."

The staff-paymaster spoke seriously. The man was heart and soul in
his work, and his mental horizon was bounded by official forms and
other red-tapeism connected with the accountant branch of H.M.
Service.

"By the by," interposed Oswestry, "Staggles ought to be recommended
for the V.C."

"What's that, Torps?" asked Barracombe. "Our staff-paymaster the
V.C.?"

"What for?" inquired the staff-paymaster innocently.

The commander entrenched himself behind a double number of an
illustrated periodical.

"For bringing Mephisto in out of action," he replied with a chuckle.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FOILED AIR RAID.


LATE that evening the "Sunderland" brought up in the Admiralty
Harbour at Dover, in company with three other light cruisers, two
monitors, and a flotilla of destroyers. All night long the men slept
at their guns, while the cruiser's searchlights aided those of the
forts both ashore and on the breakwater in sweeping the approach to
the sheltered harbour.

"Nothing to report," announced Barracombe, as Aubyn relieved him as
officer of the watch. "A jolly fine night. I shouldn't wonder if we
were favoured by a visit from a Zeppelin or two."

"A pretty jamb in the harbour," said Terence, giving a quick glance
at the maze of vessels. "Fortunately, I hear, we've several seaplanes
at our disposal."

Barracombe wished his relief good-night and descended the ladder to
retire to the seclusion of his cabin and sleep the sleep of
exhaustion, for he had had a strenuous time before the cruiser left
Devonport.

During the first hour nothing unusual occurred. The midshipman of the
watch reported "Rounds all correct, sir," to which Aubyn replied with
the stereotyped "Very good." Across the harbour came the faint hail
of the Night Guard as the picquet boat studiously visited every
vessel within the limits of the breakwater.

The masthead light of the flagship began to blink. A signalman on the
"Sunderland's" bridge snatched up a slate.

"General call, sir," he announced.

Deftly the man took down the message, then hurried to the chart-room
to decipher the code.

"Submarine E27 reports three hostile aeroplanes passing S.W. by W.
Position eleven miles N.N.E. of North Goodwin."

The warning was a brief one, for hardly had the ship's company been
called to their action stations when a faint buzzing, immediately
becoming louder and louder, announced that the raiders were
approaching the town and harbour of Dover.

Searchlights flashed skywards, while from beneath the old castle on
the lofty chalk cliffs half a dozen intrepid British airmen ascended
to meet the foe. Already the anti-aerial guns were stabbing the
darkness with lurid spurts of flame, while their shells, bursting
perilously close to the hostile aeroplanes, caused the calculating
Teutons to think better of the attempt.

It was an easy matter to steal over an unfortified town or village
and drop explosives; but for once the Germans were to learn the
wisdom of discrimination. Higher and higher they banked, until
catching a glimpse of the British seaplanes as they passed through
the path of one of the searchlights they precipitately turned tail.

"'Sunderland' and destroyer flotilla to proceed in support of
seaplanes," came the signal.

Hastily the pins of the mooring shackle were knocked out. Steam was
already raised, and in a very few minutes the light cruiser and her
attendant destroyers were slipping between the heads of the detached
breakwater and the Admiralty Pier.

But swift as were the light cruisers the seaplanes were quicker.
Already they were five or six miles out to sea, their position being
revealed by the flashes of the light guns as they exchanged shots
with the fugitive Taubes.

Suddenly with a dazzling flash a bomb exploded hardly twenty feet
from the "Sunderland's" starboard quarter. Five seconds later another
struck the water almost under the cruiser's bows, and a waft of
evil-smelling gas drifted across the navigation bridge, causing
officers and men to cough and gasp for breath.

The captain tried to give an order, but was unable to utter a sound.
Mutely he signed for the helm to be put hard over.

Terence understood. Literally groping his way through the thick
vapour, that even in the darkness showed an unmistakable greenish
hue, he found the quartermaster, who was clutching his throat and
struggling for breath.

Pushing the man aside Aubyn rapidly revolved the steam steering-gear.
Obediently the cruiser swung round, narrowly escaping a high
explosive missile that, had she maintained her course, would have
played havoc with her fo'c'sle.

All around the "Sunderland" the destroyers were dodging hither and
thither in order to attempt to avoid the hail of bombs that rained
from the sky. It was little short of a miracle that collisions did
not take place, for owing to the darkness, the suffocating fumes from
the missiles, and to the fact that most of the helmsmen were
temporarily blinded and choked, all attempt at formation was out of
the question.

From the after-bridge of the cruiser a searchlight flashed skywards.
For a few seconds even its powerful rays failed to penetrate the pall
of smoke, till an eddying gust freed the "Sunderland" from the
noxious fumes.

Then the source of the mysterious missiles was revealed. At a height
of over two thousand feet were a couple of Zeppelins. Taking
advantage of the fact that the attention of the British seaplanes and
destroyers was centred on the fugitive Taubes, these giant airships,
by reason of their altitude, were able to manoeuvre immediately above
the flotilla.

It was an opportunity too good to be missed, for although the
objective of the Zeppelins was a raid on London--they having decided
upon a circuitous course over Kent and Sussex borders in order to
avoid the air-stations at the Isle of Grain--the chance of raining a
shower of bombs upon the British cruiser and her attendant destroyers
was too tempting.

For once, at least, the German Admiralty had not been kept well
posted as to the details of armament of the cruisers of the "Town
Class," for the "Sunderland" and her consorts had recently been
equipped with a couple of 12-pounder anti-aircraft guns. These
weapons fired a shell of unique character. Somewhat resembling a
shrapnel, the missile was packed with short lengths of chain and
charged with a high explosive.

Almost as soon as the Zeppelins were discovered both guns barked
venomously. From the point of view of the observers on the
"Sunderland's" bridge the shells appeared to burst close to the frail
targets. Both airships were observed to pitch violently, while one,
with her nose tilted downwards, began to descend.

"She's done for!" exclaimed Terence.

A round of cheering burst from the throats of the crew. It seemed as
if nothing could arrest the seaward plunge of one of the Kaiser's
gas-bags. Not only had her bow compartments been holed but the
nacelle containing the propelling machinery was completely wrecked.

Both Zeppelins began to throw out ballast with frantic haste. They
also released the whole of their remaining supply of bombs, which
fell with a rapid series of deafening detonations more than half a
mile from the nearest destroyer.

With the release of the ballast the undamaged Zeppelin shot skywards
until her altitude was not less than ten thousand feet. Comparatively
safe for the time being from the effect of the anti-aircraft shells,
she floated, a mere speck in the concentrated yet diminished glare of
a dozen searchlights, and awaited events.

Meanwhile, the damaged Zeppelin had checked her plunge, and, in spite
of a hot fire, was slowly rising. By dint of strenuous efforts her
crew succeeded in shifting aft the travelling weight that served to
trim the unwieldy craft. Even then her longitudinal axis was sharply
inclined to the horizontal.

Everything that could be jettisoned was thrown overboard. Guns,
ammunition, stores, and the metal framework of the wrecked car were
sacrificed, till without being hit by the British guns, she rose to a
terrific height.

"We've lost her!" exclaimed Oswestry savagely.

"One thing, she won't trouble us again," added the commander. "And
I'm not so certain that she will get clear. We've wirelessed the
seaplanes, and they'll have a chip in. Hullo! What's the game now?"

A searchlight flashed from the undamaged Zeppelin and played in
ever-widening circles until it picked up her damaged consort. The
latter was consequently more plainly discernible to the crew of the
"Sunderland" than it had hitherto been, since the distance between
the two airships was less than a thousand yards and was visibly
decreasing.

"They're going to take her in tow, by Jove!" ejaculated Aubyn, who
had brought his binoculars to play upon the scene.

Oswestry gave a snort that implied disbelief in his brother-officer's
assertion, but presently he exclaimed:--

"Well, blest if you aren't right, old man. And a deuced smart move,"
he added, with a true sailor's admiration for a smart manoeuvre,
whether executed by friend or foe.

"What a chance for our seaplanes!" said the torpedo lieutenant.
"They ought to have been on the spot before this."

"They're on the way all right, Torps," declared the commander. "I
wouldn't mind betting a month's pay that they've spotted their
quarry. By Jove, they've established communication!"

The undamaged Zeppelin had circled round her consort and was now
forging gently ahead. An upward jerk of the other's bows announced
that the strain on the towing hawser was beginning to be felt.
Gradually the hitherto uncontrollable airship began to gather way,
both vessels rolling sluggishly in the light air-currents.

The aerial searchlight had now been switched off, but by means of the
rays directed from the British ships the progress of the two
Zeppelins could be followed as their huge shapes, showing ghost-like
in the silvery light, moved slowly in a north-easterly direction.

Having resumed their respective stations the cruiser and the
destroyer flotilla followed. Owing to the greatly reduced speed of
the hostile aircraft it was an easy matter to maintain a fixed
relative distance between them and the British vessels, whose
attention was divided between the prospect of an aerial meeting with
seaplanes and the risk of being intercepted by the torpedo of a
German submarine, to say nothing of floating mines.

"She's cast off!" shouted a dozen voices.

Such was the case. The two Zeppelins had parted company, one flying
off at a terrific speed, rising rapidly as she did so, while the
other, being without means of propulsion, drifted at the mercy of the
winds.

It was now dawn. The grey light of morning was already overcoming the
strength of the searchlights and it was already possible to discern
the outlines of the abandoned Zeppelin by the natural light of day.

Pelting up from the eastward came the air squadron of seaplanes. Half
a dozen circled and started off in pursuit of the fugitive airship,
which, travelling at high speed, was now but a faint speck against
the ruddy sky.

The rest advanced boldly upon the disabled Zeppelin, although
ignorant of the fact that she had jettisoned her guns, and, save for
a few rifles, was without means of defence.

The seaplanes' automatic guns spat viciously, and as the range
decreased almost every shot began to tell. The huge fabric once more
began to drop, as the small projectile ripped through the flimsy
aluminium envelope.

Presently the seaplanes ceased firing and circled triumphantly over
their vanquished foe. They knew that the Zeppelin was doomed, and
instincts of humanity forbade them to take undue advantage of the
plight of her crew.

"Away, boats!" ordered the "Sunderland's" captain.

Instantly there was a rush to man the boats and to stand by the
falls. With an alacrity that was part of his nature, Jack Tar
prepared to rescue his enemy, in spite of the fact that that enemy
had sallied forth with the deliberate intention of hurling bombs with
the utmost indiscrimination upon combatants and non-combatants alike,
not excepting helpless women and children.

Before the boats could be lowered a lurid blaze of light rolled out,
rivalling the rays of the rising sun. Where the Zeppelin had been
only a cloud of flame-tinged smoke remained, while from the
mushroomed pall of vapour that marked a funereal pyre of yet another
unit of the Kaiser's air-fleet, scorched and twisted girders and
other débris streamed seawards.

Whether by accident or design the only remaining petrol tank had
exploded, and the flames instantly igniting the huge volume of
hydrogen had in the twinkling of an eye completed the work of
destruction.

For ten minutes the destroyers cruised over the spot where the
débris had disappeared, but there were no signs of survivors, not
even of wreckage. The remains of the Zeppelin had been swallowed up
by the insatiable sea, and no visible trophy remained in the hands of
the men who had baulked an attempted raid on the largest city of the
world.

Before the flotilla regained Dover Harbour the remaining seaplanes
came in sight. Unfortunately their efforts at pursuit were futile.
The Zeppelin developing a turn of speed far in excess of which she
had been credited by her detractors, had shaken off the British
aircraft, and when last seen she was high over the Belgian coast.

Nevertheless, her wings had been clipped, although she survived to
tell the tale that the hated English were still able vigorously and
successfully to dispute the mastery of the air.




CHAPTER XXIX.

"LIEUTENANT AUBYN, R.N., D.S.O."


ON the evening following the return of the "Sunderland" to Dover,
Terence obtained leave to go ashore in order to visit a
brother-officer who, owing to his ship being under repairs, was
temporarily installed in the Lord Warden Hotel.

Aubyn was proceeding along the Admiralty Pier when his progress was
barred by a tall, bronzed young fellow in the uniform of a
flight-lieutenant of the Naval Air Service.

"Hullo, Aubyn, old man!" exclaimed the latter cordially, as he
extended his hand. "Forgotten me already?"

"Waynsford, by Jove!" ejaculated Terence. "Bless you, Dick, I never
expected to see you here and in this rig. What has happened?"

"Oh, I chucked the Motor Boat Reserve," declared Waynsford. "It was a
bit too dull. They sent me to Southampton, and that was the limit. A
superannuated postman could have done my job, which was delivering
letters to transports. So I applied for the Naval Air Service. It's
more in my line."

"Been across yet?" asked Terence, indicating the twenty odd mile
strip of water that separated Great Britain from the scene of land
hostilities.

"Dunkirk twice," replied Waynsford. "Was there when the Germans
started shelling the place. But we're off again early to-morrow
morning."

"Yes, I heard," said Aubyn. "Big operations. We are to engage the
Zeebrugge and Ostend batteries while the Allied airmen play with the
German lines of communication. So I may see something of you."

"I hope so--after the fun is over," replied the young airman. "Well,
I must be moving. Early hours and a good night's rest are essential
to this sort of work."

The two friends parted, Terence making for the hotel, while Waynsford
walked off in the direction of the castle, in which the airmen
detailed for the great raid were temporarily quartered.

Precisely at one hour before sunrise the first British waterplane
rose from the surface of Dover Harbour. Almost simultaneously an Army
aeroplane "kicked off" from the sloping ground beyond the chalk
cliffs. Each was followed at regular intervals, until a double row of
swift air-craft flying with methodical precision headed towards the
Flanders shore.

Already the "Sunderland" and three other light cruisers, accompanied
by a torpedo-boat destroyer flotilla, were shaping a course for the
Belgian coast.

Off the East Goodwins they were joined by two monitors and three
pre-Dreadnought battleships, and the battle line was formed. Away
steamed the destroyers to act as screens to the heavier vessels, and
to guard them from submarine attack. The monitors led the main
division, the cruisers acting as links between them and the
battleships, which, owing to their greater draught, could not
approach the coast nearer than a distance of from four to seven
miles.

From Aubyn's point of view the forthcoming operations were entirely
new. For the first time in his experience he was to take part in an
action between ships and shore batteries, the latter being both fixed
and mobile. It was a comparatively easy matter to plant shells into
forts the position of which were known, but the Germans had brought
up heavy guns mounted on travelling platforms, which could be moved
with considerable celerity behind the long, low-lying sand dunes
between Nieuport and Zeebrugge.

It was partly to locate the latter that the airmen had preceded the
bombarding ships, and also to harass the enemy's lines of
communication. Moreover, hostile submarines were reported to have
been brought in sections to Zeebrugge, where they were being bolted
together ready to take the offensive against the British vessels
operating off the Belgian coast.

The "Sunderland," like her consorts, was already cleared for action.
All the crew were behind the protected portions of the ship, but the
captain and seven of the officers elected to fight the ship not from
the armoured conning-tower but from the fore-bridge.

"By Jove! They're at it already," exclaimed Oswestry, as a series of
rapid detonations came from across the dunes.

By the aid of their glasses the officers could discern the fleecy
mushrooms of smoke caused by the bursting of the anti-aerial guns
directed against the British airmen. Viewed from a distance it seemed
impossible that a frail aeroplane could exist amid that tornado of
shell.

"Wireless reports mobile battery three hundred yards sou'-sou'-east
of Clemskercke church, sir," reported a signalman.

Promptly the news was transmitted to the fire-control platform. In
his lofty perch a gunnery-lieutenant was busy with a complication of
instruments, assisted by a midshipman and three seamen.

"Fire-control to for'ard 6-inch gun: stand by!" came the telephonic
order. "Fire-control to port battery stand by."

Round swung the guns, "laid" by the master hand of the
gunnery-lieutenant on the fire-control platform. Docilely obedient to
the delicate mechanism they reared their muzzles high in the air.

Then, with a crash that shook the ship, five of the 6-inch guns spoke
simultaneously. To the accompaniment of a long-drawn shriek the
100-pound missiles hurtled through space.

"Eighty yards short," came the wireless report of the observing
seaplane that, hovering a bare five hundred feet above the German
mobile battery, had marked the point of impact of the shells.

Again a salvo was let loose. This time came the encouraging statement
that the hostile guns were knocked clean out of action, and that
swarms of artillerymen and infantry were scurrying across the dunes.

The next discharge practically annihilated the fugitives. In one
minute and twenty-five seconds the "Sunderland's" particular task was
accomplished. It was but the beginning, for acting upon orders from
the flagship she was ordered to engage a battery at close range.

Meanwhile, the rest of the battleships and cruisers had not been
idle. A perfect tornado of shell was being directed upon the Belgian
shore.

"Hard aport!" shouted the captain of the "Sunderland."

Round swung the cruiser, only just avoiding the tell-tale line of
bubbles that marked the track of a torpedo. With consummate daring a
German submarine had dived under a part of the torpedo-boat destroyer
flotilla, and had discharged a weapon at the British cruiser. The
torpedo, having missed the "Sunderland," was tearing straight for one
of the monitors, which, having to go full speed astern to avoid a
collision with a couple of damaged destroyers, was now practically
stationary.

Owing to the light draught the weapon passed six feet beneath her
keel, and finishing its run rose to the surface three hundred yards
beyond; for, instead of the torpedo sinking at the end of its course,
the Germans, in direct contravention of the laws of naval warfare,
had closed the sinking valve so that the torpedo virtually became a
floating mine.

In this instance the trick did not avail, for a well-directed shot
from one of the monitor's quick-firers exploded the war-head and sent
the missile into a thousand fragments.

"A feeble reply," observed Oswestry to Terence. "These fellows seem
afraid to stand to their guns."

Even as he spoke the air was torn by a terrific salvo of shells from
powerful batteries hitherto well concealed in the dunes. The
"Sunderland," being fairly close, seemed the special mark, for in six
seconds she received as many direct hits. One of her funnels showed a
jagged gash ten feet in length and was only prevented from toppling
overboard by the steel-wire guys. A three-pounder gun, that
fortunately was not manned, was blown completely from its mountings,
while the rest of the shells passed clean through the unprotected
parts of the ship, totally wrecking the ward-room and the stokers'
mess-deck.

Terence felt a strong desire to make a hasty rush for the shelter of
the conning-tower, for splinters were flying and wafts of pungent
smoke from the hostile shells were drifting over the bridge, but the
sight of his captain standing cool and collected and without a
vestige of protection tended to restore his confidence.

With unabated fury her guns replied to the German fire. The
"Sunderland" proved that she could receive as well as give hard
knocks.

It was time to give the almost overheated starboard guns a chance to
cool, so orders were given for the helm to be starboarded. Seeing the
cruiser in the act of turning, a destroyer tore across her bows,
purposely throwing out huge volumes of black smoke from her four
funnels in order to mask the "Sunderland" as she circled.

Terence recognized the destroyer as his old ship the "Livingstone,"
as she darted swiftly round the turning cruiser, then, leaving a
thick pall of smoke in her wake, hastened off to assist another
destroyer that was evidently in difficulties.

The "Livingstone's" manoeuvre undoubtedly saved the "Sunderland" from
destruction, for a fifty-two centimetre shell, aimed to hit the exact
position where the cruiser would have been had she not altered
course, struck the water with a tremendous splash not fifty yards on
her beam.

Before the "Sunderland" had drawn clear of the friendly cloud of
smoke she had increased her distance from shore by nearly five
cables' lengths; while, until the German gunners had found the range
anew, she was able to enjoy a brief respite.

"Seaplanes returning," announced the gunnery-lieutenant on the
fire-control platform, who from his elevated post could command a
wide and almost uninterrupted view.

Their task done, the seaplanes, which had been engaged in dropping
bombs on the railway stations in the rear of the German batteries,
were on their homeward way. Anxiously Terence counted them. Thank
heaven! Not one was missing.

Apparently the last but one of the aerial procession was in
difficulties, for the seaplane was rocking violently, and in spite of
a dangerous tilt of the elevating planes was appreciably descending.

Suddenly the frail craft plunged, literally on end, towards the sea,
the force of gravity, acting with the pull of the propeller, greatly
increasing its velocity.

When within two hundred feet of the surface the seaplane made a
complete loop, then after climbing a hundred feet or so, began to
side-slip.

"By Jove! He'll be drowned for a dead cert," exclaimed Terence, for
he knew for a fact that the aviator had not been thrown from the
chassis when the seaplane "looped the loop," and in consequence must
be strapped to his seat.

"Away sea-boat," ordered the captain, at the same time giving
directions for both engines to be reversed.

The "Sunderland" was considerably the nearest warship to the
descending airman. Already the "Livingstone" and her two sister-ship
destroyers were a mile or so away, and wearing at full speed to
investigate a suspicious swirl in the water.

Shells were again dropping unpleasantly near to the cruiser as Aubyn
hurried towards the boat which was, owing to being cleared for
action, secured inboard, abreast the after funnel.

Before he reached this spot the seaplane had struck the surface of
the water. Falling obliquely and at a sharp angle, the impact had
shattered one of the floats. When the cascade of spray had subsided
the wrecked craft could be seen still afloat but listing acutely. The
aviator had survived the shock and was hurriedly unbuckling the strap
that held him to his seat.

"Boat's done for, sir," announced one of the would-be crew. Such was
the case. The explosion of a shell had wrenched her keel and
garboards out of her.

"Then overboard with that!" ordered Terence, indicating a Carley
life-buoy, which, though scorched by the blast of the shells, was
still practically intact.

The Carley life-buoy is a "new departure" in life-saving appliances
on board ships of the Royal Navy. It is a glorified edition of an
ordinary buoy, but elongated in shape and provided with gratings, and
capable of being propelled by oars.

Half a dozen bluejackets seized the huge buoy and slung it overboard.
Held by means of a line it floated alongside the cruiser until
Terence and three men clambered into it.

Although the rate of propulsion was not by any means so rapid as that
of a boat the progress of the rescuers was far from slow. More than
once they were splashed by the spray thrown up by a ricochetting
projectile, as the German gunlayers were gradually correcting their
aim, yet unscathed the rescue party came alongside the gradually
sinking seaplane.

"Hullo, Aubyn!" shouted a well-known voice.

The airman was Waynsford. In his pneumatic helmet and huge goggles he
was unrecognizable, but his voice proclaimed his identity.

"Hurt, old man?" asked Terence.

"Not a bit," replied Waynsford coolly. "They clipped a couple of
stays just as I was getting out of range. But we did the trick, by
Jove! Blew the railway station to Jericho."

"Hurry up," interposed Terence. "She's going."

The young airman methodically gathered together several important
instruments, and giving a final look round at the aircraft that had
served him so faithfully, stepped into the waiting "Carley."

Before the men had pulled five yards the wrecked machine gave a lurch
and capsized completely. Supported by trapped air in the partially
intact float the seaplane sank slowly, and with hardly a ripple
disappeared from view.

With the least possible delay rescuers and rescued were taken on
board the cruiser. Gathering way the "Sunderland" steamed in a
westerly direction in order to baffle the range of the shore
batteries, using her after guns with terrific speed.

Somewhat unceremoniously leaving his friend Terence hastened towards
the bridge. Just as he was abreast of the wreckage of the shattered
funnel a deafening detonation, that completely surpassed the roar of
the cruiser's guns, seemed to burst over his head. Staggering under
the blast of the explosion and temporarily blinded by the pungent
smoke, the lieutenant groped his way until his progress was checked
by a jagged mass of plating rendered almost red-hot by the impact of
a huge shell.

Recoiling, he stood stock still for quite thirty seconds, his senses
numbed by the nerve-racking concussion. Then, as the smoke drifted
away, he could discern the débris of the bridge. Charthouse,
stanchions, semaphore, signal-lockers--all had vanished, and with
them the captain and those of the officers and men who had dared fate
by rejecting the shelter afforded by the conning-tower, which,
stripped of its surroundings, stood out a gaunt, fire-pitted steel
box.

The shell, a 42-centimetre, had literally cleared the forepart of the
ship, from the for'ard 6-inch gun to the second funnel. Everything in
its path had been literally pulverized, with the exception of the
conning-tower. Had the projectile burst on or below the main deck the
fate of the "Sunderland" would have been sealed; as it was, she was
still intact under the waterline.

Instinctively Aubyn realized that the ship was not under control.
Steaming rapidly she was heading towards the "Bradford"--her sister
ship--which was steering in a north-easterly direction at about five
cables' distance on her port bow.

With a tremendous effort of will-power Terence cleared at a bound the
formidable glowing plate of metal that obstructed his path. Making
his way across the scorched and splintered planks, some of which gave
under his weight, he reached the entrance to the conning-tower.

The steel citadel was full of acrid-smelling smoke that eddied in the
air-currents which drifted in through the observation slits.

Bending, and holding his left hand over his mouth and nostrils,
Terence entered. As he did so he stumbled over the body of the
quartermaster.

Propped against the circular walls were the first lieutenant and two
seamen. All the occupants of the conning-tower had been overcome by
the noxious fumes from the highly-charged projectile.

Gasping for fresh air Terence flung himself upon the steam-steering
gear and put the helm hard over. A glimpse through one of the slits
revealed the fact that the cruiser was answering to her helm. Yet so
narrowly had a collision been averted that the "Sunderland's"
starboard side was within twenty feet of the "Bradford's" port
quarter as the two vessels swung apart.

The guns were now silent, for with the destruction of the foremast
the fire-control platform and its occupants had been swept out of
existence. The cruiser was temporarily out of action.

Terence was beginning to feel dizzy and faint. Why, he knew not.
Perhaps it was the pungent fumes. Leaning over the mouthpiece of the
speaking tube he ordered a couple of quartermasters to be sent to the
conning-tower. He could hardly recognize the sound of his own voice.
It seemed miles away.

Again he looked ahead. The cruiser was still drawing further and
further out of range. Having satisfied himself on that score and that
there was no fresh danger of colliding with any of the rest of the
fleet, he staggered into the open air and leaned heavily against the
outer wall of the conning-tower, He was barely conscious that the
metal was still hot.

Up came the quartermasters. At their heels was a sub-lieutenant, his
face grimed with smoke and his uniform torn.

"Take over, Garboard," ordered the lieutenant brokenly. "Report to
the flagship and ask instructions. I'm feeling deucedly queer."

"Why, you're wounded!" exclaimed the sub-lieutenant, noticing a dark
and increasing patch upon Aubyn's coat.

"Am I?" asked Terence incredulously.

Turning his head to ascertain the nature of his injury, of which
hitherto he was unconscious, his shoulder slipped along the curved
steel wall. Garboard was only just in time to save him from
collapsing inertly upon the deck of the ship he had brought safely
out of action.



"Congratulations, old man. You'll have to get your tailor to make
some alteration in your uniform."

"What do you mean?" asked Terence.

Two months had elapsed since the day on which Lieutenant Aubyn had
received a dangerous wound in his right side in the fight off Ostend.

He was sitting in the grounds of the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham,
having made a fairly rapid recovery.

The officer who offered his congratulations was Oswestry, the
torpedo-lieutenant of the "Sunderland," who was also a convalescent,
having managed to intercept a flying fragment of metal during the
momentous engagement.

"Torps" flourished a newspaper with his left hand, for his right arm
was in a sling.

"Stop press--Latest news and appointments," he read. "The Admiralty
has approved of the following transfer. From R.N.R. to R.N.:
Lieutenant Terence Aubyn, to date 3rd of June, 1915."

For a moment Terence looked incredulously at the torpedo-lieutenant.
"Torps," he knew, was fond of a practical joke, but if he were
playing a prank it was carrying the game a little too far.

"Here you are," continued Oswestry, noting the expression on
Terence's face. "Read it for yourself."

"It's worth getting this," said Aubyn, indicating the position of his
wound. "All I want now is to be afloat again."

"Young fire-eater!" exclaimed "Torps" facetiously. "Don't you
worry--you'll have a look-in before The Day comes. By Jove, Aubyn,
you'll have to ask the surgeon if he'll allow you to hold a
fête----"

The crunching of boots upon the gravel path caused both officers to
turn. Standing at attention was a Marine orderly; behind him a
telegraph boy.

"Congratulations pouring in already," remarked "Torps."

Terence took the buff envelope and opened it.

"Great Scott!" he exclaimed brokenly, and without another word he
handed the telegram to his companion.

"It never rains but it pours," quoted "Torps." "You'll attain
Flag-rank in another fifteen years, mark my words. Lieutenant Aubyn,
D.S.O."

The "wire" was a private tip from a personal friend at the Admiralty,
informing Terence that His Majesty had been graciously pleased to
bestow upon him the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry in
bringing H.M.S. "Sunderland" out of action during operations off the
Belgian coast.

"Torps" was not far short of the mark, for a D.S.O. almost invariably
means a rapid promotion to the fortunate and heroic recipient.

"Flag-rank," echoed Terence. "There's plenty of time for that.
Meanwhile, that's where duty calls," and with a wave of his hand he
indicated the distant North Sea, on which the supreme contest for the
supremacy of the waves will prove that the heritage of Nelson is
still worthily upheld by Britannia's sons.




ABERDEEN: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS




  [Transcriber's Notes:

    This book contains a number of misprints.
    The following misprints have been corrected:

    [the prisoner nonchalently.] -> [the prisoner nonchalantly.]
    [to commuicate with wireless] -> [to communicate with wireless]
    [was calculated to be from] -> [was calculated to be seen from]
    [of what had occured,] -> [of what had occurred,]
    [hostilites as a godsend] -> [hostilities as a godsend]
    [a courtesey that the captain] -> [a courtesy that the captain]
    [its horribly slippery] -> [it's horribly slippery]
    [the concusion had caused] -> [the concussion had caused]
    [with the laudible intention] -> [with the laudable intention]
    [he crosssd the line] -> [he crossed the line]
    [a stragetic point of view] -> [a strategic point of view]
    [the faintest attenion to] -> [the faintest attention to]

    A few cases of punctuation errors were corrected, but are not
    mentioned here.

    A list of illustrations has been added.
  ]








GALSWORTHY PLAYS--SERIES 3

By John Galsworthy


     Contents:
          The Fugitive
          The Pigeon
          The Mob




THE FUGITIVE

A Play in Four Acts




PERSONS OF THE PLAY

GEORGE DEDMOND, a civilian
CLARE, his wife
GENERAL SIR CHARLES DEDMOND, K.C.B., his father.
LADY DEDMOND, his mother
REGINALD HUNTINGDON, Clare's brother
EDWARD FULLARTON, her friend
DOROTHY FULLARTON, her friend
PAYNTER, a manservant
BURNEY, a maid
TWISDEN, a solicitor
HAYWOOD, a tobacconist
MALISE, a writer
MRS. MILER, his caretaker
THE PORTER at his lodgings
A BOY messenger
ARNAUD, a waiter at "The Gascony"
MR. VARLEY, manager of "The Gascony"
TWO LADIES WITH LARGE HATS, A LADY AND GENTLEMAN, A LANGUID LORD,
     HIS COMPANION, A YOUNG MAN, A BLOND GENTLEMAN, A DARK GENTLEMAN.




ACT I.  George Dedmond's Flat.  Evening.

ACT II.  The rooms of Malise.  Morning.

ACT III.  SCENE I.  The rooms of Malice.  Late afternoon.

          SCENE II.      The rooms of Malise.  Early Afternoon.

ACT IV. A small supper room at "The Gascony."




Between Acts I and II three nights elapse.

Between Acts II and Act III, Scene I, three months.

Between Act III, Scene I, and Act III, Scene II, three months.

Between Act III, Scene II, and Act IV, six months.




  "With a hey-ho chivy
  Hark forrard, hark forrard, tantivy!"




ACT I

     The SCENE is the pretty drawing-room of a flat.  There are two
     doors, one open into the hall, the other shut and curtained.
     Through a large bay window, the curtains of which are not yet
     drawn, the towers of Westminster can be seen darkening in a
     summer sunset; a grand piano stands across one corner.  The
     man-servant PAYNTER, clean-shaven and discreet, is arranging two
     tables for Bridge.

     BURNEY, the maid, a girl with one of those flowery Botticellian
     faces only met with in England, comes in through the curtained
     door, which she leaves open, disclosing the glimpse of a white
     wall.  PAYNTER looks up at her; she shakes her head, with an
     expression of concern.

PAYNTER.  Where's she gone?

BURNEY.  Just walks about, I fancy.

PAYNTER.  She and the Governor don't hit it!  One of these days
she'll flit--you'll see.  I like her--she's a lady; but these
thoroughbred 'uns--it's their skin and their mouths.  They'll go till
they drop if they like the job, and if they don't, it's nothing but
jib--jib--jib.  How was it down there before she married him?

BURNEY.  Oh!  Quiet, of course.

PAYNTER.  Country homes--I know 'em.  What's her father, the old
Rector, like?

BURNEY.  Oh! very steady old man.  The mother dead long before I took
the place.

PAYNTER.  Not a penny, I suppose?

BURNEY.  [Shaking her head]  No; and seven of them.

PAYNTER.  [At sound of the hall door]  The Governor!

     BURNEY withdraws through the curtained door.

     GEORGE DEDMOND enters from the hall.  He is in evening dress,
     opera hat, and overcoat; his face is broad, comely, glossily
     shaved, but with neat moustaches.  His eyes, clear, small, and
     blue-grey, have little speculation.  His hair is well brushed.

GEORGE.  [Handing PAYNTER his coat and hat]  Look here, Paynter!
When I send up from the Club for my dress things, always put in a
black waistcoat as well.

PAYNTER.  I asked the mistress, sir.

GEORGE.  In future--see?

PAYNTER.  Yes, sir.  [Signing towards the window]  Shall I leave the
sunset, sir?

     But GEORGE has crossed to the curtained door; he opens it and
     says: "Clare!"  Receiving no answer, he goes in.  PAYNTER
     switches up the electric light.  His face, turned towards the
     curtained door, is apprehensive.

GEORGE.  [Re-entering]  Where's Mrs. Dedmond?

PAYNTER.  I hardly know, sir.

GEORGE.  Dined in?

PAYNTER.  She had a mere nothing at seven, sir.

GEORGE.  Has she gone out, since?

PAYNTER.  Yes, sir--that is, yes.  The--er--mistress was not dressed
at all.  A little matter of fresh air, I think; sir.

GEORGE.  What time did my mother say they'd be here for Bridge?

PAYNTER.  Sir Charles and Lady Dedmond were coming at half-past nine;
and Captain Huntingdon, too--Mr. and Mrs.  Fullarton might be a bit
late, sir.

GEORGE.  It's that now.  Your mistress said nothing?

PAYNTER.  Not to me, sir.

GEORGE.  Send Burney.

PAYNTER.  Very good, sir.  [He withdraws.]

     GEORGE stares gloomily at the card tables.  BURNEY comes in
     front the hall.

GEORGE.  Did your mistress say anything before she went out?

BURNEY.  Yes, sir.

GEORGE.  Well?

BURNEY.  I don't think she meant it, sir.

GEORGE.  I don't want to know what you don't think, I want the fact.

BURNEY.  Yes, sir.  The mistress said: "I hope it'll be a pleasant
evening, Burney!"

GEORGE.  Oh!--Thanks.

BURNEY.  I've put out the mistress's things, sir.

GEORGE.  Ah!

BURNEY.  Thank you, sir.  [She withdraws.]

GEORGE.  Damn!

     He again goes to the curtained door, and passes through.
     PAYNTER, coming in from the hall, announces: "General Sir
     Charles and Lady Dedmond."  SIR CHARLES is an upright,
     well-groomed, grey-moustached, red-faced man of sixty-seven, with
     a keen eye for molehills, and none at all for mountains.  LADY
     DEDMOND has a firm, thin face, full of capability and decision,
     not without kindliness; and faintly weathered, as if she had
     faced many situations in many parts of the world.  She is fifty
     five.

     PAYNTER withdraws.

SIR CHARLES.  Hullo!  Where are they?  H'm!

     As he speaks, GEORGE re-enters.

LADY DEDMOND.  [Kissing her son]  Well, George.  Where's Clare?

GEORGE.  Afraid she's late.

LADY DEDMOND.  Are we early?

GEORGE.  As a matter of fact, she's not in.

LADY DEDMOND.  Oh?

SIR CHARLES.  H'm!  Not--not had a rumpus?

GEORGE.  Not particularly.  [With the first real sign of feeling]
What I can't stand is being made a fool of before other people.
Ordinary friction one can put up with.  But that----

SIR CHARLES.  Gone out on purpose?  What!

LADY DEDMOND.  What was the trouble?

GEORGE.  I told her this morning you were coming in to Bridge.
Appears she'd asked that fellow Malise, for music.

LADY DEDMOND.  Without letting you know?

GEORGE.  I believe she did tell me.

LADY DEDMOND.  But surely----

GEORGE.  I don't want to discuss it.  There's never anything in
particular.  We're all anyhow, as you know.

LADY DEDMOND.  I see.  [She looks shrewdly at her son]  My dear,
I should be rather careful about him, I think.

SIR CHARLES.  Who's that?

LADY DEDMOND.  That Mr. Malise.

SIR CHARLES.  Oh!  That chap!

GEORGE.  Clare isn't that sort.

LADY DEDMOND.  I know.  But she catches up notions very easily.  I
think it's a great pity you ever came across him.

SIR CHARLES.  Where did you pick him up?

GEORGE.  Italy--this Spring--some place or other where they couldn't
speak English.

SIR CHARLES.  Um!  That's the worst of travellin'.

LADY DEDMOND.  I think you ought to have dropped him.  These literary
people---[Quietly]  From exchanging ideas to something else, isn't
very far, George.

SIR CHARLES.  We'll make him play Bridge.  Do him good, if he's that
sort of fellow.

LADY DEDMOND.  Is anyone else coming?

GEORGE.  Reggie Huntingdon, and the Fullartons.

LADY DEDMOND.  [Softly]  You know, my dear boy, I've been meaning to
speak to you for a long time.  It is such a pity you and Clare--What
is it?

GEORGE.  God knows!  I try, and I believe she does.

SIR CHARLES.  It's distressin'--for us, you know, my dear fellow--
distressin'.

LADY DEDMOND.  I know it's been going on for a long time.

GEORGE.  Oh!  leave it alone, mother.

LADY DEDMOND.  But, George, I'm afraid this man has brought it to a
point--put ideas into her head.

GEORGE.  You can't dislike him more than I do.  But there's nothing
one can object to.

LADY DEDMOND.  Could Reggie Huntingdon do anything, now he's home?
Brothers sometimes----

GEORGE.  I can't bear my affairs being messed about----

LADY DEDMOND.  Well! it would be better for you and Clare to be
supposed to be out together, than for her to be out alone.  Go
quietly into the dining-room and wait for her.

SIR CHARLES.  Good!  Leave your mother to make up something.  She'll
do it!

LADY DEDMOND.  That may be he.  Quick!

     [A bell sounds.]

     GEORGE goes out into the hall, leaving the door open in his
     haste.  LADY DEDMOND, following, calls "Paynter!"  PAYNTER
     enters.

LADY DEDMOND.  Don't say anything about your master and mistress
being out.  I'll explain.

PAYNTER.  The master, my lady?

LADY DEDMOND.  Yes, I know.  But you needn't say so.  Do you
understand?

PAYNTER.  [In polite dudgeon]  Just so, my lady.

     [He goes out.]

SIR CHARLES.  By Jove!  That fellow smells a rat!

LADY DEDMOND.  Be careful, Charles!

SIR CHARLES.  I should think so.

LADY DEDMOND.  I shall simply say they're dining out, and that we're
not to wait Bridge for them.

SIR CHARLES.  [Listening]  He's having a palaver with that man of
George's.

     PAYNTER, reappearing, announces: "Captain Huntingdon."  SIR
     CHARLES and LADY DEDMOND turn to him with relief.

LADY DEDMOND.  Ah!  It's you, Reginald!

HUNTINGDON.  [A tall, fair soldier, of thirty] How d'you do?  How are
you, sir?  What's the matter with their man?

SHE CHARLES.  What!

HUNTINGDON.  I was going into the dining-room to get rid of my cigar;
and he said: "Not in there, sir.  The master's there, but my
instructions are to the effect that he's not."

SHE CHARLES.  I knew that fellow----

LADY DEDMOND.  The fact is, Reginald, Clare's out, and George is
waiting for her.  It's so important people shouldn't----

HUNTINGDON.  Rather!

     They draw together, as people do, discussing the misfortunes of
     members of their families.

LADY DEDMOND.  It's getting serious, Reginald.  I don't know what's
to become of them.  You don't think the Rector--you don't think your
father would speak to Clare?

HUNTINGDON.  Afraid the Governor's hardly well enough.  He takes
anything of that sort to heart so--especially Clare.

SIR CHARLES.  Can't you put in a word yourself?

HUNTINGDON.  Don't know where the mischief lies.

SIR CHARLES.  I'm sure George doesn't gallop her on the road.  Very
steady-goin' fellow, old George.

HUNTINGDON.  Oh, yes; George is all right, sir.

LADY DEDMOND.  They ought to have had children.

HUNTINGDON.  Expect they're pretty glad now they haven't.  I really
don't know what to say, ma'am.

SIR CHARLES.  Saving your presence, you know, Reginald, I've often
noticed parsons' daughters grow up queer.  Get too much morality and
rice puddin'.

LADY DEDMOND.  [With a clear look]  Charles!

SIR CHARLES.  What was she like when you were kids?

HUNTINGDON.  Oh, all right.  Could be rather a little devil, of
course, when her monkey was up.

SIR CHARLES.  I'm fond of her.  Nothing she wants that she hasn't
got, is there?

HUNTINGDON.  Never heard her say so.

SIR CHARLES.  [Dimly]  I don't know whether old George is a bit too
matter of fact for her.  H'm?

     [A short silence.]

LADY DEDMOND.  There's a Mr. Malise coming here to-night.  I forget
if you know him.

HUNTINGDON.  Yes.  Rather a thorough-bred mongrel.

LADY DEDMOND.  He's literary.  [With hesitation]  You--you don't
think he--puts--er--ideas into her head?

HUNTINGDON.  I asked Greyman, the novelist, about him; seems he's a
bit of an Ishmaelite, even among those fellows.  Can't see Clare----

LADY DEDMOND.  No.  Only, the great thing is that she shouldn't be
encouraged.  Listen!--It is her-coming in.  I can hear their voices.
Gone to her room.  What a blessing that man isn't here yet!  [The
door bell rings] Tt!  There he is, I expect.

SIR CHARLES.  What are we goin' to say?

HUNTINGDON.  Say they're dining out, and we're not to wait Bridge for
them.

SIR CHARLES.  Good!

     The door is opened, and PAYNTER announces "Mr. Kenneth Malise."
     MALISE enters.  He is a tall man, about thirty-five, with a
     strongly marked, dark, irregular, ironic face, and eyes which
     seem to have needles in their pupils.  His thick hair is rather
     untidy, and his dress clothes not too new.

LADY DEDMOND.  How do you do?  My son and daughter-in-law are so very
sorry.  They'll be here directly.

     [MALISE bows with a queer, curly smile.]

SIR CHARLES.  [Shaking hands] How d'you do, sir?

HUNTINGDON.  We've met, I think.

     He gives MALISE that peculiar smiling stare, which seems to warn
     the person bowed to of the sort of person he is.  MALISE'S eyes
     sparkle.

LADY DEDMOND.  Clare will be so grieved.  One of those invitations

MALISE.  On the spur of the moment.

SIR CHARLES.  You play Bridge, sir?

MALISE.  Afraid not!

SIR CHARLES.  Don't mean that?  Then we shall have to wait for 'em.

LADY DEDMOND.  I forget, Mr. Malise--you write, don't you?

MALISE.  Such is my weakness.

LADY DEDMOND.  Delightful profession.

SIR CHARLES.  Doesn't tie you!  What!

MALISE.  Only by the head.

SIR CHARLES.  I'm always thinkin' of writin' my experiences.

MALISE.  Indeed!

[There is the sound of a door banged.]

SIR CHARLES.  [Hastily]  You smoke, Mr.  MALISE?

MALISE.  Too much.

SIR CHARLES.  Ah!  Must smoke when you think a lot.

MALISE.  Or think when you smoke a lot.

SIR CHARLES.  [Genially]  Don't know that I find that.

LADY DEDMOND.  [With her clear look at him]  Charles!

     The door is opened.  CLARE DEDMOND in a cream-coloured evening
     frock comes in from the hall, followed by GEORGE.  She is rather
     pale, of middle height, with a beautiful figure, wavy brown
     hair, full, smiling lips, and large grey mesmeric eyes, one of
     those women all vibration, iced over with a trained stoicism of
     voice and manner.

LADY DEDMOND.  Well, my dear!

SIR CHARLES.  Ah!  George.  Good dinner?

GEORGE.  [Giving his hand to MALISE]  How are you?  Clare!  Mr.
MALISE!

CLARE.  [Smiling-in a clear voice with the faintest possible lisp]
Yes, we met on the door-mat.  [Pause.]

SIR CHARLES.  Deuce you did!  [An awkward pause.]

LADY DEDMOND.  [Acidly]  Mr. Malise doesn't play Bridge, it appears.
Afraid we shall be rather in the way of music.

SIR CHARLES.  What!  Aren't we goin' to get a game?  [PAYNTER has
entered with a tray.]

GEORGE.  Paynter!  Take that table into the dining room.

PAYNTER.  [Putting down the tray on a table behind the door]  Yes,
sir.

MALISE.  Let me give you a hand.

     PAYNTER and MALISE carry one of the Bridge tables out, GEORGE
     making a half-hearted attempt to relieve MALISE.

SIR CHARLES.  Very fine sunset!

     Quite softly CLARE begins to laugh.  All look at her first with
     surprise, then with offence, then almost with horror.  GEORGE is
     about to go up to her, but HUNTINGDON heads him off.

HUNTINGDON.  Bring the tray along, old man.

     GEORGE takes up the tray, stops to look at CLARE, then allows
     HUNTINGDON to shepherd him out.

LADY DEDMOND.  [Without looking at CLARE]  Well, if we're going to
play, Charles? [She jerks his sleeve.]

SIR CHARLES.  What?  [He marches out.]

LADY DEDMOND.  [Meeting MALISE in the doorway]  Now you will be able
to have your music.

     [She follows the GENERAL out]

     [CLARE stands perfectly still, with her eyes closed.]

MALISE.  Delicious!

CLARE.  [In her level, clipped voice]  Perfectly beastly of me!  I'm
so sorry.  I simply can't help running amok to-night.

MALISE.  Never apologize for being fey.  It's much too rare.

CLARE.  On the door-mat!  And they'd whitewashed me so beautifully!
Poor dears!  I wonder if I ought----[She looks towards the door.]

MALISE.  Don't spoil it!

CLARE.  I'd been walking up and down the Embankment for about three
hours.  One does get desperate sometimes.

MALISE.  Thank God for that!

CLARE.  Only makes it worse afterwards.  It seems so frightful to
them, too.

MALISE.  [Softly and suddenly, but with a difficulty in finding the
right words]  Blessed be the respectable!  May they dream of--me!
And blessed be all men of the world!  May they perish of a surfeit
of--good form!

CLARE.  I like that.  Oh, won't there be a row!  [With a faint
movement of her shoulders]  And the usual reconciliation.

MALISE.  Mrs. Dedmond, there's a whole world outside yours.  Why
don't you spread your wings?

CLARE.  My dear father's a saint, and he's getting old and frail; and
I've got a sister engaged; and three little sisters to whom I'm
supposed to set a good example.  Then, I've no money, and I can't do
anything for a living, except serve in a shop.  I shouldn't be free,
either; so what's the good?  Besides, I oughtn't to have married if I
wasn't going to be happy.  You see, I'm not a bit misunderstood or
ill-treated.  It's only----

MALISE.  Prison.  Break out!

CLARE.  [Turning to the window]  Did you see the sunset?  That white
cloud trying to fly up?

     [She holds up her bare arms, with a motion of flight.]

MALISE.  [Admiring her] Ah-h-h!  [Then, as she drops her arms
suddenly]  Play me something.

CLARE.  [Going to the piano]  I'm awfully grateful to you.  You don't
make me feel just an attractive female.  I wanted somebody like that.
[Letting her hands rest on the notes]  All the same, I'm glad not to
be ugly.

MALISE.  Thank God for beauty!

PAYNTER.  [Opening the door]  Mr. and Mrs. Fullarton.

MALISE.  Who are they?

CLARE.  [Rising]  She's my chief pal.  He was in the Navy.

     She goes forward.  MRS.  FULLERTON is a rather tall woman, with
     dark hair and a quick eye.  He, one of those clean-shaven naval
     men of good presence who have retired from the sea, but not from
     their susceptibility.

MRS. FULLARTON.  [Kissing CLARE, and taking in both MALISE and her
husband's look at CLARE]  We've only come for a minute.

CLARE.  They're playing Bridge in the dining-room.  Mr. Malise
doesn't play.  Mr. Malise--Mrs. Fullarton, Mr. Fullarton.

     [They greet.]

FULLARTON.  Most awfully jolly dress, Mrs. Dedmond.

MRS. FULLARTON.  Yes, lovely, Clare.  [FULLARTON abases eyes which
mechanically readjust themselves]  We can't stay for Bridge, my dear;
I just wanted to see you a minute, that's all.  [Seeing HUNTINGDON
coming in she speaks in a low voice to her husband]  Edward, I want
to speak to Clare.  How d'you do, Captain Huntingdon?

MALISE.  I'll say good-night.

     He shakes hands with CLARE, bows to MRS. FULLARTON, and makes
     his way out.  HUNTINGDON and FULLERTON foregather in the
     doorway.

MRS. FULLARTON.  How are things, Clare?  [CLARE just moves her
shoulders]  Have you done what I suggested?  Your room?

CLARE.  No.

MRS. FULLARTON.  Why not?

CLARE.  I don't want to torture him.  If I strike--I'll go clean.  I
expect I shall strike.

MRS. FULLARTON.  My dear!  You'll have the whole world against you.

CLARE.  Even you won't back me, Dolly?

MRS. FULLARTON.  Of course I'll back you, all that's possible, but I
can't invent things.

CLARE.  You wouldn't let me come to you for a bit, till I could find
my feet?

     MRS. FULLARTON, taken aback, cannot refrain from her glance at
     FULLARTON automatically gazing at CLARE while he talks with
     HUNTINGDON.

MRS. FULLARTON.  Of course--the only thing is that----

CLARE.  [With a faint smile]  It's all right, Dolly.  I'm not coming.

MRS. FULLARTON.  Oh!  don't do anything desperate, Clare--you are so
desperate sometimes.  You ought to make terms--not tracks.

CLARE.  Haggle?  [She shakes her head]  What have I got to make terms
with?  What he still wants is just what I hate giving.

MRS. FULLARTON.  But, Clare----

CLARE.  No, Dolly; even you don't understand.  All day and every day
--just as far apart as we can be--and still--Jolly, isn't it?  If
you've got a soul at all.

MRS. FULLARTON.  It's awful, really.

CLARE.  I suppose there are lots of women who feel as I do, and go on
with it; only, you see, I happen to have something in me that--comes
to an end.  Can't endure beyond a certain time, ever.

     She has taken a flower from her dress, and suddenly tears it to
     bits.  It is the only sign of emotion she has given.

MRS. FULLARTON.  [Watching]  Look here, my child; this won't do.  You
must get a rest.  Can't Reggie take you with him to India for a bit?

CLARE.  [Shaking her head]  Reggie lives on his pay.

MRS. FULLARTON.  [With one of her quick looks]  That was Mr. Malise,
then?

FULLARTON.  [Coming towards them]  I say, Mrs. Dedmond, you wouldn't
sing me that little song you sang the other night,  [He hums]  "If I
might be the falling bee and kiss thee all the day"?  Remember?

MRS. FULLARTON.  "The falling dew," Edward.  We simply must go,
Clare.  Good-night.  [She kisses her.]

FULLARTON.  [Taking half-cover between his wife and CLARE]  It suits
you down to the ground-that dress.

CLARE.  Good-night.

     HUNTINGDON sees them out.  Left alone CLARE clenches her hands,
     moves swiftly across to the window, and stands looking out.

HUNTINGDON.  [Returning]  Look here, Clare!

CLARE.  Well, Reggie?

HUNTINGDON.  This is working up for a mess, old girl.  You can't do
this kind of thing with impunity.  No man'll put up with it.  If
you've got anything against George, better tell me.  [CLARE shakes
her head]  You ought to know I should stick by you.  What is it?
Come?

CLARE.  Get married, and find out after a year that she's the wrong
person; so wrong that you can't exchange a single real thought; that
your blood runs cold when she kisses you--then you'll know.

HUNTINGDON.  My dear old girl, I don't want to be a brute; but it's a
bit difficult to believe in that, except in novels.

CLARE.  Yes, incredible, when you haven't tried.

HUNTINGDON.  I mean, you--you chose him yourself.  No one forced you
to marry him.

CLARE.  It does seem monstrous, doesn't it?

HUNTINGDON.  My dear child, do give us a reason.

CLARE.  Look!  [She points out at the night and the darkening towers]
If George saw that for the first time he'd just say, "Ah,
Westminster!  Clock Tower!  Can you see the time by it?"  As if one
cared where or what it was--beautiful like that!  Apply that to every
--every--everything.

HUNTINGDON.  [Staring] George may be a bit prosaic.  But, my dear old
girl, if that's all----

CLARE.  It's not all--it's nothing.  I can't explain, Reggie--it's
not reason, at all; it's--it's like being underground in a damp cell;
it's like knowing you'll never get out.  Nothing coming--never
anything coming again-never anything.

HUNTINGDON.  [Moved and puzzled]  My dear old thing; you mustn't get
into fantods like this.  If it's like that, don't think about it.

CLARE.  When every day and every night!--Oh!  I know it's my fault
for having married him, but that doesn't help.

HUNTINGDON.  Look here!  It's not as if George wasn't quite a decent
chap.  And it's no use blinking things; you are absolutely dependent
on him.  At home they've got every bit as much as they can do to keep
going.

CLARE.  I know.

HUNTINGDON.  And you've got to think of the girls.  Any trouble would
be very beastly for them.  And the poor old Governor would feel it
awfully.

CLARE.  If I didn't know all that, Reggie, I should have gone home
long ago.

HUNTINGDON.  Well, what's to be done?  If my pay would run to it--but
it simply won't.

CLARE.  Thanks, old boy, of course not.

HUNTINGDON.  Can't you try to see George's side of it a bit?

CLARE.  I do.  Oh!  don't let's talk about it.

HUNTINGDON.  Well, my child, there's just one thing you won't go
sailing near the wind, will you?  I mean, there are fellows always on
the lookout.

CLARE.  "That chap, Malise, you'd better avoid him!"  Why?

HUNTINGDON.  Well!  I don't know him.  He may be all right, but he's
not our sort.  And you're too pretty to go on the tack of the New
Woman and that kind of thing--haven't been brought up to it.

CLARE.  British home-made summer goods, light and attractive--don't
wear long.  [At the sound of voices in the hall]  They seem 'to be
going, Reggie.

     [HUNTINGDON looks at her, vexed, unhappy.]

HUNTINGDON.  Don't head for trouble, old girl.  Take a pull.  Bless
you!  Good-night.

     CLARE kisses him, and when he has gone turns away from the door,
     holding herself in, refusing to give rein to some outburst of
     emotion.  Suddenly she sits down at the untouched Bridge table,
     leaning her bare elbows on it and her chin on her hands, quite
     calm.  GEORGE is coming in.  PAYNTER follows him.

CLARE.  Nothing more wanted, thank you, Paynter.  You can go home,
and the maids can go to bed.

PAYNTER.  We are much obliged, ma'am.

CLARE.  I ran over a dog, and had to get it seen to.

PAYNTER.  Naturally, ma'am!

CLARE.  Good-night.

PAYNTER.  I couldn't get you a little anything, ma'am?

CLARE.  No, thank you.

PAYNTER.  No, ma'am.  Good-night, ma'am.

     [He withdraws.]

GEORGE.  You needn't have gone out of your way to tell a lie that
wouldn't deceive a guinea-pig.  [Going up to her]  Pleased with
yourself to-night?  [CLARE shakes her head]  Before that fellow
MALISE; as if our own people weren't enough!

CLARE.  Is it worth while to rag me?  I know I've behaved badly, but
I couldn't help it, really!

GEORGE.  Couldn't help behaving like a shop-girl?  My God!  You were
brought up as well as I was.

CLARE.  Alas!

GEORGE.  To let everybody see that we don't get on--there's only one
word for it--Disgusting!

CLARE.  I know.

GEORGE.  Then why do you do it?  I've always kept my end up.  Why in
heaven's name do you behave in this crazy way?

CLARE.  I'm sorry.

GEORGE.  [With intense feeling]  You like making a fool of me!

CLARE.  No--Really!  Only--I must break out sometimes.

GEORGE.  There are things one does not do.

CLARE.  I came in because I was sorry.

GEORGE.  And at once began to do it again!  It seems to me you
delight in rows.

CLARE.  You'd miss your--reconciliations.

GEORGE.  For God's sake, Clare, drop cynicism!

CLARE.  And truth?

GEORGE.  You are my wife, I suppose.

CLARE.  And they twain shall be one--spirit.

GEORGE.  Don't talk wild nonsense!

     [There is silence.]

CLARE.  [Softly]  I don't give satisfaction.  Please give me notice!

GEORGE.  Pish!

CLARE.  Five years, and four of them like this!  I'm sure we've
served our time.  Don't you really think we might get on better
together--if I went away?

GEORGE.  I've told you I won't stand a separation for no real reason,
and have your name bandied about all over London.  I have some
primitive sense of honour.

CLARE.  You mean your name, don't you?

GEORGE.  Look here.  Did that fellow Malise put all this into your
head?

CLARE.  No; my own evil nature.

GEORGE.  I wish the deuce we'd never met him.  Comes of picking up
people you know nothing of.  I distrust him--and his looks--and his
infernal satiric way.  He can't even 'dress decently.  He's not--good
form.

CLARE.  [With a touch of rapture]  Ah-h!

GEORGE.  Why do you let him come?  What d'you find interesting in
him?

CLARE.  A mind.

GEORGE.  Deuced funny one!  To have a mind--as you call it--it's not
necessary to talk about Art and Literature.

CLARE.  We don't.

GEORGE.  Then what do you talk about--your minds?  [CLARE looks at
him]  Will you answer a straight question?  Is he falling in love
with you?

CLARE.  You had better ask him.

GEORGE.  I tell you plainly, as a man of the world, I don't believe
in the guide, philosopher and friend business.

CLARE.  Thank you.

     A silence.  CLARE suddenly clasps her hands behind her head.

CLARE.  Let me go!  You'd be much happier with any other woman.

GEORGE.  Clare!

CLARE.  I believe--I'm sure I could earn my living.  Quite serious.

GEORGE.  Are you mad?

CLARE.  It has been done.

Moulton was a handsome man of past fifty with a youthful face against
his iron gray hair and mustache, well dressed, genial, a man who seemed
keenly in love with the good things of life.

“It is rumored,” began Kennedy, “that an attempt was made on your safe
here at the office last night.”

“Yes,” he admitted, taking off his glasses and polishing them
carefully. “I suppose there is no need of concealment, especially as I
hear that a somewhat similar attempt was made on the safe of my friend
Herman Schloss in Maiden Lane.”

“You lost nothing?”

Moulton put his glasses on and looked Kennedy in the face frankly.

“Nothing, fortunately,” he said, then went on slowly. “You see, in my
later years, I have been something of a collector of precious stones
myself. I don’t wear them, but I have always taken the keenest pleasure
in owning them and when I was married it gave me a great deal more
pleasure to have them set in rings, pendants, tiaras, necklaces, and
other forms for my wife.”

He had risen, with the air of a busy man who had given the subject all
the consideration he could afford and whose work proceeded almost by
schedule. “This morning I found my safe tampered with, but, as I said,
fortunately something must have scared off the burglars.”

He bowed us out politely. What was the explanation, I wondered. It
seemed, on the face of things, that Antoinette Moulton feared her
husband. Did he know something else already, and did she know he knew?
To all appearances he took it very calmly, if he did know. Perhaps that
was what she feared, his very calmness.

“I must see Mrs. Moulton again,” remarked Kennedy, as we left.

The Moultons lived, we found, in one of the largest suites of a new
apartment hotel, the Deluxe, and in spite of the fact that our arrival
had been announced some minutes before we saw Mrs. Moulton, it was
evident that she had been crying hysterically over the loss of the
paste jewels and what it implied.

“I missed it this morning, after my return from seeing you,” she
replied in answer to Craig’s inquiry, then added, wide-eyed with alarm,
“What shall I do? He must have opened the wall safe and found the
replica. I don’t dare ask him point-blank.”

“Are you sure he did it?” asked Kennedy, more, I felt, for its moral
effect on her than through any doubt in his own mind.

“Not sure. But then the wall safe shows no marks, and the replica is
gone.”

“Might I see your jewel case?” he asked.

“Surely. I’ll get it. The wall safe is in Lynn’s room. I shall probably
have to fuss a long time with the combination.”

In fact she could not have been very familiar with it for it took
several minutes before she returned. Meanwhile, Kennedy, who had been
drumming absently on the arms of his chair, suddenly rose and walked
quietly over to a scrap basket that stood beside an escritoire. It had
evidently just been emptied, for the rooms must have been cleaned
several hours before. He bent down over it and picked up two scraps of
paper adhering to the wicker work. The rest had evidently been thrown
away.

I bent over to read them. One was:

—rest Nettie—
—dying to see—


The other read:

—cherche to-d
—love and ma
—rman.


What did it mean? Hastily, I could fill in “Dearest Nettie,” and “I am
dying to see you.” Kennedy added, “The Recherche to-day,” that being
the name of a new apartment uptown, as well as “love and many kisses.”
But “—rman”—what did that mean? Could it be Herman—Herman Schloss?

She was returning and we resumed our seats quickly.

Kennedy took the jewel case from her and examined it carefully. There
was not a mark on it.

“Mrs. Moulton,” he said slowly, rising and handing it back to her,
“have you told me all?”

“Why—yes,” she answered.

Kennedy shook his head gravely.

“I’m afraid not. You must tell me everything.”

“No—no,” she cried vehemently, “there is nothing more.”

We left and outside the Deluxe he paused, looked about, caught sight of
a taxicab and hailed it.

“Where?” asked the driver.

“Across the street,” he said, “and wait. Put the window in back of you
down so I can talk. I’ll tell you where to go presently. Now, Walter,
sit back as far as you can. This may seem like an underhand thing to
do, but we’ve got to get what that woman won’t tell us or give up the
case.”

Perhaps half an hour we waited, still puzzling over the scraps of
paper. Suddenly I felt a nudge from Kennedy. Antoinette Moulton was
standing in the doorway across the street. Evidently she preferred not
to ride in her own car, for a moment later she entered a taxicab.

“Follow that black cab,” said Kennedy to our driver.

Sure enough, it stopped in front of the Recherche Apartments and Mrs.
Moulton stepped out and almost ran in.

We waited a moment, then Kennedy followed. The elevator that had taken
her up had just returned to the ground floor.

“The same floor again,” remarked Kennedy, jauntily stepping in and
nodding familiarly to the elevator boy.

Then he paused suddenly, looked at his watch, fixed his gaze
thoughtfully on me an instant, and exclaimed. “By George—no. I can’t go
up yet. I clean forgot that engagement at the hotel. One moment, son.
Let us out. We’ll be back again.”

Considerably mystified, I followed him to the sidewalk.

“You’re entitled to an explanation,” he laughed catching my bewildered
look as he opened the cab door. “I didn’t want to go up now while she
is there, but I wanted to get on good terms with that boy. We’ll wait
until she comes down, then go up.”

“Where?” I asked.

“That’s what I am going through all this elaborate preparation to find
out. I have no more idea than you have.”

It could not have been more than twenty minutes later when Mrs. Moulton
emerged rather hurriedly, and drove away.

While we had been waiting I had observed a man on the other side of the
street who seemed unduly interested in the Recherche, too, for he had
walked up and down the block no less than six times. Kennedy saw him,
and as he made no effort to follow Mrs. Moulton, Kennedy did not do so
either. In fact a little quick glance which she had given at our cab
had raised a fear that she might have discovered that she was being
followed.

Kennedy and I paid off our cabman and sauntered into the Recherche in
the most debonair manner we could assume.

“Now, son, we’ll go up,” he said to the boy who, remembering us, and
now not at all clear in his mind that he might not have seen us before
that, whisked us to the tenth floor.

“Let me see,” said Kennedy, “it’s number one hundred and—er——”

“Three,” prompted the boy.

He pressed the buzzer and a neatly dressed colored maid responded.

“I had an appointment here with Mrs. Moulton this morning,” remarked
Kennedy.

“She has just gone,” replied the maid, off her guard.

“And was to meet Mr. Schloss here in half an hour,” he added quickly.

It was the maid’s turn to look surprised.

“I didn’t think he was to be here,” she said. “He’s had some—”

“Trouble at the office,” supplied Kennedy. “That’s what it was about.
Perhaps he hasn’t been able to get away yet. But I had the appointment.
Ah, I see a telephone in the hall. May I?”

He had stepped politely in, and by dint of cleverly keeping his finger
on the hook in the half light, he carried on a one-sided conversation
with himself long enough to get a good chance to look about.

There was an air of quiet and refinement about the apartment in the
Recherche. It was darkened to give the little glowing electric bulbs in
their silken shades a full chance to simulate right. The deep velvety
carpets were noiseless to the foot, and the draperies, the pictures,
the bronzes, all bespoke taste.

But the chief objects of interest to Craig were the little square green
baize-covered tables on one of which lay neatly stacked a pile of
gilt-edged cards and a mahogany box full of ivory chips of red, white
and blue.

It was none of the old-time gambling places, like Danfield’s, with its
steel door which Craig had once cut through with an oxyacetylene
blowpipe in order to rescue a young spendthrift from himself.

Kennedy seemed perfectly well satisfied merely with a cursory view of
the place, as he hung up the receiver and thanked the maid politely for
allowing him to use it.

“This is up-to-date gambling in cleaned-up New York,” he remarked as we
waited for the elevator to return for us. “And the worst of it all is
that it gets the women as well as the men. Once they are caught in the
net, they are the most powerful lure to men that the gamblers have yet
devised.”

We rode down in silence, and as we went down the steps to the street, I
noticed the man whom we had seen watching the place, lurking down at
the lower corner. Kennedy quickened his pace and came up behind him.

“Why, Winters!” exclaimed Craig. “You here?”

“I might say the same to you,” grinned the detective not displeased
evidently that our trail had crossed his. “I suppose you are looking
for Schloss, too. He’s up in the Recherche a great deal, playing poker.
I understand he owns an interest in the game up there.”

Kennedy nodded, but said nothing.

“I just saw one of the cappers for the place go out before you went
in.”

“Capper?” repeated Kennedy surprised. “Antoinette Moulton a steerer for
a gambling joint? What can a rich society woman have to do with a place
like that or a man like Schloss?”

Winters smiled sardonically. “Society ladies to-day often get into
scrapes of which their husbands know nothing,” he remarked. “You didn’t
know before that Antoinette Moulton, like many of her friends in the
smart set, was a gambler—and loser—did you?”

Craig shook his head. He had more of human than scientific interest in
a case of a woman of her caliber gone wrong.

“But you must have read of the famous Moulton diamonds?”

“Yes,” said Craig, blankly, as if it were all news to him.

“Schloss has them—or at least had them. The jewels she wore at the
opera this winter were paste, I understand.”

“Does Moulton play?” he asked.

“I think so—but not here, naturally. In a way, I suppose, it is his
fault. They all do it. The example of one drives on another.”

Instantly there flashed over my mind a host of possibilities. Perhaps,
after all, Winters had been right. Schloss had taken this way to make
sure of the jewels so that she could not redeem them. Suddenly another
explanation crowded that out. Had Mrs. Moulton robbed the safe herself,
or hired some one else to do it for her, and had that person gone back
on her?

Then a horrid possibility occurred to me. Whatever Antoinette Moulton
may have been and done, some one must have her in his power. What a
situation for the woman! My sympathy went out to her in her supreme
struggle. Even if it had been a real robbery, Schloss might easily
recover from it. But for her every event spelled ruin and seemed only
to be bringing that ruin closer.

We left Winters, still watching on the trail of Schloss, and went on
uptown to the laboratory.




CHAPTER XVIII
THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE


That night I was sitting, brooding over the case, while Craig was
studying a photograph which he made of the smudge on the glass door
down at Schloss’. He paused in his scrutiny of the print to answer the
telephone.

“Something has happened to Schloss,” he exclaimed seizing his hat and
coat. “Winters has been watching him. He didn’t go to the Recherche.
Winters wants me to meet him at a place several blocks below it Come
on. He wouldn’t say over the wire what it was. Hurry.”

We met Winters in less than ten minutes at the address he had given, a
bachelor apartment in the neighborhood of the Recherche.

“Schloss kept rooms here,” explained Winters, hurrying us quickly
upstairs. “I wanted you to see before anyone else.”

As we entered the large and luxuriously furnished living room of the
jeweler’s suite, a gruesome sight greeted us.

There lay Schloss on the floor, face down, in a horribly contorted
position. In one hand, clenched under him partly, the torn sleeve of a
woman’s dress was grasped convulsively. The room bore unmistakable
traces of a violent struggle, but except for the hideous object on the
floor was vacant.

Kennedy bent down over him. Schloss was dead. In a corner, by the door,
stood a pile of grips, stacked up, packed, and undisturbed.

Winters who had been studying the room while we got our bearings picked
up a queer-looking revolver from the floor. As he held it up I could
see that along the top of the barrel was a long cylinder with a ratchet
or catch at the butt end. He turned it over and over carefully.

“By George,” he muttered, “it has been fired off.”

Kennedy glanced more minutely at the body. There was not a mark on it.
I stared about vacantly at the place where Winters had picked the thing
up.

“Look,” I cried, my eye catching a little hole in the baseboard of the
woodwork near it.

“It must have fallen and exploded on the floor,” remarked Kennedy. “Let
me see it, Winters.”

Craig held it at arm’s length and pulled the catch. Instead of an
explosion, there came a cone of light from the top of the gun. As
Kennedy moved it over the wall, I saw in the center of the circle of
light a dark spot.

“A new invention,” Craig explained. “All you need to do is to move it
so that little dark spot falls directly on an object. Pull the
trigger—the bullet strikes the dark spot. Even a nervous and unskilled
marksman becomes a good shot in the dark. He can even shoot from behind
the protection of something—and hit accurately.”

It was too much for me. I could only stand and watch Kennedy as he
deftly bent over Schloss again and placed a piece of chemically
prepared paper flat on the forehead of the dead man.

When he withdrew it, I could see that it bore marks of the lines on his
head. Without a word, Kennedy drew from his pocket a print of the
photograph of the smudge on Schloss’ door.

“It is possible,” he said, half to himself, “to identify a person by
means of the arrangement of the sweat glands or pores. Poroscopy, Dr.
Edmond Locard, director of the Police Laboratory at Lyons, calls it.
The shape, arrangement, number per square centimeter, all vary in
different individuals. Besides, here we have added the lines of the
forehead.”

He was studying the two impressions intensely. When he looked up from
his examination, his face wore a peculiar expression.

“This is not the head which was placed so close to the glass of the
door of Schloss’ office, peering through, on the night of the robbery,
in order to see before picking the lock whether the office was empty
and everything ready for the hasty attack on the safe.”

“That disposes of my theory that Schloss robbed himself,” remarked
Winters reluctantly. “But the struggle here, the sleeve of the dress,
the pistol—could he have been shot?”

“No, I think not,” considered Kennedy. “It looks to me more like a case
of apoplexy.”

“What shall we do?” asked Winters. “Far from clearing anything up, this
complicates it.”

“Where’s Muller?” asked Kennedy. “Does he know? Perhaps he can shed
some light on it.”

The clang of an ambulance bell outside told that the aid summoned by
Winters had arrived.

We left the body in charge of the surgeon and of a policeman who
arrived about the same time, and followed Winters.

Muller lived in a cheap boarding house in a shabbily respectable street
downtown, and without announcing ourselves we climbed the stairs to his
room. He looked up surprised but not disconcerted as we entered.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Muller,” shot out Winters, “we have just found Mr. Schloss dead!”

“D-dead!” he stammered.

The man seemed speechless with horror.

“Yes, and with his grips packed as if to run away.”

Muller looked dazedly from one of us to the other, but shut up like a
clam.

“I think you had better come along with us as a material witness,”
burst out Winters roughly.

Kennedy said nothing, leaving that sort of third degree work to the
detective. But he was not idle, as Winters tried to extract more than
the monosyllables, “I don’t know,” in answer to every inquiry of Muller
about his employer’s life and business.

A low exclamation from Craig attracted my attention from Winters. In a
corner he had discovered a small box and had opened it. Inside was a
dry battery and a most peculiar instrument, something like a little
flat telephone transmitter yet attached by wires to earpieces that
fitted over the head after the manner of those of a wireless detector.

“What’s this?” asked Kennedy, dangling it before Muller.

He looked at it phlegmatically. “A deaf instrument I have been working
on,” replied the jeweler. “My hearing is getting poor.”

Kennedy looked hastily from the instrument to the man.

“I think I’ll take it along with us,” he said quietly.

Winters, true to his instincts, had been searching Muller in the
meantime. Besides the various assortment that a man carries in his
pockets usually, including pens, pencils, notebooks, a watch, a
handkerchief, a bunch of keys, one of which was large enough to open a
castle, there was a bunch of blank and unissued pawn-tickets bearing
the name, “Stein’s One Per Cent. a Month Loans,” and an address on the
Bowery.

Was Muller the “fence” we were seeking, or only a tool for the “fence”
higher up? Who was this Stein?

What it all meant I could only guess. It was a far cry from the wealth
of Diamond Lane to a dingy Bowery pawnshop, even though pawnbroking at
one per cent. a month—and more, on the side—pays. I knew, too, that
diamonds are hoarded on the East Side as nowhere else in the world,
outside of India. It was no uncommon thing, I had heard, for a
pawnbroker whose shop seemed dirty and greasy to the casual visitor to
have stored away in his vault gems running into the hundreds of
thousands of dollars.

“Mrs. Moulton must know of this,” remarked Kennedy. “Winters, you and
Jameson bring Muller along. I am going up to the Deluxe.”

I must say that I was surprised at finding Mrs. Moulton there. Outside
the suite Winters and I waited with the unresisting Muller, while
Kennedy entered. But through the door which he left ajar I could hear
what passed.

“Mrs. Moulton,” he began, “something terrible has happened—”

He broke off, and I gathered that her pale face and agitated manner
told him that she knew already.

“Where is Mr. Moulton?” he went on, changing his question.

“Mr. Moulton is at his office,” she answered tremulously. “He
telephoned while I was out that he had to work to-night. Oh, Mr.
Kennedy—he knows—he knows. I know it. He has avoided me ever since I
missed the replica from-”

“Sh!” cautioned Craig. He had risen and gone to the door.

“Winters,” he whispered, “I want you to go down to Lynn Moulton’s
office. Meanwhile Jameson can take care of Muller. I am going over to
that place of Stein’s presently. Bring Moulton up there. You will wait
here, Walter, for the present,” he nodded.

He returned to the room where I could hear her crying softly.

“Now, Mrs. Moulton,” he said gently, “I’m afraid I must trouble you to
go with me. I am going over to a pawnbroker’s on the Bowery.”

“The Bowery?” she repeated, with a genuinely surprised shudder. “Oh,
no, Mr. Kennedy. Don’t ask me to go anywhere to-night. I am—I am in no
condition to go anywhere—to do anything—I—”

“But you must,” said Kennedy in a low voice.

“I can’t. Oh—have mercy on me. I am terribly upset. You—”

“It is your duty to go, Mrs. Moulton,” he repeated.

“I don’t understand.” she murmured. “A pawnbroker’s?”

“Come,” urged Kennedy, not harshly but firmly, then, as she held back,
added, playing a trump card, “We must work quickly. In his hands we
found the fragments of a torn dress. When the police—”

She uttered a shriek. A glance had told her, if she had deceived
herself before, that Kennedy knew her secret.

Antoinette Moulton was standing before him, talking rapidly.

“Some one has told Lynn. I know it. There is nothing now that I can
conceal. If you had come half an hour later you would not have found
me. He had written to Mr. Schloss, threatening him that if he did not
leave the country he would shoot him at sight. Mr. Schloss showed me
the letter.

“It had come to this. I must either elope with Schloss, or lose his
aid. The thought of either was unendurable. I hated him—yet was
dependent on him.

“To-night I met him, in his empty apartment, alone. I knew that he had
what was left of his money with him, that everything was packed up. I
went prepared. I would not elope. My plan was no less than to make him
pay the balance on the necklace that he had lost—or to murder him.

“I carried a new pistol in my muff, one which Lynn had just bought. I
don’t know how I did it. I was desperate.

“He told me he loved me, that Lynn did not, never had—that Lynn had
married me only to show off his wealth and diamonds, to give him a
social! position—that I was merely a—a piece of property—a dummy.

“He tried to kiss me. It was revolting. I struggled away from him.

“And in the struggle, the revolver fell from my muff and exploded on
the floor.

“At once he was aflame with suspicion.

“‘So—it’s murder you want!’ he shouted. ‘Well, murder it shall be!’

“I saw death in his eye as he seized my arm. I was defenseless now. The
old passion came over him. Before he killed—he—would have his way with
me.

“I screamed. With a wild effort I twisted away from him.

“He raised his hand to strike me, I saw his eyes, glassy. Then he sank
back—fell to the floor—dead of apoplexy—dead of his furious emotions.

“I fled.

“And now you have found me.”

She had turned, hastily, to leave the room. Kennedy blocked the door.

“Mrs. Moulton,” he said firmly, “listen to me. What was the first
question you asked me? ‘Can I trust you?’ And I told you you could.
This is no time for—for suicide.” He shot the word out bluntly. “All
may not be lost. I have sent for your husband. Muller is outside.”

“Muller?” she cried. “He made the replica.”

“Very well. I am going to clear this thing up. Come. You _must_.”

It was all confused to me, the dash in a car to the little pawnbroker’s
on the first floor of a five-story tenement, the quick entry into the
place by one of Muller’s keys.

Over the safe in back was a framework like that which had covered
Schloss’ safe. Kennedy tore it away, regardless of the alarm which it
must have sounded. In a moment he was down before it on his knees.

“This is how Schloss’ safe was opened so quickly,” he muttered, working
feverishly. “Here is some of their own medicine.”

He had placed the peculiar telephone-like transmitter close to the
combination lock and was turning the combination rapidly.

Suddenly he rose, gave the bolts a twist, and the ponderous doors swung
open.

“What is it?” I asked eagerly.

“A burglar’s microphone,” he answered, hastily looking over the
contents of the safe. “The microphone is now used by burglars for
picking combination locks. When you turn the lock, a slight sound is
made when the proper number comes opposite the working point. It can be
heard sometimes by a sensitive ear, although it is imperceptible to
most persons. But by using a microphone it is an easy matter to hear
the sounds which allow of opening the lock.”

He had taken a yellow chamois bag out of the safe and opened it.

Inside sparkled the famous Moulton diamonds. He held them up—in all
their wicked brilliancy. No one spoke.

Then he took another yellow bag, more dirty and worn than the first. As
he opened it, Mrs. Moulton could restrain herself no longer.

“The replica!” she cried. “The replica!”

Without a word, Craig handed the real necklace to her. Then he slipped
the paste jewels into the newer of the bags and restored both it and
the empty one to their places, banged shut the door of the safe, and
replaced the wooden screen.

“Quick!” he said to her, “you have still a minute to get away.
Hurry—anywhere—away—only away!”

The look of gratitude that came over her face, as she understood the
full meaning of it was such as I had never seen before.

“Quick!” he repeated.

It was too late.

“For God’s sake, Kennedy,” shouted a voice at the street door, “what
are you doing here?”

It was McLear himself. He had come with the Hale patrol, on his mettle
now to take care of the epidemic of robberies.

Before Craig could reply a cab drew up with a rush at the curb and two
men, half fighting, half cursing, catapulted themselves into the shop.

They were Winters and Moulton.

Without a word, taking advantage of the first shock of surprise,
Kennedy had clapped a piece of chemical paper on the foreheads of Mrs.
Moulton, then of Moulton, and on Muller’s. Oblivious to the rest of us,
he studied the impressions in the full light of the counter.

Moulton was facing his wife with a scornful curl of the lip.

“I’ve been told of the paste replica—and I wrote Schloss that I’d shoot
him down like the dog he is, you—you traitress,” he hissed.

She drew herself up scornfully.

“And I have been told why you married me—to show off your wicked jewels
and help you in your—”

“You lie!” he cried fiercely. “Muller—some one—open this safe—whosever
it is. If what I have been told is true, there is in it one new bag
containing the necklace. It was stolen from Schloss to whom you sold
_my_ jewels. The other old bag, stolen from me, contains the paste
replica you had made to deceive me.”

It was all so confused that I do not know how it happened. I think it
was Muller who opened the safe.

“There is the new yellow bag,” cried Moulton, “from Schloss’ own safe.
Open it.”

McLear had taken it. He did so. There sparkled not the real gems, but
the replica.

“The devil!” Moulton exclaimed, breaking from Winters and seizing the
old bag.

He tore it open and—it was empty.

“One moment,” interrupted Kennedy, looking up quietly from the counter.
“Seal that safe again, McLear. In it are the Schloss jewels and the
products of half a dozen other robberies which the dupe Muller—or
Stein, as you please—pulled off, some as a blind to conceal the real
criminal. You may have shown him how to leave no finger prints, but you
yourself have left what is just as good—your own forehead print.
McLear—you were right. There’s your criminal—Lynn Moulton, professional
fence, the brains of the thing.”




CHAPTER XIX
THE GERM LETTER


Lynn Moulton made no fight and Kennedy did not pursue the case, for,
with the rescue of Antoinette Moulton, his interest ceased.

Blackmail takes various forms, and the Moulton affair was only one
phase of it. It was not long before we had to meet a much stranger
attempt.

“Read the letter, Professor Kennedy. Then I will tell you the sequel.”

Mrs. Hunter Blake lay back in the cushions of her invalid chair in the
sun parlor of the great Blake mansion on Riverside Drive, facing the
Hudson with its continuous reel of maritime life framed against the
green-hilled background of the Jersey shore.

Her nurse, Miss Dora Sears, gently smoothed out the pillows and
adjusted them so that the invalid could more easily watch us. Mrs.
Blake, wealthy, known as a philanthropist, was not an old woman, but
had been for years a great sufferer from rheumatism.

I watched Miss Sears eagerly. Full-bosomed, fine of face and figure,
she was something more than a nurse; she was a companion. She had
bright, sparkling black eyes and an expression about her well-cut mouth
which made one want to laugh with her. It seemed to say that the world
was a huge joke and she invited you to enjoy the joke with her.

Kennedy took the letter which Miss Sears proffered him, and as he did
so I could not help noticing her full, plump forearm on which gleamed a
handsome plain gold bracelet. He spread the letter out on a dainty
wicker table in such a way that we both could see it.

We had been summoned over the telephone to the Blake mansion by
Reginald Blake, Mrs. Blake’s eldest son. Reginald had been very
reticent over the reason, but had seemed very anxious and insistent
that Kennedy should come immediately.

Craig read quickly and I followed him, fascinated by the letter from
its very opening paragraph.

“Dear Madam,” it began. “Having received my diploma as doctor of
medicine and bacteriology at Heidelberg in 1909, I came to the United
States to study a most serious disease which is prevalent in several of
the western mountain states.”

So far, I reflected, it looked like an ordinary appeal for aid. The
next words, however, were queer: “I have four hundred persons of wealth
on my list. Your name was—”

Kennedy turned the page. On the next leaf of the letter sheet was
pasted a strip of gelatine. The first page had adhered slightly to the
gelatine.

“Chosen by fate,” went on the sentence ominously.

“By opening this letter,” I read, “you have liberated millions of the
virulent bacteria of this disease. Without a doubt you are infected by
this time, for no human body is impervious to them, and up to the
present only one in one hundred has fully recovered after going through
all its stages.”

I gasped. The gelatine had evidently been arranged so that when the two
sheets were pulled apart, the germs would be thrown into the air about
the person opening the letter. It was a very ingenious device.

The letter continued, “I am happy to say, however, that I have a
prophylactic which will destroy any number of these germs if used up to
the ninth day. It is necessary only that you should place five thousand
dollars in an envelope and leave it for me to be called for at the desk
of the Prince Henry Hotel. When the messenger delivers the money to me,
the prophylactic will be sent immediately.

“First of all, take a match and burn this letter to avoid spreading the
disease. Then change your clothes and burn the old ones. Enclosed you
will find in a germ-proof envelope an exact copy of this letter. The
room should then be thoroughly fumigated. Do not come into close
contact with anyone near and dear to you until you have used the
prophylactic. Tell no one. In case you do, the prophylactic will not be
sent under any circumstances. Very truly yours, DR. HANS HOPF.”

“Blackmail!” exclaimed Kennedy, looking intently again at the gelatine
on the second page, as I involuntarily backed away and held my breath.

“Yes, I know,” responded Mrs. Blake anxiously, “but is it true?”

There could be no doubt from the tone of her voice that she more than
half believed that it was true.

“I cannot say—yet,” replied Craig, still cautiously scanning the
apparently innocent piece of gelatine on the original letter which Mrs.
Blake had not destroyed. “I shall have to keep it and examine it.”

On the gelatine I could see a dark mass which evidently was supposed to
contain the germs.

“I opened the letter here in this room,” she went on. “At first I
thought nothing of it. But this morning, when Buster, my prize
Pekinese, who had been with me, sitting on my lap at the time, and
closer to the letter even than I was, when Buster was taken suddenly
ill, I—well, I began to worry.”

She finished with a little nervous laugh, as people will to hide their
real feelings.

“I should like to see the dog,” remarked Kennedy simply.

“Miss Sears,” asked her mistress, “will you get Buster, please?”

The nurse left the room. No longer was there the laughing look on her
face. This was serious business.

A few minutes later she reappeared, carrying gingerly a small dog
basket. Mrs. Blake lifted the lid. Inside was a beautiful little
“Peke,” and it was easy to see that Buster was indeed ill.

“Who is your doctor?” asked Craig, considering.

“Dr. Rae Wilson, a very well-known woman physician.”

Kennedy nodded recognition of the name. “What does she say?” he asked,
observing the dog narrowly.

“We haven’t told anyone, outside, of it yet,” replied Mrs. Blake. “In
fact until Buster fell sick, I thought it was a hoax.”

“You haven’t told anyone?”

“Only Reginald and my daughter Betty. Betty is frantic—not with fear
for herself, but with fear for me. No one can reassure her. In fact it
was as much for her sake as anyone’s that I sent for you. Reginald has
tried to trace the thing down himself, but has not succeeded.”

She paused. The door opened and Reginald Blake entered. He was a young
fellow, self confident and no doubt very efficient at the new dances,
though scarcely fitted to rub elbows with a cold world which, outside
of his own immediate circle, knew not the name of Blake. He stood for a
moment regarding us through the smoke of his cigarette.

“Tell me just what you have done,” asked Kennedy of him as his mother
introduced him, although he had done the talking for her over the
telephone.

“Done?” he drawled. “Why, as soon as mother told me of the letter, I
left an envelope up at the Prince Henry, as it directed.”

“With the money?” put in Craig quickly.

“Oh, no—just as a decoy.”

“Yes. What happened?”

“Well, I waited around a long time. It was far along in the day when a
woman appeared at the desk. I had instructed the clerk to be on the
watch for anyone who asked for mail addressed to a Dr. Hopf. The clerk
slammed the register. That was the signal. I moved up closer.”

“What did she look like?” asked Kennedy keenly.

“I couldn’t see her face. But she was beautifully dressed, with a long
light flowing linen duster, a veil that hid her features and on her
hands and arms a long pair of motoring doeskin gloves. By George, she
was a winner—in general looks, though. Well, something about the clerk,
I suppose, must have aroused her suspicions. For, a moment later, she
was gone in the crowd. Evidently she had thought of the danger and had
picked out a time when the lobby would be full and everybody busy. But
she did not leave by the front entrance through which she entered. I
concluded that she must have left by one of the side street carriage
doors.”

“And she got away?”

“Yes. I found that she asked one of the boys at the door to crank up a
car standing at the curb. She slid into the seat, and was off in a
minute.”

Kennedy said nothing. But I knew that he was making a mighty effort to
restrain comment on the bungling amateur detective work of the son of
our client.

Reginald saw the look on his face. “Still,” he hastened, “I got the
number of the car. It was 200859 New York.”

“You have looked it up?” queried Kennedy quickly.

“I didn’t need to do it. A few minutes later Dr. Rae Wilson herself
came out—storming like mad. Her car had been stolen at the very door of
the hotel by this woman with the innocent aid of the hotel employees.”

Kennedy was evidently keenly interested. The mention of the stolen car
had apparently at once suggested an idea to him.

“Mrs. Blake,” he said, as he rose to go, “I shall take this letter with
me. Will you see that Buster is sent up to my laboratory immediately?”

She nodded. It was evident that Buster was a great pet with her and
that it was with difficulty she kept from smoothing his silky coat.

“You—you won’t hurt Buster?” she pleaded.

“No. Trust me. More than that, if there is any possible way of
untangling this mystery, I shall do it.”

Mrs. Blake looked rather than spoke her thanks. As we went downstairs,
accompanied by Miss Sears, we could see in the music room a very
interesting couple, chatting earnestly over the piano.

Betty Blake, a slip of a girl in her first season, was dividing her
attention between her visitor and the door by which we were passing.

She rose as she heard us, leaving the young man standing alone at the
piano. He was of an age perhaps a year or two older than Reginald
Blake. It was evident that, whatever Miss Betty might think, he had
eyes for no one else but the pretty debutante. He even seemed to be
regarding Kennedy sullenly, as if he were a possible rival.

“You—you don’t think it is serious?” whispered Betty in an undertone,
scarcely waiting to be introduced. She had evidently known of our
visit, but had been unable to get away to be present upstairs.

“Really, Miss Blake,” reassured Kennedy, “I can’t say. All I can do is
to repeat what I have already said to your mother. Keep up a good heart
and trust me to work it out.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, and then, impulsively extending her small
hand to Craig, she added, “Mr. Kennedy, if there is anything I can do
to help you, I beg that you will call on me.”

“I shall not forget,” he answered, relinquishing the hand reluctantly.
Then, as she thanked him, and turned again to her guest, he added in a
low tone to me, “A remarkable girl, Walter, a girl that can be depended
on.”

We followed Miss Sears down the hall.

“Who was that young man in the music room?” asked Kennedy, when we were
out of earshot.

“Duncan Baldwin,” she answered. “A friend and bosom companion of
Reginald.”

“He seems to think more of Betty than of her brother,” Craig remarked
dryly.

Miss Sears smiled. “Sometimes, we think they are secretly engaged,” she
returned. We had almost reached the door. “By the way,” she asked
anxiously, “do you think there are any precautions that I should take
for Mrs. Blake—and the rest?”

“Hardly,” answered Kennedy, after a moment’s consideration, “as long as
you have taken none in particular already. Still, I suppose it will do
no harm to be as antiseptic as possible.”

“I shall try,” she promised, her face showing that she considered the
affair now in a much more serious light than she had before our visit.

“And keep me informed of anything that turns up,” added Kennedy handing
her a card with the telephone number of the laboratory.

As we left the Blake mansion, Kennedy remarked, “We must trace that car
somehow—at least we must get someone working on that.”

Half an hour later we were in a towering office building on Liberty
Street, the home of various kinds of insurance. Kennedy stopped before
a door which bore the name, “Douglas Garwood: Insurance Adjuster.”

Briefly, Craig told the story of the stolen car, omitting the account
of the dastardly method taken to blackmail Mrs. Blake. As he proceeded
a light seemed to break on the face of Garwood, a heavyset man, whose
very gaze was inquisitorial.

“Yes, the theft has been reported to us already by Dr. Wilson herself,”
he interrupted. “The car was insured in a company I represent.”

“I had hoped so,” remarked Kennedy, “Do you know the woman?” he added,
watching the insurance adjuster who had been listening intently as he
told about the fair motor car thief.

“Know her?” repeated Garwood emphatically. “Why, man, we have been so
close to that woman that I feel almost intimate with her. The
descriptions are those of a lady, well-dressed, and with a voice and
manner that would carry her through any of the fashionable hotels,
perhaps into society itself.”

“One of a gang of blackmailers, then,” I hazarded.

Garwood shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he acquiesced. “It is
automobile thieving that interests me, though. Why,” he went on, rising
excitedly, “the gangs of these thieves are getting away with half a
million dollars’ worth of high-priced cars every year. The police seem
to be powerless to stop it. We appeal to them, but with no result. So,
now we have taken things into our own hands.”

“What are you doing in this case?” asked Kennedy.

“What the insurance companies have to do to recover stolen
automobiles,” Garwood replied. “For, with all deference to your friend,
Deputy O’Connor, it is the insurance companies rather than the police
who get stolen cars back.”

He had pulled out a postal card from a pigeon hole in his desk,
selecting it from several apparently similar. We read:

$250.00 REWARD


We will pay $100.00 for car, $150.00 additional for information which
will convict the thief. When last seen, driven by a woman, name not
known, who is described as dark-haired, well-dressed, slight,
apparently thirty years old. The car is a Dixon, 1912, seven-passenger,
touring, No. 193,222, license No. 200,859, New York; dark red body,
mohair top, brass lamps, has no wind shield; rear axle brake band
device has extra nut on turnbuckle not painted. Car last seen near
Prince Henry Hotel, New York City, Friday, the 10th.

Communicate by telegraph or telephone, after notifying nearest police
department, with Douglas Garwood, New York City.

“The secret of it is,” explained Garwood, as we finished reading, “that
there are innumerable people who keep their eyes open and like to earn
money easily. Thus we have several hundreds of amateur and enthusiastic
detectives watching all over the city and country for any car that
looks suspicious.”

Kennedy thanked him for his courtesy, and we rose to go. “I shall be
glad to keep you informed of anything that turns up,” he promised.




CHAPTER XX
THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY


In the laboratory, Kennedy quietly set to work. He began by tearing
from the germ letter the piece of gelatine and first examining it with
a pocket lens. Then, with a sterile platinum wire, he picked out
several minute sections of the black spot on the gelatine and placed
them in agar, blood serum, and other media on which they would be
likely to grow.

“I shall have to wait until to-morrow to examine them properly,” he
remarked. “There are colonies of something there, all right, but I must
have them more fully developed.”

WHAT to read. This is like giving a loaded gun to a boy and saying,
'Shoot away! ... No matter in which direction you point your aim, . .
shoot yourself if you like, and others too,--anyhow, you've GOT the
gun!' Of course there are a few fellows who have occasionally drawn up
a list of books as suitable for everybody's perusal,--but then these
lists cannot be taken as true criterions, as they all differ from one
another as much as church sects. One would-be instructor in the art of
reading says we ought all to study 'Tom Jones'--now I don't see the
necessity of THAT! And, oddly enough, these lists scarcely ever include
the name of a poet,--which is the absurdest mistake ever made. A
liberal education in the highest works of poesy is absolutely necessary
to the thinking abilities of man. But, Alwyn, YOU need not trouble
yourself about what is good for the million and what isn't, . .
whatever you write is sure to be read NOW--you've got the ear of the
public,--the 'fair, large ear' of the ass's head which disguises Bottom
the Weaver, who frankly says of himself, 'I am such a tender ass, if my
hair do but tickle me, I must scratch!'"

Alwyn smiled. He was thinking of what his Shadow-Self had said on this
very subject--"A book or poem, to be great, and keep its greatness
hereafter, must be judged by the natural instinct of PEOPLES. This
world-wide decision has never yet been, and never will be, hastened by
any amount of written criticism,--it is the responsive beat of the
enormous Pulse of Life that thrills through all mankind, high and low,
gentle and simple,--its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured,
yet if once it answers to a Poet's touch, that Poet's name is made
glorious forever!" He.. in the character of Sah-luma.. had seemed to
utter these sentiments many ages ago,--and now the words repeated
themselves in his thoughts with a new and deep intensity of meaning.

"Of course," added Villiers suddenly--"you must expect plenty of
adverse criticism now, as it is known beyond all doubt that you are
alive and able to read what is written concerning you,--but if you once
pay attention to critics, you may as well put aside pen altogether, as
it is the business of these worthies never to be entirely satisfied
with anything. Even Shelley and Byron, in the critical capacity, abused
Keats, till the poor, suffering youth, who promised to be greater then
either of them, died of a broken heart as much as disease. This sort of
injustice will go on to the end of time, or till men become more
Christianized than Paul's version of Christianity has ever yet made
them."

Here a knock at the door interrupted the conversation. The servant
entered, bringing a note gorgeously crested and coroneted in gold.
Villiers, to whom it was addressed, opened and read it.

"What shall we do about this?" he asked, when his man had retired. "It
is an invitation from the Duchess de la Santoisie. She asks us to go
and dine with her next week,--a party of twenty--reception afterward. I
think we'd better accept,--what do you say?"

Alwyn roused himself from his reverie. "Anything to please you, my dear
boy!" he answered cheerfully--"But I haven't the faintest idea who the
Duchess de la Santoisie is!"

"No? ... Well, she's an Englishwoman who has married a French Duke. He
is a delightful old fellow, the pink of courtesy, and the model of
perfect egotism. A true Parisian, and of course an atheist,--a very
polished atheist, too, with a most charming reliance on his own
infallibility. His wife writes novels which have a SLIGHT leaning
toward Zolaism,--she is an extremely witty woman sarcastic, and
cold-blooded enough to be a female Robespierre, yet, on the whole,
amusing as a study of what curious nondescript forms the feminine
nature can adopt unto itself, if it chooses. She has an immense respect
for GENIUS,--mind, I say genius advisedly, because she really is one of
those rare few who cannot endure mediocrity. Everything at her house is
the best of its kind, and the people she entertains are the best of
theirs. Her welcome of you will be at any rate a sincerely admiring
one,--and as I think, in spite of your desire for quiet, you will have
to show yourself somewhere, it may as well be there."

Alwyn looked dubious, and not at all resigned to the prospect of
"showing himself."

"Your description of her does not strike me as particularly
attractive,"--he said--"I cannot endure that nineteenth-century
hermaphroditic production, a mannish woman."

"Oh but she isn't altogether mannish,"--declared Villiers, . .
"Besides, I mustn't forget to add, that she is extremely beautiful."

Alwyn shrugged his shoulders indifferently. His friend noticed the
gesture and laughed.

"Still impervious to beauty, old boy?"--he said gayly--"You always
were, I remember!"

Alwyn flushed a little, and rose from his chair.

"Not always,"--he answered steadily,--"There have been times in my life
when the beauty of women,--mere physical beauty--has exercised great
influence over me. But I have lately learned how a fair face may
sometimes mask a foul mind,--and unless I can see the SUBSTANCE of Soul
looking through the SEMBLANCE of Body, then I know that the beauty I
SEEM to behold is mere Appearance, and not Reality. Hence, unless your
beautiful Duchess be like the 'King's daughter' of David's psalm, 'all
glorious WITHIN'--her APPARENT loveliness will have no charm for
me!--Now"--and he smiled, and spoke in a less serious tone.. "if you
have no objection, I am off to my room to scribble for an hour or so.
Come for me if you want me--you know I don't in the least mind being
disturbed."

But Villiers detained him a moment, and looked inquisitively at him
full in the eyes.

"You've got some singular new attraction about you, Alwyn,"--he said,
with a strange sense of keen inward excitement as he met his friend's
calm yet flashing glance,--"Something mysterious, . . something that
COMPELS! What is it? ... I believe that visit of yours to the Ruins of
Babylon had a more important motive than you will admit, . . moreover..
I believe you are in love!"

"IN love!"--Alwyn laughed a little as he repeated the words.. "What a
foolish term that is when you come to think of it! For to be IN love
suggests the possibility of getting OUT again,--which, if love be true,
can never happen. Say that I LOVE!--and you will be nearer the mark!
Now don't look so mystified, and don't ask me any more questions just
now--to-night, when we are sitting together in the library, I'll tell
you the whole story of my Babylonian adventure!"

And with a light parting wave of the hand he left the room, and
Villiers heard him humming a tune softly to himself as he ascended the
stairs to his own apartments, where, ever since he arrived, he had made
it his custom to do two or three hours' steady writing every morning.
For a moment or so after he had gone Villiers stood lost in thought,
with knitted brows and meditative eyes, then, rousing himself, he went
on to his study, and sitting down at his desk wrote an answer to the
Duchess de la Santoisie accepting her invitation.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

REWARDS OF FAME.


An habitual resident in London who is gifted with a keen faculty of
hearing and observation, will soon learn to know instinctively the
various characteristics of the people who call upon him, by the
particular manner in which each one handles his door-bell or knocker.
He will recognize the timid from the bold, the modest from the
arrogant, the meditative thinker from the bustling man of fashion, the
familiar friend from the formal acquaintance. Every individual's method
of announcing his or her arrival to the household is distinctly
different,--and Villiers, who studied a little of everything, had not
failed to take note of the curiously diversified degrees of single and
double rapping by means of which his visitors sought admittance to his
abode. In fact, he rather prided himself on being able to guess with
almost invariable correctness what special type of man or woman was at
his door, provided he could hear the whole diapason of their knock from
beginning to end. When he was shut in his "den," however, the sounds
were muffled by distance, and he could form no just
judgment,--sometimes, indeed, he did not hear them at all, especially
if he happened to be playing his 'cello at the time. So that this
morning he was considerably startled, when, having finished his letter
to the Duchess de la Santoisie, a long and persistent rat-tat-tatting
echoed noisily through the house, like the smart, quick blows of a
carpenter's hammer--a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to
him, and that, while so emphatic in character, suggested to his mind
neither friend nor foe. He laid down his pen, listened and waited. In a
minute or two his servant entered the room.

"If you please, sir, a lady to see Mr. Alwyn. Shall I show her up?"

Villiers rose slowly out of his chair, and stood eyeing his man in
blank bewilderment.

"A LADY! ... To see Mr. Alwyn!"--he repeated, his thoughts instantly
reverting to his friend's vaguely hinted love-affair,--"What name?"

"She gives no name, sir. She says it isn't needed,--Mr. Alwyn will know
who she is."

"Mr. Alwyn will know who she is, will he?" murmured Villiers
dubiously.--"What is she like? Young and pretty?"

Over the man-servant's staid countenance came the glimmer of a demure,
respectful smile.

"Oh no, sir,--not young, sir! A person about fifty, I should say."

This was mystifying. A person about fifty! Who could she be? Villiers
hastily considered,--there must be some mistake, he thought,--at any
rate, he would see the unknown intruder himself first, and find out
what her business was, before breaking in upon Alwyn's peaceful studies
upstairs.

"Show the lady in here"--he said--"I can't disturb Mr. Alwyn just now."

The servant retired, and soon re-appeared, ushering in a tall, gaunt,
black-robed female, who walked with the stride of a dragoon and the
demeanor of a police-inspector, and who, merely nodding briskly in
response to Villiers's amazed bow, selected with one comprehensive
glance the most comfortable chair in the room, and seated herself at
ease therein. She then put up her veil, displaying a long, narrow face,
cold, pale, arrogant eyes, a nose inclined to redness at the tip, and a
thin, close-set mouth lined with little sarcastic wrinkles, which came
into prominent and unbecoming play as soon as she began to speak, which
she did almost immediately.

"I suppose I had better introduce myself to you, Mr. Alwyn"--she said
with a condescending and confident air--"Though really we know each
other so well by reputation that there seems scarcely any necessity for
it! Of course you have heard of 'Tiger-Lily!'"

Villiers gazed at her helplessly,--he had never felt so uncomfortable
in all his life. Here was a strange woman, who had actually taken
bodily possession of his apartment as though it were her own,--who had
settled herself down in his particular pet Louis Quatorze chair,--who
stared at him with the scrutinizing complacency of a professional
physiognomist,--and who seemed to think no explanation of her
extraordinary conduct was necessary, inasmuch as "of course" he,
Villiers, had heard of "TIGER-LILY!" It was very singular! ... almost
like madness! ... Perhaps she WAS mad! How could he tell? She had a
remarkably high, knobby brow,--a brow with an unpleasantly bald
appearance, owing to the uncompromising way in which her hair was
brushed well off it--he had seen such brows before in certain
"spiritualists" who believed, or pretended to believe, in the suddenly
willed dematerialization of matter, and THEY were mad, he knew, or else
very foolishly feigning madness!

Endeavoring to compose his bewildered mind, he fixed glass in eye, and
regarded her through it with an inquiring solemnity,--he would have
spoken, but before he could utter a word, she went on rapidly:

"You are not in the least like the person I imagined you to be! ...
However, that doesn't matter. Literary celebrities are always so
different to what we expect!"

"Pardon me, madam,"--began Villiers politely.. "You are making a slight
error,--my servant probably did not explain. I am not Mr. Alwyn, . . my
name is Villiers. Mr. Alwyn is my guest,--but he is at present very
much occupied,--and unless your business is extremely urgent..."

"Certainly it is urgent"--said the lady decisively.. "otherwise I
should not have come. And so you are NOT Mr. Alwyn! Well, I thought you
couldn't be! Now then, will you have the kindness to tell Mr. Alwyn I
am here?"

By this time Villiers had recovered his customary self-possession, and
he met her commanding glance with a somewhat defiant coolness.

"I am not aware to whom I have the honor of speaking," he said
frigidly. "Perhaps you will oblige me with your name?"

"My name doesn't in the least matter," she replied calmly--"though I
will tell you afterward if you wish. But you don't seem to understand
I..._I_ am 'Tiger-Lily'!"

The situation was becoming ludicrous. Villiers felt strongly disposed
to laugh.

"I'm afraid I am very ignorant!"--he said, with a humorous sparkle in
his blue eyes,--"But really I am quite in the dark as to your meaning.
Will you explain?"

The lady's nose grew deeper of tint, and the look she shot at him had
quite a killing vindictiveness. With evident difficulty she forced a
smile.

"Oh, you MUST have heard of me!"--she declared, with a ponderous
attempt at playfulness--"You read the papers, don't you?"

"Some of them," returned Villiers cautiously--"Not all. Not the Sunday
ones, for instance."

"Still, you can't possibly have helped seeing my descriptions of famous
people 'At Home,' you know! I write for ever so many journals. I
think"--and she became complacently reflective--"I think I may say with
perfect truth that I have interviewed everybody who has ever done
anything worth noting, from our biggest provision dealer to our latest
sensational novelist! And all my articles are signed 'Tiger-Lily.' NOW
do you remember? Oh, you MUST remember? ... I am so VERY well known!"

There was a touch of genuine anxiety in her voice that was almost
pathetic, but Villiers made no attempt to soothe her wounded vanity.

"I have no recollection whatever of the name," he said bluntly--"But
that is easily accounted for, as I never read newspaper descriptions of
celebrities. So you are an 'interviewer' for the Press?"

"Exactly!" and the lady leaned back more comfortably in the Louis
Quatorze fauteuil--"And of course I want to interview Mr. Alwyn. I
want..." here drawing out a business looking note-book from her pocket
she opened it and glanced at the different headings therein
enumerated,--"I want to describe his personal appearance,--to know when
he was born, and where he was educated,--whether his father or mother
had literary tastes,--whether he had, or has, brothers or sisters, or
both,--whether he is married, or likely to be, and how much money he
has made by his book." She paused and gave an upward glance at
Villiers, who returned it with a blank and stony stare.

"Then,"--she resumed energetically--"I wish to know what are his
methods of work;--WHERE he gets his ideas and HOW he elaborates
them,--how many hours he writes at a time, and whether he is an early
riser,--also what he usually takes for dinner,--whether he drinks wine
or is a total abstainer, and at what hour he retires to rest. All this
is so INTENSELY interesting to the public! Perhaps he might be inclined
to give me a few notes of his recent tour in the East, and of course I
should be very glad if he will state his opinions on the climate,
customs, and governments of the countries through which he has passed.
It's a great pity this is not his own house,--it is a pretty place and
a description of it would read well. Let me see!"--and she
meditated,--" I think I could manage to insert a few lines about this
apartment, . . it would be easy to say 'the picturesque library in the
house of the Honble. Francis Villiers, where Mr. Alwyn received me,'
etc.,--Yes! that would do very well!--very well indeed! I should like
to know whether he has a residence of his own anywhere, and if not,
whether he intends to take one in London, because in the latter case it
would be as well to ascertain by whom he intends to have it furnished.
A little discussion on upholstery is so specially fascinating to my
readers! Then, naturally, I am desirous to learn how the erroneous
rumor of his death was first started, . . whether in the course of his
travels he met with some serious accident, or illness, which gave rise
to the report. Now,"--and she shut her note-book and folded her
hands,--"I don't mind waiting an hour or more if necessary,--but I am
sure if you will tell Mr. Alwyn who I am, and what I have come for, he
will be only too delighted to see me with as little delay as possible."

She ceased. Villiers drew a long breath,--his compressed lips parted in
a slightly sarcastic smile. Squaring his shoulders with that peculiar
pugnacious gesture of his which always indicated to those who knew him
well that his mind was made up, and that nothing would induce him to
alter it, he said in a tone of stiff civility:

"I am sorry, madam, . . very sorry! ... but I am compelled to inform
you that your visit here is entirely useless! Were I to tell my friend
of the purpose you have in view concerning him, he would not feel so
much flattered as you seem to imagine, but rather insulted! Excuse my
frankness,--you have spoken plainly,--I must speak plainly too.
Provision dealers and sensational story writers may find that it serves
their purpose to be interviewed, if only as a means of gaining extra
advertisement, but a truly great and conscientious author like Theos
Alwyn is quite above all that sort of thing."

The lady raised her pale eyebrows with an expression of interrogative
scorn.

"ABOVE all that sort of thing!" she echoed incredulously--"Dear me! How
very extraordinary! I have always found all our celebrities so
exceedingly pleased to be given a little additional notoriety! ... and
I should have thought a POET," this with much depreciative
emphasis--"would have been particularly glad of the chance! Because, of
course you know that unless a very astonishing success is made, as in
the case of Mr. Alwyn's 'Nourhalma,' people really take such slight
interest in writers of verse, that it is hardly ever worth while
interviewing them!"

"Precisely!" agreed Villiers ironically,--"The private history of a
prize-fighter would naturally be much more thrilling!" He paused,--his
temper was fast rising, but, quickly reflecting that, after all, the
indignation he felt was not so much against his visitor as against the
system she represented, he resumed quietly, "May I ask you, madam,
whether you have ever 'interviewed' Her Majesty the Queen?"

Her glance swept slightingly over him.

"Certainly not! Such a thing would be impossible!"

"Then you have never thought," went on Villiers, with a thrill of
earnestness in his manly, vibrating voice--"that it might be quite as
impossible to 'interview' a great Poet?--who, if great indeed, is in
every way as royal as any Sovereign that ever adorned a throne! I do
not speak of petty verse-writers,--I say a great Poet, by which term I
imply a great creative genius who is honestly faithful to his high
vocation. Such an one could no more tell you his methods of work than a
rainbow could prattle about the way it shines,--and as for his personal
history, I should like to know by what right society is entitled to pry
into the sacred matters of a man's private life, simply because he
happens to be famous? I consider the modern love of prying and probing
into other people's affairs a most degrading and abominable sign of the
times,--it is morbid, unwholesome, and utterly contemptible. Moreover,
I think that writers who consent to be 'interviewed' condemn themselves
as literary charlatans, unworthy of the profession they have wrongfully
adopted. You see I have the courage of my opinions on this matter,--in
fact, I believe, if every one were to speak their honest mind openly, a
better state of things might be the result, and 'interviewing' would
gradually come to be considered in its true light, namely, as a vulgar
and illegitimate method of advertisement. I mean no disrespect to you,
madam,"--this, as the lady suddenly put down her veil, thrust her
note-book in her pocket, and rose somewhat bouncingly from her
chair--"I am only sorry you should find such an occupation as that of
the 'interviewer' open to you. I can scarcely imagine such work to be
congenial to a lady's feelings, as, in the case of really distinguished
personages, she must assuredly meet with many a rebuff! I hope I have
not offended you by my bluntness, ... "--here he trailed off into
inaudible polite murmurs, while the "Tiger-Lily" marched steadily
toward the door.

"Oh dear, no, I am not in the least offended!" she retorted
contemptuously,--"On the contrary, this has been a most amusing
experience!--most amusing, I assure you! and quite unique! Why--" and
suddenly stopping short, she turned smartly round and gesticulated with
one hand ... "I have interviewed all the favorite actors and actresses
in London! The biggest brewers in Great Britain have received me at
their country mansions, and have given me all the particulars of their
lives from earliest childhood! The author of 'Hugger Mugger's Curse'
took the greatest pains to explain to me how he first collected the
materials for his design. The author of that most popular story,
'Darling's Twins,' gave me a description of all the houses he has ever
lived in,--he even told me where he purchased his writing-paper, pens,
and ink! And to think that a POET should be too grand to be
interrogated! Oh, the idea is really very funny! ... quite too funny
for anything! "She gave a short laugh,--then relapsing into severity,
she added ... "You will, I hope, tell Mr. Alwyn I called?"

Villiers bowed. "Assuredly!"

"Thank you! Because it is possible he may have different opinions to
yours,--in that case, if he writes me a line, fixing an appointment, I
shall be very pleased to call again. I will leave my card,--and if Mr.
Alwyn is a sensible man, he will certainly hold broader ideas on the
subject of 'interviewing' than YOU appear to entertain. You are QUITE
sure I cannot see him?"

"Quite!"--There was no mistake about the firm emphasis of this reply.

"Oh, very well!"--here she opened the door, rattling the handle with
rather an unnecessary violence,--"I'm sorry to have taken up any of
your time, Mr. Villiers. Good-morning!"

"Good-morning!" ... returned Villiers calmly, touching the bell that
his servant might be in readiness to show her out. But the baffled
"Tiger-Lily" was not altogether gone. She looked back, her face
wrinkling into one of those strangely unbecoming expressions of grim
playfulness.

"I've half a mind to make an 'At Home' out of YOU!" she said, nodding
at him energetically. "Only you're not important enough!"

Villiers burst out laughing. He was not proof against this touch of
humor, and on a sudden good-natured impulse, sprang to the door and
shook hands with her.

"No, indeed, I am not!" he said, with a charming smile--"Think of
it!--I haven't even invented a new biscuit! Come, let me see you into
the hall,--I'm really sorry if I've spoken roughly, but I assure you
Alwyn's not at all the sort of man you want for interviewing,--he's far
too modest and noble-hearted. Believe me!--I'm not romancing a
bit--I'm in earnest. There ARE some few fine, manly, gifted fellows
left in the world, who do their work for the love of the work alone,
and not for the sake of notoriety, and he is one of them. Now I'm not
certain, if you were quite candid with me, you'd admit that you
yourself don't think much of the people who actually LIKE to be
interviewed?"

His amiable glance, his kindly manner, took the gaunt female by
surprise, and threw her quite off her guard. She laughed,--a natural,
unforced laugh in which there was not a trace of bitterness. He was
really a delightful young man, she thought, in spite of his
old-fashioned, out-of-the-way notions!

"Well, perhaps I don't!" she replied frankly--"But you see it is not my
business to think about them at all. I simply 'interview' them,--and I
generally find they are very willing, and often eager, to tell me all
about themselves, even to quite trifling and unnecessary details. And,
of course, each one thinks himself or herself the ONLY or the chief
'celebrity' in London, or, for that matter, in the world. I have always
to tone down the egotistical part of it a little, especially with
authors, for if I were to write out exactly what THEY separately say of
their contemporaries, it would be simply frightful! They would be all
at daggers drawn in no time! I assure you 'interviewing' is often a
most delicate and difficult business!"

"Would it were altogether impossible!" said Villiers heartily--"But as
long as there is a plethora of little authors, and a scarcity of great
ones, so long, I suppose, must it continue--for little men love
notoriety, and great ones shrink from it, just in the same way that
good women like flattery, while bad ones court it. I hope you don't
bear me any grudge because I consider my friend Alwyn both good and
great, and resent the idea of his being placed, no matter with what
excellent intention soever, on the level of the small and mean?"

The lady surveyed him with a twinkle of latent approval in her
pale-colored eyes.

"Not in the least!" she replied in a tone of perfect good-humor. "On
the contrary, I rather admire your frankness! Still, I think, that as
matters stand nowadays, you are very odd,--and I suppose your friend is
odd too,--but, of course, there must be exceptions to every rule. At
the same time, you should recollect that, in many people's opinion, to
be 'interviewed' is one of the chiefest rewards of fame!--" Villiers
shrugged his shoulders expressively. "Oh, yes, it seems a poor reward
to you, no doubt,"--she continued smilingly,--"but there are no end of
authors who would do anything to secure the notoriety of it! Now,
suppose that, after all, Mr. Alwyn DOES care to submit to the
operation, you will let me know, won't you?"

"Certainly I will!"--and Villiers, accepting her card, on which was
inscribed her own private name and address, shook hands once more, and
bowed her courteously out. No sooner had the door closed upon her than
he sprang upstairs, three steps at a time, and broke impetuously in
upon Alwyn, who, seated at a table covered with papers, looked up with
a surprised smile at the abrupt fashion of his entrance. In a few
minutes he had disburdened himself of the whole story of the
"Tiger-Lily's" visit, telling it in a whimsical way of his own, much to
the amusement of his friend, who listened, pen in hand, with a
half-laughing, half-perplexed light in his fine, poetic eyes.

"Now did I express the proper opinion?" he demanded in conclusion. "Was
I not right in thinking you would never consent to be interviewed?"

"Right? Why of course you were!"--responded Alwyn quickly. "Can you
imagine me calmly stating the details of my personal life and history
to a strange woman, and allowing her to turn it into a half-guinea
article for some society journal! But, Villiers, what an extraordinary
state of things we are coming to, if the Press can actually condescend
to employ a sort of spy, or literary detective, to inquire into the
private experience of each man or woman who comes honorably to the
front!"

"Honorably or DIShonorably,--it doesn't matter which,"--said Villiers,
"That is just the worst of it. One day it is an author who is
'interviewed,' the next it is a murderer,--now a statesman,--then a
ballet dancer,--the same honor is paid to all who have won any distinct
notoriety. And what is so absurd is, that the reading million don't
seem able to distinguish between 'notoriety' and 'fame.' The two things
are so widely, utterly apart! Byron's reputation, for instance, was
much more notoriety during his life than fame--while Keats had actually
laid hold on fame while as yet deeming himself unfamous. It's curious,
but true, nevertheless, that very often the writers who thought least
of themselves during their lifetime have become the most universally
renowned after their deaths. Shakespeare, I dare say, had no very
exaggerated idea of the beauty of his own plays,--he seems to have
written just the best that was in him, without caring what anybody
thought of it. And I believe that is the only way to succeed in the
end."

"In the end!" repeated Alwyn dreamily--"In the end, no worldly success
is worth attaining,--a few thousand years and the greatest are
forgotten!"

"Not the GREATEST,"--said Villiers warmly--"The greatest must always be
remembered."

"No, my friend!--Not even the greatest! Do you not think there must
have been great and wise and gifted men in Tyre, in Sidon, in Carthage,
in Babylon?--There are five men mentioned in Scripture, as being 'ready
to write swiftly'--Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ecanus, and Ariel--where is
the no doubt admirable work done by these? Perhaps ... who knows? ...
one of them was as great as Homer in genius,--we cannot tell!"

"True,--we cannot tell!" responded Villiers meditatively--"But, Alwyn,
if you persist in viewing things through such tremendous vistas of
time, and in measuring the Future by the Past, then one may ask what is
the use of anything?"

"There IS no use in anything, except in the making of a strong,
persistent, steady effort after good," said Alwyn earnestly ... "We men
are cast, as it were, between two swift currents, Wrong and
Right,--Self and God,--and it seems more easy to shut our eyes and
drift into Self and Wrong, than to strike out brave arms, and swim,
despite all difficulty, toward God and Right, yet if we once take the
latter course, we shall find it the most natural and the least
fatiguing. And with every separate stroke of high endeavor we carry
others with us,--we raise our race,--we bear it onward,--upward! And
the true reward, or best result of fame, is, that having succeeded in
winning brief attention from the multitude, a man may be able to
pronounce one of God's lightning messages of inspired Truth plainly to
them, while they are yet willing to stand and listen. This momentary
hearing from the people is, as I take it, the sole reward any writer
can dare to hope for,--and when he obtains it, he should remember that
his audience remains with him but a very short while,--so that it is
his duty to see that he employ his chance WELL, not to win applause for
himself, but to cheer and lift others to noble thought, and still more
noble fulfilment."

Villiers regarded him wistfully.

"Alwyn, my dear fellow, do you want to be the Sisyphus of this
era?--You will find the stone of Evil heavy to roll upward,--moreover,
it will exhibit the usually painful tendency to slip back and crush
you!"

"How can it crush me?" asked his friend with a serene smile. "My heart
cannot be broken, or my spirit dismayed, and as for my body, it can but
die,--and death comes to every man! I would rather try to roll up the
stone, however fruitless the task, than sit idly looking at it, and
doing nothing!"

"Your heart cannot be broken? Ah! how do you know" ... and Villiers
shook his head dubiously--"What man can be certain of his own destiny?"

"Everyman can WILL his own destiny,"--returned Alwyn firmly. "That is
just it. But here we are getting into a serious discussion, and I had
determined to talk no more on such subjects till to-night."

"And to-night we are to go in for them thoroughly, I
suppose?"--inquired Villiers with a quick look. "To-night, my dear boy,
you will have to decide whether you consider me mad or sane," said
Alwyn cheerfully--"I shall tell you truths that seem like romances--and
facts that sound like fables,--moreover, I shall have to assure you
that miracles DO happen whenever God chooses, in spite of all human
denial of their possibility. Do you remember Whately's clever
skit--'Historical Doubts of Napoleon I'?--showing how easy it was to
logically prove that Napoleon never existed?--That ought to enlighten
people as to the very precise and convincing manner in which we can, if
we choose, argue away what is nevertheless an incontestible FACT. Thus
do skeptics deny miracles--yet we live surrounded by miracles! ... do
you think me crazed for saying so?"

Villiers laughed. "Crazed! No, indeed!--I wish every man in London were
as sane and sound as you are!"

"Ah, but wait till to-night!" and Alwyn's eyes sparkled
mirthfully--"Perhaps you will alter your opinion then!"--Here,
collecting his scattered manuscripts, he put them by--"I've done work
for the present,"--he said--"Shall we go for a walk somewhere?"

Villiers assented, and they left the room together.




CHAPTER XXXV.

ONE AGAINST MANY.


The beautiful and socially popular Duchess de la Santoisie sat her at
brilliantly appointed dinner-table, and flashed her bright eyes
comprehensively round the board,--her party was complete. She had
secured twenty of the best-known men and women of letters in all
London, and yet she was not quite satisfied with the result attained.
One dark, splendid face on her right hand had taken the lustre out of
all the rest,--one quiet, courteous smile on a mouth haughty, yet
sweet, had somehow or other made the entertainment of little worth in
her own estimation. She was very fair to look upon, very witty, very
worldly-wise,--but for once her beauty seemed to herself defective and
powerless to charm, while the graceful cloak of social hypocrisy she
was always accustomed to wear would not adapt itself to her manner
tonight so well as usual. The author of "Nourhalma" the successful poet
whose acquaintance she had very eagerly sought to make, was not at all
the kind of man she had expected,--and now, when he was beside her as
her guest, she did not quite know what to do with him.

She had met plenty of poets, so called, before,--and had, for the most
part, found them insignificant looking men with an enormous opinion of
themselves, and a suave, condescending contempt for all others of their
craft; but this being,--this stately, kingly creature with the noble
head, and far-gazing, luminous eyes,--this man, whose every gesture was
graceful, whose demeanor was more royal than that of many a crowned
monarch,--whose voice had such a singular soft thrill of music in its
tone,--he was a personage for whom she had not been prepared,--and in
whose presence she felt curiously embarrassed and almost ill at ease.
And she was not the only one present who experienced these odd
sensations. Alwyn's appearance, when, with his friend Villiers, he had
first entered the Duchess's drawing-room that evening, and had there
been introduced to his hostess, had been a sort of revelation to the
languid, fashionable guests assembled; sudden quick whispers were
exchanged--surprised glances,--how unlike he was to the general type of
the nervous, fagged, dyspeptic "literary" man!

And now that every one was seated at dinner, the same impression
remained on all,--an impression that was to some disagreeable and
humiliating, and that yet could not be got over,--namely, that this
"poet," whom, in a way, the Duchess and her friends had intended to
patronize, was distinctly superior to them all. Nature, as though proud
of her handiwork, proclaimed him as such,--while he, quite unconscious
of the effect he produced, wondered why this bevy of human beings, most
of whom were more or less distinguished in the world of art and
literature, had so little to say for themselves. Their conversation was
BANAL,--tame,--ordinary; they might have been well-behaved, elegantly
dressed peasants for aught they said of wise, cheerful, or witty. The
weather,--the parks,--the theatres,--the newest actress, and the newest
remedies for indigestion,--these sort of subjects were bandied about
from one to the other with a vaguely tame persistence that was really
irritating,--the question of remedies for indigestion seemed to hold
ground longest, owing to the variety of opinions expressed thereon.

The Duchess grew more and more inwardly vexed, and her little foot beat
an impatient tattoo under the table, as she replied with careless
brevity to a few of the commonplace observations addressed to her, and
cast an occasional annoyed glance at her lord, M le Duc, a thin,
military-looking individual, with a well waxed and pointed mustache,
whose countenance suggested an admirably executed mask. It was a face
that said absolutely nothing,--yet beneath its cold impassiveness
linked the satyr-like, complex, half civilized, half brutish mind of
the born and bred Parisian,--the goblin-creature with whom pure
virtues, whether in man or woman, are no more sacred than nuts to a
monkey. The suave charm of a polished civility sat on M le Due's smooth
brow, and beamed in his urbane smile,--his manners were exquisite, his
courtesy irreproachable, his whole demeanor that of a very precise and
elegant master of deportment. Yet, notwithstanding his calm and
perfectly self-possessed exterior, he was, oddly enough, the frequent
prey of certain extraordinary and ungovernable passions; there were
times when he became impossible to himself,--and when, to escape from
his own horrible thoughts, he would plunge headlong into an orgie of
wild riot and debauchery, such as might have made the hair of his
respectable English acquaintances stand on end, had they known to what
an extent he carried his excesses. But at these seasons of moral
attack, he "went abroad for his health," as he said, delicately
touching his chest in order to suggest some interesting latent weakness
there, and in these migratory excursions his wife never accompanied
him, nor did she complain of his absence. When he returned, after two
or three months, he looked more the "chevalier sans peur et sans
reproche" than ever; and neither he, nor the fair partner of his joys
and sorrows, even committed such a breach of politeness as to inquire
into each other's doings during the time of their separation. So they
jogged on together, presenting the most delightful outward show of
wedded harmony to the world,--and only a few were found to hazard the
remark, that the "racy" novels Madame la Duchesse wrote to wile away
her duller hours were singularly "bitter" in tone, for a woman whose
lot in life was so extremely enviable!

On this particular evening, the Duke affected to be utterly unconscious
of the meaning looks his beautiful spouse shot at him every now and
then,--looks which plainly said--"Why don't you start some interesting
subject of conversation, and stop these people from talking such
every-day twaddle?" He was a clever man in his way, and his present
mood was malign and mischievous; therefore he went on eating daintily,
and discussing mild platitudes in the most languidly amiable manner
imaginable, enjoying to the full the mental confusion and discomfort of
his guests,--confusion and discomfort which, as he very well knew, was
the psychological result of their having one in their midst whose life
and character were totally opposite to, and distinctly separate from,
their own. As Emerson truly says, "Let the world beware when a Thinker
comes into it!".. and here WAS this Thinker,--this type of the Godlike
in Man,--this uncomfortably sincere personage, whose eyes were clear of
falsehood, whose genius was incontestable, whose fame had taken society
by assault, and who, therefore, was entitled to receive every attention
and consideration.

Everybody had desired to see him, and here he was,--the great man, the
new "celebrity"--and now that he was actually present, no one knew what
to say to him; moreover, there was a very general tendency in the
company to avoid his direct gaze. People fidgeted on their chairs and
looked aside or downward, whenever his glance accidentally fell on
them,--and to the analytical Voltairean mind of M. le Duc there was
something grimly humorous in the whole situation. He was a great
admirer of physical strength and beauty, and Alwyn's noble face and
fine figure had won his respect, though of the genius of the poet he
knew nothing, and cared less. It was enough for all the purposes of
social usage that the author of "Nourhalma" was CONSIDERED
illustrious,--no matter whether he deserved the appellation or not. And
so the Duke, satirically amused at the obvious embarrassment of the
other "notabilities" assembled, did nothing whatsoever to relieve or to
lighten the conversation, which remained so utterly dull and inane that
Alwyn, who had been compelled, for politeness' sake, to appear
interested in the account of a bicycle race detailed to him by a very
masculine looking lady-doctor whose seat at table was next his own,
began to feel a little weary, and to wonder dismally how long this
"feast of reason and flow of soul" was going to last.

Villiers, too, whose easy, good-natured, and clever talk generally gave
some sparkle and animation to the dreariest social gathering, was
to-night unusually taciturn:--he was bored by his partner, a
middle-aged woman with a mania for philology, and, moreover, his
thoughts, like those of most of the persons present, were centered on
Alwyn, whom every now and then he regarded with a certain wistful
wonder and reverence. He had heard the whole story of the Field of
Ardath; and he knew not how much to accept of it as true, or how much
to set down to his friend's ardent imagination. He had come to a fairly
logical explanation of the whole matter,--namely, that as the City of
Al-Kyris had been proved a dream, so surely the visit of the
Angel-maiden Edris must have been a dream likewise,--that the trance at
the Monastery of Dariel, followed by the constant reading of the
passages from Esdras, and the treatise of Algazzali, had produced a
vivid impression on Alwyn's susceptible brain, which had resolved
itself into the visionary result narrated.

He found in this the most practical and probable view of what must
otherwise be deemed by mortal minds incredible; and, being a frank and
honest fellow, he had not scrupled to openly tell his friend what he
thought. Alwyn had received his remarks with the most perfect sweetness
and equanimity,--but, all the same, had remained unchanged in his
opinion as to the REALITY of his betrothal to his Angel-love in Heaven.
And one or two points had certainly baffled Villiers, and perplexed him
in his would-be precise analysis of the circumstances: first, there was
the remarkable change in Alwyn's own nature. From an embittered,
sarcastic, disappointed, violently ambitious man, he had become
softened, gracious, kindly,--showing the greatest tenderness and
forethought for others, even in small, every-day trifles; while for
himself he took no care. He wore his fame as lightly as a child might
wear a flower, just plucked and soon to fade,--his intelligence seemed
to expand itself into a broad, loving, sympathetic comprehension of the
wants and afflictions of human-kind; and he was writing a new poem, of
which Villiers had seen some lines that had fairly amazed him by their
grandeur of conception and clear passion of utterance. Thus it was
evident there was no morbidness in him,--no obscurity,--nothing
eccentric,--nothing that removed him in any way from his fellows,
except that royal personality of his,--that strong, beautiful,
well-balanced Spirit in him, which exercised such a bewildering spell
on all who came within its influence, He believed himself loved by an
Angel! Well,--if there WERE angels, why not? Villiers argued the
proposition thus:

"Whether we are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, or Mahometans, we are
supposed to accept angels as forming part of the system of our Faith.
If we are nothing,--then, of course, we believe in nothing. But granted
we are SOMETHING, then we are bound in honor, if consistent, to
acknowledge that angels help to guide our destinies. And if, as we are
assured by Holy Writ, such loftier beings DO exist, why should they not
communicate with, and even love, human creatures, provided those human
creatures are worthy of their tenderness? Certainly, viewed by all the
chief religions of the world, there is nothing new or outrageous in the
idea of an angel descending to the help of man."

Such thoughts as these were in his mind now, as he ever and anon
glanced across the glittering table, with its profusion of lights and
flowers, to where his poet-friend sat, slightly leaning back in his
chair, with a certain half-perplexed, half-disappointed expression on
his handsome features, though his eyes brightened into a smile as he
caught Villiers's look, and he gave the smallest, scarcely perceptible
shrug, as who should say, "Is this your brilliant Duchess?--your witty
and cultured society?"

Villiers flashed back an amused, responsive glance, and then
conscientiously strove to pay more attention to the irrepressible
feminine philologist beside him, determining to take her, as he said to
himself, by way of penance for his unremembered sins. After a while
there came one of those extraordinary, sudden rushes of gabble that
often occur at even the stiffest dinner-party,--a galloping race of
tongues, in which nothing really distinct is heard, but in which each
talks to the other as though moved by an impulse of sheer desperation.
This burst of noise was a relief after the strained murmurs of trite
commonplaces that had hitherto been the order of the hour, and the fair
Duchess, somewhat easier in her mind, turned anew to Alwyn, with
greater grace and gentleness of manner than she had yet shown.

"I am afraid," she said smilingly, "you must find us all very stupid
after your travels abroad? In England we ARE dull,--our tristesse
cannot be denied. But, really, the climate is responsible,--we want
more sunshine. I suppose in the East, where the sun is so warm and
bright, the people are always cheerful?"

"On the contrary, I have found them rather serious and contemplative
than otherwise," returned Alwyn,--"yet their gravity is certainly of a
pleasant, and not of a forbidding type. I don't myself think the sun
has much to do with the disposition of man, after all,--I fancy his
temperament is chiefly moulded by the life he leads. In the East, for
instance, men accept their existence as a sort of divine command, which
they obey cheerfully, yet with a consciousness of high
responsibility:--on the Continent they take it as a bagatelle, lightly
won, lightly lost, hence their indifferent, almost childish,
gayety;--but in Great Britain"--and he smiled,--"it looks nowadays as
if it were viewed very generally as a personal injury and bore,--a kind
of title bestowed without the necessary money to keep it up! And this
money people set themselves steadily to obtain, with many a weary grunt
and groan, while they are, for the most part, forgetful of anything
else life may have to offer."

"But what IS life without plenty of money?" inquired the Duchess
carelessly--"Surely, not worth the trouble of living!"

Alwyn looked at her steadily, and a swift flush colored her smooth
cheek. She toyed with the magnificent diamond spray at her breast, and
wondered what strange spell was in this man's brilliant gray-black
eyes!--did he guess that she--even she--had sold herself to the Duc de
la Santoisie for the sake of his money and title as easily and
unresistingly as though she were a mere purchasable animal?

"That is an argument I would rather not enter into," he said
gently--"It would lead us too far. But I am convinced, that whether
dire poverty or great riches be our portion, life, considered apart
from its worldly appendages, is always worth living, if lived WELL."

"Pray, how can you separate life from its worldly
appendages?"--inquired a satirical-looking gentleman opposite--"Life IS
the world, and the things of the world; when we lose sight of the
world, we lose ourselves,--in short, we die,--and the world is at an
end, and we with it. That's plain practical philosophy."

"Possibly it may be called philosophy"--returned Alwyn--"It is not
Christianity."

"Oh, Christianity!"--and the gentleman gave a portentous sniff of
contempt--"That is a system of faith that is rapidly dying out; fast
falling into contempt!--In fact, with the scientific and cultured
classes, it is already an exploded doctrine."

"Indeed!"--Alwyn's glance swept over him with a faint, cold scorn
--"And what religion do the scientific and cultured classes propose to
invent as a substitute?"

"There's no necessity for any substitute,"--said the gentleman rather
impatiently.. For those who want to believe in something supernatural,
there are plenty of different ideas afloat, Esoteric Buddhism for
example,--and what is called Scientific Religion and Natural
Religion,--any, or all, of these are sufficient to gratify the
imaginative cravings of the majority, till they have been educated out
of imagination altogether:--but, for advanced thinkers, religion is
really not required at all." [Footnote: The world is indebted to Mr.
Andrew Lang for the newest "logical" explanation of the Religious
Instinct in Man:--namely, that the very idea of God first arose from
the terror and amazement of an ape at the sound of the thunder! So
choice and soul-moving a definition of Deity needs no comment!]

"Nay, I think we must worship SOMETHING!" retorted Alwyn, a fine satire
in his rich voice, "if it be only SELF!--Self is an excellent
deity!--accommodating, and always ready to excuse sin,--why should we
not build temples, raise altars, and institute services to the glory
and honor of SELF?--Perhaps the time is ripe for a public proclamation
of this creed?--It will be easily propagated, for the beginnings of it
are in the heart of every man, and need very little fostering!"

His thrilling tone, together with the calm, half-ironical
persuasiveness of his manner, sent a sudden hush down the table. Every
one turned eagerly toward him,--some amused, some wondering, some
admiring, while Villiers felt his heart beating with uncomfortable
quickness,--he hated religious discussions, and always avoided them,
and now here was Alwyn beginning one, and he the centre of a company of
persons who were for the most part avowed agnostics, to whose opinions
his must necessarily be in direct and absolute opposition! At the same
time, he remembered that those who were sure of their faith never lost
their temper about it,--and as he glanced at his friend's perfectly
serene and coldly smiling countenance, he saw there was no danger of
his letting slip, even for a moment, his admirable power of
self-command. The Duc de la Santoisie, meanwhile, settling his
mustache, and gracefully waving one hand, on which sparkled a large
diamond ring, bent forward a little with a courteous, deprecatory
gesture.

"I think"--he said, in soft, purring accents,--"that my friend, Dr.
Mudley"--here he bowed toward the saturnine looking individual who had
entered into conversation with Alwyn--"takes a very proper, and indeed
a very lofty, view of the whole question. The moral sense"--and he laid
a severely weighty emphasis on these words,--"the moral sense of each
man, if properly trained, is quite sufficient to guide him through
existence, without any such weakness as reliance on a merely
supposititious Deity."

The Duke's French way of speaking English was charming; he gave an
expressive roll to his r's, especially when he said "the moral sense,"
that of itself almost carried conviction. His wife smiled as she heard
him, and her smile was not altogether pleasant. Perhaps she wondered by
what criterion of excellence he measured his own "moral sense," or
whether, despite his education and culture, he had any "moral sense" at
all, higher than that of the pig, who eats to be eaten! But Alwyn
spoke, and she listened intently, finding a singular fascination in the
soft and quiet modulation of his voice, which gave a vaguely delicious
suggestion of music underlying speech.

"To guide people by their moral sense alone"--he said--"you must first
prove plainly to them that the moral sense exists, together with moral
responsibility. You will find this difficult,--as the virtue implied is
intangible, unseeable;--one cannot say of it, lo here!--or lo
there!--it is as complicated and subtle as any other of the
manifestations of pure Spirit. Then you must decide on one universal
standard, or reasonable conception of what 'morality' is. Again, you
are met by a crowd of perplexities,--as every nation, and every tribe,
has a totally different idea of the same thing. In some countries it is
'moral' to have many wives; in others, to drown female children; in
others, to solemnly roast one's grandparents for dinner! Supposing,
however, that you succeed, with the aid of all the philosophers,
teachers, and scientists, in drawing up a practical Code of
Morality--do you not think an enormous majority will be found to ask
you by whose authority you set forth this Code?--and by what right you
deem it necessary to enforce it? You may say, 'By the authority of
Knowledge and by the right of Morality'--but since you admit to there
being no spiritual or divine inspiration for your law, you will be
confronted by a legion of opponents who will assure you, and probably
with perfect justice, that their idea of morality is as good as yours,
and their knowledge as excellent,--that your Code appears to them
faulty in many respects, and that, therefore, they purpose making
another one, more suited to their liking. Thus, out of your one famous
Moral System would spring thousands of others, formed to gratify the
various tastes of different individuals, precisely in the same manner
as sects have sprung out of the wholly unnecessary and foolish human
arguments on Christianity;--only that there would lack the one
indestructible, pure Selfless Example that even the most quarrelsome
bigot must inwardly respect,--namely, Christ Himself. And 'morality'
would remain exactly where it is:--neither better nor worse for all the
trouble taken concerning it. It needs something more than the 'moral'
sense to rightly ennoble man,--it needs the SPIRITUAL sense;--the
fostering of the INSTINCTIVE IMMORTAL ASPIRATION OF THE CREATURE, to
make him comprehend the responsibility of his present life, as a
preparation for his higher and better destiny. The cultured, the
scholarly, the ultra-refined, may live well and uprightly by their
'moral sense,'--if they so choose, provided they have some great ideal
to measure themselves by,--but even these, without faith in God, may
sometimes slip, and fall into deeper depths of ruin than they dreamed
of, when self-centred on those heights of virtue where they fancied
themselves exempt from danger."

He paused,--there was a curious stillness in the room,--many eyes were
lowered, and M. le Duc's composure was evidently not quite so absolute
as usual.

"Taken at its best"--he continued--"the world alone is certainly not
worth fighting for;--we see the fact exemplified every day in the cases
of those who, surrounded by all that a fair fortune can bestow upon
them, deliberately hurl themselves out of existence by their own free
will and act,--indeed, suicide is a very general accompaniment of
Agnosticism. And self-slaughter, though it may be called madness, is
far more often the result of intellectual misery."

"Of course, too much learning breeds brain disease"--remarked Dr.
Mudley sententiously--"but only in weak subjects,--and in my opinion
the weak are better out of the world. We've no room for them nowadays."

"You say truly, sir,"--replied Alwyn--"we have no room for them, and no
patience! They show themselves feeble, and forthwith the strong oppress
them;--they can hope for little comfort here, and less help. It is
well, therefore, that some of these 'weak' should still believe in God,
since they can certainly pin no faith on the justice of their
fellow-man! But I cannot agree with you that much learning breeds brain
disease. Provided the learning be accompanied by a belief in the
Supreme Wisdom,--provided every step of study be taken upward toward
and

     "his skyward notes
     Have drenched the summer with the dews of song! ..."

this last line being certainly one of the most suggestive and beautiful
in all poetical literature. Such expressions have the intrinsic quality
of COMPLETENESS,--once said, we feel that they can never be said
again;--they belong to the centuries, rather than the seasons, and any
imitation of them we immediately and instinctively resent as an outrage.

And Theos Alwyn was essentially, and above all things, faithful to the
lofty purpose of his calling,--he dealt with his art reverently, and
not in rough haste and scrambling carelessness,--if he worked out any
idea in rhyme, the idea was distinct and the rhyme was perfect,--he was
not content, like Browning, to jumble together such hideous and
ludicrous combinations as "high;--Humph!" and "triumph,"--moreover, he
knew that what he had to tell his public must be told comprehensively,
yet grandly, with all the authority and persuasiveness of incisive
rhetoric, yet also with all the sweetness and fascination of a
passioned love-song. Occupied with such work as this, London, with its
myriad mad noises and vulgar distractions, became impossible to
him,--and Villiers, his fidus Achates, who had read portions of his
great poem and was impatient to see it finished, knowing, as he did,
what an enormous sensation it would create when published, warmly
seconded his own desire to gain a couple of months complete seclusion
and tranquillity.

He left town, therefore, about the middle of May and started across the
Channel, resolving to make for Switzerland by the leisurely and
delightful way of the Rhine, in order to visit Bonn, the scene of his
old student days. What days they had been!--days of dreaming, more than
action, for he had always regarded learning as a pastime rather than a
drudgery, and so had easily distanced his comrades in the race for
knowledge. While they were flirting with the Lischen or Gretchen of the
hour, he had willingly absorbed himself in study--thus he had attained
the head of his classes with scarce an effort, and, in fact, had often
found time hanging heavily on his hands for want of something more to
do. He had astonished the university professors--but he had not
astonished himself, inasmuch as no special branch of learning presented
any difficulties to him, and the more he mastered the more dissatisfied
he became. It had seemed such a little thing to win the honors of
scholarship! for at that time his ambition was always climbing up the
apparently inaccessible heights of fame,--fame, that he then imagined
was the greatest glory any human being could aspire to. He smiled as he
recollected this, and thought how changed he was since then! What a
difference between the former discontented mutability of his nature,
and the deep, unswerving calm of patience that characterized it now!
Learning and scholarship? these were the mere child's alphabet of
things,--and fame was a passing breath that ruffled for one brief
moment the on-rushing flood of time--a bubble blown in the air to break
into nothingness. Thus much wisdom he had acquired,--and what more? A
great deal more! he had won the difficult comprehension of HIMSELF; he
had grasped the priceless knowledge that man has no enemy save THAT
WHICH IS WITHIN HIM, and that the pride of a rebellious Will is the
parent Sin from which all others are generated. The old Scriptural
saying is true for all time, that through pride the angels fell; and it
is only through humility that they will ever rise again. Pride! the
proud Will that is left FREE by Divine Law, to work for itself and
answer for itself, and wreak upon its own head the punishment of its
own errors,--the Will that once voluntarily crushed down, in the dust
at the Cross of Christ, with these words truly drawn from the depths of
penitence, "Lord, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!" is straightway
lifted up from its humiliation, a supreme, stately Force, resistless,
miraculous, world-commanding;--smoothing the way for all greatness and
all goodness, and guiding the happy Soul from joy to joy, from glory to
glory, till Heaven itself is reached and the perfection of all love and
life begins. For true humility is not slavish, as some people imagine,
but rather royal, since, while acknowledging the supremacy of God, it
claims close kindred with Him, and is at once invested with all the
diviner virtues. Fame and wealth, the two perishable prizes for which
men struggle with one another in ceaseless and cruel combat, bring no
absolute satisfaction in the end--they are toys that please for a time
and then grow wearisome. But the conquering of Self is a battle in
which each fresh victory bestows a deeper content, a larger happiness,
a more perfect peace,--and neither poverty, sickness, nor misfortune
can quench the courage, or abate the ardor, of the warrior who is
absorbed in a crusade against his own worser passions. Egotism is the
vice of this age,--the maxim of modern society is "each man for
himself, and no one for his neighbor"--and in such a state of things,
when personal interest or advantage is the chief boon desired, we
cannot look for honesty in either religion, politics, or commerce. Nor
can we expect any grand work to be done in art or literature. When
pictures are painted and books are written for money only,--when
laborers take no pleasure in labor save for the wage it brings,--when
no real enthusiasm is shown in anything except the accumulation of
wealth,--and when all the finer sentiments and nobler instincts of men
are made subject to Mammon worship, is any one so mad and blind as to
think that good can come of it? Nothing but evil upon evil can accrue
from such a system,--and those who have prophetic eyes to see through
the veil of events can perceive, even now, the not far distant
end--namely, the ruin of the country that has permitted itself to
degenerate into a mere nation of shopkeepers,--and something worse
than ruin,--degradation!

It was past eight in the evening when Alwyn, after having spent a
couple of days in bright little Brussels, arrived at Cologne. Most
travelers know to their cost how noisy, narrow, and unattractive are
the streets of this ancient Colonia Agrippina of the Romans,--how
persistent and wearying is the rattle of the vehicles over the rough,
cobbly stones--how irritating to the nerves is the incessant shrieking
whistle and clank of the Rhine steamboats as they glide in, or glide
out, from the cheerless and dirty pier. But at night, when these
unpleasant sounds have partially subsided, and the lights twinkle in
the shop-windows, and the majestic mass of the Cathedral casts its
broad shadow on the moonlit Dom-Platz, and a few soldiers, with
clanking swords and glittering spurs, come marching out from some dark
stone archway, and the green gleam of the river sparkles along in
luminous ripples,--then it is that a something weird and mystical
creeps over the town, and the glamour of ancient historical memories
begins to cling about its irregular buildings,--one thinks of the
legendary Three Kings, and believes in them, too,--of St. Ursula and
her company of virgins; of Marie de Medicis dying alone in that
tumbled-down house in the Stern-gasse,--of Rubens, who, it is said,
here first saw the light of this world,--of an angry Satan flinging his
Teufelstein from the Seven Mountains in an impotent attempt to destroy
the Dom; and gradually, the indestructible romantic spell of the Rhine
steals into the spirit of common things that were unlovely by day, and
makes the old city beautiful under the sacred glory of the stars.

Alwyn dined at his hotel, and then, finding it still too early to
retire to rest, strolled slowly across the Platz, looking up at the
sublime God's Temple above him, the stately Cathedral, with its
wondrously delicate carvings and flying buttresses, on which the
moonlight glittered like little points of pale flame. He knew it of
old; many and many a time had he taken train from Bonn, for the sole
pleasure of spending an hour in gazing on that splendid "sermon in
stone,"--one of the grandest testimonies in the world of man's
instinctive desire to acknowledge and honor, by his noblest design and
work, the unseen but felt majesty of the Creator. He had a great
longing to enter it now, and ascended the steps with that intention;
but, much to his vexation, the doors were shut. He walked from the side
to the principal entrance; that superb western frontage which is so
cruelly blocked in by a dwarfish street of the commonest shops and
meanest houses,--and found that also closed against him. Disappointed
and sorry, he went back again to the side of the colossal structure,
and stood on the top of the steps, close to the central barred doors,
studying the sculptured saints in the niches, and feeling a sudden,
singular impression of extreme LONELINESS,--a sense of being shut out,
as it were, from some high festival in which he would gladly have taken
part.

Not a cloud was in the sky, ... the evening was one of the most
absolute calm, and a delicious warmth pervaded the air,--the warmth of
a fully declared and balmy spring. The Platz was almost deserted,--only
a few persons crossed it now and then, like flitting shadows,--and
somewhere down in one of the opposite streets a long way off, there was
a sound of men's voices singing a part-song. Presently, however, this
distant music ceased, and a deep silence followed. Alwyn still remained
in the sombre shade of the cathedral archway, arguing with himself
against the foolish and unaccountable depression that had seized him,
and watching the brilliant May moon soar up higher and higher in the
heavens; when,--all at once, the throbbing murmur of the great organ
inside the Dom startled him from pensive dreaminess into swift
attention. He listened,--the rich, round notes thundered through the
stillness with forceful and majestic harmony; anon, wierd tones, like
the passionate lament of Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen" floated around and
above him: then, a silvery chorus of young voices broke forth in solemn
unison:

"Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!"

A faint cold tremor crept through his veins,--his heart beat
violently,--again he vainly strove to open the great door. Was there a
choir practising inside at this hour of the night? Surely not!
Then,--from whence had this music its origin? Stooping, he bent his ear
to the crevice of the closed portal,--but, as suddenly as they had
begun, the harmonies ceased; and all was once more profoundly still.

Drawing a long, deep breath, he stood for a moment amazed and lost in
thought--these sounds, he felt sure, were not of earth but of heaven!
they had the same ringing sweetness as those he had heard on the Field
of Ardath! What might they mean to him, here and now? Quick as a flash
the answer came--DEATH! God had taken pity upon his solitary earth
wanderings,--and the prayers of Edris had shortened his world-exile and
probation! He was to die! and that solemn singing was the warning,--or
the promise,--of his approaching end!

Yes! it must be so, he decided, as, with a strange, half-sad peace at
his heart, he quietly descended the steps of the Dom,-he would perhaps
be permitted to finish the work he was at present doing,--and
then,--then, the poet-pen would be laid aside forever, chains would be
undone, and he would be set at liberty! Such was his fixed idea. Was he
glad of the prospect, he asked himself? Yes, and No! For himself he was
glad; but in these latter days he had come to understand the thousand
wordless wants and aspirations of mankind,--wants and aspirations to
which only the Poet can give fitting speech; he had begun to see how
much can be done to cheer and raise and ennoble the world by even ONE
true, brave, earnest, and unselfish worker,--and he had attained to
such a height in sympathetic comprehension of the difficulties and
drawbacks of others, that he had ceased to consider himself at all in
the question, either with regard to the Present or the immortal
Future,--he was, without knowing it, in the simple, unconsciously
perfect attitude of a Soul that is absolutely at one with God, and that
thus, in involuntary God-likeness, is only happy in the engendering of
happiness. He believed that, with the Divine help, he could do a
lasting good for his fellow-men,--and to this cause he was willing to
sacrifice everything that pertained to his own mere personal advantage.
But now,--now,--or so he imagined,--he was not to be allowed to pursue
his labors of love,--his trial was to end suddenly,--and he, so long
banished from his higher heritage, was to be restored to it without
delay,--restored and drawn back to the land of perfect loveliness where
Edris, his Angel, waited for him, his saint, his queen, his bride!

A thrill of ecstatic joy rushed through him,--joy intermingled with an
almost supernal pain. For he had not as yet said enough to the
world,--the world of many afflictions,--the little Sorrowful Star
covered with toiling, anxious, deluded God-forgetting millions, in
every unit of which was a spark of Heavenly flame, a germ of the
spiritual essence that makes the angel, if only fostered aright.

Lost in a deep reverie, his footsteps had led him unconsciously to the
Rhine bridge,--paying the customary fee, he walked about half-way
across it, and stood for a while listening to the incessant swift rush
of the river beneath him. Lights twinkled from the boats moored on
either side,--the moon poured down a wide shower of white beams on the
rapid flood,--the city, dusky and dream-like, crowned with the majestic
towers of the Dom, looked picturesquely calm and grand--it was a night
of perfect beauty and wondrous peace. And he was to die!--to die and
leave all this, the present fairness of the world,--he was to depart,
with, as he felt, his message half unspoken,--he was to be made
eternally happy, while many of the thousands he left behind were,
through ignorance, wilfully electing to be eternally miserable! A
great, almost divine longing to save ONE,--only ONE downward drifting
soul, possessed him,--and the comprehension of Christ's Sacrifice was
no longer a mystery! Yet he was so certain that death, sudden and
speedy closely, awaited him that he seemed to feel it in the very
air,--not like a coming chill of dread, but like the soft approach of
some holy seraph bringing benediction. It mattered little to him that
he was actually in the very plenitude of health and strength,--that
perhaps in all his life he had never felt such a keen delight in the
physical perfection of his manhood as now,--death, without warning and
at a touch, could smite down the most vigorous, and to be so smitten,
he believed, was his imminent destiny. And while he lingered on the
bridge, fancy-perplexed between grief and joy, a small window opened in
a quaint house that bent its bulging gables crookedly over the gleaming
water, and a girl, holding a small lamp, looked out for a moment. Her
face, fresh and smiling, was fair to see against the background of
dense shadow,--the light she carried flashed like a star,--and leaning
down from the lattice she sang half-timidly, half mischievously, the
first two or three bars of the old song.. "Du, du, liegst in mein
Herzen ... !" "Ah! Gute Nacht, Liebchen!" said a man's voice below.

"Gute Nacht! Schlafen sie wohl!"

A light laugh, and the window closed, "Good-night! Sleep well!" Love's
best wish!--and for some sad souls life's last hope,--a "good-night and
sleep well!" Poor tired World, for whose weary inhabitants oftentimes
the greatest blessing is sleep! Good-night! sleep well! but the sleep
implies waking.--waking to a morning of pleasure or sorrow,--or labor
that is only lightened by,--Love! Love!--love divine,--love
human,--and, sweetest love of all for us, as Christ has taught when
both divine and human are mingled in one!

Alwyn, glancing up at the clustering stars, hanging like pendent
fire-jewels above him, thought of this marvel-glory of Love,--this
celestial visitant who, on noiseless pinions, comes flying divinely
into the poorest homes, transfiguring common life with ethereal
radiance, making toil easy, giving beauty to the plainest faces and
poetry to the dullest brains. Love! its tremulous hand-clasp,--its
rapturous kiss,--the speechless eloquence it gives to gentle eyes!--the
grace it bestows on even the smallest gift from lover to beloved, were
such gift but a handful of meadow blossoms tied with some silken
threads of hair!

Not for the poet creator of "Nourhulma" such love any more,--had he not
drained the cup of Passion to the dregs in the far Past, and tasted its
mixed sweetness and bitterness to no purpose save self-indulgence? All
that was over;--and yet, as he walked away from the bridge, back to his
hotel in the quiet moonlight, he thought what a transcendent thing Love
might be, even on earth, between two whose spirits were SPIRITUALLY
AKIN,--whose lives were like two notes played in tuneful
concord,--whose hearts beat echoing faith and tenderness to one
another,--and who held their love as a sacred bond of union--a gift
from God, not to be despoiled by that rough familiarity which surely
brings contempt. And then before his fancy appeared to float the
radiant visage of Edris, half-child, half-angel,--he seemed to see her
beautiful eyes, so pure, so clear, so unshadowed by any knowledge of
sin,--and the exquisite lines of a poet-contemporary, whose work he
specially admired, occurred to him with singular suggestiveness:

   "Oh, thou'lt confess that love from man to maid
    Is more than kingdoms,--more than light and shade
    In sky-built gardens where the minstrels dwell,
    And more than ransom from the bonds of Hell.
    Thou wilt, I say, admit the truth of this,
    And half relent that, shrinking from a kiss,
    Thou didst consign me to mine own disdain,
    Athwart the raptures of a vision'd bliss.

   "I'll seek no joy that is not linked with thine,
    No touch of hope, no taste of holy wine,
    And after death, no home in any star,
    That is not shared by thee, supreme, afar

    As here thou'rt first and foremost of all things!
    Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings
    That wait on thought, when, in thy spirit-sway,
    Thou dost invest a realm unknown to kings!"

Had not she, Edris, consigned him to his "own disdain, Athwart the
raptures of a visioned bliss?" Ay! truly and deservedly!--and this
disdain of himself had now reached its culminating point,--namely, that
he did not consider himself worthy of her love,--or worthy to do aught
than sink again into far spaces of darkness and perpetually
retrospective Memory, there to explore the uttermost depths of anguish,
and count up his errors one by one from the very beginning of life, in
every separate phase he had passed through, till he had penitently
striven his best to atone for them all! Christ had atoned! yes,--but
was it not almost base on his part to shield himself with that Divine
Light and do nothing further? He could not yet thoroughly grasp the
amazing truth that ONE ABSOLUTELY PURE act of faith in Christ, blots
out Past Sin forever,--it seemed too marvellous and great a boon!

When he retired to rest that night he was fully and firmly PREPARED TO
DIE. With this expectation upon him he was nevertheless happy and
tranquil. The line--"Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings"
haunted him, and he repeated it over and over again without knowing
why. Wings! the brilliant shafts of radiance that part angels from
mortals,--wings, that, after all, are not really wings, but lambent
rays of living lightning, of which neither painter nor poet has any
true conception, . . long, dazzling rays such as encircled God's
maiden, Edris, with an arch of roseate effulgence, so that the very air
was sunset-colored in the splendor of her presence! How if she were a
wingless angel,--made woman?

"Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings!" And with the name of his
angel-love upon his lips he closed his eyes and sank into a deep and
dreamless slumber.




CHAPTER XL.

IN THE CATHEDRAL.


A booming, thunderous, yet mellow sound! a grand, solemn, sonorous
swing of full and weighty rhythm, striking the air with deep, slowly
measured resonance like the rolling of close cannon! Awake, all ye
people!--Awake to prayer and praise! for the Night is past and sweet
Morning reddens in the east, ... another Day is born,--a day in which
to win God's grace and pardon,--another wonder of Light, Movement,
Creation, Beauty, Love! Awake, awake! Be glad and grateful for the
present joy of life,--this life, dear harbinger of life to come! open
your eyes, ye drowsy mortals, to the divine blue of the beneficent sky,
the golden beams of the sun, the color of flowers, the foliage of
trees, the flash of sparkling waters!--open your ears to the singing of
birds, the whispering of winds, the gay ripple of children's laughter,
the soft murmurs of home affection,--for all these things are freely
bestowed upon you with each breaking dawn, and will you offer unto God
NO thanksgiving?--Awake! Awake! the Voice you have yourselves set in
your high Cathedral towers reproaches your lack of love with its iron
tongue, and summons you all to worship Him the Ever-Glorious, through
whose mercy alone you live!

To and fro,--to and fro,--gravely persistent, sublimely eloquent, the
huge, sustained, and heavy monotone went thudding through the
stillness,--till, startled from his profound sleep by such loud, lofty,
and incessant clangor, Alwyn turned on his pillow and listened,
half-aroused, half-bewildered,--then, remembering where he was, he
understood; it was the great Bell of the Dom pealing forth its first
summons to the earliest Mass. He lay quiet for a little while, dreamily
counting the number of reverberations each separate stroke sent
quivering on the air,--but presently, finding it impossible to sleep
again, he got up, and drawing aside the curtain looked out of the
window of his room, which fronted on the Platz. Though it was not yet
six o'clock, the city was all astir,--the Rhinelanders are an early
working people, and to see the sun rise is not with them a mere fiction
of poesy, but a daily fact. It was one of the loveliest of lovely
spring mornings--the sky was clear as a pale, polished sapphire, and
every little bib of delicate carving and sculpture on the Dom stood out
from its groundwork with microscopically beautiful distinctness. And as
his gaze rested on the perfect fairness of the day, a strange and
sudden sense of rapturous anticipation possessed his mind,--he felt as
one prepared for some high and exquisite happiness,--some great and
wondrous celebration or feast of joy! The thoughts of death, on which
he had brooded so persistently during the past yester-eve, had fled,
leaving no trace behind,--only a keen and vigorous delight in life
absorbed him now. It was good to be alive, even on this present earth!
it was good to see, to feel, to know! and there was much to be thankful
for in the mere capability of easy and healthful breathing!

Full of a singular light-heartedness, he hummed a soft tune to himself
as he moved about his room,--his desire to view the interior of the
Cathedral had not abated with sleep, but had rather augmented,--and he
resolved to visit it now, while he had the chance of beholding it in
all the impressive splendor of uncrowded tranquillity. For he knew that
by the time he was dressed, the first Mass would be over,--the priests
and people would be gone,--and he would be alone to enjoy the
magnificence of the place in full poet-luxury,--the luxury of silence
and solitude. He attired himself quickly, and with a vaguely nervous
eagerness,--he was in almost as great a hurry to enter the Dom as he
had been to arrive at the Field of Ardath! The same feverish impatience
was upon him--impatience that he was conscious of, yet could not
account for,--his fancy busied itself with a whole host of memories,
and fragments of half-forgotten love-songs he had written in his youth,
came back to him without his wish or will,--songs that he instinctively
felt belonged to his Past, when as "Sah-luma" he had won golden
opinions in Al-Kyris. And though they were but echoes, they seemed this
morning to touch him with half-pleasing, half-tender
suggestiveness,--two lines especially from the Idyl of Roses he had
penned so long,--ah! so very long ago,--came floating through his brain
like a message sent from some other world,--

   "By the pureness of love shall our glory in loving increase,
    And the roses of passion for us are the lilies of peace."

The "lilies of peace" and the flowers of Ardath,--the "roses of
passion" and the love of Edris, these were all mingled almost
unconsciously in his thoughts, as with an inexplicable, happy sense of
tremulous expectation,--expectation of he knew not what-he went,
walking as one in haste, across the broad Platz and ascended the steps
of the Cathedral. But the side-entrance was fast shut, as on the
previous night,--he therefore made his rapid way round to the great
western door. That stood open,--the bell had long ago ceased,--Mass was
over,--and all was profoundly still.

Out of the warm sunlit air he stepped into the vast, cool,
clear-obscure, white glory of the stately shrine,--with bared head and
noiseless, reverent feet, he advanced a little way up the nave, and
then stood motionless, every artistic perception in him satisfied,
soothed, and entranced anew, as in his student-days, by the tranquil
grandeur of the scene. What majestic silence! What hallowed peace! How
jewel-like the radiance of the sun pouring through the rich stained
glass on those superb carved pillars, that, like petrified stems of
forest-trees, bear lightly up the lofty, vaulted roof to that vast
height suggestive of a white sky rather than stone!

Moving on slowly further toward the altar, he was suddenly seized by an
overpowering impression,--a memory that rushed upon him with a sort of
shock, albeit it was only the memory of a tune!--a wild melody,
haunting and passionate, rang in his eras,--the melody that Sarasate,
the Orpheus of Spain, had evoked from the heart of his speaking
violin,--the sobbing love-lament of the "Zigeunerweisen"--the weird
minor-music that had so forcibly suggested--What? THIS VERY
PLACE!--these snowy columns,--this sculptured sanctity--this flashing
light of rose and blue and amber,--this wondrous hush of consecrated
calm! What next? Dear God! Sweet Christ! what next? The face of
Edris?--Would that heavenly countenance shine suddenly though those
rainbow-colored beams that struck slantwise down toward him?--and
should he presently hear her dulcet voice charming the silence into
deeper ecstasy?

Overcome by a sensation that was something like fear, he stopped
abruptly, and leaning against one of the quaint old oaken benches,
strove to control the quick, excited throbbing of his heart,--then
gradually, very gradually he become conscious that HE WAS NOT
ALONE,--another besides himself was in the church,--another, whom it
was necessary for him to see!

He could not tell how he first grew to be certain of this,--but he was
soon so completely possessed by the idea, that for a moment he dared
not raise his eyes, or move! Some invincible force held him there
spell-bound, yet trembling in every limb,--and while he thus waited
hesitatingly, the great organ woke up in a glory of tuneful
utterance,--wave after wave of richest harmony rolled through the
stately aisles and ... "Kyrie eleison! Kyrie eleison!" rang forth in
loud, full, and golden-toned chorus!

Lifting his head, he stared wonderingly around him; not a living
creature was visible in all the spacious width and length of the
cathedral! His lips parted,--he felt as though he could scarcely
breathe,--strong shudders ran through him, and he was penetrated by a
pleasing terror that was almost a physical pang,--an agonized
entrancement, like death or the desire of love! Presently, mastering
himself by a determined effort, he advanced steadily with the absorbed
air of one who is drawn along by magnetic power ... steadily and slowly
up the nave, ... and as he went, the music surged more tumultuously
among the vaulted arches,--there was a faint echo afar off, as of
tinkling crystal bells; and at each onward step he gained a new access
of courage, strength, firmness, and untrammelled ease, till every
timorous doubt and fear had fled away, and he stood directly in front
of the altar railing, gazing at the enshrined Cross, and seeing for the
moment nothing save that Divine Symbol alone. And still the organ
played, and still the voices sang,--he knew these sounds were not of
earth, and he also knew that they were intended to convey a meaning to
him,--but WHAT meaning?

All at once, moved by a sudden impulse, he turned toward the right hand
side of the altar, where the great statue of St. Christopher stands,
and where one of the loveliest windows in the world gleams like a great
carven gem aloft, filtering the light through a myriad marvellous
shades of color, and there he beheld, kneeling on the stone pavement,
one solitary worshipper,--a girl. Her hands were clasped, and her face
was bent upon them so that her features were not visible,--but the
radiance from the window fell on her uncovered golden hair, encircling
it with the glistening splendor of a heavenly nimbus,--and round her
slight, devotional figure, rays of azure and rose jasper and emerald,
flickered in wide and lustrous patterns, like the glow of the setting
sun on a translucent sea. How very still she was! ... how fervently
absorbed in prayer!

Vaguely startled, and thrilled by an electric, indefinable instinct,
Alwyn went toward her with hushed and reverential tread, his eyes
dwelling upon the drooping, delicate outline of her form with
fascinated and eager attention. She was clad in gray,--a soft, silken,
dove-like gray, that clung about her in picturesque, daintily draped
folds,--he approached her still more nearly, and then could scarcely
refrain from a loud cry of amazement! What flowers were those she wore
at her breast!--so white, so star-like, so suggestive of paradise
lilies new-gathered? Were they not the flowers of ARDATH? Dizzy with
the sudden tumult of his own emotions, he dropped on his knees beside
her,--she did not stir! Was she REAL?--or a phantom? Trembling
violently, he touched her garment--it was of tangible, smooth texture,
actual enough, if the sense of touch could be relied upon. In an agony
of excitement and suspense he lost all remembrance of time, place, or
custom,--her bewildering presence must be explained,--he must know who
she was,--he must speak to her,--speak, if he died for it!

"Pardon me!" he whispered faintly, scarcely conscious of his own words;
"I fancy,--I think,--we have met,--before! May I, . . dare I, . . ask
your name?"

Slowly she unclasped her gently folded hands; slowly, very slowly, she
lifted her bent head, and smiled at him! Oh, the lovely light upon her
face! Oh, the angel glory of those strange, sweet eyes!

"My name is EDRIS!"--she said, and as the pure bell-like tone of her
voice smote the air with its silvery sound, the mysterious music of the
organ and the invisible singers throbbed away,--away,--away,--into
softer and softer echoes, that died at last tremulously and with a
sigh, as of farewell, into the deepest silence.

"EDRIS!"--In a trance of passionate awe and rapture he caught her
hand,--the warm, delicate hand that yielded to his strong clasp in
submissive tenderness,--pulsations of terror, pain, and wild joy, all
commingled, rushed through him,--with adoring, wistful gaze he scanned
every feature of that love-smiling countenance,--a countenance no
longer lustrous with Heaven's blinding glory, but only most maiden-like
and innocently fair,--dazzled, perplexed, and half afraid, he could not
at once grasp the true comprehension of his ineffable delight! He had
no doubt of her identity--he knew her well! she was his own
heartworshipped Angel,--but on what errand had she wandered out of
paradise? Had she come once more, as on the Field of Ardath, to comfort
him for a brief space with the beauty of her visible existence, or did
she bring from Heaven the warrant for his death?

"Edris!" he said, as softly as one may murmur a prayer, "Edris, my
life, my love! Speak to me again! make me sure that I am not dreaming!
Tell me where I have failed in my sworn faith since we parted; teach me
how I must still further atone! Is this the hour appointed for my
spirit's ransom?--has this dear and sacred hand I hold, brought me my
quittance of earth?--and have I so soon won the privilege to die?"

As he spoke, she rose and stood erect, with all the glistening light of
the stained window falling royally about her,--and he obeying her mute
gesture, rose also and faced her in wondering ecstasy, half expecting
to see her vanish suddenly in the sun-rays that poured through the
Cathedral, even as she had vanished before like a white cloud absorbed
in clear space. But no! She remained quiet as a tame bird,--her eyes
met his with beautiful trust and tenderness,--and when she answered
him, her low, sweet accents thrilled to his heart with a pathetic note
of HUMAN affection, as well as of angelic sympathy!

"Theos, my Beloved, I am ALL THINE!" she said, a holy rapture vibrating
through her exquisite voice.--"Thine now, in mortal life as in
immortal!--one with thee in nature and condition,--pent up in
perishable clay, even as thou art,--subject to sorrow, and pain, and
weariness,--willing to share with thee thine earthly lot,--ready to
take my part in thy grief or joy! By mine own choice have I come
hither,--sinless, yet not exempt from sin, but safe in Christ! Every
time thou hast renounced the desire of thine own happiness, so much the
nearer hast thou drawn me to thee; every time thou hast prayed God for
my peace, rather than thine own, so much the closer has my existence
been linked with thine! And now, O my Poet, my lord, my king!--we are
together forever more,--together in the brief Present, as in the
eternal Future!--the solitary heaven-days of Edris are past, and her
mission is not Death, but Love!"

Oh, the transcendent beauty of that warm flush upon her face!--the
splendid hope, faith, and triumph of her attitude! What strange miracle
was here accomplished!--an Angel had become human for the sake of love,
even as light substantiates itself in the colors of flowers!--the Eden
lily had consented to be gathered,--the paradise dove had fluttered
down to earth! Breathless, bewildered, lifted to a height of transport
beyond all words, Alwyn gazed upon her in entranced, devout
silence,--the vast cathedral seemed to swing round and round in great
glittering circles, and nothing was real, nothing steadfast, but that
slight, sweet maiden in her soft gray robes, with the Ardath-blossoms
gleaming white against her breast! Angel she was,--angel she ever would
be,--and yet--what did she SEEM? Naught but:

   "A child-like woman, wise and very fair,
    Crowned with the garland of her golden hair!"

This, and no more,--and yet in this was all earth and all heaven
comprised!--He gazed and gazed, overwhelmed by the amazement of his own
bliss,--he could have gazed upon her so in speechless ravishment for
hours, when, with a gesture of infinite grace and appeal, she stretched
out her hands toward him:

"Speak to me, dearest one!" she murmured wistfully--"Tell me,--am I
welcome?"

"O exquisite humility!--O beautiful maiden-timid hesitation! Was
she,--even she, God's Angel, so far removed from pride, as to be
uncertain of her lover's reception of such a gift of love? Roused from
his half-swooning sense of wonder, he caught those gentle hands, and
laid them tenderly against his breast,--tremblingly, and all devoutly,
he drew the lovely, yielding form into his arms, close to his
heart,--with dazzled sight he gazed down into that pure, perfect face,
those clear and holy eyes shining like new-created stars beneath the
soft cloud of clustering fair hair!

"Welcome!" he echoed, in a tone that thrilled with passionate awe and
ecstasy;--"My Edris! My Saint! My Queen! Welcome, more welcome than the
first flowers seen after winter snows!--welcome, more welcome than
swift rescue to one in dire peril!--welcome, my Angel, into the
darkness of mortal things, which haply so sweet a Presence shall make
bright! O sacred innocence that I am not worthy to shield! ... O
sinless beauty that I am all unfitted to claim or possess! Welcome to
my life, my heart, my soul! Welcome, sweet Trust, sweet Hope, sweet
Love, that as Christ lives, I will never wrong, betray, or resign again
through all the glory spaces of far Eternity!"

As he spoke, his arms closed more surely about her,--his lips met
hers,--and in the mingled human and divine rapture of that moment,
there came a rushing noise, as of thousands of wings beating the air,
followed by a mighty wave of music that rolled approachingly and then
departingly through and through the Cathedral arches--and a Voice,
clear and resonant as a silver clarion, proclaimed aloud:

"Those whom GOD hath joined together, let no MAN put asunder!"

Then, with a surging, jubilant sound, like the sea in a storm, the
music seemed to tread past in a measured march of stately harmony,--and
presently there was silence once more,--the silence and sunshine of the
morning pouring through the rose windows of the church and sparkling on
the Cross above the Altar,--the silence of a love made perfect,--of
twin souls made ONE!

And then Edris drew herself gently from her lover's embrace and raised
her head,--putting her hand confidingly in his, a lovely smile played
on her sweetly parted lips:

"Take me, Theos," she said softly, "Lead me,--into the World!"

     *     *     *     *     *     *

Slowly the great side-doors of the Cathedral swung back on their
hinges,--and out on the steps in a glorious blaze of sunlight came Poet
and Angel together. The one, a man in the full prime of splendid and
vigorous manhood,--the other, a maiden, timid and sweet, robed in gray
attire with a posy of white flowers at her throat. A simple girl, and
most distinctly human,--the fresh, pure color reddened in her
cheeks,--the soft springtide wind fanned her gold hair, and the
sunbeams seemed to dance about her in a bright revel of amaze and
curiosity. Her lustrous eyes dwelt on the busy Platz below with a
vaguely compassionate wonder--a look that suggested some far
foreknowledge of things, that at the same time were strangely
unfamiliar. Hand in hand with her companion she stood,--while he,
holding her fast, drunk in the pureness of her beauty, the love-light
of her glance, the holy radiance of her smile, till every sense in him
was spiritualized anew by the passionate faith and reverence in his
heart, the marvellous glory that had fallen upon his life, the nameless
rapture that possessed his soul!--To have knelt at her feet, and bowed
his head before her in worshipping silence, would have been to follow
the strongest impulse in him,--but she had given him a higher duty than
this. He was to "LEAD HER,"--lead her "into the world!"--the dreary,
dark world, so unfitted to receive such brightness,--she had come to
him clad in all the sacred weakness of womanhood; and it was his proud
privilege to guard and shelter her from evil,--from the evil in others,
but chiefly from the evil in himself. No taint must touch that spotless
life with which God had entrusted him!--sorrow might come--nay, MUST
come, since, so long as humanity errs, so long must angels
grieve,--sorrow, but not sin! A grand, awed sense of responsibility
filled him,--a responsibility that he accepted with passionate
gratitude and joy ... he had attained a vaster dignity than any king on
any throne, ... and all the visible Universe was transfigured into a
golden pageant of loveliness and light, fairer than the fabled Valley
of Avilion!

Yet still he kept her close beside him on the steps of the mighty Dom,
half-longing, half-hesitating to take her further, and ever and anon
assailed by a dreamy doubt as to whether she might not even now pass
away from him suddenly and swiftly, as a mist fading into heaven,--when
all at once the sound of beating drums and martial trumpets struck
loudly on the quiet morning air. A brilliant regiment of mounted Uhlans
emerged from an opposite street, and cantered sharply across the Platz
and over the Rhine-bridge, with streaming pennons, burnished helmets
and accoutrements glistening in a long compact line of silvery white,
that vanished as speedily as it had appeared, like a winding flash of
meteor flame. Alwyn drew a deep, quick breath; the sight of those armed
soldiers roused him to the fact that he was actually in the turmoil of
present daily events,--that his supernal happiness was no vision, but
REALITY,--that Edris, his Spirit-love, was with him in tangible human
guise of flesh and blood,--though how such a mysterious marvel had been
accomplished, he knew no more than scientists know how the lovely life
of green leaf and perfect flower can still be existent in seeds that
have lain dormant and dry in old tombs for thousands of years! And as
he looked at her proudly,--adoringly,--she raised her beautiful,
innocent, questioning eyes to his.

"This is a city?" she asked--"a city of men who labor for good, and
serve each other?"

"Alas, not so, my sweet!" he answered, his voice trembling with its own
infinite tenderness; "there is no city on the sad Earth where men do
not labor for mere vanity's sake, and oppose each other!"

Her inquiring gaze softened into a celestial compassion.

"Come,--let us go!" she said gently. "We twain, made one in love and
faith, must hasten to begin our work!--darkness gathers and deepens
over the Sorrowful Star,--but we, perchance, with Christ's most holy
Blessing, may help to lift the Shadows into Light!"

     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Away in a sheltered mountainous retreat, apart from the louder clamor
of the world, the Poet and his heavenly companion dwell in peace
together. Their love, their wondrous happiness, no mortal language can
define,--for spiritual love perfected as far exceeds material passion
as the steadfast glory of the sun outshines the nickering of an earthly
taper. Few, very few, there are who recognize, or who attain, such
joy,--for men chiefly occupy themselves with the SEMBLANCES of things,
and therefore fail to grasp all high realities. Perishable
beauty,--perishable fame,--these are mere appearances; imperishable
Worth is the only positive and lasting good, and in the search for
imperishable Worth alone, the seeker must needs encounter Angels
unawares!

But for those whose pleasure it is to doubt and deny all spiritual life
and being, the history of Theos Alwyn can be disposed of with much
languid ease and cold logic, as a foolish chimera scarce worth
narrating. Practically viewed, there is nothing wonderful in it, since
it can all be traced to a powerful exertion of magnetic skill. Tranced
into a dream bewilderment by the arts of the mystic Chaldean,
Heliobas,--tricked into visiting the Field of Ardath, what more likely
than that a real earth-born maiden, trained to her part, should have
met the dreamer there, and, with the secret aid of the hermit Elezar,
continued his strange delusion? What more fitting as a sequel to the
whole, than that the same maiden should have been sent to him again in
the great Rhine Cathedral, to complete the deception and satisfy his
imagination by linking her life finally with his?--It is a perfectly
simple explanation of what some credulous souls might be inclined to
consider a mystery,--and let the dear, wise, oracular people who cannot
admit any mystery in anything, and who love to trace all seeming
miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all
means,--they will be able to fit every incident of the story into such
an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness! Al-Kyris
was truly a Vision,--the rest was,--What? Merely the working of a
poetic imagination under mesmeric influence!

So be it! The Poet knows the truth,--but what are Poets? Only the
Prophets and Seers! Only the Eyes of Time, which clearly behold
Heaven's Fact beyond this world's Fable. Let them sing if they choose,
and we will hear them in our idle hours,--we will give them a little of
our gold,--a little of our grudging praise, together with much of our
private practical contempt and misprisal! So say the unthinking and
foolish--so will they ever say,--and hence it is, that though the fame
of Theos Alwyn widens year by year, and his sweet clarion harp of Song
rings loud warning, promise, hope, and consolation above the noisy
tumult of the whirling age, people listen to him merely in vague
wonderment and awe, doubting his prophet utterance, and loth to put
away their sin. But he, never weary in well-doing, works on, ... ever
regardless of Self, caring nothing for Fame, but giving all the riches
of his thought for Love. Clear, grand, pure, and musical, his writings
fill the time with hope and passionate faith and courage,--his
inspiration fails not, and can never fail, since Edris is his fount of
ecstasy,--his name, made glorious by God's blessing, shall never, as in
his perished Past, be again forgotten!

And what of Edris? What of the "Flower-crowned Wonder" of the Field of
Ardath, strayed for a while out of her native Heaven? Does the world
know her marvellous origin? Perhaps the mystic Heliobas knows,--perhaps
even good Frank Villiers has hazarded a reverent guess at his friend's
great secret--but to the uninstructed, what does she seem?

Nothing but a WOMAN, MOST PURE WOMANLY; a woman whose influence on all
is strangely sweet and lasting,--whose spirit overflows with tenderest
sympathy for the many wants and sorrows of mankind,--whose voice charms
away care,--whose smile engenders peace,--whose eyes, lustrous and
thoughtful, are unclouded by any shadow of sin,--and on whose serene
beauty the passing of years leaves no visible trace. That she is fair
and wise, joyous, radiant, and holy is apparent to all,--but only the
Poet, her lover and lord, her subject and servant, can tell how truly
his Edris is not so much sweet woman as most perfect Angel! A Dream of
Heaven made human! ... Let some of us hesitate ere we doubt the
Miracle; for we are sleepers and dreamers all,--and the hour is close
at hand when--we shall Wake.

THE END.


















                        Venus Is a Man's World

                            BY WILLIAM TENN

                     Illustrated by GENE FAWCETTE

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                   Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]




     Actually, there wouldn't be too much difference if women took
    over the Earth altogether. But not for some men and most boys!


I've always said that even if Sis is seven years older than me--and a
girl besides--she don't always know what's best. Put me on a spaceship
jam-packed with three hundred females just aching to get themselves
husbands in the one place they're still to be had--the planet
Venus--and you know I'll be in trouble.

Bad trouble. With the law, which is the worst a boy can get into.

Twenty minutes after we lifted from the Sahara Spaceport, I wriggled
out of my acceleration hammock and started for the door of our cabin.

"Now you be careful, Ferdinand," Sis called after me as she opened a
book called _Family Problems of the Frontier Woman_. "Remember you're
a nice boy. Don't make me ashamed of you."

I tore down the corridor. Most of the cabins had purple lights on in
front of the doors, showing that the girls were still inside their
hammocks. That meant only the ship's crew was up and about. Ship's
crews are men; women are too busy with important things like government
to run ships. I felt free all over--and happy. Now was my chance to
really see the _Eleanor Roosevelt_!

       *       *       *       *       *

It was hard to believe I was traveling in space at last. Ahead and
behind me, all the way up to where the companionway curved in out
of sight, there was nothing but smooth black wall and smooth white
doors--on and on and on. _Gee_, I thought excitedly, this is _one big
ship_!

Of course, every once in a while I would run across a big scene of
stars in the void set in the wall; but they were only pictures. Nothing
that gave the feel of great empty space like I'd read about in _The Boy
Rocketeers_, no portholes, no visiplates, nothing.

So when I came to the crossway, I stopped for a second, then turned
left. To the right, see, there was Deck Four, then Deck Three, leading
inward past the engine fo'c'sle to the main jets and the grav helix
going _purr-purr-purrty-purr_ in the comforting way big machinery has
when it's happy and oiled. But to the left, the crossway led all the
way to the outside level which ran just under the hull. There were
portholes on the hull.

I'd studied all that out in our cabin, long before we'd lifted, on
the transparent model of the ship hanging like a big cigar from the
ceiling. Sis had studied it too, but she was looking for places like
the dining salon and the library and Lifeboat 68 where we should go in
case of emergency. I looked for the _important_ things.

As I trotted along the crossway, I sort of wished that Sis hadn't
decided to go after a husband on a luxury liner. On a cargo ship, now,
I'd be climbing from deck to deck on a ladder instead of having gravity
underfoot all the time just like I was home on the bottom of the Gulf
of Mexico. But women always know what's right, and a boy can only make
faces and do what they say, same as the men have to do.

Still, it was pretty exciting to press my nose against the slots in the
wall and see the sliding panels that could come charging out and block
the crossway into an airtight fit in case a meteor or something smashed
into the ship. And all along there were glass cases with spacesuits
standing in them, like those knights they used to have back in the
Middle Ages.

"In the event of disaster affecting the oxygen content of
companionway," they had the words etched into the glass, "break glass
with hammer upon wall, remove spacesuit and proceed to don it in the
following fashion."

I read the "following fashion" until I knew it by heart. _Boy_, I said
to myself, _I hope we have that kind of disaster. I'd sure like to get
into one of those! Bet it would be more fun than those diving suits
back in Undersea!_

And all the time I was alone. That was the best part.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then I passed Deck Twelve and there was a big sign. "Notice! Passengers
not permitted past this point!" A big sign in red.

I peeked around the corner. I knew it--the next deck was the hull. I
could see the portholes. Every twelve feet, they were, filled with the
velvet of space and the dancing of more stars than I'd ever dreamed
existed in the Universe.

There wasn't anyone on the deck, as far as I could see. And this
distance from the grav helix, the ship seemed mighty quiet and lonely.
If I just took one quick look....

But I thought of what Sis would say and I turned around obediently.
Then I saw the big red sign again. "Passengers not permitted--"

Well! Didn't I know from my civics class that only women could be Earth
Citizens these days? Sure, ever since the Male Desuffrage Act. And
didn't I know that you had to be a citizen of a planet in order to
get an interplanetary passport? Sis had explained it all to me in the
careful, patient way she always talks politics and things like that to
men.

"Technically, Ferdinand, I'm the only passenger in our family. You
can't be one, because, not being a citizen, you can't acquire an Earth
Passport. However, you'll be going to Venus on the strength of this
clause--'Miss Evelyn Sparling and all dependent male members of family,
this number not to exceed the registered quota of sub-regulations
pertaining'--and so on. I want you to understand these matters, so that
you will grow into a man who takes an active interest in world affairs.
No matter what you hear, women really like and appreciate such men."

Of course, I never pay much attention to Sis when she says such dumb
things. I'm old enough, I guess, to know that it isn't what _Women_
like and appreciate that counts when it comes to people getting
married. If it were, Sis and three hundred other pretty girls like her
wouldn't be on their way to Venus to hook husbands.

Still, if I wasn't a passenger, the sign didn't have anything to do
with me. I knew what Sis could say to _that_, but at least it was an
argument I could use if it ever came up. So I broke the law.

I was glad I did. The stars were exciting enough, but away off to
the left, about five times as big as I'd ever seen it, except in the
movies, was the Moon, a great blob of gray and white pockmarks holding
off the black of space. I was hoping to see the Earth, but I figured it
must be on the other side of the ship or behind us. I pressed my nose
against the port and saw the tiny flicker of a spaceliner taking off,
Marsbound. I wished I was on that one!

Then I noticed, a little farther down the companionway, a stretch of
blank wall where there should have been portholes. High up on the
wall in glowing red letters were the words, "Lifeboat 47. Passengers:
Thirty-two. Crew: Eleven. Unauthorized personnel keep away!"

Another one of those signs.

       *       *       *       *       *

I crept up to the porthole nearest it and could just barely make out
the stern jets where it was plastered against the hull. Then I walked
under the sign and tried to figure the way you were supposed to get
into it. There was a very thin line going around in a big circle that I
knew must be the door. But I couldn't see any knobs or switches to open
it with. Not even a button you could press.

That meant it was a sonic lock like the kind we had on the outer keeps
back home in Undersea. But knock or voice? I tried the two knock
combinations I knew, and nothing happened. I only remembered one voice
key--might as well see if that's it, I figured.

"Twenty, Twenty-three. Open Sesame."

For a second, I thought I'd hit it just right out of all the million
possible combinations--The door clicked inward toward a black hole, and
a hairy hand as broad as my shoulders shot out of the hole. It closed
around my throat and plucked me inside as if I'd been a baby sardine.

I bounced once on the hard lifeboat floor. Before I got my breath and
sat up, the door had been shut again. When the light came on, I found
myself staring up the muzzle of a highly polished blaster and into the
cold blue eyes of the biggest man I'd ever seen.

He was wearing a one-piece suit made of some scaly green stuff that
looked hard and soft at the same time.

His boots were made of it too, and so was the hood hanging down his
back.

And his face was brown. Not just ordinary tan, you understand, but the
deep, dark, burned-all-the-way-in brown I'd seen on the lifeguards
in New Orleans whenever we took a surface vacation--the kind of tan
that comes from day after broiling day under a really hot Sun. His
hair looked as if it had once been blond, but now there were just long
combed-out waves with a yellowish tinge that boiled all the way down
to his shoulders.

I hadn't seen hair like that on a man except maybe in history books;
every man I'd ever known had his hair cropped in the fashionable
soup-bowl style. I was staring at his hair, almost forgetting about the
blaster which I knew it was against the law for him to have at all,
when I suddenly got scared right through.

His eyes.

They didn't blink and there seemed to be no expression around them.
Just coldness. Maybe it was the kind of clothes he was wearing that did
it, but all of a sudden I was reminded of a crocodile I'd seen in a
surface zoo that had stared quietly at me for twenty minutes until it
opened two long tooth-studded jaws.

"Green shatas!" he said suddenly. "Only a tadpole. I must be getting
jumpy enough to splash."

Then he shoved the blaster away in a holster made of the same scaly
leather, crossed his arms on his chest and began to study me. I grunted
to my feet, feeling a lot better. The coldness had gone out of his eyes.

I held out my hand the way Sis had taught me. "My name is Ferdinand
Sparling. I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr.--Mr.--"

"Hope for your sake," he said to me, "that you aren't what you
seem--tadpole brother to one of them husbandless anura."

"_What?_"

"A 'nuran is a female looking to nest. Anura is a herd of same. Come
from Flatfolk ways."

"Flatfolk are the Venusian natives, aren't they? Are you a Venusian?
What part of Venus do you come from? Why did you say you hope--"

He chuckled and swung me up into one of the bunks that lined the
lifeboat. "Questions you ask," he said in his soft voice. "Venus is a
sharp enough place for a dryhorn, let alone a tadpole dryhorn with a
boss-minded sister."

"I'm not a dryleg," I told him proudly. "_We're_ from Undersea."

"_Dryhorn_, I said, not dryleg. And what's Undersea?"

"Well, in Undersea we called foreigners and newcomers drylegs. Just
like on Venus, I guess, you call them dryhorns." And then I told him
how Undersea had been built on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, when
the mineral resources of the land began to give out and engineers
figured that a lot could still be reached from the sea bottoms.

       *       *       *       *       *

He nodded. He'd heard about the sea-bottom mining cities that were
bubbling under protective domes in every one of the Earth's oceans just
about the same time settlements were springing up on the planets.

He looked impressed when I told him about Mom and Pop being one of the
first couples to get married in Undersea. He looked thoughtful when I
told him how Sis and I had been born there and spent half our childhood
listening to the pressure pumps. He raised his eyebrows and looked
disgusted when I told how Mom, as Undersea representative on the World
Council, had been one of the framers of the Male Desuffrage Act after
the Third Atomic War had resulted in the Maternal Revolution.

       *       *       *       *       *

He almost squeezed my arm when I got to the time Mom and Pop were blown
up in a surfacing boat.

"Well, after the funeral, there was a little money, so Sis decided we
might as well use it to migrate. There was no future for her on Earth,
she figured. You know, the three-out-of-four."

"How's that?"

"The three-out-of-four. No more than three women out of every four on
Earth can expect to find husbands. Not enough men to go around. Way
back in the Twentieth Century, it began to be felt, Sis says, what with
the wars and all. Then the wars went on and a lot more men began to die
or get no good from the radioactivity. Then the best men went to the
planets, Sis says, until by now even if a woman can scrounge a personal
husband, he's not much to boast about."

The stranger nodded violently. "Not on Earth, he isn't. Those busybody
anura make sure of that. What a place! Suffering gridniks, I had a
bellyful!"

He told me about it. Women were scarce on Venus, and he hadn't been
able to find any who were willing to come out to his lonely little
islands; he had decided to go to Earth where there was supposed to be a
surplus. Naturally, having been born and brought up on a very primitive
planet, he didn't know "it's a woman's world," like the older boys in
school used to say.

The moment he landed on Earth he was in trouble. He didn't know he had
to register at a government-operated hotel for transient males; he
threw a bartender through a thick plastic window for saying something
nasty about the length of his hair; and _imagine_!--he not only
resisted arrest, resulting in three hospitalized policemen, but he
sassed the judge in open court!

"Told me a man wasn't supposed to say anything except through female
attorneys. Told _her_ that where _I_ came from, a man spoke his piece
when he'd a mind to, and his woman walked by his side."

"What happened?" I asked breathlessly.

"Oh, Guilty of This and Contempt of That. That blown-up brinosaur took
my last munit for fines, then explained that she was remitting the
rest because I was a foreigner and uneducated." His eyes grew dark for
a moment. He chuckled again. "But I wasn't going to serve all those
fancy little prison sentences. Forcible Citizenship Indoctrination,
they call it? Shook the dead-dry dust of the misbegotten, God forsaken
mother world from my feet forever. The women on it deserve their men.
My pockets were folded from the fines, and the paddlefeet were looking
for me so close I didn't dare radio for more munit. So I stowed away."

       *       *       *       *       *

For a moment, I didn't understand him. When I did, I was almost ill.
"Y-you mean," I choked, "th-that you're b-breaking the law right now?
And I'm with you while you're doing it?"

He leaned over the edge of the bunk and stared at me very seriously.
"What breed of tadpole are they turning out these days? Besides, what
business do _you_ have this close to the hull?"

After a moment of sober reflection, I nodded. "You're right. I've also
become a male outside the law. We're in this together."

He guffawed. Then he sat up and began cleaning his blaster. I found
myself drawn to the bright killer-tube with exactly the fascination Sis
insists such things have always had for men.

"Ferdinand your label? That's not right for a sprouting tadpole. I'll
call you Ford. My name's Butt. Butt Lee Brown."

I liked the sound of Ford. "Is Butt a nickname, too?"

"Yeah. Short for Alberta, but I haven't found a man who can draw a
blaster fast enough to call me that. You see, Pop came over in the
eighties--the big wave of immigrants when they evacuated Ontario. Named
all us boys after Canadian provinces. I was the youngest, so I got the
name they were saving for a girl."

"You had a lot of brothers, Mr. Butt?"

He grinned with a mighty set of teeth. "Oh, a nestful. Of course, they
were all killed in the Blue Chicago Rising by the MacGregor boys--all
except me and Saskatchewan. Then Sas and me hunted the MacGregors down.
Took a heap of time; we didn't float Jock MacGregor's ugly face down
the Tuscany till both of us were pretty near grown up."

I walked up close to where I could see the tiny bright copper coils of
the blaster above the firing button. "Have you killed a lot of men with
that, Mr. Butt?"

"Butt. Just plain Butt to you, Ford." He frowned and sighted at
the light globe. "No more'n twelve--not counting five government
paddlefeet, of course. I'm a peaceable planter. Way I figure it,
violence never accomplishes much that's important. My brother Sas,
now--"

       *       *       *       *       *

He had just begun to work into a wonderful anecdote about his brother
when the dinner gong rang. Butt told me to scat. He said I was a
growing tadpole and needed my vitamins. And he mentioned, very
off-hand, that he wouldn't at all object if I brought him some fresh
fruit. It seemed there was nothing but processed foods in the lifeboat
and Butt was used to a farmer's diet.

Trouble was, he was a special kind of farmer. Ordinary fruit would have
been pretty easy to sneak into my pockets at meals. I even found a way
to handle the kelp and giant watercress Mr. Brown liked, but things
like seaweed salt and Venusian mud-grapes just had too strong a smell.
Twice, the mechanical hamper refused to accept my jacket for laundering
and I had to wash it myself. But I learned so many wonderful things
about Venus every time I visited that stowaway....

I learned three wild-wave songs of the Flatfolk and what it is that the
native Venusians hate so much; I learned how you tell the difference
between a lousy government paddlefoot from New Kalamazoo and the
slaptoe slinker who is the planter's friend. After a lot of begging,
Butt Lee Brown explained the workings of his blaster, explained it
so carefully that I could name every part and tell what it did from
the tiny round electrodes to the long spirals of transformer. But no
matter what, he would never let me hold it.

"Sorry, Ford, old tad," he would drawl, spinning around and around in
the control swivel-chair at the nose of the lifeboat. "But way I look
at it, a man who lets somebody else handle his blaster is like the
giant whose heart was in an egg that an enemy found. When you've grown
enough so's your pop feels you ought to have a weapon, why, then's the
time to learn it and you might's well learn fast. Before then, you're
plain too young to be even near it."

"I don't have a father to give me one when I come of age. I don't even
have an older brother as head of my family like your brother Labrador.
All I have is Sis. And _she_--"

"She'll marry some fancy dryhorn who's never been farther South than
the Polar Coast. And she'll stay head of the family, if I know her
breed of green shata. _Bossy, opinionated._ By the way, Fordie," he
said, rising and stretching so the fish-leather bounced and rippled off
his biceps, "that sister. She ever...."

And he'd be off again, cross-examining me about Evelyn. I sat in the
swivel chair he'd vacated and tried to answer his questions. But there
was a lot of stuff I didn't know. Evelyn was a healthy girl, for
instance; how healthy, exactly, I had no way of finding out. Yes, I'd
tell him, my aunts on both sides of my family each had had more than
the average number of children. No, we'd never done any farming to
speak of, back in Undersea, but--yes, I'd guess Evelyn knew about as
much as any girl there when it came to diving equipment and pressure
pump regulation.

How would I know that stuff would lead to trouble for me?

       *       *       *       *       *

Sis had insisted I come along to the geography lecture. Most of the
other girls who were going to Venus for husbands talked to each other
during the lecture, but not _my_ sister! She hung on every word, took
notes even, and asked enough questions to make the perspiring purser
really work in those orientation periods.

"I am very sorry, Miss Sparling," he said with pretty heavy sarcasm,
"but I cannot remember any of the agricultural products of the Macro
Continent. Since the human population is well below one per thousand
square miles, it can readily be understood that the quantity of
tilled soil, land or sub-surface, is so small that--Wait, I remember
something. The Macro Continent exports a fruit though not exactly an
edible one. The wild _dunging_ drug is harvested there by criminal
speculators. Contrary to belief on Earth, the traffic has been growing
in recent years. In fact--"

"Pardon me, sir," I broke in, "but doesn't _dunging_ come only from
Leif Erickson Island off the Moscow Peninsula of the Macro Continent?
You remember, purser--Wang Li's third exploration, where he proved the
island and the peninsula didn't meet for most of the year?"

The purser nodded slowly. "I forgot," he admitted. "Sorry, ladies, but
the boy's right. Please make the correction in your notes."

But Sis was the only one who took notes, and she didn't take that one.
She stared at me for a moment, biting her lower lip thoughtfully, while
I got sicker and sicker. Then she shut her pad with the final gesture
of the right hand that Mom used to use just before challenging the
opposition to come right down on the Council floor and debate it out
with her.

"Ferdinand," Sis said, "let's go back to our cabin."

The moment she sat me down and walked slowly around me, I knew I was
in for it. "I've been reading up on Venusian geography in the ship's
library," I told her in a hurry.

"No doubt," she said drily. She shook her night-black hair out. "But
you aren't going to tell me that you read about _dunging_ in the ship's
library. The books there have been censored by a government agent of
Earth against the possibility that they might be read by susceptible
young male minds like yours. She would not have allowed--this Terran
Agent--"

"Paddlefoot," I sneered.

Sis sat down hard in our zoom-air chair. "Now that's a term," she said
carefully, "that is used only by Venusian riffraff."

"They're not!"

"Not what?"

"Riffraff," I had to answer, knowing I was getting in deeper all the
time and not being able to help it. I mustn't give Mr. Brown away!
"They're trappers and farmers, pioneers and explorers, who're building
Venus. And it takes a real man to build on a hot, hungry hell like
Venus."

"Does it, now?" she said, looking at me as if I were beginning to grow
a second pair of ears. "Tell me more."

"You can't have meek, law-abiding, women-ruled men when you start
civilization on a new planet. You've got to have men who aren't afraid
to make their own law if necessary--with their own guns. That's where
law begins; the books get written up later."

"You're going to _tell_, Ferdinand, what evil, criminal male is
speaking through your mouth!"

"Nobody!" I insisted. "They're my own ideas!"

"They are remarkably well-organized for a young boy's ideas. A boy
who, I might add, has previously shown a ridiculous but nonetheless
entirely masculine boredom with political philosophy. I plan to have a
government career on that new planet you talk about, Ferdinand--after
I have found a good, steady husband, of course--and I don't look
forward to a masculinist radical in the family. Now, who has been
filling your head with all this nonsense?"

       *       *       *       *       *

I was sweating. Sis has that deadly bulldog approach when she feels
someone is lying. I pulled my pulpast handkerchief from my pocket to
wipe my face. Something rattled to the floor.

"What is this picture of me doing in your pocket, Ferdinand?"

A trap seemed to be hinging noisily into place. "One of the passengers
wanted to see how you looked in a bathing suit."

"The passengers on this ship are all female. I can't imagine any of
them that curious about my appearance. Ferdinand, it's a man who has
been giving you these anti-social ideas, isn't it? A war-mongering
masculinist like all the frustrated men who want to engage in
government and don't have the vaguest idea how to. Except, of course,
in their ancient, bloody ways. Ferdinand, who has been perverting that
sunny and carefree soul of yours?"

"Nobody! _Nobody!_"

"Ferdinand, there's no point in lying! I demand--"

"I told you, Sis. I told you! And don't call me Ferdinand. Call me
Ford."

"Ford? _Ford?_ Now, you listen to me, Ferdinand...."

After that it was all over but the confession. That came in a few
moments. I couldn't fool Sis. She just knew me too well, I decided
miserably. Besides, she was a girl.

All the same, I wouldn't get Mr. Butt Lee Brown into trouble if I could
help it. I made Sis promise she wouldn't turn him in if I took her to
him. And the quick, nodding way she said she would made me feel just a
little better.

The door opened on the signal, "Sesame." When Butt saw somebody was
with me, he jumped and the ten-inch blaster barrel grew out of his
fingers. Then he recognized Sis from the pictures.

He stepped to one side and, with the same sweeping gesture, holstered
his blaster and pushed his green hood off. It was Sis's turn to jump
when she saw the wild mass of hair rolling down his back.

"An honor, Miss Sparling," he said in that rumbly voice. "Please come
right in. There's a hurry-up draft."

So Sis went in and I followed right after her. Mr. Brown closed the
door. I tried to catch his eye so I could give him some kind of hint or
explanation, but he had taken a couple of his big strides and was in
the control section with Sis. She didn't give ground, though; I'll say
that for her. She only came to his chest, but she had her arms crossed
sternly.

"First, Mr. Brown," she began, like talking to a cluck of a kid in
class, "you realize that you are not only committing the political
crime of traveling without a visa, and the criminal one of stowing away
without paying your fare, but the moral delinquency of consuming stores
intended for the personnel of this ship solely in emergency?"

       *       *       *       *       *

He opened his mouth to its maximum width and raised an enormous hand.
Then he let the air out and dropped his arm.

"I take it you either have no defense or care to make none," Sis added
caustically.

Butt laughed slowly and carefully as if he were going over each word.
"Wonder if all the anura talk like that. And _you_ want to foul up
Venus."

"We haven't done so badly on Earth, after the mess you men made of
politics. It needed a revolution of the mothers before--"

"Needed nothing. Everyone wanted peace. Earth is a weary old world."

"It's a world of strong moral fiber compared to yours, Mr. Alberta Lee
Brown." Hearing his rightful name made him move suddenly and tower over
her. Sis said with a certain amount of hurry and change of tone, "What
_do_ you have to say about stowing away and using up lifeboat stores?"

       *       *       *       *       *

He cocked his head and considered a moment. "Look," he said finally,
"I have more than enough munit to pay for round trip tickets, but I
couldn't get a return visa because of that brinosaur judge and all
the charges she hung on me. Had to stow away. Picked the _Eleanor
Roosevelt_ because a couple of the boys in the crew are friends of mine
and they were willing to help. But this lifeboat--don't you know that
every passenger ship carries four times as many lifeboats as it needs?
Not to mention the food I didn't eat because it stuck in my throat?"

"Yes," she said bitterly. "You had this boy steal fresh fruit for you.
I suppose you didn't know that under space regulations that makes him
equally guilty?"

"No, Sis, he didn't," I was beginning to argue. "All he wanted--"

"Sure I knew. Also know that if I'm picked up as a stowaway, I'll be
sent back to Earth to serve out those fancy little sentences."

"Well, you're guilty of them, aren't you?"

He waved his hands at her impatiently. "I'm not talking law, female;
I'm talking sense. Listen! I'm in trouble because I went to Earth to
look for a wife. You're standing here right now because you're on your
way to Venus for a husband. So let's."

Sis actually staggered back. "Let's? Let's _what_? Are--are you daring
to suggest that--that--"

"Now, Miss Sparling, no hoopla. I'm saying let's get married, and you
know it. You figured out from what the boy told you that I was chewing
on you for a wife. You're healthy and strong, got good heredity, you
know how to operate sub-surface machinery, you've lived underwater, and
your disposition's no worse than most of the anura I've seen. Prolific
stock, too."

I was so excited I just had to yell: "Gee, Sis, say _yes_!"

       *       *       *       *       *

My sister's voice was steaming with scorn. "And what makes you think
that I'd consider you a desirable husband?"

He spread his hands genially. "Figure if you wanted a poodle, you're
pretty enough to pick one up on Earth. Figure if you charge off to
Venus, you don't want a poodle, you want a man. I'm one. I own three
islands in the Galertan Archipelago that'll be good oozing mudgrape
land when they're cleared. Not to mention the rich berzeliot beds
offshore. I got no bad habits outside of having my own way. I'm also
passable good-looking for a slaptoe planter. Besides, if you marry
me you'll be the first mated on this ship--and that's a splash most
nesting females like to make."

There was a longish stretch of quiet. Sis stepped back and measured him
slowly with her eyes; there was a lot to look at. He waited patiently
while she covered the distance from his peculiar green boots to that
head of hair. I was so excited I was gulping instead of breathing.
Imagine having Butt for a brother-in-law and living on a wet-plantation
in Flatfolk country!

But then I remembered Sis's level head and I didn't have much hope any
more.

"You know," she began, "there's more to marriage than just--"

"So there is," he cut in. "Well, we can try each other for taste." And
he pulled her in, both of his great hands practically covering her
slim, straight back.

Neither of them said anything for a bit after he let go. Butt spoke up
first.

"Now, me," he said, "I'd vote yes."

Sis ran the tip of her tongue kind of delicately from side to side
of her mouth. Then she stepped back slowly and looked at him as if
she were figuring out how many feet high he was. She kept on moving
backward, tapping her chin, while Butt and I got more and more
impatient. When she touched the lifeboat door, she pushed it open and
jumped out.

       *       *       *       *       *

Butt ran over and looked down the crossway. After a while, he shut the
door and came back beside me. "Well," he said, swinging to a bunk,
"that's sort of it."

"You're better off, Butt," I burst out. "You shouldn't have a woman
like Sis for a wife. She looks small and helpless, but don't forget
she was trained to run an underwater city!"

"Wasn't worrying about that," he grinned. "_I_ grew up in the fifteen
long years of the Blue Chicago Rising. Nope." He turned over on his
back and clicked his teeth at the ceiling. "Think we'd have nested out
nicely."

I hitched myself up to him and we sat on the bunk, glooming away at
each other. Then we heard the tramp of feet in the crossway.

Butt swung down and headed for the control compartment in the
nose of the lifeboat. He had his blaster out and was cursing very
interestingly. I started after him, but he picked me up by the seat
of my jumper and tossed me toward the door. The Captain came in and
tripped over me.

I got all tangled up in his gold braid and million-mile space buttons.
When we finally got to our feet and sorted out right, he was breathing
very hard. The Captain was a round little man with a plump, golden face
and a very scared look on it. He _humphed_ at me, just the way Sis
does, and lifted me by the scruff of my neck. The Chief Mate picked me
up and passed me to the Second Assistant Engineer.

Sis was there, being held by the purser on one side and the Chief
Computer's Mate on the other. Behind them, I could see a flock of
wide-eyed female passengers.

"You cowards!" Sis was raging. "Letting your Captain face a dangerous
outlaw all by himself!"

"I dunno, Miss Sparling," the Computer's Mate said, scratching the
miniature slide-rule insignia on his visor with his free hand. "The Old
Man would've been willing to let it go with a log entry, figuring the
spaceport paddlefeet could pry out the stowaway when we landed. But you
had to quote the Mother Anita Law at him, and he's in there doing his
duty. He figures the rest of us are family men, too, and there's no
sense making orphans."

"You promised, Sis," I told her through my teeth. "You promised you
wouldn't get Butt into trouble!"

She tossed her spiral curls at me and ground a heel into the purser's
instep. He screwed up his face and howled, but he didn't let go of her
arm.

"_Shush_, Ferdinand, this is serious!"

It was. I heard the Captain say, "I'm not carrying a weapon, Brown."

"Then _get_ one," Butt's low, lazy voice floated out.

"No, thanks. You're as handy with that thing as I am with a
rocketboard." The Captain's words got a little fainter as he walked
forward. Butt growled like a gusher about to blow.

"I'm counting on your being a good guy, Brown." The Captain's
voice quavered just a bit. "I'm banking on what I heard about the
blast-happy Browns every time I lifted gravs in New Kalamazoo; they
have a code, they don't burn unarmed men."

       *       *       *       *       *

Just about this time, events in the lifeboat went down to a mumble. The
top of my head got wet and I looked up. There was sweat rolling down
the Second Assistant's forehead; it converged at his nose and bounced
off the tip in a sizable stream. I twisted out of the way.

"What's happening?" Sis gritted, straining toward the lock.

"Butt's trying to decide whether he wants him fried or scrambled," the
Computer's Mate said, pulling her back. "Hey, purse, remember when the
whole family with their pop at the head went into Heatwave to argue
with Colonel Leclerc?"

"Eleven dead, sixty-four injured," the purser answered mechanically.
"And no more army stationed south of Icebox." His right ear twitched
irritably. "But what're they saying?"

Suddenly we heard. "By authority vested in me under the Pomona College
Treaty," the Captain was saying very loudly, "I arrest you for
violation of Articles Sixteen to Twenty-one inclusive of the Space
Transport Code, and order your person and belongings impounded for
the duration of this voyage as set forth in Sections Forty-one and
Forty-five--"

"Forty-three and Forty-five," Sis groaned. "Sections Forty-three and
Forty-five, I told him. I even made him repeat it after me!"

"--of the Mother Anita Law, SC 2136, Emergency Interplanetary
Directives."

       *       *       *       *       *

We all waited breathlessly for Butt's reply. The seconds ambled on and
there was no clatter of electrostatic discharge, no smell of burning
flesh.

Then we heard some feet walking. A big man in a green suit swung out
into the crossway. That was Butt. Behind him came the Captain, holding
the blaster gingerly with both hands. Butt had a funny, thoughtful look
on his face.

The girls surged forward when they saw him, scattering the crew to one
side. They were like a school of sharks that had just caught sight of a
dying whale.

"M-m-m-m! Are all Venusians built like that?"

"Men like that are worth the mileage!"

"_I want him!" "I want him!" "I want him!_"

Sis had been let go. She grabbed my free hand and pulled me away. She
was trying to look only annoyed, but her eyes had bright little bubbles
of fury popping in them.

"The cheap extroverts! And they call themselves responsible women!"

I was angry, too. And I let her know, once we were in our cabin.
"What about that promise, Sis? You said you wouldn't turn him in. You
_promised_!"

She stopped walking around the room as if she had been expecting to get
to Venus on foot. "I know I did, Ferdinand, but he forced me."

"My name is Ford and I don't understand."

"Your name is Ferdinand and stop trying to act forcefully like a girl.
It doesn't become you. In just a few days, you'll forget all this and
be your simple, carefree self again. I really truly meant to keep my
word. From what you'd told me, Mr. Brown seemed to be a fundamentally
decent chap despite his barbaric notions on equality between the
sexes--or worse. I was positive I could shame him into a more rational
social behavior and make him give himself up. Then he--he--"

She pressed her fingernails into her palms and let out a long, glaring
sigh at the door. "Then he kissed me! Oh, it was a good enough
kiss--Mr. Brown has evidently had a varied and colorful background--but
the galling idiocy of the man, trying that! I was just getting over the
colossal impudence involved in _his_ proposing marriage--as if _he_ had
to bear the children!--and was considering the offer seriously, on its
merits, as one should consider _all_ suggestions, when he deliberately
dropped the pretense of reason. He appealed to me as most of the savage
ancients appealed to their women, as an emotional machine. Throw the
correct sexual switches, says this theory, and the female surrenders
herself ecstatically to the doubtful and bloody murk of masculine
plans."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a double knock on the door and the Captain walked in without
waiting for an invitation. He was still holding Butt's blaster. He
pointed it at me. "Get your hands up, Ferdinand Sparling," he said.

I did.

"I hereby order your detention for the duration of this voyage, for
aiding and abetting a stowaway, as set forth in Sections Forty-one and
Forty-five--"

"Forty-three and Forty-five," Sis interrupted him, her eyes getting
larger and rounder. "But you gave me your word of honor that no charges
would be lodged against the boy!"

"Forty-one and Forty-five," he corrected her courteously, still staring
fiercely at me. "I looked it up. Of the Anita Mason Law, Emergency
Interplanetary Directives. That was the usual promise one makes to an
informer, but I made it before I knew it was Butt Lee Brown you were
talking about. I didn't want to arrest Butt Lee Brown. You forced
me. So I'm breaking my promise to you, just as, I understand, you
broke your promise to your brother. They'll both be picked up at New
Kalamazoo Spaceport and sent Terraward for trial."

"But I used all of our money to buy passage," Sis wailed.

"And now you'll have to return with the boy. I'm sorry, Miss Sparling.
But as you explained to me, a man who has been honored with an
important official position should stay close to the letter of the law
for the sake of other men who are trying to break down terrestrial
anti-male prejudice. Of course, there's a way out."

"There is? Tell me, please!"

"Can I lower my hands a minute?" I asked.

"No, you can't, son--not according to the armed surveillance provisions
of the Mother Anita Law. Miss Sparling, if you'd marry Brown--now,
now, don't look at me like that!--we could let the whole matter drop.
A shipboard wedding and he goes on your passport as a 'dependent male
member of family,' which means, so far as the law is concerned, that he
had a regulation passport from the beginning of this voyage. And once
we touch Venusian soil he can contact his bank and pay for passage. On
the record, no crime was ever committed. He's free, the boy's free, and
you--"

"--Are married to an uncombed desperado who doesn't know enough to sit
back and let a woman run things. Oh, you should be ashamed!"

       *       *       *       *       *

The Captain shrugged and spread his arms wide.

"Perhaps I should be, but that's what comes of putting men into
responsible positions, as you would say. See here, Miss Sparling, _I_
didn't want to arrest Brown, and, if it's at all possible, I'd still
prefer not to. The crew, officers and men, all go along with me. We
may be legal residents of Earth, but our work requires us to be on
Venus several times a year. We don't want to be disliked by any members
of the highly irritable Brown clan or its collateral branches. Butt
Lee Brown himself, for all of his savage appearance in your civilized
eyes, is a man of much influence on the Polar Continent. In his own
bailiwick, the Galertan Archipelago, he makes, breaks and occasionally
readjusts officials. Then there's his brother Saskatchewan who
considers Butt a helpless, put-upon youngster--"

"Much influence, you say? Mr. Brown has?" Sis was suddenly thoughtful.

"_Power_, actually. The kind a strong man usually wields in a newly
settled community. Besides, Miss Sparling, you're going to Venus for a
husband because the male-female ratio on Earth is reversed. Well, not
only is Butt Lee Brown a first class catch, but you can't afford to be
too particular in any case. While you're fairly pretty, you won't bring
any wealth into a marriage and your high degree of opinionation is not
likely to be well-received on a backward, masculinist world. Then, too,
the woman-hunger is not so great any more, what with the _Marie Curie_
and the _Fatima_ having already deposited their cargoes, the _Mme. Sun
Yat Sen_ due to arrive next month...."

       *       *       *       *       *

Sis nodded to herself, waved the door open, and walked out.

"Let's hope," the Captain said. "Like any father used to say, a man who
knows how to handle women, how to get around them without their knowing
it, doesn't need to know anything else in this life. I'm plain wasted
in space. You can lower your hands now, son."

We sat down and I explained the blaster to him. He was very interested.
He said all Butt had told him--in the lifeboat when they decided to
use my arrest as a club over Sis--was to keep the safety catch all the
way up against his thumb. I could see he really had been excited about
carrying a lethal weapon around. He told me that back in the old days,
captains--sea captains, that is--actually had the right to keep guns
in their cabins all the time to put down mutinies and other things our
ancestors did.

The telewall flickered, and we turned it on. Sis smiled down.
"Everything's all right, Captain. Come up and marry us, please."

"What did you stick him for?" he asked. "What was the price?"

Sis's full lips went thin and hard, the way Mom's used to. Then she
thought better of it and laughed. "Mr. Brown is going to see that I'm
elected sheriff of the Galertan Archipelago."

"And I thought she'd settle for a county clerkship!" the Captain
muttered as we spun up to the brig.

The doors were open and girls were chattering in every corner. Sis came
up to the Captain to discuss arrangements. I slipped away and found
Butt sitting with folded arms in a corner of the brig. He grinned at
me. "Hi, tadpole. Like the splash?"

I shook my head unhappily. "Butt, why did you do it? I'd sure love to
be your brother-in-law, but, gosh, you didn't have to marry Sis." I
pointed at some of the bustling females. Sis was going to have three
hundred bridesmaids. "Any one of them would have jumped at the chance
to be your wife. And once on any woman's passport, you'd be free. Why
Sis?"

"That's what the Captain said in the lifeboat. Told him same thing I'm
telling you. I'm stubborn. What I like at first, I keep on liking. What
I want at first, I keep on wanting until I get."

"Yes, but making Sis sheriff! And you'll have to back her up with your
blaster. What'll happen to that man's world?"

"Wait'll after we nest and go out to my islands." He produced a
hard-lipped, smug grin, sighting it at Sis's slender back. "She'll
find herself sheriff over a bunch of natives and exactly two Earth
males--you and me. I got a hunch that'll keep her pretty busy, though."













                        Appointment in Tomorrow

                            BY FRITZ LEIBER

                      Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                   Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]




         Is it possible to have a world without moral values?
         Or does lack of morality become a moral value, also?


The first angry rays of the sun--which, startlingly enough, still rose
in the east at 24 hour intervals--pierced the lacy tops of Atlantic
combers and touched thousands of sleeping Americans with unconscious
fear, because of their unpleasant similarity to the rays from World War
III's atomic bombs.

They turned to blood the witch-circle of rusty steel skeletons around
Inferno in Manhattan. Without comment, they pointed a cosmic finger at
the tarnished brass plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the Three
Physicists after the dropping of the Hell Bomb. They tenderly touched
the rosy skin and strawberry bruises on the naked shoulders of a
girl sleeping off a drunk on the furry and radiantly heated floor of
a nearby roof garden. They struck green magic from the glassy blot
that was Old Washington. Twelve hours before, they had revealed things
as eerily beautiful, and as ravaged, in Asia and Russia. They pinked
the white walls of the Colonial dwelling of Morton Opperly near the
Institute for Advanced Studies; upstairs they slanted impartially
across the Pharoahlike and open-eyed face of the elderly physicist and
the ugly, sleep-surly one of young Willard Farquar in the next room.
And in nearby New Washington they made of the spire of the Thinkers'
Foundation a blue and optimistic glory that outshone White House, Jr.

It was America approaching the end of the Twentieth Century. America
of juke-box burlesque and your local radiation hospital. America
of the mask-fad for women and Mystic Christianity. America of the
off-the-bosom dress and the New Blue Laws. America of the Endless War
and the loyalty detector. America of marvelous Maizie and the monthly
rocket to Mars. America of the Thinkers and (a few remembered) the
Institute. "Knock on titanium," "Whadya do for black-outs," "Please,
lover, don't think when I'm around," America, as combat-shocked and
crippled as the rest of the bomb-shattered planet.

Not one impudent photon of the sunlight penetrated the triple-paned,
polarizing windows of Jorj Helmuth's bedroom in the Thinker's
Foundation, yet the clock in his brain awakened him to the minute,
or almost. Switching off the Educational Sandman in the midst of the
phrase, "... applying tensor calculus to the nucleus," he took a
deep, even breath and cast his mind to the limits of the world and
his knowledge. It was a somewhat shadowy vision, but, he noted with
impartial approval, definitely less shadowy than yesterday morning.

Employing a rapid mental scanning technique, he next cleared his memory
chains of false associations, including those acquired while asleep.
These chores completed, he held his finger on a bedside button, which
rotated the polarizing window panes until the room slowly filled with a
muted daylight. Then, still flat on his back, he turned his head until
he could look at the remarkably beautiful blonde girl asleep beside him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Remembering last night, he felt a pang of exasperation, which he
instantly quelled by taking his mind to a higher and dispassionate
level from which he could look down on the girl and even himself as
quaint, clumsy animals. Still, he grumbled silently, Caddy might have
had enough consideration to clear out before he awoke. He wondered
if he shouldn't have used his hypnotic control of the girl to smooth
their relationship last night, and for a moment the word that would
send her into deep trance trembled on the tip of his tongue. But no,
that special power of his over her was reserved for far more important
purposes.

Pumping dynamic tension into his 20-year-old muscles and confidence
into his 60-year-old mind, the 40-year-old Thinker rose from bed.
No covers had to be thrown off; the nuclear heating unit made them
unnecessary. He stepped into his clothing--the severe tunic, tights and
sockassins of the modern business man. Next he glanced at the message
tape beside his phone, washed down with ginger ale a vita-amino-enzyme
tablet, and walked to the window. There, gazing along the rows of newly
planted mutant oaks lining Decontamination Avenue, his smooth face
broke into a smile.

It had come to him, the next big move in the intricate game making
up his life--and mankind's. Come to him during sleep, as so many of
his best decisions did, because he regularly employed the time-saving
technique of somno-thought, which could function at the same time as
somno-learning.

He set his who?-where? robot for "Rocket Physicist" and "Genius Class."
While it worked, he dictated to his steno-robot the following brief
message:

    Dear Fellow Scientist:

    A project is contemplated that will have a crucial bearing on man's
    future in deep space. Ample non-military Government funds are
    available. There was a time when professional men scoffed at the
    Thinkers. Then there was a time when the Thinkers perforce neglected
    the professional men. Now both times are past. May they never
    return! I would like to consult you this afternoon, three o'clock
    sharp, Thinkers' Foundation I.

    Jorj Helmuth

Meanwhile the who?-where? had tossed out a dozen cards. He glanced
through them, hesitated at the name "Willard Farquar," looked at the
sleeping girl, then quickly tossed them all into the addresso-robot and
plugged in the steno-robot.

The buzz-light blinked green and he switched the phone to audio.

"The President is waiting to see Maizie, sir," a clear feminine voice
announced. "He has the general staff with him."

"Martian peace to him," Jorj Helmuth said. "Tell him I'll be down in a
few minutes."

       *       *       *       *       *

Huge as a primitive nuclear reactor, the great electronic brain loomed
above the knot of hush-voiced men. It almost filled a two-story room in
the Thinkers' Foundation. Its front was an orderly expanse of controls,
indicators, telltales, and terminals, the upper ones reached by a chair
on a boom.

Although, as far as anyone knew, it could sense only the information
and questions fed into it on a tape, the human visitors could not
resist the impulse to talk in whispers and glance uneasily at the great
cryptic cube. After all, it had lately taken to moving some of its
own controls--the permissible ones--and could doubtless improvise a
hearing apparatus if it wanted to.

For this was the thinking machine beside which the Marks and Eniacs and
Maniacs and Maddidas and Minervas and Mimirs were less than Morons.
This was the machine with a million times as many synapses as the human
brain, the machine that remembered by cutting delicate notches in the
rims of molecules (instead of kindergarten paper-punching or the Coney
Island shimmying of columns of mercury). This was the machine that had
given instructions on building the last three-quarters of itself. This
was the goal, perhaps, toward which fallible human reasoning and biased
human judgment and feeble human ambition had evolved.

_This was the machine that really thought--a million-plus!_

This was the machine that the timid cyberneticists and stuffy
professional scientists had said could not be built. Yet this was the
machine that the Thinkers, with characteristic Yankee push, _had_
built. And nicknamed, with characteristic Yankee irreverence and
girl-fondness, "Maizie."

Gazing up at it, the President of the United States felt a chord
plucked within him that hadn't been sounded for decades, the dark and
shivery organ chord of his Baptist childhood. Here, in a strange sense,
although his reason rejected it, he felt he stood face to face with
the living God: infinitely stern with the sternness of reality, yet
infinitely just. No tiniest error or wilful misstep could ever escape
the scrutiny of this vast mentality. He shivered.

       *       *       *       *       *

The grizzled general--there was also one who was gray--was thinking
that this was a very odd link in the chain of command. Some shadowy and
usually well-controlled memories from World War II faintly stirred his
ire. Here he was giving orders to a being immeasurably more intelligent
than himself. And always orders of the "Tell me how to kill that man"
rather than the "Kill that man" sort. The distinction bothered him
obscurely. It relieved him to know that Maizie had built-in controls
which made her always the servant of humanity, or of humanity's
right-minded leaders--even the Thinkers weren't certain which.

The gray general was thinking uneasily, and, like the President, at a
more turbid level, of the resemblance between Papal infallibility and
the dictates of the machine. Suddenly his bony wrists began to tremble.
He asked himself: Was this the Second Coming? Mightn't an incarnation
be in metal rather than flesh?

The austere Secretary of State was remembering what he'd taken such
pains to make everyone forget: his youthful flirtation at Lake Success
with Buddhism. Sitting before his _guru_, his teacher, feeling the
Occidental's awe at the wisdom of the East, or its pretense, he had
felt a little like this.

The burly Secretary of Space, who had come up through United Rockets,
was thanking his stars that at any rate the professional scientists
weren't responsible for this job. Like the grizzled general, he'd
always felt suspicious of men who kept telling you how to do things,
rather than doing them themselves. In World War III he'd had his fill
of the professional physicists, with their eternal taint of a misty
sort of radicalism and free-thinking. The Thinkers were better--more
disciplined, more human. They'd called their brain-machine Maizie,
which helped take the curse off her. Somewhat.

       *       *       *       *       *

The President's Secretary, a paunchy veteran of party caucuses, was
also glad that it was the Thinkers who had created the machine, though
he trembled at the power that it gave them over the Administration.
Still, you could do business with the Thinkers. And nobody (not even
the Thinkers) could do business (that sort of business) with Maizie!

Before that great square face with its thousands of tiny metal
features, only Jorj Helmuth seemed at ease, busily entering on the
tape the complex Questions of the Day that the high officials had
handed him: logistics for the Endless War in Pakistan, optimum size for
next year's sugar-corn crop, current thought trends in average Soviet
minds--profound questions, yet many of them phrased with surprising
simplicity. For figures, technical jargon, and layman's language were
alike to Maizie; there was no need to translate into mathematical
shorthand, as with the lesser brain-machines.

The click of the taper went on until the Secretary of State had twice
nervously fired a cigaret with his ultrasonic lighter and twice quickly
put it away. No one spoke.

Jorj looked up at the Secretary of Space. "Section Five, Question
Four--whom would that come from?"

The burly man frowned. "That would be the physics boys, Opperly's
group. Is anything wrong?"

Jorj did not answer. A bit later he quit taping and began to adjust
controls, going up on the boom-chair to reach some of them. Eventually
he came down and touched a few more, then stood waiting.

From the great cube came a profound, steady purring. Involuntarily the
six officials backed off a bit. Somehow it was impossible for a man to
get used to the sound of Maizie starting to think.

       *       *       *       *       *

Jorj turned, smiling. "And now, gentlemen, while we wait for Maizie
In the preparation of copy, consistency of spelling and punctuation is
strongly urged, as it not only simplifies the problem for the printer,
but also prevents possible misunderstanding of copy and consequent
necessity for resetting.

All paragraphs should be clearly indicated in the copy.

All directions written upon the manuscript, which are not intended as
"copy," should be enclosed in a circle.

The author should punctuate each sentence as he writes it, for in this
way the marks are indicative of the natural pauses, and better express
his meaning.

Foot-notes should always be clearly indicated.

Unusual words, proper names, and figures should be written out with the
greatest care and distinctness by the author.

It is for the common advantage of the author, the publisher, and the
printer that the author or the editor read all proofs promptly.


ESTIMATING THE MANUSCRIPT

The usual procedure in making a book is as follows: When the publisher
sends the manuscript to the printer, a request goes with it for a
sample page, set to a size and in a type which will make a volume of
the desired number of pages. A novel is supposed to run from 320 pages
to 400 pages. The first thing to be done is to estimate the number of
words in the manuscript, and this is accomplished by averaging the
number of words in say thirty lines, and then multiplying by the number
of lines on a page. No allowance is made for fractional lines, as these
also occur in the printed page. If the manuscript is carefully written,
each page will contain the same number of lines, so the total number
of words may be found by multiplying the number of words on the page,
as arrived at above, by the total number of pages in the manuscript.
This explains the importance of having a standard number of lines on
each page.[32] No allowance is made for fractional pages at the end of
chapters, as there are also fractional pages in the printed book, and
it averages up.

The front matter has to be estimated separately, with allowance for
the blanks on the reverse of bastard-title, dedication, etc.,[33] but
the usual number of pages is eight. Then, again, an allowance of half
a page for each chapter sinkage[34] has to be made. Suppose we have a
manuscript of 90,000 words, with 24 chapters: A type page of 280 words
gives us 322 pages, to which we add 8 pages for front and 12 pages
for chapter sinkages, giving us a volume of about 344 pages. As the
presswork is usually done in forms of 32 pages, an effort is always
made not to exceed even forms by a small number of pages. Striking out
the bastard-title will often save a form of press-work.

Various short-cuts have been suggested for estimating the number of
words in a printed page, but the old-fashioned method of counting is
the safest. Here is a table which is as accurate as any short-cut can
be:

                                  Words in
                                   sq. in.

  18-Point (Great Primer), solid     7
  14-Point (English), solid         10
  12-Point (Pica), solid            14
  12-Point (Pica), leaded[35]       11
  11-Point (Small Pica), solid      17
  11-Point (Small Pica), leaded     14
  10-Point (Long Primer), solid     21
  10-Point (Long Primer), leaded    16
  9-Point (Bourgeois), solid        26
  9-Point (Bourgeois), leaded       20
  8-Point (Brevier), solid          30
  8-Point (Brevier), leaded         21
  7-Point (Minion), solid           38
  7-Point (Minion), leaded          27
  6-Point (Nonpareil), solid        47
  6-Point (Nonpareil), leaded       33
  5-Point (Pearl), solid            69
  5-Point (Pearl), leaded           50

In cases where the number of lines to the inch of certain sizes of type
is desired, the following table may be employed up to 18-point body:

                                        No. lines
                       No. lines       leaded with
  Size of type         set solid      2-point leads

   5-pt.                  14               10
   5½-pt. (agate)         13+               9+
   6-pt.                  12                9
   8 "                     9                7+
  10 "                     7+               6
  12 "                     6+               5+
  14 "                     5+               4+
  18 "                     4                3+


THE SAMPLE PAGE

With these details settled, the sample page is next in order. Knowing
that the book is to be a 12mo (size of leaf 5⅛ × 7⅝) or a 10mo (size
of leaf 5½ × 8¼), the printer must "lay out" the page so as to leave
margins of proper size and proportion. A 12mo type page may vary from
3 × 5¼ inches to 4 × 6¾ inches. Somewhere within this area, in the
given example, the page must contain about 280 words. If the manuscript
is long, then the type page must be large, the type itself small (never
smaller than long primer[36] nor larger than pica[36]), the leads[36]
reduced or omitted altogether. This is where the printer's taste and
skill is given an opportunity for expression: he is the architect
of the book, and must not combine types or decorations which are
inharmonious, and his proportions must be kept correct.

For his sample page for the given novel, the printer would select from
these standard faces:

[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT OLD STYLE

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLM
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmno_]

[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT CASLON OLD STYLE

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890_
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW_]

[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT SCOTCH

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890_
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVW_]

[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT MODERN

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLM abcdefghijklmnop_]

[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT OLD STYLE

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabc 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmnopq_]

[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT CASLON OLD STYLE

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMN ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890&_
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY_]

[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT SCOTCH

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKL
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO abcdefghijklmnop_]

[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT MODERN

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyz 1234567890
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO ABCDEFGHIJKLM
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMN abcdefghijklmnopq_]

[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT OLD STYLE

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abcde
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmnopqrstu_]

[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT CASLON OLD STYLE

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 & abc_
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZIS_]

[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT SCOTCH

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO& abcdefghijklmnopqr_]

[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT MODERN

  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmnopqr_]

Type sizes in the present day are determined by the point system, the
fundamental unit of which is the point. This is obtained by dividing
a length of 13⅘ inches into 996 equal parts, each one being called a
point. One point is therefore .0138 of an inch or 72.46 points are
equal to 1 inch.

For purposes of convenience, a point is expressed as being 1/72 of an
inch. Thus 6-point type occupies 6/72 of an inch of space, 12-point
12/72 and so on. This does not mean, however, that the actual printed
face occupies six points on the paper, but that it is six points from
the base to the top of the body carrying the face.

In other words, one may say that it is 12 points from the bottom of
one line of 12-point type to the _bottom_ of the next line of 12-point
type, etc.

The pica is the standard of measurement of the old system, and is equal
to 12 points of the new system; thus six picas are equal to 1 inch or
72 points. Printers still estimate the length and width of a page or a
column by the pica; thus a page 4 inches wide is 24 picas.

The "em" is the square of a type body. Thus a "12-point em" is 12
points wide and 12 points long, or 1 pica long and 1 pica wide. A
"10-point em" is a 10 point square, etc. The em used in measuring
newspaper column widths, magazine columns, etc., is known as the em
pica, which is 12 points square.

In using larger faces for headings and display, or smaller faces for
footnotes or quoted matter, the printer will select from the same
family to which the type belongs, or from some family which combines
with it harmoniously. Old-style faces should not be used with modern
faces, but the Scotch face, which is a cross between old-style and
modern, combines well with either.

As to leading, this volume is leaded with a 1-point lead; between the
first and second lines of the preceding paragraph there is no leading
(technically, "set solid"); between the second and third, a 2-point
lead, and between the third and fourth, a 3-point lead.

In technical volumes and schoolbooks the Old Style Antique type is
largely used for subject-headings and side-notes:

[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT OLD STYLE ANTIQUE

  =abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&AJ=]


THE TYPESETTING

With the sample page accepted by the publisher or author, or both,
the printer is authorized to proceed with the typesetting. Setting
type by hand is now almost entirely superseded by machine-composition,
except for the display pages (such as the title) and where the type
itself runs larger than the English (14-point) size, this being the
limit of the machines. Linotype[37] composition is cheaper than
monotype,[37] but as the type is cast all in one line, instead of in
separate characters, the cost of corrections is much higher. To change
even a mark of punctuation requires recasting the entire line. If the
manuscript is reasonably final in its form, the publisher is likely to
order linotype composition; otherwise, monotype will be selected. Both
machines carry the standard faces and sizes of type.


THE PROOFS

The first proofs sent out by the printer are called "galley-slips,"
or "galleys."[38] These are supposed to give the author opportunity
to make such changes as are absolutely necessary. When returned to
the printer, these galleys are made up into "page-proofs,"[38] and
frequently go again to the author, or the type may be "cast" (made
into electrotype plates) at this point. When page-proofs are submitted
to the author, the publisher expects him to revise them, making sure
that all his galley corrections have been properly made, rather than
to make further corrections, as changes in the pages are still more
expensive than in the galleys. If changes must be made, the author
should endeavor to have the correction occupy exactly the same space as
the matter cut out, or to cut out further matter to make room for the
addition. Otherwise, the page so corrected will contain more than the
standard number of lines, which must be thrown forward, and the make-up
of each page changed to the end of the chapter.

Competent proofreaders in the best offices frequently call the
attention of the author to errors in dates, figures, or proper names,
but this should always be regarded by the author as a courtesy
rather than as something which the printer is expected to do. The
proofreader, on the other hand, is supposed to have corrected every
typographical error, and for the author to mark corrections which have
been overlooked is a courtesy on the part of the author. The fact that
the author or editor has passed over typographical errors in no way
relieves the proofreader of his responsibility.

The proofreader is expected to correct any obvious error without
hesitation, but to make no other changes. If he thinks a change should
be made, it will take the form of a query in the margin to the author.
The author should carefully note all such queries, and answer them
or strike them out, bearing in mind that if he accepts the query the
change necessitated in the type becomes an author's correction, the
expense of which falls upon the publisher.

Any marks on the proofs for correction should be made distinct by
drawing a short line through the letter to be changed, etc., placing in
the margin the recognized sign indicating the change, _exactly opposite
the line in which the change is to be made, and in the order in which
the necessary alterations occur_. In doing this be sure to write
legibly, and do not cover the proof with lines and counter-lines.

The author should familiarize himself with the standard proofreading
marks, and employ these in marking all corrections upon the proofs
which are sent him. These marks are as follows:

[Illustration: PROOF MARKS

THE above marks are the ones most generally used in proofreading. There
are many others that are required in different classes of work, but
these are in the main self-explanatory. This display of proof marks and
their meanings has been prepared for THE GRAPHIC ARTS and endorsed by
the Boston Proofreaders Association.

    THE GRAPHIC ARTS, Boston]

When the page-proofs are returned to the printer, they are carefully
"read for foundry" by the proofreader, and all final changes in the
type are then made. "Bearers"[39] are placed around pages, which are
imposed[39] in chases[39] and sent to foundry.[39] Foundry-proofs are
taken at this point.


THE PLATES

The process of electrotyping is one of the most interesting steps in
the making of a book, and authors will find it well worth while to
brave the grime of the black-lead in order to become familiar with the
detail. In brief, the type form is pressed down into a tablet made of
wax or similar substance, in which it leaves an impression. This wax
tablet is then allowed to remain in a galvanic bath, through which it
becomes covered with a coating of copper. When separated from the wax,
the thin, copper replica of the composed type is backed up by an alloy,
and, after passing through various stages in finishing, finally becomes
an electrotype plate.[39]


COVER DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATIONS

While the printer has been engaged in putting the manuscript into
type, the publisher has had a designer at work upon a cover sketch,
and an artist upon such illustrations as the book requires. All this
has to fall in with the publisher's general scheme for the book as a
whole. The designer must know what limits are placed upon him as to
the number of inks or foils, or the amount of gold-leaf which he may
employ. The artist must know whether his pictures are to be drawn for
full color, two-color or one-color plates. In deciding these questions,
the publisher is influenced by what he believes the book to require in
its appeal to the public, and how great an expense is warranted by the
probability of its success.


ENGRAVING

The illustrations in all except the most pretentious volumes are either
halftone or lineplate photo-engravings. In making a halftone plate, the
picture or object to be reproduced is photographed through a screen
consisting of a glass plate, diagonally ruled at right angles in two
directions with lines numbering from fifty to four hundred to the
inch. This screen is placed inside of the camera and in front of, and
very near, the chemically sensitized plate. The light reflected from
the object to be photographed, varying in intensity according to the
lights and shadows of the object, is focused on the sensitized plate
through the intervening line screen, and affects the sensitized film
more or less according to its intensity. This causes a chemical change
of such nature that the next following operations, the development
and the intensification of the picture, result in producing it in the
form of dots and stipples varying in size, and consequently in the
respective light and shade effects, according to the varying lights
and shadows of the original. Inasmuch as the lights show dark and the
darks light, the picture on the glass makes a negative of the subject.
This negative is placed in a printing frame, in close contact with a
polished copper plate prepared with a film sensitive to the light. A
few minutes' exposure to the light renders insoluble in water those
parts of the film which the light has reached through the negative, and
when the other parts of the film, which remain soluble in water, are
washed away, the picture appears clear on the surface of the plate. The
dots and the stipples forming the picture are then further treated to
enable them to resist the action of the solution of iron perchloride to
which the plate is next subjected, which etches out the spaces between
the dots, and leaves the latter in relief. As the etching on the
copper must be in reverse as regards right and left, in order that it
may appear in proper relation when printed on the paper, the negative
must be produced through a reflecting prism, or the finished negative,
properly toughened, must be stripped from the glass on which it has
been produced, and turned over. In ordinary practice, a number of such
turned negatives are placed together on a single large glass, and
exposed together on a large copper plate, to be cut apart afterwards
and mounted separately. The primary etching is usually supplemented by
further processes, such as re-etching, vignetting, hand-tooling and
routing. The finished plate is finally mounted on a wooden block to the
height of type.

Illustrations in full color are reproduced from corresponding
originals, usually paintings in oil or water-color, by means of the
three-[40] or four-color[40] process of reproduction. The plates for
this purpose are usually all halftone, but are sometimes a combination
of halftones and Benday[40] plates. Two-color halftones have either
a tint background, or secondary plate in tint, the latter forming
the underground upon which the keyplate is printed in black. In the
three-color process, the respective plates are printed in yellow, red
and blue successively over one another. In the four-color process a
fourth plate is used to emphasize the blacks of the picture, the plate
being virtually a keyplate, combining all the features of the subject,
printed on top of the other three colors, usually in black or dark gray.

It is of particular importance that the engraver who is to make the
halftone plates should be informed as to the kind of paper they are to
be printed on. A 50-line halftone plate will print on almost anything,
but is too coarse to render the details of the picture, and is usually
applied only for newspaper use. It would be entirely too coarse for the
purpose of book illustration. On the other hand, a halftone plate made
through a screen of 400 lines to the inch can be printed satisfactorily
only upon paper of the highest surface, and with correspondingly
careful presswork. For super-calendered or English-finish paper, plates
made through a 133-line screen are most advisable, while the average
coated or enameled paper will take 150-line halftones to best advantage.

Lineplates are etchings in relief on plates of zinc or copper,
reproduced from pen-and-ink-drawings, or diagrams, by photo-mechanical
process. The method in general is the same as that for halftone work,
but without the intervention of the screen. In lineplates, the light
and shade effects are produced by gradations of thick and thin lines,
in distinction from the effects of wash-drawings and photographs, which
are produced by gradations of tone. The latter require the intervention
of the screen to convert the full tone gradations into the halftone
of the dots and stipples, while the former may, as already noted, be
reproduced directly.

Other classes of engravings, of a more costly kind, and which are
therefore used only in books of more expensive character, are the
various forms of engraving in intaglio; that is to say, in effects
produced by cutting or etching the design into and below the surface
of the plate, instead of cutting or etching away the ground, and
leaving the design in relief. Examples of this order are the old-time
copperplate engraving, the more modern steel-engraving,[41] in the
form of line or mezzotint effects,[41] photogravure,[41] and the yet
more recent photo-intaglio process known as rotogravure,[41] and
photo-mezzotint.


DIE CUTTING

Dies,[41] generally required for stamping the covers of books in gilt
letters and designs, are cut in brass by hand or by finely adjusted
routing-machines, the design being drawn upon the metal by an artist,
or transferred to it by photography. In the case of very elaborate
designs, the dies are first etched by nitric acid or iron perchloride,
and the more open or less intricate spaces then deepened by hand, or by
the routing-machines.


THE PAPER

In selecting the paper for the book, the publisher must consider the
surface required by his plates, the weight necessary to give a proper
bulk in proportion to the size of his volume, and the quality as
regulated by the price. The average book, with no text illustrations,
is printed on wove[42] paper of antique finish, which is a fairly rough
surface, giving a maximum bulk. A 12mo[42] book should bulk 1 to 1⅛
inches, a 10mo[42] book, 1⅛ to 1¼ inches. If the book runs more than an
average length, a medium-or a plate-finish paper may be used, and the
weight per ream is regulated by the number of pages in each volume and
the bulk required.

Lineplates print satisfactorily on medium-finish paper, and even
on antique-finish if the lines are not too fine. Halftones require
English-finish,[42] super-calendered[42] or coated[42] paper.
Inserts[42] are almost always printed upon coated paper.

Laid[42] paper is used in more expensive books, as, from its nature,
better and more costly stock is required in its making.


THE PRESSWORK

Books are printed in forms[42] of 4 pages and multiples of 4 pages,
depending upon the size of the paper leaf. The usual form is 32 pages,
so the publisher tries to plan his volume to make approximately even
forms. To print any number of pages over an even form is as expensive
as to print the complete 32 pages.[43]


THE BINDING

In binding, the questions to be settled include the style of
back,--flat, half-round, or round; plain or gilt-top; headband[45]
or not; trimmed or uncut edges;[44] kind of cloth,--T pattern,[45]
silk,[45] vellum,[45] etc.; color and shade of cloth; location of dies;
stamping,--ink, foil, gold or Oriental tissue, etc.; jacket,--glassine,
manila, or printed.




THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOK


THE proper layout for an ordinary volume, arranged in accord with the
best usage, is as follows:

  Bastard-Title (_right hand_).
  Blank Page or Advertising Card (_left hand_).
  Title-Page (_right hand_).
  Copyright Page and the Printer's Imprint (_left hand_).
  Dedication (_right hand_).
  Blank Page (_left hand_).
  Preface (_begins on right hand_).
  Table of Contents (_begins on right hand_).
  List of Illustrations (_begins on right hand_).
  Introduction (_begins on right hand_).
  Half-Title (_right hand_).
  Blank Page (_left hand_).
  First Page of Text (_begins on right hand_).

In limited editions, the limit notice is placed upon the reverse of the
bastard-title, or on a left-hand page facing the bastard-title.

Following the text may be:

  Appendix (_begins on right hand_).
  Glossary (_begins on right hand_).
  Bibliography (_begins on right hand_).
  Index (_begins on right hand_).

Considering these various divisions more at length:


BASTARD-TITLE

The bastard-title, which is often wrongly called the half-title,
is a modern evolution in its present application. Originally, this
single-line title was the only title which existed, but as time went
on the demand of the public, on the one hand, for a decorated page at
the beginning of the book, together with the printer's desire, on the
other hand, to advertise himself, developed the bastard-title into the
dimensions of the title-page which we now know, containing the name
of the book, the name of the author, the publisher's device, and the
publisher's name and address. At the present time the bastard-title is
used more to add elegance to the appearance of the volume than for any
practical purpose, it being pleasanter for the eye to rest first upon
this page rather than at once upon the title-page, which extends over
the full dimensions of the type area.


ADVERTISING CARD

If an advertising card or limit notice is required, this page of
display should be set up with careful consideration of the page it is
to face, and of the typography of the book of which it is to be a part.
Too frequently advertising cards are looked upon as separate jobs, and
are set in types which do not harmonize with the typography of the rest
of the book.


TITLE-PAGE

The title-page offers the printer and the publisher a tempting
opportunity for display and for artistic typography, and too few
realize the value of restraint. Cobden-Sanderson once remarked, as
explaining the high prices which he secures for his work, that he
always charges more for what he leaves out than for what he puts in.

The earliest volumes lacked the title-page, because vellum and
linen paper were held so high that the expense of an extra leaf was
considered an unnecessary luxury. In these books that which took the
place of the title was at the end, the colophon being in evidence,
indicating the name of the illuminator, if not always that of the
printer. As was the case with the manuscript book, the volume began
with the phrase, "Here beginneth...." Later came piratical reprints,
which resulted in making the critical reader insist upon having each
volume stamped with the printer's name or mark, as a guarantee of
reliable workmanship.

The first definite step in the direction of the title-page is marked
by bibliographers in a little volume printed by Arnold Ther Hoernen,
of Cologne, in 1470. It consisted of an introduction at the head of
a page, the major part of which was left blank. Whether the printer
forgot to place the usual introduction at the head of the first page,
and took this way to remedy his error, is not known.

In general, different faces of type should never be combined upon the
title-page, the variations being secured by using smaller sizes of the
same face, or harmonizing fonts. Capitals and lower-case letters can be
successfully combined on the title-page only as a result of care and
thought, the best title-pages usually being all in lower-case or all in
caps and small caps. A two-color title-page is rarely a success unless
it was originally composed with two colors in mind, instead of being
set up in black and arbitrarily split up for colors.

The decoration should never overbalance the type, and this applies
as well to the question of borders on decorated books. No matter how
beautiful, if the decoration overbalances the type, the volume or the
title-page ceases to be an example of typography and becomes something
answerable only to itself.


COPYRIGHT

On the reverse of the title-page is ordinarily placed the copyright
notice of the volume,[46] usually a little above the center, set in
caps and small caps, or in small caps alone. At the foot of this same
page the printer usually places his imprint.[47]


DEDICATION

The dedication is a page set in the monumental style, generally in
small capitals. This must always be a right-hand page, and the reverse
must always be blank.


PREFACE

Ordinarily the preface is set in the same size of type as the body. If
it is written by some one other than the author, it is frequently set
in italic to mark the distinction. This is particularly true in case
the book contains an introduction as well. If the preface is of unusual
importance, it is sometimes customary to have it set in type one size
larger than the body, or double-leaded.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

After the preface and before the list of illustrations comes the
contents, occupying whatever number of pages may be necessary. The
style of its composition is dependent entirely upon the subject-matter
and the typographical arrangement of the volume.


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

This follows the contents, and is always set in a style conforming to
the contents page or pages.


INTRODUCTION

See remarks under "Preface."


HALF-TITLE

The half-title ordinarily consists of a single line, standing by
itself on the first page of the leaf immediately preceding the first
page of the text, and carries the title of the book as at the top of
the first page of text. It is frequently confused with the bastard or
false-title, which always precedes the title-page. Half-titles may also
run through the book before various divisions, but the bastard-title
never moves from its one position at the beginning of the volume.


LIMIT NOTICE

If an edition be limited in number, the notice of such limit should be
placed either on the page facing the bastard-title or on the reverse of
the bastard-title.


IN GENERAL

The front matter is often put into type after the composition of
the body has been completed, so that the number of pages is rarely
definitely determined at the beginning of the work. For this reason,
publishers have favored the expedient of numbering the preliminary
pages with roman folios, using the arabic folios for the text itself.
The front matter and the chapter pages running through the book
offer opportunities for embellishment and distinctive typographical
treatment, and therefore should be kept in exact accord, whether
elaborate decorations are used or the severest form of typographical
simplicity.


BASIC SIZES OF BOOKS

The following list gives the size of leaf to which the various standard
names and proportions naturally fold:

  ========+============+=====================+==============
  No. pp. |   Size of  |        Name         | Size of leaf
  to form |    sheet   |                     |
  --------+------------+---------------------+--------------
     32   |    19 × 25 |Thirty-two mo (32mo) | 3⅛ × 4¾
     32   |    22 × 29 |Twenty-four mo (24mo)| 3⅝ × 5½
     32   |    24 × 32 |Eighteen mo (18mo)   | 4  × 6
     32   |    27 × 34 |Sixteen mo (16mo)    | 4½ × 6¾
     32   |    30½ × 41|Duodecimo (12mo)     | 5⅛ × 7⅝
     32   |    33 × 44 |Decimo (10mo)        | 5½ × 8¼
     16   |    24 × 36 |Octavo (8vo)         | 6  × 9
      4   |    18 × 24 |Quarto (4to)         | 9  × 12
      2   |    18 × 24 |Folio                |12  × 18
  --------+------------+---------------------+--------------


ENGLISH PAPER SIZES

  =====================================================
                    | Abbreviated | Pages  | Watermarks
        Name        |     to      | to one |     in
                    |             | sheet  | hand-made
  ------------------+-------------+--------+-----------
  Folio             |    Fo.      |    4   | Vertical
  Quarto            |    4to      |    8   | Horizontal
  Octavo            |    8vo      |   16   | Vertical
  Duodecimo         |    12mo     |   24   | Horizontal
  Sextodecimo       |    16mo     |   32   | Horizontal
  Octodecimo        |    18mo     |   36   | Vertical
  Vigesimo-quarto   |    24mo     |   48   | Vertical
  Trigesimo-secundo |    32mo     |   64   | Vertical
  ------------------+-------------+--------+-----------

OCTAVOS

  Foolscap 6¾ × 4¼ may become Crown 7½ × 5 inches
  Crown 7½ × 5      "     "   Demy 8¾ × 5⅝
  Post 8 × 5        "     "   Medium 9½ × 6
  Demy 8¾ × 5⅝      "     "   Royal 10 × 6¼
  Medium 9½ × 6     "     "   Super Royal 10¼ × 6⅞
  Royal 10 × 6¼     "     "   Imperial 11 × 7½

QUARTOS

  Foolscap 8½ × 6¾ may become Crown 10 × 7½ inches
  Crown 10 × 7½     "     "   Demy 11¼ × 8¾
  Post 10 × 8       "     "   Medium 12 × 9½
  Demy 11¼ × 8¾     "     "   Royal 12½ × 10
  Medium 12 × 9½    "     "   Super Royal 13¾ × 10¼
  Royal 12½ × 10    "     "   Imperial 15 × 11

  Pott              15½ × 12½
  Foolscap          17  × 13½
  Crown             20  × 15
  Post              20  × 16
  Demy              22½ × 17½
  Medium            24  × 19
  Double Pott       25  × 15½
  Royal             25  × 20
  Double Foolscap   27  × 17
  Super Royal       27½ × 20½
  Double Crown      30  × 20
  Imperial          30  × 22
  Double Post       32  × 20
  Columbia          34½ × 23½
  Atlas             36  × 26

                 Octavo      Quarto
  Pott           6¼ × 3⅞     7¾ ×  6¼
  Foolscap       6¾ × 4¼     8½ ×  6¾
  Crown          7½ × 5     10  ×  7½
  Post           8  × 5     10  ×  8
  Demy           8¾ × 5⅝    11¼ ×  8¾
  Medium         9½ × 6     12  ×  9½
  Royal         10  × 6¼    12¼ × 10
  Super Royal   10¼ × 6⅞    13¾ × 10¼
  Imperial      11  × 7½    15  × 11


MARGINS

A feature not to be overlooked in the appearance of a well-printed
book is that of the margins. The perfect type-page is supposed to be
proportioned in such a way that its diagonal is twice its width. With
this page as a basis, the location of the type upon the paper leaf is
to be studied carefully. In general, the two pages, right and left,
should be considered as a unit, and the top margin and the inside
margin of each page should be approximately the same. Doing this, the
total blank between the two pages is supposed approximately to equal
the outside and the bottom margins.

The proportion of margin is, to a certain extent, dependent upon the
size of the book, the margins becoming greater as the volume increases
from the thirty-two mo size up to the folio. A student of typography
has ingeniously estimated that, taking the height of the paper leaf
as 100 units, the height of the type page of the ordinary trade book
should be from 72% to 75%; that of a library edition, from 66% to 71%;
that of a de luxe volume, from 60% to 65%.




MAKING THE INDEX


EVERY book of a permanent nature, or intended as a work of reference,
requires an index. The length of the Index, or its minuteness, depends
upon the nature of the subject treated, and the importance of making it
easily available to the reader. The Index belongs to the same family
as the Table of Contents, and the Topical Analyses often placed at the
beginning of each chapter: the Contents gives a general idea of the
divisions into which the author has separated his subject; the Topical
Analyses still further divide each chapter; and the Index is ordinarily
still more minute, with the further advantage of having its references
arranged in alphabetical order.

The proper person to make an index is, first of all, the author of the
book, provided that he possesses the natural characteristics. It does
not at all naturally follow, however, that all authors are competent to
do this, for the art of indexing is not as simple as many superficially
suppose. The author should be the one best fitted, because he knows
better than any reader the exact meaning each of his sentences is
intended to convey,--and this meaning should be expressed in the
index. The ideal index is that which gives every topic, thought, or
reference contained in the book itself, without a single superfluous
word, and with no description or comment.

To make an index requires a quick grasp of the idea contained in each
sentence or paragraph, an immediate discernment of the main thought,
an instinctive classification, absolute accuracy in translating this
thought into its briefest expression, ability to condense, and a
sensing of the reader's needs in adequate cross-references. All this
demands a mind more logical and more sensitive to codified detail
than is possessed by many able writers. Under these circumstances,
it is desirable to place the making of the index in the hands of one
possessing these qualifications, either instinctively or as a result of
experience.

Every publishing-house and most printing establishments of any
consequence are in a position to have indexes prepared when required,
but the danger is always present that the indexer, approaching his
subject from the outside, will fail to place himself sufficiently in
the author's attitude, and thus lessen the value of his work. It is
most desirable, in order to prevent this, that the author carefully
inspect the index while in manuscript. He can thus detect possible
departures in the indexer's condensed expression of his own thought.

The following rules and suggestions are given with a twofold object
in mind: _first_, to prevent those authors who possess the necessary
qualifications from avoiding the preparation of their own indexes
because of unfamiliarity with the technical details; _second_, to
enable authors intelligently to criticize the form as well as the
matter of those indexes which are prepared for their volumes by other
hands.


WHAT TO INDEX

The closeness with which a book is to be indexed depends partly upon
the nature of its contents and partly upon the ideas of the author
or publisher. Some indexes contain only the page references; some
are so analytical that a reader can gain an excellent idea of the
subject-matter itself. These, however, represent the two extremes. The
ordinary index aims to give every reference necessary to enable the
reader to locate easily the subject-matter for which he searches, but
not a synopsis of that subject-matter. The entries should cover, then,
with more or less minuteness, as desired, the following:

  (_a_) Proper names, whether of persons, places, religious or political
  bodies, etc.
  (_b_) Events and periods.
  (_c_) Titles of books to which reference is made.
  (_d_) Specific topics or subjects.
  (_e_) Definitions.
  (_f_) Vital statements.


PLAN

The indexer should decide definitely in his mind just what his
procedure is to be before actually beginning work. At first, it is well
to make the index too full rather than the reverse, as it is easier to
cut out than to fill in. Most important of all, he must be sure that
the matter to be indexed is clearly understood before he attempts to
transcribe the idea. The character of the book to be indexed must be
carefully considered, taking into account the class of people who will
probably consult it, and the lines on which they will probably seek
information.

Judgment is required in deciding whether it is wise to choose the
exact words of the author or to condense the idea into other words.
In technical books, the exact wording is sometimes essential, but
otherwise it is more important to express the _idea_ than the exact
terms in which it is expressed.

Always prefer simple words and expressions to those which are unusual
and cumbersome.

Omit every unessential word.

When the book being indexed is one written upon a specific subject,
this main subject should not be indexed unless necessary to indicate
some reference for which a searcher would look. Ordinarily, the
Contents covers this point rather than the Index.

Bear in mind particularly the two extremes: the importance of
including every reference necessary to enable the searcher to find what
he wishes without delay or confusion, the mistake of overloading the
index with useless entries.

Use ink, as pencil entries often become illegible.

Write plainly, and do not try to economize space in preparing the copy.


DEFINITION OF TERMS

=Subject=: includes events, places, persons, facts, definitions or
topics: e.g., _Boston, 7_; _Bonnet, Father, 155_; _Huron Mission,
plans for, 129_; _Onontio, meaning of, 102_; _Absolutism, contest with
liberty, 274._

=Heading=: the word or words used by the indexer to express the subject
or idea. In the examples above, the headings are _Boston_, _Bonnet_,
_Father_, _Onontio_, etc.

=Entry=: the amplification of the Heading, with the addition of the
supplementary phrase. In the example above, the entry is _Absolutism,
contest with liberty_, the supplementary phrase being _contest with
liberty_.

=Cross-reference=: a heading referring to an entry: e.g., _Michabou._
See _Manabozho_.


PROCEDURE

Having settled upon a definite plan, the indexer seats himself at a
good-sized table, and lays out his materials in front of him. After
testing every possible method, the present writer strongly urges the
use of individual slips of paper, about 2½ inches by 4 inches. Arranged
within easy reach in front of the indexer, but leaving room for the
proof-sheets, should be twenty small pasteboard boxes,[48] a little
larger than the slips themselves.[48] On the inside bottom of each
box mark a letter of the alphabet, combining O and Q, U and V, and X
Y Z. As soon as a slip is written, throw it into its proper box, and
continue throughout the work. It is a false economy to search out the
slips for subsequent entries, unless they can be easily found, as it is
a simple matter at the end to combine the several slips which belong to
the same heading.

Here are sample slips, showing a heading which requires full entries
and one to which the text contains fewer references. The first shows a
slip on which the various entries have been combined:

  +-------------------------------------------------------+
  | Andastes, the, 5; location and characteristics of,    |
  |   36; synonyms of, 36; plans for converting, 130;     |
  |   war with Mohawks, 147; Hurons ask aid from,         |
  |   162; mortal quarrel with Mohawks, 163; promise      |
  |   to aid Hurons, 163; Huron fugitives try to reach,   |
  |   240, 250; Mohawks first to bear brunt of war        |
  |   with, 268; receive aid from Swedish colonists, 268; |
  |   attack Senecas, 269; courage their only strength    |
  |   270; finally overborne by Senecas, 270.             |
  +-------------------------------------------------------+

This slip shows the method of indexing a work in more than one volume:

  +-------------------------------------------------+
  | James, Edwin, gives account of Nanabush, i. 67; |
  |   on Indian ideas of another life, ii. 79.      |
  |                                                 |
  |                                                 |
  +-------------------------------------------------+

In the rules which follow, the basis adopted is "Cutter's Rules for
a Dictionary Catalogue,"[49] prepared for library cataloguing. Such
portion as applies to book indexing has been freely drawn upon, adapted
and added to from the present writer's experience.


ARRANGEMENT

When, under a single entry, there are both subject-references and
references by folios only, place the folio-references together at the
end of the entry, following the subject-references.

Arrange entries according to the English alphabet, whatever the order
of the alphabet in which a foreign name might have been entered in its
original language.

Arrange German names spelled with the vowels ä, ö, ü as if spelled ae,
oe, ue, but retain the form employed by the author.

When the same word serves for several kinds of entries, the order
should be as follows: person, place, subject, title: e.g., (1) _Brown,
G. F._ (person). (2) _Brown Village_ (place). (3) _Brown-tail Moth_
(subject). (4) _Brown Family, the_ (title).

Forenames precede surnames: e.g., _Francis I_ precedes _Francis,
Charles_.


ADJECTIVE-HEADINGS

In general, a noun or a substantive phrase should be selected for the
heading, but when an adjective forms part of a name or well-known
term, the entry should include it: e.g., _Alimentary canal, hereditary
genius, perpetual motion_, etc.


SUBJECT-MATTER

It is not possible to formulate rules for indexing subject-matter
as definitely as has already been done with names, places, etc. The
judgment of the indexer and his analytical skill will be called fully
into play. The effort should be to express in the index, in the
clearest yet briefest form, the _idea_ which the author has amplified
in his text. As an aid to the nature and form of the entries, a page of
text is shown on the opposite page, and the entries which would appear
in the index from this page, are given below. This is what would be
considered as a medium full index:

    Bressani, Joseph, tortured by Iroquois, 73; life spared by Iroquois,
  73; sent to Fort Orange, 73; ransomed by Dutch, 73; sent to Rochelle,
  73.

  Dutch, the, ransom Bressani, 73.

  Indian Torture, See _Torture, Indian_.

     Iroquois Indians, the, torture Bressani, 73; spare Bressani's
  life, 73.

  Jogues, Isaac, referred to, 73.

  Orange, Fort, Bressani sent to, 73.

  Rochelle, Bressani sent to, 73.

  Torture, Indian, Bressani by the Iroquois, 73.

                      ESCAPE OF BRESSANI                           73

    march of several days,--during which Bressani, in wading a rocky
    stream, fell from exhaustion and was nearly drowned,--they reached
    an Iroquois town. It is needless to follow the revolting details
    of the new torments that succeeded. They hung him by the feet
    with chains; placed food for their dogs on his naked body, that
    they might lacerate him as they ate; and at last had reduced his
    emaciated frame to such a condition that even they themselves stood
    in horror of him. "I could not have believed," he writes to his
    Superior, "that a man was so hard to kill." He found among them
    those who, from compassion or from a refinement of cruelty, fed
    him, for he could not feed himself. They told him jestingly that
    they wished to fatten him before putting him to death.

    The council that was to decide his fate met on the nineteenth of
    June, when to the prisoner's amazement, and, as it seemed, to their
    own surprise, they resolved to spare his life. He was given, with
    due ceremony, to an old woman, to take the place of a deceased
    relative; but since he was as repulsive, in his mangled condition
    as, by the Indian standard, he was useless, she sent her son
    with him to Fort Orange, to sell him to the Dutch. With the same
    humanity which they had shown in the case of Jogues, they gave a
    generous ransom for him, supplied him with clothing, kept him until
    his strength was in some degree recruited, and then placed him on
    board a vessel bound for Rochelle. Here he

    PAGE FROM PARKMAN'S WORKS. BY PERMISSION LITTLE, BROWN, & CO.


RULES AND EXAMPLES

=Names:=

Index under the Christian name or forename:

(_a_) Sovereigns, popes, queens, princes and princesses. _Exceptions_:
Greek or Roman sovereigns, princes of the French Empire.

(_b_) Persons canonized: e.g., _Thomas a Becket, Saint_.

Also make cross-reference: e.g., _Becket, Thomas a._ See _Thomas a
Becket_.

(_c_) Friars required by the constitution of their order to relinquish
their surname: e.g., _Paolino da S. Bartolomeo_.

Also make cross-reference under family name: e.g., _Wesdin, J.P._ See
_Paolino da S. Bartolomeo_.

(_d_) Persons known only by their first names, whether or not their
profession, rank or native place be added: e.g., _Michelangelo
Buonarroti_, _Rembrandt van Rhijn_.

Cross-reference under family name is optional, dependent upon closeness
of indexing.

(_e_) Oriental authors, including Jewish rabbis: e.g., _Abu Bakr ibn
Badr_.

This rule has many exceptions. Some Oriental writers are known and
should be entered under other parts of their name than the first, as
"_Abu-l-Kasim, Khalaf ibn Abbas_," _Firdusi, Abul Kasim_, etc., _known
as_, or under some appellation as "_al-Masudi_," "_at-Tabari_."

In Arabic names, the words of relationship _Abu_ (father), _Umm_
(mother), _Ibn_, _Bin_ (son), _Ahu_ (brother), though not to be treated
as names by themselves, are yet not to be disregarded. They form a
name in conjunction with the word following (e.g., _Abu Bakr_), and
determine the alphabetical place of the entry. But the article _al_
(changed by assonance to _ad_-, _ar_-, _as_-, _at_-, _az_-, according
to the letter it precedes) is neglected (al- _Masudi_).

In all Oriental names, the indexer must be careful not to take titles,
as _Emir, Bey, Pasha, Sri, Babu, Pundit_, for names.

In regard to East Indian names, Dr. Feigl gives the rule: If there are
two names, enter under the first, which is the individual name, with
a cross-reference from the second; if there are three or more, enter
under the third, which is the family name, with a cross-reference under
the first or individual name; the second may be neglected.


Index under the surname:

(_a_) In general, all persons not included under previous rules.

In a few cases, chiefly of artists, a universally-used sobriquet
is to be taken in place of the family or forename, as _Tintoretto_
(whose real name was Giacomo _Robusti_). Similar cases are _Canaletto_
(Antonio _Canale_ and also B. _Belotto_), _Correggio_ (Ant. _Allegri_),
_Garofalo_ (Benvenuto Piero _Tisi_), Il _Sodoma_ (Giov. Ant. _Bazzi_),
_Spagnoletto_ (Jusepe _Ribera_, now however oftener called _Ribera_),
_Uccello_ (Paolo _Doni_). Always cross-reference from the family name.

(_b_) In particular, ecclesiastical dignitaries: e.g., _Kaye_, John,
Bishop of Lincoln. _Lincoln_, John, Bishop of. See _Kaye_.

Bishops usually omit their family name, canons their forename: e.g.,
_Canon Liddon_, _Bishop of Ripon, Henry Edward_, _Archbishop of
Westminster_, i.e., _H. E. Manning_. Care must be taken not to treat
Canon as a forename or Edward as a family name.

(_c_) Married women, using the known form:

Wives often continue writing, and are known in literature only under
their maiden names (as _Miss Freer_ or _Fanny Lewald_), or after a
second marriage retain for literary purposes the first husband's name.
Enclose the maiden name in parenthesis: e.g., _Ward, Mrs. Elizabeth
(Phelps)_. Use the form _White, Mrs. Julia Charlotte, wife of J. C._,
when the husband's name is used: e.g., _Hopkins, Mrs Sarah (Drake)
Garretson_. _Stowe, Mrs. Emily Howard (Jennings)_. _Soyaux, Frau Frieda
(Schanz)_. _Gasparin, Valérie (Boissier) Comtesse de_.

Women known under their husbands' names are to be entered as follows:
_Hinkson, Mrs. Katherine (Tynan), Mrs. H. A. Hinkson_. Cross-reference
to be made from the latter form.


Index under the highest title:

British and foreign noblemen, with cross-reference from earlier titles
by which they have been known, and, in the case of British noblemen,
from the family name: e.g., _Chesterfield, 4th Earl of (Philip
Dormer Stanhope)_. _Chesterfield, 5th Earl of (Philip Stanhope)_.
Cross-reference from _Stanhope_. _Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroi, Duc
de_.

Authors should be put under their names. The definition of a name is
"that by which a person or thing is known." Noblemen are known by their
titles, not by their family names.

  In the few cases in which the family name[50] or a lower title is
    decidedly better known, index under that and cross-reference from
    the title: e.g., _Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam_; _Robert Curzon,
    14th Baron Zouche_; _John Napier, Baron of Merchiston_; _Horace
    Walpole, 4th Earl of Oxford_; likewise the military nobles and
    princes of the French Empire: e.g., _Lucien Bonaparte, Prince de
    Canino_; _McMahon, Duc de Magenta_.

  Englishwomen's titles-of-honor are to be treated by the following
    rules. In the matter of titles an Englishwoman in marrying has
    everything to gain and nothing to lose. If she marries above her
    own rank she takes her husband's title in exchange for her own,
    if below her own rank she keeps her own title.

(_a_) The wife of a peer takes her husband's style.

That is, she is Baroness, Viscountess, Marchioness, etc. In indexing,
say _Brassey, Annie (Allnutt), Baroness_; not _Brassey, Annie
(Allnutt), Lady_.

(_b_) The wife of a knight or baronet is _Lady_. Whether this title
precedes or follows her forename depends upon whether she had a title
before her marriage.

That is, if Lady Mary Smith marries Sir John Brown (either knight or
baronet), she is _Lady Mary Brown_, also if Hon. Mary Smith marries
Sir John Brown (knight or baronet) she is _Lady Mary Brown_; but if
Miss Mary Smith marries Sir John Brown (knight or baronet), she becomes
_Mary, Lady Brown_.

(_c_) A maid of honor retains her _Hon._ after marriage, unless, of
course, it is merged into a higher title.

Thus, if she marries a baronet she is the _Honᵇˡᵉ Lady Brown_; if a
peer, the _Lady So and So_. In either case as though she had been a
peer's daughter.

(_d_) The wife of an earl's (or higher peer's) younger son is never the
_Honᵇˡᵉ Lady_; if she used the _Lady_ before marriage in her own right
she does not, of course, add anything by such marriage, but the wife
of a younger son of a lower peer than an earl is _Honᵇˡᵉ Mrs._ (not
_Lady_)--the younger children of all peers using, of course, the family
name, with or without their forenames, according to their rank.

(_e_) If the lady to whom the title _Hon._ belongs in virtue of her
father's rank marries a commoner, she retains her title, becoming
_Hon. Lady_ if she marries a knight or baronet, and _Hon. Mrs._ if her
husband has no title.

None of these courtesy titles is inherited by the children of those who
bear them, the third generation of even the highest peer being simply
commoners unless raised in rank by marriage or merit.

(_f_) The title _Lady_ belongs to daughters of all noblemen not lower
than earl.

(_g_) The title _Hon._ belongs to daughters of viscounts and barons;
also to an untitled woman who becomes a maid-of-honor to the Queen,
and this title is retained after she leaves the service. If a woman who
has the title _Lady_ becomes maid-of-honor she does not acquire the
title _Hon._


  Index compound names according to the usage of the author's
    fatherland, though if it is known that his practice differs from
    this usage, his preference should be followed. Compound names
    then go:

(_a_) If English, under the last part of the name, when the first has
not been used alone by the author: e.g., _Gould, Sabine Baring-_;
but _Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps), J. O._, and _Locker
(afterwards Locker-Lampson)_, because they are well-known under the
first names.

(_b_) If foreign, under the first part.

Both such compound names as _Gentil-Bernard_ and such as _Gentil de
Chavagnac_. There are various exceptions, when a name has been more
known under the last part, as _Fénelon_, not _Salignac de Lamothe
Fénelon_; _Voltaire_, not _Arouet de Voltaire_; _Sternberg_, not
_Ungern-Sternberg_. Moreover, it is not always easy to determine
what is a compound surname in French. Cross-references are necessary
whichever way one decides each case, especially when the second part
of a foreign compound name has been used alone, as _Merle d'Aubigné_
(index under _Merle_ with a cross-reference from _Aubigné_).

In French, a forename is sometimes joined to a surname by a hyphen. In
such cases make the entry under the family name, with a cross-reference
from the forename: e.g., entry, _Rochette, Désiré Raoul_;
cross-reference, _Raoul-Rochette, Désiré_. See _Rochette_.

(_c_) In foreign compound names of women also, although the first part
is usually the maiden name and the second the husband's name, the entry
should generally be under the first, with a cross-reference from the
second[51]: e.g., _Rivé-King_, with cross-reference from _King, born
Rivé_.


Index surnames preceded by prefixes:

(_a_) In French and Belgian, under the prefix when it is or contains
an article, _Le, La, L', Du, Des_; under the word following when the
prefix is a preposition, _de, d'_: e.g., _Des Essarts, Du Cange,
La Fontaine, Le Sage, L'Estoille_; but _Charlevoix, P. F. X. de_;
_Estrées, Mme d'_.

_La_ and _Le_ are often, _Des_ is usually, and _Les_ is almost without
exception printed as one word with the name following, as _Lafontaine,
Lesage, Lesdiguières_; _de_ and _d'_ are sometimes so printed; when
they are, enter under the _D_: e.g., _Debucourt, Decamps, Delisle_; but
_Bucourt, A. de_, _Camps, C. de_, _Lisle, J. de_.

(_b_) In English, under the prefix, no matter from what language the
name is derived, with cross-references when necessary: e.g., _De
Quincey_, _Van Buren_.

(_c_) In all other languages, under the name following the prefix, with
cross-references whenever the name has been commonly used in English
with the prefix, as _Del Rio_, _Vandyck, Van Ess_: e.g. _Gama, Vasco
da_, _Goethe, J. W. von_.

But when the name is printed as one word, entry is made under the
prefix, as _Vanderhaeghen_.

(_d_) Naturalized names with prefixes are to be treated by the rules of
the nation adopting them.

Thus German names preceded by _von_, when belonging to Russians, are to
be entered under _Von_, as this is the Russian custom. So when Dutch
names compounded with _van_ are adopted into French or English (as _Van
Laun_) the _Van_ is treated as part of the family name.

Prefixes are _d', de, de La_ (the name goes under _La_ not _de_),
_Des, Du, L', La, Le, Les, St, Ste_ (to be arranged as if written
_Saint, Sainte_), _da, dal, dalla, dalle, dai, dagli, del, della,
delle, dei_ (_dé_ or _de_), _degli, da, dos_, _das, ten, ter, thor,
Van, vander, van't, ver, am, auf, auf'm, aus, aus'm, in, im, von, vom,
zu, zum, zur, A', Ap, O', Fitz, Mac_ (which is to be printed as it is
in the title, whether _M'_, or _Mc_, or _Mac_, but to be arranged as if
written _Mac_).


  Index names of capes, lakes, mountains, rivers, forts, etc.,
    beginning with _Cape_, _Lake_, _Mt._, etc., under the word
    following the prefix, but when the name is itself used as a
    prefix, do not transpose _Cape_, etc., nor in such names as _Isle
    of the Woods_, _Isles of Shoals_; but there is more reason for
    writing _France, Isle de_; _Man, Isle of_; _Wight, Isle of_:
    e.g., _Cod, Cape_; _George, Lake_; _Washington, Mt._; _Moultrie,
    Fort_; but _Cape Breton Island_. When the name of a fort becomes
    the name of a city, of course the inversion must be abandoned, as
    _Fort Wayne_.

  Forenames are to be used in the form employed by their owners,
    however unusual, as _Will Carleton, Sally (Pratt) McLean, Hans
    Droysen, Fritz Reuter_.

  Give names of places in the English form. (Cross-reference from
    the vernacular, if necessary): e.g., _Munich_ not _Muenchen_ or
    _München_, _Vienna_ not _Wien_, _Austria_ not _Oesterreich_.

  But if both the English and the foreign forms are used by English
    writers, prefer the foreign form: e.g., _Dauphiné_ rather than
    _Dauphiny_.

  Use the modern name of a city and cross-reference to it from the
    ancient, provided its existence has been continuous and there is
    no doubt as to the identity.

  Distinctive epithets are to be in the same language as the name:
    e.g.,

_Kniaz, fürst von, Freiherr zu, duc de Magenta, Bishop of Lincoln,
évêque de Meaux_; but _Emperor of Germany, King of France_, not
_kaiser_ and _roi_, when names of sovereign princes are given in
English. Treat in the same way patronymics habitually joined with a
person's name; as, _Clemens Alexandrinus_.


  Prefixes (i.e., titles which in speaking come before the name), as
    _Hon., Mrs., Rev._, etc., should in the heading be placed before
    the Christian name (as _Smith, Capt. John_), and suffixes as
    _Jr., D.D., LL.D._, after it (as _Channing, James Ellery, D.D._).

Hereditary titles generally follow the Christian name, as _Derby,
Thomas Stanley, 1st earl of_; but British courtesy titles (i.e.,
those given to the younger sons of dukes and marquesses) precede,
as _Wellesley, Lord Charles (2d son of the Duke of Wellington)_. In
other languages than English, French, and German the title usually
precedes the forename; as, _Alfieri, Conte Vittorio_. Occasionally a
French nobleman uniformly places his title before his forenames; as,
_Gasparin, Comte Agénor de_.

_Lord_ should be replaced by the exact title in the names of English
noblemen: e.g., Lord Macaulay should be entered as _Macaulay, 1st
baron_. _Lord_ in the title of Scotch judges follows the family name;
as, _Kames, H. Home, afterwards Lord_.

The title Baronet is given in the form _Scott, Sir Walter, bart._

Patronymic phrases, as _of Dedham_, follow all the names; but they must
immediately follow the family name when they are always used in close
connection with it, as _Girault de St. Farjeau, Eusèbe_; similarly
_aîné_, _fils_, _jeune_, as _Dumas fils, Alexandre_; _Didot fils,
Ambroise_. Latin appellatives should not in general be separated from
their nouns by a comma; as, _Caesar Heisterbacensis_.

The name of a king's wife should be written thus: _Charlotte, Queen,
consort of George III of England_. _Anne Boleyn Queen, 2d consort of
Henry VIII of England._


=Countries and places:=

  Index under countries or places important events relating to them:
    e.g., _Montreal, Cartier's description of houses at_. Also make
    reference under name: e.g., _Cartier, description of houses at
    Montreal_.

  Enter congresses of several nations under the name of the place
    of meeting (as that usually gives them their name), with
    cross-references from the nations taking part in them, and from
    any name by which they are popularly known: e.g., the _Congress
    of London, of Paris, of Verona, International Peace Congress
    at the Hague_.

  Enter treaties under the name of each of the contracting parties,
    with a cross-reference from the name of the place of negotiation,
    when the treaty is commonly called by that name, and from any
    other usual appellation: e.g., treaty of _Versailles_, _Barrier_
    treaty, _Jay's_ treaty.


=Parties and sects:=

  Enter the official publications of any political party or
    religious denomination or order, under the name of the party, or
    denomination, or order: e.g.,

Platforms, manifestoes, addresses, etc., go under _Democratic Party,
Republican Party_, etc.

Confessions of faith, creeds, catechisms, liturgies, breviaries,
missals, hours, offices, prayer books, etc., go under _Baptists,
Benedictines, Catholic Church, Church of England, Friends_, etc.

That part of a body which belongs to any place should be entered
under the name of the body, not the place: e.g., _Congregationalists
in New England_, _Congregationalists in Massachusetts_, not _New
England Congregationalists_, _Massachusetts Congregationalists_. But
cross-references must be made from the place (indeed in cases like
_Massachusetts Convention_, _Essex Conference_, it may be doubted
whether those well-known names should not be the headings).

  Enter corporations and quasi corporations, both English and
    foreign, under their names as they read, neglecting an initial
    article or serial number when there is one.

  Enter orders of knighthood, both those of medieval times and their
    honorary modern equivalents, under the significant word of the
    English title: e.g., _Garter, Order of the_; _Malta, Knights
    of_; _Templars, Knights_; _Teutonic Order_; _Freemasons_. But
    the American Knights Templars, being merely a division of the
    Freemasons, belong under _Freemasons_; so of other regular
    masonic bodies.

  The colleges of an English university and the unnamed professional
    schools of an American university go under the university's
    name. Such professional schools, if they have a distinctive
    name, particularly if at a distance from the university, or for
    any other reason less closely connected with it, go under their
    own name: e.g., _Oxford University, Magdalen College_; _Harvard
    University, Veterinary School_; but _Barnard College, Columbia
    University_; _Radcliffe College, Harvard University_; _Sheffield
    Scientific School of Yale University_.

  College libraries go under the name of the college: e.g., _Harvard
    College, University Library_. But the Bodleian Library may be put
    under _Bodleian_.

  Local college societies go under the name of the college;
    intercollegiate societies and Greek letter fraternities under
    their own names: e.g., Φ B K _A, of Harvard_.

  Alumni and Alumnæ associations go under the name of the school or
    college: e.g., _Harvard Alumni Association of New York_.

  Schools supported by public taxation go under the name of the city
    or town maintaining them, whether they have an individual name or
    not.

  When a corporation is much less known by the first words of its
    name than by a later part, enter under the later part: e.g.,
    _Christian Endeavor, Young People's Society of_.

  Enter guilds under the name of the trade: e.g., _Stationers
    Company_, not _Master and Keepers or Wardens and Commonality of
    the Mystery and Art of Stationers of the City of London_, which
    is the corporate title.

  Enter bodies whose legal name begins with such words as _Board_,
    _Corporation_, _Trustees_ under that part of the name by
    which they are usually known: e.g., Trustees of the _Eastern
    Dispensary_; President and Fellows of _Harvard College_;
    Proprietors of the _Boston Athenæum_; Contributors to the
    _Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of their Reason_.
    Cross-reference from the first word of the legal name.

  Enter the name of a firm under the family name rather than the
    forename, and do not fill out the forenames: e.g., _Friedlander
    und Sohn, Raphael_, not under _Raphael_; _Stokes, F. A. Co._, not
    _Stokes, Frederick A. Co._

The consulter is much more likely to remember the family than the
Christian name. Whether the Christian name is written at the end
or thus, _Town (John)_ and _Bowers (Henry)_, all firms should be
arranged after all the other entries of the first family name, i.e.,
_Friedlander und Sohn_ after all the _Friedlanders_.

This rule might be extended to include corporations, colleges,
libraries, etc., whose legal names include forenames. Entry under a
forename, as _Silas Bronson Library_, and especially under initials, as
_T. B. Scott Public Library_, is awkward. But the public habit is not
yet sufficiently settled to justify an exception.

  Enter the universities of the European continent and of Central and
    South America under the name of the place; all other societies
    under _Königliche_, _Herzogliche_, etc.

Cross-reference from the first word in the university names and from
the place of societies.

A few learned academies, commonly called by the names of the cities
where they are established, may be entered under the place with a
cross-reference from the name. These are _Berlin, Göttingen, Leipzig,
Lisbon, Madrid, Munich, St. Petersburg, Vienna_.

  Enter national libraries, museums, and galleries, as well as
    libraries, museums, and galleries instituted or supported by a
    city, under the place, provided they have not a distinctive name.

Example of place: _Paris Bibliothèque Nationale_. _Boston Public
Library._

Example of name: _Berkshire Athenæum_; _Boston Athenæum_; _British
Museum_; _Forbes Library_; _Marucceliana, Biblioteca_; _Reuben Hoar
Public Library_.

  Enter observatories under the name of the place: e.g., _Greenwich,
    Observatory_. _Pulkowa, Sternwarte_; except that:

(_a_) University observatories go under the university: e.g., _Harvard
College. Astronomical Observatory, at Cambridge._ (Cross-reference from
_Cambridge_.)

(_b_) Any observatory having an individual name may go under that:
e.g., _Lick Observatory_, _Yerkes Observatory_.

  Enter expositions under the place where they were held: e.g.,

_Buffalo, Pan-American Exposition, 1901_; _Chicago, World's Columbian
Exposition, 1893_; _New Orleans, World's Industrial and Cotton
Centennial Exhibition, 1884-85_; _Philadelphia, Centennial Exhibition,
1876_.

Cross-reference from an individual name.

  Enter American State universities and State historical,
    agricultural and medical societies, whether supported by the
    State or not, under the name of the State, unless they are better
    known by a distinctive name. The State's name usually enters into
    the name of these societies and they are known outside of the
    State by its name. Cross-reference when necessary.

  Enter churches under the name of the place.

Single churches have usually been entered under the place, a practice
which arose in American indexes from our way of naming churches "The
First Church in----," "The Second Church of----," etc., and applies
very well to a majority of English churches, whose name generally
includes the name of the parish. It is more in accordance with indexing
principles to limit the local entry of churches to _First Church_,
etc., and those which have only the name of the town or parish, and to
put all others (as _St. Sepulchre's_, _St. Mary Aldermansbury_) under
their names, as they read, and to treat convents and monasteries in the
same way; but the convenience of having a single definite rule has been
held to outweigh in this case the claims of consistency.

The parishes of London (as _Kensington_, _Marylebone_, _Southwark_),
like the parts of Boston (_Dorchester_, _Roxbury_, etc.), or of any
other composite city, would be put under their own names, not under the
name of the city.

  A few cathedrals generally known by some other name may be entered
    under it: e.g., _St. Paul's, London; Notre Dame, Paris; St.
    Peter's, Rome; St. Sophia, Constantinople_.

  Put monasteries and convents, like churches, under the place,
    unless better known by the name.

  National banks designated merely by number (as _First National Bank
    of Boston_) go under the name of the place.

  Young men's Christian associations, mercantile library
    associations, and the like, should have local entry.

  Private schools having no distinctive name go under the name of the
    proprietor.

  Private libraries, galleries and museums go under the name of the
    proprietor.

  Buildings are for the most part provided for in the above rules, as
    museums, galleries, libraries, churches, etc. Any others should
    be entered under their names, with a cross-reference from the
    city.

  Headings like _Charles_, _George_, _Henry_, when very numerous,
    must be divided into classes, in this order: Saints, Popes,
    Emperors, Kings, Princes, and Noblemen, others. The Saints are
    sub-arranged by their usual appellatives, the Popes by their
    number, Sovereigns and Sovereign princes in alphabetical order
    of countries, and under countries numerically. Other persons
    are sub-arranged by their usual appellatives, neglecting the
    prepositions:[52] e.g.,

  _Peter_, Saint.
  _Peter_, Pope.
  _Peter_, the Great, Emperor of Russia.
  _Peter II_, of Aragon.
  _Peter III_, of Aragon.
  _Peter I_, of Portugal.
  _Peter_, Duke of Newcastle.
  _Peter_, of Groningen, enthusiast. See _Pieter_.
  _Peter_, John Henry.
  _Peter, Lake._
  _Peter, Mt._
  _Peter-Hansen_, Erik.
  _Peter_ Lewis, a true tale.

When there are two appellatives coming in different parts of
the alphabet, cross-reference from the rejected one, as _Thomas
Cantuariensis_. See _Thomas Becket_.

  Arrange in two alphabets names that differ slightly in spelling and
    come close together in the alphabet: e.g.,

_Brown_ and _Browne_, and the French names beginning with _Saint_ and
_Sainte_. As readers may not always know the spelling of the author's
name, cross-references should be made: e.g., _Brown_. See also _Browne_.

  Arrange by the forename headings in which the family name is the
    same.

No attention is to be paid to prefixes, as _Bp., Capt., Dr., Hon., Sir,
Fräulein, Miss, Mlle., Mme., Mrs._, or to suffixes, as _D.D., F.R.S.,
LL.D._, etc.

  When the forenames are the same, arrange chronologically.

No attention is to be paid to the titles _Sir_, etc.: e.g., _Bart, T.
L._, comes before _Bart, Thomas_, for the same reason that _Bart_ comes
before _Barta_.

  Forenames not generally used should be neglected in the arrangement.

When an author is generally known by one of several forenames he will
be looked for by that alone, and that alone should determine the
arrangement. The form should be _Harte, Bret_ (in full _Francis Bret_),
or _Harte, Bret_ (i.e., _Francis Bret_).

Make cross-references whenever the omission of a name will change the
alphabetical arrangement, as from _Müller, F. Max_, to _Müller, Max_.

  When there are two names exactly the same, add dates if available:
    e.g., _Franklin, John (d. 1759)_; _Franklin, John (d. 1863)_.

  If an author uses both the shorter and the longer forms in
    different works, and yet is decidedly better known by the
    shorter, arrange by that.

  Arrange a nobleman's title, under which entry is made, and the name
    of a bishop's see, from which reference is made to the family
    name, among the personal names, not with the places: e.g.,

      _London_, Alfred.
      _London_, David, bp. of.
      _London_, John.
      _London_, Conn.
      _London_, Eng.
  not _London_, John.
      _London_, David, bp. of.
      _London_, Conn.
  nor _London_, John.
      _London_, Conn.
      _London_, David, bp. of.
      _London_, Eng.

      _Danby_, John.
      _Danby_, Thomas _Osborne_, earl of.
      _Danby_, Wm.
      _Danby_, Eng.
      _Holland_, C.
      _Holland_, 3d baron (H: R. Vassal Fox).
      _Holland_, 4th baron (H: E. Vassal Fox).
      _Holland_ (the country).

  The possessive case singular should be arranged with the plural: e.g.,

  _Bride_ of Lammermoor.
  _Brides_ and bridals.
  _Bride's_ choice.
  _Boys'_ and girls' book.
  _Boy's_ King Arthur.
  _Boys_ of '76.

  Arrange Greek and Latin personal names by their patronymics or other
    appellatives: e.g.,

  _Dionysius._
  _Dionysius_ Areopagita.
  _Dionysius_ Chalcidensis.
  _Dionysius_ Genuensis.

  Arrange English personal and place names compounded with prefixes as
    single words; also those foreign names in which the prefix is not
    transposed: e.g.,

  _Demonstration._
  _De Montfort._
  _Demophilus._
  _De Morgan._
  _Demosthenes._

Other such names are _Ap Thomas, Des Barres, Du Chaillu, Fitz Allen, La
Motte Fouqué, Le Sage, Mac Fingal, O'Neal, Saint-Réal, Sainte-Beuve,
Van Buren_.

This is the universal custom, founded on the fact that the prefixes are
often not separated in printing from the following part of the name.
It would, of course, be wrong to have _Demorgan_ in one place and _De
Morgan_ in another.

  Arrange proper names beginning with _M', Mc, St., Ste._ as if spelled
    _Mac, Saint, Sainte_.

Because they are so pronounced. But _L'_ is not arranged as _La_
or _Le_, nor _O'_ as if it stood for _Of_, because they are not so
pronounced.

  Arrange compound names of places as separate words, except those
    beginning with prefixes: e.g.,

      _New_, John.
      _New Hampshire._
      _New_ legion of Satan.
      _New Sydenham Society._
      _New York._
      _Newark._
      _Newfoundland._
      _Newspapers._
  not _New_, John.
      _New_ legion of Satan.
      _Newark._
      _Newfoundland._
      _New Hampshire._
      _Newspapers._
      _New Sydenham Society._
      _New York._

  Arrange personal names compounded of two names with or without a
    hyphen after the first name, but before the next longer word: e.g.,

  _Fonte_, Bart. de.
  _Fonte Resbecq_, Auguste.
  _Fontenay_, Louis.
  _Fontenay Mareuil_, François.

  Arrange names of societies as separate words.

See _New Sydenham Society_ in the list above.

  Arrange hyphened words as if separate: e.g.,

  _Happy_ home.
  _Happy-Thought_ Hall.
  _Happy_ thoughts.
  _Home_ and hearth.
  _Home_ rule.
  _Homely_ traits.
  _Homer._
  _Sing_, pseud.
  _Sing_, James.
  _Sing_, James, pseud.
  _Sing-Sing Prison._
  _Singapore._
  _Singing._
  _Grave and Reverend Club._
  _Grave County._
  _Grave Creek._
  _Grave-digger._
  _Grave-mounds._
  _Grave_ objections.
  _Grave de Mézeray_, Antoine.
  _Gravel._
  _Gravestone._
  _Graveyard._
  _Out_ and about.
  _Out_ in the cold, a song.
  _Out-of-door_ Parliament.
  _Outer_ darkness, The.

  Arrange pseudonyms after the corresponding real name: e.g.,

  _Andrew_, pseud.
  _Andrew_, St.
  _Andrew_, St., pseud.
  _Andrew_, John.
  _Andrew_, John, pseud.
  _Andrew_, John Albion.

  Arrange incomplete names by the letters. When the same letters
    are followed by different signs, if there are no forenames,
    arrange in the order of the complexity of signs; but if there
    are forenames, arrange by them: i.e., put a dot before a line, a
    line before a star (three lines crossing), etc.: e.g.,

  _Far_ from the world.
  _Far_ ...
  _Far_ ***
  _Far_, *** B. F.
  _Far_ ..., J. B.
  _Farr_, John.

  The arrangement of title-entries is first by the heading words; if
    they are the same, then by the next word; if that is the same,
    by the next; and so on. Every word, articles and prepositions
    included, is to be regarded, but not a transposed article: e.g.,

  _Uncovenanted_ Mercies.
  _Under_ a Cloud.
  _Under_ the Ban.
  _Under_ the Greenwood Tree; a novel.
  _Under_ the Greenwood Tree; a poem.
  _Under_ Which King.
  _Undone_ Task, The.
  _Undone_ Task Done.[53]

It makes no difference whether the words are connected with one another
in sense or not; the searcher should not be compelled to think of that.
Let the arrangement be by words as ordinarily printed. Thus _Home Rule_
is one idea but it is two words, and its place must be determined
primarily by its first word _Home_, which brings it before _Homeless_.
If it were printed _Homerule_ it would come after _Homeless_. Similarly
_Art Amateur_ is one phrase, but as the first word _Art_ is followed by
a word beginning with _am_, it must come before _Art_ and _Artists_,
although its parts are more closely connected than the parts of the
latter phrase.

The French _d'_ and _l'_ are not to be treated as part of the following
word: e.g.,

      _Art d'économiser._
      _Art d'être grandpère._
      _Art d'instruire._
      _Art de faire._
      _Art de l'instruction._
      _Art de linguistique._
      _Art des mines._
      _Art digne._
  not _Art de faire._
      _Art de linguistique._
      _Art de l'instruction._
      _Art d'économiser._
      _Art des mines._
      _Art d'être grandpère._
      _Art digne._
      _Art d'instruire._

  Arrange titles beginning with numeral figures as if the figures
    were written out in the language of the rest of the title: e.g.,

100 deutscher Männer--Ein hundert deutsche Männer; 1812--Mil huit cent
douze.

  Arrange abbreviations as if spelled in full, but elisions as they
    are printed: e.g.,

_Dr., M., Mlle., Mme., Mr., Mrs., St., as Doctor, Monsieur,
Mademoiselle, Madame, Mister, Mistress, Saint_.

  But _Who'd be a king?_
      _Who killed Cock Robin?_
      _Who's to blame?_

  Care must be taken not to mix two subjects together because their
    names are spelled in the same way.

Thus _Grace_ before meals, _Grace_ of body, _Grace_ the musical term,
and _Grace_ the theological term, must be four distinct headings.




GLOSSARY OF TERMS


NOTE.--_(b) Signifies terms used in connection with binding only. (c)
Terms usually employed in connection with the composing-room. (e) Terms
used in engraving. (el) Terms used in electrotyping. (g) Terms used
with general significance. (p) Terms used in connection with presswork._

=Accents= (_g_).--Small marks placed over, under, or through particular
letters, used to indicate pronunciation.

=Adams Press= (_p_).--A large platen printing-machine, used for
bookwork.

=Agate= (_c_).--A small size of type equal to 5½ points. See _Point_.

=Alignment= (_c_).--The arrangement of type in straight lines, also
the adjustment of the lines of type so that their ends appear in line,
vertically.

=All-along= (_b_).--In sewing a book, when the thread is passed from
kettle-stitch to kettle-stitch, or from end to end in each sheet, it is
sewed all-along.

=Alley= (_c_).--The floor space between stands where compositors work.

=American Russia= (_b_).--See _Cowhide_.

=Antique Type= (_c_).--Fonts of type of an old or medieval character.
The lines of all the characters are nearly uniform as to thickness; the
corners square and bold.

=Aquatint= (_e_).--A peculiar style of etching on copper or steel in
imitation of drawings in sepia or India ink.

=Arabic Numbers= (_c_).--The numeral figures as distinguished from
Roman characters.

=Art Canvas= (_b_).--A book cloth known both as Art Canvas and Buckram.

=Art Work= (_e_).--See _Retouching_.

=Ascending Letters= (_c_).--Letters that ascend to the upper shoulder
of the type body; as, _b_, _d_, _f_, _h_, _l_, etc.

=Author's Proof= (_c_).--Proof sent to the author for inspection and
approval.

=Azure Tools= (_b_).--Used in binding, where the heavy and wide marks,
instead of being a solid mass, are made with horizontal lines.


=Backing= (_b_).--The process of forming the back in preparing the
book for the cover or case, commonly called Rounding and Backing.
It is done in three ways; viz. (1) by hand with a hammer, (2) by a
hand rounding-and-backing machine, (3) by a steam- or electric-driven
machine.

=Backing Up= (_p_).--Printing the second side of a sheet.

=Band Driver and Nippers= (_b_).--Tools used in forwarding, to correct
irregularities in the bands of flexible backs.

=Bands= (_b_).--The cords on which the sheets of a volume are sewed.
When sewed "flexible," the bands show on the back of the book; when
bands are let in the back by sawing grooves, narrow strips of leather
are glued across the back to look like raised bands.

=Bank= (_c_).--A high table or bench with a sloping top; when used for
type only it is called a _standing galley_.

=Basket Cloth= (_b_).--This is a fancy weave of cloth, of construction
similar to the weaving of wickerwork baskets. It is a novelty binding.

=Bastard-Title= (_c_).--The title of a book printed upon a page by
itself and preceding the regular title-page.

=Battered= (_c_).--Type, electrotype, or engraving accidentally injured.

=Bead= (_b_).--An old-time term meaning the head-band, _q. v._

=Bearers= (_p_).--Strips of metal or wood, type-high, made up with type
to sustain impression while proving, or to bear off the impression on
light parts, and to carry the rollers evenly over a form in printing.

    (_c_).--Type-high pieces of metal placed around pages or forms to
    be electrotyped, to prevent injury to the face of the type or the
    plates in the subsequent processes, and cut away from the plates
    before printing.

=Bed= (_p_).--The flat part of a press upon which the type or form is
placed. The part on which the sheet is placed is called the platen, or
the cylinder.

=Benday Plates= (_e_).--Plates made by laying shaded tints on copper or
zinc, and etching them to produce colors or combination of colors when
printed.

=Beveled Sticks= (_c_).--Strips of furniture wider at one end than the
other; they are used with wooden quoins in locking up on galleys and in
chases.

=Bible India Paper= (_g_).--The thinnest paper made for books, formerly
only made in England and Italy; now made in America. A very high-grade
stock. See _Oxford Bible Paper_.

=Binder= (_b_).--A temporary cover for periodicals and pamphlets,
usually arranged so that it may be taken off and attached to subsequent
copies of a publication. A bookbinder.

=Black Letters= (_c_).--A style of letter or type characterized by
black face and angular outlines. It was designed by the early printers
from a current form of manuscript letter.

=Blank= (_g_).--A page upon which no printing appears.

=Blank Books= (_b_).--Applied to a large variety of books which are
bound with blank leaves, or leaves having ruled lines and little or no
printing: account books, memorandum books, ledgers, etc.

=Blanking= (_b_).--Term employed in reference to stamping. Impression
made on cloth or leather by heated brass die.

=Bleed= (_b_).--When the margins of a book or a pad of printed sheets
have been trimmed so as to cut into the printing, they are said to
bleed.

=Blind Tooling or Stamping= (_b_).--Impressions of finisher's tools or
book-dies without ink or gold-leaf. Sometimes called _antique_.

=Blocking Press= (_b_).--A stamping press for impressing blocks or dies
on covers.

=Blocks= (_c_).--The wood or metal bases on which electrotypes and
engravings are mounted.

    (_p_).--Mechanical devices used on printing-presses for the purpose
    of holding plates in their proper positions in the form.

=Board Papers= (_b_).--The part of the end-papers pasted on the board
covers.

=Boards= (_b_).--Applied generally to many kinds of heavy cardboard.
A book with stiff sides covered with paper of any color is said to be
bound in paper boards.

=Bock Morocco= (_b_).--A term given to a leather made of Persian
Risca than Risca saw into him. He did not answer the question, for he
penetrated, through the fuliginous vapours whence it proceeded, into the
crystal regions of the man's spirit. It was he, after a while, who held
Risca with his eyes, and it was all that was beautiful and spiritual
in Risca that was held. And then Herold reached out his hand slowly and
touched him.

“We go down to Southcliff together.”

Risca drew a deep breath.

“Let us go this evening,” said he.

A few hours afterward when the open cab taking them from the station
to the Channel House came by the sharp turn of the road abruptly to the
foot of the cliff, and the gusty southwest wind brought the haunting
smell of the seaweed into his nostrils, and he saw the beacon-light in
the high west window shining like a star, a gossamer feather from the
wings of Peace fell upon the man's tortured soul.




CHAPTER III

IT will be remembered that Stellamaris was a young person of bountiful
fortune. She had stocks and shares and mortgages and landed property
faithfully administered under a deed of trust. The Channel House and
all that therein was, except Sir Oliver and Lady Blount's grievances,
belonged to her. She knew it; she had known it almost since infancy.
The sense of ownership in which she had grown up had its effect on her
character, giving her the equipoise of a young reigning princess, calm
and serene in her undisputed position. In her childish days her material
kingdom was limited to the walls of her sea-chamber but as the child
expanded into the young girl, so expanded her conception of the limits
of her kingdom. And with this widening view came gradually and curiously
the consciousness that though her uncle and aunt were exquisitely
honoured and beloved agents who looked to the welfare of her realm,
yet they could not relieve her of certain gracious responsibilities.
Instinctively, and with imperceptible gradations, she began to make
her influence felt in the house itself. But it was an influence in the
spiritual and not material sense of the word; the hovering presence and
not the controlling hand.

When, shortly after the arrival of the two men, Walter Herold went up to
his room, he found a great vase of daffodils on his dressing-table and
a pencilled note from Stella in her unformed handwriting, for one cannot
learn to write copper-plate when one lies forever on the flat of one's
back.

_Great High Favourite: Here are some daffodils, because they laugh and
dance like you. Stellamaris._

And on his dressing-table John Risca found a mass of snowdrops and a
note:

_Great High Belovedest: A beautiful white silver cloud came to my window
to-day, and I wished I could tear it in half and save you a bit for the
palace. But snowdrops are the nearest things I could think of instead.
Your telegram was a joy. Love. S._

Beside the bowl of flowers was another note:

_I heard the wheels of your chariot, but Her Serene High-and-Mightiness
[her trained nurse] says I am tucked up for the night and can have no
receptions, levees, or interviews. I tell her she will lose her title
and become the Kommon Kat; but she does n't seem to mind. Oh, it's just
lovely to feel that you 're in the house again. S._

Risca looked round the dainty room, his whenever he chose to occupy it,
and knew how much, especially of late, it held of Stellamaris. It had
been redecorated a short while before, and the colours and the patterns
and all had been her choice and specification.

The castle architect, a young and fervent soul called Wratislaw, a
member of the Art Workers' Guild, and a friend of Herold's, who had
settled in Southcliff-on-Sea, and was building, for the sake of a
precarious livelihood, hideous bungalows which made his own heart sick,
but his clients' hearts rejoice, had been called in to advise. With
Stellamaris, sovereign lady of the house, aged fifteen, he had spent
hours of stupefied and aesthetic delight. He had brought her armfuls of
designs, cartloads of illustrated books; and the result of it all was
that, with certain other redecorations in the house with which for
the moment we have no concern, Risca's room was transformed from
late-Victorian solidity into early-Georgian elegance. The Adam Brothers
reigned in ceiling and cornice, and the authentic spirit of Sheraton,
thanks to the infatuated enterprise of Wratislaw, pervaded the
furniture. Yet, despite Wratislaw, although through him she had spoken,
the presence of Stellamaris pervaded the room. On the writing-table lay
a leather-covered blotter, with his initials, J. R., stamped in gold. In
desperate answer to a childish question long ago, he had described the
bedspread on his Parian marble bed in the palace as a thing of rosebuds
and crinkly ribbons tied up in true-lovers' knots. On his bed in
Stella's house lay a spread exquisitely Louis XV in design.

Risca looked about the room. Yes, everything was Stella. And behold
there was one new thing, essentially Stella, which he had not noticed
before. Surely it had been put there since his last visit.

In her own bedroom had hung since her imprisonment a fine reproduction
of Watt's “Hope,” and, child though she was, she had divined, in a
child's unformulative way, the simple yet poignant symbolism of the
blindfold figure seated on this orb of land and sea, with meek head
bowed over a broken lyre, and with ear strained to the vibration of
the one remaining string. She loved the picture, and with unconscious
intuition and without consultation with Wratislaw, who would have
been horrified at its domination of his Adam room, had ordained that a
similar copy should be hung on the wall facing the pillow of her Great
High Belovedest's bed.

The application of the allegory to his present state of being was
startlingly obvious. Risca knitted a puzzled brow. The new thing was
essentially Stella, yet why had she caused it to be put in his room this
day of all disastrous days? Was it not rather his cousin Julia's doing?
But such delicate conveyance of sympathy was scarcely Julia's way.
A sudden dread stabbed him. Had Stella herself heard rumours of the
tragedy? He summoned Herold, who had a prescriptive right to the
adjoining room.

“If any senseless fools have told her, I 'll murder them,” he cried.

“The creatures of the sunset told her--at least as much as it was good
for her to know,” said Herold.

“Do you mean that she did it in pure ignorance?”

“In the vulgar acceptance of the word, yes,” smiled Herold. “Do you
think that the human brain is always aware of the working of the divine
spirit?”

“If it's as you say, it's uncanny,” said Risca, unconvinced.

Yet when Sir Oliver and Julia both assured him that Stella never doubted
his luxurious happiness, and that the ordering of the picture was due to
no subtle suggestion, he had to believe them.

“You always make the mistake, John, of thinking Stellamaris mortal,”
 said Herold, at the supper-table, for, on receipt of the young men's
telegram, the Blounts had deferred their dinner to the later hour of
supper. “You are utterly wrong,” said he. “How can she be mortal when
she talks all day to winds and clouds and the sea-children in their cups
of foam? She's as elemental as Ariel. When she sleeps, she's really away
on a sea-gull's back to the Isles of Magic. That's why she laughs at the
dull, clumsy old world from which she is cut off in her mortal guise.
What are railway-trains and omnibuses to her? What would they be to
you, John, if you could have a sea-gull's back whenever you wanted to go
anywhere? And she goes to places worth going to, by George! What could
she want with Charing Cross or the Boulevard des Italians? Fancy the
nymph Syrinx at a woman writers' dinner!”

“I don't know what you 're talking about, Walter,” said Lady Blount,
whose mind was practical.

“Syrinx,” said Sir Oliver, oracularly (he was a little, shrivelled man,
to whose weak face a white moustache and an imperial gave a false air
of distinction)--“Syrinx,” said he, “was a nymph beloved of Pan,--it's a
common legend in Greek mythology,--and Pan turned her into a reed.”

“And then cut the reed up into Pan-pipes,” cried Herold, eagerly, “and
made immortal music out of them--just as he makes immortal music out of
Stellamaris. You see, John, it all comes to the same thing. Whether you
call her Ariel, or Syrinx, or a Sprite of the Sea, or a Wunderkind whose
original trail of glory-cloud has not faded into the light of common
day, she belongs to the Other People. You must believe in the Other
People, Julia; you can't help it.”

Lady Blount turned to him severely. Despite her affection for him,
she more than suspected him of a pagan pantheism, which she termed
atheistical. His talk about belief in spirits and hobgoblins irritated
her. She kept a limited intelligence together by means of formulas, as
she kept her scanty reddish-gray hair together by means of a rigid false
front.

“I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,” she
said, with an air of cutting reproof.

Sir Oliver pushed his plate from him, but not the fraction of a
millimetre beyond that caused by the impatient push sanctioned by good
manners.

“Don't be a fool, Julia!”

“I don't see how a Christian woman declaring the elements of her faith
can be a fool,” said Lady Blount, drawing herself up.

“There are times and seasons for everything,” said Sir Oliver. “If you
were having a political argument, and any one asked you whether you
believed in tariff reform, and you glared at him and said, I believe in
Pontius Pilate,' you'd be professing Christianity, but showing yourself
an idiot.”

“But I don't believe in Pontius Pilate,” retorted Lady Blount.

“Oh, don't you?” cried Sir Oliver, in sinister exultation. “Then your
whole historical fabric of the Crucifixion must fall to the ground.”

“I don't see why you need be irreverent and blasphemous,” said Lady
Blount.

Herold laid his hand on Lady Blount's and looked at her, with his head
on one side.

“But do you believe in Stellamaris, Julia.”

His smile was so winning, with its touch of mockery, that she grew
mollified.

“I believe she has bewitched all of us,” she said.

Which shows how any woman may be made to eat her words just by a little
kindness.

So the talk went back to Stella and her ways and her oddities, and the
question of faith in Pontius Pilate being necessary for salvation was
forgotten. A maid, Stella's own maid, came in with a message. Miss
Stella's compliments, and were Mr. Risca and Mr. Herold having a good
supper? She herself was about to drink her egg beaten up in sherry, and
would be glad if the gentlemen would take a glass of wine with her.
The young men, accordingly, raised their glasses toward the ceiling and
drank to Stella, in the presence of the maid, and gave her appropriate
messages to take back to her mistress.

[Illustration: 0046]

It was a customary little ceremony, but in Risca's eyes it never lost
its grace and charm. To-night it seemed to have a deeper significance,
bringing Stella with her elfin charm into the midst of them, and thus
exorcising the spirits of evil that held him in their torturing grip.
He spoke but little at the meal, content to listen to the talk about
Stella, and curiously impatient when the conversation drifted into other
channels. Of his own tragedy no one spoke. On his arrival, Lady Blount,
with unwonted demonstration of affection, had thrown her arms round his
neck, and Sir Oliver had wrung his hand and mumbled the stiff Briton's
incoherences of sympathy. He had not yet told them of his decision to go
to Australia.

He broke the news later, in the drawing-room, abruptly and apropos of
nothing, as was his manner, firing his bombshell with the defiant air of
one who says, “There, what do you think of it?”

“I'm going to Australia next week, never to come back again,” said he.

There was a discussion. Sir Oliver commended him. The great dependencies
of the empire were the finest field in the world for a young man,
provided he kept himself outside the radius of the venomous blight of
the Colonial Office. To that atrophied branch of the imperial service
the white administrator was merely a pigeon-holed automaton; the native,
black or bronze or yellow, a lion-hearted human creature. All the
murder, riot, rapine, arson, and other heterogeneous devilry that
the latter cared to indulge in proceeded naturally from the noble
indignation of his generous nature. If the sensible man who was
appointed by the Government to rule over this scum of the planet called
out the military and wiped out a few dozen of them for the greater glory
and safety of the empire, the pusillanimous ineptitudes in second-rate
purple and cheap linen of the Colonial Office, for the sake of currying
favour with Labour members and Socialists and Radicals and Methodists
and Anti-vivisectionists and Vegetarians and other miserable
Little-Englanders, denounced him as a Turk, an assassin, a
seventeenth-century Spanish _conquistador_ of the bloodiest type, and
held him up to popular execration, and recalled him, and put him on a
beggarly pension years before he had reached his age limit. He could
tell them stories which seemed (and in truth deserved to be) incredible.

“John,” said Lady Blount, “has heard all this a thousand times,”--as
indeed he had,--“and must be sick to death of it. He is not going out to
Australia as governor-general.”

“Who said he was, my dear?” said Sir Oliver.

“If you did n't imply it, you were talking nonsense, Oliver,” Lady
Blount retorted.

“Anyhow, Oliver, do you think John is taking a wise step?” Herold
hastily interposed.

“I do,” said he; “a very wise step.”

“I don't agree with you at all,” said Lady Blount, with a snap of
finality.

“Your remark, my dear,” replied Sir Oliver, “does not impress me in the
least. When did you ever agree with me?”

“Never, my dear Oliver,” said Lady Blount, with the facial smile of
the secretly hostile fencer. “And I thank Heaven for it. I may not be a
brilliant woman, but I am endowed with common sense.”

Sir Oliver looked at her for a moment, with lips parted, as if to
speak; but finding nothing epigrammatic enough to say--and an epigram
alone would have saved the situation--he planted a carefully cut cigar
between the parted lips aforesaid, and deliberately struck a match.

“Your idea, John,” said Lady Blount, aware of victory, “is preposterous.
What would Stella do without you?”

“Yes,” said Sir Oliver, after lighting his cigar; “Stella has to be
considered before everything.”

Risca frowned on the unblushing turncoat. Stella! Stella! Everything
was Stella. Here were three ordinary, sane, grown-up people seriously
putting forward the proposition that he had no right to go and mend his
own broken life in his own fashion because he happened to be the favored
playmate of a little invalid girl!

On the one side was the driving force of Furies of a myriad hell-power,
and on the other the disappointment of Stella Blount. It was ludicrous.
Even Walter Herold, who had a sense of humour, did not see the grotesque
incongruity. Risca frowned upon each in turn--upon three serene faces
smilingly aware of the absurd. Was it worth while trying to convince
them?

“Our dear friends are quite right, John,” said Herold. “What would
become of Stella if you went away?”

“None of you seems to consider what would happen to me if I stayed,”
 said John, in the quiet tone of a man who is talking to charming but
unreasonable children. “It will go to my heart to leave Stella, more
than any of you can realize; but to Australia I go, and there's an end
of it.”

Lady Blount sighed. What with imperial governments that wrecked the
career of men for shooting a few murderous and fire-raising blacks, and
with lowborn vixens of women who ruined men's careers in other ways,
life was a desperate puzzle. She was fond of her cousin John Risca. She,
too, before she married Sir Oliver, had borne the name, and the disgrace
that had fallen upon it affected her deeply. It was horrible to think
of John's wife, locked up that night in the stone cell of a gaol. She
leaned back in her chair in silence while the men talked--Sir Oliver,
by way of giving Risca hints on the conduct of life in Melbourne, was
narrating his experiences of forty years ago in the West Indies--and
stared into the fire. Her face, beneath the front of red hair that
accused so pitifully the reddish gray that was her own, looked very old
and faded. What was a prison like? She shuddered. As governor's wife,
she had once or twice had occasion to visit a colonial prison. But the
captives were black, and they grinned cheerily; their raiment, save for
the unæsthetic decoration of the black arrow, was not so very different
from that which they wore in a state of freedom; neither were food,
bedding, and surroundings so very different; and the place was flooded
with air and blazing sunshine. She could never realize that it was
a real prison. It might have been a prison of musical comedy. But an
English prison was the real, unimaginable abode of grim, gray horror.
She had heard of the prison taint. She conceived it as a smell--that of
mingled quicklime and the corruption it was to destroy--which lingered
physically forever after about the persons of those who had been
confined within prison-walls. A gaol was a place of eternal twilight,
eternal chill, eternal degradation for the white man or woman; and a
white woman, the wife of one of her own race, was there. It was almost
as if the taint hung about her own lavender-scented self. She shivered,
and drew her chair a few inches nearer the fire.

Was it so preposterous, after all, on John Risca's part to fly from the
shame into a wider, purer air? Her cry had been unthinking, instinctive,
almost a cry for help. She was growing old and soured and worn by
perpetual conjugal wranglings. John, her kinsman, counted for a great
deal in a life none too rich. John and Stella were nearest to her in the
world--first Stella, naturally, then John. To the woman of over fifty
the man of under thirty is still a boy. For many years she had nursed
the two together in her heart. And now he was going from her. What
would she, what would Stella, do without him? Her husband's direct
interpellation aroused her from her reverie.

“Julia, what was the name of the chap we met in St. Kitts who had been
sheep-farming in Queensland?”

They had sailed away from St. Kitts in 1878. Lady Blount reminded
him tartly of the fact while professing her oblivion of the man from
Queensland. They sparred for a few moments. Then she rose wearily and
said she was going to bed. Sir Oliver looked at his watch.

“Nearly twelve. Time for us all to go.”

“As soon as I' ve written my morning letter to Stellamaris,” said
Herold.

“I must write, too,” said Risca.

For it was a rule of the house that every visitor should write
Stellamaris a note overnight, to be delivered into her hands the first
thing in the morning. The origin of the rule was wrapped in the mists of
history.

So John Risca sat down at Sir Oliver's study-table in order to indite
his letter to Stellamaris. But for a long time he stared at the white
paper. He, the practised journalist, who could dash off his thousand
words on any subject as fast as pen could travel, no matter what torture
burned his brain, could not find a foolish message for a sick child. At
last he wrote like a school-boy:

_Darling: The flowers were beautiful, and so is the new picture, and I
want to see you early in the morning. I hope you are well. John Risca._

And he had to tear the letter out of its envelope and put it into a
fresh one because he had omitted to add the magic initials “G. H. B.” to
his name. Compared with his usual imaginative feats of correspondence,
this was a poverty-stricken epistle. She would wonder at the change.
Perhaps his demand for an immediate interview would startle her, and
shocks were dangerous. He tore up the letter and envelope, and went to
his own room. It was past two o'clock when he crept downstairs again to
lay his letter on the hall table.

At the sight of him the next morning the color deepened in the delicate
cheeks of Stellamaris, and her dark eyes grew bright. She held out a
welcoming hand.

“Ah, Belovedest, I 've been longing to see you ever since dawn. I woke
up then and could n't go to sleep again because I was so excited.”

He took the chair by her bedside, and her fingers tapped affectionately
on the back of the great hand that lay on the coverlid.

“I suppose I was excited, too,” said he, “for I was awake at dawn.”

“Did you look out of window?”

“Yes,” said John.

“Then we both saw the light creeping over the sea like a monstrous
ghost. And it all lay so pallid and still,--did n't it?--as if it were
a sea in a land of death. And then a cheeky little thrush began to
twitter.”

“I heard the thrush,” replied John. “He said, 'Any old thing! Any old
thing!' ”

He mimicked the bird's note. Stella laughed. “That's just what he
said--as though a sea in a land of death or the English Channel was all
the same to him. I suppose it was.”

“It must be good to be a thrush,” said Risca. “There 's a _je m'en
fich'isme_ about his philosophy which must be very consoling.”

“I know what that is in English,” cried Stellamaris. “It is
'don't-care-a-damativeness.' “ Her lips rounded roguishly over the
naughty syllable.

“Where did you learn that?”

“Walter told me.”

“Walter must be clapped into irons, and fed on bread and water, and
seriously spoken to.”

Unconsciously he had drifted into his usual manner of speech with her.
She laughed with a child's easy gaiety.

“It's delightful to be wicked, is n't it?”

“Why?” he asked.

“It must be such an adventure. It must make you hold your breath and
your heart beat.”

John wondered grimly whether a certain doer of wickedness had felt this
ecstatic rapture. She, too, must have seen the gray dawn, but creeping
through prison-bars into her cell. God of Inscrutability! Was it
possible that these two co-watchers of the dawn, both so dominant in his
life, were of the same race of beings? If the one was a woman born of
woman, what in the name of mystery was Stellamaris?

“Don't look so grave, Great High Belovedest,” she said, squeezing a
finger. “I only spoke in fun. It must really be horrid to be wicked.
When I was little I had a book about Cruel Frederick--I think it
belonged to grandmama. It had awful pictures, and there were rhymes--

               He tore the wings off little flies,

               And then poked out their little eyes.

And there was a picture of his doing so. I used to think him a
detestable boy. It made me unhappy and kept me awake when I was quite
small, but now I know it's all nonsense. People don't do such things, do
they?”

Risca twisted his glum face into a smile, remembering the Unwritten Law.
“Of course not, Stellamaris,” said he. “Cruel Frederick is just as much
of a mythical personage as the Giant Fee-fo-fum, who said:

               I smell the blood of an Englishman,

               And be he alive or be he dead,

               I 'll grind his bones to make my bread.”

“Why do people frighten children with stories of ogres and wicked
fairies and all the rest of it, when the real world they live in is so
beautiful?”

“Pure cussedness,” answered John, unable otherwise to give a
satisfactory explanation.

“Cussedness is silly,” said Stellamaris.

There was a little pause. Then she put both her hands on his and pressed
it.

“Oh, it's lovely to have you here again, Great High Belovedest; and I
have n't thanked you for your letter. It's the most heavenly one you've
ever written to me.”

It might well have been. He had taken two hours to write it.




CHAPTER IV

THE most heavenly of all letters,” Stellamaris repeated, as Risca made
no reply. “I loved it because it showed me you were very happy.”

“Have you ever doubted it?” he asked.

The Great Dane, the Lord High Constable, who was stretched out on
his side, with relaxed, enormous limbs, on the hearth-rug, lifted his
massive head for a second and glanced at John. Then with a half-grunt,
half-sigh, he dropped his head, and twitched his limbs and went to sleep
again.

“Now and then when you 're not looking at me,” said Stellamaris, “there
is a strange look in your eyes: it is when you 're not speaking and you
stare out of window without seeming to see anything.”

For a moment Risca was assailed by a temptation to break the Unwritten
Law and tell her something of his misery. She, with her superfine
intelligence, would understand, and her sympathy would be sweet. But he
put the temptation roughly from him.

“I am the happiest fellow in the world, Stellamaris,” said he.

“It would be difficult not to be happy in such a world.”

She pointed out to sea. The blustering wind of the day before had
fallen, and a light breeze shook the tips of the waves to the
morning sunshine, which turned them into diamonds. The sails of the
fishing-fleet of the tiny port flashed merrily against the kindly blue.
On the horizon a great steamer was visible steaming up Channel. The
salt air came in through the open windows. The laughter of fishermen's
children rose faintly from the beach far below.

“And there's spring, too, dancing over everything,” she said. “Don't you
feel it?”

He acknowledged the vernal influence, and, careful lest his eyes should
betray him, talked of the many things she loved. He had not seen her for
a fortnight, so there were the apocryphal doings of Lilias and Niphetos
to record,--Cleopatras of cats, whom age could not wither, and whose
infinite variety custom could not stale,--and there was the approaching
marriage of Arachne with a duke to report. And he told her of his
gay, bright life in London and of the beautiful Belinda Molyneux, an
imaginary Egeria, who sometimes lunched with the queen. The effort of
artistic creation absorbed him, as it always had done, under the spell
of Stellamaris's shining eyes. The foolish world of his imagination
became real, and for the moment hung like a veil before his actual world
of tragedy. It was in the nature of a shock to him when Stella's maid
entered and asked him if he could speak to Mr. Herold outside the door..

“Tell him to come in,” said Stellamaris.

“He says he will, Miss, after he has seen Mr. Risca.”

Risca found Herold on the landing.

“Well?”

“Well?” said John.

“What has happened? How did she take it?”

John looked away, and thrust his hands into his pockets.

“I 've not told her yet.”

Walter drew a breath. “But you 're going to?”

“Of course,” said John. “Do you think it 's so damned easy?”

“You had better be quick, if you 're coming back to town with me. I'm
due at rehearsal at twelve.”

“I'll go and tell her now,” said John.

“Let me just say how d' ye do to her first. I won't stay a minute.”

The two men entered the sea-chamber together. Stella welcomed her Great
High Favourite and chatted gaily for a while. Then she commanded him to
sit down.

“I 'm afraid I can't stay, Stellamaris. I have to go back to London.”

Stella glanced at the clock. “Your train does n't go for an hour.” She
was jealously learned in trains.

“I think John wants to talk to you.”

“He has been talking to me quite beautifully for a long time,” said
Stella, “and I want to talk to you.”

“He has something very particular to say, Stellamaris.”

“What is it, Belovedest?” Her eyes sparkled, and she clasped her hands
over her childish bosom. “You are not going to marry Belinda Molyneux?”

“No, dear,” said John; “I'm not going to marry anybody.”

“I'm so glad.” She turned to Herold. “Are you going to get married?”

“No,” smiled Herold.

Stella laughed. “What a relief! People do get married, you know, and I
suppose both of you will have to one of these days, when you get older;
but I don't like to think of it.”

“I don't believe I shall ever marry, Stellamaris,” said Herold.

“Why?”

Herold looked out to sea for a wistful instant. “Because one can't marry
a dream, my dear.”

“I've married hundreds,” said Stella, softly.

If they had been alone together, they would have talked dreams and
visions and starshine and moonshine, and their conversation would
have been about as sensible and as satisfactory to each other and as
intelligible to a third party as that of a couple of elves sitting on
adjacent toadstools; but elves don't talk in the presence of a third
party, even though he be John Risca and Great High Belovedest. And
Stellamaris, recognizing this instinctively, turned her eyes quickly to
Risca.

“And you, dear--will you ever marry?”

“Never, by Heaven!” cried John, with startling fervency.

Stella reached out both her hands to the two men who incorporated the
all in all of her little life, and each man took a hand and kissed it.

“I don't want to be horrid and selfish,” she said; “but if I lost either
of you, I think it would break my heart.”

The men exchanged glances. John repeated his query: “Do you think it's
so damned easy?”

“Tell us why you say that, Stellamaris,” said Herold.

John rose suddenly and stood by the west window, which was closed.
Stella's high bed had been drawn next to the window open to the south.
The room was warm, for a great fire blazed in the tall chimneypiece. He
rose to hide his eyes from Stella, confounding Herold for a marplot. Was
this the way to make his task easier? He heard Stella say in her sweet
contralto:

“Do you imagine it 's just for silly foolishness I call you Great High
Belovedest and Great High Favourite? You see, Walter dear, I gave John
his title before I knew you, so I had to make some difference in yours.
But they mean everything to me. I live in the sky such a lot, and it's
a beautiful life; but I know there 's another life in the great world--a
beautiful life, too.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, it 's so difficult
to explain! It's so hard to talk about feelings, because the moment you
begin to talk about them, the feelings become so vague. It's like trying
to tell any one the shape of a sunset.” She paused for a moment or two;
Herold smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. Presently she went on:
“I 'll try to put it this way. Often a gull, you see, comes hovering
outside here and looks in at me, oh, for a long time, with his round,
yellow eyes; and my heart beats, and I love him, for he tells me all
about the sea and sky and clouds, where I'll never go,--not really,--and
I live the sky life through him, and more than ever since you sent me
that poem--I know it by heart--about the sea-gull. Who wrote it?”

“Swinburne,” said Herold.

“Did he write anything else?”

“One or two other little things,” replied Herold, judiciously. “I 'll
copy them out and bring them to you. But go on.”

“Well,” she said, “yesterday afternoon a little bird--I don't know what
kind of bird it was--came and sat on the window-sill, and turned his
head this way and looked at me, and turned his head that way and looked
at me, and I did n't move hand or foot, and I said, 'Cheep, cheep!' And
he hopped on the bed and stayed there such a long time. And I talked
to him, and he hopped about and looked at me and seemed to tell me all
sorts of wonderful things. But he did n't somehow, although he came from
the sky, and was a perfect dear. He must have known all about it, but he
did n't know how to tell me. Now, you and John come from the beautiful
world and tell me wonderful things about it; and I shall never go there
really, but I can live in it through you.”

Constable, the Great Dane, known by this abbreviated title in familiar
life, rose, stretched himself, and went and snuggled his head beneath
John's arm. John turned, his arm round the hound's neck.

“But you can live in it through anybody, dear,” said he--“your Uncle
Oliver, your Aunt Julia, or anybody who comes to see you.”

Stellamaris looked at Herold for a characteristically sympathetic
moment, and then at John. She sighed.

“I told you it was hard to explain. But don't you see, Belovedest? You
and Walter are like my gull. Everybody else is like the little bird. You
know how to tell me and make me live. The others are darlings, but they
don't seem to know how to do it.”

John scratched his head.

“I see what you mean,” said he.

“I should hope so,” said Herold.

He looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. “Star of the Sea,” said
he, “to talk with you is the most fascinating occupation on earth; but
managers are desperate fellows, and I 'll get into boiling water if I
miss my rehearsal.” He turned to John. “I don't see how you are going to
catch this train.”

“Neither do I,” said John. “I shall go by the one after.”

Herold took his leave, promising to run down for the week-end. Constable
accompanied him to the door in a dignified way, and this ceremony of
politeness accomplished, stalked back to the hearth-rug, where he threw
himself down, his head on his paws, and his faithful eyes fixed on his
mistress. John sat down again by the bedside. There was a short silence
during which Stellamaris smiled at him and he smiled at Stellamaris.

“Does n't the Great High Belovedest want to smoke?”

“Badly,” said John.

She held out her hand for the pipe and tobacco-pouch. He gave them to
her, and she filled the pipe. For a while he smoked peacefully. From
where he sat all he could see of the outside world was the waste of
sun-kissed waters stretching away and melting into a band of pearly
cloud on the horizon. He might have been out at sea. Possibly this time
next week he would be, and the salt air would be playing, as now, about
his head. But on board that ship would be no spacious sea-chamber like
this, so gracious in its appointments--its old oak and silver, its
bright chintzes, its quiet old engravings, its dainty dressing-table
covered with fairy-like toilet-articles, its blue delft bowls full of
flowers, its atmosphere so dearly English, yet English of the days when
Sir Bedivere threw Excalibur into the mere. In no other spot on the
globe could be found such a sea-chamber, with its high bed, on which lay
the sweet, elfin face, half child's, half woman's, framed in the soft,
brown hair.

Risca smoked on, and Stellamaris, seeing him disinclined to talk, gazed
happily out to her beloved Channel, and dreamed her dreams. They had
often sat like this for an hour together, both feeling that they were
talking to each other all the time; and often Stella would break the
silence by telling him to listen. At such times, so people said,
an angel was passing. And he would listen, but could not hear. He
remembered Walter Herold once agreeing with her, and saying:

“There's a special little angel told off to come here every day and
beat his wings about the room so as to clear the air of all troubling
things.”

In no other spot on the globe could be found such a sea-chamber,
wing-swept, spirit-haunted, where pain ceased magically and the burden
of intolerable suffering grew light. No other haven along all the coasts
of the earth was a haven of rest such as this.

And the Furies were driving him from it! But here the Furies ceased from
driving. Here he had delicious ease. Here a pair of ridiculously frail
hands held him a lotus-fed prisoner. He smoked on. At last he resisted
the spell. The whole thing was nonsensical. His pipe, only lightly
packed by the frail hands, went out. He stuffed it in his pocket, and
cleared his throat. He would say then and there what he had come to say.

Stellamaris turned her head and laughed; and when Stellamaris laughed,
the sea outside and the flowers in the delft bowl laughed, too.

“The angel has been having a good time.”

John cleared his throat again.

“My dear,” said he, and then he stopped short. All the carefully
prepared exordiums went out of his head. How now to break the news to
her he did not know.

“Are you very tired?” she asked.

“Not a bit,” said John.

“Then be a dear, and read me something. Read me 'Elaine.' ”

The elevated and sophisticated and very highly educated may learn
with surprise that “The Idylls of the King” still appeal to ingenuous
fifteen. Thank God there are yet remaining also some sentimentalists of
fifty who can read them with pleasure and profit!

“But that is so sad, Stellamaris,” said John. “You don't want to be sad
this beautiful spring morning.”

Which was a very inconsistent remark to make, seeing that he was about
to dash the young sun from her sky altogether.

“I like being sad sometimes, especially when the world is bright.
And Lancelot was such a dear,”--here spoke ingenuous fifteen,--“and
Elaine--oh, do read it!”

So John, secretly glad of a respite, drew from the bookcase which held
her scrupulously selected and daintily bound library the volume of
Tennyson and read aloud the idyll of Lancelot and Elaine. And the
sea-wind blew about his head and fluttered the brown hair on the pillow,
and the log-fire blazed in the chimney, and the great dog slept, and a
noontide hush was over all things. And Risca read the simple poem with
the heart of the girl of fifteen, and forgot everything else in the
world.

When he had finished, the foolish eyes of both were moist. “The dead
oar'd by the dumb,” with the lily in her hand,--dead for the love of
Lancelot,--affected them both profoundly.

“I think I should die, too, like that, Great High; Belovedest,” said
Stellamaris, “if any one I loved left me.”

“But what Lancelot is going to leave you, dear?” said John.

She shook the thistledown of sadness from her brow and laughed.

“You and Walter are the only Lancelots I've got.”

“The devil 's in the child to-day,” said Risca to himself.

There was a short pause. Then Stella said:

“Belovedest dear, what was the particular thing that Walter said you had
to tell me?”

“It 's of no consequence,” said John. “It will do to-morrow or the day
after.”

Stella started joyously,--as much as the rigid discipline of years would
allow her,--and great gladness lit her face.

“Darling! Are you going to stay here to-day and to-morrow and the next
day?”

“My dear,” said John, “I've got to get up to town this morning.”

“You won't do that,” said Stella. “Look at the clock.”

It was a quarter to one. He had spent the whole morning with her, and
the hours had flown by like minutes.

“Why did n't you tell me that I ought to be catching my train?”

She regarded him in demure mischief.

“I had no object in making you catch your train.”

And then Her Serene High-and-Mightiness, the nurse (who had been called
in for Stella when first she was put to bed in the sea-chamber, and,
falling under her spell, had stayed on until she had grown as much
involved in the web of her life as Sir Oliver and Lady Julia and
Constable and Herold and Risca), came into the room and decreed the end
of the morning interview.

Risca went down-stairs, his purpose unaccomplished. He walked about the
garden and argued with himself. Now, when a man argues with himself, he,
being only the extraneous eidolon of himself, invariably gets the worst
of the argument, and this makes him angry. John was angry; to such a
point that, coming across Sir Oliver, who had just returned from an
inexplicably disastrous game of golf and began to pour a story of
bunkered gloom into his ear, he gnashed his teeth and tore his hair and
told Sir Oliver to go to the devil with his lugubrious and rotten game,
and dashed away to the solitude of the beach until the luncheon-bell
summoned him back.

“I'm going by the 3:50,” said he at the luncheon-table.

At three o'clock Stella was free to see him again. He went up to her
room distinctly determined to shut his heart against folly. The sun
had crept round toward the west and flooded the head and shoulders of
Stellamaris and the dainty bedspread with pale gold, just as it flooded
the now still and smiling sea. Again paralysis fell upon John. The words
he was to speak were to him, as well as to her, the words of doom, and
he could not utter them. They talked of vain, childish things. Then
Stellamaris's clock chimed the three-quarters. There are some chimes
that are brutal, others ironic; but Stellamaris's chimes (the clock was
a gift from John himself) were soft, and pealed a soothing mystery, like
a bell swung in a deep sea-cave.

It was a quarter to four, and he had missed his train once more. Well,
the train could go to--to London, as good a synonym for Tophet as any
other. So he stayed, recklessly surrendering himself to the pale, sunlit
peace of the sea-chamber, till he was dislodged by Lady Blount.

An attempt to catch a six o'clock train was equally unsuccessful. He did
not return to town that night. Why should a sorely bruised man reject
the balm that healed? To-morrow he would be stronger and more serene,
abler to control the driving force of the Furies, and therefore fitted
to announce in gentler wise the decrees of destiny. So Risca went to bed
and slept easier, and the room which Stellamaris had made for him became
the enchanted bower of a Fair Lady of All Mercy.

In their simple human way Sir Oliver and Lady Blount besought him to
stay for his health's sake in the fresh sea-air; and when he yielded,
they prided themselves, after the manner of humans, on their own powers
of persuasion. One morning Sir Oliver asked him point-blank:

“When are you going to Australia?”

“I don't know,” said John. “There 's no immediate hurry.”

“I hope, dear,” said Julia, “you 'll give up the idea altogether.”

“Have n't I told you that I've made up my mind?” said John, in his gruff
tone of finality.

“When are you going to break the news to Stella?” asked Sir Oliver.

“Now,” said John, who had begun to loathe the mention of the doomful
subject; and he stalked away--the three were strolling in the garden
after breakfast--and went to Stella's room, and of course made no
mention of it whatsoever.

Then Herold came down for the week-end, and when he heard of Risca's
pusillanimity he threw back his head and laughed for joy; for he knew
that John would never go to Australia without telling Stellamaris, and
also that if he could not tell Stellamaris in the first madness of his
agony, he would never be able to tell her at all.

And so, in fact, the fantastically absurd prevailed. Before the
Unwritten Law, mainly promulgated and enforced by Risca himself, which
guarded the sea-chamber against pain and sorrow, the driving Furies
slunk with limp wing and nerveless claw. And one day Risca was surprised
at finding himself undriven. Indeed, he was somewhat disconcerted. He
fell into a bad temper. The Furies are highly aristocratic divinities
who don't worry about Tom, Dick, or Harry, but choose an Orestes at
least for their tormenting; so that, when they give up their pursuit
of a Risca, he may excusably regard it as a personal slight. It was the
morose and gloomy nature of the man.

“I know I 'm a fool,” he said to Herold, when every one had gone to bed,
“but I can't help it. Any normal person would regard me as insane if
I told him I was stopped from saving the wreck of my career by
consideration for the temporary comfort of a bedridden chit of a girl
half my age, who is absolutely nothing to me in the world (her uncle
married my first cousin. If that is anything of a family tie, I'm weak
on family feeling); but that's God's truth. I'm tied by her to this
accursed country. She just holds me down in the hell of London, and I
can't wriggle away. It's senseless, I know it is. Sometimes when I 'm
away from her, walking on the beach, I feel I 'd like to throw the whole
of this confounded house into the sea; and then I look up and see the
light in her room, and--I--I just begin to wonder whether she 's asleep
and what she's dreaming of. There 's some infernal witchcraft about the
child.”

“There is,” said Herold.

“Rot!” said Risca, his pugnacious instincts awakened by the check on
his dithyrambics. “The whole truth of the matter is that I'm simply a
sentimental fool.”

“All honour to you, John,” said Herold.

“If you talk like that, I 'll wring your neck,” said Risca, pausing for
à second in his walk up and down Sir Oliver's library, and glaring down
at his friend, who reclined on the sofa and regarded him with a smile
exasperatingly wise. “You know I'm a fool, and why can't you say it? A
man at my time of life! Do you realize that I am twice her age?”

And he went on, inveighing now against the pitifully human conventions
that restrained him from hurting the chit of a child, and now against
the sorcery with which she contrived to invest the chamber wherein she
dwelt.

“And at my age, too, when I 've run the whole gamut of human misery,
the whole discordant thing--_toute la lyre_--when I've finished with the
blighting illusion that men call life; when, confound it! I 'm thirty.”

Sir Oliver, unable to sleep, came into the room in dressing-gown and
slippers. He looked very fragile and broken.

“Here 's John,” laughed Herold, “saying that he 's thirty, and an old,
withered man, and he 's not thirty. He 's nine-and-twenty.”

Sir Oliver looked at John, as only age, with awful wistfulness, can
look at youth, and came and laid his hand upon the young man's broad
shoulders.

“My lad,” said he, “you've had a bad time; but you 're young. You've
the whole of your life before you. Time, my dear boy, is a marvellous
solvent of human perplexity. Once in a new world, once in that
astonishing continent of Australia--”

John threw a half-finished cigar angrily into the fire.

“I'm not going to the damned continent,” said he.




CHAPTER V

THUS it came to pass that, for the sake of Stellamaris, Risca remained
in London and fought with beasts in Fenton Square. Sometimes he got the
better of the beasts, and sometimes the beasts got the better of him. On
the former occasions he celebrated the victory by doing an extra turn of
work; on the latter he sat idly growling at defeat.

At this period of his career he was assistant-editor of a weekly review,
in charge of the book-column of an evening newspaper, the contributor of
a signed weekly article on general subjects to the “Daily Herald,” and
of a weekly London letter to an American syndicate. From this it will
be seen that for a man not yet thirty he had achieved a position in
journalism envied by many who had grown gray-headed in the game. But as
Risca had written three or four novels which had all been rejected by
all the publishers in London, he chose to regard himself as a man foiled
in his ambitions. He saw himself doomed to failure. For him was the
eternal toil of ploughing the sand; the Garden of Delight cultivated by
the happy Blest--such as Fawcus of the club, who boasted of making over
a thousand pounds for every novel he wrote, and of being able to take
as much holiday as he chose--had its gilded gates closed against him
forever. That the man of nine-and-twenty should grow embittered because
he was not accepted by the world as a brilliant novelist is a matter for
the derision of the middle-aged and for the pitying smile of the hoary;
but it is a matter of woeful concern to twenty-nine, especially if
twenty-nine be a young man of a saturnine temperament whom fate has
driven to take himself seriously. In Risca's life there were misfortunes
the reality of the pain of which was independent of age; others which
were relative, as inseparable from youth as the tears for a bumped head
are inseparable from childhood. Yet to the man they were all equally
absolute. It is only in after-years, when one looks back down the vista,
that one can differentiate.

For all that he ought to have given himself another decade before crying
himself a failure, yet a brilliant young journalist who has not found
a publisher for one of four novels has reasonable excuse for serious
cogitation. There are scores of brilliant young journalists who have
published masterpieces of fiction before they are thirty, and at forty
have gone on their knees and thanked kind, gentle Time for his effacing
fingers; yet the novels have had some quality of the novel warranting
their publication. At any rate, the brilliant young journalists have
believed in them. They have looked upon their Creation and found that
it was good. But Risca, looking on his Creation, found that it was
wood. His people were as wooden as Mr. and Mrs. Ham in a Noah's Ark; his
scenery was as wooden as the trees and mountain in a toy Swiss
village; his dialogue as wooden as the conversation-blocks used by
the philosophers of Laputa. He had said, in an outburst of wrathful
resentment, that he found his one artistic outlet in aiding to create
Stella's Land of Illusion; and he was right. He was despairingly
aware of the lack of the quick fancy; the power of visualization; the
sublimated faculty of the child's make-believe, creating out of trumpery
bits and pieces a glowing world of romance; the keen, instinctive
knowledge of the general motives of human action; the uncanny insight
into the hearts and feelings of beings of a sex, class, or type
different from his own; the gift of evolving from a tiny broken bone of
fact a perfect creature indisputably real, colouring it with the hues of
actuality and breathing into it the breath of life--the lack, indeed, of
all the essential qualities, artistic and therefore usually instinctive,
that go to the making of a novelist. Yet Risca was doggedly determined
to be a novelist and a poet. It was pathetic. How can a man who cannot
distinguish between “God Save the King” and “Yankee Doodle” hope to
write a world-shaking sonata? Risca knew that he was crying for the
moon, and it is only because he cried so hard for it that he deserved
any serious commiseration.

When he did come to death-grapple with the absolute, the beasts above
mentioned, he stood out a tragic young figure, fiercely alone in the
arena, save for Herold.

His name, uncommon and arresting, had one connotation in London--the
Case, the appalling and abominable Case. Even Ferguson of the “Daily
Herald,” who had evinced such sympathy for him at first, shrank from the
name at the head of the weekly column and suggested the temporary use of
a pseudonym. Had it not been for Herold's intervention, Risca would have
told Ferguson to go to the devil and would have refused to work for his
Philistine paper. He swallowed the insult, which did him no good. He
refused to carry the accursed name into the haunts of men.

“Come to the club, at any rate,” Herold urged. “Every man there is loyal
to you.”

“And every man as he looks at me will have on his retina not a picture
of me, but a picture of what went on in that house in Smith Street.”

“Oh, go and buy a serviceable epidermis,” cried Herold. Argument was
useless.

So Risca worked like a mole at anonymous journalism in his shabby
lodgings where Lilias and Niphetos were suggested only by a mangy tabby
who occasionally prowled into his sitting-room, and Arachne presided,
indeed, but in the cobwebs about the ceiling in the guise which she had
been compelled to take by the angry god when the world was young. Only
when his attendance at the office of the weekly review was necessary,
such as on the day when it went to press, did he mingle with the busy
world.

“If you go on in this way,” said Herold, “you 'll soon have as much idea
of what's going on in London as a lonely dog tied up in a kennel.”

“What does it matter,” growled John, “to any of the besotted fools who
read newspapers, provided I bark loud enough?”

There was one thing going on in London, however, in which he took a grim
interest, and that was the convalescence of the little maid-of-all-work
who had been taken back, a maimed lamb, to the cheerless fold where
she had been reared. Thither he went to make inquiries as soon as he
returned from Southcliff-on-Sea. He found the Orphanage of St. Martha
at Willesden, a poverty-stricken building, a hopeless parallelogram of
dingy, yellow brick, standing within a walled inclosure. There were no
trees or flowers, for the yard was paved. His ring at the front door was
answered by an orphan in a light print dress, her meagre hair clutched
up tight in a knob at the back. He asked for the superintendent and
handed his card. The orphan conducted him to a depressing parlour, and
vanished. Presently appeared a thin, weary woman, dressed in the black
robes of a Sister of Mercy, who, holding the card tight in nervous
fingers, regarded him with an air of mingled fright and defiance.

“Your business?” she asked.

Despite the torture of it all, John could not help smiling. If he had
been armed with a knout, his reception could not have been more hostile.

“I must beg of you to believe,” said he, “that I come as a friend and
not as an enemy.”

She pointed to a straight-backed chair.

“Will you be seated?”

“It is only human,” said he, “to call and see you, and ask after that
unhappy child.”

“She is getting on,” said the Sister superintendent, frostily, “as well
as can be expected.”

“Which means? Please tell me. I am here to know.”

“She will take some time to recover from her injuries, and of course her
nerve is broken.”

“I'm afraid,” said John, “your institution can't afford many invalid's
luxuries.”

“None at all,” replied the weary-faced woman. “She gets proper care and
attention, however.”

John drew out a five-pound note. “Can you buy her any little things
with this? When you have spent it, if you will tell me, I 'll send you
another.”

“It's against our rules,” said the Sister, eying the money. “If you like
to give it as a subscription to the general funds, I will accept it.”

“Are you badly off?” asked John.

“We are very slenderly endowed.”

John pushed the note across the small table near which they were
sitting.

“In return,” said he, “I hope you will allow me to send in some jellies
and fruits, or appliances, or whatever may be of pleasure or comfort to
the child.”

“Whatever you send her that is practical shall be applied to her use,”
 said the Sister superintendent.

She was cold, unemotional; no smile, no ghost even of departed smiles,
seemed ever to visit the tired, gray eyes or the corners of the rigid
mouth; coif and face and thin hands were spotless. She did not even
thank him for his forced gift to the orphanage.

“I should like to know,” said John, regarding her beneath frowning
brows, “whether any one here loves the unhappy little wretch.”

“These children,” replied the Sister superintendent, “have naturally a
hard battle to fight when they go from here into the world. They come
mostly from vicious classes. Their training is uniformly kind, but it
has to be austere.”

John rose. “I will bring what things I can think of to-morrow.”

The Sister superintendent rose, too, and bowed icily. “You are at
liberty to do so, Mr. Risca; but I assure you there is no reason for
your putting yourself to the trouble. In the circumstances I can readily
understand your solicitude; but again I say you have no cause for it.”

“Madam,” said he, “I see that I have more cause than ever.”

The next day he drove to the orphanage in a cab, with a hamper of
delicacies and a down pillow. The latter the Sister superintendent
rejected. Generally, it was against the regulations and, particularly,
it was injudicious. Down pillows would not be a factor in Unity Blake's
after-life.

“Besides,” she remarked, “she is not the only orphan in the infirmary.”

“Why not call it a sick-room or sick-ward instead of that prison term?”
 asked John.

“It's the name given to it by the governing body,” she replied.

After this John became a regular visitor. Every time he kicked his heels
for ten minutes in the shabby and depressing parlour and every time he
was received with glacial politeness by the Sister superintendent.
By blunt questioning he learned the history of the institution. The
Sisterhood of Saint Martha was an Angelican body with headquarters in
Kent, which existed for meditation and not for philanthropic purposes.
The creation and conduct of the orphanage had been thrust upon the
sisterhood by the will of a member long since deceased. It was unpopular
with the sisterhood, who resented it as an excrescence, but bore it as
an affliction decreed by divine Providence. Among the cloistered inmates
of the Kentish manor-house there was no fanatical impulse towards
Willesden.

They were good, religious women; but they craved retirement, and not
action, for the satisfying of their spiritual needs. Otherwise they
would have joined some other sisterhood in which noble lives are spent
in deeds of charity and love. But there are angels of wrath, angels of
mercy, and mere angels. These were mere angels. The possibility of being
chosen by the Mother Superior to go out into the world again and take
charge of the education, health, and morals of twenty sturdy and squalid
little female orphans lived an abiding terror in their gentle breasts. A
shipwrecked crew casting lots for the next occupant of the kettle could
suffer no greater pangs of apprehension than did the Sisters of Saint
Martha on the imminence of an appointment to the orphanage. They had
taken vows of obedience. The Mother Superior's selection was final.
The unfortunate nominee had to pack up her slender belongings and go
to Willesden. Being a faulty human being (and none but a faulty,
unpractical, unsympathetic human being can want, in these days of
enlightenment, to shut herself up in a nunnery for the rest of her life,
with the avowed intention of never doing a hand's turn for any one of
God's creatures until the day of her death), she invariably regarded
herself as a holy martyr and ruled the poor little devils of orphans for
the greater glory of God (magnified entirely, be it understood, by her
own martyrdom) than for the greater happiness of the poor little devils.

Sister Theophila--in entering into religion the Protestant Sisters
changed the names by which they were known in the world, according to
the time-honoured tradition of an alien church--Sister Theophila, with
the temperament of the recluse, had been thrust into this position
of responsibility against her will. She performed her duties with
scrupulous exactitude and pious resignation. Her ideal of life was the
ascetic, and to this ideal the twenty orphans had to conform. She did
not love the orphans.

Her staff consisted of one matron, a married woman of a much humbler
class than her own. Possibly she might have loved the orphans had
she not seen such a succession of them, and her own work been less
harassing. Twenty female London orphans from disreputable homes are
a tough handful. When you insist on their conformity with the ascetic
ideal, they become tougher. They will not allow themselves to be loved.

“And ungrateful!” exclaimed the matron, one day when she was taking
Risca round the institution. He had expressed to Sister Theophila his
desire to visit it, and she, finding him entirely unsympathetic, had
handed him over to her subordinate. “None of them know what gratitude
is. As soon as they get out of here, they forget everything that has
been done for them; and as for coming back to pay their respects, or
writing a letter even, they never think of it.”

Kitchen, utensils, floors, walls, dormitory, orphans--all were
spotlessly clean, the orphans sluiced and scrubbed from morning to
night; but of things that might give a little hint of the joy of life
there was no sign.

“This is the infirmary,” said the matron, with her hand on the
door-knob.

“I should like to see it,” said John.

They entered. An almost full-grown orphan, doing duty as nurse, rose
from her task of plain sewing and bobbed a curtsy. The room was clean,
comfortless, dark, and cold. Two pictures, prints of the Crucifixion
and the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, hung on the walls. There were three
narrow, hard beds, two of which were occupied. Some grapes on a chair
beside one of them marked the patient in whom he was interested. John
noticed angrily that some flowers which he had sent the day before had
been confiscated.

“This is the gentleman who has been so kind to you,” said the matron.

Unity Blake looked wonderingly into the dark, rugged face of the man who
stood over her and regarded her with mingled pain and pity. They had not
told her his name. This, then, was the unknown benefactor whose image,
like that of some elusive Apollo, Giver of Things Beautiful, had haunted
her poor dreams.

“Can't you say, 'Thank you?' “ said the matron.

“Thank you, sir,” said Unity Blake.

Even in those three words her accent was unmistakably cockney--as
unmistakably cockney as the coarse-featured, snub-nosed, common little
face. In happier, freer conditions she would have done her skimpy hair
up in patent curlers and worn a hat with a purple feather, and joined
heartily in the raucous merriment of her comrades at the pickle-factory.
Here, however, she was lying, poor little devil, thought Risca, warped
from childhood by the ascetic ideal, and wrecked body and spirit by
unutterable cruelty. In her eyes flickered the patient apprehension of
the ill-treated dog.

“I hope you will soon get better,” he said, with sickening knowledge of
that which lay hidden beneath the rough bedclothes.

“Yes, sir,” said Unity.

“It 's chiefly her nerves now,” said the matron. “She hollers out of
nights, so she can't be put into the dormitory.”

“Do you like the things I send you?” asked John.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there anything special you'd like to have?”

“No, sir.”

But he caught a certain wistfulness in her glance.

“She does n't want anything at all,” said the matron, and the girl's
eyelids fluttered. “She's being spoiled too much as it is already.”

John bent his heavy brows on the woman. She spoke not shrewishly, not
unkindly, merely with lack of love and understanding. He repressed the
bitter retort that rose to his lips. But at the same time a picture rose
before him of another sick-room, a dainty sea-chamber open to sun
and sky, where pillows of down were not forbidden, where flowers and
exquisite colours and shapes gladdened the eye, where Love, great and
warm and fulfilling, hovered over the bed. No gulls with round, yellow
eyes came to the windows of this whitewashed prison with messages
from the world of air and sea; no Exquisite Auntship, no Great High
Favourite, no Lord High Constable, executed their high appointed
functions; no clock with chimes like a bell swung in a sea-cave told
the hours to this orphan child of misery. He realized in an odd way
that Stellamaris, too, was an orphan. And he remembered, from the awful
evidence, that this child was just over fifteen--Stella's age.
Again rose the picture of the cherished one in her daintily ribboned
dressing-jacket, as filmy and unsubstantial as if made of sea-foam,
with her pure, happy face, her mysterious, brown pools of eyes, her
hair lovingly brushed to caressing softness; and he looked down on Unity
Blake. Man though he was, the bit of clean sail-cloth that did duty as a
nightgown moved his compassion.

He did his best to talk with her awhile; but it was a one-sided
conversation, as the child could reply only in monosyllables. The matron
fidgeted impatiently, and he said good-bye. Her wistful glance followed
him to the door. Outside he turned.

“There is just one thing I want to say to her.”

He left the matron and darted back into the room.

“I'm sure there must be something you would like me to bring you,” he
whispered. “Don't be afraid. Any mortal thing.”

The child's lips twitched and she looked nervously from side to side.

“What is it? Tell me.”

“Oh, sir,” she pleaded breathlessly, “might I have some peppermint
bull's-eyes.”



When Herold returned to his dressing-room after the first act,--the
piece for which he had been rehearsing had started a successful
career,--he found Risca sitting in a straight-backed chair and smoking a
pipe.

“Hallo, John! I did n't know you were in front. Why did n't you tell me?
It's going splendidly, is n't it?”

He glowed with the actor's excited delight in an audience's enthusiastic
reception of a new play. His glow sat rather oddly upon him, for he was
made up as a decrepit old man, with bald wig, and heavy, blue patches
beneath his eyes.

“No, I'm not in front,” said John.

“I see now,” smiled Herold, glancing at his friend's loose tweed suit.
No clothes morning or evening ever fitted Risca. Herold called him “The
Tailors' Terror.”

“I want to talk to you, Wallie,” said he.

“Have a drink? No? I sha' n't want anything, Perkins,” said he to
the waiting dresser. “Call me when I 'm on in the second act. I don't
change,” he explained.

“I know,” said John. “That 's why I 've come now.”

“What's the matter?” Herold asked, sitting in the chair before the
dressing-table, bright with mirrors and electric lights and sticks of
grease paint and silver-topped pots and other paraphernalia.

“Nothing particular. Only hell, just as usual. I saw that child to-day.”

Herold lit a cigarette.

“Have you ever speculated on what becomes of the victims in cases of
this kind?” asked John.

“Not particularly,” said Herold, seeing that John wanted to talk.

“What do you think can become of a human creature in the circumstances
of this poor little wretch? Her childhood is one vista of bleak
ugliness. Never a toy, never a kiss, not even the freedom of the gutter.
Unless you 've been there, you can't conceive the soul-crushing despair
of that infernal orphanage. She leaves it and goes into the world.
She goes out of a kind of dreary Greek hades into a Christian hell. It
lasted for months. She was too ignorant and spiritless to complain, and
to whom was she to complain? Now she's sent back again, just like a sick
animal, to hades. Fancy, they would n't let her have a few flowers in'
the room! It makes me mad to think of it. And when she gets well again,
she 'll have to earn her living as a little slave in some squalid
Household. But what's going to become of that human creature morally and
spiritually? That's what I want to know.”

“It's an interesting problem,” said Herold. “She may be either a
benumbed half-idiot or a vicious, vindictive she-brute.”

“Just so,” said John. “That is, if she goes to slave in some squalid
household. But suppose she were transferred to different surroundings
altogether? Suppose she had ease of life, loving care, and all the rest
of it?”

The senile travesty of Herold laughed.

“You want me to say that she may develop into some sort of flower of
womanhood.”

“Do you think she might?” John asked seriously. “My dear fellow,” said
Herold, “there are Heaven knows how many hundred million human beings
on the face of the earth, and every one of them is different from the
others. How can one tell what any particular young woman whom one does
n't know might or might not do in given circumstances? But if you want
me to say whether I think it right for you to step in and look after the
poor little devil's future, then I do say it's right. It 's stunning of
you. It's the very best thing you can do. It will give the poor little
wretch a chance, at any rate, and will give you something outside
yourself to think of.”

“I was going to do it whether you thought it right or not,” said Risca.

Herold laughed again. “For a great, hulking bull of a man you 're
sometimes very feminine, John.”

“I wanted to tell you about it, that 's all,” said Risca. “I made up my
mind this afternoon. The only thing is what the deuce am I to do with a
child of fifteen in Fenton Square?”

“Is she pretty?”

“Lord, no. Coarse, undersized little cockney, ugly as sin.”

“Anyhow,” said Herold, extinguishing his cigarette in the ash-tray,
“it's out of the question.” He rose from his chair. “Look here,” he
cried with an air of inspiration, “why not send her down to The Channel
House?”

“I'm not going to shift responsibilities on to other people's
shoulders,” John growled in his obstinate way. “This child 's my
responsibility. I 'm going to see her through somehow. As to Southcliff,
you must be crazy to suggest it. What's to prevent her, one fine
day, from getting into Stella's room and talking? My God! it would be
appalling!”

Herold agreed. He had spoken thoughtlessly.

“I should just think so,” said Risca. “The idea of such a tale of horror
being told in that room--”

The dresser entered. “Miss Mercier has just gone on, sir.”

“Well, just think out something else till I come back,” said Herold. “At
any rate, Fenton Square won't do.”

He left John to smoke and meditate among the clothes hanging up on pegs
and the framed photographs on the walls and the array of grease paints
on the dressing-table. John walked up and down the narrow space in great
perplexity of mind. Herold was right. He could not introduce Unity Blake
into lodgings, saying that he had adopted her. Landladies would not
stand it. Even if they would, what in the world could he do with her?
Could he move into a house or a flat and persuade a registry-office
to provide him with a paragon of a housekeeper? That would be more
practicable. But, even then, what did he know of the training, moral and
spiritual, necessary for a girl of fifteen? He was not going to employ
her as a servant. On that he was decided. What sort of a position she
should have he did not know; but her floor-scrubbing, dish-scraping days
were over. She should have ease of life and loving care--his own phrase
stuck in his head--especially loving care; and he was the only person in
the world who could see that she got it. She must live under his roof.
That was indisputable. But how? In lodgings or a flat? He went angrily
round and round the vicious circle.

When Herold returned, he dragged him round and round, too, until Perkins
appeared to help him to change for the third act. Then John had to stop.
He clapped on his hat. He must go and work.

“And you have n't a single suggestion to make?” he asked.

“I have one,” said Herold, fastening his shirt-studs while Perkins was
buttoning his boots. “But it's so commonplace and unromantic that you 'd
wreck the dressing-room if I made it.”

“Well, what is it?” He stood, his hand on the door-knob.

“You 've got a maiden aunt somewhere, have n't you?”

“Oh, don't talk rot!” said John. “I'm dead serious.”

And he went out and banged the door behind him. He walked the streets
furiously angry with Herold. He had gone to consult him on a baffling
problem. Herold had suggested a maiden aunt as a solution. He had but
one, his mother's sister. Her name was Gladys. What was a woman of over
fifty doing with such an idiot name? His Aunt Gladys lived at Croydon
and spent her time solving puzzles and following the newspaper accounts
of the doings of the royal family. She knew nothing. He remembered when
he was a boy at school coming home for the holidays cock-a-whoop at
having won the high jump in the school athletics sports. His Aunt
Gladys, while professing great interest, had said, “But what I don't
understand, dear, is--what do you get on to jump down from?” He had
smiled and explained, but he had felt cold in the pit of his stomach. A
futile lady. His opinion of her had not changed. In these days John was
rather an intolerant fellow.

Chance willed it, however, that when he reached Fenton Square he found
a letter which began “My dearest John” and ended “Your loving Aunt
Gladys.” And it was the letter of a very sweet-natured gentlewoman.

John sat down at his desk to work, but ideas would not come. At last
he lit his pipe, threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and
smoked till past midnight, with his heavy brows knitted in a tremendous
frown.




CHAPTER VI

THE same frown darkened Risca's brow the next day as he waited for
admittance at his Aunt Gladys's door. It was such a futile little door
to such a futile little house; he could have smashed in the former with
a blow of his fist, and he could have jumped into the latter through the
first-floor windows. With his great bulk he felt himself absurdly out
of scale. The tragedy looming huge in his mind was also absurdly out
of scale with his errand. The house was one of a row of twenty
perky, gabled, two-storied little villas, each coyly shrinking to
the farthermost limit of its tiny front garden, and each guarding the
privacy of its interior by means of muslin curtains at the windows, tied
back by ribbons, the resultant triangle of transparency being obscured
by a fat-leafed plant. The terrace bore the name of “Tregarthion
Villas,” and the one inhabited by Miss Lindon was called “The Oaks.” It
was a sham little terrace full of sham little gentilities. John hated
it. What could have induced his mother's sister to inhabit such a sphere
of flimsiness?

Flimsiness, also, met him inside, when he was shown through a
bamboo-furnished passage into a gimcrack little drawing-room. He tried
several chairs dubiously with his hand, shook his head, and seated
himself on a couch. Everything in the room seemed flimsy and futile.
He had the impression that everything save a sham spinning-wheel and a
half-solved jig-saw puzzle on the little table was draped in muslin and
tied up with pink ribbons. A decrepit black-and-tan terrier, disturbed
in his slumbers in front of the fire, barked violently. A canary in a
cage by the window sang in discordant emulation. John poised his hat and
stick on the curved and slippery satin-covered couch, and they fell with
a clatter to the floor. The frown deepened on his brow. Why had he come
to this distracting abode of mindlessness? He wished he had brought
Herold gyved and manacled. What with the dog and the canary and the
doll's-house furniture, the sensitive and fastidious one would have gone
mad. He would have gloated over his ravings. It would have served him
right.

The door opened suddenly, the draught blowing down a fan and a
photograph-frame, and Miss Lindon entered.

“My dear John, how good of you to come and see me!”

She was a fat, dumpy woman of fifty, lymphatic and, at first sight,
characterless. She lacked colour. Her eyes were light, but neither blue
nor green nor hazel; her straight hair was of the nondescript hue of
light-brown hair turning gray. Her face was fleshy and sallow, marked by
singularly few lines. She had lived a contented life, unscarred by care
and unruffled by desire. Her dreams of the possibilities of existence
did not pierce beyond the gimcrackeries of Tregarthion Villas. As
for the doings of the great world,--wars, politics, art, social
upheavals,--she bestowed on them, when they were obtruded on her notice,
the same polite and unintelligent interest as she had bestowed on her
nephew's athletic feats in the days gone by.

However, she smiled very amiably at John, and reached up to kiss him
on both cheeks, her flabby, white hands lightly resting on each
coat-sleeve. Having done this, she caught up the barking dog, who
continued to growl from the soft shelter of arm and bosom with the
vindictiveness of pampered old age.

“Naughty Dandy! I hope you were n't frightened at him, John. He never
really does bite.”

“What does he do then? Sting?” John asked with gruff sarcasm.

“Oh, no,” said Miss Lindon, round-eyed; “he 's quite harmless, I assure
you. Don't you remember Dandy? But it's a long time since you 've been
to see me, John. It must be three or four years. What have you been
doing all this time?”

Her complacency irritated him. The canary never ceased his ear-splitting
noise. The canary is a beautiful, gentle bird--stuffed; alive, he is
pestilence made vocal. Risca lost his temper.

“Surely you must know, Aunt Gladys. I 've been wandering through hell
with a pack of little devils at my heels.”

Startled, she lifted up her arms and dropped Dandy, who slithered down
her dress and sought a morose shelter under the table.

“My dear John!” she exclaimed.

“I'm very sorry; I did n't mean to use strong language,” said he,
putting his hands to his ears. “It's all that infernal canary.”

“Oh, poor Dickie! Don't you like to hear Dickie sing? He sings so
beautifully. The gas-man was here the other day and said that, if I
liked, he would enter him for a competition, and he was sure he would
get first prize. But if you don't like to hear him, dear--though I
really can't understand why--I can easily make him stop.” She drew a
white napkin from the drawer of the table on which the cage was placed
and threw it over the top. The feathered steam-whistle swallowed his din
in an angry gurgle or two and became silent “Poor Dickie, he thinks it
's a snowstorm! What were we talking about, John? Do sit down.”

John resumed his seat on the slippery couch, and Miss Lindon, having
snatched Dandy from his lair, sat by his side, depositing the dog
between them.

“You asked me what I had been doing for the last few years,” said he.

“Ah, yes. That 's why I wrote to you yesterday, dear.”

She had written to him, in fact, every month for many years, long,
foolish letters in which everything was futile save the genuine
affection underlying them, and more often than not John had taken
them as read and pitched them into the waste-paper basket. His few
perfunctory replies, however, had been treasured and neatly docketed and
pigeon-holed in the bureau in her bedroom, together with the rest of her
family archives and other precious documents. Among them was a famous
recipe for taking mulberry stains out of satin. That she prized
inordinately.

“I should n't like to drift apart from dear Ellen's boy,” she said with
a smile.

“And I should n't like to lose touch with you, my dear aunt,” said John,
with more graciousness. “And that is why I've come to see you to-day.
I've had rather a bad time lately.”

“I know--that awful case in the papers.” She shivered. “Don't let us
talk of it. You must try to forget it. I wrote to you how shocked I was.
I asked you to come and stay with me, and said I would do what I could
to comfort you. I believe in the ties of kinship, my dear, and I did n't
like to think of you bearing your trouble alone.”

“That was very kind indeed of you,” said John, who had missed the
invitation hidden away in the wilderness of the hastily scanned
sixteen-page letter. He flushed beneath his dark skin, aware of
rudeness. After all, when a lady invites you to her house, it is boorish
to ignore the offered hospitality. It is a slight for which one can
scarcely apologize. But she evidently bore him no malice.

“It was only natural on my part,” she said amiably. “I shall never
forget when poor Flossie died. You remember Flossie, don't you? She used
to look so pretty, with her blue bow in her hair, and no one will ever
persuade me that she was n't poisoned by the people next door; they were
dreadful people. I wish I could remember their name; it was something
like Blunks. Anyhow, I was inconsolable, and Mrs. Tawley asked me to
stay with her to get over it. I shall never forget how grateful I
was. I'm sure you 're looking quite poorly, John,” she added in her
inconsequent way. “Let me get you a cup of tea. It will do you good.”

John declined. He wanted to accomplish his errand, but the longer he
remained in the company of this lady devoid of the sense of values, the
more absurd did that errand seem. A less obstinate man than he would
have abandoned it, but John had made up his mind to act on Herold's
suggestion, although he mentally bespattered the suggester with varied
malediction. He rose and, making his way between the flimsy chairs and
tables, stood on the hearth-rug, his hands in his pockets. Unconsciously
he scowled at his placid and smiling aunt, who remained seated on the
couch, her helpless hands loosely folded on her lap.

“Did you ever hear of a child called Unity Blake?”

“Was that the girl--”

“Yes.”

“What an outlandish name! I often wonder how people come to give such
names to children.”

“Never mind her name, my dear aunt,” said John, gruffly. “I want to tell
you about her.”

He told her--he told her all he knew. She listened, horror-stricken,
regarding him with open mouth and streaming eyes.

“And what do you think is my duty?” asked John, abruptly.

Miss Lindon shook her head. “I 'm sure I don't know what to advise
you, dear. I 'll try to find out some kind Christian people who want a
servant.”

“I don't want any kind Christian people at all,” said John. “I'm going
to make up in ease and happiness for all the wrongs that humanity has
inflicted on her. I am going to adopt her, educate her, fill her up with
the good things of life.”

“That's very fine of you, John,” said Miss Lindon. “Some people are
as fond of their adopted children as of their own. I remember Miss
Engleshaw adopted a little child. She was four, if I remember right,
and she used to dress her so prettily. I used to go and help her choose
frocks. Really they were quite expensive. Now I come to think of
it, John, I could help you that way with little Unity. I don't think
gentlemen have much experience in choosing little girls' frocks. How old
is she?”

“Nearly sixteen,” said John.

“That's rather old,” said Miss Lindon, from whose mind this new interest
seemed to have driven the tragic side of the question. “It's a pity you
could n't have begun when she was four.”

“It is,” said John.

“Only if you had begun with her at four, you would n't be wanting to
adopt her now,” said Miss Lindon, with an illuminating flash of logic.

“Quite so,” replied John.

There was a span of silence. John mechanically drew his pipe from his
pocket, eyed it with longing, and replaced it. Miss Lindon took the aged
black-and-tan terrier in her arms and whispered to it in baby language.
She was a million leagues from divining the object of her nephew's
visit. John looked at her despairingly. Had she not a single grain of
common sense? At last he strode across the room, a Gulliver in a new
Lilliput, and sat down again by her side.

“Look here, 'Aunt Gladys,” he said desperately, “if I adopt a young
woman of sixteen, I must have another woman in the house--a lady, one
of my own family. I could n't have people saying horrid things about her
and me.”

Miss Lindon assented to the proposition. John was far too young and
good-looking (“Oh, Lord!” cried John)--yes, he was--to pose as the
father of a pretty, grown-up young woman.

“The poor child is n't pretty,” said he.

“It does n't matter,” replied Miss Lindon. “Beauty is only skin deep,
and I 've known plain people who are quite fascinating. There was
Captain Brownlow's wife--do you remember the Brownlows? Your poor mother
was so fond of them--”

“Yes, yes,” said John, impatiently. “He had wet hands, and used to mess
my face about when I was a kid. I hated it. The question is, however,
whom am I going to get to help me with Unity Blake?”

“Ah, yes, to be sure. Poor little Unity! You must bring her to see me
sometimes. Give me notice, and I 'll make her some of my cream-puffs.
Children are always so fond of them. _You_ ought to remember my
cream-puffs.”

“Good heavens!” he cried, with a gesture that set the dog barking.
“There 's no question of cream-puffs. Can't you see what I'm driving at?
I want you to come and keep house for me and help me to look after the
child.”

He rose, and his great form towered so threateningly over her that Dandy
barked at him with a toy terrier's furious and impotent rage.

“I come and live with you?” gasped Miss Lindon.

[Illustration: 0094]

“Yes,” said John, turning away and lumbering back to the fireplace. The
dog, perceiving that he had struck terror into the heart of his enemy,
dismissed him with a scornful snarl, and curled himself up by the side
of his stupefied mistress.

It was done; the proposal had been made, according to the demands of his
pig-headedness. Now that he had made it, he realized its insanity. He
contrasted this home of flim-flammeries and its lap-dogs and canaries
and old-maidish futilities with his own tobacco-saturated and
paper-littered den; this life of trivialities with his own fighting
career; this incapacity to grasp essentials with his own realization of
the conflict of world-forces. The ludicrous incongruity of a partnership
between the two of them in so fateful a business as the healing of a
human soul appealed to his somewhat dull sense of humour. The whole idea
was preposterous. In his saturnine way he laughed.

“It's rather a mad notion, is n't it?”

“I don't think so at all,” replied Miss Lindon in a most disconcertingly
matter-of-fact tone. “The only thing is that since poor papa died I've
had so little to do with gentlemen, and have forgotten their ways.
You see, dear, you have put me quite in a flutter. How do I know, for
instance, what you would like to have for breakfast? Your dear
grandpapa used to have only one egg boiled for two minutes--he was
most particular--and a piece of dry toast; whereas I well remember
Mrs. Brownlow telling me that her husband used to eat a hearty meal of
porridge and eggs and bacon, with an underdone beefsteak to follow. So
you see, dear, I have no rule which I could follow; you would have to
tell me.”

“That's quite a detail,” said John, rather touched by her unselfish,
if tangential, dealing with the proposal. “The main point is,” said he,
moving a step or two forward, “would you care to come and play propriety
for me and this daughter of misery?”

“Do you really want me to?”

“Naturally, since I 've asked you.”

She rose and came up to him. “My dear boy,” she said with wet eyes, “I
know I'm not a clever woman, and often when clever people like you talk,
I don't in the least understand what they 're talking about; but I did
love your dear mother with all my heart, and I would do anything in the
wide world for her son.”

John took her hand and looked down into her foolish, kind face, which
wore for the moment the dignity of love. “I'm afraid it will mean an
uprooting of all your habits,” said he, in a softened voice.

She smiled. “I can bring them with me,” she said cheerfully. “You won't
mind Dandy, will you? He'll soon get used to you. And as for Dickie,”
 she added, with a touch of wistfulness, “I 'm sure I can find a nice
home for him.”

John put his arm round her shoulder and gave her the kiss of a shy bear.

“My good soul,” he cried, “bring fifty million Dickies if you like.” He
laughed. “There's nothing like the song of birds for the humanizing of
the cockney child.”

He looked around and beheld the little, gimcrack room with a new vision.
After all, it was as much an expression of her individuality, and as
genuine in the eyes of the high gods, as Herold's exquisitely furnished
abode was of Herold's, or the untidy jumble of the room in Fenton Square
was of his own. And all she had to live upon was a hundred and fifty
pounds a year, and no artistic instincts or antecedents whatsoever.

“I feel a brute in asking you to give up this little place now that
you've made it so pretty,” he said.

Her face brightened at the praise. “It is pretty, is n't it?” Then she
sighed as her eyes rested fondly on her possessions. “I suppose it would
be too tiny for us all to live here.”

“I'm afraid it would,” said John. “Besides, we must live in London, on
account of my work.”

“In London?”

Miss Lindon's heart sank. She had lived in suburbs all her life, and
found Croydon--the Lord knows why--the most delectable of them all. She
had sat under Mr. Moneyfeather of Saint Michael's for many years--such
a dear, good man who preached such eloquent sermons! You could always
understand him, too, which was a great comfort. And the church was just
round the corner. In London folks had to go to church by omnibus, a most
unpleasant and possibly irreverent prelude to divine worship. Besides,
when you did get to the sacred edifice, you found yourself in a
confusing land where all the clergy, even to the humblest deacon,
were austere and remote strangers, who looked at members of their
congregation with glassy and unsympathetic eyes when they passed them
in the street. Here, in Croydon, on the contrary, when she met Mr.
Moneyfeather in public places, he held her hand and patted it and
inquired affectionately after Dandy's health. With a London vicar she
could not conceive the possibility of such privileged terms of intimacy.
London, where you did not know your next-door neighbor, and where you
took no interest in the births of babies over the way; where no one
ran in for a gossip in the mornings; where every street was a clashing,
dashing High Street.

But though her face pictured her dismay, she was too generous to
translate it into words. John never guessed her sacrifice.

“We 'll go somewhere quiet,” said he, after a while.

“We 'll go wherever you like, dear,” replied Miss Lindon, meekly, and
she rang the bell for tea.

The main point decided, they proceeded to discuss the details of the
scheme, the minds of each suffused in a misty wonder. If John had told
the simple lady that she could serve him by taking command of a cavalry
regiment, she would have agreed in her unselfish fashion, but she would
have been not a whit more perplexed at the prospect. As for John he had
the sensation of living in a fantastic dream. A child of six would have
been a more practical ally. In the course of befogged conversation,
however, it was arranged that Miss Lindon should transfer to the new
house her worldly belongings, of which she was to give him an inventory,
including Dandy and Dickie and her maid Phoebe, a most respectable
girl of Baptist upbringing, who had been cruelly jilted by a prosperous
undertaker in the neighborhood, whom, if you had seen him conducting a
funeral, you would have thought as serious and God-fearing a man as the
clergyman himself; which showed how hypocritical men could be, and how
you ought never to trust to appearances. It was also settled that, as
soon as Unity could be rescued from the guardianship of the orphanage
authorities and comfortably installed in a convalescent home by the
seaside, Miss Lindon would journey thither in order to make her ward's
acquaintance. In the meanwhile John would go house-hunting.

“Walter Herold will help me,” said John.

“That's your friend who acts, is n't it?” said Miss Lindon. “I have n't
any objection to theatres myself. In fact, I often used to go to see
Irving when I was young. You meet quite a nice class of people in the
dress-circle. But I don't think ladies ought to go on the stage. I hope
Mr. Herold won't put such an idea into Unity's head.”

“I don't think he will,” said John.

“Young girls are sometimes so flighty. My old friend Mrs. Willcox had
a daughter who went on the stage, and she married an actor, and now has
twelve children, and lives in Cheshire. I was hearing about her only the
other day. I suppose Unity will have to be taught music and drawing and
French like any other young lady.”

“We might begin,” replied John, “with more elementary accomplishments.”

“I could teach her botany,” said Miss Lindon, pensively. “I got first
prize for it at school. I still have the book in a cupboard, and I
could read it up. And I'm so glad I have kept my two volumes of pressed
flowers. It's quite easy to learn, I assure you.”

“I'm afraid, my dear,” said John, “you 'll first have to teach her to
eat and drink like a Christian, and blow her nose, and keep her face
clean.”

“Ah, that reminds me. My head's in a maze, and I can't think of
everything at once, like some clever people. What kind of soap do
gentlemen use? I 'll have to know, so as to supply you with what you
like.”

“Any old stuff that will make a lather,” said John, rising.

“But some soaps are so bad for the skin,” she objected anxiously.

“Vitriol would n't hurt my rhinoceros hide.”

He laughed, and held out his hand. Further discussion was useless.

Miss Lindon accompanied him to the front gate and watched him stride
down the perky terrace until he disappeared round the corner. Then she
went slowly into the house and uncovered the canary, who blinked at her
in oblique sullenness, and did not respond to her friendly “cheep” and
the scratching of her finger against the rails of his cage. She turned
to Dandy, who, snoring loud, was equally unresponsive. Feeling lonely
and upset, she rang the bell.

“Phoebe,” she said, when the angular and jilted maid appeared, “we are
going to keep house for my nephew, Mr. Risca, and a young lady whom
he has adopted. Will you tell me one thing? Is the lady of the house
supposed to clean the gentlemen's pipes?”

“My father is a non-smoker, as well as a teetotaler, miss,” replied
Phoebe.

“Dear me!” murmured Miss Lindon. “It's going to be a great puzzle.”




CHAPTER VII

IT was a puzzle to John as much as to the palpitating lady, and in the
maze of his puzzledom the gleam of humour that visited him during
their interview lost its way. Walter Herold's eyes, however, twinkled
maliciously when he heard John's account at once rueful and pig-headed.
Then he grew serious.

“It will be comic opera all the time. It can't be done.”

“It 's going to be done,” said John, obstinately. “There's nothing else
to do. If I were a rich man, I could work wonders with a scratch in my
cheque-book. I could hire an unexceptionable colonel's or clergyman's
widow to do the business. But I'm not. How I'm going to get the house
together, as it is, I don't know. Besides,” he added, turning with some
savageness on his friend, “if you think it a comic-opera idea, kindly
remember it was you who started it.”

Though Herold was silenced for the moment, to the back of his mind still
clung the first suggestion he had made. It was the common-sense
idea that, given a knowledge of John's relations with the Southcliff
household, would have occurred to anybody. John had it in his power to
befriend the unhappy child without trying the rash experiment of raising
her social status. Wherein lay the advantage of bringing her up as
a lady? A pampered maid in a luxurious home does not drag out the
existence of a downtrodden slave. Such have been known to smile and
sing, even to bless their stars, and finally to marry a prince in
grocer's disguise, and to live happy ever afterwards. With John's
description of the girl's dog-like eyes in his memory, Herold pictured
her as a devoted handmaiden to Stellamaris, a romantic, mediaeval
appanage of the sea-chamber. What more amazingly exquisite destiny could
await not only one bred in the gutter, but any damsel far more highly
born? Her silence as to the past could be insured under ghastly
penalties which would have no need of imagination for their appeal. That
of course would be an ultimate measure. He felt certain that a couple
presented in their relations as completing the cycle of living reality,
in contrast with that reality which the mind postulates outside its
living self, and which the system reduces to a complex practical
product of the mind, a collection of material helps subservient to the
essential forms of its activity. Knowledge and action, reciprocally
implicated, are the substance of reality; and both knowledge and
action, rising, the first, from the intuition to the concept, the
second, from the economic to the ethical will, attain the universal,
all-including values which we express by the words Beautiful, True,
Useful and Good, but only and in so far as they realize themselves
in the concrete and individual. A universal more universal than that
which is present in the individual act is inexistent, or exists only
as an impotent abstraction renouncing the concreteness and reality of
the individual, and therefore also that true universality which has
no being outside this action, this thought, this life. The soul of
the system, slowly extricating itself from the traces of naturalism
or intellectualism, which are still visible in the _Estetica_, is the
logic of the pure concept, which resolves in the concrete universal the
dualisms of nature and spirit, of fact and value, of life and thought,
and, finally, of history and philosophy. But while this logic can be
seen at work in all the parts of the system, and is, in fact, the form
towards which all Croce's thoughts seem to have constantly tended from
the time of his earliest philosophical essays, yet, to an attentive
eye, it is possible to discover the successive stages by which it
actually incorporated itself in the system. In particular, we have been
able to point to the effects of the later meditations on the philosophy
of will, on one side, on a more intimate understanding of the pure
intuition as the lyrical intuition, on the other, on the identification
of the definition with the individual judgment, and thereby on the
relations between history and philosophy. On the whole it can be said
that two apparently contrasting directions were at work within the
system itself: one reflecting Croce's mental need for clear and fine
distinctions, the other, that deep consciousness of the unity of the
real, without which all distinctions tend to solidify themselves into
dead abstractions.

If we imagine two students of Croce's philosophy, endowed with
antagonistic philosophical temperaments, the one a dialectician,
the other a mystic, we can easily conceive them as the founders of
two diametrically opposed schools of thought. The first would have
emphasized the rigorous distinctions, the formal character, the
intellectual precision of the system; he might have retained the
identification of philosophy and history, but to him these words would
have stood only for the names of two formal disciplines, and not for
the concrete life of the human spirit which is present in them. The
second would have passed lightly over the distinctions, and probably
considered them as partaking of the same unreality which belongs to
scientific or legal abstractions; and by obliterating the logical
processes without which the mind of man is unable to grasp and to
express itself, he would have taken refuge in an ineffable, though
not necessarily silent, contemplation of the underlying unity. This
hypothesis is not a criticism of Croce's philosophy; it is merely the
indication of the fact that, when the system appeared as completed,
new problems, and therefore new errors or new truths, were bound to
grow out of the elements of the system itself. And nobody was more
conscious of this fact than Croce himself, who concluded his volume on
the _Filosofia della Pratica_ by expressly warning his readers of the
inexhaustibility of thought, which is one with the infinity of reality
and of life. No philosophical system is final, because life itself
has no end. Every system of philosophy, being conditioned by life,
can do no more than solve a group of problems historically given, and
prepare the conditions for new problems and new systems. Of his own
work in relation to his readers, he conceived as of nothing more than
an instrument of work.

In these last few chapters we shall see Croce himself at work on
the new problems generated by his own system, trying "more rigidly
to eliminate the last remnants of naturalism, and to put a stronger
accent on the spiritual unity,"[1] yet constantly defending his
conception of the spirit as the unity of distinctions, especially
against the mystical tendencies of the new actual idealism. While
never, in the course of his whole life, has he limited his activity to
mere systematic thinking, during the last eleven years he has shown
a more marked tendency to return from a philosophy, which is all a
meditation of the formal problems of history, to those concrete works
of history, by which he was started on his philosophical career; to
return to them, however, with a mind in which the original uncertainty
and obscurity has given place to a definite consciousness of the nature
and purpose of history. The passage from the more philosophical to the
more historical stage is marked by the publication of a fourth volume
of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_, in which, under the title of _Teoria
e Storia della Storiografia_, he collected a number of essays written
between 1912 and 1913, containing an elaboration of the theory of
history already expounded in the _Logica_. This volume does not form
a new part of the system, but rather the natural conclusion of the
whole work, since the problem which it discusses is the one towards
which tended all his former inquiries into the forms of the spirit,
into their concrete life which is development and history, and the
consciousness of which is historical thought. But before proceeding to
analyze this final form of Croce's theory of history, we shall give a
rapid account of the rest of his intellectual activity from 1910 onward.

As during the preceding eight years, the _Critica_ continues to this
day to be the main organ of Croce's work and influence, and in the
Critica the greatest part of his writings are still published for
the first time. The general features of the Critica have remained
practically unchanged, except that his series of essays on the Italian
literature of the last fifty years (which he collected in 1914-15 in
the four volumes of _La Letteratura della Nuova Italia_) has been
followed by studies on Italian historiography from the beginning of the
nineteenth century to our day (since 1914), by essays on some of the
greatest European poets (since 1917), by notes on modern Italian and
foreign literature (since 1917), and by the Frammenti di Etica (since
1913), containing discussions of particular problems of contemporary
morality. But practically all the reviews and essays published in
the Critica and elsewhere are now being collected in the edition of
his complete works, of which a full list will be found at the end of
this volume. In 1912, for the inauguration of the Rice Institute in
Houston, Texas, he wrote his _Breviario di Estetica_, which we have
partly utilized in our exposition of his æsthetic doctrine, and which
he reprinted in 1920 in his _Nuovi Saggi di Estetica_, which also
contains his most significant philosophical essays of the last four or
five years. His _Contributo alla critica di me stesso_ ("Contribution
to the Criticism of Myself") was written in April, 1915, on the eve of
Italy's entrance into the war, and is the best essay in existence on
the development of his thought.

Of Croce's attitude during the war we shall say but a few words. He
was one of the very few European philosophers or scholars who did not
transform themselves into improvised statesmen, or into passionate
defenders of national prejudices and proclaimers of national hatreds.
Differing from the Germanized philologist, who was the type prevailing
in most universities before the war, in that he had not waited for
the war to become aware of the many weaknesses and imperfections
of modern German culture, while on the other hand he had lived for
years in true and intimate contact with the great spirits of German
Romanticism, he resisted with all his power the universal tendency of
the time to make of the contingent issues of the war a criterion of
intellectual truth and of scientific conduct. At the same time, his
temper and education reacted violently against the false ideologies of
the war, the superstructure of verbal ideals with which on all sides
cunning statesmen and naïve philosophers attempted to veil the true
nature of the conflict. Against these, he reasserted his conception
of the political life and struggles of states as manifestations of
the economic, amoral or pre-moral, activity, and of life itself as a
perpetual struggle, finding its reason and its rest in the struggle
itself. The theory of the state as justice appeared to him merely as
a theoretical error, the fortune of which lay in the opportunity it
afforded to give a convenient mask of morality to particular interests,
either of individuals or of states. The intrinsic morality of the
war he conceived as resting on its tragic reality, as reflected in
a severely historical thought, to which it appears as a moment of
that historical fate which crushes and destroys states as well as
individuals, to create from their ruins always new forms of life.

It is needless to say that for a time at least Croce shared with
Bertrand Russell and with Romain Rolland, two thinkers in many respects
very distant from him, and yet as impervious as he was to the rhetoric
of the war, the privilege of a vast unpopularity. Looking back now on
his writings which were later collected in the volume _Pagine sulla
guerra_, it is possible to discover among them many attitudes which
were justified and useful only as a reaction against the current
fallacies of the time; and also to realize that the man who speaks to
us through them is not always and only a pure philosopher, but a man
with a given complex of moral and political tastes and passions. But
this is, in a way, as it should be; in the same way, between Croce the
philosopher of æsthetics and Croce the critic of poetry, there is a
difference which is inherent in the nature of the two different forms
of intellectual activity; the philosopher is a man of understanding,
the critic a man of tastes and passions. In both cases, his ideal
has always been to make the critic or the moralist worthy of the
philosopher, his particular comprehension of history adequate to his
concept of the universal. To say that the equation is never perfect,
is only another way of saying that every particular historical problem
continually raises new problems of thought, and that Croce's thought
finds therefore in itself the motives of its own development, the
springs of its own life. Where passion and reason ultimately coincide,
the roots of the development are taken away, and death takes the place
of life.

Yet, notwithstanding these limitations, I know of no man whose thought
on the war is on the whole more acceptable to those among us who lived
through the war not as spectators, looking on it as on a vast moral
abstraction, but as humble actors, in the midst of its human reality. A
sense of collaboration between one side and the other, of being, here
as there, employed in a common task, whose meaning was much deeper
than any that had been offered to us by the national rhetoricians,--a
collaboration which happened to take the aspect of a struggle, and
imposed duties antagonistic, but of the same nature--was probably the
most usual frame of mind among the soldiers who could think; and it
existed, subconsciously, even among the unthinking ones, provided that
their duties were of a definite, concrete kind, touched them in the
deepest chords of their beings, involved the fundamental issues of life
and death. To the man who consciously faces death, there is no comfort
in wilful error; only this realization of an end that transcends all
particular ideals, because it is the end of life itself, can be worthy
of that price. You cannot willingly die for fourteen points any more
than for one point, but death which is loathsome in the drama of mere
circumstance, however adorned with brilliant rhetoric, is no longer
death but an act of life in the tragedy in which the hero is conscious
of his fate. There was no war, probably, that was ever more full than
the last one of what might be called the material of tragedy; but what
have the official celebrators done with it, they who have not feared
to desecrate, in all our countries, one at least of the concrete,
individual tragedies, in order to make of it an empty symbol, to
transform an unknown hero into abstract heroism? In some of Croce's
pages, there is a more concrete realization of the ideal tragedy of
the war than in any poem or oration that I have seen to this day.

The last years of the war found Croce at work on some of the greatest
poetical spirits of modern Europe, Ariosto, Goethe, Corneille,
Shakespeare, bringing to the understanding of their work, to this task
of concrete history, the deep consciousness of the nature of poetry,
and of the relations of poetry with life, acquired in twenty years of
philosophical meditations. Even his functions as Minister of Public
Education during the last two years did not distract him entirely from
his studies, and this year of the sixth centenary of Dante's death
was celebrated by him with the publication of _La Poesia di Dante_,
which will certainly remain as the most lasting monument raised to the
memory of the poet on this occasion. This troubled peace cannot make
him deviate from the path of his appointed labour any more than the war
could; in peace as in war, his duty is his daily task, here and to-day,
and his confidence in the morality and usefulness of that work which is
his work is as little shaken by the prophets of despair in peace, as
it was by the messiahs of the promised land who were so loud above the
turmoil of war. He is probably now noting with a smile that the same
men who talked of the war to end all wars, are now very busy preventing
our civilization from dying away; that is, building a peace in the
abstract, with programs and words, as they fought a war which was not
the war, but a phantasm of their imagination.


[Footnote 1: _Contributo_, p. 74.]




II. THE THEORY OF HISTORY


Two meanings of the word history--History as contemporary history--
History and chronicle--The spirit as history--Philology, and
philological history--Poetical and rhetorical history--Universal
history--The universality of history: history and philosophy--The
unity of thought--Philosophy as methodology--The positivity of
history--The humanity of history--Distinctions and divisions--The
history of nature.


There are two meanings to the word history, in English as well as in
other European languages; on one hand it denotes the actual doing, the
immediacy of life, on the other, the thinking that seems to follow
the doing, the consciousness of life. In a rough, approximate way, we
speak of men who make history, and of other men who think or write
history--though we are all perfectly aware of the fact that we cannot
make history without first thinking history, that the action, in other
words, follows a judgment of the situation, which is an elementary form
of historical thought, and is accompanied by its own consciousness,
which is its immediate history. In this sense, the action cannot be
materially severed from its history: the distinction between the two
is a purely formal and ideal one. And again, the thinking of history,
in the second meaning of the word, consists in making present to our
spirit, in re-living, an action or group of actions, which thus
become as actual an experience as any practical doing, a fragment
of our own life, and, ultimately, the consciousness of our own
individual experience. Thus the two meanings which stand out as sharply
contrasting when we objectify and solidify them, as an external,
chronological series of happenings, and as a formal discipline
attempting to give, in innumerable books, a description and as it were
a verbal duplicate of that series, once we examine them in the light
of our consciousness, reveal themselves merely as different aspects or
moments of the same spiritual process.

Croce's latest writings on history may be puzzling to the average
reader because this ambiguity cannot be overcome by him unless he is
willing to penetrate to the heart of Croce's doctrine, in which the
word history acquires a more pregnant and fundamental meaning. In
many of us there is a tendency to balk at any attempt at filling old
words with deeper and more precise connotations; but philosophy is
not a matter of words. A new thought will in any case alter the whole
physiognomy of our vocabulary, and to stand up for the old meanings
is as much as to refuse to think, or rather, to refuse to live. For
history as a formal discipline, for the actual writing of history,
Croce uses the word Historiography; but in his _Teoria e Storia
della Storiografia_ (Theory and History of the writing of History),
history still means both the doing and the thinking, life and the
consciousness of life, though not in the abstract distinction in which
these meanings are generally apprehended. In Croce the distinction is
also unity, and there is no doing which is not also a thinking, no life
which is not also the consciousness of life, no consciousness which is
not also the consciousness of itself. The ambiguity, some traces of
which could still be seen in the _Logica_, entirely disappears in this
fourth volume of the system, at least for the reader who has followed
the whole development of Croce's thought.

We call contemporary history the history that is being made, rather
loosely including in it a more or less extended stretch of time up
to the actual present. But contemporary history rigorously ought
to be only history in the actual making, the immediate present and
the consciousness of the immediate present. All history, however,
is contemporary history in this rigorous and precise sense; it is a
condition of all history that it should live, be present in the mind
of the historian; all history springs directly from present life,
since only an interest of our present life can induce us to inquire
into the past, which, by being made history, is no longer a past but
a present. If, Croce says, "contemporaneity is not the characteristic
of one class of histories (as it is held to be, and with good reasons,
in an empirical classification), but the intrinsic character of all
history, the relation between history and life must be conceived of
as a relation of unity: not certainly in the sense of an abstract
identity, but in that of a synthetic unity, which implies both the
unity and the distinction of the terms. To speak of a history, of
which we do not possess the documents, will then seem as absurd as
to speak of the existence of a certain thing, of which we should at
the same time affirm that one of the essential conditions for its
existence is lacking. A history without relation with the document
would be an inverifiable history; and since the reality of history
lies in this verifiability, and the historical narrative in which it
realizes itself is an historical narrative only in so far as it is the
critical exposition of the document, a history of that kind, without
meaning and without truth, would be inexistent as history. How could
ever a history of painting be composed by a man who should not see and
enjoy the works of which he intends to describe critically the origin
and development? How, a history of philosophy, without the works, or
at least the fragments of the works of the philosophers? How, the
history of a feeling or a custom, for instance, of Christian humility
or of chivalresque honour, without the capacity to re-live, or rather,
without actually re-living those particular states of mind? On the
other hand, having established the indissoluble connection of life
and thought in history, the doubts that have been advanced about the
certainty and utility of history suddenly and totally disappear, and
it becomes almost impossible to understand them. How could that ever
be uncertain, which is a present product of our spirit? How could a
knowledge be useless, which solves a problem rising from the womb of
life?"[1]

If history is thus regarded not as an object but as an activity, not as
the irrevocable past but as the living present, the difference between
history and chronicle, which is one of the puzzles of historical
thought, becomes an important and significant distinction. We are used
to think that the original form of historical writing is the chronicle,
and history a later and maturer development. Now if history is the
consciousness of a present, it follows that history is contemporary
with the event; that, therefore, the most meagre chronicle, in the mind
of its writer, moved by the actuality of the facts which he records,
is already a history in the full sense of the word. And the records of
the past, whether appearing to us, from a literary point of view, as
mere chronicles or as true histories, become history again whenever
they are apprehended by a new mind as an answer to a present problem,
partaking of the activity of the mind that thinks them anew. The same
records, on the other hand, are a mere chronicle, an empty narrative,
a truly irrevocable past, whenever they are not re-lived by a living
mind, either because they do not correspond to any interest of present
life, or because the essential conditions for the recreation of that
past, the documents which enable us to revive within ourselves the
original experience, are irrevocably lost. The true distinction between
history and chronicle is not, therefore, a literary or material one,
but a distinction between forms of spiritual activity: history is the
living consciousness, and, therefore, an act of thought or knowledge;
chronicle is the dead record, which we preserve by a mere act of will,
because we know that some day the dead record itself may come back to
life, transform itself again, under an impulse rooted not in the past
but in the present, into a living thought.

"These revivals have purely inward motives; and no amount of narratives
or documents can produce them; on the contrary, it is the inner motive
that gathers and brings before itself documents and narratives,
which, without it, would remain dispersed and inert. And it will be
for ever impossible to understand the effectual process of historical
thought, unless one starts from the principle that the spirit itself
is history, and, in every one of its moments, the maker of history
and at the same time the result of all foregoing history; so that the
spirit carries within itself the whole of its history, which in fact
coincides with the spirit itself. To forget one aspect of history
and to remember another is nothing but the rhythm of the life of the
spirit, which works by determining and individualizing itself, and by
in-determining and dis-individualizing the preceding determinations
and individualizations, in order to create new and richer ones. The
spirit would live over again, so to speak, its history, even without
those external objects which we call narratives and documents; but
those external objects are instruments that it fashions for itself, and
preparatory acts that it accomplishes, in order to effect that vital
interior evocation, in whose process they resolve themselves. And for
this purpose the spirit asserts and jealously preserves the 'memories
of the past.'"[2]

This practical function of the preservation of the dead documents
and records is the work of the pure scholar, of the erudite, the
archivist, the archæologist, or what might be termed philology in the
strict sense of the word. And it is a legitimate and useful function,
provided that it does not pretend to be other than it actually is, and
to substitute itself for the true process of history, by attempting to
make history with the external objects that have been confided to its
care. Philological histories are never anything but mere compilations,
learned chronicles, useful repertories; and as such, blameless; but
as histories they lack the living spirit, the creative impulse, which
alone can transform the document into history. We have only to turn our
attention to the greatest part of our modern histories of literature,
whether written by a single philologist or by a learned society, to
realize that that which is philology in them is not history, but
repertory; and the rest, which is history, is not philology, but a
vivid reaction, an act of present life, by which some at least of the
documents of the past (since some philologists are men) have suddenly
become part of the actual experience of the writer, answered his
spiritual need, stirred that which is still human in his soul. And if
a further confirmation of the philological error is needed, and of the
further errors in which it involves the philological historian, it is
sufficient to open those same literary histories at the pages in which
they attempt to explain the origins of the Renaissance. Because as
those writers make history from the sources, so they imagine that life
itself springs from material sources; and the Renaissance finds its
_causes_ in the discovery of monuments and documents of the classical
world, in the lives and travels of humanists, in the munificence of
popes and princes. It does not seem to occur to them that monuments
and manuscripts, which materially had existed in Europe during all the
so-called Dark and Middle Ages, could not have been discovered unless,
at a certain moment in the development of European civilization, the
spirit of the Western nations had not craved those particular helps
to its own life, because of motives and impulses generated by its own
actual experience; and that the mediæval clericus was not less of a
traveller than the humanist, and that the economic aspect of life can
never be intelligibly conceived as a cause of that life of which it is
but a moment. For the philological historian, the Renaissance begins
between the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth
century; but the historian _tout court_ knows that the fundamental
impulses and motives by which we empirically ally characterize that
period in the history of the human spirit were already present in the
Italy of the thirteenth century, and slowly maturing in the other
European countries long before any of the Italian humanists had come to
them as the apostles of a new creed.

If philological history is not history but pseudo-history, so are also
two other forms of so-called historical thought, poetical history and
rhetorical history. The first substitutes for the value of history,
which is thought, a purely immediate and sentimental, or æsthetic
value; it presents itself very often as a reaction to philological
history, but it falls into the opposite error, which is that of putting
the imagination in the place of the document. Rhetorical history is
that which is animated by practical ends (moralistic, nationalistic,
or other), and it really consists of two distinct elements, history
itself, and the particular end towards which the recitation of history
is directed, converging into a single practical act. Both partake of
life much more intensely than philological history; but the life of
the one is poetry, that of the other is economic or moral action. They
are, therefore, legitimate as poetry and as action, and become errors
only in so far as they are presented as history. It is important to
make this distinction as clear as possible: the actual interest which
makes history is not for Croce a sentimental or practical interest,
but an interest of thought. In the distinction of the various forms of
spiritual activity, history is not the sentimental or practical moment,
but the moment of ultimate consciousness, the reflection and not either
the intuition or the action, the thought which is consciousness of
life and not life immediate; neither art nor morality, in a word, but
philosophy, if by philosophy, we mean not a formal discipline, but
all knowledge _sub specie universalis_. The defenders of rhetorical
history have become more frequent during and after the war than they
were before it, it being only too natural that in times of exceptional
stress truth should be made subservient to practical ends, and the man
of knowledge should be unwittingly transmogrified into a man of action;
and they insist more than ever on the moral efficacy of history as its
proper educational value. But "if by history we mean both that history
which is thought, and those that are poetry, philology or moral will,
it is clear that 'history' will enter into the educational process not
under one only, but under all these forms; though as history proper,
under one only, which is not that of moral education, exclusively
and abstractly considered, but of the education or development of
thought."[3]

The conception of history as contemporary history, or present thought,
helps us to discard that form of historical scepticism, or agnosticism,
which affirms that all we can know of history is but one part, and
a very small part, of the whole. If we should imagine that infinite
whole, in its infinite detail, as present for one moment to our mind,
all we could do, would be instantly to proceed to forget it, in order
to concentrate our attention on that detail only which answers to
a problem and, therefore, constitutes a living and active history.
That whole is not something of which we can affirm the existence at
any given moment, but the eternal phantasm of the thing in itself,
the limiting concept of the infinity of our doing and knowing: a
naturalistic construction similar to the external and material reality
of physical science. It is this naturalistic process that gives birth
to agnosticism, in history as in science; that is, to the affirmation
of the impossibility of knowing that which has no reality outside our
own thought, which has created, or rather posited it, for its own
purposes. A further consequence is that we must renounce the knowledge
of universal history, not as a fact, because as such it has never
existed, but as a pretence under which, in fact, we are given something
quite different. The pretence consists (and it will be well to recall
Croce's own words, written long before some recent attempts, which in
those words find their precise valuation) in "reducing within a single
frame all the facts of mankind, from its origins on earth to the
present day; or rather, since in this way history would not be truly
universal, from the origins of things or from the Creation to the end
of the world; hence a tendency to fill the abysm of prehistory or of
the origins with theological or naturalistic novels, and somehow to
outline the future, either with revelations or with prophecies, as in
the Christian universal history (which extended to the Anti-Christ and
to the universal judgment), or with forecasts, as in the universal
histories of positivism, democraticism, and socialism. Such is the
pretence; but the fact turns out to be different from the intention,
and what we get is either a more or less heterogeneous chronicle, or
a poetical history expressing some aspiration of the heart, or even a
true history, which is not universal but particular, though embracing
the life of many nations and of many epochs; and, more often, in the
same literary body we discern these divers elements, one by the side of
the other."[4]

Universal history is a utopian ideal similar to those of a universal
language, or of universal art, or of a law that should be valid for
all times; the only useful meaning of the word universal when applied
to history is that of a recommendation to enlarge the sphere of our
historical interests, and to turn from the knowledge of one time and
one people to that of the great facts and currents of history. But a
denial of the validity of universal history must not be understood as
withdrawing from history the knowledge of the universal. The reader who
has followed us through the preceding chapters, and especially through
our analysis of the historical judgment, knows how the concreteness
and individuality of history is determined by thought, and therefore
known as a universal. History is thought, and, as such, the thought
of the universal in its concrete and particular determinations. The
object of history is never this or that poet, but poetry; not this or
that nation or epoch, but culture, civilization, progress, freedom, or
a similar word which denotes the development of the human spirit as a
whole, and is therefore a universal. It is of history, thus conceived,
of contemporary history, as opposed to the naturalistic moment
(chronicle, or philological history), that Croce asserts the identity
with philosophy: history as, the knowledge of the eternal present being
one with the thought of the eternal present, which is philosophy.
History renounces the pretence of an objective universality in the same
way as philosophy, immanent in and identical with history, abolishes
the idea of a universal philosophy: the two negations are but one,
since the closed system, the final truth, is as much a cosmological
novel as universal history is. "This tendency was implicit in Hegel's
philosophy, but contrasted within it by old prejudices, and wholly
betrayed in the execution, so that even that philosophy converted
itself into a cosmological novel; we can therefore say that that which
at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a mere presentiment,
only at the beginning of the twentieth is transforming itself into a
firm consciousness, which defies the fears of the timid, that in this
way we endanger the knowledge of the universal; maintaining that, on
the contrary, in this way only this knowledge is obtained truly and
for ever, because in a dynamic mode. History becoming actual history,
and philosophy becoming historical philosophy, have freed themselves,
one from the dread of not being able to know that which is not known
only because either it was or it will be known, and the other, from the
despair of never attaining the final truth: that is, both have freed
themselves from the phantasm of the 'thing in itself.'"[5]

This final affirmation of the unity of human thought, this
qualification of all thought as at the same time historical and
philosophical, is the last answer given by Croce to the problem
which had occupied him for the last twenty years, ever since his
first speculations on history as art. From the consideration of the
individual moment which is essential to history, he had slowly raised
himself to the contemplation of the pure universal, only to return
finally to the individual moment in which only the universal realizes
itself. And while this answer can be regarded, on the whole, as the
natural conclusion of the idealistic movement in philosophy, yet it
differs from Kant in its ultimate repudiation of the _noumenon_, from
Hegel, in that it makes it impossible to build, side by side with a
dynamic logic, a mythology of the Idea, a philosophy of history and of
nature, in which the transcendental element, eliminated already from
the logic, should find its ultimate refuge. It is to be hoped that
Croce's critics will not level against him those same criticisms that
are generally employed against Kant or Hegel, because they would be for
the most part ineffectual against a Kantian and Hegelian philosopher
who has discarded the whole of Kantian and Hegelian metaphysics.
From this standpoint, Croce is not only the heir of the idealistic,
but also of the positivistic or realistic tradition, which he has
constantly opposed, not because of its anti-metaphysical character,
but because in the external reality of the realist, in the natural or
historical philosophy of the positivist, he is unable to see anything
but naturalistic disguises of the old metaphysical entities. A realist
who should not in principle refuse to become acquainted with Croce's
thought, but honestly attempt to understand it, would probably find his
own realism purified and made more truly realistic by the experience.

A material distinction, as of formal disciplines, between history and
philosophy still survives in Croce's theory, philosophy proper being
considered as the categoric or methodological moment of history--a
distinction roughly corresponding to the one he made in his logic
between the individual judgment and the definition. But philosophy
itself is profoundly modified once we fully realize that its historical
character implies the abandonment of certain features which are
constantly associated in our minds with the idea of philosophy, because
of its early associations with mythology and the positive religions
ions. To these belong the belief in the existence of a fundamental
problem of philosophy, which remains the same throughout the history of
human thought, and of which the various philosophies are but successive
approximations to an answer; the consequent stress laid on the unity
of the system rather than on the fine and clear distinctions; the
research of an ultimate truth; and finally, the prejudice by which
the philosopher is regarded as a Buddha or priest, freed from human
passions and human illusions, resting in the pure contemplation of
a truth, which, by being tom from the soil of active life that has
borne it, cannot but wither away and become as empty and unreal as the
Buddha's own Nirvana frankly professes to be. Metaphysics to Croce is
the last incarnation of theology; and the professor of philosophy in
our universities, with a culture formed exclusively on the books of the
great philosophers of the past, unmoved by the passions and problems
of life, is but the heir of the mediæval master of theology. "A strong
advancement of philosophical culture ought to tend towards this result:
that all the students of human things, jurists, economists, moralists,
men of letters, that is, all the students of historical matters,
should become conscious and well-disciplined philosophers; and the
philosopher in general, the _purus philosophus_, should no longer find
place among the professional specifications of knowledge."[6]

We shall not follow our author in all his developments of the theory
of history. It suffices to say that these developments are obviously
but new presentations, made here and there more precise and more
coherent, of the various problems already discussed in the preceding
volumes of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_. We shall thus recognise in
Croce's criticism of the philosophy of history as a special discipline,
distinct both from history as such and from a so-called general
philosophy, his polemic against transcendence, either metaphysical
or naturalistic; and in his claim for the positivity of history, his
theory of value, by which the only real values are the positive ones,
coinciding with the fact, while negative values are but expressions
of feelings and desires. In the light of this theory, since history
is obviously concerned with that which is, and not with that which is
not, the limits of historical judgment are clearly established, in the
way in which we saw them established for literary criticism. As the
literary critic is never concerned with anything but with expression,
or art, or beauty, non-expression, non-art, non-beauty being as such
inexistent, and truly existent only as manifestations of the logical
or practical activity of man; so the historian at large will never
meet negative values, but positive facts only, which assume the aspect
of ugliness, or error, or immorality, only in the dialectic process of
reality, in the creation of a higher form of life. His affirmation of
the positive fact is sufficient judgment, and it becomes an implicit
moral judgment whenever the consciousness of the historian is a moral
consciousness, without any need for him to usurp the function of the
moralist or of the judge in apportioning praise or blame on the objects
of his history.

Against the humanistic or pragmatic conception of history, which finds
the reasons and motives of history in the abstract individual, as
against the opposite view, for which the true history is only that
of the collectivity, of the institutions, of the human values, Croce
reasserts his concept of the actuality of the spirit, in regard to
which the individual is as much of an abstraction as the society or
the value which does not entirely realize itself in the fact. The
object of history is neither Pericles nor Politics, neither Sophocles
nor Tragedy, neither Plato nor Philosophy; but the universal in the
individual, that is, Politics, Tragedy, Philosophy, as Pericles,
Sophocles, and Plato, or Pericles, Sophocles, and Plato as particular
moments of Politics, of Tragedy, and of Philosophy.

As there are no special philosophical sciences, and then a general
philosophy, which should be outside or above them, but whenever we
think of reality under one of its aspects or distinctions, we think
of the whole of reality in one of its determinations, so there are no
special histories, the limits of which can be definitely stated, and
above them a general history, which would in a new form revive the myth
of universal history. We have seen how literary history, for instance,
tends inevitably to become the whole spiritual history of a nation;
and the same applies to all special histories, whether political or
moral, or philosophical. There are divisions of history, according
to the quality of the objects, to time and space, but such divisions
are mere empirical classifications, practical instruments or literary
expedients; and we can use as the foundation of such divisions even the
ideal distinctions of the fundamental forms of spiritual activity. But
when these distinctions are understood as actual distinctions of the
aspects of the spiritual life, of which we make history, then all the
other aspects will inevitably be present in the particular distinction,
once we truly apprehend it in the fulness of its relations. In this
sense, history is always special or particular, because it is only in
the special and particular that we can grasp the effectual and concrete
universality, the effectual and concrete unity.

Finally, the difference between the history of man and the history of
nature is not a difference in the object but in the method of history.
The whole of reality is spiritual reality, and nature apprehended
in its concreteness and actuality, if we are able to recreate it
within ourselves, becomes actual, concrete, contemporary history as
much as any part of human history. On the other hand, the application
of empirical and abstract concepts, the practical manipulation of
the data of human history, transforms the history of man into mere
natural history. This difference in method we have already analyzed in
studying Croce's logic, and we shall only add here that the reader of
Croce may often be tempted to regard Croce's conception of reality as
limited to the human spirit only, and therefore to give a metaphysical
interpretation to his exclusion of "nature." The correct interpretation
is a purely epistemological one, and again and again Croce insists that
in the whole of reality, which is development or life, man and nature
are but empirical and abstract distinctions. On the other hand, Croce's
interests are certainly more human than natural, and not only in the
sense in which this is true of every man; in the more precise sense
also that the effort to recreate within himself the consciousness of a
blade of grass, which he advises the historian of nature to perform,
clearly appeals to him so little, that he may even seem doubtful of its
success. The accent is continually laid, in Croce's thought, on the
history of man, and on the thought of man; to many of us, our dealings
with nature (not the dead nature of Linnæus, but the living nature of
Virgil and Shelley) would probably suggest a shifting of the accent
by which the spirituality of nature, the continuity of the dynamic
process from nature to man would become more emphatically affirmed
than it is in any of Croce's writings. We are probably touching here
on one of the possible, and probable, lines of development of Croce's
philosophy; which, however, will not become actual until the historical
problems of the living nature shall not urge Croce himself, or one of
his successors, as powerfully as the problems of human history have
moved him. At present, with very rare exceptions, the students of
the history of nature are occupied in transforming their historical
experience into classes and types and laws; but a time may come when
from the naturalistic constructions we shall be able more frequently
to recreate the life of which these are but the dead spoils, the
accumulated vestiges, by the same process by which history re-kindles
the old chronicles into new, contemporary life. That such a development
is implied in Croce's own theory of history can hardly be questioned,
though, when realized, it will undoubtedly react on more than one point
of Croce's logic.


[Footnote 1: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 5-6.]

[Footnote 2: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 15-16.]

[Footnote 3: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 35-6.]

[Footnote 4: _Teoria e Storia_, p. 46.]

[Footnote 5: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 51-2.]

[Footnote 6: _Teoria e Storia_, p. 145.]




III. CRITICISM AND HISTORY


Beyond the system--The universality of art--The discipline of
art--Poetry, prose and oratory--Classicism and impressionism--
Practical personality and poetical personality--The monographic
method in criticism--The reform of æsthetic history--Criticism as
philosophy--Sensibility and intelligence.


The identification of history and philosophy, in the form in which
we have expounded it in the preceding chapter, is the turning point
of Croce's thought; the system which in the first three volumes of
the _Filosofia dello Spirito_ had still a somewhat static and rigid
appearance, is really set to movement, animated as if by a new and
intenser life, since its implicit dynamism is made explicit in the
fourth and concluding volume. To Croce himself, the whole of his work
appears no longer as a system, but as "a series of systematizations,"
and his _Filosofia dello Spirito_, as a series of "volumes on the
problems slowly gathering in his mind since the years of his youth."
No wonder, therefore, that his later work should contain "thoughts
that break the bars of the so-called system, and give, to a close
scrutiny, new systems or new 'systematizations,' since always the whole
moves with every one of our steps." No wonder that he should feel that
he will continue to philosophize even if one day he shall abandon
"philosophy," "as this is what the unity of philosophy and history
implies: that we philosophize whenever we think, and of whatever object
and in whatever form we may think."[1] And in fact, in these last few
years, Croce has given many a severe shock to the faithful worshippers
of his system, sometimes by extending his tolerance, or even his
approval, to types of speculation apparently remote from his own, but
in which he recognises, under a radically different aspect, some of
the living impulses, and spiritual interests by which his own thought
is moved; and sometimes by developing new theories, through which
intellectual positions criticised by him at an earlier stage of his
work were reëstablished as having a new meaning and value, once they
were approached from a new and higher standpoint, partly reached by
means of that same critical process which had previously revealed them
as errors. Croce's conception of the function of error in the history
of human thought, while making him violently intolerant of actual
negative error, leads him to search painstakingly for that element of
truth which is the reality of every error; and in this respect too, his
philosophical career is as it were roughly divided into two periods,
one of critical dissolution, and the other of critical reconstruction,
respectively corresponding to the building up of the system, and to the
successive liberation from the shackles of the system itself. Croce's
name will certainly be remembered in the future, if on no other
account, as that of the only philosopher who never became the slave
of his dead thought. His coherence is never of the letter, but of the
spirit.

This last phase of Croce's thought offers greater difficulties to the
expositor than the preceding ones, partly because it is still in the
making, and therefore lacks the necessary perspective, and partly
because it is embodied not only in purely philosophical essays, but in
every page of Croce's historical and critical writings; so that very
often it would be impossible to give a clear account of it without
ample and minute reference to the underlying historical material.
The whole of Croce's thought could indeed be restated through an
exposition of Croce's historical views, and it would be an alluring
task to extract from his writings a kind of outline of the history
of mankind, considered especially in its æsthetic and philosophical
cal manifestations, and indirectly also in its moral and economic
activities; but it would take us much beyond the limits which we have
set to our labour. We shall therefore confine ourselves to examining,
in this chapter, the latest developments of Croce's æsthetics,
especially in relation with the history of art and poetry; and, in the
following and concluding one, to considering his theory of truth or of
the function of thought, in relation to other types of contemporary
thought.

We have followed the evolution, or rather the deepening, of Croce's
concept of art as pure intuition, into lyrical intuition, through
which the movement and life which might seem to have been denied to
the products of the æsthetic activity considered as a mere form of
knowledge, were recognised as intrinsically belonging to them by reason
of the very nature of that cognitive activity, and of its relations
with the practical sphere of the spirit, the states of mind, which can
be abstracted as the matter or content of the æsthetic form. Another
difficulty, however, still persisted in Croce's theory, due to the
sharp distinction between the æsthetic and the logical activity, which
reserved to the first the field of individual, to the second that of
universal knowledge--constituting a double-grade relation, in which the
æsthetic was implied by the logic activity, but not vice-versa. The
corresponding distinction of the two forms of the practical spirit,
the economic and the ethic, evolved by Croce at a maturer stage of his
speculation, establishes not only a double-grade relation, but also
a reciprocal implication. Croce's essay on _Il carattere di totalità
della espressione artistica_ (1917) is an attempt at interpreting his
first distinction in the light of the second, thereby recognising the
universal or cosmic character of art. That universality which becomes
explicit in the logical judgment is implicit in the intuition, already
identified with the category of feeling, with the concrete states of
mind, on which it imposes its form: "Since, what is a feeling or a
state of mind? is it something that can be detached from the universe
and developed by itself? have the part and the whole, the individual
and the cosmos, the finite and the infinite, any reality, one outside
the other? One may be inclined to grant that every severance and
isolation of the two terms of the relation could not be anything
but the work of abstraction, for which only there is an abstract
individuality and an abstract finite, an abstract unity and an abstract
infinite. But the pure intuition, or artistic representation, abhors
abstraction; or rather it does not even abhor it, since it knows it
not, because of its naïve or auroral cognitive character. In it, the
individual lives by the life of the whole, and the whole is in the life
of the individual; and every true artistic representation is itself and
the universe, the universe in that individual form, and that individual
form as the universe. In every accent of a poet, in every creature of
his phantasy, there is the whole of human destiny, all the hopes, the
illusions, the sorrows and the joys, all human greatness and all human
misery, the entire drama of reality, which perpetually becomes and
grows upon itself, suffering and rejoicing."[2]

This recognition of the implicit universality of the æsthetic
expression does not abolish, as it might seem to a superficial
observer, the distinction between æsthetic and logical knowledge; it
rather makes it clearer and truer. An imperfect recognition may lead
to an intellectualistic or mystic theory of art; and intellectualism
and mysticism in æsthetics remain for Croce as typical forms of error,
whether they are directed towards a confusion between intuition and
judgment, or towards a symbolical or allegorical interpretation of
art, or towards a semi-religious theory of art as the revelation of
the _Deus absconditus_. But the truth that those errors tried to
express in their imperfect formulas, is finally understood by him to
be that character of universality which belongs to every aspect and
to every fragment of the living reality. Feeling itself, or a state
of mind, partakes in its actuality of that universal character, but
when expressed in art, it retains its universality only by losing its
practical nature, and subjecting itself entirely to the form which
expresses it. Thus the æsthetic activity, because bent on realizing
its own universality, which is the perfection of its form, imposes on
the artist a morality and a discipline which cannot be identified with
practical morality, with the discipline of life. The sincerity of the'
artist is of another order than that of the practical man, though (we
can never repeat it too often) æsthetic virtues being incommensurable
with moral values, his work as an artist does not exempt him from his
duties as a man.

This further determination of the concept of expression is used by
Croce to clarify a distinction which had already been adumbrated
in the Estetica; the distinction between poetic, intellectual, and
practical expression, between the word in which the pure intuition
embodies itself, the word which is a sign or symbol of thought, and
the word which is an instrument for the awakening of the emotions, a
preparation for action. Thus the old categories of poetry, prose, and
oratory reappear, but no longer as criteria of material classification,
no longer to be identified with classes or genres of expression. They
become synonyms, respectively, of the æsthetic, the logical, and the
practical activity; to be used as instruments of literary and artistic
criticism, if the critic is willing to renounce all external helps and
material standards, and to penetrate into the "individuality of the
act, where only it is given to him to discern the different spiritual
dispositions, and what is poetry from what is not poetry. Under the
semblance of prose, in a comedy or in a novel, we may find a true and
deeply felt lyric; as under that of verse, in a tragedy or in a poem,
nothing but reflection and oratory."[3] It is easy to perceive how this
distinction will also react on Croce's theory of language as intuition
and expression, not by altering its initial position, but by offering
new means for the empirical analysis of the facts of language, the
nature of which is obviously determined by the kind of impulse which
man obeys in the individual act of expression. By the employment of
such a method, the history of language as æsthetic expression can be
qualified and illumined through the consideration of the moments in
which language ceases to be a pure act of æsthetic creation, and is
subordinated, as a symbol or instrument, to the purposes of the logical
and practical mind.

Similarly, in the history of poetry or of art, the consideration of
the logical and practical moments in the expression will help to
define and isolate that which is purely æsthetic expression, that is,
poetry and art. Croce's expressionistic theory, when thus understood,
differs both from other expressionistic theories and from the narrow
interpretations of Croce's own theory that have been given by some of
his followers and by all his adversaries. It does not, in fact, attempt
to give an æsthetic justification of art as the mere passive reception
of the transient mood; it has no sympathy for that impressionism which
transforms the artist into a reed shaken by all winds of circumstance,
legitimizing every intrusion of the practical personality in the
æsthetic production. It reduces this modern æsthetics of the immediate
feeling to an expression, not of the true spirit of what art and poetry
is being produced to-day, but of that disease, or passivity, of the
times, the first solemn document of which can be traced in Rousseau's
_Confessions_. Against it, Croce appeals to the example and the word
of a Goethe or a Leopardi, who diagnosed the disease in its inception,
and contrasted the classical naturalness and simplicity of the ancients
with the affectation and tumidity of the moderns. But the classicism
which Croce invokes is not a formal and literal ideal, limited to
certain models or standards: it is that complete idealization, which
the immediate practical data, in all times and climates, will undergo
at the hands of the true poet and artist, whether he calls himself a
romanticist or a classicist, an idealist or a realist.

Closely related with this line of thought is Croce's distinction of
the practical from the poetical personality of the artist, and of
biography from æsthetic criticism, as we find it in the essay of
_Alcune massime critiche_, and in the first chapter of his study on
Shakespeare (1919). The knowledge of the facts of an artist's life is
undoubtedly required for the purposes of biographical or practical
history; but their relation with the æsthetic personality of the artist
is not, as it is generally assumed, a relation of cause and effect.
They may have an indirect utility for the definition of the æsthetic
personality, and especially for the recognition of that which in the
works of art themselves is still purely practical, not yet stamped
with the seal of the æsthetic activity. But in the apprehension of
art, the critic must prescind from the biographical elements, because
"the artist himself has prescinded from them in the act of creation of
his work of art, which is a work of art inasmuch as it is the opposite
of the practical life, and is accomplished by the artist raising
himself above the practical plane, abandoning the greatest part of
his practical feelings, and transfiguring those even that he seems
to preserve, because putting them into new relations. The artist, as
we say, 'transcends time,' that is, the 'practical time,' and enters
the 'ideal time,' where actions do not follow actions, but the eternal
lives in the present. And he who pretends to explain the ideal time by
the practical time, the imaginative creation by the practical action,
art by biography, unwittingly denies art itself, and reduces it to
a practical business, of the same kind as eating and making love,
producing goods or fighting for a political cause."[4]

This concept of the æsthetic personality, which we find clearly
defined in Croce's most recent essays, was the guiding principle
of all his literary criticism, since the time when he started his
series of studies on modern Italian literature. He had inherited
it from De Sanctis, whose work, in so far as it is æsthetic and
not moral or political history, can be regarded as a collection of
powerful characterizations of æsthetic personalities. But, in his
first attempts in literary criticism, Croce employed it tentatively
in what then appeared to him only as the preparatory stage of his
work; beyond the individual characterizations, and once these had
been sufficiently determined, he still thought of the possibility of
a general literary history, in which these should find their place as
parts of a more complex organism of critical thought. But when he had
completed his task, in a series of remarkable essays, some of which
will have fixed for a long time to come the physiognomy of the most
notable Italian writers of the last half-century, he perceived that
he had practically exhausted the æsthetic problems which the work of
those writers presented to his mind: a general literary history of
the period could have been nothing but a new arrangement of the same
ideas and valuations contained in the individual essays. Thus the
monographic method .which he had originally adopted for convenience'
sake, justified itself in the practice of his work, or rather proved
to be the only legitimate method of literary and general artistic
history. All the vague abstractions with which modern nationalistic or
sociological histories of art and poetry are crammed, reveal themselves
ultimately as either generalizations of individual characteristics, or
concepts borrowed from the economic and moral history of a nation or
people, more or less irrelevant to the purposes of æsthetic criticism.
The true unity in the consideration of the history of art cannot be
reached by the establishment of purely external and material relations
between work and work, between artist and artist, but only by making
one's critical estimate of the individual work or artist sufficiently
vast and sufficiently deep. "Contemporaries, related or opposed to the
individual poet, his more or less partial and remote forerunners, the
moral and intellectual life of his time, and that of the times which
preceded and prepared it, these and other things are all present (now
expressed, now unexpressed) in our spirit, when we reconstruct the
dialectic of a given artistic personality. Undoubtedly, in considering
a given personality we cannot, in the same act, consider another or
many others or all others, each for itself; and psychologists call this
lack of ubiquity the 'narrowness of the threshold of consciousness,'
while they ought to call it the highest energy of the human spirit,
which sinks itself in the object that in a given moment interests it,
and does not allow itself under any condition to be diverted from it,
because in the individual it finds all that interests it, and, in a
word, the Whole."[5]

This is the purport of the essay on _La Riforma della Storia artistica
e letteraria_ (1917), and this is the method deliberately followed by
Croce in his recent essays on Ariosto, Goethe, Shakespeare, Corneille
and Dante, which ought to be studied not only as characterizations of
the various poets, of the feeling or tonality which is peculiar to each
of them and constitutes their æsthetic personality, but also as sources
for the methodology of literary criticism. To his theory Croce brings
a two-fold corroboration, first, from the observation of the fact that
it coincides with a more and more widespread tendency in both literary
and artistic history towards the monographic form, the individual
essay, as the most effectual type of criticism; and second, from the
analogy with other forms of history. All history, and not æsthetic
history only, is essentially monographic; all history is the history
of a given event or of a given custom or of a given doctrine, and all
history reaches the universal only in and through the individual. The
only obstacles to a general acceptation of this view are, on one side,
a persistent inability to distinguish art from the practical and moral
life and from philosophy, and on the other, a lack of scientific sense,
through which science is regarded not as critical research, but as a
material gathering of facts. Prospectuses, handbooks, dictionaries
and encyclopedias are not the ideal of history: they are instruments
of which we shall always make use as practical helps for the critical
research; but what is living and real thought in them is but an echo of
the actual thinking of individual problems.

All æsthetic criticism, and therefore all æsthetic history, is this
thinking of logical problems, rooted in the concrete ground of the
works of art, which are in their turn solutions of æsthetic problems.
For this the dynamic conception of the human spirit imports that every
one of its acts is a creation, or a doing, in the particular form
in which the spirit realizes itself; art, a creation, in respect to
which all spiritual antecedents assume the aspect of a given æsthetic
problem; history or philosophy, a creation on the substance of reality
presenting itself as a logical problem; and the whole sphere of the
theoretical spirit, "a theoretical _doings_ which is the perpetual
antecedent and the perpetual consequent of the practical doing."[6]
The mere recreation of the æsthetic impression given by a work of art
is not yet criticism; the critic as a mere _artifex additus artifici_
is not yet a critic, but still an artist. Criticism, like all other
history, is not feeling or intuition, but intelligence and thought.
Every history of criticism will therefore ultimately coincide with the
history of æsthetic theories, with the philosophy of art. We thus reach
again, by a new path, the identification of history with philosophy; to
which, in this particular case, the most common objection is that what
is required in a critic is much more an exquisite æsthetic sensibility
than an elaborate concept of what art is as a category of the human
mind. But the objection rests on a misunderstanding of the proper
function of criticism. What sensibility can give is but the immediate
apprehension or taste of the work of art, critically dumb in itself;
on the other hand, it is impossible to conceive of a true intelligence
of art, "without the conjoined capacity to understand the individual
works of art, because philosophy does not develop in the abstract,
but is stimulated by the acts of life and imagination, rises for the
purpose of comprehending them, and understands them by understanding
itself."[7] The mere æsthetic sensibility makes but a new artist; what
makes the critic is his philosophy. Here also, however, as during the
whole course of our inquiry, we must not identify philosophy with the
official history of philosophical disciplines, which offers a large
number of theories of æsthetics only remotely related to the concrete
works of art, to the concrete processes of æsthetic creation, but with
the whole history of human thought, with the working out of particular
problems successively presented to the intelligence of man by the
actual developments of poetry and art. The æsthetic judgment, like
every other judgment, is a synthesis of the individual intuition, or
subject, and of the universal category, or predicate; and this is but
another way of stating the identity of æsthetic criticism, as of all
forms of history, with philosophy. The critic must be endowed with a
power to give new life, within his own mind, to the intuitions of the
artist, but this is for him but the soil in which his thought must
spread its roots; it is true that without that power, no criticism
is possible, but it is equally true that no philosophy of art can
grow on any but that same soil. The ultimate test of the validity of
æsthetic thought is in its capacity to expand our sphere of æsthetic
apprehension; and pure æsthetics is but the methodological moment of
æsthetic history or criticism.


[Footnote 1: _Contributo_, pp. 79-81.]

[Footnote 2: _Nuovi Saggi, di Estetica_, p. 126.]

[Footnote 3: _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 142. Also _Conversazioni Critiche_, I,
pp. 58-63.]

[Footnote 4: _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 231.]

[Footnote 5: _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 181.]

[Footnote 6: _L'arte come Creazione_ (1918), in _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 160.]

[Footnote 7: _La Critica Letteraria come Filosofia_ (1918), in _Nuovi
Saggi_, p. 217.]




IV. VERITAS FILIA TEMPORIS


_Quid est veritas?_--Platonism, or transcendental idealism--Naturalism,
or transcendental realism--The idea of progress--Progress and truth:
evolutionism--Pragmatism--Croce's new pragmatism--The immanence of
value--The actuality of Truth--Truth as history: the function of error
and of evil--The foundations of Croce's thought.


There is one problem in the history of human thought, which, however
conscious we might be of the multiplicity and historical contingency
of philosophical problems, yet can appear to us as the ultimate or
central one, if only because it is an abstract interrogation describing
the attitude of the philosopher, and to which every concrete logical
research, every act of thought, can be reduced. It is Pilate's
question: _Quid est veritas?_ What is truth?

The question itself has no definite meaning, until it receives from the
individual thinker a definite content, which is history or experience,
and the infinite variety of the answers it has received is due to the
infinite variability of that content. But at all times man has been
urged by a passionate desire to lift his own individual answer from the
flux of life, to put it as it were over and against that experience
from which it had emerged, not as the truth of his particular problem,
but as an abstractly universal truth. It is by violently breaking the
process of thought, and hypostatizing in essence the subject of his
thought, abstracted from its object, or the object from its subject,
and both from the creative activity which produces truth, that man has
created, both in philosophy proper and in the minds of the multitude,
a double transcendence, of pure ideas, on one side, of brute matter on
the other, from which the two most common meanings of the word truth
are derived.

The Platonic idealist, for whom the actual processes of life and
thought are but shadows and remembrances of the Eternal Ideas in
the hyper-uranian space, can be assumed here as the symbol of the
transcendental idealist, for whom truth is adequation to an ideal model
existing outside the mind. The most disparate types of philosophers
belong to this herd, and among them many that commonly go under the
name of realists, since the idealist who has fixed and objectified
his ideas cannot help considering them as real essences, and dealing
with them accordingly. The Aristotelian realist, the theologian,
Hegel himself when postulating an original Logos, of which Spirit and
Nature are the temporal explication, all can be gathered together
in the goodly company of Platonists; and Platonists are to-day both
the literal followers of German idealism, and the less barbarous
among contemporary realists, who are in the habit of attributing
an independent, absolute existence to logical or mathematical
abstractions. But neither the ones nor the others seem to be in very
close contact with the spirit of the age: what they mean by truth is
not what is generally meant by truth to-day, except among those who
still cling to the myths in which that form of transcendence expressed
itself in past ages. The sturdiest, though hardly recognizable,
survivals of Platonism are relics of formalistic logic, still very
frequent in contemporary culture, and a belief in what might be called
average truth, mechanically extracted from an external and material
consensus of opinions. But with this conception of truth, we touch the
border line between idealistic and naturalistic transcendentalism.

The most common attitude of contemporary thought (and the one that is
therefore usually designated as common sense, and as such opposed to
philosophy) is a naively naturalistic one. But it would be a mistake
to regard it as a simple and spontaneous attitude, and to identify it,
for instance, with the naïve intuition of the artist, with a first
grade of knowledge as yet untroubled by logical problems. The artist's
vision is more distant from naturalism than the philosopher's concept,
since common sense, however unreflected and illogical, is in itself
a philosophy, and, though it may sound paradoxical, a transcendental
one. The artist constantly identifies himself with his object; in his
consciousness, the distinction between subject and object has not
yet arisen. But the naïve naturalism of which we are now speaking
is posterior to the logical judgment, in which that distinction
first appears; and is obtained by keeping separate the two terms of
the judgment, each of which exists only in relation to the other,
and by transforming that relation into a quality of the object. The
unity thus disrupted is artificially reconstituted by abolishing the
subject, that is, by treating the subject itself as merely an object
among many objects, or as a mere abstract intersection of objects. It
is with this form of naturalism that realism generally coincides, and
its abstracting process is the one that has been recently systematized
by the New Realists. The justification of the naturalistic conception
of truth, as truth of description, and the motive of its present
popularity, is that it rests on a method of knowledge which is
indispensable to the natural and mathematical sciences, and that the
sciences have come to usurp, in modern times, for reasons which are
obvious to every one, the place of science. It is not the less true,
however, that wherever that method is applied, it reduces the living
reality of life and thought to a heap of dead, immovable abstractions.
There is no real danger in this as long as the abstractions are taken
for what they are, and used as instruments for the purposes of our
doing and understanding; but when they are considered as a complete
equivalent of the living reality, then we become their prisoners, and
are shut out by them from all possibility of true understanding.
It is especially from the misuses of this method in the historical
and moral sciences, from the degenerations of sociology, psychology,
and philology, that we must be constantly on guard; lest in the very
sciences of the human spirit we should miss that which is their true
object, the human activity which creates the world of history and the
values of life.

Modern thought, at the end of the Renaissance, begins with an attempt
at eliminating that static conception of truth, in which both Platonism
and naturalism find the roots of their transcendence. This is the
origin of the idea of Progress, first established by Bruno, by Bacon,
by Pascal, by Vico, in the form of a correlation between truth and
time. Mediæval thought had been shackled for centuries by the authority
of the ancients; the new thinkers invoked the authority of antiquity,
of old age, and, therefore, of wisdom, not for the distant ages, in
which the world could be said to be still young and inexperienced, but
for their own times, in which it was possible to add a perpetually
new experience and thought to that which had been bequeathed by the
thinkers of Greece and Rome. The consequence of this attitude was the
discovery of the immanence of truth in life, the liberation from the
principle of authority (which had been the characteristic mediæval
form of transcendence), and a vigorous impulse towards the recognition
of the dynamic nature of reality, of what an American philosopher
called the continuity of the ideal with the real. The thought that
was contained in germ in those early polemics, vaguely and mythically
in Bruno, and much more consciously in Vico, is substantially that of
Croce's identification of philosophy with history.

We do not expect of a new philosophy that it should suddenly, as a
revelation or illumination, give us a key to all the problems of
reality, and resolve, once and forever, the so-called mystery of the
universe. If such a thing should ever happen, it would mean the end of
life, which cannot be conceived, in its ultimate essence, otherwise
than as a perpetual positing and solution of problems. It must not be
forgotten that a philosophy is the work of one man, and, therefore,
contains only the answers to the problems that are real to him.
But if we stop to consider the whole course of thought in the last
two centuries, we shall realize that the idea of Progress, in many
different and even in contrasting forms, is the one around which all
our life, theoretical and practical, has centred in modern times. And
of that idea, Croce's philosophy is the most powerful and coherent
expression that has ever appeared. It is only by considering the
whole of reality as activity, and the values of reality as coinciding
with the forms of that activity, that Progress acquires a definite
meaning: a progress which should be a constant approximation towards
a preëxistent ideal, or a material process external to ourselves,
would be a purely illusory one. In one case, our whole life would tend
towards making a duplicate of that which already is--a work, therefore,
without intrinsic worth, and without a real end; in the other, there
would be no work at all, no activity, no life.

But nothing seems more difficult to our mind than to keep together
the two ideas of progress and of truth. The natural sciences have
made a gallant attempt at assimilating the idea of progress, and at
transforming themselves, ultimately, into history. But the static
concepts of naturalism resist that assimilation, and scientific
evolutionism offers but the mechanical outline, the external processes
of progress, the evolved and not the evolving reality; that is, it
keeps its truth at the expense of its progress. This same evolutionism,
when applied to the human sciences, is obviously unable to grasp the
actuality of spiritual growth and life, and it only reproduces, in
aggravated form, the evils inherent in all naturalistic interpretations
of the spirit. Bergson's philosophy is a new evolutionism, which
succeeds much better than the old one in retaining the idea of
progress, and is, therefore, a further step towards the transformation
of science into history; but what it gains in this respect, it loses
in relation to its principle of truth, which is mythically represented
as the lowest form of consciousness, or rather as that which is below
consciousness itself.

What is vital in Bergson is his criticism of the scientific, or
naturalistic, intellect; but the intellect of man has other functions
besides those of dissecting and classifying. From a similar beginning,
that is, from the economic theory of science, derives another attempt
at conciliating progress and truth, pragmatism. In pragmatism also, the
critical element is more or less sound, but the constructive one is
weak and arbitrary. Pragmatism does not reject the truth of science,
because of its practical character; on the contrary, having recognized
that the foundation of scientific truth is economic, it proceeds
to deduce all truth from the will, and to verify it in action. The
result of this deduction is a closer connection between truth and life
than has been ever reached by any system of philosophy; but a merely
apparent one, since truth itself is thus submerged and annulled in the
immediacy of practical and passional life. The solution of the problem
of truth is obtained only by putting truth out of the question at the
beginning of the inquiry; as it is dear that for a rigid pragmatist,
there is but one truth left, and that is the truth of his theory,
which, however, cannot be verified by the theory itself, since its
usefulness is, to say the least, very doubtful.

By some of his adversaries Croce himself has been classed as a
pragmatist. It is no wonder that certain distinctions should escape
the attention of men who live to-day as exiles from distant centuries,
and whose critical sight is, therefore, not clearer then that of an
owl fluttering in the noonday sun. But the only relation that I
can think of between Croce and the pragmatists is that he advocates
an economic theory not of truth, but of error; that he finds in the
passions and practical interests of men the root of intellectual
error. The problem of the positive relations between life and thought
has been treated by him, as we know, in a very different spirit from
that of the pragmatists; and in the circle of the human spirit, the
ideal precedence is given by him, not to the practical but to the
theoretical. On the other hand, in the actual process of time, all
forms of human activity are reciprocally conditioned, and under
this respect Croce's thought can be called, and has been called by
himself, a new pragmatism, but "of a kind of which pragmatists have
never thought, or at least which they have never been able to discern
from the others, and to bring out in full relief. If life conditions
thought, we have in this fact the clearly established demonstration of
the always historically conditioned form of every thought: and not of
art only, which is always the art of a time, of a soul, of a moment,
but of philosophy also, which can solve but the problems that life
proposes. Every philosophy reflects, and cannot help reflecting, the
preoccupations, as they are called, of a determined historical moment;
not, however, in the quality of its solutions (because in this case it
would be a bad philosophy, a partisan or passional philosophy), but in
the quality of its problems. And because the problem is historical,
and the solution eternal, philosophy is at the same time contingent and
eternal, mortal and immortal, temporary and extratemporary."[1] Croce's
conception of truth is his philosophy, and it is not my intention to
summarize here what this book presents in what is already so rapid a
survey. I wish only to point again at those doctrines of his, through
which progress and truth are reconciled, without any sacrifice of the
one to the other. Truth is for Croce a universal value or category of
consciousness: its absoluteness rests on its character of universality,
but, as a universal has no real being outside its concrete actuality,
truth is nowhere if not in the individual judgment, that is, in the
mind that creates it. It is strange that this mode of its manifestation
should be considered to impair the quality of truth, while a similar
objection would hardly be raised to-day in regard to other forms of
spiritual activity. That the Beautiful is the value of the concrete,
historical productions of the æsthetic spirit, or the Good that of the
concrete, historically determined moral activity, these are concepts
common to all contemporary thought, though no one, perhaps, has as
yet expressed them as clearly as Croce. To the artist or to the
saint, reality appears at a given moment as an æsthetic or an ethical
problem; the terms of the problem are always particular, contingent,
historical; yet when the artist or the saint impresses on that reality
the seal of his own deepest personality, when he creatively reacts to
it, then the Beautiful and the Good realize themselves, as universal
values, in the individual work of art or of mercy. Our belief in the
absoluteness of the æsthetic or of the moral value is not weakened
but strengthened by our inability to fix them in formulas or codes or
standards; we see them perpetually transcending the reality in which
they express themselves, by the same process by which that reality,
which is all growth and life, transcends itself in the infinite
course of its realization. We cannot think of any number of works
of art or of mercy as exhausting the categories of the Beautiful or
of the Good. The identification of these values with the infinite
series of their individual expressions fills the soul with a sense of
reverence and responsibility towards life, that cannot be equalled
by any faith in static, immovable ideals, by which a term, however
high and remote, is set to the living spirit, no longer recognised
as the creator of its own æsthetic and moral world. To the mind that
has grasped this relation of the universal to the individual, of the
eternal to the present (and the artist or the saint grasps it in his
own unphilosophical way, to which his work or his action is witness),
the whole of reality, human and natural, appears as linked by a bond of
spiritual solidarity, moving towards the same end, engaged in the same
sacred task.

Truth is the value of the logical activity, and therefore it coincides
with the positive history of human thought. Its actuality is an
infinite progress or development, but not in the sense that the value
itself may be subject to increase or change from century to century.
At no particular point in that history is it possible to point to a
conversion from error to truth, to a total illumination or revelation.
Every single affirmation of truth, from the simplest and humblest
to the most elaborate and complex, takes possession of the whole of
reality, in the fulness of its relations; since it is manifestly
impossible to affirm the truth of one individual subject, without
implicitly determining its position in the universe. Truth, as all
other values, has no extension; it is incommensurable either with space
or with time, it is not augmented by accumulation. Degrees in truth,
and a more and a less, are inconceivable; but each act that affirms
it contains its whole, since truth itself does not live except in the
spirit that perpetually creates and recreates it. Truth belongs to the
thinking mind, that is, to reality as a logical consciousness, as life
belongs to the living body. It belongs to us, individually, in relation
to that universal consciousness, in the mode and measure of our
partaking of it: which means that however much of it we may conquer,
however constant, laborious, honest, intense our efforts towards
truth may be, yet our duty towards it will always remain infinite,
inexhaustible. The conquered truth is dead in the mind that rests in
it, that ceases its effort, as life gives place to death in the body
that no longer functions.

In a wider sense, truth belongs to every form of spiritual activity.
Beauty, utility, goodness are the truths of the artistic, the
practical, the moral mind. And in the actual life of the spirit, each
of these values represents all the others in the particular act in
which it realizes itself. This is what Croce means by his circular
conception of the spirit. And this is why what is said of one value
seems to apply without any change to the others; why, as we said
elsewhere, all universals are but one universal. Whether we call this
one Progress or Development, Spirit or Reality, Mind or Nature, we
know that our thought is grasping Life itself, not in its abstract
identity, but in its infinite actuality, that is, each time, this
life, this beauty, this action, this truth. What we aim at is not an
ecstatic absorption into the undifferentiated unity, but the finding
within ourselves of a centre of consciousness, capable of introducing
order and reason into the variegated spectacle of the natural and human
world, not from outside and from above, but from its very heart. The
truth that we seek is therefore never external to ourselves, but our
own activity, our own life, our own history.

This concept of truth as activity and as history, this activistic and
energetic philosophy, truly positive in that the course of history
appears to it as a succession of only positive acts and positive
values, is not however a blind and fatuous optimism. If it is true
that nowhere positive error or positive evil can interrupt the process
of life, that death itself does not end but fulfil it, yet from the
relations and implications of the various forms of activity arises
a real dialectic of good and evil, of truth and error, which is the
spring and motive of life. What to the purely utilitarian conscience
is the good of now and of to-day, the same conscience, awakened to a
greater light, repudiates as evil. The imaginative vision of the poet,
in which truth expresses itself, sensuous and finite, and yet pregnant
of its infinity, dissolves like mist in the sun in the clearness
of the logical concept, and is then restored in its right by the
historical and critical consciousness to which that truth is poetry.
The myths and superstitions of the old religions, dead in the letter,
are revived in the thought itself that seems to destroy them. History
is but this perpetual cycle of death and resurrection, in which what
is concrete distinction in the act transforms itself into opposition
in the process, producing the terms of a new problem and becoming the
source of the new creation. Thus the whole method of Croce's philosophy
reveals itself as directed towards a realistic conception of life, and
the distinctions within the concept are not abstract forms, but the
very structure of reality.

The professional philosopher moves always and only in the rarefied
atmosphere of the pure concept. Croce came to philosophy from art and
from economics, and he never lost contact with the elementary forms
of knowledge and of action. What might be termed as his fundamental
discoveries are his definitions of the æsthetic and of the economic
principle. On this basis the whole of his thought rests. Without a
conception of a truth which is sufficient unto itself, and yet is not
logical truth, and of a good which has its own justification, and yet
is not moral good, he would have been compelled to maintain by the side
of the concepts of truth and of goodness, error and evil as positive
realities, or to include the whole of reality within what would have
been truth and goodness in a purely verbal sense. In both cases, he
would have been unable to make his philosophy immediately adherent to
all grades of active consciousness, from the lowest to the highest,
and thereby to history. Of these discoveries the one that until now
has attracted the greatest attention is that of the pure intuition,
and of art and language as expression. But the establishment of the
economic principle, that is of the world of nature, of feeling, of
passion, as a positive grade of the spiritual process, will probably
be counted as Croce's greatest achievement, by those who shall be able
to look back on his work with an ampler perspective. It is through
it that his philosophy of the spirit, and in this philosophy, the
consciousness of our day, has taken possession of that other world, of
that persistent transcendance, which we call nature. In this direction
lies, undoubtedly, the future course of the thought of an age, to
which, in this afterglow of a great conflagration, all problems seem to
gather into the one of the subjection to its better and higher self,
the utilization for its purer purposes, of its own cumbersome economic
body, of its nature and of its passions.


[Footnote 1: Filosofia della Pratica, p. 208.]




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


Croce's Complete Works form a collection of twenty-eight volumes, in
four distinct series, published by Laterza e Figli, of Bari, who are
also the publishers of _La Critica_, and of the following collections
initiated or directed by Croce: _Scrittori d'Italia, Scrittori
Stranieri, Classici della Filosofia Moderna._

We give here a full list of the _Opere di Benedetto Croce_, adding to
the title of each volume the year of the last available edition, the
years of their composition having already been indicated in the text:

_Filosofia dello Spirito_ ("Philosophy of the Spirit"):

Vol. I, _Estetica_, 1912. (Translated under the tide of "_Æsthetic_.")

Vol. II, _Logica_, 1917. (Translated under the tide of "_Logic_.")

Vol. III, _Filosofia della Pratica_, 1915. (Translated under the tide
of "_The Philosophy of the Practical: Economics and Ethics._")

Vol. IV, _Teoria e Storia della Storiografia_, 1920. (Translated under
the tide of "_Theory and History of Historiography_" in England, and
under the ride of "_History: Its Theory and Practice_" in the United
States.)


Saggi filosofici ("_Philosophical Essays_"):

Vol. I, _Problemi di Estetica_, 1910 ("_Problems of Æsthetics._")

Vol. II, _La Filosofia di Giambattista Fico_, 1911. (Translated under
the title of "_The Philosophy of Vico._")

Vol. III, _Saggio sullo Hegel_, 1913. ("_Essay on Hegel_," followed
by essays on the history of philosophy; the essay on Hegel translated
under the tide of "What Is Living and What Is Dead in the Philosophy of
Hegel.")

Vol. IV, _Materialismo Storico ed economia marxistica_, 1918.
(Translated under the title of "Historical Materialism and Marxian
Economics.")

Vol. V, _Nuovi Saggi di Estetica_, 1920. ("New Essays on Æsthetics";
contains the _Breviario di Estetica_, translated under the title of
"The Essence of Æsthetics.")

Vol. VI, _Frammenti di Etica_, 1922. ("Fragments of Ethics.")

Scritti di Storia letteraria e politica. ("Writings on Literary and
Political History"):

Vol. I, _Saggi sulla Letteratura italiana del Seicento_, 1911. ("Essays
on Italian Literature in the Seventeenth Century.")

Vol. II, _La Rivoluzione napoletana del_ 1799, 1912. ("The Neapolitan
Revolution of 1799.")

Vols. III-VI, _La Letteratura della nuova Italia_, 1914-15. "(The
Literature of the New Italy.")

Vol. VII, _I Teatri di Napoli_, 1916. ("The Theatres of Naples.")

Vol. VIII, _La Spagna nella Vita italiana durante la Rinascenza_, 1917.
("Spain in Italian Life during the Renaissance.")

Vols. IX-X, _Conversazioni critiche_, 1918. ("Critical Conversations.")

Vol. XI, _Storie e leggende napoletane_, 1919. ("Historical Tales and
Legends of Naples.")

Vol. XII, Goethe, 1919.

Vol. XIII, _Una Famiglia di Patrioti_, 1919. ("A Family of Patriots";
includes essays on Francesco de Sanctis.)

Vol. XIV, _Ariosto, Shakespeare e Corneille_, 1920. (Translated under
the title of "Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille.")

Vols. XV-XVI, _Storia della Storiografia italiana_, 1920. ("The History
of Italian Historiography.")

Vol. XVII, _La Poesia di Dante_, 1921. ("The Poetry of Dante.")


_Scritti varii_. ("Miscellaneous Writings"):

Vol. I, _Primi Saggi_, 1919. ("Early Essays.")

The following volumes are not included in the Laterza edition of
Croce's works:

_Cultura e vita morale_, Bari, 1914. ("Culture and Moral Life.")
_Aneddoti e profili settecenteschi_, Palermo, 1914. ("Anecdotes and
Profiles of the Eighteenth Century.")

_Contributo alla critica di me stesso_, Naples, 1918. ("Contribution
to a Criticism of Myself"; one hundred copies printed for private
distribution.)

_Curiosità storiche_, Naples, 1920. ("Historical Curiosities.")

_Pagine Sparse_, edited by G. Castellano, Naples, 1919-1920.
("Scattered Pages," consisting of _Pagine di letteratura e di cultura_,
2 vols.; _Pagine sulla guerra_; and _Memorie, scritti biografici e
appunti storici_.)


A complete bibliography, cataloguing the whole of Croce's multifarious
activity, is outside the scope of this note. The nearest approach to it
can be found in G. Castellano's _Introduzione alle opere di B. Croce_,
Bari, 1920, which contains, besides, a full list of translations in
eight languages, a bibliography of the Italian and foreign critical
literature on Croce, and a very useful series of abstracts of
discussions and judgments on Croce's work.

Besides articles and essays in American and English magazines and
reviews, the following works of Croce have been translated into
English: the four volumes of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_, the essay
on Hegel, the _Essence of Æsthetics_, and the essays on _Ariosto,
Shakespeare, and Corneille_, by Douglas Ainslie; the essay on Vico, by
R. G. Collingwood, and the essays on Historical Materialism, by C. M.
Meredith. But the English or American student of Croce ought to rely
as little as possible on translations; the reading of the Italian text
will be found comparatively easy, on the basis of a good acquaintance
with Latin or with French. The labour entailed by the surmounting
of the first difficulties will be largely repaid by the advantages
gained in coming into direct contact with Croce's thought, and by the
acquisition of at least a reading knowledge of Italian.

For the vast critical literature on Croce, scattered through the
literary and philosophical reviews of Europe and of America during
the last twenty years, we are compelled again to refer the reader to
Castellano's book. We shall only mark out Croce's own autobiographical
notes, the Contributo listed above, which, however, having been printed
for private circulation only, is not generally accessible except in
the French translation printed in the _Revue de Métaphysique et de
Morale_, XXVI, pp. 1-40. The following are the only books which give
a general view of Croce's thought: G. Prezzolini, _Benedetto Croce_,
Naples, 1909; E. Chiocchetti, _La filosofia di B. Croce_, Florence,
1915; H. Wildon Carr, _The Philosophy of B. Croce_, London, 1917. The
first is an able, but very cursory sketch; the second examines Croce's
philosophy from the standpoint of neoscholasticism; the third is an
ample summary written by a distinguished writer well acquainted with
the various currents of modern thought. Each of them ought to be read
with a critical and discriminating eye.

In the English-speaking world, Croce's fame rests emphatically on his
æsthetics, and its applications to literary criticism. His influence
on English and American critical thought has already gone much deeper
than a mere list of writings on his theories would show; especially in
England, his ideas are, so to speak, in the air, and appear in many
writers who have no direct knowledge of his work. The best exposition
of this phase of his philosophy is to be found in E. F. Carritt's
book, _The Theory of Beauty_, 1914, chap. XIV. The writings of A. B.
Walkley, and of J. E. Spingam, contain the most vigorous prosecution
of his thought as applied, respectively, to English and to American
scholarship and criticism.

For the general history of Italian thought, to which many a reference
is made in the course of this book, the best helps, besides Croce's
essay on Vico, and B. Spaventa, _La filosofia italiana_, recently
reprinted, Bari, 1909, are the historical works of Giovanni Gentile,
and especially his _Storia della filosofia italiana_, Milano, n.
d. Gentile is one of the most profound and earnest modern European
thinkers, and it is desirable that his theoretical works, similar in
tendency to, but widely divergent in temper from those of Croce, should
become better known to the Anglo-Saxon world. Two of his books, _La
Riforma dell' Educazione_ and _Teoria generale dello Spirito_, are soon
to appear in English. Croce's judgment on Gentile's Actual Idealism is
expressed in _Una discussione tra filosofi amici_, in _Conversazioni
Critiche_, II, pp. 67-95. But a complete understanding of the vital
relations between the two thinkers can be gathered only through an
adequate knowledge of both Croce's and Gentile's work.




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MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL


      *      *      *      *      *      *

By BENNET COPPLESTONE

THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS
THE LAST OF THE GRENVILLES
JITNY AND THE BOYS
THE SILENT WATCHERS

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

      *      *      *      *      *      *


MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL

by

BENNET COPPLESTONE

Author of "The Lost Naval Papers," etc.






[Illustration: Logo]

New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue

Copyright, 1920
By E. P. Dutton & Company

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America




CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                   PAGE
    I. HIS LORDSHIP                          1

   II. MADAME TAKES CHARGE                  19

  III. THE "HUMMING TOP"                    35

   IV. IN THE SOUTH SEAS                    50

    V. WILLATOPY: PILOT                     60

   VI. A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS               79

  VII. FATHER AND SON                       94

 VIII. TOPS ISLAND                         112

   IX. WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN                125

    X. THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER      155

   XI. THE CAMPAIGN OPENS                  167

  XII. THE SAILING OF THE YAWL             183

 XIII. WHITE BLOOD                         200

  XIV. MARIE LAMBERT                       215

   XV. TURTLE                              229

  XVI. WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS           246

 XVII. FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND             263

XVIII. THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT          279

  XIX. IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA             296

   XX. MADAME REFUSES THE "HUMMING TOP"    304




MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL




CHAPTER I

HIS LORDSHIP


Madame Gilbert's war service ended when Austria fell out. She had been
in Italy busied with those obscure intrigues for the confounding of an
enemy which are excused, and dignified, as patriotic propaganda. She is
satisfied that on the Italian Front she, and those who worked with her,
really won the war.

The war satisfactorily won, Madame Gilbert sped home to revel in the
first holiday which she had known since August, 1914. She always seems
to travel with fewer restrictions and at greater speed than any except
Prime Ministers and commanding Generals. In Italy she is an Italian and
in France a Frenchwoman--a dazzling Italian and a very winning
Frenchwoman. The police of both countries make smooth her path with
their humble bodies upon which Madame is graciously pleased to trample.
"I never trouble much about passports or credentials," says she, "though
I carry them just as I do my .25 automatic pistol; in practice I find
that I need draw my papers as rarely as I draw my gun. Most of the
police and officials who have seen me once know me when I come again,
and rush to my assistance." She is never grateful for service. I do not
believe she knows the sentiment of gratitude. A poor man renders her aid
in defiance of regulations, and maybe at the risk of his neck; she
smiles upon him, and the debt is instantly discharged. He is dismissed
until perchance Madame may again have occasion for his devotion. Then
she reveals the royal accomplishment of never forgetting a face. Imagine
a harassed, weary _chef du train_, before whose official unseeing eyes
travellers flit like figures on a cinema screen, imagine such a one
addressed by name and rank by the most beautiful and gracious of mortal
women, by a woman who remembers all those little family confidences
which he had poured into her sympathetic ears some twelve months before,
by a woman who enquires sweetly after his good wife--using her pet
name--laments that the brave son--also accurately named--is still
missing beyond those impenetrable Boche lines. Will not the _chef du
train_, cooed over thus and softly patted as one pats butter, break
every French rule the most iron-bound to speed Madame upon her way? Of
course he will. In war time, as in peace time, that is the royal manner
of Madame Gilbert. She does not travel; she makes a progress.

Madame came home after the armistice with Austria, and, being discharged
of liability to the propagandist headquarters, found herself a free and
idle woman. The first time for more than four years.

She had a little money from her late husband (the real one), and had
been lavishly paid for her services during the war. War prices in London
seemed quite moderate to her after the extortions of France and Italy.
She re-occupied her old rooms near Shaftesbury Avenue--and incidentally
made homeless a pair of exiled Belgians--and fed after the fashion that
she loved in the restaurants of Soho. Madame enjoyed her food. She
always scoffed at Beauty Specialists. "Look at me," she would say. "Look
closely at my skin, at my hair, at my teeth if you like. What you see is
God's gift improved by exact care for my health. I do physical exercises
for twenty minutes every night and morning. I plunge all over into cold
water whenever I can get together enough to cover me, and I eat and
drink whatever I like. I shall go on living for just as long as I am
beautiful and healthy. When I have to think of my digestion or of the
colour of my skin, I shall say Good-bye and go West in a dream of
morphia." Superficially, Madame is a Roman Catholic; at heart she is a
Greek Pagan.

It was at La Grande Patisserie Belge that Madame stumbled across the
lawyer who was fated to introduce her to the Cannibal of whom she told
me in Whitehall.

It was a melancholy afternoon in January, peace had not brought
plenty--especially of coal--and Madame was fortifying herself against
the damp chills of London by long draughts of the hottest coffee and the
sweetest and stickiest confectionery which even she could relish. About
six feet distant, on what one may describe as her port quarter, sat a
middle-aged Englishman whose bagging clothes showed that war rations
had dealt sorely with his once ample person. Madame, who without turning
her head examined him in critical detail, judged that his loss in weight
was three stone. He had the clean, shaven face and alert aspect of a
lawyer or doctor. In fancied security a little to the left and rear of
Madame Gilbert the stranger stared openly at her cheek and ear and the
coils of bright copper hair. Madame knew that he was watching her, and
rather liked the scrutiny. She had recognized him at once, and would
have been slightly humiliated if he had failed to be interested in her.
It is true that she had met him but once before in her life, and that
some four years since, but as Madame had condescended to recollect
him--I have said that her memory for faces was royal--a failure on his
part to remember her would have been an offence unpardonable.

Madame continued to munch sweet stuff, and the man, his tea completed,
rose, paid his bill, and then passed slowly in front of her. He needed
encouragement before he would speak. So Madame gave it, a quick look and
a smile of invitation. He bowed.

"Have I not the honour to meet again the Signora Guilberti?" said he.

"The Signora Guilberti," assented Madame, "or Madame Guilbert, or Madame
Gilbert, as rendered by the rough English tongue. I have stooped to
anglicise my name," she went on, "though I hate the clipped English
version." She indicated a chair, and the lawyer--he was a lawyer--sat
down.

"Is it possible that Madame honours me with remembrance?"

"Let me place you," said she, happy in the display of her
accomplishments, "and don't seek to guide my memory. It was in the
Spring of 1915, at a reception in the garden of Devonshire House. You
were in attendance upon Her Majesty the Queen-Mother of Portugal. There
were present representatives of the Italian Red Cross, for Italy, the
land of my late husband, had ranged herself with the Allies. You are a
lawyer of the _haute noblesse_. Your clients are peers and princes, of
old princes in exile and of new peers in possession. I recall you most
distinctly, though at that time, my poor friend, you were not a little
portly, and now you are a man shrunken."

"And my name?" he asked, flattered that a beautiful woman should recall
him so distinctly.

"It is a strange name--Gatepath. An old English name redolent of the
soil. Roger Gatepath. Your firm bears no prefix of initials and no
suffix of company. You call yourselves Gatepaths. Just Gatepaths, as
though your status were territorial."

He crowed with pleasure. By an exercise in memory, Madame Gilbert had
tied him to her chariot wheels.

"Right!" cried he. "Right in every particular. You are the most
wonderful of women. For two minutes I spoke with you, and that was
nearly four years ago. I was one of a large party, an insignificant
lawyer lost in a dazzling company of titles. Yet you have remembered."

Madame left the sense of flattery to soak in. She did not spoil the
impression that she had made by explaining that she would have
remembered a lackey with just the same accuracy.

"And you, Madame?" he asked. "Have you been all these years doing war
work with the Italian Red Cross? The years have passed and left no mark
upon your face and figure. I, who comfortably filled out my clothes, am
shrunken, yet time and sorrow have spared you."

"Nevertheless, I have been pretty hard at work," said Madame briskly. "I
was present at that party ostensibly as an official of the Italian Red
Cross. In fact I was there to see that no harm befell the Royal
Personages who were in my charge. While we moved about those pleasant
grounds, chatting and sipping tea, I was watching, watching. And my hand
was never far from the butt of the Webley automatic which, slung from my
waist, was hidden in a bag of silk."

"Heavens!" he cried out. "You are...."

"Hush," interposed Madame. "A lawyer and a Gatepath should be more
discreet. The war is over, and I can tell you now that I fought every
minute of it in the Secret Service, the Civil branch. I was the head
woman, the bright particular star, in Dawson's Secret Corps."

"Is it discreet to tell me this?" he asked, countering her reproof of a
moment earlier.

She smiled rather wickedly. "Are you not a lawyer and a Gatepath? And
can one not tell anything to a lawyer and a Gatepath? Besides, I have
sent in my resignation, and am now a free woman. It has been a good
time, a very good time. I have fought devils and mastered devils in
England and France and Italy for four long years, and now I would rest.
You say that time and sorrow have spared me. Yet I have known both time
and sorrow. Have I not lost...."

He broke into a babble of apologies. "I did not know.... I did not
realise...."

She waved a hand, and he fell silent. "I do not wear the trappings of
woe, for though I am eternally widowed, I glory in my loss. It was in
the rearguard at Caporetto, when all less gallant souls had fled, that
my Guilberti fell."

Of course from that moment Gatepath was her slave. She had flattered him
and humbugged him as she flattered and humbugged all of us. Madame had
no designs against Gatepath, yet she could not forbear to triumph over
him. "One never knows," she said, "when one may need a devoted friend,
and need him badly. I always look forward."

Two or three weeks later Madame found a letter at her club signed
"Gatepaths." It was the club in Dover Street with those steep steps down
which the members tumble helplessly in frosty weather. Madame calls it
"The Club of Falling Women."

It appears that Gatepath, hunting for an adviser of ripe wisdom, had
sought out the Chief of Dawson and lately of Madame, and laid bare his
pressing troubles. The Chief is one of those rare men to whom all his
friends, and they are as the stars in number, go seeking counsel in
their crimes and follies. Nothing shocks him, nothing surprises him. And
from the depths of his wise, humorous, sympathetic mind, he will almost
always draw waters of comfort. Suppose, for example, one had slain a man
and urgently sought to dispose of the corpse--a not uncommon problem in
crowded cities--to whom could one more profitably turn than to the
Chief of His Majesty's Detective Service? Or if, in a passing fit of
absence of mind, one had wedded three wives, and the junior in rank
began to suspect the existence of one or more seniors; do we not all
suffer from lapses of memory? One does not put these problems before the
Chief as one's own--there is a decent convention in these matters--but,
of course, he knows. To know all is to pardon all, and there is very
little that the Chief does not know about you or me.

The family solicitor of peers and princes poured into the Chief's ear
the fantastic cause of his present distresses. He delivered himself of
the story in all seriousness, for it was dreadfully serious to him.
Never in all his experience, and in that of his century-old firm, had
anything so dreadfully serious occurred. The Chief controlled himself
until the end was reached, and then exploded in a yell of laughter.

"It is nothing to laugh at," grumbled Gatepath.

"Not for you, perhaps. But to my mind the situation is gorgeous. Has
this man the legal right of succession?"

"Beyond a doubt," groaned Gatepath. "His father saw to that."

"Then why not leave matters to take their legal course?" asked the
Chief, still laughing. "The House of Lords will be the better for a
shock. They are a dull lot. And your lively friend will administer the
shock all right."

Roger Gatepath spread out his hands in agony. "But it is one of the
oldest peerages in the country, as old almost as the Barony of Arundel.
Can't you see how frightful it will be for the family if this--this
person--is allowed to succeed?"

"There is no question of allowing him. If he is the legal heir he must
succeed. The family must just put him in their pipe and smoke him. What
else can they do?"

"I thought that you, with all your experience of the South, might
suggest something. Would it not be possible to buy the man off--or might
he not----"

"How can you buy him off when he is the heir? You people are nothing but
trustees, who must account to him for every penny. If he claims the
peerage and estates, you must accept him. You admit that legally he is
the heir. I can see what is in your mind, but it won't do, Gatepath, it
won't do. If you try any hanky-panky, that pretty neck of yours will
find itself in a hempen collar. Now if it was only a case for judicious
kidnapping----"

Gatepath looked around anxiously. The men were alone in a recess of the
club smoking-room. "Yes," he whispered eagerly. "Yes, go on."

"I shall not do anything of the sort. You are a nice sort of family
solicitor, Gatepath. Apart from the personal danger of playing tricks,
can't you see that your interest lies with the bouncing heir, not with
the snuffy old family? Don't be an ass. Bring him home, give the House
of Lords the sensation of their placid lives, and let the good old
British public enjoy a week of laughter. How they will bellow with joy.
And the newspapers! I can see, Gatepath, that your agreeable young heir
is going to be the Success of the Season."

"You are not very helpful," groaned Gatepath. "There must be a
solution; there must be some way of shielding the Family from this
frightful humiliation."

The interview with the Chief was a complete failure, and Gatepath parted
from his old friend both hurt and angry. He had not expected ribald
laughter in so grave a social crisis. The Chief must be a Radical, a
Socialist, even a Bolshevik, one empty of all decent political
principles.

It was on his way home that Gatepath bethought him of Madame Gilbert.
She, that beautiful, loyal-hearted woman, would not laugh. He remembered
the glitter of unshed tears in the violet eyes when she had bade him
farewell. It was his tactless hand upon the open wound of Caporetto
which had aroused those tears. He remembered also that Madame was free,
and that she had been trained to do the ruthless, unscrupulous work of
the Secret Service. She did not look either ruthless or unscrupulous,
and it was in a strictly professional sense that Gatepath connected her
will trade them with the Sinaketans. Thus the hosts from the Kula
community act as intermediaries in any trading relations between the
Sinaketans and the inhabitants of more remote districts.

To sum up the sociology of these transactions, we may say that
the visitor enters into a threefold relation with the Dobuan
natives. First, there is his partner, with whom he exchanges general
gifts on the basis of free give and take, a type of transaction,
running side by side with the Kula proper. Then there is the local
resident, not his personal Kula partner, with whom he carries on
gimwali. Finally there is the stranger with whom an indirect exchange
is carried on through the intermediation of the local men. With
all this, it must not be imagined that the commercial aspect of
the gathering is at all conspicuous. The concourse of the natives
is great, mainly owing to their curiosity, to see the ceremonial
reception of the uvalaku party. But if I say that every visitor from
Boyowa, brings and carries away about half-a-dozen articles, I do
not under-state the case. Some of these articles the Sinaketan has
acquired in the industrial districts of Boyowa during his preliminary
trading expedition (see Chapter VI, Division III). On these he scores
a definite gain. A few samples of the prices paid in Boyowa and those
received in Dobu will indicate the amount of this gain.


  Kuboma to Sinaketa.                Dobu to Sinaketa.

  1 tanepopo basket = 12 coco-nuts = 12 coco-nuts + sago + 1 belt
  1 comb            =  4 coco-nuts =  4 coco-nuts + 1 bunch of betel
  1 armlet          =  8 coco-nuts =  8 coco-nuts + 2 bundles of betel
  1 lime pot        = 12 coco-nuts = 12 coco-nuts + 2 pieces of sago


This table shows in its second column the prices paid by the
Sinaketans to the industrial villages of Kuboma, a district in the
Northern Trobriands. In the third column what they receive in Dobu
is recorded. The table has been obtained from a Sinaketan informant,
and it probably is far from accurate, and the transactions are sure
to vary greatly in the gain which they afford. There is no doubt,
however, that for each article, the Sinaketan would ask the price
which he paid for them as well as some extra article.

Thus we see that there is in this transaction a definite gain obtained
by the middlemen. The natives of Sinaketa act as intermediaries
between the industrial centres of the Trobriands and Dobu, whereas
their hosts play the same rôle between the Sinaketans and the men
from the outlying districts.

Besides trading and obtaining of Kula valuables, the natives of
Sinaketa visit their friends and their distant relatives, who, as we
saw before, are to be found in this district owing to migrations. The
visitors walk across the flat, fertile plain from one hamlet to the
other, enjoying some of the marvellous and unknown sights of this
district. They are shown the hot springs of Numanuma and of Deyde'i,
which are in constant eruption. Every few minutes, the water boils up
in one spring after another of each group, throwing up jets of spray
a few metres high. The plain around these springs is barren, with
nothing but here and there a stunted kind of eucalyptus tree. This
is the only place in the whole of Eastern New Guinea where as far
as I know, eucalyptus trees are to be found. This was at least the
information of some intelligent natives, in whose company I visited
the springs, and who had travelled all over the Eastern islands and
the East end of the mainland.

The land-locked bays and lagoons, the Northern end of Dawson Strait,
enclosed like a lake by mountains and volcanic cones, all this must
also appear strange and beautiful to the Trobrianders. In the villages,
they are entertained by their male friends, the language spoken by both
parties being that of Dobu, which differs completely from Kiriwinian,
but which the Sinaketans learn in early youth. It is remarkable that
no one in Dobu speaks Kiriwinian.

As said above, no sexual relations of any description take place
between the visitors and the women of Dobu. As one of the informants
told me:


    "We do not sleep with women of Dobu, for Dobu is the final mountain
    (Koyaviguna Dobu); it is a taboo of the mwasila magic."


But when I enquired, whether the results of breaking this taboo would
be baneful to their success in Kula only, the reply was that they were
afraid of breaking it, and that it was ordained of old (tokunabogwo
ayguri) that no man should interfere with the women of Dobu. As a
matter of fact, the Sinaketans are altogether afraid of the Dobuans,
and they would take good care not to offend them in any way.

After some three or four days' sojourn in Dobu, the Sinaketan
fleet starts on its return journey. There is no special ceremony of
farewell. In the early morning, they receive their talo'i (farewell
gifts) of food, betel-nut, objects of use and sometimes also a Kula
valuable is enclosed amongst the the talo'i. Heavily laden as they
are, they lighten their canoes by means of a magic called kaylupa,
and sail away northwards once more.









CHAPTER XV

THE JOURNEY HOME--THE FISHING AND WORKING OF THE KALOMA SHELL


I

The return journey of the Sinaketan fleet is made by following exactly
the same route as the one by which they came to Dobu. In each inhabited
island, in every village, where a halt had previously been made,
they stop again, for a day or a few hours. In the hamlets of Sanaroa,
in Tewara and in the Amphletts, the partners are revisited. Some
Kula valuables are received on the way back, and all the talo'i
gifts from those intermediate partners are also collected on the
return journey. In each of these villages people are eager to hear
about the reception which the uvalaku party have received in Dobu;
the yield in valuables is discussed, and comparisons are drawn between
the present occasion and previous records.

No magic is performed now, no ceremonial takes place, and there
would be very little indeed to say about the return journey but for
two important incidents; the fishing for spondylus shell (kaloma)
in Sanaroa Lagoon, and the display and comparison of the yield of
Kula valuables on Muwa beach.

The natives of Sinaketa, as we have seen in the last chapter, acquire
a certain amount of the Koya produce by means of trade. There are,
however, certain articles, useful yet unobtainable in the Trobriands,
and freely accessible in the Koya, and to these the Trobrianders
help themselves. The glassy forms of lava, known as obsidian, can be
found in great quantities over the slopes of the hills in Sanaroa
and Dobu. This article, in olden days, served the Trobrianders
as material for razors, scrapers, and sharp, delicate, cutting
instruments. Pumice-stone abounding in this district is collected
and carried to the Trobriands, where it is used for polishing. Red
ochre is also procured there by the visitors, and so are the hard,
basaltic stones (binabina) used for hammering and pounding and for
magical purposes. Finally, very fine silica sand, called maya, is
collected on some of the beaches, and imported into the Trobriands,
where it is used for polishing stone blades, of the kind which serve
as tokens of value and which are manufactured up to the present day.




II

But by far the most important of the articles which the Trobrianders
collect for themselves are the spondylus shells. These are freely,
though by no means easily, accessible in the coral outcrops of Sanaroa
Lagoon. It is from this shell that the small circular perforated
discs (kaloma) are made, out of which the necklaces of the Kula
are composed, and which also serve for ornamenting almost all the
articles of value or of artistic finish which are used within the
Kula district. But, only in two localities within the district are
these discs manufactured, in Sinaketa and in Vakuta, both villages in
Southern Boyowa. The shell can be found also in the Trobriand Lagoon,
facing these two villages. But the specimens found in Sanaroa are
much better in colour, and I think more easily procured. The fishing
in this latter locality, however, is done by the Sinaketans only.

Whether the fishing is done in their own Lagoon, near an uninhabited
island called Nanoula, or in Sanaroa, it is always a big, ceremonial
affair, in which the whole community takes part in a body. The
magic, or at least part of it, is done for the whole community by
the magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma), who also fixes the
dates, and conducts the ceremonial part of the proceedings. As the
spondylus shell furnishes one of the essential episodes of a Kula
expedition, a detailed account both of fishing and of manufacturing
must be here given. The native name, kaloma (in the Southern Massim
districts the word sapi-sapi is used) describes both the shell and
the manufactured discs. The shell is the large spondylus shell,
containing a crystalline layer of a red colour, varying from dirty
brick-red to a soft, raspberry pink, the latter being by far the most
prized. It lives in the cavities of coral outcrop, scattered among
shallow mud-bottomed lagoons.

This shell is, according to tradition, associated with the village
of Sinaketa. According to a Sinaketan legend, once upon a time, three
guya'u (chief) women, belonging to the Tabalu sub-clan of the Malasi
clan, wandered along, each choosing her place to settle in. The eldest
selected the village of Omarakana; the second went to Gumilababa;
the youngest settled in Sinaketa. She had kaloma discs in her basket,
and they were threaded on a long, thin stick, called viduna, such
as is used in the final stage of manufacture. She remained first
in a place called Kaybwa'u, but a dog howled, and she moved further
on. She heard again a dog howling, and she took a kaboma (wooden plate)
and went on to the fringing reef to collect shells. She found there
the momoka (white spondylus), and she exclaimed: "Oh, this is the
kaloma!" She looked closer, and said: "Oh no, you are not red. Your
name is momoka." She took then the stick with the kaloma discs and
thrust it into a hole of the reef. It stood there, but when she looked
at it, she said: "Oh, the people from inland would come and see you
and pluck you off." She went, she pulled out the stick; she went into
a canoe, and she paddled. She paddled out into the sea. She anchored
there, pulled the discs off the stick, and she threw them into the
sea so that they might come into the coral outcrop. She said: "It
is forbidden that the inland natives should take the valuables. The
people of Sinaketa only must dive." Thus only the Sinaketa people
know the magic, and how to dive.

This myth presents certain remarkable characteristics. I shall not
enter into its sociology, though it differs in that respect from
the Kiriwinian myths, in which the equality of the Sinaketan and the
Gumilababan chiefs with those of Omarakana is not acknowledged. It is
characteristic that the Malasi woman in this myth shows an aversion to
the dog, the totem animal of the Lukuba clan, a clan which according
to mythical and historical data had to recede before and yield its
priority to the Malasi (compare Chapter XII, Division IV). Another
detail of interest is that she brings the kaloma on their sticks,
as they appear in the final stage of manufacturing. In this form,
also, she tries to plant them on the reef. The finished kaloma,
however, to use the words of one of my informants, "looked at her,
the water swinging it to and fro; flashing its red eyes." And the
woman, seeing it, pulls out the too accessible and too inviting
kaloma and scatters them over the deep sea. Thus she makes them
inaccessible to the uninitiated inland villagers, and monopolises them
for Sinaketa. There can be no doubt that the villages of Vakuta have
learnt this industry from the Sinaketans. The myth is hardly known in
Vakuta, only a few are experts in diving and manufacturing; there is
a tradition about a late transference of this industry there; finally
the Vakutans have never fished for kaloma in the Sanaroa Lagoon.

Now let us describe the technicalities and the ceremonial connected
with the fishing for kaloma. It will be better to give an account
of how this is done in the Lagoon of Sinaketa, round the sandbank
of Nanoula, as this is the normal and typical form of kaloma
fishing. Moreover, when the Sinaketans do it in Sanaroa, the
proceedings are very much the same, with just one or two phases
missed out.

The office of magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma) is hereditary in
two sub-clans, belonging to the Malasi clan, and one of them is that
of the main chief of Kasi'etana. After the Monsoon season is over,
that is, some time in March or April, ogibukuvi (i.e., in the season
of the new yams) the magician gives the order for preparations. The
community give him a gift called sousula, one or two bringing a
vaygu'a, the rest supplying gugu'a (ordinary chattels), and some
food. Then they prepare the canoes, and get ready the binabina stones,
with which the spondylus shell will be knocked off the reef.

Next day, in the morning, the magician performs a rite called
'kaykwa'una la'i,' 'the attracting of the reef,' for, as in the
case of several other marine beings, the main seat of the kaloma is
far away. Its dwelling place is the reef Ketabu, somewhere between
Sanaroa and Dobu. In order to make it move and come towards Nanoula,
it is necessary to recite the above-named spell. This is done by the
magician as he walks up and down on the Sinaketa beach and casts
his words into the open, over the sea, towards the distant seat
of the kaloma. The kaloma then 'stand up' (itolise) that is start
from their original coral outcrop (vatu) and come into the Lagoon of
Sinaketa. This spell, I obtained from To'udavada, the present chief
of Kasi'etana, and descendant of the original giver of this shell,
the woman of the myth. It begins with a long list of ancestral names;
then follows a boastful picture of how the whole fleet admires the
magical success of the magician's spell. The key-word in the main part
is the word 'itolo': 'it stands up,' i.e., 'it starts,' and with this,
there are enumerated all the various classes of the kaloma shell,
differentiated according to size, colour and quality. It ends up with
another boast; "My canoe is overloaded with shell so that it sinks,"
which is repeated with varying phraseology.

This spell the magician may utter once only, or he may repeat it
several times on successive days. He fixes then the final date for the
fishing expedition. On the evening before that date, the men perform
some private magic, every one in his own house. The hammering stone,
the gabila, which is always a binabina (it is a stone imported from
the Koya), is charmed over. As a rule it is put on a piece of dried
banana leaf with some red hibiscus blossoms and leaves or flowers
of red colour. A formula is uttered over it, and the whole is then
wrapped up in the banana leaf and kept there until it is used. This
will make the stone a lucky one in hitting off many shells, and it
will make the shells very red.

Another rite of private magic consists in charming a large mussel
shell, with which, on the next morning, the body of the canoe will
be scraped. This makes the sea clear, so that the diver may easily
see and frequently find his spondylus shells.

Next morning the whole fleet starts on the expedition. Some food has
been taken into the canoes, as the fishing usually lasts for a few
days, the nights being spent on the beach of Nanoula. When the canoes
arrive at a certain point, about half-way between Sinaketa and Nanoula,
they all range themselves in a row. The canoe of the magician is at the
right flank, and he medicates a bunch of red hibiscus flowers, some
red croton leaves, and the leaves of the red-blossomed mangrove--red
coloured substances being used to make the shell red, magically. Then,
passing in front of all the other canoes, he rubs their prows with
the bundle of leaves. After that, the canoes at both ends of the
row begin to punt along, the row evolving into a circle, through
which presently the canoe of the magician passes, punting along its
diameter. At this place in the Lagoon, there is a small vatu (coral
outcrop) called Vitukwayla'i. This is called the vatu of the baloma
(spirits). At this vatu the magician's canoe stops, and he orders some
of its crew to dive down and here to begin the gathering of shells.

Some more private magic is performed later on by each canoe on its own
account. The anchor stone is charmed with some red hibiscus flowers,
in order to make the spondylus shell red. There is another private
magic called 'sweeping of the sea,' which, like the magic of the mussel
shell, mentioned above, makes the sea clear and transparent. Finally,
there is an evil magic called 'besprinkling with salt water.' If a
man does it over the others, he will annul the effects of their magic,
and frustrate their efforts, while he himself would arouse astonishment
and suspicion by the amount of shell collected. Such a man would dive
down into the water, take some brine into his mouth, and emerging,
spray it towards the other canoes, while he utters the evil charm.

So much for the magic and the ceremonial associated with the
spondylus fishing in the Trobriand Lagoon. In Sanaroa, exactly the
same proceedings take place, except that there is no attracting of
the reef, probably because they are already at the original seat
of the kaloma. Again I was told that some of the private magic
would be performed in Sinaketa before the fleet sailed on the Kula
expedition. The objects medicated would be then kept, well wrapped
in dried leaves.

It may be added that neither in the one Lagoon nor in the other are
there any private, proprietary rights to coral outcrops. The whole
community of Sinaketa have their fishing grounds in the Lagoon,
within which every man may hunt for his spondylus shell, and catch
his fish at times. If the other spondylus fishing community, the
Vakutans, encroached upon their grounds, there would be trouble,
and in olden days, fighting. Private ownership in coral outcrops
exists in the Northern villages of the Lagoon, that is in Kavataria,
and the villages on the island of Kayleula.




III

We must now follow the later stages of the kaloma industry. The
technology of the proceedings is so mixed up with remarkable
sociological and economic arrangements that it will be better to
indicate it first in its main outlines. The spondylus consists of a
shell, the size and shape of a hollowed out half of a pear, and of a
flat, small lid. It is only the first part which is worked. First
it has to be broken into pieces with a binabina or an utukema
(green stone imported from Woodlark Island) as shown on Plate L
(A). On each piece, then, can be seen the stratification of the
shell: the outside layer of soft, chalky substance; under this, the
layer of red, hard, calcareous material, and then the inmost, white,
crystalline stratum. Both the outside and inside have to be rubbed
off, but first each piece has to be roughly rounded up, so as to form
a thick circular lump. Such a lump (see foregrounds of Plates L (A),
L (B)) is then put in the hole of a cylindrical piece of wood. This
latter serves as a handle with which the lumps are rubbed on a piece
of flat sandstone (see Plate L (B)). The rubbing is carried on so far
till the outside and inside layers are gone, and there remains only a
red, flat tablet, polished on both sides. In the middle of it, a hole
is drilled through by means of a pump drill--gigi'u--(see Plate LI),
and a number of such perforated discs are then threaded on a thin,
but tough stick (see Plate LII), with which we have already met in
the myth. Then the cylindrical roll is rubbed round and round on
the flat sandstone, until its form becomes perfectly symmetrical
(see Plate LII). Thus a number of flat, circular discs, polished
all round and perforated in the middle, are produced. The breaking
and the drilling, like the diving are done exclusively by men. The
polishing is as a rule woman's work.

This technology is associated with an interesting sociological relation
between the maker and the man for whom the article is made. As has
been stated in Chapter II, one of the main features of the Trobriand
organisation consists of the mutual duties between a man and his
wife's maternal kinsmen. They have to supply him regularly with yams
at harvest time, while he gives them the present of a valuable now and
then. The manufacture of kaloma valuables in Sinaketa is very often
associated with this relationship. The Sinaketan manufacturer makes his
kutadababile (necklace of large beads) for one of his relatives-in-law,
while this latter pays him in food. In accordance with this custom, it
happens very frequently that a Sinaketan man marries a woman from one
of the agricultural inland villages, or even a woman of Kiriwina. Of
course, if he has no relatives-in-law in one of these villages, he
will have friends or distant relatives, and he will make the string
for one or the other of them. Or else he will produce one for himself,
and launch it into the Kula. But the most typical and interesting
case is, when the necklace is produced to order for a man who repays
it according to a remarkable economic system, a system similar to
the payments in instalments, which I have mentioned with regard to
canoe making. I shall give here, following closely the native text,
a translation of an account of the payments for kaloma making.


                      ACCOUNT OF THE KALOMA MAKING

    Supposing some man from inland lives in Kiriwina or in Luba
    or in one of the villages nearby; he wants a katudababile. He
    would request an expert fisherman who knows how to dive for
    kaloma. This man agrees; he dives, he dives ... till it is
    sufficient; his vataga (large folding basket) is already full,
    this man (the inlander) hears the rumour; he, the master of the
    kaloma (that is, the man for whom the necklace will be made) says:
    "Good! I shall just have a look!" He would come, he would see,
    he would not give any vakapula payment. He (here the Sinaketan
    diver is meant) would say: "Go, tomorrow, I shall break the shell,
    come here, give me vakapula." Next day, he (the inlander) would
    cook food, he would bring, he would give vakapula; he (the diver)
    would break the shell. Next day, the same. He (the inlander) would
    give the vakapula, he (the diver) would break the shell. Supposing
    the breaking is already finished, he (the diver) would say:
    "Good! already the breaking is finished, I shall polish." Next
    day, he (the inlander) would cook food, would bring bananas,
    coco-nut, betel-nut, sugar cane, would give it as vakapula;
    this man (the diver) polishes. The polishing already finished,
    he would speak: "Good! To-morrow I shall drill." This man (the
    inlander) would bring food, bananas, coco-nuts, sugar cane,
    he would give it as vakapula: it would be abundant, for soon
    already the necklace will be finished. The same, he would give a
    big vakapula on the occasion of the rounding up of the cylinder,
    for soon everything will be finished. When finished, we thread it
    on a string, we wash it. (Note the change from the third singular
    into the first plural). We give it to our wife, we blow the conch
    shell; she would go, she would carry his valuable to this man,
    our relative-in-law. Next day, he would yomelu; he would catch
    a pig, he would break off a bunch of betel-nut, he would cut
    sugar cane, bananas, he would fill the baskets with food, and
    spike the coco-nut on a multi-forked piece of wood. By-and-by
    he would bring it. Our house would be filled up. Later on we
    would make a distribution of the bananas, of the sugar cane, of
    the betel-nut. We give it to our helpers. We sit, we sit (i.e.,
    we wait); at harvest time he brings yams, he karibudaboda (he
    gives the payment of that name), the necklace. He would bring
    the food and fill out our yam house.


This narrative, like many pieces of native information, needs certain
corrections of perspective. In the first place, events here succeed one
another with a rapidity quite foreign to the extremely leisurely way in
which natives usually accomplish such a lengthy process as the making
of a katudababile. The amount of food which, in the usual manner,
is enumerated over and over again in this narrative would probably
not be exaggerated, for--such is native economy--a man who makes a
necklace to order would get about twice as much or even more for it
than it would fetch in any other transaction. On the other hand,
it must be remembered that what is represented here as the final
payment, the karibudaboda, is nothing else but the normal filling up
of the yam house, always done by a man's relations-in-law. None the
less, in a year in which a katudababile would be made, the ordinary
yearly harvest gift would be styled the 'karibudaboda payment for
the necklace.' The giving of the necklace to the wife, who afterwards
carries it to her brother or kinsman, is also characteristic of the
relation between relatives-in-law.

In Sinaketa and Vakuta only the necklaces made of bigger shell and
tapering towards the end are made. The real Kula article, in which
the discs are much thinner, smaller in diameter and even in size from
one end of the necklace to the other, these were introduced into the
Kula at other points, and I shall speak about this subject in one
of the following chapters (Chapter XXI), where the other branches of
the Kula are described.




IV

Now, having come to an end of this digression on kaloma, let us return
for another short while to our Sinaketan party, whom we have left
on the Lagoon of Sanaroa. Having obtained a sufficient amount of the
shells, they set sail, and re-visiting Tewara and Gumasila, stopping
perhaps for a night on one of the sandbanks of Pilolu, they arrive at
last in their home Lagoon. But before rejoining their people in their
villages, they stop for the last halt on Muwa. Here they make what is
called tanarere, a comparison and display of the valuables obtained
on this trip. From each canoe, a mat or two are spread on the sand
beach, and the men put their necklaces on the mat. Thus a long row of
valuables lies on the beach, and the members of the expedition walk
up and down, admire, and count them. The chiefs would, of course,
have always the greatest haul, more especially the one who has been
the toli'uvalaku on that expedition.

After this is over, they return to the village. Each canoe blows its
conch shell, a blast for each valuable that it contains. When a canoe
has obtained no vaygu'a at all, this means great shame and distress
for its members, and especially for the toliwaga. Such a canoe is
said to bisikureya, which means literally 'to keep a fast.'

On the beach all the villagers are astir. The women, who have put on
their new grass petticoats (sevata'i) specially made for this occasion,
enter the water and approach the canoes to unload them. No special
greetings pass between them and their husbands. They are interested
in the food brought from Dobu, more especially in the sago.

People from other villages assemble also in great numbers to greet the
incoming party. Those who have supplied their friends or relatives
with provisions for their journey, receive now sago, betel-nuts and
coco-nuts in repayment. Some of the welcoming crowd have come in order
to make Kula. Even from the distant districts of Luba and Kiriwina
natives will travel to Sinaketa, having a fair idea of the date of
the arrival of the Kula party from Dobu. The expedition will be talked
over, the yield counted, the recent history of the important valuables
described. But this stage leads us already into the subject of inland
Kula, which will form the subject of one of the following chapters.









CHAPTER XVI

THE RETURN VISIT OF THE DOBUANS TO SINAKETA


I

In the twelve preceding chapters, we have followed an expedition
from Sinaketa to Dobu. But branching off at almost every step from
its straight track, we studied the various associated institutions
and underlying beliefs; we quoted magical formulæ, and told
mythical stories, and thus we broke up the continuous thread of the
narrative. In this chapter, as we are already acquainted with the
customs, beliefs and institutions implied in the Kula, we are ready
to follow a straight and consecutive tale of an expedition in the
inverse direction, from Dobu to Sinaketa.

As I have seen, indeed followed, a big uvalaku expedition from
the South to the Trobriands, I shall be able to give some of the
scenes from direct impression, and not from reconstruction. Such
a reconstruction for one who has seen much of the natives' tribal
life and has a good grip over intelligent informants is neither very
difficult nor need it be fanciful at all. Indeed, towards the end
of my second visit, I had several times opportunities to check such
a reconstruction by witnessing the actual occurrence, for after my
first year's stay in the Trobriands I had written out already some
of my material. As a rule, even in minute details, my reconstructions
hardly differed from reality, as the tests have shown. None the less,
it is possible for an Ethnographer to enter into concrete details
with more conviction when he describes things actually seen.

In September, 1917, an uvalaku expedition was led by Kouta'uya
from Sinaketa to Dobu. The Vakutans joining them on the way, and the
canoes of the Amphletts following them also, some forty canoes finally
arrived at the western shore of Dawson Straits. It was arranged then
and there that a return expedition from that district should visit
Sinaketa in about six months' time. Kauyaporu, the esa'esa (headman)
of Kesora'i hamlet in the village of Bwayowa, had a pig with circular
tusks. He decided therefore to arrange an uvalaku expedition, at the
beginning of which the pig was to be killed and feasted upon and its
tusks turned into ornaments.

When, in November, 1917, I passed through the district, the preparing
of the canoes was already afoot. All of those, which still could be
repaired, had been taken to pieces and were being relashed, recaulked
and repainted. In some hamlets, new dug-outs were being scooped. After
a few months stay in the Trobriands, I went South again in March, 1918,
intending to spend some time in the Amphletts. Landing there is always
difficult, as there are no anchorages near the shore, and it is quite
impossible to disembark in rough weather at night. I arrived late in a
small cutter, and had to cruise between Gumasila and Domdom, intending
to wait till daybreak and then effect a landing. In the middle of
the night, however, a violent north-westerly squall came down, and
making a split in the main-sail, forced us to run before the wind,
southwards towards Dobu. It was on this night that the native boys
employed in the boat, saw the mulukwausi flaming up at the head of
the mast. The wind dropped before daybreak, and we entered the Lagoon
of Sanaroa, in order to repair the sail. During the three days we
stopped there, I roamed over the country, climbing its volcanic cones,
paddling up the creeks and visiting the villages scattered on the
coral plain. Everywhere I saw signs of the approaching departure for
Boyowa; the natives preparing their canoes on the beach to be loaded,
collecting food in the gardens and making sago in the jungle. At the
head of one of the creeks, in the midst of a sago swamp, there was a
long, low shelter which serves as a dwelling to Dobuan natives from
the main Island when they come to gather sago. This swamp was said
to be reserved to a certain community of Tu'utauna.

Another day I came upon a party of local natives from Sanaroa, who
were pounding sago pulp out of a palm, and sluicing it with water. A
big tree had been felled, its bark stripped in the middle of the trunk
in a large square, and the soft, fleshy interior laid open. There were
three men standing in a row before it and pounding away at it. A few
more men waited to relieve the tired ones. The pounding instruments,
half club, half adzes, had thick but not very broad blades of green
stone, of the same type as I have seen among the Mailu natives of
the South Coast. [79]

The pulp was then carried in baskets to a neighbouring stream. At
this spot there was a natural trough, one of the big, convex scales,
which form the basis of the sago leaf. In the middle of it, a sieve
was made of a piece of coco-nut spathing, a fibre which covers the
root of a coco-nut leaf, and looks at first sight exactly like a
piece of roughly woven material. Water was directed so that it flowed
into the trough at its broad end, coming out at the narrow one. The
sago pulp was put at the top, the water carried away with it the
powdered sago starch, while the wooden, husky fibres were retained
by the sieve. The starch was then carried with the water into a big
wooden canoe-shaped trough; there the heavier starch settled down,
while the water welled over the brim. When there is plenty of starch,
the water is drained off carefully and the starch is placed into
another of the trough-shaped, sago leaf bases, where it is allowed to
dry. In such receptacles it is then carried on a trading expedition,
and is thus counted as one unit of sago.

I watched the proceedings for a long time with great interest. There is
something fascinating about the big, antideluvian-looking sago palm,
so malignant and unapproachable in its unhealthy, prickly swamp,
being turned by man into food by such simple and direct methods. The
sago produced and eaten by the natives is a tough, starchy stuff, of
dirty white colour, very unpalatable. It has the consistency of rubber,
and the taste of very poor, unleavened bread. It is not clear, like
the article which is sold under the name of sago in our groceries, but
is mealy, tough, and almost elastic. The natives consider it a great
delicacy, and bake it into little cakes, or boil it into dumplings.

The main fleet of the Dobuans started some time in the second half of
March from their villages, and went first to the beach of Sarubwoyna,
where they held a ceremonial distribution of food, eguya'i, as it is
called in Dobu. Then, offering the pokala to Aturamo'a and Atu'a'ine,
they sailed by way of Sanaroa and Tewara, passing the tabooed rock
of Gurewaya to the Amphletts. The wind was light and changeable,
weak S.W. breezes prevailing. The progress of this stage of the
journey must have been very slow. The natives must have spent a
few nights on the intermediate islands and sandbanks, a few canoes'
crews camping at one spot.

At that time I had already succeeded in reaching the Amphletts, and
had been busy for two or three weeks doing ethnographic work, though
not very successfully; for, as I have already once or twice remarked,
the natives here are very bad informants. I knew of course that the
Dobuan fleet was soon to come, but as my experience had taught me to
mistrust native time-tables and fixtures of date, I did not expect
them to be punctual. In this, however, I was mistaken. On a Kula
expedition, when the dates are once fixed, the natives make real and
strenuous efforts to keep to them. In the Amphletts the people were
busy preparing for the expedition, because they had the intention of
joining the Dobuans and proceeding with them to the Trobriands. A few
canoes went to the mainland to fetch sago, pots were being mustered and
made ready for stowing away, canoes were overhauled. When the small
expedition returned from the mainland with sago, after a week or so,
a sagali (in Amphlettan: madare), that is, a ceremonial distribution
of food was held on the neighbouring island, Nabwageta.

My arrival was a very untoward event to the natives, and complicated
matters, causing great annoyance to Tovasana, the main headman. I had
landed in his own little village, Nu'agasi, on the island of Gumasila,
for it was impossible to anchor near the big village, nor would there
have been room for pitching a tent. Now, in the Amphletts, a white
man is an exceedingly rare occurrence, and to my knowledge, only once
before, a white trader remained there for a few weeks. To leave me
alone with the women and one or two old men was impossible, according
to their ideas and fears, and none of the younger men wanted to forgo
the privilege and pleasure of taking part in the expedition. At last,
I promised them to move to the neighbouring island of Nabwageta,
as soon as the men were gone, and with this they were satisfied.

As the date fixed for the arrival of the Dobuans approached, the
excitement grew. Little by little the news arrived, and was eagerly
received and conveyed to me: "Some sixty canoes of the Dobuans are
coming," "the fleet is anchored off Tewara," "each canoe is heavily
laden with food and gifts," "Kauyaporu sails in his canoe, he is
toli'uvalaku, and has a big pandanus streamer attached to the prow." A
string of other names followed which had very little meaning for me,
since I was not acquainted with the Dobuan natives. From another part
of the world, from the Trobriands, the goal of the whole expedition,
news reached us again: "To'uluwa, the chief of Kiriwina has gone
to Kitava--he will soon come back, bringing plenty of mwali." "The
Sinaketans are going there to fetch some of the mwali." "The Vakutans
have been in Kitava and brought back great numbers of mwali." It
was astonishing to hear all this news, arriving at a small island,
apparently completely isolated with its tiny population, within
these savage and little navigated seas; news only a few days old,
yet reporting events which had occurred at a travelling distance of
some hundred miles.

It was interesting to follow up the way it had come. The earlier news
about the Dobuans had been brought by the canoes, which had fetched
the sago to Gumasila from the main island. A few days later, a canoe
from one of the main island villages had arrived here, and on its
way had passed the Dobuans in Tewara. The news from the Trobriands
in the North had been brought by the Kuyawa canoe which had arrived a
couple of days before in Nabwageta (and whose visit to Nu'agasi I have
described in Chapter XI). All these movements were not accidental,
but connected with the uvalaku expedition. To show the complexity,
as well as the precise timing of the various movements and events,
so perfectly synchronised over a vast area, in connection with the
uvalaku, I have tabulated them in the Chart, facing this page, in
which almost all the dates are quite exact, being based on my own
observations. This Chart also gives a clear, synoptic picture of an
uvalaku, and it will be useful to refer to it, in reading this Chapter.

In olden days, not less than now, there must have been an ebullition
in the inter-tribal relations, and a great stirring from one place
to another, whenever an uvalaku Kula was afoot. Thus, news would
be carried rapidly over great distances, the movements of the vast
numbers of natives would be co-ordinated, and dates fixed. As has been
said already, a culminating event of an expedition, in this case the
arrival of the Dobuan fleet in Sinaketa, would be always so timed
as to happen on, or just before, a full moon, and this would serve
as a general orientation for the preliminary movements, such as in
this case, the visits of the single canoes.


                          THE PREVIOUS UVALAKU

Date

September, 1917         The expedition, led by Kouta'uya from
                        Sinaketa to Dobu.

                           PREPARATORY STAGE

Oct., 1917-Feb., 1918   Building of new canoes and repairing of old
                        ones, in the district of N.W. Dobu.
Feb.-March, 1918        Sago making, collecting of trade and food.
Middle of March         Launching, fitting and loading of the canoes;
                        preliminary magic.

                              THE SAILING

About 25th March        The Dobuan canoes start on their overseas
                        trip.
About same time         [In Boyowa: the Vakutans return from Kitava
                        with a good haul of mwali].
Same time               [In the Amphletts: preparations to sail;
                        collecting food; repairing canoes.]
About 28th March        [In Boyowa: To'uluwa returns from Kitava
                        bringing mwali.]
Same time               [In the Amphletts: news reach of the
                        approaching fleet from Dobu; of the doings in
                        Boyowa.]
29th March              [In the Amphletts: part of the canoes sail
                        ahead to Vakuta.]
31st March              The Dobuan fleet arrives in the Amphletts.
1st April               They proceed on their journey to Boyowa.
2nd April               [In the Amphletts: rest of local canoes sail
                        to Boyowa.]
Same day                [In Boyowa: the Sinaketans go to Kiriwina.]
3rd April               [In Boyowa: they return with the armshells.]

                  THE ARRIVAL OF THE DOBUANS IN BOYOWA

3rd April               The Dobuan fleet appears in Vakuta.
3rd-5th April           They receive Kula gifts, exchange presents
                        and trade in Vakuta.
6th April               Arrival of the Dobuan fleet in Sinaketa,
                        magic at the beach of Kaykuyawa, ceremonial
                        reception.
6th-10th April          The Dobuans (as well as the Amphlettans)
                        remain in Sinaketa, receiving Kula presents,
                        giving pari gifts and trading.
10th April              They all leave Sinaketa, receiving talo'i
                        (farewell) gifts. The Dobuans sail south (and
                        the Amphlettans to Kayleula and the smaller
                        Western Trobriand Islands).
10th-14th April         The Dobuans are engaged in fishing in the S.
                        Lagoon.

                             RETURN JOURNEY

14th April              They reappear in Vakuta, and receive their
                        talo'i (farewell) gifts.
15th April              They leave Vakuta.
About 20th or 21st      Tanarere (competitive display and comparison)
                        on the beach of Sarubwoyna, and return to
                        Dobu.


Indeed, from that moment, the events on and about the Amphlett Islands
moved rapidly. The day after the visit from the Kuyawan canoes, the
canoes of the main village of Gumasila sailed off to the Trobriands,
starting therefore a few days ahead of the Dobuan uvalaku fleet. I
rowed over in a dinghy to the big village, and watched the loading and
departing of the canoes. There was a bustle in the village, and even a
few old women could be seen helping the men in their tasks. The large
canoes were being pushed into the water from their supports, on which
they were beached. They had been already prepared for the journey
there, their platforms covered with plaited palm leaves, frames put
in their bottoms to support the cargo, boards placed crossways within
the canoe to serve as seats for the crew, the mast, rigging and sail
laid handy. The loading, however, begins only after the canoe is in
water. The large, trough-shaped chunks of sago were put at the bottom,
while men and women carefully brought out the big clay pots, stowing
them away with many precautions in special places in the middle
(see Plate XLVII). Then, one after the other, the canoes went off,
paddling round the southern end of the island towards the West. At
about ten o'clock in the morning, the last canoe disappeared round the
promontory, and the village remained practically empty. There was no
saying of farewells, not a trace of any emotion on the part of those
leaving or those remaining. But it must be remembered that, owing to
my presence, no women except one or two old hags, were visible on the
shore. All my best informants gone, I intended to move to Nabwageta
next morning. At sunset, I made a long excursion in my dinghy round
the western shores of Gumasila, and it was on that occasion that I
discovered all those who had left that morning on the Kula sitting on
Giyasila beach, in accordance with the Kula custom of a preliminary
halt, such as the one on Muwa described in Chapter VII.

Next morning, I left for the neighbouring island and village of
Nabwageta, and only after he saw me safely off, Tovasana and his party
left in his canoe, following the others to Vakuta. In Nabwageta, the
whole community were in the midst of their final preparations for
departure, for they intended to wait for the Dobuans and sail with
them to Kiriwina. All their canoes were being painted and renovated,
a sail was being repaired on the beach (see Plate LIII). There were
some minor distributions of food taking place in the village, the stuff
being over and over again allotted and re-allotted, smaller pieces
carved out of the big chunks and put into special wrappings. This
constant handling of food is one of the most prominent features of
tribal life in that part of the world. As I arrived, a sail for one of
the canoes was just being finished by a group of men. In another canoe,
I saw them mending the outrigger by attaching the small log of light,
dry wood to make the old, waterlogged float more buoyant. I could
also watch in detail the final trimming of the canoes, the putting
up of the additional frames, of the coco-nut mats, the making of the
little cage in the central part for the pots and for the lilava (the
sacred bundle), I was, nevertheless, not on sufficiently intimate
terms with these Nabwageta natives to be allowed to witness any of
the magic. Their system of mwasila is identical with that of Boyowa,
in fact, it is borrowed from there.

Next day--in this village again I had difficulty in finding any good
informants, a difficulty increased by the feverish occupation of all
the men--I went for a long row in the afternoon with my two 'boys,'
hoping to reach the island of Domdom. A strong current, which in this
part is at places so pronounced that it breaks out into steep, tidal
waves, made it impossible to reach our goal. Returning in the dark,
my boys suddenly grew alert and excited, like hounds picking up a
scent. I could perceive nothing in the dark, but they had discerned
two canoes moving westwards. Within about half-an-hour, a fire became
visible, twinkling on the beach of a small, deserted island South
of Domdom; evidently some Dobuans were camping there. The excitement
and intense interest shown by my boys, one a Dobuan, the other from
Sariba (Southern Massim), gave me an inkling of the magnitude of
this event--the vanguard of a big Kula fleet slowly creeping up
towards one of its intermediate halting places. It also brought
home to me vividly the inter-tribal character of this institution,
which unites in one common and strongly emotional interest so many
scattered communities. That night, as we learnt afterwards, a good
number of canoes had anchored on the outlying deserted islands of the
Amphletts, waiting for the rest of the fleet to arrive. When we came
that evening to Nabwageta, the news had already been received of the
important event, and the whole village was astir.

Next day, the weather was particularly fine and clear, with the distant
mountains wreathed only in light cumuli, their alluring outlines
designed in transparent blue. Early in the afternoon, with a blast of
conch shell, a Dobuan waga, in full paint and decoration, and with the
rich pandanus mat of the sail glowing like gold against the blue sea,
came sailing round the promontory. One after the other, at intervals
of a few minutes each, other canoes came along, all sailing up to
some hundred yards from the beach, and then, after furling the sail,
paddling towards the shore (see Plate XL). This was not a ceremonial
approach, as the aim of the expedition this time did not embrace the
Amphletts, but was directed towards the Trobriands only, Vakuta,
and Sinaketa; these canoes had put in only for an intermediate
halt. Nevertheless, it was a great event, especially as the canoes
of Nabwageta were going to join with the fleet later on. Out of the
sixty or so Dobuan canoes, only about twenty-five with some 250 men in
them had come to Nabwageta, the others having gone to the big village
of Gumasila. In any case, there were about five times as many men
gathered in the village as one usually sees. There was no Kula done
at all, no conch-shells were blown on the shore, nor do I think were
any presents given or received by either party. The men sat in groups
round their friends' houses, the most distinguished visitors collected
about the dwelling of Tobwa'ina, the main headman of Nabwageta.

Many canoes were anchored along the coast beyond the village beach,
some tucked away into small coves, others moored in sheltered
shallows. The men sat on the shore round fires, preparing their food,
which they took out of the provisions carried on the canoes. Only the
water did they obtain from the island, filling their coco-nut-made
water vessels from the springs. About a dozen canoes were actually
moored at the village beach. Late at night, I walked along the shore
to observe their sleeping arrangements. In the clear, moonlit night,
the small fires burnt with a red, subdued glow; there was always one
of them between each two sleepers, consisting of three burning sticks,
gradually pushed in as they were consumed. The men slept with the big,
stiff pandanus mats over them; each mat is folded in the middle, and
when put on the ground, forms a kind of miniature prismatic tent. All
along the beach, it was almost a continuous row of man alternating with
fire, the dun-coloured mats being nearly invisible against the sand in
the full moonlight. It must have been a very light sleep for every now
and then, a man stirred, peeping up from under his shell, re-adjusting
the fire, and casting a searching glance over the surroundings. It
would be difficult to say whether mosquitoes or cold wind or fear of
sorcery disturbed their sleep most, but I should say the last.

The next morning, early, and without any warning, the whole fleet
sailed away. At about 8 o'clock the last canoe punted towards the
offing, where they stepped their mast and hoisted their sail. There
were no farewell gifts, no conch shell blowing, and the Dobuans this
time left their resting place as they had come, without ceremony or
display. The morning after, the Nabwagetans followed them. I was left
in the village with a few cripples, the women and one or two men who
had remained perhaps to look after the village, perhaps specially to
keep watch over me and see that I did no mischief. Not one of them was
a good informant. Through a mistake of mine, I had missed the cutter
which had come two days before to the island of Gumasila and left
without me. With bad luck and bad weather, I might have had to wait
a few weeks, if not months in Nabwageta. I could perhaps have sailed
in a native canoe, but this could only be done without bedding, tent,
or even writing outfit and photographic apparatus, and so my travelling
would have been quite useless. It was a piece of great good luck that
a day or two afterwards, a motor launch, whose owner had heard about
my staying in the Amphletts, anchored in front of Nabwageta village,
and within an hour I was speeding towards the Trobriands again,
following the tracks of the Kula fleet.




II

On the next morning, as we slowly made our way along the channels
in the opalescent, green lagoon, and as I watched a fleet of small,
local canoes fishing in their muddy waters, and could recognise on
the surrounding flat shores a dozen well-known villages, my spirits
rose, and I felt well pleased to have left the picturesque, but
ethnographically barren Amphletts for the Trobriands, with their
scores of excellent informants.

Moreover, the Amphletts, in the persons of their male inhabitants
were soon to join me here. I went ashore in Sinaketa, where everybody
was full of the great moment which was soon to arrive. For the Dobuan
fleet was known to be coming, though on that morning, so far, no news
had reached them of its whereabouts. As a matter of fact, the Dobuans,
who had left Nabwageta forty-eight hours ahead of me, had made a slow
journey with light winds, and sailing a course to the East of mine,
had arrived that morning only in Vakuta.

All the rumours which had been reported to me in the Amphletts about
the previous movements of the Trobriand natives had been correct. Thus
the natives of Vakuta had really been to the East, to Kitava, and
had brought with them a big haul of armshells. To'uluwa, the chief of
Kiriwina, had visited Kitava later, and about five or six days before
had returned from there, bringing with him 213 pairs of armshells. The
Sinaketans then had gone to Kiriwina, and out of the 213 pairs had
succeeded in securing 154. As there had been previously 150 pairs
in Sinaketa, a total of 304 was awaiting the Dobuans. On the morning
of my arrival, the Sinaketan party had just returned from Kiriwina,
hurrying home so as to have everything ready for the reception of the
Dobuans. Of these, we got the news that very afternoon--news which
travelled overland from one village to another, and reached us from
Vakuta with great rapidity. We were also told that the uvalaku fleet
would be at Sinaketa within two or three days.

This period I utilised in refurbishing my information about that phase
of the Kula, which I was going to witness, and trying to get a clear
outline of every detail of all that was going soon to happen. It is
extremely important in sociological work to know well beforehand
the underlying rules and the fundamental ideas of an occurrence,
especially if big masses of natives are concerned in it. Otherwise,
the really important events may be obliterated by quite irrelevant and
accidental movements of the crowd, and thus the significance of what
he sees may be lost to the observer. No doubt if one could repeat
one's observations on the same phenomenon over and over again, the
essential and relevant features would stand out by their regularity
and permanence. If, however, as it often happens in ethnographic
field-work, one gets the opportunity only once of witnessing a
public ceremony, it is necessary to have its anatomy well dissected
beforehand, and then concentrate upon observing how these outlines are
followed up concretely, gauge the tone of the general behaviour, the
touches of emotion or passion, many small yet significant details which
nothing but actual observation can reveal, and which throw much light
upon the real, inner relation of the native to his institution. So I
was busy going over my old entries and checking them and putting my
material into shape in a detailed and concrete manner.

On the third day, as I was sitting and taking notes in the afternoon,
word ran all round the villages that the Dobuan canoes had been
sighted. And indeed, as I hastened towards the shore, there could be
seen, far away, like small petals floating on the horizon, the sails
of the advancing fleet. I jumped at once into a canoe, and was punted
along towards the promontory of Kaykuyawa, about a mile to the South of
Sinaketa. There, one after the other, the Dobuan canoes were arriving,
dropping their sails and undoing the mast as they moored, until the
whole fleet, numbering now over eighty canoes, were assembled before
me (see Plate XLVIII). From each a few men waded ashore, returning
with big bunches of leaves. I saw them wash and smear themselves and
perform the successive stages of native, festive adornment (see Plate
XLIX). Each article was medicated by some man or another in the canoe
before it was used or put on. The most carefully handled articles
of ornamentation were the ineffective looking, dried up herbs, taken
out of their little receptacles, where they had remained since they
had been becharmed in Dobu, and now stuck into the armlets. The whole
thing went on quickly, almost feverishly, making more the impression
of a piece of technical business being expeditiously performed, than
of a solemn and elaborate ceremony taking place. But the ceremonial
element was soon to show itself.

After the preparations were finished, the whole fleet formed itself
into a compact body, not quite regular, but with a certain order, about
four or five canoes being in a row, and one row behind the other. In
this formation they punted along over the Lagoon, too shallow for
paddling, towards the beach of Sinaketa. When they were within about
ten minutes of the shore, all the conch shells began to be sounded,
and the murmur of recited magic rose from the canoes. I could not come
sufficiently near the canoes, for reason of etiquette, to be able to
see the exact arrangement of the reciters, but I was told that it was
the same as that observed by the Trobrianders on their approach to
Dobu, described in Chapter XIII. The general effect was powerful, when
this wonderfully painted and fully decorated fleet was gliding swiftly
good citizens, as well as the undesirable class, would either attend the
hearings or familiarize themselves with the quarterly reports. Thus a
general steal would be impossible. A single Commissioner cannot make all
of his business public, and much that he does never reaches the light of
publicity. In fact, I believe that because the Commissioner cannot take
the public into his confidence, abuses are bound to occur. Often it
remains for the Indian Rights Association, or other organizations, to
appeal to the public and do that which the Indian Office should
establish without outside influence. There would be far less incentive
to dishonesty, were covetous white men compelled to deal with a
Commission instead of an individual. The publication of the Board’s
hearings and findings would have a deterrent effect on certain men who
otherwise appeal to Senators or Congressmen.

I have often contrasted the work of Dr. W. T. Grenfell in Labrador with
that of organizations laboring among our Indians. We are not responsible
for the condition of the fishermen in Labrador, and they are numerically
but a fraction as compared with our total Indian population. Yet Dr.
Grenfell, through his lectures and publications has aroused such an
interest in this country that he can collect for his Labrador work a sum
far greater than that expended in support of six Indian missions. People
are interested in him and his work because of the appeal he makes. The
Labrador fishermen suffer no wrongs compared with our Indians, and their
condition is far better than that of the average aborigine. Similar
publicity given to Indian affairs through the reports and hearings of a
National Commission, would arouse the American people, and a brighter
day for the Indian would certainly dawn.

No matter what is said, the Commissioner must fight alone and
single-handed with the members of Congress. His is a great
responsibility. Both Mr. Leupp and Mr. Valentine, in conversations with
me, have admitted that the chief difficulty in handling the Indian
problem is found in the word “politics”. The Commissioner is dependent
on Congress for his appropriations. He may be sustained or opposed by
members of Congress, and the public will remain in ignorance. He may not
appeal save to the Secretary of the Interior. He must keep in mind the
wishes of his political party. He will not admit political pressure when
in office, but after leaving the Service, he may tell his story of
trouble with politicians, as Mr. Leupp has in his book. Mr. Valentine
could enlighten us further on “The Indian Office in Politics”, did he
care to speak. A paid National Commission would be dominated by _no_
political party. Ten years’ service would enable it to become entirely
familiar with the needs of the Indians, whereas the average
Commissioner, serving less than three years, barely becomes acquainted
with the problem when he is succeeded by a new appointee.

I recommend to the earnest consideration of the American people the
Commission idea, as the only means of salvation of the American Indian.
It will be said by critics that many of the tribes are making
satisfactory progress and need no Commission; that the present
organization of the Indian Office is sufficient. This is partly true,
but a study of the table of statistics, and reference to the testimony
submitted in this book, establishes the sad fact, that the majority of
the Indians must lose unless we make a radical change in our policy. It
is useless to blind our eyes to hard facts; and these are that we
develop a certain area after painstaking labor, and then through unwise
acts (or legislation) we destroy the very tracts we have improved.

The Indian must ultimately be merged into the body politic, as has been
affirmed. But in bringing about this desideratum, it is not necessary to
crush all happiness out of his life. For fifty years the Indian has
followed a devious and uncertain trail, in the fond hope that he might
reach his journey’s end. If men and women, who through unintentional
ignorance have given no heed to the welfare of our red Americans, will
interest their Representatives in Congress, and also help to crystallize
public opinion against further harmful legislation, it is quite possible
that the National Commission plan may be carried into effect. After many
years of study of the subject, I firmly believe that the welfare of the
Indian depends upon the creation of such a Commission as has been
indicated—one composed not of those interested in political parties, but
on the contrary of competent men who understand Indians and their needs,
of men who are willing to devote the best years of their lives to
transforming the rough, uncertain trail along which the Indian has
toiled, into a broad highway, upon which the Red Man may safely travel
to his ultimate destination—the civilized community. And having reached
the end of his journey, the Indian will live henceforth peacefully, and
enjoy to the full the blessings of liberty, equality and justice.




                                 INDEX


 Abbott, F.H., 13, 242, 247, 248, 291, 359, 384, 424.

 Affidavits, 71, 74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 83, 84, 90, 91.

 Agricultural lands cultivated, 24, 27, 29, 66.

 Ah-bow-we-ge-shig, 93, 94.

 Ali-yah-baince, 81.

 Alabama, 33.

 Alaska Indians, 283.

 Allen, Edgar A., 13, 204.

 Allen, C. W., 174.

 Allen, J. Weston, 13, 74, 95, 149, 157, 247, 249, 251, 252.

 Allotting, 27, 28, 33, 59, 62, 70, 71, 73, 76, 133, 248, 333, 337, 338,
    389.

 American Horse, 125, 128, 184.

 Andrus, Miss Caroline W., 13, 209.

 Anundensen, Mr., 77.

 Apache, 26, 43, 44, 219, 222, 223, 233, 237, 238, 311, 314, 373, 404,
    427.

 Appropriations, 26, 27, 63, 64, 363.

 Arapaho, 31, 102, 311, 314, 317.

 Arizona, 219, 221, 222, 223, 225, 233, 235, 237, 241, 242, 250, 265,
    282, 291, 373.

 Arkansas, 43.

 Armstrong, Gen. C. S., 205.

 Art and industries, 10, 28, 29, 35, 37, 227, 229, 232, 241, 244, 256,
    359–366.

 Ayer, E. E., 13, 31, 36, 40, 41.

 Ay-nah-me-ay-gah-bow, 56.


 Bad River Reservation, 41, 42.

 Bannock Indians, 253.

 Ballinger, Secretary, 424.

 Barbour, Hon. Geo. W., 329.

 Barnard, Kate, 11, 13, 137, 150, 151, 154, 160, 163, 167, 168, 170,
    426, 427.

 Bartlett, George E., 101, 102, 112, 118, 132.

 Barrett, S. M., 233, 238.

 Bassett, Jim, 58.

 Bay-bah-dwun-gay-aush, 66, 81, 95, 399.

 Beaulieu, Clement, 55, 91.

 Beaulieu, Gus, 65, 67, 71, 79, 91, 93, 424.

 Bear, John T., 418.

 Beum, Lawyer, 80.

 Bibliography, 14, 98, 171, 172, 217, 277, 340.

 Big Foot, 127, 128.

 Big Head, 152.

 Blackfeet, 253.

 Blackmore, Hon. Wm., 179.

 Blue Whirlwind, 127.

 Board of Indian Commissioners, 36, 68, 69, 149, 224, 240, 288, 291,
    326, 327, 332, 336, 340, 417, 431, 432.

 Boston Indian Citizenship Committee, 74, 149, 247, 249.

 Brennan, Major John R., 13, 100, 105, 342, 418.

 Bright Eyes (Susette LaFlesche), 402.

 Bristow (Senator), 246.

 Brooke, Major John R., 122, 125.

 Brown, Capt. Frederick H., 177.

 Brown, John B., 133, 379.

 Browning, D. W., 384.

 Brulé, 99, 401.

 Budrow, Ephraim, 84.

 Buffalo, 299–310.

 Bull Head, 123, 124.

 Burch, Judge Marsden C., 57, 59, 66, 68, 90.

 Bureau of Catholic Missions, 93, 282.

 Bureau of Ethnology, 15, 20, 100, 184, 229, 271.

 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 25, 76, 264, 329.

 Burke, Hon. Charles H., 137, 155, 428.


 California, 28, 33, 70, 174, 213, 219, 241, 253, 267, 270, 274, 282,
    283, 291, 297, 325–340.

 California Indian Association, 282, 327, 335, 336, 337.

 California Indians, 325–340, 372, 375.

 Canada, 18, 33, 54, 179, 191, 192, 197, 198, 199, 310, 321, 371, 418.

 Carl, John, 91.

 Carlisle Indian School, 29, 38, 39, 79, 203, 204, 210, 212, 215, 267,
    268, 366, 412, 416.

 Carter Code Bill, 285.

 Carrington, Col. H. B., 177, 178, 192.

 Carrier Pigeon (Journal), 31.

 Century of Dishonor, 94, 183.

 Chapin, A. R., 125.

 Cass Lake, 45, 47, 51, 57.

 Cattle, 24, 29, 44, 237, 271, 359, 361.

 Catch-the-Bear, 124.

 Cherokees, 33, 133, 135, 140, 143, 153, 159, 274, 372, 431.

 Cheyenne, 31, 102, 178, 185, 253, 254, 286, 308, 311, 314, 317, 318,
    372, 380, 400.

 Chickasaws, 133, 140, 143, 159, 164.

 Chief Joseph, 253, 402.

 Chilocco Indian School, 37, 204, 208.

 Chilocco School Journal, 29.

 Chippewa (see Ojibwa)

 Chippewa Music, 20, 86.

 Choctaws, 133, 140, 143, 152, 153, 159, 164, 165, 167, 276.

 Choctaw Investment Company, 167.

 Citizenship, Indian, 33.

 Civil Service Commission, 359.

 Clapp Amendment, 59, 60, 67.

 Clapp, Senator Moses E., 67, 68, 93.

 Cleveland, President, 133.

 Cliff-Dwellers, 291.

 Cochise, 220, 237.

 Cody, Col. Wm. F., 199, 301, 303.

 Colorado, 43.

 Comanches, 43, 44, 235, 236, 291, 304, 311, 314.

 Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 41, 50, 68, 93, 96,
    136, 183, 260, 265, 337, 341, 367, 384, 428, 431, 433.

 Commissioner of the Five Civilized Tribes, 11, 28, 139, 157.

 Communistic Life, 399, 400.

 Congressional Committees, 49, 185, 193, 194.

 Coolidge, Rev. Sherman, 201, 278, 284.

 Coronado, 233.

 Correspondents (data), 213, 214, 216, 260–264, 274–277, 387–397.

 Court of Claims, 286.

 Crazy Horse, 184, 402.

 Creek Council, 143.

 Creeks, 133, 137, 140, 143, 148, 155, 162, 214, 276, 414.

 Crops, 24, 29.

 Crow, 26, 174, 190, 191, 253, 254, 294, 308, 380, 427.

 Crow Dog, 120, 121.

 Crow Foot, 123, 124.

 Crook, Gen. G. H., 222, 223, 238, 239, 308.

 Curtis, Miss Nathalie, 15.

 Cushing, Frank Hamilton, 229.

 Custer, General, 103, 184, 185, 190, 303, 308, 316.


 Dagenett, Charles E., 13, 201.

 Dances, 111, 305, 400, 404, 405.

 Darr, John, 112.

 Dartmouth College, 200, 207.

 Dawes Commission, 133, 135.

 Day-cah-me-ge-shig, 81.

 Dennis, C. E., 85.

 Densmore, Miss Frances, 20, 66, 86, 280.

 Denver Conference, 285.

 Department of Agriculture, 28, 359.

 Department of Charities and Corrections, 137, 150, 170.

 Department of Justice, 12, 57, 60, 70, 90, 95, 96, 139, 394, 413.

 Department of the Interior, 25, 70, 141, 147, 168, 185, 200, 212, 225.

 Diagram Indian Service, 32.

 Dickenson, Judge J. T., 166.

 Dixon, Dr. Joseph K., 12, 248.

 Dodge City, Kas., 182, 299, 300, 304, 311, 319.

 Dodge, Gen. (Col.), 174, 175, 177, 179, 236, 281, 300, 376.

 Doubleday Page Co., 12.

 Drunkenness, 31, 53, 54, 61, 62, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 276, 363, 422.

 Dull Knife, 319.


 Eastman, Dr. Charles A., 13, 15, 102, 185, 199, 201, 202, 279, 284,
    402, 403.

 Education, 27, 30, 37, 40, 50, 200–217, 231, 251, 282, 335, 338.

 Eldridge, Mrs. Mary L., 250.

 Eliot, Rev. Samuel A., 224, 229, 242, 248.

 Ellis, Mrs. Rose, 78, 407.

 Espinosa Pedro, 236.


 Fairs, 256, 361, 363.

 Fairbanks, Albert, 55.

 Fairbanks, Ben, 55, 91.

 Farms, 359–366.

 Farrell, F. E., 31.

 Fasler, Addie B., 165, 166.

 Federal Government, 331.

 Fetterman, Col. Wm. J., 177, 315.

 Few Tails, 129, 130.

 Fewkes, Dr. J. Walter, 229.

 Fisher, Secretary W. L., 424.

 Five Civilized Tribes, 11, 28, 29, 133–172, 204, 209, 276, 277, 379,
    415, 417, 427.

 Flammand, Joe, 80.

 Flat Hip, 185.

 Fletcher, Miss Alice C., 307.

 Florida, 35, 240, 265.

 Foreman, Grant, 13, 137, 139, 160, 168.

 Forrest, E. R., 13, 231, 246, 259.

 Forsythe, Col., 125.

 Fort Belknap Reservation, 34.

 Fort Fetterman, 310.

 Fort Laramie, 177.

 Fort Phil. Kearney, 177, 286.

 Fort Robinson, 180.

 Foster, Charles, 103.

 Fourteen Confederated Tribes, 257.

 Four Important Books, 367–377.

 Franciscan Fathers, 225, 241, 274.

 French Mission, 36.

 Friedman, Moses, 201.

 Frost, A. N., 13, 139, 163, 413, 427.

 Full-blood Indians, 57, 68, 71, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 84, 140, 161, 168,
    271, 274, 277, 352–358, 432.


 Galagher, H. G., 107, 108.

 Garfield, James, 143, 254, 424.

 Gay-me-wah-nah-na-quoit, 81.

 George, Jr., Henry, 419.

 Georgia, 33.

 Geronimo, 198, 220, 221, 233, 234, 235–240, 373.

 Ghost Dance, (See Messiah Craze).

 Ghost Dance Music, 115.

 “Ghost Dance Religion”, 100.

 Gilfillan, Rev. Joseph A., 48, 49, 50, 54, 66, 420.

 Graham, Hon. James M., 49, 98, 419, 428.

 Graham Investigating Committee, 66, 88, 93.

 Grayson, Capt. G. W., 135, 148, 162, 163.

 Greeley, Horace, 300.

 Grenfell, Dr. W. T., 403, 433.

 Gresham, J. E., 139, 163, 427.


 Hall, Darwin S., 67, 93.

 Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 205, 209, 211, 212.

 Handbook of American Indians, 15, 45, 173, 190, 217, 219, 233, 245,
    291, 307, 325, 401.

 Harjo Fixico, 135.

 Haskell Institute, 13, 29.

 Hauke, C. F., 25.

 Hawk Man, 124.

 Health of the Indians, 54, 61, 66, 227, 230, 266–277, 345–351.

 Heckewelder, Rev., 421.

 Henderson, D. B., 65.

 Henry, Robert, 71.

 Hermanutz, Rev. Aloysius, 66, 68.

 Hinton, John H., 90.

 Hodge, Dr. F. W., 219, 291.

 Hole-in-the-Day, 54, 55, 56, 63, 407, 408.

 Holmes, E. G., 77.

 Homar, Father Roman, 13, 85.

 Hospitals, 27, 85, 250, 266, 275, 277.

 Hornaday, Prof. Wm. T., 301, 303.

 Horses, 24, 29, 359.

 Horse Indians, 99, 174, 311.

 House Committee on Indian Affairs, 142, 258.

 Howard, Major John R., 13, 47, 70, 95.

 Hrdlicka, Dr. Ales, 265, 268, 271.

 Humphrey, Seth K., 13, 224, 367, 368, 372, 373, 376, 421.

 Hunter, Henry (See Weasel).

 Hurley, P. J., 164.

 Huson, H., 13, 151, 170.


 Indian Domination, 18.

 Indian Industries League, 283.

 Indian Labor, 24, 27, 29, 32, 33, 34, 37, 47, 66, 261.

 Indian Office (See Indian Service).

 Indian Population, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 40, 43, 45, 232.

 Indian Publications, 29, 30, 31, 203.

 Indian Rights Association, 12, 68, 240, 241, 254, 282, 291, 385, 433.

 Indian Service, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 42, 66, 68, 69, 70, 87, 90, 97,
    150, 151, 167, 226, 230, 252, 255, 291, 327, 331, 340, 360, 363,
    366, 424, 428, 431, 433, 434.

 Indian Territory, 134, 301, 417.

 Inspection Service, 25, 97.

 Iroquois, 33, 35.

 Irrigation, 27, 219, 226, 230, 257, 291–298, 337, 374.


 Jackson, Helen Hunt, 94, 183, 224, 237, 326, 334, 367, 372, 373.

 James, George Wharton, 12, 15, 241, 290.

 Jesus Christ, 102.

 Johnson, Governor John A., 68.

 Johnson, Rev. W. R., 242, 247, 343.

 Jones Bill, 257.

 Jones, Col. W. A., 303.

 Jones, Hon. William, 50, 384.


 Keeps-the-Battle, 107.

 Kelsey, C. E., 13, 282, 327, 336, 337.

 Kelsey, Dana H., 13, 133, 139, 149, 150, 159, 160, 161, 168, 427.

 Keshena, 36, 37.

 Ketcham, Rev. Wm. H., 224, 229, 242, 248.

 Ke-way-din, 72.

 Kicking Bear, 125.

 Kiowa, 311, 314, 315.

 Kolb, M. J., 82.

 Kraft, Father, 128.

 Kroeber, Dr. A. L., 325, 329.


 Lacy, Georgia, 81.

 Lake Superior, 18.

 Lane, Franklin K., 13, 163, 424, 429.

 Leasing, 28.

 Leecy, John, 81.

 Leech Lake, 45, 47, 51, 55, 57, 59.

 Leupp, Francis E., 12, 35, 206, 207, 245, 267, 287, 288, 359, 367, 369,
    371, 384, 402, 424, 433.

 Lewis and Clark, 402.

 Lincoln, President, 211.

 Linnen, E. B., 13, 25, 47, 64, 69, 70, 81, 87, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 97,
    385.

 Lipps, Oscar H., 13, 201, 209, 241, 243, 379.

 Little Crow, 175, 401.

 Little Horse, 116.

 Little Wound, 113, 125.

 Livestock, 24, 29, 365.

 Locke, Victor, 428.

 Logan, Gen., 197.

 Louisiana, 43.

 Lufkins, William, 80, 83.

 Lufkins, John, 94, 407.

 Lusk, Charles S., 93.

 Lummis, Chas. F., 14, 210, 267, 327, 336.


 Mah-een-gonce, 66, 94.

 Mah-een-gonce’s Story, 409.

 Maine, 31, 32, 33.

 Malecite Indians, 33.

 Mangus-Colorado, 233, 238.

 Maps, 20, 21, 22, 25, 35.

 Maricopa, 291.

 Marriages, Indian, 26, 243.

 Marsh, Prof., 176, 180.

 May-dway-we-mind, 56.

 McGillicuddy, Dr., 128.

 McCumber, Senator, 141.

 McKee, Hon. Redick, 329.

 McLaughlin, Supt. (Maj., Hon.), J., 102, 121, 122, 123, 191, 279, 367,
    368.

 McMurray Contracts, 164.

 McWhorter, L. V., 13, 255, 257, 258, 262.

 Medal of Red Cloud, 419.

 Menominee, 35, 36, 40, 41, 43, 268.

 Mercer, Maj. Wm. A., 201.

 Meritt, Edgar B., 12, 25, 360, 384, 432.

 Merriam, C. Hart, 327, 328, 332.

 Messiah Craze, 99, 100–107, 121, 185, 199, 283.

 Mexico, 220, 221, 223, 235, 237, 239, 325, 326, 373.

 Me-zhuck-ke-ge-shig, 55, 66, 68, 81.

 Me-zhuck-ke-gway-abe, 77.

 Michelet, Simon, 59, 64, 68, 70, 71, 97.

 Michigan, 35.

 Miles, Gen., 128, 130, 180, 191, 192, 240, 308.

 Miller, Okoskee, 135.

 Mille Lac Indians, 63, 65, 93.

 Mission Indians, 297.

 Missionary Denominations, 33, 93, 281, 225.

 Missionaries, 33, 49, 85.

 Minnesota, 33, 265, 366.

 Minnesota Historical Collections, 175.

 Mixed-blood Indians, 21, 26, 47, 48, 53, 57, 66, 68, 71, 74, 75, 77,
    79, 80, 84, 140, 168, 352–358, 432.

 Modocs, 253, 254.

 Moffett, Rev. Thomas C., 282.

 Mohonk Conference, 50, 97, 151, 284, 326, 368, 384, 385, 413, 418, 425.

 Money belonging to Indians, 26, 40, 42, 47, 62.

 Montana, 34, 260, 261, 264.

 Montezuma, Dr. Carlos, 203, 403.

 Monument at Wounded Knee, 130, 131.

 Mooney, James, 100, 101, 102, 127, 128, 129, 191.

 Moorehead, W. K., 64, 81, 83, 87, 90, 96, 149, 428.

 Morality, 53, 61, 62, 66, 73, 74, 352–358, 380, 381, 404–405.

 Morgan, T. J., 12, 384.

 Morrison, Robert, 77.

 Mormons, 243, 261, 417.

 Moty Tiger, Chief, 162.

 Mott, Hon. M. L., 11, 13, 137, 140, 141, 143, 150, 155, 160, 162, 167,
    170, 414, 427.

 Murphy, Dr. Joseph A., 14, 273.

 Murray, W. N., 428.

 Murrow, Rev. J. S., 137.


 National Commission (new), 431–434.

 National Indian Association, 250, 281, 327, 335.

 Navaho, 21, 24, 26, 31, 44, 47, 219, 241–252, 279, 280, 342, 343, 420,
    423, 427.

 Negro, 23, 132, 205, 401.

 Nelles, Rev. Felix, 68, 85.

 Nelson Act, 59, 64.

 Nelson, Senator Knute, 68.

 New Brunswick, 31, 33.

 New Mexico, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 241, 249, 265, 267, 268, 283, 291.

 Newton, Mrs. Elsie E., 97, 216, 379, 404.

 New York, 21, 33, 35, 265, 415.

 Nez Perce, 253, 372, 430.

 Nez Perce War, 253.

 Nichols-Chisolm Lumber Co., 61, 71.

 No Neck, 120, 121.

 North Carolina, 33.

 No Water, 109, 110, 111, 114.


 O’Brien, E. C., 14, 56, 90.

 Official Views of Indian Conditions, 378–385.

 Oglala, 99, 100, 113, 173, 270, 271.

 Ojibwa, 35, 36, 41, 43, 45–56, 57–65, 66–76, 77–88, 89–98, 99, 204,
    308, 342, 361, 373, 399, 427.

 Ojibwa Music, 86.

 Ojibwa’s Story, 407.

 Oklahoma, 133–172, 205, 214, 265, 273, 277, 281, 283, 284, 318, 342,
    413–415, 425, 427, 428, 431.

 Oklahoma Delegation, 145.

 O-mo-du-yea-quay, 80.

 O-nah-yah-wah-be-tung, 80.

 One Feather, 129, 130.

 Oneida, 35.

 Onondaga Reservation, 21.

 Oregon, 260.

 Ottawa, 43.

 Out West (Land of Sunshine), 327.

 Owen, Hon. Sen. Robert L., 203, 413, 414.


 Pagan Whites, 289

 Paiutes, 253.

 Papago, 31, 219, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 291.

 Parker, Arthur C., 14, 19, 201.

 Parker, Gabe E., 11, 46.

 Park Rapids Lumber Co., 61.

 Parquette, Peter, 252.

 Passamaquoddy, 31, 33.

 Pawnees, 204, 400.

 Peabody, Dr. Charles, 14.

 Peace Commissions, 175, 179, 253.

 Peairs, H. B., 14, 378.

 Peirce, Chas. F., 14, 381.

 Penobscot, 31, 32, 33.

 Pepper, Dr. George W., 241.

 Pereault, Joe, 89.

 Philanthropic Organizations, 281–289.

 Phillips Academy, Andover, 211, 245.

 Pillagers, 63, 81, 97, 399.

 Pimas, 219, 222, 223, 224, 291, 374, 382, 383.

 Pine Ridge, 99–109, 111, 117, 122, 125, 128, 132, 174, 270, 309, 418,
    420.

 Plains Indians, 99, 174, 177, 187, 304, 308, 309, 311–324.

 Politicians, 26, 50, 376, 395.

 Politics and Indians, 139, 144, 376.

 Poncas, 204, 372, 373, 402.

 Potawatomie, 35, 43.

 Powell, Maj. James, 99, 178, 179.

 Pratt, Capt. R. H., 200, 201.

 Prominent Indian Men and Women, 201, 203, 401, 402.

 Property (Lands, Timber, Minerals), 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 37, 40, 41,
    42, 47, 50, 51, 57, 59, 61, 62, 73, 103, 157, 159, 229, 250, 343.

 Property valuation, 26, 27.

 Public Domain, 31.

 Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, 265.

 Pueblo, 219, 229, 230–232, 267, 268, 291.


 Recommendations, 40, 387–397.

 Red Cloud, 99, 121, 173–189, 281, 318, 402.

 Red Cloud, Jack, 186, 419.

 Red Lake, 45, 47, 51, 57, 59, 62.

 Red Man, The (Journal), 29.

 Red Tomahawk, 123, 124.

 Religion, 279–289.

 Report of cases, 155, 156.

 Riggs Missions, 409.

 Robinson, Senator Joe, 432.

 Rock, Grace, 77.

 Rock, Mrs. John, 77.

 Roe Cloud, Henry, 201, 207, 403.

 Roosevelt, President, 140, 143, 144, 233.

 Rosebud, 104, 107.

 Royer, Doctor D. F., 105, 108.


 Sacagawea, 402.

 St. Luke, John, 71.

 San Carlos, 222.

 Santa Fe Trail, 174.

 Sauk and Fox, 36.

 Saunders, Fred, 77.

 Schools, 27, 37, 38, 39, 48, 87, 106, 138, 146, 213–217, 227, 266.

 Scott, Duncan C., 418, 419.

 Secretary of the Interior, 54, 55, 91, 96, 136, 143, 149, 162, 163,
    258, 433.

 Seger, John H., 14, 417, 418.

 Sells, Commissioner, 12, 16, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 151, 167, 267, 283,
    341, 359, 360, 363, 378, 384, 423, 424, 432.

 Seminoles, 35, 133, 140, 143, 276.

 Sequoya, 402.

 Seventh Cavalry, 125, 128.

 Shangraux, Louis, 118, 119, 120, 121.

 Shave Head, 123, 124, 125.

 Shearman, James T., 54, 55, 56.

 Sherman, Jas. S., 429.

 Sheep, 24, 29, 44, 250, 364, 395.

 Shelton, Maj. W. T., 247, 252, 343.

 Short Bull, 119, 120, 121, 125.

 Sioux, 26, 47, 63, 99–117, 131, 132, 173, 177, 178, 181, 268, 270, 304,
    308, 322, 372, 400, 407.

 Sioux Music, 189.

 Sitting Bull, 99, 102, 121, 122, 123–132, 173, 179, 180, 184, 190–199,
    402.

 Smiley Commission. 334.

 Smiley, Hon. Albert K., 284, 326.

 Smiley, Hon. Daniel, 284.

 Smith, Rev. Wilkins, 85.
waking life. It may be worth while to bring forward a few dreams which
incidentally illustrate the moral attitude of the dreamer.

A lady narrated the following dream immediately on awakening: 'I had
murdered a woman from some moral or political motive--I forget what--and
had come in great agony to my husband with her shoes and watch-chain. He
promised to help me, and while I was wondering what could be done for
the benefit of the woman's family, some one came in and announced that a
lecture was about to be given on the beauty of nakedness. I then went,
with several prim and respectable ladies of my acquaintance [the names
were given], into a crowded hall. The lecturer who--so far as appearance
is concerned--was a well-known Member of Parliament, then entered and
gave a most eloquent address on Whitman, nakedness, ugly figures, etc.
He especially emphasised the fact that the reason people are shocked at
nakedness is that they usually only see unbeautiful bodies which repel
them because they are unlike their ideals. Then he put out his hand, and
a naked woman entered the room. Her loveliness was extreme; her form was
perfectly rounded, but without suggestion of voluptuousness, though she
was not an animated statue, but had all the characters of humanity; she
walked with undulating thighs, head slightly drooping, and hair falling
down and framing a face that expressed wonderful spiritual beauty and
innocence. The lecturer led her round, saying, "This is beauty; now, if
you can look at this and be ashamed----" and he waved his arm. She went
away, and a beautiful Apollo-like youth, slender but athletic, entered the
room, also completely naked. He walked round the room alone, with an air
of majestic virility. I applauded, clapping my hands, but a shiver went
through the ladies present; their skin became like goose-flesh, and their
lips quivered with horror as though they were about to be outraged. The
youth went out, and the lecturer continued. At the climax of his oratory,
the Apollo-like youth entered, dressed as a common soldier, with no
appearance of beauty, and in a rough tone said: "'Ere! I want a shilling
for this job." (And I sighed to myself: "It is always so.") No one had a
shilling, and the lecturer proceeded to explain to the man that what he
had done was for the sake of art and beauty, and for the moral good of
the world. "What do I care for that?" he returned, "I want a drink." Then
a lady among the audience produced a collar, wrote on it a testimonial
expressing the gratitude of those present for the man's services on this
occasion, and handed it to me to present to him. "Damn it," he said, "this
is only worth twopence halfpenny; I want my shilling!" Then I awoke.'
The idea of murder with which this dream began seems to suggest that it
may have had its origin in some slight visceral disturbance of which
the subject was unconscious, but nothing had occurred to suggest the
details of the episode. The interesting feature about it is the presence
throughout of moral notions and sentiments substantially true to the
dreamer's waking ideas.

In another dream of the same dreamer's the sense of responsibility is
clearly present: 'Mrs. F. and Miss R. had called to see me, and I was
sitting in my room talking to them, when a knock came at the door, and
I found there a poor woman belonging to the neighbourhood, but who also
combined in my dream the page-boy at a dear friend's house. From this
friend, whom I had not heard from for some time, the woman bore a large
letter. She tore it open in my presence, saying, "It says here that the
bearer is to open this," and produced from it another letter, a large
document of a legal character in my friend's handwriting. When the woman
began to open the second letter I remonstrated; I was sure that there was
some mistake, that that letter was private, and that no one else ought to
see it. The woman, however, firmly insisted that she must carry out her
instructions; so we had a long discussion. After a time I called Mrs. F.
and appealed to her. She agreed with me that the instructions must only
mean that the bearer was to open the outer envelope, not the inner letter.
At last I took out five shillings and gave it to the woman, telling her
that I would assume all the responsibility for opening the letter myself.
With this she went away well satisfied, saying (as she would in real
life), "All right, Mrs. ----, you're a lady, and you know. All right,
my dear." Then at last I was able to tear open my letter and read these
words: "_Always use Sunlight Soap_." My vexation was extreme.'

On another occasion the same dreamer experienced remorse. She imagined she
was in a restaurant, and the girl behind the counter pointed to a barrel
of beer--a golden barrel, she said, with a magic key--which could only be
opened by the owner. The dreamer declared, however, that she could open
it, and, producing a key, proceeded to do so, handing round beer to the
bystanders. Then she realised that she had been stealing, and was full of
remorse. She asked a friend if she ought to tell the owner, but the friend
replied, 'By no means.' This conclusion of the dream seems to indicate
that the moral sense, though present in dreams, is apt to be impaired.

In yet another dream this dreamer exhibited a curious combination of moral
sensibility and criminal indifference. She imagined that, while walking
with a man, a friend, she revealed to him a secret of a woman friend's.
Then, realising her betrayal of confidence, she decided that the best
thing she could do would be to kill the man. On reflection, however,
she thought that it would, after all, be unkind to do so since he was a
friend, and so told him that if he ever repeated the secret she would have
him torn to pieces. It will be seen that the betrayal of a secret was
felt as a far more serious offence than murder. The facility with which,
in such dreams as this, the suggestion of murder presents itself, even to
dreamers who, when awake, cherish no bloodthirsty or revengeful ideas, is
certainly remarkable.

It is often said that in dreams erotic suggestions present themselves with
extreme facility, and are eagerly accepted by the dreamer. To some extent
there is truth in this statement, but it is by no means always true. This
may be illustrated by the following dream, the sources of which could
be easily traced; two days before I had seen the gambols of East Enders
at Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, and the day before I had visited
a picture gallery, the two sets of impressions becoming ingeniously
combined, according to the usual rule of dream confusion. I thought that
when walking along a country lane a sudden turn brought me to a broader
part of the road covered with grass, into the midst of a crowd of women,
large and well-proportioned persons, mostly in a state of complete
nudity, and engaged in romping together, more especially in tugs-of-war;
some of them were on horseback. My appearance slightly disturbed them, I
heard one cry out my name, and to some extent they drew back, and partly
desisted from their games, but only to a very slight degree, and with
no overpowering embarrassment. I was myself rather embarrassed, and,
glancing at them again, turned back. Afterwards my walk again brought
me in view of them, and it occurred to me that women are somewhat
changing their customs, a very wholesome change, it seemed to me. But I
remonstrated with one or two of them that they ought to keep in constant
movement to avoid catching cold. No erotic suggestions were present,
although the dream might be said to lend itself to such suggestions.

The idea of moral retribution and eternal punishment may also be present
in dreams. This may be illustrated by the dream of a lady who had an ill
and restless girl companion sleeping with her, and was disturbed as well
by a yelping and howling terrier outside. She had also lately heard that
a friend had brought over a python from Africa. 'I dreamed last night I
had a basket of cold squirming snakes beside me; they just touched me all
over, but did not hurt; I felt mad with loathing and hate of them, and
the beasts would not kill me. That, I thought, was my eternal punishment
for my sins.' In her waking moments the dreamer was not apprehensive of
eternal punishment, and it may be in such a case that, as Freud suggests,
an unfamiliar moral idea emerges in sleep in much the same way as an
unfamiliar or 'forgotten' fact may emerge.

On the whole, it may be said that while the moral attitude of the dreaming
state is not usually identical with that of the waking state, there still
nearly always is a moral attitude. It could not well be otherwise. Our
emotional states are intimately bound up with moral relationships; we
could not display such highly emotional states as we experience in dreams,
with all their tragic accompaniments, in the absence of any sense of
morality.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 75: The dependence of sleeping imagination on emotion of organic
origin was long ago clearly seen and set forth by the acute introspective
psychologist, Maine de Biran (_Œuvres Inédites_, 'Fondements de la
Psychologie,' p. 102).]

[Footnote 76: Jastrow (_The Subconscious_, p. 206) relates a similar case
observed in a girl student.]

[Footnote 77: Herbert Wright, who finds that in children night-terrors
are apt to be associated with somnambulism, points out that when the
somnambulism replaces the night-terrors it leaves no memory behind
(_British Medical Journal_, 19th August 1899, p. 465). An interesting
study of movement in normal and morbid sleep has been contributed by
Segre ('Contributo alla Conoscenza dei Movimenti del Sonno,' _Archivio di
Psichiatria_, 1907, fasc. 1.).]

[Footnote 78: This question is, for instance, asked by F. H. Bradley ('On
the Failure of Movement in Dreams,' _Mind_, 1894, p. 373). The explanation
he prefers is that the dream vision is out of relation to the very dimly
conscious actual position of the body, so that the information necessary
to complete the idea of the movement is wanting. Only as regards the less
complicated movements of lips, tongue, or finger, when the motor idea is
in harmony with the actual position of the body movements, does movement
take place. We have no means of distinguishing the real world from the
world of our vision; 'our images thus move naturally to realise themselves
in the world of our real limbs. But the world and its arrangement is for
the moment out of connection with our ideas, and hence the attempt at
motion for the most part must fail.' It is quite true that this conflict
is an important factor in dreaming, but it fails to apply to the large
number of movements which we dream of actually doing.]

[Footnote 79: The action of some drugs produces a state in this respect
resembling that which prevails in dreams. 'Under the influence of a large
dose of haschisch,' Professor Stout remarks (_Analytic Psychology_, vol.
i. p. 14), 'I found myself totally unable to distinguish between what
I actually did and saw, and what I merely thought about.' Not only are
the motor and sensory activities relatively dormant, but the central
activity is perfectly able, and content, to dispense with their services.
'Thought,' as Jastrow says (_Fact and Fable in Psychology_, p. 386), 'is
but more or less successfully suppressed action.']

[Footnote 80: This seems to me to be the answer to the question, asked
by Freud, (_Die Traumdeutung_, p. 227), why we do not always dream of
inhibited movement. Freud considers that the idea of inhibited movement,
when it occurs in dreams, has no relation to the actual condition of the
dreamer's nervous system, but is simply an ideatory symbol of an erotic
wish that is no longer capable of fulfilment. But it is certain that
sleep is not always at the same depth and that the various nervous groups
are not always equally asleep. A dream arising on the basis of partial
and imperfect sleep can scarcely fail to lead to the attempt at actual
movement and the more or less complete inhibition of that movement,
presenting a struggle which is often visible to the onlooker, and is not
purely ideatory.]

[Footnote 81: This explanation, based on the depth and kind of the sleep,
is entirely distinct from the theory of Aliotta (_Il Pensiero e la
Personalità nei Sogni_, 1905), who believes that dreamers differ according
to their nervous type, the person of visual type assisting passively at
the spectacle of his dreams, while the person of motor type takes actual
part in them. I have no evidence of this, though I believe that dreams
differ in accordance with the dreamer's personal type.]

[Footnote 82: Dugald Stewart argued that there is loss of control over
the muscular system during sleep, and the body, therefore, is not subject
to our command; volition is present but it cannot influence the limbs.
Hammond argued, on the contrary, that Stewart was quite wrong; the reason
why voluntary movements are not performed during sleep is, he said, that
volition is suspended. 'We do not will our actions when we are asleep. We
imagine that we do, and that is all' (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 205).
Dugald Stewart and Hammond, though their phraseology may have been too
metaphysical, were, from the standpoint I have adopted, both maintaining
tenable positions. In one type of dream, we imagine we easily achieve all
sorts of difficult and complicated actions, but in reality we make no
movement; the ease and rapidity with which the mental machine moves is due
to the fact that it is ungeared, and is effecting no work at all. In the
other type of dream we make violent but inadequate efforts at movement
and only partially succeed; the machine is partially geared, in a state
intermediate between deep sleep and the waking condition.]

[Footnote 83: Jacques le Lorrain, _Revue Philosophique_, July 1895.]

[Footnote 84: The systematic megalomania of insanity can, however, have
its rise in dreams; Régis and Lalanne (_International Medical Congress_,
1900; _Proceedings, Section de Psychiatrie_, p. 227) met within a short
period with four cases in which this had taken place.]

[Footnote 85: This indeed seems to have been recognised by Wundt, who
regards a 'functional rest of the sensory centres and of the apperception
centre,' resulting in heightened latent energy which lends unusual
strength to excitations, as a secondary condition of the dream state.
Külpe (_Outline of Psychology_, p. 212) argues that the existence of
vivid dreams shows that fatigue with its diminished associability fails
to affect the central sensations themselves; this increased excitability
resulting from dissociation may itself, however, be regarded as a symptom
of fatigue; hyperaesthesia and anaesthesia are alike signs of exhaustion.]

[Footnote 86: The exhaustion sometimes felt on awaking from a dream
perhaps testifies to its emotional potency. Delboeuf states that a friend
of his experienced a dream so terrible in its emotional strain that on
awaking his black hair was found to have turned completely white.]

[Footnote 87: The fundamental character of emotion in dreams has been
more or less clearly recognised by various investigators. Thus C. L.
Herrick, who studied his own dreams for many months, found that the
essential element is the emotional, and not the ideational, and that,
indeed, when recalled _at once_, with closed eyes and before moving,
they were nearly devoid of intellectual content (_Journal of Comparative
Neurology_, vol. iii. p. 17, 1893). R. MacDougall considers that dreaming
is 'a succession of intense states of feeling supported by a minimum of
ideational content,' or, as he says again, more accurately, 'the feeling
is primary; the idea-content is the inferred thing' (_Psychological
Review_, vol. v. p. 2). Grace Andrews, who kept a record of her dreams
(_American Journal of Psychology_, October 1900), found that dream
emotions are often stronger and more vivid than those of waking life; 'the
dream emotion seems to me the most real element of the dream life.' P.
Meunier, again ('Des Rêves Stéreotypés,' _Journal de Psychologie Normale
et Pathologique_, September-October 1905), states that 'the substratum of
a dream consists of a cœnæsthesia or an emotional state. The intellectual
operation which translates to the sleeper's consciousness, while he is
asleep, this cœnæsthesia or emotional state is what we call a dream.']

[Footnote 88: The night-terrors of children have frequently been found
to have their origin in gastric or intestinal disturbance. Graham Little
brings together the opinions of various authorities on this point,
though he is himself inclined to give chief importance to heart disease
producing slight disturbances of breathing, since he has found that
in nearly two-thirds of his cases (17 out of 30) night-terrors were
associated with early heart disease (Graham Little, 'The Causation of
Night-Terrors,' _British Medical Journal_, 19th August 1899). It should
be added that night-terrors are more usually divided into two classes:
(1) idiopathic (purely cerebral in origin), and (2) symptomatic (due to
reflex disturbance caused by various local disorders); see _e.g._ Guthrie,
'On Night-Terrors,' _Clinical Journal_, 7th January 1899. J. A. Symonds
has well described his own night-terrors as a child (Horatio Brown, _J.
A. Symonds_, vol. i.). Lafcadio Hearn (in a paper on 'Nightmare-Touch'
in _Shadowings_) also gives a vivid account of his own childish
night-terrors.]

[Footnote 89: It has not, I believe, been pointed out that such dreams
might be invoked in support of the James-Lange or physiological theory of
emotion, according to which the element of bodily change in emotion is the
cause and not the result of the emotion.]

[Footnote 90: This physiological symbolism was clearly apprehended long
ago by Hobbes: 'As anger causeth heat in some parts of the body when we
are awake; so when we sleep the overheating of the same parts causeth
anger, and raiseth up in the brain the imagination of an enemy. In the
same manner as natural kindness, when we are awake, causeth desire and
desire makes heat in certain other parts of the body; so also, too much
heat in those parts, while we sleep, raiseth in the brain an imagination
of some kindness shown. In sum, our dreams are the reverse of our waking
imaginations; the motion, when we are awake, beginning at one end, and
when we dream at another' (_Leviathan_, Part 1. ch. 2).]

[Footnote 91: 'The pains of disappointment, of anxiety, of unsuccess, of
all displeasing emotions,' remarks Mercier (art. 'Consciousness,' Tuke's
_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), 'are attended by a definite
feeling of misery which is referred in every case to the epigastrium.' He
adds that the pleasures of success and good repute, aesthetic enjoyment,
etc., are also attended by a definite feeling in the same region. This
fact indicates the extreme vagueness of organic sensation. There is in
fact much uncertainty and great difference of opinion as to the nature,
and even the existence, of organic sensation; see _e.g._ a careful summary
of the chief views by Dr. Elsie Murray, 'Organic Sensation,' _American
Journal of Psychology_, July 1909.]

[Footnote 92: More than ten years later, the same dreamer, who had
entirely forgotten the circumstances of this dream, again had a vivid
dream of murder after eating pheasant at night; this time it was she
herself who was to be killed, and she awoke imagining that she was
struggling with the would-be murderer.]

[Footnote 93: F. Greenwood, _Imagination in Dreams_, p. 31.]

[Footnote 94: Dreams of railway travelling, and especially of losing
trains, are not always associated with headache or any other recognisable
condition. They constitute a very common type of dream not quite easy to
explain. Dr. Savage mentions, for instance, that in his own case scarcely
a week passes without such a dream, though in real life he scarcely ever
loses a train and never worries about it. Wundt considers that the dreams
in which we seek something we cannot find or have left something behind
are due to indefinite coenaesthesic disturbances involving feelings of
the same emotional tone, such as an uncomfortable position or a slight
irregularity of respiration. I have myself independently observed the same
connection, though it is not invariably traceable.]

[Footnote 95: E. H. Clarke, _Visions_, p. 294.]

[Footnote 96: An amusing, though solemn, interpretation of an ordinary
dream of murder, railway travelling, and impending death, as experienced
by Anna Kingsford, is furnished by her friend and biographer, Edward
Maitland, _Anna Kingsford_, vol. i. p. 117.]

[Footnote 97: Various opinions in regard to morality in dreams are brought
together by Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, pp. 45 _et seq._]

[Footnote 98: Head ('Mental Changes that Accompany Visceral Diseases,'
_Brain_, 1902, p. 802) refers to the association between visceral pain and
the anti-social impulses, and thinks that the viscera, being part of the
oldest and most autonomic system of the body, appear in consciousness as
'an intrusion from without, an inexplicable obsession.']

[Footnote 99: 'In my dreams,' W. D. Howells remarks, 'I am always less
sorry for my misdeeds than for their possible discovery' ('True I talk of
Dreams,' _Harper's Magazine_, May 1895).]




CHAPTER VI

AVIATION IN DREAMS

    Dreams of Flying and Falling--Their Peculiar Vividness--Dreams of
    Flying an Alleged Survival of Primeval Experiences--Best explained
    as based on Respiratory Sensations combined with Cutaneous
    Anaesthesia--The Explanation of Dreams of Falling--The Sensation
    of Levitation sometimes experienced by Ecstatic Saints--Also
    experienced at the Moment of Death.


Dreams of flying, with the dreams of falling they are sometimes associated
with, may fairly be considered the best known and most frequent type of
dream. They were among the earliest dreams to attract attention. Ruths
argues that the Greek conception of the flying Hermes, the god who
possessed special authority over dreams, was based on such experiences.
Lucretius, in his interesting passage on the psychology of dreaming,
speaks of falling from heights in dreams;[100] Cicero appears to refer
to dreams of flying; St. Jerome mentions that he was subject to them;
Synesius remarked that in dreams we fly with wings and view the world
from afar; Cervantes accurately described the dream of falling.[101] From
the inventors of the legend of Icarus onwards, men have firmly cherished
the belief that under some circumstances they could fly, and we may well
suppose that that belief partly owes its conviction, and the resolve to
make it practical, to the experiences that have been gained in dreams.

No dreams, indeed, are so vivid and so convincing as dreams of flying;
none leave behind them so strong a sense of the reality of the experience.
Raffaelli, the eminent French painter, who is subject to the dreaming
experience of floating in the air, confesses that it is so convincing that
he has jumped out of bed on awaking and attempted to repeat it. 'I need
not tell you,' he adds, 'that I have never been able to succeed.'[102]
Herbert Spencer mentions that in a company of a dozen persons, three
testified that in early life they had had such vivid dreams of flying
downstairs, and were so strongly impressed by the reality of the
experience, that they actually made the attempt, one of them suffering in
consequence from an injured ankle.[103] The case is recorded of an old
French lady who always maintained that on one occasion she actually had
succeeded for a few instants in supporting herself on the air.[104] No
one who is familiar with these dreaming experiences will be inclined to
laugh at that old lady. It was during one of these dreams of levitation,
in which one finds oneself leaping into the air and able to stay there,
that it occurred to me that I would write a paper on the subject, for
I thought in my dream that this power I found myself possessed of was
probably much more widespread than was commonly supposed, and that in any
case it ought to be generally known.

People who dabble in the occult have been so impressed by such dreams
that they have sometimes believed that these flights represented a
real excursion of the 'astral body.' This is the belief of Colonel de
Rochas.[105] César de Vesme, the editor of the French edition of the
_Annals of Psychical Research_, has thought it worth while to investigate
the matter; and after summarising the results of a _questionnaire_
concerning dreams of flying, he comes to the conclusion that 'the
sensation of aerial flight in dreams is simply a hallucinatory phenomenon
of an exclusively physiological [he means 'psychological'] kind,' and
not evidence of the existence of the 'astral body.'[106] The fact,
nevertheless, that so many people are found who believe such dreams to
possess some kind of reality, clearly indicates the powerful impression
they make.

All my life, it seems to me, certainly from an early age, until recently,
I have at intervals had dreams in which I imagined myself rhythmically
bounding into the air, and supported on the air, remaining there for
a perceptible interval; at other times I have felt myself gliding
downstairs, but not supported by the stairs. In my case the experience
is nearly always agreeable, involving a certain sense of power, and it
usually evokes no marked surprise, occurring as a familiar and accustomed
pleasure. On awaking I do not usually remember these dreams immediately,
which seems to indicate that they are not due to causes specially
operative at the end of sleep, or liable to bring sleep to a conclusion.
But they leave behind them a vague yet profound sense of belief in their
reality and reasonableness.

Dream-flight, it is necessary to note, is not usually the sustained flight
of a bird or an insect, and the dreamer rarely or never imagines that he
is borne high into the air. Hutchinson states that of all those whom he
has asked about the matter 'hardly one has ever known himself to make any
high flights in his dreams. One almost always flies low, with a skimming
manner, slightly, but only slightly, above the heads of pedestrians.'[107]

Beaunis, from his own experience, describes what I should consider a
typical kind of dream-flight as a series of light bounds, at one or two
yards above the earth, each bound clearing from ten to twenty yards,
the dream being accompanied by a delicious sensation of easy movement,
as well as a lively satisfaction at being able to solve the problem of
aerial locomotion by virtue of superior organisation alone.[108] Lafcadio
Hearn, somewhat similarly, describes, in his _Shadowings_, a typical and
frequent dream of his own as a series of bounds in long parabolic curves,
rising to a height of some twenty-five feet, and always accompanied by the
sense that a new power had been revealed which for the future would be a
permanent possession.

The attempt to explain dreams of flying has led to some bold hypotheses.
Freud characteristically affirms that the dream of flying is the bridge to
a concealed wish.[109] I have already mentioned the notion that dreams of
flight are excursions of the 'astral body.' Professor Stanley Hall, who
has himself, from childhood, had dreams of flying, argues, with scarcely
less boldness, that we have here 'some faint reminiscent atavistic echo
from the primeval sea'; and that such dreams are really survivals--psychic
vestigial remains comparable to the rudimentary gill-slits not uncommonly
found in man and other mammals--taking us back to the far past when man's
ancestors needed no feet to swim or float.[110] Such a theory may accord
with the profound conviction of reality that accompanies these dreams,
though that may be more easily accounted for; but it has the very serious
weakness that it offers an explanation which will not fit the facts. Our
dreams are of flying, not of swimming; but the ancestors of the mammals
probably lived in the water, not in the air. In preference to so hazardous
a theory, it seems infinitely more reasonable to regard these dreams as an
interpretation--a misinterpretation from the standpoint of waking life--of
actual internal sensations. If we can find the adequate explanation of a
psychic state in conditions actually existing within the organism itself
at the time, it is needless to seek an explanation in conditions that
ceased to exist untold millenniums ago.

My own explanation was immediately suggested by the following dream. I
dreamed that I was watching a girl acrobat, in appropriate costume, who
was rhythmically rising to a great height in the air and then falling,
without touching the floor, though each time she approached quite close
to it. At last she ceased, exhausted and perspiring, and I had to lead
her away. Her movements were not controlled by mechanism, and apparently
I did not regard mechanism as necessary. It was a vivid dream, and I
awoke with a distinct sensation of oppression in the chest. In trying
to account for this dream, which was not founded on any memory, it
occurred to me that probably I had here the key to a great group of
dreams. The rhythmic rising and falling of the acrobat was simply the
objectivation of the rhythmic rising and falling of my own respiratory
muscles--in some dreams, perhaps, of the systole and diastole of the
heart's muscles--under the influence of some slight and unknown physical
oppression, and this oppression was further translated into a condition
of perspiring exhaustion in the girl, just as men with heart disease may
dream of sweating and panting horses climbing uphill, in accordance with
that tendency to magnification which marks dreams generally.[111] We may
recall also the curious sensation as of the body being transformed into
a vast bellows or steam engine, which is often the last sensation felt
before the unconsciousness produced by nitrous oxide gas.[112] When we
are lying down there is a real rhythmic rising and falling of the chest
and abdomen, centring in the diaphragm, a series of oscillations which at
both extremes are only limited by the air. Moreover, in this position we
have to recognise that the circulatory, nervous, and other systems of
the whole internal organism, are differently balanced from what they are
in the upright position, and that a disturbance of internal equilibrium
always accompanies falling.

It is also noteworthy (as, indeed, Wundt has briefly remarked) that the
modifications produced by sleep in the respiratory process itself tend
to facilitate its interpretation as a process of flying. Mosso showed
that respiration in sleep is more thoracic than when awake, that it is
lengthened, and that the respiratory pause is less marked.[113] That is to
say that both the aerial element and the actual rhythmic movement of the
ribs become accentuated during sleep.

That the respiratory element is the chief factor in dreams of flying is
clearly indicated by the fact that many persons subject to such dreams
are conscious on awaking from them of a sense of respiratory or cardiac
disturbance. I am acquainted with a psychologist who, though not a
frequent dreamer, is subject to dreams of flying, which do not affect
him disagreeably, but on awaking from them he always perceives a slight
flutter of the heart. Any such sensation is by no means constant with me,
but I have occasionally noted it down in exactly the same words after this
kind of dream.[114] It is worth while to observe, in this connection, how
large a number of people, and especially very young people, associate
their dreams of flying with staircases. The most frequent cause of cardiac
and respiratory stimulation, especially in children, who constantly run up
and down them, is furnished by staircases, and though in health this fact
may not be obvious, it is undoubtedly registered unconsciously, and may
thus be utilised by dreaming intelligence.

There is, however, another element entering into the problem of nocturnal
aviation: the state of the skin sensations. Respiratory activity alone
would scarcely suffice to produce the imagery of flight if sensations of
tactile pressure remained to suggest contact with the earth. In dreams,
however, the sense of movement suggested by respiratory activity is
unaccompanied by the tactile pressure produced by boots or the contact
of the ground with the soles of the feet. In addition, also, there is
probably, as Bergson also has suggested, a numbness due to pressure on
the parts supporting the weight of the body. Sleep is not a constant and
uniform state of consciousness; a heightened consciousness of respiration
may easily co-exist with a diminished consciousness of tactile pressure
due to anaesthesia of the skin.[115] In normal sleep it may, indeed, be
said that the conditions are probably often favourable to the production
of this combination, and any slight thoracic disturbance even in healthy
persons, arising from heart or stomach, and acting on the respiration,
serves to bring these conditions to sleeping consciousness and to
determine the dream of flying.

Dreams of flying are sometimes associated with dreams of falling, the
falling sensation occurring either at the beginning or at the end of
the dream; such a dream may be said to be of the Icarus type.[116]
Jewell considers that the two kinds of dream have the same causation,
the difference being merely a difference of apperception. The frequent
connection between the two dreams indicates that the causation is
allied, but it scarcely seems to be identical. If it were identical,
we should scarcely find that while the emotional tone of the dream of
flying is usually agreeable, that of the dream of falling is usually
disagreeable.[117]

I have no personal experience of the sensation of falling in normal
dreaming, although Jewell and Hutchinson have found that it is more
common than flying, the latter regarding it, indeed, as the most common
kind of dream, the dream of flying coming next in frequency. A friend
who has no dreams of flying, but has experienced dreams of falling
from his earliest years, tells me that they are always associated with
feelings of terror. This suggests an organic cause, and the fact that the
sensation of falling may occur in epileptic fits during sleep,[118] seems
further to suggest the presence of circulatory and nervous disturbance.
It would seem probable that while the same two factors--respiratory and
tactile--are operative in both types of dream, they are not of equal
force in each. In the dream of flying, respiratory activity is excited,
and in response to excitation it works at a high level adequate to the
needs of the organism. In the dream of falling it may be that respiratory
activity is depressed, while concomitantly, perhaps, the anaesthetic state
of the skin is increased. In the first state the abnormal activity of
respiration triumphs in consciousness over the accompanying dulness of
tactile sensation; in the second state the respiratory breathlessness is
less influential than a numbness of the skin unconscious of any external
pressure. This difference is rendered possible by the fact that in dreams
of flying we are not usually far from the earth, and seem able to touch
it lightly at intervals; that is to say that tactile sensitiveness is
impaired, but is not entirely absent as it is in a dream of falling.[119]

In my own experience the sensation of falling only occurs in illness or
under the influence of drugs, sometimes when sleep seems incomplete, and
it is an unpleasant, though not terrifying, sensation. I once experienced
it in the most marked and persistent manner after taking a large dose
of chlorodyne to subdue pain. Under such circumstances the sensation is
probably due to the fact that the morphia in chlorodyne both weakens
respiratory action and produces anaesthesia of the peripheral nerves, so
that the skin becomes abnormally insensitive to the contact and pressure
of the bed, and the sensation of descent is necessarily aroused.[120] It
is possible that persons liable to the dream of falling are predisposed
to a stage of sleep unconsciousness, in which cutaneous insensibility is
marked. It is also possible that there is a contributory element of slight
cardiac or respiratory disturbance.[121]

In a dream belonging to this group, I imagined I was being rhythmically
swung up and down in the air by a young woman, my feet never touching
the ground; and then that I was swinging her similarly. At one time
she seemed to be swinging me in too jerky and hurried a manner, and
I explained to her that it must be done in a slower and more regular
manner, though I was not conscious of the precise words I used. There had
been some dyspepsia on the previous day, and on awaking I felt slight
discomfort in the region of the heart. The symbolism into which slightly
disturbed respiratory or cardiac action is here transformed seems very
clear in this dream, because it shows the actual transition from the
subjective sensation to the objective imagery of flying. By means of this
symbolic imagery we find sleeping consciousness commanding the hurried
heart to beat in a more healthy manner.

Although, in youth, my dreams of flying were of what may be considered
normal type, after the age of about thirty-five they tended, as
illustrated by the example I have given, to take on a somewhat objective
form. A further stage in this direction, the swinging movement being
transformed to an inanimate object, is illustrated by a dream of
comparatively recent date, in which I seemed to see an athlete of the
music-hall, a graceful and muscular man, who was manipulating a large
elastic ball, making it bound up from the floor. On awaking there was a
distinct sensation of cardaic tremor and nervousness.[122]

It may seem strange that dreams of flying, if so often due to organic
disturbances, should usually be agreeable in character. It is not,
however, necessary to assume that they are caused by serious interference
with physiological functions; often, indeed, they may simply be due to
the presence of a stage of consciousness in which respiration has become
unduly prominent, as it is apt to be in the early stage of nitrous oxide
anaesthesia, that is to say, to a relative wakefulness of the respiratory
centres. It would seem that the disturbance is frequently almost, or
quite, imperceptible on waking, and by no means to be compared with the
more acute organic disturbances which result in dreams of murder, although
it may be of nervous origin.[123] In some cases, however, it appears
that dreams of flying are accompanied by circumstances of terror. Thus a
medical correspondent, who describes his health as fairly good, writes
in regard to dreams of flying: 'I have often had such dreams, and have
wondered if others have them. Mine, however, are not so much dreams of
flying, as dreams of being entirely devoid of weight, and of rising and
falling at will. A singular feature of these levitation dreams is that
they are always accompanied by an intense and agonising fear of an evil
presence, a presence that I do not see but seem to feel, and my greatest
terror is that I _shall_ see it. The presence is ill-defined, but very
real, and it seems to suggest the potentiality of all possible moral,
mental, and physical evil. In these dreams it always occurs to me that
if this evil presence shall ever become embodied into a something that I
could _see_, the sight of it would be so ineffably horrible as to drive me
mad. So vivid has this fear been that on several occasions I have awakened
in a cold sweat or a nameless fear that would persist for some minutes
after I realised that I had only been dreaming.' This seems to be an
abnormal type of the dream of flight.

It is somewhat surprising that while dreams of floating in the air are so
common and clearly indicate the respiratory source of the dream, dreams
of floating on water seem to be rare, for as the actual experience of
floating on water is fairly familiar, we might have expected that sleeping
consciousness would have found here rather than in the never experienced
idea of floating in air the explanation of its sensations. The dream of
floating on water is, however, by no means unknown; thus Rachilde (Mme.
Vallette), the French novelist and critic, whose dream life is vivid and
remarkable, states that her most agreeable dream is that of floating on
the surface of warm and transparent lakes or rivers.[124] One of the
correspondents of _L'intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux_[125]
also states that he has often dreamed of walking on the water.

It is not only in sleep that the sensation of flying is experienced. In
hysteria a sense of peculiar lightness of the body, and the idea of the
soul's power to fly, may occur incidentally,[126] and may certainly be
connected both with the vigilambulism, as Sollier terms the sleep-like
tendencies of such cases, and the anaesthetic conditions found in the
hysterical. It is noteworthy that Janet found that in an ecstatic person
who experienced the sensation of rising in the air there was anaesthesia
of the soles of the feet. In such hysterical ecstasy, which has always
played so large a part in religious manifestations, it is well known
that the sense of rising and floating in the air has often prominently
appeared. St. Theresa occasionally felt herself lifted above the ground,
and was fearful that this sign of divine favour would attract attention
(though we are not told that that was the case), while St. Joseph of
Cupertino, Christina the Wonderful, St. Ida of Louvain, with many another
saint enshrined in the _Acta Sanctorum_, were permitted to experience this
sensation; and since its reality is as convincing in the ecstatic state as
it is in dreams, the saints have often been able to declare, in perfect
good faith, that their levitation was real.[127] In all great religious
movements among primitive peoples, similar phenomena occur, together
with other nervous and hallucinatory manifestations. They occurred, for
instance, in the great Russian religious movement which took place among
the peasants in the province of Kief during the winter of 1891-2. The
leader of the movement, a devout member of the Stundist sect, a man with
alcoholic heredity, who had received the revelation that he was saviour
of the world, used not only to perceive perfumes so exquisite that they
could only, as he was convinced, emanate from the Holy Ghost, but during
prayer, together with a feeling of joy, he also had a sensation of bodily
lightness and of floating in the air. His followers in many cases had
the same experiences, and they delighted in jumping up into the air and
shouting. In these cases the reality of the sensory obtuseness of the skin
as an element in the manifestations was demonstrated, for Ssikorski, who
had an opportunity of investigating these people, found that many of them,
when in the ecstatic condition, were completely insensible to pain.

The sensation of flying is one of the earliest to appear in the dreams
of childhood.[128] It is sometimes the last sensation at the moment of
death. To rise, to fall, to glide away, has often been the last conscious
sensation recalled by those who seemed to be dying, but have afterwards
been brought back to life. Those rescued from drowning, for instance, have
sometimes found that the last conscious sensation was a beatific feeling
of being borne upwards. Piéron has also noted this sensation at the moment
of death from disease in a number of cases, usually accompanied by a sense
of well-being.[129] The cases he describes were mostly tuberculous, and
included individuals of both sexes, and of atheistic as well as religious
belief. In all, the last sensation to which expression was given was
one of flying, of moving upwards. In some death was peaceful, in others
painful. In one case a girl died clasping the iron bars of the bed, in
horror of being borne upwards. Piéron, no doubt rightly, associates this
sensation with the similar sensation of rising and floating common in
dreams, and with the feeling of moving upwards and resting on the air
experienced by persons in the ecstatic state. In all these cases alike
life is being concentrated in the brain and central organs, while the
outlying districts of the body are becoming numb and dead.

In this way it comes about that out of dreams and of dream-like waking
states, one of the most permanent of human spiritual conceptions has been
evolved. To float, to rise into the air, to fly up to heaven, has always
seemed to man to be the final climax of spiritual activity. The angel is
the most ethereal creature the human imagination can conceive. Browning's
cry to his 'lyric love, half angel and half bird,' pathetically crude as
poetry, is sound as psychology. The prophets and divine heroes of the race
have constantly seemed to their devout followers to disappear at last by
floating up into the sky, like Elijah, who went up 'by a whirlwind into
heaven.' St. Peter once thought he saw his Master walking on the waves,
and the last vision of Jesus in the Gospels reveals him rising into
the air. For it is in the world of dreams that the human soul has its
indestructible home, and in the attempt to realise these dreams lies a
large part of our business in life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 100: Bk. IV. 1014-15:

              'de montibus altis
    Se quasi præcipitent ad terram corpore toto.'
]

[Footnote 101: 'It has many times happened to me,' says the innkeeper's
daughter in _Don Quixote_ (Part I. ch. xvi.), 'to dream that I was falling
down from a tower and never coming to the ground, and when I awoke from
the dream to find myself as weak and shaken as if I had really fallen.']

[Footnote 102: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient_, p. 43.]

[Footnote 103: Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, 3rd ed., vol.
i. p. 773.]

[Footnote 104: _L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux_, May 31,
1906.]

[Footnote 105: De Rochas describes the phenomenon as 'a property of the
human organism, more or less developed in different individuals, when the
soul, disengaging itself from the bonds of the body, enters the domain,
still so mysterious, of dreams' (_L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des
Curieux_, May 10, 1906). In subsequent numbers of the _Intermédiaire_
various correspondents describe their own experiences of such dreams. In
_Luce e Ombra_ for June 1906, and in the _Echo du Merveilleux_ for the
same date, neither of which I have seen, are given other experiences.]

[Footnote 106: _Annals of Psychical Research_, November 1896.]

[Footnote 107: Horace Hutchinson, _Dreams and their Meanings_, p. 76.]

[Footnote 108: _American Journal of Psychology_, July-October 1903, p. 14.]

[Footnote 109: 'The wish to be able to fly,' he declares (_Eine
Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci_, p. 59), 'signifies in dreaming
nothing else but the desire to be capable of sexual activities. It is a
wish of early childhood.']

[Footnote 110: Stanley Hall, _American Journal of Psychology_, January
1879, p. 158; also F. E. Bolton, 'Hydro-Psychoses,' _ib._, January 1899,
p. 183; as regards rudimentary gill-slits, Bland Sutton, _Evolution and
Disease_, pp. 48 _et seq._ Lafcadio Hearn travels still further along
this road in search for an explanation of dreams of flight, and evokes a
'memory of vanished planets with fainter powers of gravitation,' but he
fails to state when the ancestors of man inhabited these problematical
planets.]

[Footnote 111: I retain this statement of my explanation in almost the
same words as first written down in 1895. I was not then aware that
several psychologists had offered very similar explanations. Scherner
(_Das Leben des Traumes_, 1861) seems to have been the first to connect
the lungs with dreams of flying, though he put forward the explanation
in too fanciful a form and failed to realise that other factors, notably
a change in skin pressure, are also involved. Strümpell at a later date
recognised this explanation, as well as Wundt.]

[Footnote 112: It is the same with chloroform. 'There are marked
sensations in the vicinity of the heart,' says Elmer Jones ('The Waning
of Consciousness under Chloroform,' _Psychological Review_, January
1909). 'The musculature of that organ seems thoroughly stimulated, and
the contractions become violent and accelerated. The palpitations are
as strong as would be experienced at the close of some violent bodily
exertion.' It is significant, also, as bearing on the interpretation of
the dream of flying, that under chloroform 'all movements made appeared to
be much longer than they actually were. A slight movement of the tongue
appeared to be magnified at least ten times. Clinching the fingers and
opening them again produced the feeling of their moving through a space of
several feet.']

[Footnote 113: See _e.g._ Marie de Manacéïne, _Sleep_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 114: Horace Hutchinson, who in his _Dreams and their Meanings_
(1901), has independently suggested that 'this flying dream is caused by
some action of the breathing organs,' mentions the significant fact (p.
128) that the idea of filling the lungs as a help in levitation occurs in
the flying dreams of many persons.]

[Footnote 115: We have an analogous state of tactile anaesthesia in the
early stages of chloroform intoxication. Thus Elmer Jones found that this
sense is, after hearing, the first to disappear. 'With the disappearance
of the tactile sense and hearing,' he remarks, 'the body has completely
lost its orientation. It appears to be nowhere, simply floating in space.
It is a most ecstatic feeling.']

[Footnote 116: Lafcadio Hearn describes the fall as coming at the
beginning of the dream. Dr. Guthrie (_Clinical Journal_, June 7, 1899),
in his own case, describes the flying sensations as coming first and the
falling as coming afterwards, and apparently due to sudden failure of the
power of flight; the first part of the dream is agreeable but after the
fall the dreamer awakes shaken, shocked, and breathless.]

[Footnote 117: The disagreeable nature of falling in dreams may probably
be connected with the absence of rhythm usually present in dreams of
flying. Most of the psychologists who have occupied themselves with rhythm
have insisted on its pleasurable emotional tone, as leading to a state
bordering on ecstasy (see _e.g._ J. B. Miner, 'Motor, Visual, and Applied
Rhythms,' Monograph Supplement to _Psychological Review_, June 1903). The
pleasure is especially marked, as MacDougall remarks, when there is 'a
coincidence of subjective and objective change.' In dreams of flying we
have this coincidence, the real subjective rhythm being transformed in
consciousness to an objective rhythm.]

[Footnote 118: Féré, 'Note sur les Rêves Epileptiques,' _Revue de
Médecine_, September 10, 1905.]

[Footnote 119: Sir W. R. Gowers has on several occasions (_e.g._ 'The
Borderland of Epilepsy,' _British Medical Journal_, July 21, 1906) argued
that dreams of falling have an aural origin, and are caused by contraction
of the stapedius muscle, leading to a change in the ampullae which might
suggest descent; he has himself suddenly awakened from such a dream and
caught the sound of the muscular contraction. The opinion of so acute an
investigator deserves consideration.]

[Footnote 120: Such sensations are, indeed, a recognised result of
morphia. Morphinomaniacs, Goron remarks (_Les Parias de l'Amour_, p. 125),
are apt to feel that they are flying or floating over the world.]

[Footnote 121: Jewell states that 'certain observers, peculiarly liable
to dreams of falling or flying, ascribe these distinctly to faulty
circulation, and say their physicians, to regulate the heart's action,
have given them medicines which always relieve them and prevent such
dreams' (_American Journal of Psychology_, January 1905, p. 8).]

[Footnote 122: Interesting evidence in favour of the respiratory origin
of such visions is furnished by Silberer's observations on his own
symbolic hypnagogic visions which are certainly allied to dream visions.
He found (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1., 1909, p.
523) that on drawing a deep breath, and so raising the chest wall, the
representation came to him of attempting with another person to raise a
table in the air.]

[Footnote 123: J. de Goncourt (_Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii. p. 3)
mentions that after drinking port wine, to which he was unaccustomed, he
had a dream in which he observed on his counterpane grotesque images in
relief which rose and fell.]

[Footnote 124: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient_, p. 43.]

[Footnote 125: May 30, 1906.]

[Footnote 126: L. Binswanger, 'Versuch einer Hysterieanalyse,' _Jahrbuch
für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1. 1909.]

[Footnote 127: Their word has often been accepted. Levitation as
experienced by the saints has been studied by Colonel A. de Rochas,
_Les Frontières de la Science_, 1904; also in _Annales des Sciences
Psychiques_, January-February 1901. 'Levitation is a perfectly real
phenomena,' he concludes, 'and much more common than we might at first be
tempted to believe.']

[Footnote 128: It seems to become less frequent after middle age. Beaunis
states that in his case it ceased at the age of fifty. I found it
disappear, or become rare, at a somewhat earlier age.]

[Footnote 129: H. Piéron, 'Contribution à la Psychologie des Mourants,'
_Revue Philosophique_, December 1902.]




CHAPTER VII

SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS

    The Dramatisation of Subjective Feelings Based on
    Dissociation--Analogies in Waking Life--The Synaesthesias and
    Number-forms--Symbolism in Language--In Music--The Organic Basis
    of Dream Symbolism--The Omnipotence of Symbolism--Oneiromancy--The
    Scientific Interpretation of Dreams--Why Symbolism prevails
    in Dreaming--Freud's Theory of Dreaming--Dreams as Fulfilled
    Wishes--Why this Theory cannot be applied to all Dreaming--The
    Complete Form of Symbolism in Dreams--Splitting up of
    Personality--Self-objectivation in Imaginary Personalities--The
    Dramatic Element in Dreams--Hallucinations--Multiple
    Personality--Insanity--Self-objectivation a Primitive Tendency--Its
    Survival in Civilisation.


In discussing dreams of flying I have referred to a dream in which a
slight disturbance of the heart's action was transformed by sleeping
consciousness into the image of an athlete manipulating an elastic ball.
This objectivation of what are really the dreamer's subjective sensations,
although he is not conscious of them as subjective, is, indeed, a
phenomenon which we have encountered many times. It is, however, so
important a feature of dream psychology, and probably of such significant
weight in its influence on waking life, that it is worth while to deal
with it separately.

The dramatisation of subjective elements of the personality, which
contributes so largely to render our dreams vivid and interesting, rests
on that dissociation, or falling apart of the constituent groups of
psychic centres, which is so fundamental a fact of dream life. That is to
say, that the usually coherent elements of our mental life are split up,
and some of them--often, it is curious to note, precisely those which are
at that very moment the most prominent and poignant--are reconstituted
into what seems to us an outside and objective world, of which we are the
interested or the merely curious spectators, but in neither case realise
that we are ourselves the origin of.

An elementary source of this tendency to objectivation is to be found,
it may be noted, in the automatic impulse towards symbolism by which all
sorts of feelings experienced by the dreamer become transformed into
concrete visible images. When objectivation is thus attained, dissociation
may be said to be secondary. So far indeed as I am able to dissect the
dream-process, the tendency to symbolism seems nearly always to precede
the dissociation in consciousness, though it may well be that the
dissociation of the mental elements is a necessary subconscious condition
for the symbolism.

Sensory symbolism rests on a very fundamental psychic tendency. On the
abnormal side we find it in the synaesthesias which, since Galton first
drew attention to them in 1883, in his _Inquiries into Human Faculty_,
have become well known, and are found among between six to over twelve per
cent. of people. Galton investigated chiefly those kinds of synaesthesias
which he called 'number-forms' and 'colour associations.' The number-form
is characteristic of those people who almost invariably think of
numerals in some more or less constant form of visual imagery, the
number instantaneously calling up the picture. In persons who experience
colour-associations, or coloured-hearing, there is a similar instantaneous
manifestation of particular colours in connection with particular sounds,
the different vowel sounds, for instance, each constantly and persistently
evolving a definite tint, as _a_ white, _e_ vermilion, _i_ yellow,
etc., no two persons, however, having exactly the same colour scheme of
sounds.[130] These phenomena are not so very rare, and, though they must
be regarded as abnormal, they occur in persons who are perfectly healthy
and sane.

It will be seen that a synaesthesia--which may involve taste, smell,
and other senses besides hearing and sight--causes an impression of one
sensory order to be automatically and involuntarily linked on to an
impression of another totally different order. In other words, we may say
that the one impression becomes the _symbol_ of the other impression, for
a symbol--which is literally a throwing together--means that two things
of different orders have become so associated that one of them may be
regarded as the sign and representative of the other.

There is, however, another still more natural and fundamental form of
symbolism which is entirely normal, and almost, indeed, physiological.
This is the tendency by which qualities of one order become symbols of
qualities of a totally different order, because they instinctively seem
to have a similar effect on us. In this way, things in the physical
order become symbols of things in the spiritual order. This symbolism
penetrates indeed the whole of language; we cannot escape from it. The
sea is _deep_, and so also may thoughts be; ice is _cold_, and we say
the same of some hearts; sugar is _sweet_, as the lover finds also the
presence of the beloved; quinine is _bitter_, and so is remorse. Not only
our adjectives, but our substantives and our verbs are equally symbolical.
To the etymological eye every sentence is full of metaphor, of symbol,
of images that, strictly and originally, express sensory impressions of
one order, but, as we use them to-day, express impressions of a totally
different order. Language is largely the utilisation of symbols. This is a
well-recognised fact which it is unnecessary to elaborate.[131]

An interesting example of the natural tendency to symbolism, which may
be compared to the allied tendency in dreaming, is furnished by another
language, the language of music. Music is a representation of the
world--the internal or the external world--which, except in so far as
it may seek to reproduce the actual sounds of the world, can only be
expressive by its symbolism. And the symbolism of music is so pronounced
that it is even expressed in the elementary fact of musical pitch. Our
minds are so constructed that the bass always seems _deep_ to us and the
treble _high_. We feel it incongruous to speak of a _high_ bass voice or
a _deep_ soprano. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this and
the like associations are fundamentally based, that there are, as an acute
French philosophic student of music, Dauriac (in an essay 'Des Images
Suggérées par l'Audition musicale'[132]), has expressed it, 'sensorial
correspondences,' as, indeed, Baudelaire had long since divined[133]; that
the motor image is that which demands from the listener the minimum of
effort; and that music almost constantly evokes motor imagery.[134]

The association between high notes and physical ascent, between low
notes and physical descent, is certainly in any case very fixed.[135]
In Wagner's _Lohengrin_, the ascent and descent of the angelic chorus
is thus indicated. Even if we go back to the early composers, the same
correspondence is found. In Purcell it is very definite. In Bach--pure and
abstract as his music is generally considered--not only this elementary
association, but an immense amount of motor imagery is to be found; Bach
shows, indeed, a curious pre-occupation in translating the definite sense
of the words he is musically illustrating into corresponding musical
terms; the skill and subtlety with which he accomplishes this, can often,
as Pirro and Schweitzer have shown, be appreciated only by musicians.[136]
It is sometimes said that this is 'realism' in music. That is a mistake.
When the impressions derived from one sense are translated into those of
another sense, there can be no question of realism. A composer may attempt
a realistic representation of thunder, but his representation of lightning
can only be symbolical; audible lightning can never be realistic.

Not only is there an instinctive and direct association between sounds
and motor imagery, but there is an indirect but equally instinctive
association between sounds and visual imagery which, though not itself
motor, has motor associations. Thus Bleuler considers it well established
that among colour-hearers there is a tendency for photisms that are light
in colour (and belonging, we may say, to the 'high' part of the spectrum)
to be produced by sounds of high quality, and dark photisms by sounds
of low quality; and, in the same way, sharply-defined pains or tactile
sensations, as well as pointed forms, produce light photisms. Similarly,
bright lights and pointed forms produce high photisms, whole low photisms
are produced by opposite conditions. Urbantschitsch, again, by examining a
large number of people who were not colour-hearers, found that a high note
of a tuning-fork seems higher when looking at red, yellow, green, or blue,
but lower if looking at violet. Thus two sensory qualities that are both
symbolic of a third quality are symbolic to each other.

This symbolism, we are justified in believing, is based on fundamental
organic tendencies. Piderit, nearly half a century ago, forcibly argued
that there is a real relationship of our most spiritual feelings and
ideas to particular bodily movements and facial expressions. In a similar
manner, he pointed out that bitter tastes and bitter thoughts tend to
produce the same physical expression.[137] He also argued that the
character of a man's looks--his _fixed_ or _dreamy_ eyes, his _lively_
or _stiff_ movements--correspond to real psychic characters. If this
is so we have a physiological, almost anatomical, basis for symbolism.
Cleland,[138] again, in an essay, 'On the Element of Symbolic Correlation
in Expression,' argued that the key to a great part of expression is
the correlation of movements and positions with ideas, so that there
are, for instance, a host of associations in the human mind by which
'upward' represents the good, the great, and the living, while 'downward'
represents the evil and the dead. Such associations are so fundamental
that they are found even in animals, whose gestures are, as Féré[139]
remarked, often metaphorical, so that a cat, for instance, will shake its
paw, as if in contact with water, after any disagreeable experiences.

The symbolism that to-day interpenetrates our language, and indeed our
life generally, has mostly been inherited by us, with the traditions of
civilisation, from an antiquity so primitive that we usually fail to
interpret it. The rare additions we make to it in our ordinary normal
life are for the most part deliberately conscious. But so soon as we
fall below, or rise above, that ordinary normal level--to insanity and
hallucination, to childhood, to savagery, to folk-lore and legend, to
poetry and religion--we are at once plunged into a sea of symbolism.[140]
There is even a normal sphere in which symbolism has free scope, and that
is in the world of dreams.

Oneiromancy, the symbolical interpretation of dreams, more especially as
a method of divining the future, is a widespread art in early stages of
culture. The discerning of dreams is represented in the Old Testament as
a very serious and anxious matter (as in regard to Pharaoh's dream of the
fat and lean cattle), and, nearer to our time, the dreams of great heroes,
especially Charlemagne, are represented as highly important events in the
mediæval European epics. Little manuals on the interpretation of dreams
have always been much valued by the uncultured classes, and among our
current popular sayings there are many dicta concerning the significance,
or the good or ill luck, of particular kinds of dreams.

Oneiromancy has thus slowly degenerated to folk-lore and superstition.
But at the outset it possessed something of the combined dignities of
religion and of science. Not only were the old dream interpreters careful
of the significance and results of individual dreams, in order to build
up a body of doctrine, but they held that not every dream contained
in it a divine message; thus they would not condescend to interpret
dreams following on the drinking of wine, for only to the temperate,
they declared, do the gods reveal their secrets.[141] The serious and
elaborate way in which the interpretation of dreams was dealt with is well
seen in the treatise on this subject by Artemidorus of Daldi, a native
of Ephesus, and contemporary of Marcus Aurelius.[142] He divided dreams
into two classes: _theorematic_ dreams, which come literally true, and
_allegorical_ dreams. The first group may be said to correspond to the
modern groups of prophetic and proleptic or prodromic dreams, while the
second group includes the symbolical dreams which have of recent years
again attracted attention. Synesius, who lived in the fourth century,
and eventually became a Christian bishop without altogether ceasing to
be a Greek pagan, wrote a very notable treatise on dreaming, in which,
with a genuinely Greek alertness of mind, he contrived to rationalise and
almost to modernise the ancient doctrine of dream symbolism. He admits
that it is in their obscurity that the truth of dreams resides, and that
we must not expect to find any general rules in regard to dreams; no two
people are alike, so that the same dream cannot have the same significance
for every one, and we have to find out the rules of our own dreams. He
had himself (like Galen) often been aided in his writings by his dreams,
in this way getting his ideas into order, improving his style, and
receiving criticisms of extravagant phrases. Once, too, in the days when
he hunted, he invented a trap as a result of a dream. Synesius declares
that attention to divination by dreams is good on moral grounds alone. For
he who makes his bed a Delphian tripod will be careful to live a pure and
noble life. In that way he will reach an end higher than that he aimed
at.[143]

It seems to-day by no means improbable that, amid the absurdities of
this popular oneiromancy, there are some items of real significance.
Until recent years, however, the absurdities have frightened away the
scientific investigator. Almost the only investigator of the psychology
of dreaming who ventured to admit a real symbolism in the dream world was
Scherner,[144] and his arguments were not usually accepted nor even easy
to accept. When we are faced by the question of definite and constant
symbols it still remains true that scepticism is often called for. But
there can be no manner of doubt that our dreams are full of symbolism.[145]

The conditions of dream life, indeed, lend themselves with a peculiar
facility to the formation of symbolism, that is to say, of images
which, while evoked by a definite stimulus, are themselves of a totally
different order from that stimulus. The very fact that we _sleep_, that
is to say, that the avenues of sense which would normally supply the real
image of corresponding order to the stimulus are more or less closed,
renders symbolism inevitable.[146] The direct channels being thus largely
choked, other allied and parallel associations come into play, and since
the control of attention and apperception is diminished, such play is
often unimpeded. Symbolism is the natural and inevitable result of these
conditions.[147]

It might still be asked why we do not in dreams more often recognise the
actual source of the stimuli applied to us. If a dreamer's feet are in
contact with something hot, it might seem more natural that he should
think of the actual hot-water bottle, rather than of an imaginary Etna,
and that, if he hears a singing in his ears, he should argue the presence
of the real bird he has often heard rather than a performance of Haydn's
_Creation_, which he has never heard. Here, however, we have to remember
the tendency to magnification in dream imagery, a tendency which rests
on the emotionality of dreams. Emotion is normally heightened in dreams.
Every impression reaches sleeping consciousness through this emotional
atmosphere, in an enlarged form, vaguer it may be, but more massive. The
sleeping brain is thus not dealing with actual impressions--if we are
justified in speaking of the impressions of waking life as 'actual'--even
when actual impressions are being made upon it, but with transformed
impressions. The problem before it is to find an adequate cause, not for
the actual impression, but for the transformed and enlarged impression.
Under these circumstances symbolism is quite inevitable. Even when the
nature of an excitation is rightly perceived its quality cannot be
rightly perceived. The dreamer may be able to perceive that he is being
bitten, but the massive and profound impression of a bite which reaches
his dreaming consciousness would not be adequately accounted for by
the supposition of the real mosquito that is the cause of it; the only
adequate explanation of the transformed impression received is to be found
(as in a dream already narrated) in a creature as large as a lobster.
This creature is the symbol of the real mosquito.[148] We have the same
phenomenon under somewhat similar conditions in the intoxication of
chloroform and nitrous oxide.

The obscuration during sleep of the external sensory channels, with
the checks on false conclusions they furnish, is not alone sufficient
to explain the symbolism of dreams. The dissociation of thought during
sleep, with the diminished attention and apperception involved, is also
a factor. The magnification of special isolated sensory impressions in
dreaming consciousness is associated with a general bluntness, even an
absolute quiescence, of the external sensory mechanism. One part of the
organism, and it seems usually a visceral part, is thus apt to magnify its
place in consciousness at the expense of the rest. As Vaschide and Piéron
say, during sleep 'the internal sensations develop at the expense of the
peripheral sensations.' That indeed seems to be the secret of the immense
emotional turmoil of our dreams. Yet it is very rare for these internal
sensations to reach the sleeping brain as what they are. They become
conscious, not as literal messages, but as symbolical transformations.
The excited or labouring heart recalls to the brain no memory of itself,
but some symbolical image of excitement or labour. There is association,
indeed, but it is association not along the matter-of-fact lines of our
ordinary waking civilised life, but along much more fundamental and
primitive channels, which in waking life we have now abandoned or never
knew.

There is another consideration which may be put forward to account for
one group of dream-symbolisms. It has been found that certain hysterical
subjects of old standing when in the hypnotic state are able to receive
mental pictures of their own viscera, even though they may be quite
ignorant of any knowledge of the shape of these viscera. This _autoscopy_,
as it has been called, has been specially studied by Féré, Comar, and
Sollier.[149] Hysteria is a condition which is in many respects closely
allied to sleep, and if it is to be accepted as a real fact that autoscopy
occasionally occurs in the abnormal psychic state of hypnotic sleep in
hysterical persons, it is possible to ask whether it may not sometimes
occur normally in the allied state of sleep. In the hypnotic state it
is known that parts of the organism normally involuntary may become
subject to the will; it is not incredible that similarly parts normally
insensitive may become sufficiently sensitive to reveal their own shape
or condition. We may thus, indeed, the more easily understand those
premonitory dreams in which the dreamer becomes conscious of morbid
conditions which are not perceptible to waking consciousness until they
have attained a greater degree of intensity.[150]

The recognition of the transformation in dream life of internal
sensations into symbolic motor imagery is ancient. Hippocrates said that
to dream, for instance, of springs and wells denoted some disturbance of
the bladder. In such a case a disturbed bladder sends to the brain, not
the naked message of its own needs, but a symbolic message of those needs
in motor imagery, as (in one case known to me) of a large cistern with
a stream of water flowing from it.[151] Sometimes the symbolism aroused
by visceral processes remains physiological; thus indigestion frequently
leads to dreams of eating, as of chewing all sorts of inedible and
repulsive substances, and occasionally--it would seem more abnormally--to
agreeable dreams of food.

It is due to the genius of Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna--to-day
the most daring and original psychologist in the field of morbid psychic
phenomena--that we owe the long-neglected recognition of the large place
of symbolism in dreaming. Scherner had argued in favour of this aspect of
dreams, but he was an undistinguished and unreliable psychologist, and
his arguments failed to be influential. Freud avows himself a partisan of
Scherner's theory of dreaming and opponent of all other theories,[152] but
his treatment of the matter is incomparably more searching and profound.
Freud, however, goes far beyond the fundamental--and, as I believe,
undeniable--proposition that dream-imagery is largely symbolic. He holds
that behind the symbolism of dreams there lies ultimately a _wish;_ he
believes, moreover, that this wish tends to be really of more or less
sexual character, and, further, that it is tinged by elements that go back
to the dreamer's infantile days. As Freud views the mechanism of dreams,
it is far from exhibiting mere disordered mental activity, but is (much
as he has also argued hysteria to be[153]) the outcome of a desire, which
is driven back by a kind of inhibition or censure (_i.e._, that kind
of moral check which is still more alert in the waking state), and is
seeking new forms of expression. There is first in the dream the process
of what Freud calls condensation (_Verdichtung_), a process which is that
fusion of separate elements which must be recognised at the outset of
every discussion of dreaming, but Freud maintains that in this fusion all
the elements have a point in common, and overlie one another like the
pictures in a Galtonian composite photograph. Then there comes the process
of displacement or transference (_Verschiebung_), a process by which the
really central and emotional basis of the dream is concealed beneath
trifles. Then there is the process of dramatisation or transformation
into a concrete situation of which the elements have a symbolic value.
Thus, as Maeder puts it, summarising Freud's views, 'behind the apparently
insignificant events of the day utilised in the dream there is always an
important idea or event hidden. We only dream of things that are worth
while. What at first sight seems to be a trifle is a grey wall which
hides a great palace. The significance of the dream is not so much held
in the dream itself as in that substratum of it which has not passed the
threshold and which analysis alone can bring to light.'

'We only dream of things that are worth while.' That is the point at
which many of us are no longer able to follow Freud. That dreams of the
type studied by Freud do actually occur may be accepted; it may even be
considered proved. But to assert that all dreams must be made to fit
into this one formula is to make far too large a demand. As regards the
presentative element in dreams--the element that is based on actual
sensory stimulation--it is in most cases unreasonable to invoke Freud's
formula at all. If, when I am asleep, the actual song of a bird causes me
to dream that I am at a concert, that picture may be regarded as a natural
symbol of the actual sensation, and it is unreasonable to expect that
psycho-analysis could reveal any hidden personal reason why the symbol
should take the form of a concert. And, if so, then Freud's formula fails
to hold good for phenomena which cover one of the two main divisions of
dreams, even on a superficial classification, and perhaps enter into all
dreams.

But even if we take dreams of the remaining or representative class--the
dreams made up of images not directly dependent on actual sensation--we
still have to maintain a cautious attitude. A very large proportion of the
dreams in this class seem to be, so far as the personal life is concerned,
in no sense 'worth while.' It would, indeed, be surprising if they were.
It seems to be fairly clear that in sleep, as certainly in the hypnagogic
state, attention is diminished, and apperceptive power weakened. That
alone seems to involve a relaxation of the tension by which we will and
desire our personal ends. At the same time, by no longer concentrating our
psychic activities at the focus of desire it enables indifferent images to
enter more easily the field of sleeping consciousness. It might even be
argued that the activity of desire, when it manifests itself in sleep and
follows the course indicated by Freud, corresponds to a special form of
sleep in which attention and apperception, though in modified forms, are
more active than in ordinary sleep.[154] Such dreams seem to occur with
special frequency, or in more definitely marked forms, in the neurotic and
especially the hysterical, and if it is true that the hysterical are to
some extent asleep even when they are awake, it may also be said that they
are to some extent awake even when they are asleep. Freud certainly holds,
probably with truth, that there is no fundamental distinction between
normal people and psychoneurotic people, and that there is, for instance,
as Ferenczi says, emphasising this point, 'a streak of hysterical
disposition in everybody.' Freud has, indeed, made interesting analytic
studies of his own dreams, but the great body of material accumulated
by him and his school is derived from the dreams of the neurotic. Thus
Stekel states that he has analysed many thousand dreams, but his lengthy
study on the interpretation of dreams deals exclusively with the dreams
of the neurotic.[155] Stekel believes, moreover, that from the structure
of the dream life conclusions may be drawn, not only as to the life and
character of the dreamer, but also as to his neurosis, the hysterical
person dreaming differently from the obsessed person, and so on. If that
is the case we are certainly justified in doubting whether conclusions
drawn from the study of the dreams of neurotic people can be safely held
to represent the normal dream life, even though it may be true that there
is no definite frontier between them. Whatever may be the case among the
neurotic, in ordinary normal sleep the images that drift across the field
of consciousness, though they have a logic of their own, seem in a large
proportion of cases to be quite explicable without resort to the theory
that they stand in vital but concealed relationship to our most intimate
self.

Even in waking life, and at normal moments which are not those of
reverie, it seems possible to trace the appearance in the field of
consciousness of images which are evoked neither by any known mental or
physical circumstance of the moment, or any hidden desire, images that
are as disconnected from the immediate claims of desire and even of
association as those of dreams seem so largely to be. It sometimes occurs
to me--as doubtless it occurs to other people--that at some moment when
my thoughts are normally occupied with the work immediately before me,
there suddenly appears on the surface of consciousness a totally unrelated
picture. A scene arises, vague but usually recognisable, of some city
or landscape--Australian, Russian, Spanish, it matters not what--seen
casually long years ago, and possibly never thought of since, and
possessing no kind of known association either with the matter in hand or
with my personal life generally. It comes to the surface of consciousness
as softly, as unexpectedly, as disconnectedly, as a minute bubble might
arise and break on the surface of an actual stream from ancient organic
material silently disintegrating in the depths beneath.[156] Every one who
has travelled much cannot fail to possess, hidden in his psychic depths,
a practically infinite number of such forgotten pictures, devoid of all
personal emotion. It is possible to maintain, as a matter of theory, that
when they come up to consciousness, they are evoked by some real, though
untraceable, resemblance which they possess to the psychic or physical
state existing when they reappear. But that theory cannot be demonstrated.
Nor, it may be added, is it more plausible than the simple but equally
unprovable theory that such scenes do really come to the surface of
consciousness as the result of some slight spontaneous disintegration in
a minute cerebral centre, and have no more immediately preceding psychic
cause than my psychic realisation of the emergence of the sun from behind
a cloud has any psychic preceding cause.

Similarly, in insanity, Liepmann, in his study _Ueber Ideenflucht_, has
forcibly argued that ordinary logorrhœa--the incontinence of ideas linked
together by superficial associations of resemblance or contiguity--is a
linking _without direction_, that is, corresponding to no interest, either
practical or theoretical, of the individual. Or, as Claparède puts it,
logorrhœa is a trouble in the reaction of _interest_ in life. It seems
most reasonable to believe that in ordinary sleep the flow of imagery
follows, for the most part, the same easy course. That course may to
waking consciousness often seem peculiar, but to waking consciousness the
conditions of dreaming life are peculiar. Under these conditions, however,
we may well believe that the tendency to movement in the direction of
least resistance still prevails. And as attention and will are weakened
and loosened during sleep, the tense concentration on personal ends must
also be relaxed. We become more disinterested. Personal desire tends
for the most part rather to fall into the background than to become
more prominent. If it were not a period in which desire were ordinarily
relaxed, sleep would cease to be a period of rest and recuperation.

Sleeping consciousness is a vast world, a world scarcely less vast than
that of waking consciousness. It is futile to imagine that a single
formula can cover all its manifold varieties and all its degrees of depth.
Those who imagine that all dreaming is a symbolism which a single cypher
will serve to interpret must not be surprised if, however unjustly, they
are thought to resemble those persons who claim to find on every page of
Shakespeare a cypher revealing the authorship of Bacon. In the case of
Freud's theory of dream interpretation, I hold the cypher to be real, but
I believe that it is impossible to regard so narrow and exclusive an
interpretation as adequate to explain the whole world of dreams. It would,
_a priori_, be incomprehensible that sleeping consciousness should exert
so extraordinary a selective power among the variegated elements of waking
life, and, experientially, there seems no adequate ground to suppose that
it does exert such selective action. On the contrary, it is, for the
most part, supremely impartial in bringing forward and combining all the
manifestations, the most trivial as well as the most intimate, of our
waking life. There is a symptom of mental disorder called _extrospection_,
in which the patient fastens his attention so minutely on events that
he comes to interpret the most trifling signs and incidents as full of
hidden significance, and may so build up a systematised delusion.[157] The
investigator of dreams must always bear in mind the risk of falling into
morbid extrospection.

Such considerations seem to indicate that it is not true that every
dream, every mental image, is 'worth while,' though at the same time they
by no means diminish the validity of special and purposive methods of
investigating dream consciousness. Freud and those who are following him
have shown, by the expenditure of much patience and skill, that his method
of dream-interpretation may in many cases yield coherent results which it
is not easy to account for by chance. It is quite possible, however, to
recognise Freud's service in vindicating the large place of symbolism in
dreams, and to welcome the application of his psycho-analytic method to
dreams, while yet denying that this is the only method of interpreting
dreams. Freud argues that all dreaming is purposive and significant,
and that we must put aside the belief that dreams are the mere trivial
outcome of the dissociated activity of brain centres. It remains true,
however, that, while reason plays a larger part in dreams than most
people realise, the activity of dissociated brain centres furnishes one
of the best keys to the explanation of psychic phenomena during sleep.
It would be difficult to believe in any case that in the relaxation of
sleep our thoughts are still pursuing a deliberately purposeful direction
under the control of our waking impulses. Many facts indicate--though
Freud's school may certainly claim that such facts have not been
thoroughly interpreted--that, as a matter of fact, this control is often
conspicuously lacking. There is, for instance, the well-known fact that
our most recent and acute emotional experiences--precisely those which
might most ardently formulate themselves in a wish--are rarely mirrored
in our dreams, though recent occurrences of more trivial nature, as well
as older events of more serious import, easily find place there. That
is easily accounted for by the supposition--not quite in a line with a
generalised wish-theory--that the exhausted emotions of the day find rest
at night.

It must also be said that even when we admit that a strong emotion may
symbolically construct an elaborate dream edifice which needs analysis to
be interpreted, we narrow the process unduly if we assert that the emotion
is necessarily a wish. Desire is certainly very fundamental in life and
very primitive. But there is another equally fundamental and primitive
emotion--fear.[158] We may very well expect to find this emotion, as well
as desire, subjacent to dream phenomena.[159]

The infantile form of the wish-dream, alike in adults and children, is
thus, there can be little doubt, extremely common, and, even in its
symbolic forms, it is a real and not rare phenomenon. But it is impossible
to follow Freud when he declares that all dreams fall into the group of
wish-dreams. The world of psychic life during sleep is, like the waking
world, rich and varied; it cannot be covered by a single formula. Freud's
subtle and searching analytic genius has greatly contributed to enlarge
our knowledge of this world of sleep. We may recognise the value of his
contribution to the psychology of dreams while refusing to accept a
premature and narrow generalisation.

The wish-dream of the kind elaborately investigated by Freud may be
accepted as one type of dreaming, and a very interesting type, but it
seems evident that it is only one type. There are even other types which
seem closely related to it, and yet are quite distinct. This is, for
instance, the case with the contrast-dream. The contrast-dream of Näcke's
type represents the emergence of characteristics which are distinctly
opposed to the dreamer's character and habits. Thus, in the course of four
consecutive nights, I have dreamed in much detail that (1) I was the mayor
of a large northern city about to take the chair at a local meeting of the
Bible Society; (2) that I was a soldier in the heat of battle; and (3)
that I was meditating the step of going on the stage as a comedian--the
only rôle of the three which seemed to cause me any nervousness or
misgiving. In contrast-dreams of this type we are not concerned with
the eruption of concealed and repressed wishes. They are merely based
on vestigial possibilities, entirely alien to our temperament as it has
developed in life, and only a part of our complex personalities in the
sense that, as Schopenhauer said, whatever path we take in life there
are latent germs within us which could only have developed in an exactly
opposite path. Even the very same dream may be due to quite different
causes. To take a very simple dream, for we may best argue on the simplest
facts: the dream of eating. We dream of eating when we are hungry, but
sometimes we also dream of eating when the stomach is suffering from
repletion. The dream is the same, but the psychological mechanism is
entirely different, in the one case emotional, in the other intellectual.
In the first case the picture of eating is built up in response to an
organic visceral craving, and we have an elementary wish-dream of what
Freud would call infantile type; in the second case the same dream is a
theory, embodied in a concrete picture, to account for the existence of
the repletion experienced.

There cannot be the slightest doubt that the wish-dream, in its simple or
what Freud calls its infantile form, represents an extremely common type
of dream.[160] A large number of the dreams of children are concerned with
wishes and their fulfilments. Those dreams of adults which are aroused by
actual organic sensations also tend to fall, though not invariably, into
the same form. Again, we chance to want a thing when we are awake; when
we are asleep we dream we have found it. It may also be said, almost with
certainty, that in some cases our dreams are the fulfilment of unexpressed
and unconscious waking wishes. Even the best people, it is probable, may
occasionally dream of events which represent the fulfilment of wishes they
have never consciously formulated. Archbishop Laud was accustomed to note
down his dreams in his Diary. On one occasion we find him setting down
a disturbing dream, in which he saw the Lord Keeper dead, and 'rotten
already.' A little later we find that Laud is 'much concerned at the
envy and undeserved hatred borne to me by the Lord Keeper.'[161] It is
not difficult to see in the Archbishop's relations to the Lord Keeper an
explanation of his dream.

If, however, wishes, conscious or unconscious, are often fulfilled
in dreams, and if, as we have seen reason to conclude, symbolism is
a fundamental tendency of dreaming activity, it is inevitable that
wish-dreams should sometimes take on a symbolic form. It is thus, for
instance, that I interpret my dream of being in an English cathedral and
seeing on the wall a notice to the effect that at evensong on such a day
the edifice will not be illuminated, in order to avoid attracting moths;
I awake with a slight headache, and the unilluminated cathedral was
the symbol of the coolness and absence of glare which one desires when
suffering from headache.

There cannot, also, be any doubt that erotic wishes frequently make
themselves felt as dreams, both in the infantile and the symbolic form.
It is sufficient to bring forward one illustration. It is furnished
by a young lady of somewhat neurotic tendencies and heredity, aged
twenty-three, musical and intelligent, who was in love with her
music-master, the organist at her church. The dream was written down at
the time. 'I was at the school of my childhood, and I was told that I
was St. Agnes Virgin and Martyr, and in five minutes' time I was to be
beheaded with a large knife. The sheen of the blade frightened me so much
that I asked if instead I might be strangled by the man I was in love
with. Permission was given if I could induce him to come in time. I ran
to our church (saying to myself that I knew it was a dream, but that I
_must_ see what he would say) over huge stones that cut my bare feet, and
wondered what age I was living in, longing to meet some women in order to
find out. When I did, they all wore crinolines. I rushed up the central
aisle, which was full of people, thinking that, as I was going to be
killed, nothing could matter. Mr. T. (the organist) was giving a choir
practice in the vestry. I ran up to him and said: "Come at once, I am
going to be killed." He became very angry, and said: "Do go away; you are
always interrupting my choir practice." I said: "Don't you understand? I
am going to be killed at once; there is a knife hanging over my head, but
I would rather be strangled by you, and they said I could if I fetched you
in time." As soon as he understood that he came at once. Then it seemed
in the dream that we were married, and had a son, who was to be a musical
composer. I said I must say goodbye to this son first, and told the nurse
to bring him to me. When he came I said: "Good-bye, I am going to be
killed." He said, "Mother, am I a boy or a girl? When I am with boys I
don't seem like them, and they call me a girl, and yet I don't look like
a girl." I replied: "You are both in one, because you are going to be a
perfect musical genius."' In this dream, which represents the fulfilment
in sleep of an affection unsatisfied in life, we see side by side the
infantile and the symbolic fulfilments of the erotic wish, culminating in
a gifted musical child. The wish to be strangled is an undoubted erotic
symbol,[162] and it is significant that in the course of the dream the
accepted death by strangulation became fused with marriage, although the
idea of death still inconsistently survives, doubtless because dream
consciousness failed to realise that the accepted form of death was a
subconsciously furnished symbol of the consummation of marriage.

The wish-dream of Freud's type has presented itself for consideration
here, because it is a special and elaborate illustration of symbolism
in dreaming. The important place of symbols in dreaming is by no means
dependent on the validity of this particular type of dream, and we may now
proceed to continue the discussion of the significance of the symbolic
tendency during sleep in its most important form.

The symbols we have so far been mainly concerned with have been the
result of a tendency of dreaming consciousness to objectify feelings and
affections within the organism in concrete objects or processes outside
the organism. In its complete form this symbolic tendency becomes the
objectivation of part of the dreamer's feelings or personality in a
distinct imaginary personality. A process of dramatisation occurs, and
the dreamer finds himself in action and reaction, friendly or hostile or
indifferent, with seemingly external personalities which, by the light
of the analysis possible on awakening, are demonstrably created out of
split-off portions of his own personality.[163] A common and simple form
of such objectivation, closely allied to some of the symbolisms already
brought forward, occurs when the dreamer sees the image of a person
suffering from some affection of a part of the body and finds on awakening
that he is himself experiencing pain or discomfort in that part. Thus a
medical man dreams he is examining a tumour in a patient's groin, and on
awakening finds slight irritation in the same region of his own body. And
similarly, just as our bodily needs, when experienced during sleep, may
be symbolised by inanimate natural objects and processes, so they may
also become objective in the image of another person who is occupied in
gratifying the need which we are ourselves unconsciously experiencing.

An interesting and significant group of cases is furnished by those
dreams in which--as the result of some compression or effort--the tactile
and muscular sensations of our own limbs are split off from sleeping
consciousness and built up into an imaginary personality. Thus a medical
friend, shortly after an attack of influenza, dreamed that in conversation
with a lady patient his hand rested on her knee; she requested him to
remove it, but his efforts to do so were fruitless, and he awoke in horror
from this unprofessional situation to find that his hand was firmly
clasped between his own knees. His body had thus been divided in dreaming
consciousness between himself and an imaginary other person; the knee
had become the other person's, while the hand remained his own, the hand
being claimed in preference to the knee no doubt on account of its greater
tactile sensibility and more complexly intimate association with the
brain. In the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) state such dream sensations may
almost reach the intensity of hallucination. Thus, after an indigestible
supper, I awake with the vivid feeling that some one is lying on me
and attempting to drag off the bedclothes, and I find myself violently
attempting, but apparently in vain, to articulate: 'Who is there?' In a
dream of similar type, which occurred when lying on my back (and possibly
with slight indigestion due to an unusually late dinner), I awoke making
a kind of inarticulate exclamation which awakened my wife. I had dreamed
that I was lying in bed, and that some unseen creature--more supernatural
than human, it seemed--was violently dragging the bedclothes off me, while
I shouted to it, very distinctly it seemed to me, 'Avaunt, avaunt!'

It is evident that my own sense of oppression, my own unconscious and
involuntary movements in disturbing the bedclothes, were reconstructed by
sleeping consciousness as the actions of an external person, in the second
case, a supernatural creature, which, it is interesting to note, I duly
accepted as such and addressed in the conventionally appropriate manner
of old romance. The illusion may persist for some moments after waking. A
lady, after breathing rather loudly and convulsively for a few seconds,
wakes up, saying 'There is a rat or a mouse on the bed, shaking it up
and down.' 'You were asleep,' her husband replied, 'as I knew by your
breathing.' 'Oh, I was breathing like that,' she said, 'to make it jump
off.' Here we see that, somewhat as in the previous cases, the dreamer's
own muscular activity is, during sleep, reconstructed into the image of an
external force; but when she is in the semi-waking hypnagogic stage, she
recognises that the activity was her own, though still unable to dismiss
the delusion based on the theory formed during sleep.

At this point we reach the threshold of hallucination, and the next
case to be brought forward may be said to lie on the threshold, for an
impression received in the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) stage is accepted
in its illusional form, even when the dreamer is fully awake. A farmer's
daughter--a bright girl of twenty-one, with quick nervous reactions,
but untrained mind--dreamed that she saw her brother (dead some years
previously) with blood streaming from his fingers. She awoke in a fright,
and was comforting herself with the thought that it was only a dream when
she felt a hand grip her shoulder three times in succession. There was no
one in the room, the door was locked, and no explanation seemed possible
to her. She was very frightened, got up at once, dressed, and spent
the rest of the night downstairs working. She was so convinced that a
real hand had touched her that, although it seemed impossible, she asked
her brothers if they had not been playing a trick on her. The nervous
shock was considerable, and she was unable to sleep well for some weeks
afterwards. She naturally knew nothing about abnormal psychic phenomena,
and was utterly puzzled to explain the experience, except by supposing
that it may have been a ghost. The explanation is really very simple. It
is well recognised that involuntary muscular twitches may occur in the
shoulder, especially after it has been subjected to pressure, and that in
some cases such contractions may simulate a touch.[164] The dream of a
bleeding hand indicates, when we bear in mind the tendency to objectify
sensations symbolically, now familiar to us in dreaming, that the
dreamer's arm was probably pressed beneath her in a cramped position.[165]
This pressure would account, not only for the dream, but for the muscular
twitches occurring on awakening. The nature of the dream, the terrified
emotional state it produced, and the mental obscurity of the hypnagogic
state, naturally combined, in a subject unaccustomed to self-analysis, to
create an illusion which reflection is unable to dispel, though in the
normal waking state she would probably have given no attention at all
to such muscular twitches. Strictly speaking, such an experience is an
illusion--that is to say, a misinterpretation of a real sensation--and
not a hallucination--or perception without known objective causation--but
there is no clear line of demarcation. In any case it may now be taken as
proved that hallucinations tend to occur in the neighbourhood of sleep,
and therefore to partake of the nature of dreams.[166]

So far we have been concerned with the tendency in dreams to objectify
portions of the body by constructing out of them new personalities.
But precisely the same process goes on in sleep with regard to our
thoughts and feelings. We split off portions of these also and construct
other personalities out of them, and sometimes even endow the persons
thus formed with thoughts and feelings more native to our own normal
personality than those which we reserve for ourselves. Thus a lady who
dreamed that when walking with a friend she discovered a species of
animal fruit, a kind of damson containing a snail, expressed her delight
at finding a combination so admirably adapted to culinary purposes; it
was the friend who, retaining the attitude of her own waking moments,
uttered an exclamation of disgust. Most of the dreams in which there is
any dramatic element are due to this splitting up of personality; in
our dreams we may experience shame or confusion from the rebukes or the
arguments of other persons, but the persons who administer the rebuke or
apply the argument are still ourselves.[167]

Some writers on dreaming have marvelled greatly at this tendency of
the sleeping mind to objectify portions of itself, and so to create
imaginary personalities and evolve dramatic situations. It has seemed
to them quite unaccountable except as the outcome of a special gift of
imagination appertaining to sleep. Yet, remarkable as it is, this process
is simply the inevitable outcome of the conditions under which psychic
life exists during sleep. If we realise that a more or less pronounced
degree of dissociation of the contents of the mind occurs during sleep,
and if we also realise that, sleeping fully as much as waking, mind is
a thing that instinctively reasons, and cannot refrain from building up
hypotheses, then we may easily see how the personages and situations of
dreams develop. Much the same process might, under some circumstances,
occur in waking life. If, for instance, we heard an unknown voice speaking
behind a curtain, we could not fail to build up an imaginary person in
connection with that voice, the characteristics of the imaginary person
being largely determined by the nature of the voice and of the things it
uttered: it would, further, be quite easy to enter into conversation with
the person we had thus constructed. That is what seems to occur in dreams.
We hear a voice behind the curtain of darkness, and to fit that voice and
the things it utters we instinctively form a picture which, in virtue of
the hallucinatory aptitude of sleep, is thrown against the curtain; it is
then quite easy to enter into conversation with the person we have thus
constructed. It no more occurs to us during sleep to suppose that the
voice we hear is only a voice and nothing more, than it would occur to us
awake to suppose that the voice behind the curtain is only a voice and
nothing more. The process is the same; the difference is that in dreams we
are, without knowing it, living among what from the waking point of view
are called hallucinations.

This process by which dreams are formed in sleeping consciousness
through the splitting of the dreamer's personality for the construction
of other personalities has been recognised ever since dreams began to
be seriously studied. Maury referred to the scission of personality in
dreams.[168] Delboeuf dealt with what he termed the altruising by the
dreamer of part of his representations.[169] Foucault terms the same
process personalisation.[170] Giessler attempts elaborately to explain
the enigma of self-diremption--the formation of a secondary self--in
dreams; if, he argues, a touch or other sensation exceeds the dream-body's
capacity of adaptation--_i.e._, if the state of stimulus is above the
apperceptive threshold--only one part of the perception is referred to the
dream-body and the other is transferred to a secondary self.[171] This
explanation, while it very fairly covers the presentative class of dreams,
directly connected with sensory stimuli, cannot so easily be applied to
the dramatisation of our representative dreams, which are not obviously
traceable to direct bodily stimulation.

The splitting up of personality is indeed a very pronounced and widely
extended tendency of the mind, and has, during recent years, been
elaborately studied. We thus have the basis of that psychic phenomenon
which is variously termed secondary personality, double personality,
duplex personality, multiple personality, alternation of personality,
etc.,[172] and in earlier ages was regarded as due to possession by
demons. Such conditions seem to be usually associated with hysteria.
The essential fact about hysteria is, according to Janet, its lack of
synthetising power, which is at the same time a lack of attention and
of apperception, and has as its result a disintegration of the field of
consciousness into mutually exclusive parts; that is to say, there is a
process of dissociation. Now that is a condition resembling, as we have
seen, the condition found in dreaming. It is not, therefore, difficult to
accept the view of Sollier and others, that hysteria is a condition allied
to sleep, a condition of vigilambulism in which the patients are often
unable to obtain normal sleep, simply because they are all the time in a
state of abnormal sleep; as one said to Sollier: 'I cannot sleep because I
am asleep all the time.' It may thus be the case that hysterical multiple
personalities[173] furnish a pathological analogue of that tendency to the
dramatic objectivation of portions of our personality which is normal and
healthy in dreams.

Similarly in insanity we have an even more constant and pronounced
tendency for the subject to attribute his own sensations to imaginary
individuals, and to create personalities out of portions of the real
personality. All the illusions, delusions, and hallucinations of the
insane are merely the manifold manifestations of this tendency. Without it
the insanity would not exist. It is not because he is subjected to unusual
sensations--visionary, auditory, tactile, olfactory, visceral, etc.--that
a man is insane. It is because he creates imaginary personalities to
account for these sensations; if his food tastes strange some one has
given him poison if he hears a strange voice it is some one communicating
with him by telephones or microphones or hypnotism; if he feels a strange
internal sensation it is perhaps because he has another person inside
him. The case has even been recorded of a man who attributed any feeling
he experienced, even the most normal sensations of hunger and thirst, to
the people around him. It is exactly the same process as goes on in our
dreams. The sane man, the normal waking man, may experience all these
strange sensations, but he recognises that they are the spontaneous
outcome of his own organisation.

We may, however, advance a step beyond this position. This
self-objectivation, this dramatisation of our experiences, is not
confined to sleep and to pathological conditions which resemble sleep.
It is natural and primitive in a far wider sense. The infant will gaze
inquisitively at its own feet, watch their movements, play with them,
'punish' them; consciousness has not absorbed them as part of the
self.[174] The infant really acts and feels towards the remote parts of
his own body as the adult acts and feels in dreaming. We are reminded of
the generalisation of Giessler that dream consciousness corresponds to
the normal psychic state in childhood, while sleeping subconsciousness
corresponds to the embryonic psychic state; so that the dream state
represents the renascence of the ego disentangling itself from the
impersonal sensations and indistinct images of the embryonic stage of
life. That sleeping consciousness is the primitive embryonic consciousness
is, indeed, indicated, it has often seemed to me, by the fact that in
many animals the embryonic position is the position of rest and sleep.
Ducklings and chicks in the shell have their heads beneath their wing. The
dog lies with his feet together, head flexed, and hind-quarters drawn up.
Man, alike in the womb and asleep, tends to be curled up, with the flexors
predominating over the extensors.

The savage has gone beyond the infant in ability to assimilate the
impressions of his own limbs, but on the psychic side he still
constantly tends to objectify his own feelings and ideas, re-creating
them as external beings. Primitive man has done so from the first, and
this impulse has struck its roots into all our most fundamental human
traditions even as they survive in civilisation to-day. The man of
the early world moves, like the dreamer, among a sea of emotions and
ideas which he cannot recognise the origin of, and, like the dreamer,
he instinctively dramatises them. But, unlike the dreamer, he gives
stability to the images he has thus created and in good faith mistaken
for independent beings. Thus we have the animistic stages of culture, and
early man peoples his world with gods and spirits and demons and fairies
and ghosts which enter into the traditions of his race, and are more or
less accepted even by a later race which no longer creates them for itself.

In our more advanced civilisations we are still struggling with later
forms of that Protean tendency to objectify the self and to animate the
things and even the people around us with our own spirit. The impatient
and imperfectly bred child, or even man, kicks viciously the object he
stumbles against, animate or inanimate, in order to revenge a wrong which
exists only in himself. On a slightly higher plane, the men of mediæval
times brought actions in the law courts against offending animals and
solemnly pronounced sentence against them as 'criminals,'[175] while
even to-day society still 'punishes' the human criminal because it has
imaginatively re-created him in the image of an ordinary normal person,
and lacks the intelligence to perceive that he has been moulded by the
laws of his nature and environment into a creature which we do well to
protect ourselves against, but have no right to 'punish.'[176] Everywhere
we still see around us the surviving relics of this primitive tendency
of men to project their own personalities into external objects. A fine
civilisation lies largely in the due subordination of this tendency, in
the realisation and control of our own emotional possibilities, and in the
resultant growth of personal responsibility.

It is thus impossible to over-estimate the immense importance of the
primitive symbolic tendency to objectify the subjective. Men have taken
out of their own hearts their best feelings and their worst feelings,
and have personalised and dramatised them, bowed down to them or stamped
on them, unable to hear the voice with which each of their images spoke:
'I am thyself.' Our conceptions of religion, of morals, of many of the
mightiest phenomena of life, especially the more exceptional phenomena,
have grown up under this influence, which still serves to support many
movements of to-day by some people imagined to be modern.

Dreaming, as we have seen, is not the sole source of such conceptions.
But they could scarcely have been found convincing, and possibly could
not even have arisen, among races which were wholly devoid of dream
experiences. A large part of all progress in psychological knowledge,
and, indeed, a large part of civilisation itself, lies in realising that
the apparently objective is really subjective, that the angels and demons
and geniuses of all sorts that once seemed to be external forces taking
possession of feeble and vacant individualities are themselves but modes
of action of marvellously rich and varied personalities. In our dreams we
are brought back into the magic circle of early culture, and we shrink and
shudder in the presence of imaginative phantoms that are built up of our
own thoughts and emotions, and are really our own flesh.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 130: See _e.g._ Galton, _Inquiries_ (Everyman's Library
edition), pp. 79-112. Among more recent writings on this subject may
be mentioned Bleuler, art. 'Secondary Sensations,' Tuke's _Dictionary
of Psychological Medicine;_ Suarez de Mendoza, _L'Audition Colorée;_
Jules Millet, _Audition Colorée;_ and especially a useful summary by
Clavière, 'L'Audition Colorée,' _L'Année Psychologique_, fifth year,
1899. A case of auditory gustation is recorded by A. M. Pierce, _American
Journal of Psychology_, 1907. It may be noted that Boris Sidis has argued
(_Psychological Review_, January 1904) that all hallucinations are of the
nature of secondary sensations.]

[Footnote 131: Ferrero, in his _Lois Psychologiques du Symbolisme_ (1895),
deals broadly with symbolism in human thought and life.]

[Footnote 132: _Revue Philosophique_, November 1902.]

[Footnote 133: 'Richard Wagner et Tannhauser' in _L'Art Romantique_.]

[Footnote 134: The motor imagery suggested by music is in some persons
profuse and apparently capricious, and may be regarded as an anomaly
comparable to a synaesthesia. Heine was an example of this, and he has
described in _Florentine Nights_ the visions aroused by the playing of
Paganini, and elsewhere the visions evoked in him by the music of Berlioz.
Though I do not myself experience this phenomenon, I have found that there
is sometimes a tendency for music to arouse ideas of motor imagery; thus
some melodies of Handel suggest a giant painting frescoes on a vast wall
space. The most elementary motor relationship of music is seen in the
tendency of many people to sway portions of their body--to 'beat time'--in
sympathy with the music. (This phenomenon has been experimentally studied
by J. B. Miner, 'Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhythms,' Monograph Supplement
to the _Psychological Review_, vol. v., No. 4, June 1903). Music is
fundamentally an audible dance, and the most primitive music is dance
music.]

[Footnote 135: The instinctive nature of this tendency is shown by the
fact that it persists even in sleep. Thus Weygandt relates that he once
fell asleep in the theatre during one of the last scenes of _Cavalleria
Rusticana_, when the tenor was singing in ever higher and higher tones,
and dreamed that in order to reach the notes the performer was climbing up
ladders and stairs on the stage.]

[Footnote 136: See, especially the attractive book of André Pirro,
_L'Esthétique de J. S. Bach_ (1907), and also Albert Schweitzer, _J. S.
Bach_ (1908), especially chapters xix.-xxiii. 'Concrete things,' says
Ernest Newman, summarising some of these results (_Nation_, December 25,
1909), 'incessantly suggested abstract ideas or inward moods to Bach, and
_vice versâ_. He would time after time use the same musical formula for
the same word or idea. He first suggests the external concepts of "high"
and "low," as other composers have done, by high or low notes, and motion
up or down by ascending or descending themes. But Bach correlates with
the outward, objective thing a whole series of things that are purely
subjective. Thus moods of elation or of depression are to him the mental
equivalents of the physical acts of going up or down. So he gives us a
whole series of ascending themes to words that express "mounting" states
of mind, as it were--such as pride, courage, strength, resolution--and
descending themes to words that express "declining" states of mind--such
as prostration, adoration, depression, discouragement, grief at sin,
humility, poverty, fatigue, and illness. For the two sets of concepts,
internal and external, he will use the same musical symbols. To represent
the physical concept of "surrounding," again, he adopts the device of
a circling or undulating theme. A crown or a garland suggests the same
idea to him, so for this, too, he uses the same kind of theme. But
the correspondence goes still further; for when he comes to the word
"considering," he uses the same curving musical symbol once more--his
notion of "considering" being that of looking round on all sides. Again, a
word of purely external signification that suggests something twisted will
have an appropriately twisted theme. Then come the subjective applications
of the theme--the same disordered melodic outline is used to express a
frame of mind like anxiety or confusion, or to depict the wiles of Satan.
Careful study of the vocal works of Bach, and especially of the cantatas,
has revealed a host of these curious symbols.' The whole subject, it may
be added, has been briefly and suggestively discussed by Goblot, 'La
Musique Descriptive,' _Revue Philosophique_, July 1901.]

[Footnote 137: T. Piderit, _Mimik und Physiognomik_, 1867, p. 73.]

[Footnote 138: J. Cleland, _Evolution, Expression and Sensation_, 1881.]

[Footnote 139: Féré, 'La Physiologie dans les Métaphores,' _Revue
Philosophique_, October 1895.]

[Footnote 140: Maeder discusses symbolism in some of these fields in
his 'Die Symbolik in den Legenden, Märchen, Gebräuchen und Träumen,'
_Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 6 and 7, May 1908.]

[Footnote 141: So Philostratus, and Pliny (_Natural History_, Bk. X. ch.
CCXI.) puts the same point on somewhat more natural grounds.]

[Footnote 142: It has been translated by F. S. Krauss, _Symbolik der
Träume_, 1881.]

[Footnote 143: A translation of Synesius's 'Treatise on Dreams' is
included in Druon's _Œuvres de Synésius_, pp. 347 _et seq._ Synesius is
probably best known to modern English readers through Charles Kingsley's
novel, _Hypatia_. His treatise on dreams has been unduly neglected, though
it commended itself mightily to the pioneering mind of Lord Monboddo, who
even says (_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. ii., 1782, p. 217) in reference
to this treatise: 'Indeed it appears to me that since the days of Plato
and Aristotle there has not been a philosopher of greater depth than
Synesius.']

[Footnote 144: K. A. Scherner, _Das Leben des Traumes_, 1861. In France
Hervey de Saint-Denis, in a remarkable anonymous work which I have
not seen (_Les Rêves et les Moyens de les Diriger_, p. 356, quoted by
Vaschide and Piéron, _Psychologie du Rêve_, p. 26), tentatively put
forward a symbolic theory of dreams, as a possible rival to the theory
that permanent associations are set up as the result of a first chance
coincidence. 'Do there exist,' he asked, 'bizarre analogies of internal
sensations in virtue of which certain vibrations of the nerves, certain
instinctive movements of our viscera, correspond to sensations apparently
quite different? According to this hypothesis experience would bring
to light mysterious affinities, the knowledge of which might become a
genuine science;... and a real key to dreams would not be an unrealisable
achievement if we could bring together and compare a sufficient number of
observations.']

[Footnote 145: It is interesting to note that hallucinations may
also be symbolic. Thus the Psychical Research Society's Committee on
Hallucinations recognised a symbolic group, and recorded, for instance,
the case of a man who, when his child lies dying, sees a blue flame in the
air and hears a voice say, 'That's his soul' (_Proceedings Society for
Psychical Research_, August 1894, p. 125).]

[Footnote 146: Maeder states that the tendency to symbolism in dreams and
similar modes of psychic activity is due to 'vague thinking in a condition
of diminished attention.' This is, however, an inadequate statement and
misses the central point.]

[Footnote 147: In the other spheres in which symbolism most tends to
appear, the same or allied conditions exist. In hallucinations, which (as
Parish and others have shown) tend to occur in hypnagogic or sleep-like
states, the conditions are clearly the same. The symbolism of an art, and
notably music, is due to the very conditions of the art, which exclude
any appeal to other senses. The primitive mind reaches symbolism through
a similar condition of things, coming as the result of ignorance and
undeveloped powers of apperception. In insanity these powers are morbidly
disturbed or destroyed, with the same result.]

[Footnote 148: The magnification we experience in dreams is manifested
in their emotional aspects and in the emotional transformation of
actual sensory stimuli, from without or from within the organism. The
size of objects recalled by dreaming memory usually remains unchanged,
and if changed it seems to be more usually diminished. 'Lilliputian
hallucinations,' as they are termed by Leroy, who has studied them (_Revue
de Psychiatrie_, 1909, No. 8), in which diminutive, and frequently
coloured, people are observed, may also occasionally occur in alcoholic
and chloral intoxication, in circular insanity, and in various other
morbid mental conditions. They are usually agreeable in character.]

[Footnote 149: Sollier, 'L'Autoscopie Interne,' _Revue Philosophique_,
January 1903. Sollier deals with the objections made to the reality of the
phenomenon.]

[Footnote 150: 'Many people,' writes Dr. Marie de Manacéïne (_Sleep_,
1897, p. 294), 'when threatened by a gastric or intestinal attack dream
of seeing fish. The late Professor Sergius Botkine told me that he had
found this coincidence in his own case, and I have myself several times
found it in the case of a young girl who is well known to me. Some have
supposed that the sleeping consciousness receives an impression of the
elongated shape of the stomach or intestine; but such a supposition is
easier to make than to prove.' Scherner associated dreams of fish with
sensations arising from the bladder, and here also it may be said that we
are concerned with a fish-like viscus. Greenwood (_Imagination in Dreams_,
p. 195) stated that he had always been subject, at intervals of months
or years, to a recurrent dream in which he would see a river swarming
with fish that were finally piled in a horrible sweltering mass; this
dream always left a feeling of 'squalid horror,' but he was never able to
ascertain its cause and significance.]

[Footnote 151: Freud states (_Die Traumdeutung_, p. 233) that he knows a
case in which (as in the _Song of Songs_) columns and pillars appear in
dreams as symbols of the legs, and doors as symbols of the openings of the
body.]

[Footnote 152: Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, p. 66. This work, published
in 1900, is the chief and most extensive statement of Freud's views. A
shorter statement is embodied in a little volume of the 'Grenzfrägen'
Series, _Ueber den Traum_, 1901. A brief exposition of Freud's position
is given by Dr. A. Maeder of Zurich in 'Essai d'Interpretation de
Quelques Rêves,' _Archives de Psychologie_, April 1907; as also by
Ernest Jones ('Freud's Theory of Dreams,' _Review of Neurology and
Psychiatry_, March 1910, and _American Journal of Psychology_, April
1910). For Freud's general psychological doctrine, see Brill's translation
of 'Freud's Selected Papers on Hysteria,' 1909. There have been many
serious criticisms of Freud's methods. As an example of such criticism,
accompanying an exposition of the methods, reference may be made to Max
Isserlin's 'Die Psychoanalytische Methode Freuds,' _Zeitschrift für die
Gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie_, Bd. 1. Heft i. 1910. A judicious
and qualified criticism of Freud's psychotherapeutic methods is given by
Löwenfeld ('Zum gegenwärtigen Stande der Psychotherapeutie,' _Münchener
medizinische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 3 and 4, 1910).]

[Footnote 153: I have set forth Freud's views of hysteria, now regarded as
almost epoch-making in character, in _Studies of the Psychology of Sex_,
vol. i. 3rd ed. pp. 219 _et seq._]

[Footnote 154: This is supported by the fact that in waking reverie, or
day-dreams, wishes are obviously the motor force in building up visionary
structures. Freud attaches great importance to reverie, for he considers
that it furnishes the key to the comprehension of dreams (_e.g._ _Sammlung
disturbances Captain Peasley made his way shoreward from the ship to
scan the scene, and the sight of his uniform excited the ire of the
strikers afresh. After a glance over the mob, he remarked to Emerson:

"Bli'me! It looks like a bloody riot already, doesn't it? Four hundred
pounds to those dock wallopers! Huh! You know if I allowed them to
bleed me that way--"

At that instant, from some quarter, a railroad spike whizzed past the
Captain's head, banging against the boards behind him with such a thump
that the dignified Englishman ducked quickly amid a shout of derision.
He began to curse them roundly in his own particular style.

"You'd better keep under cover, Captain," advised Emerson. "They don't
seem to care for you."

"So it would appear," he agreed. "They're getting nawsty, aren't they?
I hope it doesn't lawst."

"Well, I hope it does," said George Balt. "If they'll only keep at it
and beat up some of our boys at quitting-time the whole gang will be
here in the morning."

It seemed that his wishes bade fair to be realized, for, as the day
wore on, instead of diminishing, the excitement increased. By evening
it became so menacing that Boyd was forced to send in an urgent demand
for a squadron of bluecoats to escort his men to their lodgings, and it
was only by the most vigorous efforts that a serious clash was averted.
Nor was this task the easier since it did not meet with the approval of
the fishermen themselves, who keenly resented protection of any sort.

True to George's prediction, the next morning found the non union men
out in such force that they were divided into a night and a day crew,
half of them being sent back to report later, while among the mountains
of freight the work went forward faster than ever. But the night had
served to point the anger of the strikers, and the dock owners,
becoming alarmed for the safety of their property, joined with Emerson
in establishing a force of a dozen able-bodied guards, armed with
clubs, to assist the police in disputing the shore line with the
rioters. The police themselves had proved ineffective, even betraying a
half-hearted sympathy with the union men, who were not slow to profit
by it. Even so, the day passed rather quietly, as did the next. But in
time the agitation became so general as to paralyze a wide section of
the water-front, and the city awoke to the realization that a serious
conflict was in progress. The handful of fishermen, hidden under the
roof of the great warehouse, outnumbered twenty to one, and guarded
only by a thin line of pickets, became a centre of general interest.

As the violence of the mob, stimulated rather than checked by the
indifference of the police, became more openly daring, so likewise did
the reprisals of the fishermen, goaded now to a stubborn rage. They
would not hear to having their food brought to them, but insisted daily
on emerging in a body at noon and spending the hour in combat. Not to
speak of the physical disabilities they incurred in these affrays, the
excitement distracted them and affected their work disastrously, to the
great concern of their employer.

It was on the fourth day that Boyd espied the man in the gray suit
among the strikers and pointed him out to his three companions, Clyde
and Fraser having joined him and George in a spirit of curiosity. Clyde
was for immediately executing a sally to capture the fellow, explaining
that once they had him inside the dock-house they could beat him until
he confessed that Marsh was behind the strike, but his valor shrank
amazingly when Fraser maliciously suggested that he himself lead the
dash.

"No!" he exclaimed. "I'm not a fighting man, but I'm a good general.
You know, Napoleon was about my size."

"I never noticed the resemblance," remarked Fraser.

"All the same, your idea ain't so bad," said Balt. "There's somebody
stirring those fellows up, and I think it's that detective. I wouldn't
mind getting my hands on him, and if you'll all stick with me I'll go
out after him."

"Not for mine," hastily declared "Fingerless" Fraser. "I don't want to
fight anybody. I'm here as a spectator."

"You're not afraid?" questioned Emerson.

"Not exactly afraid, but what's the use of my getting mixed up in this
row? It ain't _my_ cannery."

Now, while a mob is by nature noisy and threatening, there is little
real danger in it until its diffusive violence is directed into one
channel by a leader. Then, indeed, it becomes a terrible thing, and to
the watchers at the dock it became evident, in time, that a guiding
influence was at work among their enemies. Sure enough, late in the
afternoon of the fourth day, without a moment's warning, the strikers
rushed in a body, bearing down the guards like reeds. They came so
unexpectedly that there was no time to muster reinforcements at the
gate; almost before the fishermen could drop their tasks, their enemies
were inside the building and pandemonium had broken loose. The
structure rocked to the tumult of pounding heels, of yells and
imprecations, the lofty roof serving to toss back and magnify the
uproar.

Emerson and his companions found themselves carried away before the
onslaught like chips in the surf, then sucked into a maelstrom where
the first duty was self-preservation. Behind locked doors and shivering
glass a terrified office-clerk, receiver to ear, was calling madly for
Police Headquarters, while in the main building itself the crowd
bellowed and roared and the hollow floor reverberated to the thunder of
trampling feet and the crash of tumbling freight-piles.

Boyd succeeded in keeping his footing and eventually fought his way to
a backing of crated machinery, where he stooped and ripped a cleat
loose; then, laying about him with this weapon, he cleared a space. It
was already difficult to distinguish friend from foe, but he saw Alton
Clyde go down a short distance away and made a rush to rescue him. His
pine slat splintered against a head, he dodged a missile, then struck
with the fragment in his hand, and, snatching Clyde by the arm, dragged
him out from under foot. Battered and bruised, the two won back to
Emerson's first position, and watched the tide surge past.

At the first alarm the fishermen had armed themselves with bale-hooks
and bludgeons, and for a time worked havoc among their assailants; but
as the fight became more general they were forced apart and drawn into
the crowd, whereupon the combatants split up into groups, milling about
like frightened cattle. Men broke out from these struggling clusters to
nurse their injuries or beat a retreat, only to be overrun and
swallowed up again in a new commotion.

Emerson saw the big, barefooted fisherman in the red underclothes,
armed with a sledge-hammer, go through the ranks of his enemies like a
tornado, only to be struck by some missile hurled from a distance. With
a shout of rage the fellow turned and flung his own weapon at his
assailant, felling him like an ox, then he in turn was blotted out by a
surge of rioters. But there was little time for observation, as the
scene was changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity and there was the
ever-present necessity of self-protection. Seeing Clyde's helpless
condition, Emerson shouted:

"Come on! I'll help you aboard the ship." He found a hardwood club
beneath his feet--one of those cudgels that are used in pounding
rope-slings and hawsers--and with it cleared a pathway for Clyde and
himself. But while still at a distance from the ship's gangway, he
suddenly spied the man in the gray suit, who had climbed upon one of
the freight-piles, whence he was scanning the crowd. The man likewise
recognized Emerson, and pointed him out, crying something
unintelligible in the tumult, then leaped down from his vantage-point.
The next instant Boyd saw him approaching, followed by several others.
He endeavored to hustle Clyde to the big doors ahead of the oncomers,
but being intercepted, backed against the shed wall barely in time to
beat off the foremost.

His nearest assailant had armed himself with an iron bar and endeavored
to guard the first blow with this instrument, but it flew from his
grasp, and he sustained the main force of the impact on his forearm.
Then, though Boyd fell back farther, the others rushed in and he found
himself hard beset. What happened thereafter neither he nor Alton
Clyde, who was half-dazed to begin with, ever clearly remembered, for
in such over-charged instants the mental photograph is wont to be
either unusually distinct or else fogged to such a blur that only the
high-lights stand out clearly in retrospect.

Before he had recognized the personal nature of the assault, Emerson
found himself engaged in a furious hand-to-hand struggle where a want
of room hampered the free use of his cudgel, and he was forced to rely
mainly upon his fists. Blows were rained upon him from unguarded
quarters, he was kicked, battered, and flung about, his blind instinct
finally leading him to clinch with whomsoever his hands encountered.
Then a sudden blackness swallowed him up, after which he found himself
upon his knees, his arms loosely encircling a pair of legs, and
realized that he had been half-stunned by a blow from behind. The legs
he was clutching tried to kick him loose, at which he summoned all his
strength, knowing that he must go down no further; but as he struggled
upward, something smote him in the side with sickening force, and he
went to his knees again.

Close beside him he saw the club he had dropped, and endeavored to
reach it; but before he could do so, a hand snatched it away and he
heard a voice cursing above him. A second time he tried to rise, but
his shocked nerves failed to transmit the impulse to his muscles; he
could only raise his shoulder and fling an arm weakly above his head in
anticipation of the crushing blow he knew was coming. But it did not
descend, Instead, he heard a gun shot--that sound for which his ears
had been strained from the first--and then for an instant he wondered
if it had been directed at himself. A weight sank across his calves,
the legs he had been holding broke away from his grasp; then, with a
final effort, he pulled himself free and staggered to his feet, his
head rocking, his knees sagging. He saw a man's figure facing him, and
lunged at it, to bring up in the arms of "Fingerless" Fraser, who cried
sharply:

"Are you hurt, Bo?"

Too dazed to answer, he turned and beheld the body of a man stretched
face downward on the floor. Beyond, the fellow in the gray suit was
disappearing into the crowd. Even yet Boyd did not realize whence the
shot had come, although the smell of powder was sharp in his nostrils.
Then he saw a gleam of blue metal in Fraser's hands.

"Give me that gun!" he panted, but his deliverer held him off.

"I may need it myself, and I ain't got but the one here! Let's get
Clyde out of this."

Stepping over the motionless form at his feet, Fraser lifted the young
club-man, who was huddled in a formless heap as if he had fallen from a
great height, and together the two dragged him toward _The Bedford
Castle_. As they went aboard, they were nearly run down by a body of
reinforcements that Captain Peasley had finally mustered from between
decks. Down the gang-plank and over the side they poured, grimy
stokers, greasy oilers, and swearing deckhands, equipped with
capstan-bars, wrenches, and marlin-spikes. Without waiting to observe
the effect of these new-comers, Boyd and Fraser bundled Alton into the
first cabin at hand, then turned back.

"Better stay here and look after him. You're all in, yourself," the
adventurer advised. "I'm going to hunt up George."

He was away on the instant, with Boyd staggering after him, still weak
and shaking, the vague discomfort of running blood at the back of his
neck, muttering thickly as he went: "Give me your gun, Fraser! Give me
your gun!"

The battle was still raging when the police arrived, after an
interminable delay, and it ceased only at the rough play of
night-sticks, and after repeated charges of the uniformed men had
broken up the ranks of the strikers. The dock was cleared at length,
and wagon-loads of bleeding, struggling combatants rolled away to jail,
union and non-union men bundled in together. But work was not resumed
that day, despite the fact that Big George, bruised, ragged, and torn,
doubled his force of pickets and took personal charge of them.

That night, under glaring headlines, the evening papers told the story,
reporting one fisherman fatally hurt, one striker dead of a gunshot
wound, and many others injured.





CHAPTER XVIII

WILLIS MARSH SPRINGS A TRAP


The ensuing days were strenuous ones for the partners, working as they
did, with a crippled force and under constant guard. Riot was in the
air, and violence on every side. By the police, whose apathy
disappeared only when an opportunity occurred of arresting the men they
were supposed to protect, they were more handicapped than helped. The
appearance of a fisherman at any point along the water-front became a
sure signal for strife.

Day by day the feeling on both sides grew stronger, till the non-union
men were cemented together in a spirit of bitterest indignation, which
materially lessened their zeal for work. Every act of violence
intensified their rage. They armed themselves, in defiance of orders,
tossed restraint to the winds, and sought the slightest opportunity of
wreaking vengeance upon their enemies. Nor were the rioters less
determined. Authority, after all, is but a hollow shell, which, once
broken, is quickly disintegrated. Fierce engagements took place,
populating the hospitals. It became necessary to guard all property in
the warehouse districts, and men ceased to venture there alone after
dark.

One circumstance caused Boyd no little surprise and uneasiness--the
fact that no vigorous effort had been made to fix the blame for the
striker's death on that riotous afternoon. Surely, he reasoned, Marsh's
detective must have witnessed the killing, and must recognize the ease
with which the act could now be saddled upon him. If delay were their
object, Emerson could not understand why they did not seek to have him
arrested. The consequences might well be serious if Marsh's money were
used; but, as the days slipped past and nothing occurred, he decided
that he had been overfearful on this score, or else that the manager of
the Packers' Trust had limits beyond which he would not push his
persecution.

A half-mile from Captain Peasley's ship, the rival Company tenders were
loading rapidly with union labor, and it seemed that in spite of Boyd's
plan to be first at Kalvik, Marsh's force would beat him to the ground
unless greater efforts were made. When he communicated these fears to
Big George, the fisherman suddenly became a slave-driver. He passed
among his men, cajoling, threatening, bribing, and they began to work
like demons, with the result that when the twentieth arrived he was
able to announce to his partner that the work would be finished some
time during the following morning.

The next day Emerson and Clyde drove down to the dock with Cherry in a
closed carriage, experiencing no annoyance beyond some jeers and
insults as they passed through the picket line. Boyd had barely seen
them comfortably established on board, when up the ship's gangway came
"Fingerless" Fraser radiantly attired, three heavily laden hotel
porters groaning at his back, the customary thick-waisted cigar between
his teeth.

"Are you going with us?" Boyd inquired.

"Sure."

"See here. Is life one long succession of surprise parties with you?"

"Why, I've figgered on this right along."

"But the ship is jammed now. There is no room."

"Oh, I fixed that up long ago. I am going to bunk with the steward."

"Well, why in the world didn't you let us know you were coming?"

"Say, don't kid yourself. You knew I couldn't stay behind." Fraser blew
a cloud of smoke airily. "I never start anything I can't finish, I keep
telling you, and I'm going to put this deal through, now that I've got
it started." With a half-embarrassed laugh and a complete change of
manner, he laid his hand upon Boyd's shoulder, saying: "Pal, I ain't
much good to myself or anybody else, but I like you and I want to stick
around. Maybe I'll come in useful yet--you can't tell."

Emerson had never glimpsed this side of the man's nature, and it rather
surprised him.

"Of course you can come along, old man," he responded, heartily. "We're
glad to have you."

To one who has never witnessed the spring sailing of a Northern
cannery-tender, the event is well worth seeing; it is one of the
curiosities of the Seattle water-front. Not only is there the
inevitable confusion involved in the departure of an overloaded craft,
but likewise there is all the noisy excitement that attends a shipment
of Oriental troops.

The Chinese maintain such a clatter as to drown the hoarse cries of the
stevedores, the complaint of the creaking tackle, and the rumble of the
winches. They scurry hither and yon like a distracted army, forever in
the way, shouting, clacking, squealing in senseless turmoil. They are
timid as to the water, and for them a voyage is at all times beset with
many alarms. It is no more possible to restrain them than to calm a
frightened herd of wild pigs, nor will they embark at all until their
frenzy has run its course and died of its own exhaustion. To discipline
them according to the seamen's standard is inadvisable, for many of
them are "cutters," big, evil, saffron-hued fellows, whose trade it is
to butcher and in whose dextrous hands a knife becomes a frightful
weapon.

The Japs, ordinarily so noiseless and submissive, yield to the
contagion and add their share to the uproar. Each man carries a few
pounds of baggage in bundles or packs or valises, and these scanty
belongings he guards with shrieking solicitude.

While the pandemonium of the Orientals who gathered to board _The
Bedford Castle_ was sufficient in itself to cause consternation, it was
as nothing to that which broke loose when the fishermen began to
assemble. To a man they were drunk, belligerent and, declamatory. A
few, to be sure, were still busy with the tag ends of the cargo, but
the majority had gone to their lodgings for their packs, and now
reappeared in a state of the wildest exuberance; for this would be
their last spree of the season, and before them lay a period of long,
sleepless nights, exposure, and unceasing labor, wherein a year's work
must be crowded into three months. They, therefore, inaugurated the
change in befitting style.

On the whole, no explosive has ever been invented that is so noisy in
its effect, so furiously expansive in its action, as the fumes of cheap
whiskey. The great dock-shed soon began to reverberate to the wildest
clamor, which added to the fury of the crowd outside. The strikers,
unable to enter the building, flowed down upon the adjoining wharf, or
clambered to the roofs nearby, whence they jeered insultingly. Among
them was a newspaper photographer, bent on securing an unusual picture
for his publication, and in truth the scene from this point of view was
sufficiently novel and striking.

The decks of the big, low-lying tramp steamer were piled high with gear
of every description. A trio of stout tow-boats were blocked up
amidships, long piles of lumber rose higher than a man's head, and the
roofs of the deck-houses were jammed with fishing-boats nested, one
inside the other, like pots in a kitchen. Every available inch was
crowded with cases of gasoline, of groceries, and of the varied
provisions required on an expedition of this magnitude. Aft, on rows of
hooks, were suspended the carcasses of sheep and bullocks and hogs;
there seemed to be nowhere another foot of available room. The red
water-line of the ship was already submerged, yet notwithstanding this
fact her derricks clanged noisily, her booms swung back and forth, and
her gaping hatches swallowed momentary loads. Those fishermen who had
come aboard early had settled like flies in the rigging, whence they
taunted their enemies, hurling back insult for insult.

It was much like the departure of a gold steamer during the early
famine stages of the northward stampede, save that now there were no
women, while the confusion was immeasurably greater, and through it all
might be felt a certain strained and angry menace. All the long
afternoon _The Bedford Castle_ lay at her moorings subjected to the
customary eleventh-hour delays. As the time dragged on, and the liquor
died in the fishermen, it became a herculean task to prevent them from
issuing forth into the street, while the crowds outside seemed
possessed of a desperate determination to force an entrance and bring
the issue to a final settlement. But across the shore end of the dock a
double cordon was drawn which hurled back the intruders at every
advance.

The fishermen who remained inside the barnlike structure, unable to
come at their enemies, fought among themselves, bidding fair to wreck
the building in the extravagance of their delirium, while outside the
rival faction kept up a fire of missiles and execrations. As the hours
crept onward the tension increased, and at last Boyd turned to Captain
Peasley saying, "You'd better be ready to pull out at any minute, for
if the mob breaks in we'll never be able to hold these maniacs." He
pointed to the black swarm aloft, whence issued hoarse waves of sound.
"I don't like the look of things, a little bit."

"They are a trifle strained, to be sure," the Captain acknowledged.
"I'll stand by to cast off at your signal, so you'd better pass the
word around."

Boyd left the ship and went to the dock-office, for there still
remained one thing to be done: he could not leave without sounding a
final note of triumph for Mildred. How sweet it would be to her ears he
knew full well, yet he could not help wondering if she would feel the
thrill that mastered him at this moment. As he saw the empty spaces
where had stood those masses of freight which he had gathered at such
cost, as he heard his own men bellowing defiance at his enemies and
realized that his first long stride toward success had been taken, his
heart swelled with gladness and the breath caught momentarily in his
throat. After all, he was going to win! Out of the shimmering distance
of his desire, the lady of his dreams drew closer to him; and ere long
he could lay at her feet the burden of his travail, and then--.
Oblivious to the turmoil all about, he wrote rapidly, almost
incoherently, to Mildred, transcribing the mood of mingled tenderness
and exultation which possessed him.

"Outside the building," he concluded, "there is a raging mob. They
would ruin me if they could, but they can't do it, they can't do it. We
have beaten them all, my lady. We have won!"

He was sealing his letter, when, without warning, "Fingerless" Fraser
appeared at his side, his fishlike eyes agleam, his colorless face
drawn with anxiety.

"They've come to grab you for killing that striker," he began,
breathlessly; "there's a couple of 'square-toes' on the dock now.
Better take it on the 'lam'--quick!"

"God!" So Marsh had withheld this stroke until the last moment, when
the least delay would be fatal. Boyd knew that if he were brought into
court he would have hard shift to clear himself against the mass of
perjured testimony that his rival had doubtless gathered; but even this
seemed as nothing in comparison with the main issue. For one wild
instant he considered sending George Balt on with the ship. That would
be folly, no doubt; yet plainly he could not hold _The Bedford Castle_
and keep together that raging army of fishermen while he fought his way
through the tedious vexations of a trial. He saw that he had
under-estimated his enemy's cunning, and he realized that, if Marsh had
planned this move, he would press his advantage to the full.

"There's two plain-clothes men," he heard Fraser running on. "I 'made'
'em as they were talking to Peasley. You'd better 'beat' it, quick!"

"How? I couldn't get through that crowd. They know me. Listen!" Outside
the street broke into a roar at some taunt of the fishermen high up in
the rigging. "I can't run away, and if those detectives get me I'm
ruined."

"Well! What's to be done?" demanded Fraser, sharply. "If you say the
word, we'll shoot it out with them, and get away on the ship before--"

"We can't do that--there are a dozen policemen in front here."

"Well, you'll have to move quick, or they'll 'cop' you, sure."

Boyd clinched his hands in desperation. "I guess they've got me," he
said, bitterly. "There's no way out."

His eyes fell upon the letter containing his boastful assurance of
victory. What a mockery!

"From what they said I don't think they know you," Fraser continued.
"Anyhow, they wanted Peasley to point you out. When they come off,
maybe you can slip 'em."

"But how?" Boyd seized eagerly upon the suggestion. "The wharf is
empty--see! I'll have to cross it in plain sight."

Through the rear door of the office that opened upon the dock proper
they beheld the great floor almost entirely clear. Save for a few tons
of freight at which Big George's men were working, it was as
unobstructed as a lawn; and, although it was nearly the size of a city
block, it afforded no more means of concealment than did the little
office itself, with its glass doors, its counter, and its long desk, at
the farther end of which a bill-clerk was poring over his task.
Iron-barred windows at the front of the room looked out upon the
street; other windows and a door at the right opened upon the driveway
and railroad track, while at the rear the glass-panelled door through
which they had just been peering gave egress only to the dock itself,
up which the two officers were likely to come at any instant. Even as
Emerson, with a last desperate glance, summed up the possible places of
concealment, Fraser exclaimed, softly:

"There they are now!" and they saw at the foot of the gang-plank two
men talking with Big George. They saw Balt point the strangers
carelessly to the office, whence he had seen Boyd disappearing a few
moments before, and turn back to his stevedores; then they saw the
plain-clothes men approaching.

"Here! Gimme your coat and hat, quick!" cried Fraser in a low voice,
his eyes blazing at a sudden, thought. He stripped his own garments
from his back with feverish haste. "Put mine on. There! I'll stall for
you. When they grab me, take it on the run. Understand!"

"That won't do. Everybody knows me." Boyd cast an apprehensive glance
at the arched back of the bill-clerk, but Fraser, quick of resource in
such a situation, forced him swiftly to make the change, saying:

"Nix. It's your only 'out.' Stand here, see!" He indicated a position
beside the rear door. "I'll step out the other way where they can see
me," he continued, pointing to the wagon-way at the right. "Savvy? When
they grab me, you beat it, and don't wait for nothing."

"But you--"

Already they could hear the footsteps of the officers.

"I'll take a chance. Good-bye."

There was no time even for a hand-shake; Fraser stepped swiftly to the
door, then strolled quietly out into the view of the two men, who an
instant later accosted him.

"Are you Mr. Boyd Emerson?"

The adventurer answered brusquely, "Yes, but I can't talk to you now."

"You are under arrest, Mr. Emerson."

Boyd waited to hear no more. The glass door swung open noiselessly
under his hand, and he stepped out just as the bill-clerk looked up
from his work, staring out through the other entrance.

"Fingerless" Fraser's voice was louder now, as if for a signal. "Arrest
me? What do you mean? Get out of my way."

"You'd better come peaceably."

Boyd heard a sharp exclamation--"Get him, Bill!" And then the sound of
men struggling. He ran, followed by a roar from the strikers, in whose
full view Fraser's encounter with the plain-clothes men was taking
place. A backward glance showed him that Fraser had drawn his pursuers
to the street. He had broken away and dodged out into the open, where
the other officers responded at a call and seized him as he apparently
undertook to break through the cordon. This diversion served an
unexpected purpose. Not only did it draw attention from Emerson's
retreat, but it also gave the mob its long-awaited opportunity.
Recognizing in the officers' quarry the supposed figure of Emerson, the
hated cause of all this strife, the strikers gave vent to a great shout
of rage and triumph, and surged forward across the wide street,
carrying the police before them with irresistible force.

In a moment it became not a question of keeping the entrance to the
wharf, but of protecting the life of the prisoner, and the policemen
rallied with their backs to the wall, their clubs working havoc with
the heads that came within striking distance.

Scarcely had Boyd reached Big George, when a wing of the besieging army
swept in through the unguarded entrance and down the dock like an
avalanche, leaving behind them the battling officers and the hungry
pack clamoring for the prisoner.

"Drop that freight, and get aboard the best way you can!" Boyd yelled
at the fishermen, and with a bound was out into the open crying to
Captain Peasley on the bridge:

"Here they come! Cast off, for God's sake!"

Instantly a wild cry of rage and defiance rose from the clotted rigging
and upper works of _The Bedford Castle_. Down the fishermen swarmed,
ready to over-flow the sides of the ship, but, with a sharp order to
George, Boyd ran up the gang-plank and rushed along the rail to a
commanding position in the path of his men, where, drawing his
revolver, he roared at them to keep back, threatening the first to go
ashore. His lungs were bursting from his sprint, and it was with
difficulty that his voice rose above the turmoil; but he presented such
a figure of determination that the men paused, and then the steamship
whistle interrupted opportunely, with a deafening blast.

The dozen men who had been slinging freight on the dock hastened up the
gang-plank or climbed the fenders, while the signal-man clung to the
lifting tackle, and, at the piping cry of his whistle, was swung aloft
out of the very arms of the rioters.

Above, on the flying bridge, Captain Peasley was bellowing orders; a
quartermaster was running up the iron steps to the pilot-house; on deck
the sailors were fighting their way to their posts through the ranks of
the raging fishermen and the shrieking confusion of the Orientals; the
last men aboard, with a "Heave Ho!" in unison, slid the gang-plank
upward and out of reach. The neighboring roofs, lately so black, were
emptying now, the onlookers hastening to join in the attack.

Big George alone remained upon the wharf. As he saw the rush coming he
had ordered his men to abandon their load; then he ran to the
after-mooring, and, taking slack from a deck hand, cast it off. Back up
the dock he went to the forward hawser, where, at a signal, he did the
same, moving, toward the last, without excessive hurry, as if in a
spirit of bravado. The ship was clear, and he had not cut a hawser. He
had done his work; all but a ton or two of the cargo was stowed. There
was no longer cause for delay.

"Get aboard! Are you mad?" Emerson shouted, but the cry never reached
him. Back he came slowly, in front of the press, secure in his
tremendous strength, defiance in his every move, a smouldering
challenge in his eyes; and noting that gigantic frame with its
square-hewn, flaming face, not one of his enemies dared oppose him. But
as he passed they yapped and snarled and jostled at his heels, hungry
to rend him and only lacking courage.

As yet the ship, although throbbing to the first pulsations of her
engines, lay snug along the piling, but gradually her stern swung off
and a wedge of clearance showed. Almost imperceptibly she drew back and
rubbed against the timbers. A fender began to squeeze and complain. The
dock planking creaked. Sixty seconds more and she would be out of
arm's-reach, and still George made no haste. Again Boyd shouted at him,
and then with one farewell glower over his shoulder the big fellow
mounted a pile, stretched his arms upward to the bulwarks, and swung
himself lightly aboard.

Even yet Emerson's anxiety was of the keenest; for, notwithstanding the
stress of these dragging moments, he had not forgotten Fraser, the
vagabond, the morally twisted rascal, to whose courage and
resourcefulness he owed so much. He strained his eyes for a glimpse of
the fellow, at the same time dreading the sight of a uniform. Would the
ship never get under way and out of hailing distance? If those officers
had discovered their mistake, they might yet have time to stop him. He
vowed desperately that he would not let them, not if he had to take
_The Bedford Castle_ to sea with a gun at the back of her helmsman. He
made his way hurriedly to the bridge, where he hastily explained to
Captain Peasley his evasion of the officers; and here he found Cherry,
her face flushed, her eyes sparkling with excitement, but far too wise
to speak to him in his present state of mind.

A scattered shower of missiles came aboard as the strikers kept pace
with the steamer to the end of the slip, exciting the fishermen, who
had again mounted the rigging, to a simian frenzy. Oaths, insults, and
jeers were hurled back and forth; but as the big steamer gathered
momentum and slid out of her berth, they grew gradually more
indistinct, until at last they became muffled, broken, and meaningless.
Even then the rival ranks continued to volley profanely at each other,
while the Captain, with hand on the whistle-rope, blew taunting blasts;
nor did the fishermen descend from their perches until the forms on the
dock had blurred together and the city lay massed in the distance, tier
upon tier, against the gorgeous evening sky.





CHAPTER XIX

IN WHICH A MUTINY IS THREATENED


Even after they were miles down the Sound, Boyd remained at his post,
sweeping the waters astern in an anxious search for some swift harbor
craft, the appearance of which would signal that his escape had been
discovered.

"I won't feel safe until we are past Port Townsend," he confessed to
Cherry, who maintained a position at his side.

"Why Port Townsend? We don't stop there."

"No. But the police can wire on from Seattle to stop us and take me off
at that point."

"If they find out their mistake."

"They must have found it out long ago. That's why I've got Peasley
forcing this old tub; she's doing ten knots, and that's a breakneck
speed for her. Once we're through the Straits, I'll be satisfied. But
meanwhile--" Emerson lowered his glasses with a sigh of fatigue, and in
the soft twilight the girl saw that his face was lined and careworn.
The yearning at her heart lent poignant sympathy to her words, as she
said:

"You deserve to win, Boyd; you have made a good fight."

"Oh, I'll win!" he declared, wearily. "I've got to win; only I wish we
were past Port Townsend."

"What will happen to Fraser?" she queried.

"Nothing serious, I am sure. You see, they wanted me, and nobody else;
once they find they have the wrong man I rather believe they will free
him in disgust."

A moment later he went on: "Just the same, it makes me feel depressed
and guilty to leave him--I--I wouldn't desert a comrade for anything if
the choice lay with me."

"You did quite right," Cherry warmly assured him.

"You see, I am not working for myself; I am doing this for another."

It was the girl's turn to sigh softly, while the eyes she turned toward
the west were strangely sad and dreamy. To her companion she seemed not
at all like the buoyant creature who had kindled his courage when it
was so low, the brave girl who had stood so steadfastly at his shoulder
and kept his hopes alive during these last, trying weeks. It struck him
suddenly that she had grown very quiet of late. It was the first time
he had had the leisure to notice it, but now, when he came to reflect
on it, he remembered that she had never seemed quite the same since his
interview with her on that day when Hilliard had so unexpectedly come
to his rescue. He wondered if in reality this change might not be due
to some reflected alteration in himself. Well! He could not help it.

Her strange behavior at that time had affected him more deeply than he
would have thought possible; and while he had purposely avoided
thinking much about the banker's sudden change of front, back of his
devout thankfulness for the miracle was a vague suspicion, a curious
feeling that made him uncomfortable in the girl's presence. He could
not repent his determination to win at any price; yet he shrank, with a
moral cowardice which made him inwardly writhe, from owning that Cherry
had made the sacrifice at which Clyde and the others had hinted. If it
were indeed true, it placed him in an intolerable position, wherein he
could express neither his gratitude nor his censure. No doubt she had
read the signs of his mental confusion, and her own delicate
sensibility had responded to it.

They remained side by side on the bridge while the day died amidst a
wondrous panoply of color, each busied with thoughts that might not be
spoken, in their hearts emotions oddly at variance. The sky ahead of
them was wide-streaked with gold, as if for a symbol, interlaid with
sooty clouds in silhouette; on either side the mountains rose from
penumbral darkness to clear-cut heights still bright from the slanting
radiance. Here and there along the shadowy shore-line a light was born;
the smell of the salt sea was in the air. Above the rhythmic pulse of
the steamer rose the voices of men singing between decks, while the
parting waters at the prow played a soft accompaniment. A steward
summoned them to supper, but Boyd refused, saying he could not eat, and
the girl stayed with him while the miles slowly slipped past and the
night encompassed them.

"Two hours more," he told her, as the ship's bell sounded. "Then I can
eat and sleep--and sing."

Captain Peasley was pacing the bridge when later they breasted the
glare of Port Townsend and saw in the distance the flashing
searchlights of the forts that guard the Straits. They saw him stop
suddenly, and raise his night-glasses; Boyd laid his hand on Cherry's
arm. Presently the Captain crossed to them and said:

"Yonder seems to be a launch making out. See? I wonder what's up."
Almost in their path a tiny light was violently agitated. "By Jove!
They're signalling."

"You won't stop, will you?" questioned Emerson.

"I don't know, I am sure. I may have to."

The two boats were drawing together rapidly, and soon those on the
bridge heard the faint but increasing patter of a gasoline exhaust.
Carrying the same speed as _The Bedford Castle_, the launch shortly
came within hailing distance. The cyclopean eye of the ship's
searchlight blazed up, and the next instant, out from the gloom leaped
a little craft, on the deck of which a man stood waving a lantern. She
held steadfastly to her course, and a voice floated up to them:

"Ahoy! What ship?"

"_The Bedford Castle_, cannery-tender for Bristol Bay," Peasley shouted
back.

The man on the launch relinquished his lantern, and using both palms
for a funnel, cried, more clearly now: "Heave to! We want to come
aboard."

With an exclamation of impatience, the commanding officer stepped to
the telegraph, but Emerson forestalled him.

"Wait, they're after me, Captain; it's the Port Townsend police, and if
you let them aboard they'll take me off."

"What makes you think so?" demanded Peasley.

"Ask them."

Turning, the skipper bellowed down the gleaming electric pathway, "Who
are you?"

"Police! We want to come aboard."

"What did I tell you?" cried Emerson.

Once more the Captain shouted: "What do you want?"

"One of your passengers--Emerson. Heave to. You're passing us."

"That's bloody hard luck, Mr. Emerson; I can't help myself," the
Captain declared. But again Boyd blocked him as he started for the
telegraph.

"I won't stand it, sir. It's a conspiracy to ruin me."

"But, my dear young man--"

"Don't touch that instrument!"

From the launch came cries of growing vehemence, and a startled murmur
of voices rose from somewhere in the darkness of the deck beneath.

"Stand aside," Peasley ordered, gruffly; but the other held his ground,
saying, quietly:

"I warn you. I am desperate."

"Shall I stop her, sir?" the quartermaster asked from the shadows of
the wheel-house.

"No!" Emerson commanded, sharply, and in the glow from the
binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant
up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt,
a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light.
Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps,
wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the
helmsman from his post, panting,

"Keep her going, Cap', or I'll run them down!"

"We stood by you, old man," Emerson urged; "you stand by us. They can't
make you stop. They can't come aboard."

The launch was abreast of them now, and skimming along so close that
one might have tossed a biscuit aboard of her. For an instant Captain
Peasley hesitated; then Emerson saw the ends of his bristly mustache
rise above an expansive grin as he winked portentously. But his voice
was convincingly loud and wrathful as he replied:

"What do you mean, sir? I'll have my blooming ship libelled for this."

"I'll make good your losses," Emerson volunteered, quickly, realizing
that other ears were open.

"Why, it's mutiny, sir."

"Exactly! You can say you went out under duress."

"I never heard of such a thing," stormed the skipper. Then, more
quietly, "But I don't seem to have any choice in the matter; do I?"

"None whatever."

"Tell them to go to hell!" growled Balt from the open window above
their head.

A blasphemous outcry floated up from the launch, while heads protruded
from the deck-house openings, the faces white in the slanting glare.
"Why don't you heave to?" demanded a voice.

Peasley stepped to the end of the bridge and called down: "I can't
stop, my good man, they won't allow it, y' know. You'll have to bloody
well come aboard yourself." Then, obedient to his command, the
search-light traced an arc through the darkness and died out, leaving
the little craft in darkness, save for its dim lantern.

Unseen by the amazed quartermaster, who was startled out of speech and
action, Emerson gripped the Captain's shoulder and whispered his
thanks, while the Britisher grumbled under his breath:

"Bli' me! Won't that labor crowd be hot? They nearly bashed in my head
with that iron spike. Four hundred pounds! My word!"

The sputter of the craft alongside was now punctuated by such a volley
of curses that he raised his voice again: "Belay that chatter, will
you? There's a lady aboard."

The police launch sheered off, and the sound of her exhaust grew
rapidly fainter and fainter. But not until it had wholly ceased did Big
George give over his post at the wheel. Even then he went down the
ladder reluctantly, and without a word of thanks, of explanation, or of
apology. With him this had been but a part of the day's work. He saw
neither sentiment nor humor in the episode. The clang of the
deep-throated ship's bell spoke the hour, and, taking Cherry's arm,
Boyd helped her to the deck.

"Now let's eat something," said she.

"Yes," he agreed, relief and triumph in his tone, "and drink something,
too."

"We'll drink to the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser."

"To the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser," he echoed. "We will drink that
standing."

A week later, after an uneventful voyage across a sea of glass, _The
Bedford Castle_ made up through a swirling tide-rip and into the
fog-bound harbor of Unalaska. The soaring "goonies" that had followed
them from Flattery had dropped astern at first sight of the volcanic
headlands, and now countless thousands of sea-parrots fled from the
ship's path, squattering away in comic terror, dragging their fat
bodies across the sea as a boy skips a flat rock. It had been Captain
Peasley's hope, here at the gateway of the Misty Sea, to learn
something about the lay of the big ice-floes to the northward, but he
was disappointed, for the season was yet too young for the
revenue-cutters, and the local hunters knew nothing. Forced to rely on
luck and his own skill, he steamed out again the next day, this time
doubling back to the eastward and laying a cautious course along the
second leg of the journey.

Once through the ragged barrier that separates the North Pacific from
her sister sea, the dank breath of the Arctic smote them fairly. The
breeze that wafted out from the north brought with it the chill of
limitless ice-fields, and the first night found them hove-to among the
outposts of that shifting desert of death which debouches out of
Behring Straits with the first approach of autumn, to retreat again
only at the coming of reluctant summer. From the crow's-nest the
lookout stared down upon a white expanse that stretched beyond the
horizon. At dawn they began their careful search, feeling their way
eastward through the open lanes and tortuous passages that separated
the floes, now laying-to for the northward set of the fields to clear a
path before them, now stealing through some narrow lead that opened
into freer waters.

_The Bedford Castle_ was a steel hull whose sides, opposed to the jaws
of the ponderous masses, would have been crushed like an eggshell in a
vise. Unlike a wooden ship, the gentlest contact would have sprung her
plates, while any considerable collision would have pierced her as if
she had been built of paper. Appreciating to the full the peril of his
slow advance, Captain Peasley did all the navigating in person; but
eventually they were hemmed in so closely that for a day and a night
they could do nothing but drift with the pack. In time, however, the
winds opened a crevice through which they retreated to follow the outer
limits farther eastward, until they were balked again.

Opposed to them were the forces of Nature, and they were wholly
dependent upon her fickle favor. It might be a day, a week, a month
before she would let them through, and, even when the barrier began to
yield, another ship, a league distant, might profit by an opening which
to them was barred. For a long, dull period the voyagers lay as
helpless as if in dry-dock, while wandering herds of seals barked at
them or bands of walruses ceased their fishing and crept out upon the
ice-pans to observe these invaders of their peace. When an opportunity
at last presented itself, they threaded their way southward, there to
try another approach, and another, and another, until the first of May
had come and gone, leaving them but little closer to their goal than
when they first hove-to. Late one evening they discerned smoke on the
horizon, and the next morning's light showed a three-masted steamship
fast in the ice, a few miles to the westward.

"That's _The Juliet_," Big George informed his companions, "one of the
North American Packers' Association tenders."

"She was loading when we left Seattle," Boyd remarked.

"It is Willis Marsh's ship, so he must be aboard," supplemented Cherry.
"She's a wooden ship, and built for this business. If we don't look out
he'll beat us in, after all."

"What good will that do him?" Clyde questioned. "The fish don't bite--I
mean run--for sixty days yet."

Emerson and Balt merely shrugged.

To Cherry Malotte this had been a voyage of dreams; for once away from
land, Boyd had become his real self again--that genial, irrepressible
self she had seen but rarely--and his manner had lost the restraint and
coolness which recently had disturbed their relations. Of necessity
their cramped environment had thrown them much together, and their
companionship had been most pleasant. She and Boyd had spent long hours
together, during which his light-heartedness had rivalled that of Alton
Clyde--hours wherein she had come to know him more intimately and to
feel that he was growing to a truer understanding of herself. She
realized beyond all doubt that for him there was but one woman in all
the world, yet the mere pleasure of being near him was an anodyne for
her secret distress. Womanlike, she took what was offered her and
strove unceasingly for more.

Two days after sighting _The Juliet_ they raised another ship, one of
the sailing fleet which they knew to be hovering in the offing, and
then on the fifth of the month the capricious current opened a way for
them. Slowly at first they pushed on between the floes into a vast area
of slush-ice, thence to a stretch as open and placid as a country
mill-pond. The lookout pointed a path out of this, into which they
steamed, coming at length to clear water, with the low shores of the
mainland twenty miles away.

At sundown they anchored in the wide estuary of the Kalvik River, the
noisy rumble of their chains breaking the silence that for months had
lain like a smother upon the port. The Indian village gave sign of life
only in thin, azure wisps of smoke that rose from the dirt roofs; the
cannery buildings stood as naked and uninviting as when Boyd had last
seen them. The Greek cross crowning the little white church was gilded
by the evening sun. Through the glasses Cherry spied a figure in the
door of her house which she declared was Constantine, but with
commendable caution the big breed forebore to join the fleet of kyaks
now rapidly mustering. Taking Clyde with them, she and Boyd were soon
on their way to the land, leaving George to begin discharging his
cargo. The long voyage that had maddened the fishermen was at last at
an end, and they were eager to begin their tasks.

A three-mile pull brought the ship's boat to Cherry's landing, where
Constantine and Chakawana met them, the latter hysterical with joy, the
former showing his delight in a rare display of white teeth and a flow
of unintelligible English. Even the sledge-dogs, now fat from idleness,
greeted their mistress with a fierce clamor that dismayed Alton Clyde,
to whom all was utterly new and strange.

"Glory be!" he exclaimed. "They're nothing but wolves. Won't they bite?
And the house--ain't it a hit! Why, it looks like a stage setting! Oh,
say, I'm for this! I'm getting rough and primitive and brutal already!"

When they passed from the store, with its shelves sadly naked now, to
the cozy living quarters behind, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. Leaving
Chakawana and her mistress to chatter and clack in their patois, he
inspected the premises inside and out, peering into all sorts of
corners, collecting souvenirs, and making friends with the saturnine
breed.

Cherry would not return to the ship, but Emerson and Clyde re-embarked
and were rowed down to the cannery site, abreast of which lay _The
Bedford Castle_, where they lingered until the creeping twilight forced
them to the boat again. When they reached the ship the cool Arctic
night had descended, but its quiet was broken by the halting nimble of
steam-winches, the creak of tackle, the cries of men, and the sounds of
a great activity. Baring his head to the breezes Boyd filled his lungs
full of the bracing air, sweet with the flavor of spring, vowing
secretly that no music that he had ever heard was the equal of this. He
turned his face to the southward and smiled, while his thoughts sped a
message of love and hope into the darkness.





CHAPTER XX

WHEREIN "FINGERLESS" FRASER RETURNS


Big George had lost no time, and already the tow-boats were overboard,
while a raft of timber was taking form alongside the ship. As soon as
it was completed, it was loaded with crates and boxes and paraphernalia
of all sorts, then towed ashore as the tide served. Another took its
place, and another and another. All that night the torches flared and
the decks drummed to a ceaseless activity. In the morning Boyd sent a
squad of fishermen ashore to clear the ground for his buildings, and
all day new rafts of lumber and material helped to increase the pile at
the water's edge.

His early training as an engineer now stood him in good stead, for a
thousand details demanded expert supervision; but he was as completely
at home at this work as was Big George in his own part of the
undertaking, and it was not long before order began to emerge from what
seemed a hopeless chaos. Never did men have more willing hands to do
their bidding than did he and George; and when a week later _The
Juliet_, with Willis Marsh on board, came to anchor, the bunk-houses
were up and peopled, while the new site had become a beehive of
activity.

The mouth of the Kalvik River is several miles wide, yet it contains
but a small anchorage suitable for deep-draught ships, the rest of the
harbor being underlaid with mud-bars and tide-flats over which none but
small boats may pass; and as the canneries are distributed up and down
the stream for a considerable distance, it is necessary to transport
all supplies to and from the ships by means of tugs and lighters. Owing
to the narrowness of the channel, _The Juliet_ came to her moorings not
far from _The Bedford Castle_.

To Marsh, already furious at the trick the ice had played him, this
forced proximity to his rival brought home with added irony the fact
that he had been forestalled, while it emphasized his knowledge that
henceforth the conflict would be carried on at closer quarters. It
would be a contest between two men, both determined to win by fair
means or foul.

Emerson was a dream-dazzled youth, striving like a knight-errant for
the love of a lady and the glory of conquest, but he was also a born
fighter, and in every emergency he had shown himself as able as his
experienced opponent.

As Marsh looked about and saw how much Boyd's well-directed energy was
accomplishing, he was conscious of a slight disheartenment. Still, he
was on his own ground, he had the advantage of superior force, and
though he was humiliated by his failure to throttle the hostile
enterprise in its beginning, he was by no means at the end of his
expedients. He was curious to see his rival in action, and he decided
to visit him and test his temper.

It was on the afternoon following his arrival that Marsh, after a tour
of inspection, landed from his launch and strolled up to where Boyd
Emerson was at work. He was greeted courteously, if a bit coolly, and
found, as on their last meeting, that his own bearing was reflected
exactly in that of Boyd. Both men, beneath the scant politeness of
their outward manner, were aware that the time for ceremony had passed.
Here in the Northland they faced each other at last as man to man.

"I see you have a number of my old fishermen," Marsh observed.

"Yes, we were fortunate in getting such good ones."

"You were fortunate in many ways. In fact you are a very lucky young
man."

"Indeed! How?"

"Well, don't you think you were lucky to beat that strike?"

"It wasn't altogether luck. However, I do consider myself fortunate in
escaping at the last moment," Boyd laughed easily. "By the way, what
happened to the man they mistook for me?"

"Let him go, I believe. I didn't pay much attention to the matter."
Marsh had been using his eyes to good advantage, and, seeing the work
even better in hand than he had supposed, he was moved by irritation
and the desire to goad his opponent to say more than he had intended:
"I rather think you will have a lot to explain, one of these days," he
said, with deliberate menace.

"With fifty thousand cases of salmon aboard _The Bedford Castle_ I will
explain anything. Meanwhile the police may go to the devil!" The cool
assurance of the young man's tone roused his would-be tormentor like a
personal affront.

"You got away from Seattle, but there is a commissioner at Dutch
Harbor, also a deputy marshal, who may have better success with a
warrant than those policemen had." The Trust's manager could not keep
down the angry tremor in his voice, and the other, perceiving it,
replied in a manner designed to inflame him still more:

"Yes, I have heard of those officers. I understand they are both in
your employ."

"What!"

"I hear you have bought them."

"Do you mean to insinuate--"

"I don't mean to insinuate anything. Listen! We are where we can talk
plainly, Marsh, and I am tired of all this subterfuge. You did what you
could to stop me, you even tried to have me killed--"

"You dare to--"

"But I guess it never occurred to you that I may be just as desperate
as you are."

The men stared at each other with hostile eyes, but the accusation had
come so suddenly and with such boldness as to rob Marsh of words.
Emerson went on in the same level voice: "I broke through in spite of
you, and I'm on the job. If you want to cry quits, I'm willing; but, by
God! I won't be balked, and if any of your hired marshals try to take
me before I put up my catch I'll put you away. Understand?"

Willis Marsh recoiled involuntarily before the sudden ferocity that
blazed up in the speaker's face. "You are insane," he cried.

"Am I?" Emerson laughed, harshly. "Well, I'm just crazy enough to do
what I say. I don't think you're the kind that wants hand-to-hand
trouble, so let's each attend to his own affair. I'm doing well, thank
you, and I think I can get along better if yon don't come back here
until I send for you. Something might fall on you."

Marsh's full, red lips went pallid with rage as he said "Then it is to
be war, eh?"

"Suit yourself." Boyd pointed to the shore. "Your boatman is waiting
for you."

As Marsh made his way to the water's edge he stumbled like a blind man;
his lips were bleeding where his small, sharp teeth had bitten them,
and he panted like an hysterical woman.

During the next fortnight the sailing-ships began to assemble, standing
in under a great spread of canvas to berth close alongside the two
steamships; for, once the ice had moved north, there was no further
obstacle to their coming, and the harbor was soon livened with puffing
tugs, unwieldy lighters, and fleets of smaller vessels. Where, but a
short time before, the brooding silence had been undisturbed save for
the plaint of wolf-dogs and the lazy voices of natives, a noisy army
was now at work. The bustle of a great preparation arose; languid
smoke-wreaths began to unfurl above the stacks of the canneries; the
stamp and clank of tin-machines re-echoed; hammer and saw maintained a
never-ceasing hubbub. Down at the new plant scows were being launched
while yet the pitch was warm on their seams; buildings were rising
rapidly, and a crew had gone up the river to get out a raft of piles.

On the morning after the arrival of the last ship, Emerson and his
companions were treated to a genuine surprise. Cherry had come down to
the site as usual--she could not let a day go by without visiting the
place--and Clyde, after a tardy breakfast, had just come ashore. They
were watching Big George direct the launching of a scow, when all of a
sudden they heard a familiar voice behind them cry, cheerfully:

"Hello, white folks! Here we are, all together again."

They turned to behold a villanous-looking man beaming benignly upon
them. He was dirty, his clothes were in rags, and through a riotous
bristle of beard that hid his thin features a mangy patch showed on
either cheek. It was undeniably "Fingerless" Fraser, but how changed,
how altered from that radiant flower of indolence they had known! He
was pallid, emaciated, and bedraggled; his attitude showed hunger and
abuse, and his bony joints seemed about to pierce through their
tattered covering. As they stood speechless with amazement, he made his
identification complete by protruding his tongue from the corner of his
mouth and gravely closing one eye in a wink of exceeding wisdom.

"Fraser!" they cried in chorus, then fell upon him noisily, shaking his
grimy hands and slapping his back until he coughed weakly. Summoned by
their shouts, Big George broke in upon the incoherent greeting, and at
sight of his late comrade began to laugh hoarsely.

"Glad to see you, old man!" he cried, "but how did you get here?"

Fraser drew himself up with injured dignity, then spoke in dramatic
accents. "I worked my way!" He showed the whites of his eyes,
tragically.

"You look like you'd walked in from Kansas," George declared.

"Yes, sir, I _worked! Me!"_

"How? Where?"

"On that bloody wind-jammer." He stretched a long arm toward the harbor
in a theatrical gesture.

"But the police?" queried Boyd.

"Oh, I squared them easy. It's you they want. Yes, sir, I _worked_."
Again he scanned their faces anxiously. "I'm a scullery-maid."

"What?"

"That's what I said. I've rustled garbage-cans till the smell of food
gives me a cold sweat. I'm as hungry as a starving Cuban, and yet the
sight of a knife and fork turns my stomach." He wheeled suddenly upon
Alton Clyde, whose burst of shrill laughter offended him. "Don't cry.
Your sympathy unmans me."

"Tell us about it," urged Cherry.

"What's the use?" he demanded, with a glare at Clyde. "That bone-head
wouldn't understand."

"Go ahead," Boyd seconded, with twitching lips. "You look as if you had
worked, and worked hard."

"Hard? I'm the only man in the world who knows what hard work is!"

"Start at the beginning--when you were arrested."

"Well, I didn't care nothing about the sneeze," he took up the tale,
"for I figure it out that they can't slough me without clearing you, so
I never take no sleeping-powders, and, sure enough, about third
drink-time the bulls spring me, and I screw down the main stem to the
drink and get Jerry to your fade--"

"Tell it straight," interrupted Cherry. "They don't understand you."

"Well, there ain't any Pullmans running to this resort, so I stow away
on a coal-burner, but somebody flags me. Then I try to hire out as a
fisherman, but I ain't there with the gang talk and my stuff drags, so
I fix it for a hide-away on _The Blessed Isle_--that's her name. Can
you beat that for a monaker? This sailor of mine goes good to grub me,
but he never shows for forty-eight hours--or years, I forget which.
Anyhow, I stand it as long as I can, then I dig my way up to a hatch
and mew like a house-cat. It seems they were hep from the start, and
battened me down on purpose, then made book on how long I'd stay hid.
Oh, it's a funny joke, and they all get a stomach laugh when I show.
When I offer to pay my way they're insulted. Nix! that ain't their
graft. They wouldn't take money from a stranger. Oh, no! They permit me
to _work_ my way. The scullion has quit, see? So they promote me to his
job. It's the only job I ever held, and I held it because it wouldn't
let go of me, savvy? There's only three hundred men aboard _The Blessed
Isle_, so all I have to do, regular, is to understudy the cooks, carry
the grub, wait on table, wash the dishes, mop the floors, make the
officers' beds, peel six bushels of potatoes a day, and do the laundry.
Then, of course, there's some odd tasks. Oh, it was a swell job--more
like a pastime. When a mop sees me coming now it dances a hornpipe, and
I can't look a dish-rag in the face. All I see in my dreams is
potato-parings and meat-rinds. I've got dish-water in my veins, and the
whole universe looks greasy to me. Naturally it was my luck to pick the
slowest ship in the harbor. We lay three weeks in the ice, that's all,
and nobody worked but me and the sea-gulls."

"You deserted this morning, eh?"

"I did. I beat the barrier, and now I want a bath and some clean
clothes and a whole lot of sleep. You don't need to disturb me till
fall."

He showed no interest whatever in the new plant, refusing even to look
it over or to express an opinion upon the progress of the work; so they
sent him out to the ship, where for days he remained in a toad-like
lethargy, basking in the sun, sleeping three-fourths of the time and
spending his waking hours in repeating the awful tale of his
disgraceful peonage.

To unload the machinery, particularly the heavier pieces, was by no
means a simple matter, owing to the furious tides that set in and out
of the Kalvik River. The first mishap occurred during the trip on which
the boilers were towed in, and it looked to Boyd less like an accident
than a carefully planned move to cripple him at one stroke. The other
ships were busily discharging and the roadstead was alive with small
craft of various kinds, when the huge boilers were swung over the side
of _The Bedford Castle_ and blocked into position for the journey to
the shore. George and a half-dozen of his men went along with the load
while Emerson remained on the ship. They were just well under way when,
either by the merest chance or by malicious design, several of the
rival Company's towboats moored to the neighboring ships cast off. The
anchorage was crowded and a boiling six-mile tide made it difficult at
best to avoid collision.

Hearing a confused shouting to shoreward, Boyd ran to the rail in time
to see one of the Company tugs at the head of a string of towboats
bearing down ahead of the current directly upon his own slow-moving
lighter. Already it was so close at hand as to make disaster seem
inevitable. He saw Balt wave his arms furiously and heard him bellow
profane warnings while the fishermen scurried about excitedly, but
still the tug held to its course. Boyd raised his voice in a wild
alarm, but had they heard him there was nothing they could have done.
Then suddenly the affair altered its complexion.

The oncoming tug was barely twice its length from the scow when Boyd
saw Big George cease his violent antics and level a revolver directly
at the wheel-house of the opposing craft. Two puffs of smoke issued
from weapon, then out from the glass-encased structure the steersman
plunged, scrambled down the deck and into the shelter of the house.
Instantly the bow of the tug swung off, and she came on sidewise,
striking Balt's scow a glancing blow, the sound of which rose above the
shouts, while its force threw the big fellow and his companions to
their knees and shattered the glass in the pilot-house windows. The
boats behind fouled each other, then drifted down upon the scow, and
the tide, seizing the whole flotilla, began to spin it slowly. Rushing
to the ladder, Emerson leaped into another launch which fortunately was
at hand, and the next instant as the little craft sped out from the
side of _The Bedford Castle_, he saw that a fight was in progress on
the lighter. It was over quickly, and before he reached the scene the
current had drifted the tows apart. George, it seemed, had boarded the
tug, dragged the captain off, and beaten him half insensible before the
man's companions had come to his rescue.

"Is the scow damaged?" Emerson cried, as he came alongside.

"She's leaking, but I guess we can make it," George reassured him.

They directed the second launch to make fast, and, towed by both tugs,
they succeeded in beaching their cargo a mile below the landing.

"We'll calk her at low tide," George declared, well satisfied at this
outcome of the misadventure. Then he fell to reviling the men who had
caused it.

"Don't waste your breath on them," Boyd advised. "We're lucky enough as
it is. If that tug hadn't sheered off she would have cut us down, sure."

"That fellow done it a-purpose," George swore. "Seamen ain't that
careless. He tried to tell me he was rattled, but I rattled _him_."

"If that's the case they may try it again," said the younger man.

"Huh! I'll pack a 'thirty-thirty' from now on, and I bet they don't get
within hailing distance without an iron-clad."

The more calmly Emerson regarded the incident, the more he marvelled at
the good-fortune that had saved him. "We had better wake up," he said.
"We have been asleep so far. If Marsh planned this, he will plan
something more."

"Yes, and if he puts one wallop over we're done for," George agreed,
pessimistically. "I'll keep a watchman aboard the scows hereafter.
That's our vital spot."

But the days sped past without further interference, and the
construction of the plant progressed by leaps and bounds, while _The
Bedford Castle_, having discharged her cargo, steamed away to return in
August.

The middle of June brought the first king salmon, scouts sent on ahead
of the "sockeyes;" but Boyd made no effort to take advantage of this
run, laboring manfully to prepare for the advance of the main army,
that terrific horde that was soon to come from the mysterious depths,
either to make or ruin him. Once the run proper started, there would be
no more opportunity for building or for setting up machinery. He must
be ready and waiting by the first of July.

For some time his tin-machines had been busy, night and day, turning
out great heaps of gleaming cans, while the carpenters and machinists
completed their tasks. The gill-netters were overhauling their gear,
the beach was lined with fishing-boats. On the dock great piles of
seines and drift-nets were being inspected. Three miles below, Big
George, with a picked crew and a pile-driver, was building the
fish-trap. It consisted of half-mile "leads," or rows of piling, capped
with stringers, upon which netting was hung, and terminated in
"hearts," "corrals," and "spillers," the intricate arrangements of
webbing and timbers out of which the fish were to be taken.

It was for the title to the ground where his present operations were
going forward that George had been so cruelly disciplined by the
"interests;" and while he had held stubbornly to his rights for years
in spite of the bitterest persecution, he was now for the first time
able to utilize his site. Accordingly his exultation was tremendous.

As for Boyd, the fever in his veins mounted daily as he saw his dream
assuming concrete form. The many problems arising as the work advanced
afforded him unceasing activity; the unforeseen obstacles which were
encountered hourly required swift and certain judgment, taxing his
ingenuity to the utmost. He became so filled with it all, so steeped
with the spirit of his surroundings, that he had thought for nothing
else. Every dawn marked the beginning of a new battle, every twilight
heralded another council. His duties swamped him; he was worried,
exultant, happy. Always he found Cherry at his shoulder, unobtrusive
and silent for the most part, yet intensely observant and keenly alive
to every action. She seemed to have the faculty of divination, knowing
when to be silent and when to join her mood with his, and she gave him
valuable help; for she possessed a practical mind and a masculine
aptitude for details that surprised both him and George. But, rapidly
as the work progressed, it seemed that good-fortune would never smile
upon them for long. One day, when their preparations were nearly
completed, a foreman came to Boyd, and said excitedly:

"Boss, I'd like you to look at the Iron Chinks right away."

"What's up?"

"I don't know, but something is wrong." A hurried examination showed
the machines to be cunningly crippled; certain parts were entirely
missing, while others were broken.

"They were all right when we brought them ashore," the man declared.
"Somebody's been at them lately."

"When? How?" questioned Boyd. "We have had watchmen on guard all the
time. Have any strangers been about?"

"Nobody seems to know. When we got ready to set 'em just now, I saw
this."

The Iron Chink, or mechanical cleaner, is perhaps the most ingenious of
the many labor-saving devices used in the salmon fisheries. It is an
awkward-looking, yet very effective contrivance of revolving knives and
conveyors which seizes the fish whole and delivers it cleaned, clipped,
cut, and ready to be washed. With superhuman dexterity it does the work
of twenty lightning-like butchers. Without the aid of these Iron
Chinks, Boyd knew that his fish would spoil before they could be
handled. In a panic, he pursued his investigation far enough to realize
that the machines were beyond repair; that what had seemed at first a
trivial mishap was in fact an appalling disaster. Then, since his own
experience left him without resource, he hastened straightway to George
Balt. A half-hour's run down the bay and he clambered from his launch
to the pile-driver, where, amid the confusion and noise, he made known
his tidings. The big fellow's calmness amazed him.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Butcher by hand," said the fisherman.

"But how? That takes skilled labor--lots of it."

George grinned. "I'm too old a bird to be caught like this. I figured
on accidents from the start, and when I hired my Chinamen I included a
crew of cutters."

"By Jove, you never told me!"

"There wasn't no use. We ain't licked yet, not by a damned sight.
Willis Marsh will have to try again."





CHAPTER XXI

A HAND IN THE DARK


While they were talking a tug-boat towing a pile-driver came into view.
Boyd asked the meaning of its presence in this part of the river.

"I don't know," answered Big George, staring intently. "Yonder looks
like another one behind it, with a raft of piles."

"I thought all the Company traps were up-stream."

"So they are. I can't tell what they're up to."

A half-hour later, when the new flotilla had come to anchor a short
distance below, Emerson's companion began to swear.

"I might have known it."

"What?"

"Marsh aims to 'cork' us."

"What is that?"

"He's going to build a trap on each side of this one and cut off our
fish."

"Good Lord! Can he do that?"

"Sure. Why not? The law gives us six hundred yards both ways. As long
as he stays outside of that limit he can do anything he wants to."

"Then of what use is our trap? The salmon follow definite courses close
to the shore, and if he intercepts them before they reach us--why, then
we'll get only what he lets through."

"That's his plan," said Big George, sourly, "It's an old game, but it
don't always work. You can't tell what salmon will do till they do it.
I've studied this point of land for five years, and I know more about
it than anybody else except God 'lmighty. If the fish hug the shore,
then we're up against it, but I think they strike in about here; that's
why I chose this site. We can't tell, though, till the run starts. All
we can do now is see that them people keep their distance."

The "lead" of a salmon-trap consists of a row of web-hung piling that
runs out from the shore for many hundred feet, forming a high, stout
fence that turns the schools of fish and leads them into cunningly
contrived enclosures, or "pounds," at the outer extremity, from which
they are "brailed" as needed. These corrals are so built that once the
fish are inside they cannot escape. The entire structure is devised
upon the principle that the salmon will not make a short turn, but will
swim as nearly as possible in a straight line. It looked to Boyd as if
Marsh, by blocking the line of progress above and below, had virtually
destroyed the efficiency of the new trap, rendering the cost of its
construction a total loss.

"Sometimes you can cork a trap and sometimes you can't," Balt went on.
"It all depends on the currents, the lay of the bars, and a lot of
things we don't know nothing about. I've spent years in trying to
locate the point where them fish strike in, and I think it's just below
here. It'll all depend on how good I guessed."

"Exactly! And if you guessed wrong--"

"Then we'll fish with nets, like we used to before there was any traps."

That evening, when he had seen the night-shift started, Emerson decided
to walk up to Cherry's house, for he was worried over the day's
developments and felt that an hour of the girl's society might serve to
clear his thoughts. His nerves were high-strung from the tension of the
past weeks, and he knew himself in the condition of an athlete trained
to the minute. In his earlier days he had frequently felt the same
nervousness, the same intense mental activity, just prior to an
important race or game, and he was familiar with those disquieting,
panicky moments when, for no apparent reason, his heart thumped and a
physical sickness mastered him. He knew that the fever would leave him,
once the salmon began to run, just as it had always vanished at the
crack of the starter's pistol or the shrill note of the referee's
whistle. He was eager for action, eager to find himself possessed of
that gloating, gruelling fury that drives men through to the finish
line. Meanwhile, he was anxious to divert his mind into other channels.

Cherry's house was situated a short distance above the cannery which
served as Willis Marsh's headquarters, and Boyd's path necessarily took
him past his enemy's very stronghold. Finding the tide too high to
permit of passing beneath the dock, he turned up among the buildings,
where, to his surprise, he encountered his own day-foreman talking
earnestly with a stranger.

The fisherman started guiltily as he saw him, and Boyd questioned him
sharply.

"What are you doing here, Larsen?"

"I just walked up after supper to have a talk with an old mate."

"Who is he?" Boyd glanced suspiciously at Larsen's companion.

"He's Mr. Marsh's foreman."

Emerson spoke out bluntly: "See here. I don't like this. These people
have caused me a lot of trouble already, and I don't want my men
hanging around here."

"Oh, that's all right," said Larsen, carelessly. "Him and me used to
fish together." And as if this were a sufficient explanation, he turned
back to his conversation, leaving Emerson to proceed on his way,
vaguely displeased at the episode, yet reflecting that heretofore he
had never had occasion to doubt Larsen's loyalty.

He found Cherry at home, and, flinging himself into one of her
easy-chairs, relieved his mind of the day's occurrences.

"Marsh is building those traps purely out of spite," she declared,
indignantly, when he had finished. "He doesn't need any more fish--he
has plenty of traps farther up the river."

"To be sure! It looks as if we might have to depend upon the
gill-netters."

"We will know before long. If the fish strike in where George expects,
Marsh will be out a pretty penny."

"And if they don't strike in where George expects, we will be out all
the expense of building that trap."

"Exactly! It's a fascinating business, isn't it? It's a business in
which the unexpected is forever happening. But the stakes are high
and--I know you will succeed."

Boyd smiled at her comforting assurance, her belief in him was always
stimulating.

"By-the-way," she continued, "have you heard the historic story about
the pink salmon?"

He shook his head.

"Well, there was a certain shrewd old cannery-man in Washington State
whose catch consisted almost wholly of pink fish. As you know, that
variety does not bring as high a price as red salmon, like these. Well,
finding that he could not sell his catch, owing to the popular
prejudice about color, this man printed a lot of striking can-labels,
which read, 'Best Grade Pink Salmon, Warranted not to Turn Red in the
Can.' They tell me it worked like a charm."

"No wonder!" Boyd laughed, beginning to feel the tension of his nerves
relax at the restfulness of her influence. As usual, he fell at once
into the mood she desired for him. He saw that her brows were furrowed
and her rosy lips drawn into an unconscious pout as she said, more to
herself than to him:

"I wish I were a man. I'd like to engage in a business of this sort,
something that would require ingenuity and daring. I'd like to handle
big affairs."

"It seems to me that you are in a business of that sort. You are one of
us."

"Oh, but you and George are doing it all."

"There is your copper-mine. You surely handled that very cleverly."

Cherry's expression altered, and she shot a quick glance at him as he
went on:

"How is it coming along, by-the-way? I haven't heard you mention it
lately?"

"Very well, I believe. The men were down the other day, and told me it
was a big thing."

"I'm delighted. How does it seem, to be rich?"

There was the slightest hint of constraint in the girl's voice as she
stared out at the slowly gathering twilight, murmuring:

"I--I hardly know. Rich! That has always been my dream, and yet--"

"The wonderful feature about dreams," he took advantage of her pause to
say, "is that they come true."

"Not all of them--not the real, wonderful dreams," she returned.

"Oh yes! My dream is coming true, and so is yours."

"I have given up hoping for that," she said, without turning.

"But you shouldn't give up. Remember that all the great things ever
accomplished were only dreams at first, and the greater the
accomplishments, the more impossible they seemed to begin with."

Something in the girl's attitude and in her silence made him feel that
his words rang hollow and commonplace. While they had talked, an
unaccustomed excitement had been mounting in his brain, and it held him
now in a kind of delicious embarrassment. It was as if both had been
suddenly enfolded in a new and mysterious understanding, without the
need of speech. He did not tell himself that Cherry loved him; but he
roused to a fresh perception of her beauty, and felt himself privileged
in her nearness. At the same time he was seized with the old,
half-resentful curiosity to learn her history. What wealth of romance
lay shadowed in her eyes, what tragic story was concealed by her
consistent silence, he could only guess; for she was a woman who spoke
rarely of herself and lived wholly in the present. Her very reticence
inspired confidence, and Boyd felt sure that here was a girl to whom
one might confess the inmost secrets of a wretched soul and rest secure
in the knowledge that his confession would be inviolate as if locked in
the heart of mountains. He knew her for a steadfast friend, and he
t'elt that she was beautiful, not only in face and form, but in all
those little indescribable mannerisms which stamp the individual. And
this girl was here alone with him, so close that by stretching out his
arms he might enfold her. She allowed him to come and go at will; her
intimacy with him was almost like that of an unspoiled boy--yet
different, so different that he thrilled at the thought, and the blood
pounded up into his throat.

It may have been the unusual ardor of his gaze that warmed her cheeks
and brought her eyes back from the world outside. At any rate, she
turned, flashing him a startled glance that caused his pulse to leap
anew. Her eyes widened and a flush spread slowly upward to her hair,
then her lids drooped, as if weighted by unwonted shyness, and rising
silently, she went past him to the piano. Never before had she
surprised that look in his eyes, and at the realization a wave of
confusion surged over her. She strove to calm herself through her
music, which shielded while it gave expression to her mood, and neither
spoke as the evening shadows crept in upon them. But the girl's
exaltation was short-lived; the thought came that Boyd's feeling was
but transitory; he was not the sort to burn lasting incense before more
than one shrine. Nevertheless, at this moment he was hers, and in the
joy of that certainty she let the moments slip.

He stopped her at last, and they talked in the half-light, floating
along together half dreamily, as if upon the bosom of some great
current that bore them into strange regions which they dreaded yet
longed to explore.

They heard a child crying somewhere in the rear of the house, and
Chakawana's voice soothing, then in a moment the Indian girl appeared
in the doorway saying something about going out with Constantine.
Cherry acquiesced half consciously, impatient of the intrusion.

For a long time they talked, so completely in concord that for the most
part their voices were low and their sentences so incomplete that they
would have sounded incoherent and foolish to other ears. They were
roused finally by the appreciation that it had grown very late and a
storm was brewing. Boyd rose, and going to the door, saw that the sky
was deeply overcast, rendering the night as dark as in a far lower
latitude.

"I've overstayed my welcome," he ventured, and smiled at her answering
laugh.

With a trace of solicitude, she said:

"Wait! I'll get you a rain-coat," but he reached out a detaining hand.
In the darkness it encountered the bare flesh of her arm.

"Please don't! You'd have to strike a light to find it, and I don't
want a light now."

He was standing on the steps, with her slightly above him, and so close
that he heard her sharp-drawn breath.

"It _has_ been a pleasant evening," she said, inanely.

"I saw you for the first time to-night, Cherry. I think I have begun to
know you."

Again she felt her heart leap. Reaching out to say good-bye, his hand
slipped down over her arm, like a caress, until her palm lay in his.

With trembling, gentle hands she pushed him from her; but even when the
sound of his footsteps had died away, she stood with eyes straining
into the gloom, in her breast a gladness so stifling that she raised
her hands to still its tumult.

Emerson, with the glow still upon him, felt a deep contentment which he
did not trouble to analyze. It has been said that two opposite impulses
may exist side by side in a man's mind, like two hostile armies which
have camped close together in the night, unrevealed to each other until
the morning. To Emerson the dawn had not yet come. He had no thought of
disloyalty to Mildred, but, after his fashion, took the feeling of the
moment unreflectively. His mood was averse to thought, and, moreover,
the darkness forced him to give instant attention to his path. While
the waters of the bay out to his right showed a ghostly gray, objects
beneath the bluff where he walked were cloaked in impenetrable shadow.
The air was damp with the breath of coming rain, and at rare intervals
he caught a glimpse of the torn edges of clouds hurrying ahead of a
wind that was yet unfelt.

When the black bulk of Marsh's cannery loomed ahead of him, he left the
gravel beach and turned up among the buildings, seeking to retrace his
former course. He noticed that once he had left the noisy shingle, his
feet made no sound in the soft moss. Thus it was that, as he turned the
corner of the first building, he nearly ran against a man who was
standing motionless against the wall. The fellow seemed as startled at
the encounter as Emerson, and with a sharp exclamation leaped away and
vanished into the gloom. Boyd lost no time in gaining the plank runway
that led to the dock, and finding an angle in the building, backed into
it and waited, half-suspecting that he had stumbled into a trap. He
reflected that both the hour and the circumstances were unpropitious;
for in case he should meet with foul play, Marsh might plausibly claim
that he had been mistaken for a marauder. He determined, therefore, to
proceed with the greatest caution. From his momentary glimpse of the
man as he made off, he knew that he was tall and active--just the sort
of person to prove dangerous in an encounter. But if his suspicions
were correct there must be others close by, and Boyd wondered why he
had heard no signal. After a breathless wait of a moment or two, he
stole cautiously out, and, selecting the darkest shadows, slipped from
one to another till he was caught by the sound of voices issuing from
the yawning entrance of the main building on his right. The next moment
his tension relaxed; one of the speakers was a woman. Evidently his
alarm had been needless, for these people, whoever they were, made no
effort to conceal their presence. On the contrary, the woman had raised
her tone to a louder pitch, although her words were still
undistinguishable.

Greatly relieved, Boyd was about to go on, when a sharp cry, like a
signal, came in the woman's voice, a cry which turned to a genuine wail
of distress. The listener heard a man's voice cursing in answer, and
then the sound of a scuffle, followed at length by a choking cry, that
brought him bounding into the building. He ran forward, recklessly, but
before he had covered half the distance he collided violently with a
piece of machinery and went sprawling to the floor. A glance upward
revealed the dim outlines of a "topper," and showed him farther down
the building, silhouetted briefly against the lesser darkness of the
windows, two struggling figures. As he regained his footing, something
rushed past him--man or animal he could not tell which, for its feet
made no more sound upon the floor than those of a wolf-dog. Then, as he
bolted forward, he heard a man cry out, and found himself in the midst
of turmoil. His hands encountered a human body, and he seized it, only
to be hurled aside as if with a giant's strength. Again he clinched
with a man's form, and bore it to the floor, cursing at the darkness
and reaching for its throat. His antagonist raised his voice in wild
clamor, while Boyd braced himself for another assault from those huge
hands he had met a moment before. But it did not come. Instead, he
heard a cry from the woman, an answer in a deeper voice, and then
swift, pattering footsteps growing fainter. Meanwhile the man with whom
he was locked was fighting desperately, with hands and feet and teeth,
shouting hoarsely. Other footsteps sounded now, this time approaching,
then at the door a lantern flared. A watchman came running down between
the lines of machinery, followed by other figures half revealed.

Boyd had pinned his antagonist against the cold sides of a retort at
last, and with fingers clutched about his throat was beating his head
violently against the iron, when by the lantern's gleam he caught one
glimpse of the fat, purple face in front of him, and loosed his hold
with a startled exclamation. Released from the grip that had nearly
made an end of him, Willis Marsh staggered to his feet, then lurched
forward as if about to fall from weakness. His eyes were staring, his
blackened tongue protruded, while his head, battered and bleeding,
lolled grotesquely from side to side as if in hideous merriment. His
clothes were torn and soiled from the litter underfoot, and he
presented a frightful picture of distress. But it was not this that
caused Emerson the greatest astonishment. The man was wounded, badly
wounded, as he saw by the red stream which gushed down over his breast.
Boyd cast his eyes about for the other participants in the encounter,
but they were nowhere visible; only an open door in the shadows close
by hinted at the mode of their disappearance.

There was a brief, noisy interval, during which Emerson was too
astounded to attempt an answer to the questions hurled broadcast by the
new-comers; then Marsh levelled a trembling finger at him and cried,
hysterically:

"There he is, men. He tried to murder me. I--I'm hurt. I'll have him
arrested."

The seriousness of the accusation struck the young man on the instant;
he turned upon the group.

"I didn't do that. I heard a fight going on and ran in here--"

"He's a liar," the wounded man interrupted, shrilly. "He stabbed me!
See?" He tried to strip the shirt from his wounds, then fell to
chattering and shaking. "Oh, God! I'm hurt." He staggered to a
packing-case and sank upon it weakly fumbling at his sodden shoulder.

"I didn't do that," repeated Boyd. "I don't know who stabbed him. I
didn't."

"Then who did?" some one demanded.

"What are you doing in here? You'd a killed him in a minute," said the
man with the lantern.

"We'll fix you for this," a third voice threatened.

"Listen," Boyd said, in a tone to make them pause. "There has been a
mistake here. I was passing the building when I heard a woman scream,
and I rushed in to prevent Marsh from choking her to death."

"A woman!" chorused the group.

"That's what I said."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. I didn't see her at all. I grappled with the first
person I ran into. She must have gone out as you came in." Boyd
indicated the side door, which was still ajar.

"It's a lie," screamed Marsh.

"It's the truth," stoutly maintained Emerson, "and there was a man with
her, too. Who was she, Marsh? Who was the man?"

"She--she--I don't know."

"Don't lie."

"I'm hurt," reiterated the stricken man, feebly. Then, seeing the
bewilderment in the faces about him, he burst out anew: "Don't stand
there like a lot of fools. Why don't you get him?"

"If I stabbed him I must have had a knife," Emerson said, again
checking the forward movement. "You may search me if you like. See?" He
opened his coat and displayed his belt.

"He's got a six-shooter," some one said.

"Yes, and I may use it," said Emerson, quietly.

"Maybe he dropped the knife," said the watchman, and began to search
about the floor, followed by the others.

"It may have been the woman herself who stabbed Mr. Marsh," offered
Emerson. "He was strangling her when I arrived."

Roused by this statement to a fresh denial, Marsh cried out:

"I tell you there wasn't any woman."

"And there isn't any knife either," Emerson sneered.

The men paused uncertainly. Seeing that they were undecided whether to
believe him or his assailant, Marsh went on:

"If he hasn't a knife, then he must have had a friend with him--"

"Then tell your men what we were doing in here and how you came to be
alone with us in the dark." Emerson stared at his accuser curiously,
but the Trust's manager seemed at a loss. "See here, Marsh, if you will
tell us whom you were choking, maybe we can get at the truth of this
affair."

Without answering, Marsh rose, and, leaning upon the watchman's arm,
said:

"Help me up to the house. I'm hurt. Send the launch to the upper plant
for John; he knows something about medicine." With no further word, he
made his way out of the building, followed by the mystified fishermen.

No one undertook to detain Emerson, and he went his way, wondering what
lay back of the night's adventure. He racked his brain for a hint as to
the identity of the woman and the reason of her presence alone with
Marsh in such a place. Again he thought of that mysterious third person
whose movements had been so swift and furious, but his conjectures left
him more at sea than ever. Of one thing he felt sure. It was not enmity
alone that prompted Marsh to accuse him of the stabbing. The man was
concealing something, in deadly fear of the truth, for rather than
submit to questioning he had let his enemy go scot-free.

Suddenly Boyd paused in his walk, recalling again the shadowy outlines
of the figure with whom he had so nearly collided on his way up from
the beach. There was something familiar about it, he mused; then, with
a low whistle of surprise, he smote his palms together. He began to see
dimly.

For more than an hour the young man paced back and forth before the
door of his sleeping-quarters, so deeply immersed in thought that only
the breaking storm drove him within. When at last he retired, it was
with the certainty that this night had placed a new weapon in his hand;
but of what tremendous value it was destined to prove, he little knew.





CHAPTER XXII

THE SILVER HORDE


The main body of salmon struck into the Kalvik River on the first day
of July. For a week past the run had been slowly growing, while the
canneries tested themselves, but on the opening day of the new month
the horde issued boldly forth from the depths of the sea, and the
battle began in earnest. They came during the hush of the dawn, a mad,
crowding throng from No Man's Land, to wake the tide-rips and people
the shimmering reaches of the bay, lashing them to sudden life and
fury. Outside, the languorous ocean heaved as smiling and serene as
ever, but within the harbor a wondrous change occurred.

As if in answer to some deep-sea signal, the tides were quickened by a
coursing multitude, steadfast and unafraid, yet foredoomed to die by
the hand of man, or else more surely by the serving of their destiny.
Clad in their argent mail of blue and green, they worked the bay to
madness; they overwhelmed the waters, surging forward in great droves
and columns, hesitating only long enough to frolic with the shifting
currents, as if rejoicing in their strength and beauty.

At times they swam with cleaving fins exposed: again they churned the
placid waters until swift combers raced across the shallow bars like
tidal waves while the deeper channels were shot through with shadowy
forms or pierced by the lightning glint of silvered bellies. They
streamed in with the flood tide to retreat again with the ebb, but
there was neither haste nor caution in their progress; they had come in
answer to the breeding call of the sea, and its exultation was upon
them, driving them relentlessly onward. They had no voice against its
overmastering spell.

Mustering in the early light like a swarm of giant white-winged moths,
the fishing-boats raced forth with the flowing tide, urged by sweep and
sail and lusty sinews. Paying out their hundred-fathom nets, they
drifted over the banks like flocks of resting sea-gulls, only to come
ploughing back again deep laden with their spoils. Grimy tugboats lay
beside the traps, shrilling the air with creaking winches as they
"brailed" the struggling fish, a half-ton at a time, from the "pounds,"
now churned to milky foam by the ever-growing throng of prisoners; and
all the time the big plants gulped the sea harvest, faster and faster,
clanking and gnashing their metal jaws, while the mounds of salmon lay
hip-deep to the crews that fed the butchering machines.

The time had come for man to take his toll.

Now dawned a period of feverish activity wherein no one might rest
short of actual exhaustion. Haste became the cry, and comfort fled.

At Emerson's cannery there fell a sudden panic, for fifty fishermen
quit. Returning from the banks on the night before the run started,
they stacked their gear and notified Boyd Emerson of their
determination. Then, despite his utmost efforts to dissuade them, they
took their packs upon their shoulders and marched up the beach to
Willis Marsh's plant. Larsen, the day-foreman, acted as their
So the real size and bounds of the Republic must be set down as somewhat
indeterminate.

The circumstances under which Panama became an independent nation have
been set forth in an earlier chapter. It is safe to say that with the
heavy investment made by the United States in the Canal Zone, on the
strength of a treaty with the infant republic, the sovereignty of Panama
will be forever maintained against all comers--except the United States
itself. There are political philosophers who think that the Isthmus
state may yet be the southern boundary of the Great Republic of the
North. For the present however Uncle Sam is quite content with the Canal
Zone and a certain amount of diplomatic influence over the government of
Panama.

[Illustration: THE GORGE OF SALAMANCA]

Panama is divided into seven provinces, Bocas del Toro, Cocle, Colon,
Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama and Veragua. Its total population by the
census of 1911 was 386,749, a trifle more than the District of Columbia
which has about one five-thousandth of its area, and almost precisely
the same population as Montana which has less than half its size. So it
is clearly not over-populated. Of its population 51,323 are set down by
its own census takers as white, 191,933 as mestizo, or a cross between
white and Indian, 48,967 as negro; 2313 Mongol, and 14,128 Indian. The
census takers estimated that other Indians, living in barbarism remote
from civilization and unapproachable by the enumerators, numbered
36,138.

[Illustration: NATIVE FAMILY IN CHORRERA]

All these figures have to be qualified somewhat. The mestizos are
theoretically a cross between whites and Indians, but the negro blood is
very generally present. It is doubtful, too, whether those classed as
white are not often of mixed blood.

A singularly large proportion of the population lives in the towns. In
12 towns, exceeding 7000 inhabitants each, are more than 150,000 people.
More than one-third of the people therefore are town dwellers, which is
to say they are unproductive citizens. Meanwhile more than five-eighths
of the arable land in the country is not under cultivation.

The five chief towns of Panama with their population in 1911 are:

  Panama             37,505
  Colon              17,748
  David              15,059
  Santiago           13,081
  Bocas del Toro      9,759

Of these towns David is the capital of the Chiriqui province, the
portion of the republic in which cattle growing and agriculture have
been most developed. Bocas del Toro is a banana port, dependent upon
that nutritious fruit for its very existence, and the center of the
business of the United Fruit Company in Panama. At present the former
town is reached by a 300 mile water trip from Panama City; the latter by
boat from Colon. The government has under way plans for a railroad from
Panama to David which give every indication of being consummated.

[Illustration: A STREET IN PENENOME]

The soil of the Republic differs widely in its varying sections, from
the rich vegetable loam of the lowlands along the Atlantic Coast, the
outcome of years of falling leaves and twigs from the trees to the swamp
below, to the high dry lands of the savannas and the hillsides of the
Chiriqui province. All are undeniably fertile, that is demonstrated by
the rapid and rank growth of the jungle. But opinions differ as to the
extent to which they are available for useful agriculture. Some hold
that the jungle soil is so rich that the plants run to wood and leaves
to the exclusion of fruits. Others declare that on the hillsides the
heavy rains of the rainy seasons wash away the surface soil leaving only
the harsh and arid substratum. This theory seems to be overthrown by the
fact that it is rare to see a hillside in all Panama not covered with
dense vegetation. A fact that is well worth bearing in mind is that
there has never been a systematic and scientific effort to utilize any
part of the soil of Panama for productive purposes that has not been a
success. The United Fruit Company in its plantations about Bocas del
Toro has developed a fruitful province and created a prosperous town. In
the province of Cocle a German company has set out about 75,000 cacao
trees, 50,000 coffee bushes and 25,000 rubber trees, all of which have
made good progress.

[Illustration: THE HOTEL AT DAVID]

The obstacles in the path of the fuller development of the national
resources of Panama have sprung wholly from the nature of its
population. The Indian is, of course, not primarily an agriculturist,
not a developer of the possibilities of the land he inhabits. The
Spanish infusion brought to the native population no qualities of
energy, of well-directed effort, of the laborious determination to build
up a new and thriving commonwealth. Spanish ideals run directly counter
to those involved in empire building. Such energy, such determination as
built up our great northwest and is building in British Columbia the
greatest agricultural empire in the world, despite seven months annually
of drifting snow and frozen ground, would make of the Panama savannas
and valleys the garden spot of the world. That will never be
accomplished by the present agrarian population, but it is incredible
that with population absorbing and overrunning the available
agricultural lands of other zones, the tropics should long be left
dormant in control of a lethargic and indolent people.

[Illustration: VIEW OF BOCAS DEL TORO]

[Illustration: _Photo by Critchlow_

VISTA ON THE RIO GRANDE]

Benjamin Kidd, in his stimulative book, “Social Evolution”, says on this
subject:

“With the filling up to the full limit of the remaining territories
suitable for European occupation, and the growing pressure of population
therein, it may be expected that the inexpediency of allowing a great
extent of territory in the richest region of the globe--that comprised
within the tropics--to remain undeveloped, with its resources running
largely to waste under the management of races of low social efficiency,
will be brought home with ever-growing force to the minds of the Western
(Northern) peoples. The day is probably not far distant when, with the
advance science is making, we shall recognize that it is in the tropics
and not in the temperate zones we have the greatest food-producing and
material-producing regions of the earth; that the natural highways of
commerce in the world are those which run north and south; and that we
have the highest possible interest in the proper development and
efficient administration of the tropical regions, and in an exchange of
products therewith on a far larger scale than has yet been attempted or
imagined.... It will probably be made clear, and that at no distant
date, that the last thing our civilization is likely to permanently
tolerate is the wasting of the resources of the richest regions of the
earth through lack of the elementary qualities of social efficiency in
the races possessing them”.

[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_

AT THE CATTLE PORT OF AGUADULCE

This is one of the chief shipping points for the cattle ranches of
Chiriqui. The industry is one little developed]

Some of the modern psychologists who are so expert in solving the
riddles of human consciousness that they hardly hesitate to approach the
supreme problem of life after death may perhaps determine whether the
indolence of the Panamanian is racial, climatic, or merely bred of
consciousness that he does not have to work hard in order to get all the
comforts of which he has knowledge. The life-story of an imaginary
couple will serve as the short and simple annals of tens of thousands of
Panama’s poor:

[Illustration: THE ROYAL ROAD NEAR PANAMA]

Miguel lived on the banks of the Chagres River, about half way between
Cruces and Alhajuela. To him Cruces was a city. Were there not at least
thirty huts of bamboo and clay thatched with palmetto like the one in
which he lived? Was there not a church of sawn boards, with an altar to
which a priest came twice a month to say mass, and a school where a
gringo taught the children strange things in the hated English tongue?
Where he lived there was no other hut within two or three hours poling
up the river, but down at Cruces the houses were so close together you
could almost reach one while sitting in the shade of another. At home
after dark you only heard the cry of the whippoorwill, or occasionally
the wail of a tiger cat in the jungle, but at Cruces there was always
the loud talk of the men in the cantina, and a tom-tom dance at least
once a week, when everybody sat up till dawn dancing to the beat of the
drums and drinking the good rum that made them all so jolly.

But greater than Cruces was the Yankee town of Matachin down on the
banks of the river where the crazy Americans said there was going to be
a lake that some day would cover all the country, and drown out Cruces
and even his father’s house. They were paying all the natives along the
river for their lands that would be sunken, and the people were taking
the pesos gladly and spending them gaily. They did not trouble to move
away. Many years ago the French too said there would be a lake, but it
never came and the French suddenly disappeared. The Americans would
vanish the same way, and a good thing, too, for their thunderous noises
where they were working frightened away all the good game, and you could
hardly find an iguana, or a wild hog in a day’s hunting.

[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_

THE MEETING PLACE OF THE CAYUCAS]

Once a week Miguel’s father went down to market at Matachin, and
sometimes the boy went along. The long, narrow cayuca was loaded with
oranges, bananas and yams, all covered with big banana leaves, and with
Miguel in the bow and his father in the stern the voyage commenced.
Going down stream was easy enough, and the canoists plied their paddles
idly, trusting chiefly to the current to carry them along. But coming
back would be the real work, then they would have to bend to their poles
and push savagely to force the boat along. At places they would have to
get overboard and fairly carry the boat through the swift, shallow
rapids. But Miguel welcomed the work for it showed him the wonders of
Matachin, where great iron machines rushed along like horses, drawing
long trains of cars; where more people worked with shovels tending queer
machines than there were in ten towns like Cruces; where folk gave pesos
for bananas and gave cloth, powder and shot, things to eat in cans, and
rum in big bottles for the pesos again. It was an exciting place this
Matachin and made Miguel understand what the gringoes meant when they
talked about New York, Chicago and other cities like it.

[Illustration: BANANA MARKET AT MATACHIN]

When he grew older Miguel worked awhile for the men who were digging
away all this dirt, and earned enough to buy himself a machete and a gun
and a few ornaments for a girl named Maria who lived in another hut near
the river. But what was the use of working in that mad way--picking up
your shovel when a whistle blew and toiling away until it blew again,
with a boss always scolding at you and ready with a kick if you tried to
take a little siesta. The pesos once a week were good, that was true. If
you worked long enough you might get enough to buy one of those boxes
that made music, but _quien sabe?_ It might get broken anyway, and the
iguanas in the jungle, the fish in the river and the yams and bananas in
the clearing needed no silver to come to his table. Besides he was
preparing to become a man of family. Maria was quite willing, and so one
day they strolled off together hand in hand to a clearing Miguel had
made with his machete on the river bank. With that same useful tool he
cut some wooden posts, set them erect in the ground and covered them
with a heavy thatch of palmetto leaves impervious to sun or rain. The
sides of the shelter were left open during the first months of wedded
life. Later perhaps, when they had time they would go to Cruces at the
period of the priest’s regular visit and get regularly married. When the
rainy season came on and walls were as necessary as a roof against the
driving rain, they would build a little better. When that time came he
would set ten stout uprights of bamboo in the ground in the shape of an
oblong, and across the tops would fasten six cross pieces of girders
with withes of vine well soaked to make them pliable. This would make
the frame of the first floor of his house. The walls he would make by
weaving reeds, or young bamboo stalks in and out betwixt the posts until
a fairly tight basketwork filled the space. This was then plastered
outside with clay. The dirt, which in time would be stamped down hard,
formed the floor. For his second story a tent-shaped frame of lighter
bamboo tightly tied together was fastened to the posts, and cane was
tied to each of the rafters as we nail laths to scantling. Thus a strong
peaked roof, about eight feet high from the second floor to the
ridgepole was constructed, and thatched with palm leaves. Its angle
being exceedingly steep it sheds water in the fierce tropic rain storms.
The floor of the second story is made of bamboo poles laid transversely,
and covered heavily with rushes and palmetto. This is used only as the
family sleeping apartment, and to give access to it Miguel takes an
8-inch bamboo and cuts notches in it, into which the prehensile toes of
his family may fit as they clamber up to the land of Nod. Furniture to
the chamber floor there is none. The family herd together like so many
squirrels, and with the bamboo climbing pole drawn up there is no danger
of intrusion by the beasts of the field.

[Illustration: IN THE CHIRIQUI COUNTRY]

In the typical Indian hut there is no furniture on the ground floor
other than a rough hewn bench, a few pieces of pottery and gourds, iron
cooking vessels and what they call a kitchen, which is in fact a large
flat box with raised edges, about eight square feet in surface and about
as high from the floor as a table. This is filled with sand and slabs of
stone. In it a little fire is built of wood or charcoal, the stones laid
about the fire support the pots and pans and cooking goes on as gaily as
in any modern electric kitchen. The contrivance sounds primitive, but I
have eaten a number of excellent meals cooked on just such an apparatus.

[Illustration: BANANA PLANT; NOTE SIZE OF MAN]

Now it will be noticed that in all this habitation, sufficient for the
needs of an Indian, there is nothing except the iron pots and possibly
some pottery for which money was needed, and there are thousands of
families living in just this fashion in Panama today. True, luxury
approaches in its insidious fashion and here and there you will see a
$1.25 white iron bed on the main floor, real chairs, canned goods on the
shelves and--final evidence of Indian prosperity!--a crayon portrait of
the head of the family and a phonograph, of a make usually discarded at
home. But when Miguel and Maria start out on the journey of life a
machete, a gun and the good will of their neighbors who will lend them
yams until their own planting begins to yield forms a quite sufficient
capital on which to establish their family. Therefore, why work?

[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHT

A TYPICAL NATIVE HUT

While native architecture is not stately it is artistic in that it
harmonizes with its natural surroundings and is eminently adapted to the
needs of the people who inhabit the huts.]

It is beyond doubt to the ease with which life can be sustained, and the
torpidity of the native imagination which depicts no joys to spur one on
to effort that the unwillingness of the native to do systematic work is
due. And from this difficulty in getting labor follows the fact that
not one quarter of the natural resources of Panama are developed.
Whether the labor problem will be solved by the distribution throughout
the republic of the Caribbean blacks who have worked so well on the Zone
is yet to be seen. It may be possible that because of this the fertile
lands of Panama, or the savannas so admirably fitted for grazing, can
only be utilized by great corporations who will do things on so great a
scale as to justify the importation of labor. Today the man who should
take up a large tract of land in the Chiriqui country with a view to
tilling it would be risking disaster because of the uncertainty of the
labor supply.

[Illustration: CONSTRUCTION OF ROOF OF A NATIVE HOUSE

The photograph is taken looking directly upward from the ground floor]

Another obstacle in the way of foreign settlement of Panama has been the
uncertainty of land titles. Early surveyors seem to have been in the
habit of noting as the identification marks of their lines such volatile
objects as a blackbird in a tree, or such perishable ones as an ant hill
or a decaying stump. Facilities for recording titles also have been ill
arranged. One of the first tasks of the new Republic was to take up this
matter and it has been reduced to fairly systematic form. The Republic
is offering for sale great quantities of public lands long held as
commons by various municipalities. Much of this land lies along the line
of the railroad from Panama to David, and is of varying grades suitable
for grazing, forestry or agriculture. A fixed price of 50 cents per
hectare is charged, a hectare being practically 2¹⁄₂ acres. The
government has gone quite efficiently into the task of disposing of
these lands, and pamphlets explanatory of methods of securing titles,
terms, etc., can be obtained by addressing the Administrator-General at
Panama. The Pan-American Union, of Washington, D. C., has issued a
pamphlet giving a summary in English of the Panamanian law bearing upon
the subject.

[Illustration: A NATIVE LIVING ROOM AND STAIRWAY

By pulling up the bamboo ladder, or turning it, communication with the
upper floor is closed]

With the lack of labor, and the uncertainty of land titles, the final
impediment to the general development of the interior of Panama is to be
found in the lack of roads. It is not that the roads are bad--that is
the case in many of our own commonwealths. But in a great part of Panama
there are literally no roads at all. Trails, choked by the jungle and so
washed by the rains that they are merely lanes floored with boulders,
are the rule. The heavy ox-cart is the only vehicle that will stand the
going, and our light American farm wagons would be speedily racked to
pieces. In the Canal Zone the Commission has built some of the best
roads in the world, utilizing the labor of employees convicted of minor
offenses. Stimulated by this example the Panama government has built one
excellent road from the chief city across the savannas to Old Panama and
thence onward into the interior. It is hoped that the spectacle of the
admirable roads in the Zone will encourage the authorities of the
Republic to go into road building on a large scale in their own country.
In no other way can its possibilities be realized. At present the rivers
afford the surest highways and land abutting them brings higher prices.

[Illustration: RUBBER PLANTATION NEAR COCLE

The planter’s original hut in the foreground. The board cabin with
corrugated iron roof shows prosperity]

David, the largest interior town of Panama, is the central point of the
cattle industry. All around it are woods, or jungles, plentifully
interspersed with broad prairies, or llanos, covered with grass, and on
which no trees grow save here and there a wild fig or a ceibo. Cattle
graze on the llanos, sleek reddish beasts with spreading horns like our
Texas cattle. There are no huge herds as on our western ranges. Droves
of from ten to twenty are about the average among the small owners who
rely on the public range for subsistence. The grass is not sufficiently
nutritious to bring the cattle up to market form, so the small owners
sell to the owners of big ranches who maintain potreros, or fattening
ground sown with better grasses. A range fed steer will fetch $15 to
$18, and after six or eight months on the potrero it will bring $30 to
$35 from the cattle shipper at David. Since the cost of feeding a beeve
for that period is only about one dollar, and as the demand is fairly
steady the profit of the ranchman is a good one. But like all other
industries in Panama, this one is pursued in only a retail way. The
market is great enough to enrich ranchmen who would go into the business
on a large scale, but for some reason none do.

[Illustration: BOLIVAR PARK AT BOCAS DEL TORO]

Passing from llano to llano the road cuts through the forest which
towers dense and impenetrable on either side, broken only here and
there by small clearings made by some native with the indispensable
machete. These in the main are less than four acres. The average
Panamanian farmer will never incur the scriptural curse laid upon them
that lay field unto field. He farms just enough for his daily needs, no
more. The ambition that leads our northern farmer to always covet the
lands on the other side of his boundary fence does not operate in
Panama. One reason is, of course, the aggressiveness of the jungle.
Stubborn to clear away, it is determined in its efforts to regain the
land from which it has been ousted. Such a thing as allowing a field to
lie fallow for two or three years is unknown in Panama. There would be
no field visible for the new jungle growth.

[Illustration: A FORD NEAR ANCON]

Agriculture therefore is conducted in a small way only, except for the
great corporations that have just begun the exploitation of Panama.
Whether the country affords a hopeful field for the individual settler
is at least doubtful. Its climate is excellent. The days are warm but
never scorchingly hot as are customary in Washington and frequent in New
York. The nights are cool. From December to May a steady trade wind
blows over the Isthmus from north to south, carrying away the clouds so
that there is no rain. In this dry season the fruits mature, so that it
corresponds to the northern summer; on the other hand such vegetation as
sheds its leaves, or dies down annually, does so at this season, giving
it a seeming correspondence to the northern winter. In a temperature
sense there is neither summer nor winter, and the variation of the
thermometer is within narrow limits. The highest temperature in years at
Culebra, a typical inland point, was 96 degrees; the lowest 61.

The list of natural products of the Isthmus is impressive in its length
and variety, but for most of them even the home demand is not met or
supplied by the production. Only where some stimulating force from the
outside has intervened, like the United Fruit Company with the banana,
has production been brought up to anything like its possibility. In the
Chiriqui country you can see sugar cane fields that have gone on
producing practically without attention for fifteen seasons. Cornfields
have been worked for half a century without fertilizing or rotation of
crops. The soil there is volcanic detritus washed down during past ages
from the mountainsides, and lies from six to twenty feet thick. It will
grow anything that needs no frost, but the province supports less than
four people to the square mile, nine-tenths of the land is unbroken and
Panama imports fruit from Jamaica, sugar from Cuba and tobacco and food
stuffs from the United States.

[Illustration: OLD BANANA TREES]

[Illustration: PINEAPPLES IN THE FIELD]

The fruits of Panama are the orange, which grows wild and for the proper
cultivation of which no effort has been made, which is equally the case
with the lemon and the lime; the banana, which plays so large a part in
the economic development of the country that I shall treat of it at
length later; the pineapple, cultivated in a haphazard way, still
attains so high an order of excellence that Taboga pines are the
standard for lusciousness; the mango, which grows in clusters so dense
that the very trees bend under their weight, but for which as yet little
market has been found, as they require an acquired taste; the mamei,
hard to ship and difficult to eat because of its construction but withal
a toothsome fruit; the paypaya, a melon not unlike our cantaloupe which
has the eccentricity of growing on trees; the sapodillo, a fruit of
excellent flavor tasting not unlike a ripe persimmon, but containing no
pit. With cultivation all of these fruits could be grown in great
quantities in all parts of the Republic, but to give them any economic
importance some special arrangement for their regular and speedy
marketing would have to be made, as with the banana, most of them being
by nature extremely perishable.

Northern companies are finding some profit in exploiting such natural
resources of Panama as are available in their wild state. Of these the
most promising is rubber, the tree being found in practically every part
of the country. One concern, the Boston-Panama Company, has an estate
approximating 400 square miles on which are about 100,000 wild rubber
trees, and which is being further developed by the planting of bananas,
pineapples, cocoanuts and other tropical fruits.

[Illustration: WAITING FOR THE BOAT]

Coffee, sugar and cacao are raised on the Isthmus, but of the two former
not enough to supply the local demand. The development of the cacao
industry to large proportions seems probable, as several foreign
corporations are experimenting on a considerable scale. Cocoanuts are
easily grown along both coasts of the Isthmus. A new grove takes about
five years to come into bearing, costing an average of about three
dollars a tree. Once established the trees bring in a revenue of about
one dollar each at present prices and, as the demand for Panama
cocoanuts is steady, the industry seems to offer attractive
possibilities. The groves must be near the coast, as the cocoanut tree
needs salt air to reach its best estate. Given the right atmospheric
conditions they will thrive where no other plant will take root. Growing
at the edge of the sea, water transportation is easy.

[Illustration: COUNTRY HOUSE OF A CACAO PLANTER AT CHORIA

This industry is in its infancy in Panama, but promises to be a
considerable resource]

[Illustration: STARTED FOR MARKET]

There is still much land available for cocoanut planting, though but
little of it is government land. Both coasts are fit for this industry,
unlike the banana industry, which thrives only on the Atlantic shore.
Panama is outside of the hurricane belt, which gives an added advantage
to the cocoanut planter. Elsewhere in the Caribbean the trees suffer
severely from the high winds.

The lumber of Panama will in time come to be one of its richest assets.
In the dense forests hardwoods of a dozen varieties or more are to be
found, but as yet the cost of getting it out is prohibitive in most
sections. Only those forests adjacent to streams are economically
valuable and such activity as is shown is mainly along the Bayano,
Chucunaque, and Tuyra Rivers. The list of woods is almost interminable.
The prospectus of one of the companies with an extended territory on the
Bayano River notes eighteen varieties of timber, commercially valuable
on its territory. Among those the names of which are unfamiliar are the
espavé (sometimes spelled espevé), the cocobolo, the espinosa cedar, the
zoro and the sangre. All are hard woods serviceable in cabinet making.
The espavé is as hard as mahogany and of similar color and marking. The
trees will run four to five feet thick at the stump with saw timber 60
to 70 feet in length. Espinosa trees are of the cedar type, growing to
enormous size, frequently exceeding 16 feet in circumference. The
cocobolo is a hard wood, but without the beauty to fit it for cabinet
work. The sangre derives its name from its red sap which exudes from a
gash like blood. It takes a high polish, and is in its general
characteristics not unlike our cherry.

For the casual tourist the lumber district most easy of access is that
along the Bayano River reached by a motor boat or steam launch in a few
hours from Panama. The trip is frequently made by pleasure seekers, for
perhaps nowhere in the world is the beauty of a phosphorescent sea at
night so marvelously shown, and few places easily found by man show such
a horde of alligators or crocodiles, as are seen in Crocodile Creek, one
of the affluents of the Bayano. This river, which empties into the Gulf
of Panama, is in its lower reaches a tide-water stream and perhaps
because of the mingling of the salt and the fresh the water is densely
filled with the microscopic infusoria which at night blaze forth in
coldly phosphorescent gleams suggestive of the sparkling of a spray of
diamonds. Put your hand into the stream, lift it and let the water
trickle through your fingers. Every drop gleams and glistens as it falls
with a radiance comparable with nothing in nature unless it be the great
fire-flies of the tropics. Even diamonds have to pass through the hands
of the cutter before they will blaze with any such effulgence as the
trickling waters of this tropical stream. One who has passed a night
upon it may well feel that he has lived with one of the world’s marvels,
and can but wonder at the matter-of-fact manner in which the natives go
about their tasks unmoved by the contact with so much shining glory.

[Illustration: LOADING CATTLE AT AGUADULCE]

There is always controversy on the Isthmus over the question whether the
gigantic saurians of Crocodile Creek are in fact crocodiles or
alligators. Whether expert scientific opinion has ever been called upon
to settle the problem I do not know, but I rather suspect that crocodile
was determined upon because it gave to the name of Crocodile Creek in
which they are so plentifully found “apt alliteration’s artful aid” to
make it picturesque. Whatever the precise zoological classification
given to the huge lizards may be is likely to be relatively unimportant
before long, because the greatest joy of every tourist is found in
killing them. The fascination which slaughter possesses for men is
always hard to understand, but just what gives the killing of alligators
its peculiar zest I could never understand. The beasts are slow, torpid
and do not afford a peculiarly difficult test of marksmanship, even
though the vulnerable part of their bodies is small. They are timid and
will not fight for their lives. There is nothing of the sporting
proposition in pursuing them that is to be found in hunting the tiger or
the grizzly. They are practically harmless, and in the Bayano region
wholly so, as there are no domestic animals upon which they can prey. It
is true their teeth and skins have a certain value in the market, but it
is not for these the tourist kills them. Most of those slain for “sport”
sink instantly and cannot be recovered.

[Illustration: DOLEGA IN THE CHIRIQUI PROVINCE]

However if you visit Crocodile Creek with a typical party you will be
given a very fair imitation of a lively skirmish in actual war. From
every part of the deck, from the roof of the cabin, and from the pilot
house shots ring out from repeating rifles in a fierce desire to kill.
The Emersonian doctrine of compensation is often given illustration by
the killing of one of the hunters in the eagerness to get at the quarry.
In fact that is one of the commonest accidents of the tourist season in
Panama.

[Illustration: MAHOGANY TREES WITH ORCHIDS]

Crocodile Creek is a deep, sluggish black stream, almost arched over by
the boughs of the thick forest along the shores. Here and there the
jungle is broken by a broad shelving beach on which the ungainly beasts
love to sun themselves, and to which the females resort to deposit their
eggs. At the sound of a voice or a paddle in the stream the awkward
brutes take to the water in terror, for there are few animals more
timid than they. When in the water the crocodile floats lazily,
displaying only three small bumps above the surface--the nostrils and
the horny protruberances above the eyes. Once the pool in which they
float is disturbed they sink to the bottom and lurk there for hours.
Alligator hunting for business purposes is not as yet generally pursued
on the Isthmus, though one hunter and trapper is said to have secured as
many as 60,000 in a year. But as the demand for the skins, and to a
lesser degree for the teeth, of the animals is a constant one, it is
probable that with the aid of the tourists they will be exterminated
there as thoroughly as they have been in the settled parts of Florida.
While on the subject of slaughter and the extermination of game it may
be noted that the Canal Commission has already established very
stringent game laws on the Zone, particularly for the protection of
plumed birds like the egret, and it is seriously proposed to make of
that part of Gatun Lake within the Zone a refuge for birds in which no
shooting shall be permitted. Such action would stop mere wanton
slaughter from the decks of passing steamers, and in the end would
greatly enhance the beauty and interest of the trip through the lake
which would be fairly alive with birds and other animal life.

[Illustration: BAYANO CEDAR, EIGHT FEET DIAMETER]

[Illustration: THE CACAO TREE]

[Illustration: STREET IN DAVID]

The Bayano River region beside being the center of such lumbering
activities as the Zone knows at present is the section in which are
found the curious vegetable ivory nuts which, though growing wild, have
become one of the principal products of Panama. Only a few years ago
they were looked upon merely as curiosities but are now a useful new
material. They are gathered by the natives and sold to dealers in
Panama who ship them north to be made into buttons and other articles
of general use. Nobody has yet experimented with the cultivation of the
tree, and there is reason to believe that with cultivation larger nuts
could be obtained, and, by planting, considerable groves established.
The trees grow well in every part of the Darien, and the demand, with
the rapid diminution in the supply of real ivory, should be a growing
one.

Indeed, the more one studies Panama and its resources the more one is
convinced that all that is necessary to make the country a rich and
prosperous one, or at any rate to cause it to create riches and
prosperity for investors, is the application of capital, labor and
systematic management to the resources it already possesses. In its 400
years of Spanish and mestizo control these three factors have been
continuously lacking. There are men in Panama, of native birth and of
Spanish origin, who have undertaken to develop certain of the land’s
resources and have moderately enriched themselves. But the most striking
evidence of the success to be obtained from attacking the industrial
problem in Panama systematically and in a big way is that furnished by
the operations of the United Fruit Company, the biggest business fact in
the tropics.

Panama is, of course, only one link in the colossal chain of the
operations of this company in the tropics. The rapidly increasing
prosperity of many of the Central Republics is due largely to the
sweeping scope of the United Fruit Company, and its impress is in
evidence all along the north coast of South America and throughout the
West Indies. Its interests in Jamaica are enormous. Cuba put Jamaica off
the sugar map, but the United Fruit Company came to her rescue with an
offer to purchase all the bananas her planters could furnish, and
Jamaica now leads the American tropics with 17,000,000 bunches annually,
of which the United Fruit Company obtains nearly half, the balance being
handled by its competitors. The company also owns the famous Titchfield
Hotel of Port Antonio, and operates the Myrtle Bank Hotel of Kingston.
In Cuba the company owns 60,000 acres of sugar plantations and its two
great sugar mills will this year add to the world’s product an amount
with a market value in excess of $10,000,000. Its scores of white
steamships, amazingly well contrived and fitted for tropical service,
constitute one of the pleasantest features of travel on these sunlit
seas.

[Illustration: IN THE BANANA COUNTRY]

[Illustration: MARKET PLACE AT ANCON]

[Illustration: FRUIT COMPANY STEAMER AT WHARF]

The United Fruit Company is by far the greatest agricultural enterprise
the world has ever known. Its fruit plantations constitute a farm half a
mile wide and more than seven hundred miles long. All of its farm lands
exceed in area the 1332 square miles which constitute the sovereign
State of Rhode Island. On these farms are more than 25,000 head of live
stock. This agricultural empire is traversed by nearly 1000 miles of
railroad. To carry the fruits from the plantations to the seaports there
are employed 100 locomotives and 3000 freight cars. An army of nearly
40,000 men is employed in this new and mammoth industry. The republics
of Central America were inland nations before the United Fruit Company
made gardens of the low Caribbean coast lands and created from the
virgin wilderness such ports as Barrios, Cortez, Limon and Bocas del
Toro.

[Illustration: UNITED FRUIT COMPANY TRAIN

This narrow gauge railroad carries no freight except bananas. Nearly
1000 miles of such road are maintained]

[Illustration: SANITARY OFFICE, BOCAS DEL TORO]

This Yankee enterprise has erected and maintains at its own expense many
of the lighthouses which serve its own great fleet and the ships of all
the world. It has dredged new channels and marked them with buoys. It
has installed along the Central and South American coasts a wireless
telegraph service of the highest power and efficiency. It has
constructed hundreds of miles of public roads, maintains public schools,
and in other ways renders at its own expense the services which are
presumed to fall on governments. The American financiers associated with
it are now pushing to completion the Pan-American railroad which soon
will connect New York with Panama by an all-rail route, and thus realize
what once was esteemed an impractical dream.

But it is the United Fruit Company’s activities in Panama only that are
pertinent to this book. They demonstrate strikingly how readily one
natural opportunity afforded by this land responded to the call of
systematic effort, and there are a dozen products beside the banana
which might thus be exploited.

[Illustration: A PILE OF REJECTED BANANAS

The fruit is thrown out by the company’s inspectors for scarcely visible
flaws]

On the Atlantic coast, only a night’s sail from Colon, is the port of
Bocas del Toro (The Mouths of the Bull), a town of about 9000
inhabitants, built and largely maintained by the banana trade. Here is
the largest and most beautiful natural harbor in the American tropics,
and here some day will be established a winter resort to which will
flock people from all parts of the world. Almirante Bay and the Chiriqui
Lagoon extend thirty or forty miles, dotted with thousands of islands
decked with tropical verdure, and flanked to the north and west by
superb mountain ranges with peaks of from seven to ten thousand feet in
height.

[Illustration: A PERFECT BUNCH OF BANANAS]

The towns of Bocas del Toro and Almirante are maintained almost entirely
by the banana trade. Other companies than the United Fruit raise and buy
bananas here, but it was the initiative of the leading company which by
systematic work put the prosperity of this section on a firm basis.
Lands that a few years ago were miasmatic swamps are now improved and
planted with bananas. Over 4,000,000 bunches were exported from this
plantation in 1911, and 35,000 acres are under cultivation there. A
narrow gauge railway carries bananas exclusively. The great white
steamships sail almost daily carrying away little except bananas. The
money spent over the counters of the stores in Bocas del Toro comes from
natives who have no way of getting money except by raising bananas and
selling them, mostly to the United Fruit Company. It has its
competitors, but it invented the business and has brought it to its
highest development. At this Panama town, and for that matter in the
other territories it controls, the company has established and enforces
the sanitary reforms which Col. Gorgas applied so effectively in Colon
and Panama. Its officials proudly claim that they were the pioneers in
inventing and applying the methods which have conquered tropical
diseases. At Bocas del Toro the company maintains a hospital which lacks
nothing of the equipment of the Ancon Hospital, though of course not so
large. It has successfully adopted the commissary system established on
the Canal Zone. Labor has always been the troublesome factor in
industrial enterprises in Central America. The Fruit Company has joined
with the Isthmian Commission in the systematic endeavor to keep labor
contented and therefore efficient.

[Illustration: THE ASTOR YACHT AT CRISTOBAL]

Probably it will be the policy which any corporation attempting to do
work on a large scale will be compelled to adopt.

To my mind the United Fruit Company, next to the Panama Canal, is the
great phenomenon of the Caribbean world today. Some day some one with
knowledge will write a book about it as men have written the history of
the British East India Company, or the Worshipful Company of Hudson Bay
Adventurers, for this distinctly American enterprise has accomplished a
creative work so wonderful and so romantic as to entitle it to equal
literary consideration. Its coöperation with the Republic of Panama and
the manner in which it has followed the plans formulated by the Isthmian
Commission entitles it to attention in a book treating of Panama.

[Illustration: THE BAY OF BOCAS

This harbor of the chief banana port of Panama would accommodate a navy]

The banana business is the great trade of the tropics, and one that
cannot be reduced in volume by new competition, as cane sugar was
checked by beet sugar. But it is a business which requires special
machinery of distribution for its success. From the day the banana is
picked until it is in the stomach of the ultimate consumer the time
should not exceed three weeks. The fruit must be picked green, as, if
allowed to ripen on the trees, it splits open and the tropical insects
infect it. This same condition, by the way, affects all tropical fruits.
All must be gathered while still unripe. The nearest wholesale market
for bananas is New Orleans, five days’ steaming. New York is seven days
away. That means that once landed the fruit must be distributed to
commission houses and agents all over the United States with the utmost
expedition lest it spoil in transit. There can be no holding it in
storage, cold or otherwise, for a stronger demand or a higher market.
This means that the corporation must deal with agents who can be relied
upon to absorb the cargoes of the ships as regularly as they arrive.
From its budding near the Panama Canal to its finish in the alimentary
canal of its final purchaser the banana has to be handled systematically
and swiftly.

[Illustration: BRINGING HOME THE CROCODILE]

[Illustration: A MORNING’S SHOOTING]

To establish this machinery the United Fruit Company has invested more
than $190,000,000 in the tropics--doubtless the greatest investment next
to the Panama Canal made in that Zone. How much of this is properly a
Panama investment can hardly be told, since for example the Fruit
Company’s ships which ply to Colon and Bocas del Toro call at other
banana ports as well. These ships are peculiarly attractive in design
and in their clothing of snowy white, and I do not think there is any
American who, seeing them in Caribbean ports, does not wonder at the
sight of the British flag flying at the stern. His astonishment is not
allayed when he learns that the company has in all more than 100 ships
of various sizes, and nearly all of British registry. The transfer of
that fleet alone to American registry would be a notable and most
desirable step.

[Illustration: ON CROCODILE CREEK

Each spot looking like a leaf on the water is the nose of a submerged
saurian]

From officials of the company I learned that they would welcome the
opportunity to transfer their ships to American registry, except for
certain requirements of the navigation laws which make such a change
hazardous. Practically all the ownership of the ships is vested in
Americans, but to fly the British flag is for them a business necessity.
Chief among the objections is the clause which would give the United
States authority to seize the vessels in time of war. It is quite
evident that this power might be employed to the complete destruction of
the Fruit Company’s trade; in fact to its practical extinction as a
business concern. A like power existing in England or Germany would not
be of equal menace to any single company flying the flag of that nation,
for there the government’s needs could be fully supplied by a proper
apportionment of requisitions for ships among the many companies. But
with the exceedingly restricted merchant marine of the United States the
danger of the enforcement of this right would be an ever-present menace.
It is for this reason that the Fruit Company steamers fly the British
flag, and the American in Colon may see, as I did one day, nine great
ocean ships in the port with only one flying the stars and stripes. The
opening of the canal will not wholly remedy this.

[Illustration: _Photo by Carl Hayden_

THE END OF THE CROCODILE]

In all respects save the registry of its ships, however, the Fruit
Company is a thoroughly American concern and to its operations in the
Caribbean is due much of the good feeling toward the United States which
is observable there. In 1912 it carried 1,113,741 tons of freight, of
which 359,686 was general freight, carried for the public in addition
to company freight. This is a notable public service, profitable no
doubt but vital to the interests of the American tropics. It owns or
holds under leases 852,650 acres, and in 1912 carried to the United
States about 25,000,000 bunches of bananas, and 16,000,000 bunches to
Great Britain and the Continent. Viewed from the standpoint of the
consumer its work certainly has operated to cheapen bananas and to place
them on sale at points where they were never before seen. The banana has
not participated in the high cost of living nor has one company
monopolized the market, for the trade statistics show 17,000,000 bunches
of bananas imported by rival companies in 1912. As for its stimulation
of the business of the ports of New Orleans, Galveston and Mobile, and
its revivifying of trade along the Caribbean, both are matters of common
knowledge.

[Illustration: ABOVE THE CLOUDS, CHIRIQUI VOLCANO]

The banana thrives best in rich soil covered with alluvial deposits and
in a climate of great humidity where the temperature never falls below
75 degrees Fahrenheit. Once established the plantation needs little
attention, the plant being self-propagating from suckers which shoot off
from the “mat,” the tangled roots of the mother plant. It begins to bear
fruit at the age of ten or eleven months, and with the maturing of one
bunch of fruit the parent plant is at once cut down so that the strength
of the soil may go into the suckers that succeed it. Perhaps the most
technical work of the cultivator is to select the suckers so that the
plantation will not bring all its fruit to maturity in one season, but
rather yield a regular succession of crops, month after month. It was
interesting to learn from a representative of the United Fruit Company
at Bocas del Toro, that the banana has its dull season--not in
production but in the demand for it which falls off heavily in winter,
though one would suppose that summer, when our own fruits are in the
market, would be the period of its eclipse.

[Illustration: THE CHIRIQUI VOLCANO]

[Illustration: NATIVE MARKET BOAT AT CHORRERA]

While most of the fruit gathered in the neighborhood of Bocas del Toro
is grown on land owned and tilled by the Company, there are hundreds of
small individual growers with plantations of from half an acre to fifty
acres or even more. All fruit is delivered along the railway lines, and
the larger growers have tramways, the cars drawn by oxen or mules, to
carry their fruit to the stipulated point. Notice is given the growers
of the date on which the fruit will be called for, and within twelve to
eighteen hours after it has been cut it is in the hold of the vessel. It
is subjected to a rigid inspection at the docks, and the flaws for which
whole bunches are rejected would often be quite undiscernible to the
ordinary observer.

[Illustration: IN BOUQUETTE VALLEY, THE MOST FERTILE PART OF CHIRIQUI]

The banana is one of the few fruits which are free from insect pests,
being protected by its thick, bitter skin. If allowed to ripen in the
open, however, it speedily falls a prey to a multitude of egg-laying
insects. The tree itself is not so immune. Lately a small rodent,
something like the gopher of our American states, has discovered that
banana roots are good to eat. From time immemorial he lived in the
jungle, burrowing and nibbling the roots of the plants there, but in an
unlucky moment for the fruit companies he discovered that tunneling in
soil that had been worked was easier and the roots of the cultivated
banana more succulent than his normal diet. Therefore a large
importation of scientists from Europe and the United States to find some
way of eradicating the industrious pest that has attacked the chief
industry of the tropics at the root, so to speak.

[Illustration: COFFEE PLANT AT BOUQUETTE]

Baron Humboldt is said to have first called the attention of civilized
people to the food value of the banana, but it was one of the founders
of the United Fruit Company, a New England sea captain trading to Colon,
who first introduced it to the general market in the United States. For
a time he carried home a few bunches in the cabin of his schooner for
his family and friends, but, finding a certain demand for the fruit,
later began to import it systematically. From this casual start the
United Fruit Company and its hustling competitors have grown. The whole
business is the development of a few decades and people still young can
remember when bananas were sold, each wrapped in tissue paper, for five
or ten cents, while today ten or fifteen cents a dozen is a fair price.
The fruit can be prepared in a multitude of fashions, particularly the
coarser varieties of plantains, and the Fruit Company has compiled a
banana cook book but has taken little pains to circulate it, the demand
for the fruit being at times still in excess of the supply. There seems
every indication that the demand is constant and new banana territory is
being steadily developed.

[Illustration: DRYING THE COFFEE BEANS]

Several companies share with the United Fruit Company the Panama market.
The methods of gathering and marketing the crop employed by all are
practically the same, but the United Fruit Company is used as an
illustration here because its business is the largest and because it has
so closely followed the Isthmian Canal Commission in its welfare work.

The banana country lies close to the ocean and mainly on the Atlantic
side of the Isthmus. The lumber industry nestles close to the rivers,
mainly in the Bayano region. Cocoanuts need the beaches and the sea
breezes. Native rubber is found in every part of the Republic, though at
present it is collected mainly in the Darien, which is true also of
vegetable ivory. The only gold which is mined on a large scale is taken
from the neighborhood of the Tuyra River in the Darien. But for products
requiring cultivation like cacao and coffee the high lands in the
Chiriqui province offer the best opportunity.

[Illustration: DRYING CLOTHS FOR COFFEE

Where the planter has no regular drying floor, cloths are spread on
which the berries are exposed]

David is really the center of this territory. It is a typical Central
American town of about 15,000 people, with a plaza, a cathedral, a hotel
and all the appurtenances of metropolitan life in Panama. The place is
attractive in its way, with its streets of white-walled, red-tiled
dwellings, with blue or green doors and shutters. It seems to have grown
with some steadiness, for though the Panama census for 1912 gave it
15,000 inhabitants, travelers like Mr. Forbes Lindsay and Albert
Edwards, who visited it only a year or two earlier, gave it only from
5000 to 8000 people. Its growth, however, is natural and healthy, for
the country round it is developing rapidly. You reach David now by boats
of the Pacific Mail and the National Navigation Company from Panama. The
quickest trip takes thirty hours. When the government railroad is built,
about which there is some slight doubt, the whole country will be opened
and should be quickly settled. The road in all probability will be
continued to Bocas del Toro on the Atlantic coast.

[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_

BREADFRUIT TREE]

While the cattle business of the Chiriqui region is its chief mainstay,
it is far from being developed to its natural extent. The Commissary
officials of the Canal organization tried to interest cattle growers to
the extent of raising enough beef for the need of the Canal workers, but
failed. Practically all of the meat thus used is furnished by the
so-called “Beef Trust” of the United States. It is believed that there
are not more than 50,000 head of cattle all told in Panama. I was told
on the Isthmus that agents of a large Chicago firm had traveled through
Chiriqui with a view to establishing a packing house there, but
reported that the supply of cattle was inadequate for even the smallest
establishment. Yet the country is admirably adapted for cattle raising.

[Illustration: PRIMITIVE SUGAR MILL]

The climate of this region is equable, both as to temperature and
humidity. Epidemic diseases are practically unknown among either men or
beasts. Should irrigation in future seem needful to agriculture the
multitude of streams furnish an ample water supply and innumerable sites
for reservoirs.

Westward from David the face of the country rises gently until you come
to the Caldera Valley which lies at the foot of the Chiriqui Peak, an
extinct volcano perhaps 8000 feet high. Nowhere in Panama do the
mountains rise very high, though the range is clearly a connection of
the Cordilleras of North and South America. The Chiriqui Peak has not in
the memory of man been in eruption, but the traces of its volcanic
character are unmistakable. Its crater is a circular plain about half a
mile in diameter surrounded by a densely wooded precipitous ridge. As
the ascent is continued the woods give way to grass and rocks. While
there is a distinct timber line, no snow line is attained. At the foot
of the mountain is El Bouquette, much esteemed by the Panamanians as a
health resort. Thither go Canal workers who, not being permitted to
remain on the Zone during their vacations, wish to avoid the long voyage
to North American ports.

[Illustration: CHIRIQUI NATIVES IN AN OX-CART]

This neighborhood is the center of the coffee-growing industry which
should be profitable in Panama if a heavy protective tariff could make
it so. But not even enough of the fragrant berries are grown to supply
home needs, and the industry is as yet largely prosecuted in an
unsystematic and haphazard manner. It is claimed that sample shipments
of coffee brought high prices in New York, but as yet not enough is
grown to permit exportation. Cacao, which thrives, is grown chiefly by
English and German planters, but as yet in a small way only. Cotton,
tobacco and fiber plants also grow readily in this region but are little
cultivated.

[Illustration: PROCLAIMING A LAW AT DAVID

There being a dearth of newspapers and readers, new laws are promulgated
by being read aloud]

A curious industry of the Chiriqui country, now nearly abandoned, was
the collection of gold ornaments which the Guaymi Indians formerly
buried with their dead. These images sometimes in human form, more often
in that of a fish, sometimes like frogs and alligators, jointed and
flexible, were at one time found in great quantities and formed a
conspicuous feature of the Panama curiosity shops. In seeking these the
hunters walked back and forth over the grounds known to be Indian burial
places, tapping the ground with rods. When the earth gave forth a hollow
sound the spade was resorted to, and usually a grave was uncovered. Jars
which had contained wine and food were usually found in the graves,
which were in fact subterranean tombs carefully built with flat stones.
The diggers tell of finding skulls perfectly preserved apparently but
which crumbled to pieces at a touch. Evidently the burial places which
can be identified through local tradition have been nearly exhausted,
for the ancient trinkets cannot longer be readily found in the Panama
shops.

[Illustration: THE CATTLE RANGE NEAR DAVID

In Chiriqui province there is much of this open savanna or prairie land
bordered by thick jungle]

Another Panamanian product which the tourists buy eagerly but which is
rapidly becoming rare is the pearl. In the Gulf of Panama are a group of
islands which have been known as Las Islas des Perlas--the Pearl
Islands. This archipelago is about thirty miles long, with sixteen big
islands and a quantity of small ones, and lies about sixty miles south
of Panama City. Balboa saw them from the shore and intended to visit
them but never did. Pizarro stopped there on his way to Peru and
plundered them to his heart’s content. Otherwise their history has been
uneventful. Saboga on the island of the same name is a beautiful little
tropical village of about 300 huts, on a high bluff bordering a bay
that affords excellent anchorage. Whales are plentiful in these waters
and Pacific whalers are often seen in port. San Miguel, the largest town
of the archipelago, is on Rey Island and has about 1000 inhabitants. The
tower of its old church is thickly inlaid with glistening, pearly shell.

[Illustration: DESPOILING OLD GUAYMI GRAVES]

The pearl fisheries have been overworked for years, perhaps centuries,
and begin to show signs of being exhausted. Nevertheless the tourist who
takes the trip to the islands from the City of Panama will find himself
beset by children as he lands offering seed pearls in quantities.
Occasionally real bargains may be had from “beach combers” not only at
Rey Island, but even at Taboga, where I knew an American visitor to pick
up for eleven dollars three pearls valued at ten or twelve times as much
when shown in the United States. There are stories of lucky finds among
divers that vie with the tales of nuggets among gold prospectors. Once a
native boy diving for sport in one of the channels near Naos Island
brought up an oyster in which was a black pearl that was sold in Panama
for $3000. The report does not say how much of this the boy got, but as
the pearl was afterward sold in Paris for $12,000 it is quite evident
that the share of the middleman, of whom political economists just now
talk so much, was heavy. The Panama pearls are sometimes of beautiful
colors, green, pale blue and a delicate pink. On the Chiriqui coast a
year or two ago a pearl weighing about forty-two carats, about the size
and shape of a partridge egg, greenish black at the base and shading to
a steel gray at the tip, was found. It was sold in Paris for $5000.

[Illustration: A DAY’S SHOOTING, GAME MOSTLY MONKEYS]

It is a curious fact that the use of mussels from our western rivers is
one cause for the decadence of the Panama pearl industry. For years the
actual expense of maintaining these fisheries was met by the sale of the
shell for use in making buttons and mother-of-pearl ornaments. The
pearls represented the profit of the enterprise, which was always
therefore more or less of a gamble--but a game in which it was
impossible to lose, though the winnings might be great or small
according to luck. Now that the demand for pearl oyster shells has
fallen off, owing to the competition of mussels, the chances in the game
are rather against the player and the sport languishes.

[Illustration: THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF HAT MAKING]

[Illustration: BEGINNING A PANAMA HAT]

The authorities of the Republic are making some effort to establish a
system of industrial schools which may lead to the fuller utilization of
the natural resources of the country. Every tourist who visits the
Isthmus is immediately taught by one who has been there a day or two
longer than he that Panama hats are not made in Panama. This seems to
be the most precious information that anyone on the Zone has to impart.
Most of the hats there sold are indeed made in Ecuador and the name
“Panama” was first attached to them years ago, because their chief
market was found in Panama City, whence they were distributed to more
northern countries. The palm of which they are made however grows
generally in Panama and the government has established in the Chiriqui
province a school in which native boys are taught the art of hat making.
In the National Institute at Panama City there is also a government
trades school where boys are given a three years’ course in the elements
of the carpenters’ and machinists’ trades. Indeed the rulers of the
Republic, which was so abruptly created, deserve great credit for the
steps they are taking for the creation of a general system of public
education, both literary and practical. The school system is not yet on
a par with that of states of longer existence, nor will it in all
probability ever quite conform to more northern ideas of an educational
establishment. For example, the National Institute is closed to girls,
who for their higher education are limited to the schools maintained by
the church. A normal school, however, in which girls are prepared for
teaching in the primary grades is maintained with about 125 students.
The school system of Panama must be regarded merely as a nucleus from
which a larger organism may grow. Yet when one recalls the state of
society which has resulted from revolutions in other Central American
states, one is impelled to a certain admiration for the promptitude with
which the men who erected the Republic of Panama gave thought to the
educational needs of people. They were suddenly put in authority over an
infant state which had no debt, but, on the contrary, possessed a
capital of $10,000,000 equivalent to about $30 for every man, woman and
child of its population. Instead of creating an army, buying a navy and
thus wasting the money on mere militarism which appeals so strongly to
the Latin-American mind, they organized a civil government, equipped it
with the necessary buildings, established a university and laid the
foundation of a national system of education.

[Illustration: COFFEE PLANTATION AT BOUQUETTE]

The thoughtful traveler will concede to the Republic of Panama great
natural resources and a most happy entrance to the family of nations. It
is the especial protégé of the United States and under the watchful care
of its patron will be free from the apprehension of misuse, revolution
or invasion from without which has kept other Central American
governments in a constant state of unrest. About the international
morality of the proceedings which created the relations now existing
between the United States and Panama perhaps the least said the better.
But even if we reprobate the sale of Joseph by his brethren, in the
scripture story, we must at least admit that he did better in Egypt than
in his father’s house and that the protection and favor of the mighty
Pharaoh was of the highest advantage to him, and in time to his
unnatural brethren as well.

[Illustration: WORK OF INDIAN STUDENTS IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE]

At present the Republic suffers not only from its own checkered past,
but from the varied failings of its neighbors. Its monetary system
affords one illustration. The highest coin of the land is the peso, a
piece the size of our silver dollar but circulating at a value of fifty
cents. If a man should want to pay a debt of $500 he would have to
deliver 1000 pesos unless he was possessed of a bank account and could
settle by check. No paper money is issued. “Who would take paper money
issued by a Central American republic?” ask the knowing ones scornfully
when you inquire about this seeming lack in the monetary system. Yet the
Republic of Panama is the most solvent of nations, having no national
debt and with money in bank.

[Illustration: THE CRATER OF THE CHIRIQUI VOLCANO]

Probably the one obstacle to the progress of the Republic to greatness
is the one common to all tropical countries on which Benjamin Kidd laid
an unerring finger when he referred to the unwisdom of longer permitting
the riches of the tropics to “remain undeveloped with resources running
to waste under the management of races of low social efficiency”. The
Panamanian authorities are making apparently sincere endeavors to
attract new settlers of greater efficiency. In proportion to the success
that attends the efforts the future of Panama will be bright.

[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHT

VENDOR OF FRUIT AND POTTERY

Like all tropical towns Panama displays interesting bits of outdoor life
in its street markets and vendors. The sidewalks are the true shops and
almost the homes of the people.]




CHAPTER XVI

THE INDIANS OF PANAMA


While that portion of the Panama territory that lies along the border of
Colombia known as the Darien is rather ill-defined as to area and to
boundaries, it is known to be rich in timber and is believed to possess
gold mines of great richness. But it is practically impenetrable by the
white man. Through this country Balboa led his force on his expedition
to the unknown Pacific, and was followed by the bloodthirsty Pedrarias
who bred up in the Indians a hatred of the white man that has grown as
the ages passed. No expedition can enter this region even today except
as an armed force ready to fight for the right of passage. In 1786 the
Spaniards sought to subdue the territory, built forts on both the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts and established a line of trading posts
connecting them. But the effort failed. The posts were abandoned. Today
the white man who tries to enter the Darien does so at the risk of his
life.

In 1854 a navy exploring expedition of twenty-seven men, under command
of Lieutenant Isaac C. Strain, entered the jungle of the Darien at
Caledonia Bay, on the Atlantic side, the site of Patterson’s ill-fated
colony. They purposed crossing the Isthmus and making a survey for a
canal route, as an English adventurer not long before had
asserted--falsely as it proved--that he had discovered a route by which
a canal could be built with but three or four miles of cutting. The
party carried ten days’ provisions and forty rounds of ball cartridge
per man. They expected to have to traverse about forty or fifty miles,
for which the supply of provisions seemed wholly adequate. But when
they had cut their way through the jungle, waded through swamps and
climbed hills until their muscles were exhausted and their clothing torn
to tatters, they found themselves lost in the very interior of the
Isthmus with all their food gone. Diaries kept by members of the party
show that they lived in constant terror of the Indians. But no attack
was made upon them. The inhabitants contented themselves with
disappearing before the white men’s advance, sweeping their huts and
fields clear of any sort of food. The jungle not its people fought the
invaders. For food they had mainly nuts with a few birds and the diet
disturbed their stomachs, caused sores and loosened their teeth. The
bite of a certain insect deposited under the skin a kind of larva, or
worm, which grew to the length of an inch and caused the most frightful
torments. Despairing of getting his full party out alive, after they had
been twenty-three days fighting with the jungle, Strain took three men
and pushed ahead to secure and send back relief. It was thirty-nine days
before the men left behind saw him again.

[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_

TRAPPING AN ABORIGINE

In houses and clothing the Darien Indians are decidedly primitive]

[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE ON PANAMA BAY]

Death came fast to those in the jungle. The agonies they suffered from
starvation, exposure and insect pests baffle description. “Truxton in
casting his eyes on the ground saw a toad”, wrote the historian.
“Instantly snatching it up, he bit off the head and, spitting it away,
devoured the body. Maury looked at him a moment, and then picked up the
rejected head, saying, ‘Well, Truxton, you are getting quite particular.
Something of an epicure, eh’? With these words he quietly devoured the
head himself.”

Nine of the twenty-seven men who entered the Darien with Strain died.
When the leader returned with the relief party they were found, like
Greely at Camp Starvation, unable to move and slowly dying. Those who
retained life never fully regained strength. Every condition which
brought such frightful disaster upon the Strain party exists in the
Darien today. The Indians are as hostile, the trails as faintly
outlined, the jungle as dense, the insects as savage. Only along the
banks of the rivers has civilization made some little headway, but the
richest gold field twenty miles back in the interior is as safe from
civilized workings as though it were walled in with steel and guarded by
dragons. Every speculative man you meet in Panama will assure you that
the gold is there but all agree that conditions must be radically
changed before it can be gotten out unless a regiment and a subsistence
train shall follow the miners.

[Illustration: A RIVER LANDING PLACE]

The authorities of Panama estimate that there are about 36,000 tribal
Indians, that is to say aborigines, still holding their tribal
organizations and acknowledging fealty to no other government now in the
Isthmus. The estimate is of course largely guesswork, for few of the
wild Indians leave the jungle and fewer still of the census enumerators
enter it. Most of these Indians live in the mountains of the provinces
of Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui and Veragua, or in the Darien. Their tribes
are many and the sources of information concerning them but few. The
most accessible and complete record of the various tribes is in a
pamphlet issued by the Smithsonian Institution, and now obtainable only
through public libraries, as the edition for distribution has been
exhausted. The author, Miss Eleanor Yorke Bell, beside studies made at
first hand has diligently examined the authorities on the subject and
has presented the only considerable treatise on the subject of which I
have knowledge.

[Illustration: THE FALLS AT CHORRERA]

[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood, & Underwood_

ON THE RIO GRANDE]

Of life among the more civilized natives she says:

“The natives of the Isthmus in general, even in the larger towns, live
together without any marriage ceremony, separating at will and dividing
the children. As there is little or no personal property, this is
accomplished amicably as a rule, though should disputes arise the
alcalde of the district is appealed to, who settles the matter. This
informal system is always stoutly defended by the women, even more than
by the men, for, as among all people low in the scale of civilization,
it is generally held that the women receive better treatment when not
bound and therefore free to depart at any time. Recently an effort has
been made to bring more of the inhabitants under the marriage laws, with
rather amusing results in many instances. The majority of the population
is nominally Catholic, but the teachings of the church are only vaguely
understood, and its practices consist in the adoration of a few battered
images of saints whose particular degree of sanctity is not even guessed
at and who, when their owners are displeased with them, receive rather
harsh treatment, as these people have usually no real idea of
Christianity beyond a few distorted and superstitious beliefs. After the
widespread surveys of the French engineers, a sincere effort was made to
re-Christianize the inhabitants of the towns in Darien as well as
elsewhere, for, until this time, nothing had been done toward their
spiritual welfare since the days of the early Jesuits. In the last
thirty years spasmodic efforts have been made to reach the people with
little result, and, excepting at Penonome, David, and Santiago, there
are few churches where services are held outside of Panama and the towns
along the railroad.

[Illustration: OLD SPANISH CHURCH, CHORRERA]

“The chief amusements of the Isthmian are gambling, cock-fighting, and
dancing, the latter assisted by the music of the tom-tom and by dried
beans rattled in a calabash. After feasts or burials, when much bad rum
and whisky is consumed, the hilarity keeps up all night and can be heard
for miles, increased by the incessant howls of the cur dogs lying under
every shack. Seldom does an opportunity come to the stranger to witness
the really characteristic dances, as the natives do not care to perform
before them, though a little money will sometimes work wonders.
Occasionally, their dancing is really remarkably interesting, when a
large amount of pantomime enters into it and they develop the story of
some primitive action, as, for instance, the drawing of the water,
cutting the wood, making the fire, cooking the food, etc., ending in a
burst of song symbolizing the joys of the new prepared feast. In an
extremely crude form it reminds one of the old opera ballets and seems
to be a composite of the original African and the ancient Spanish, which
is very probably the case.

[Illustration: THE CHURCH AT ANCON]

“The Orientals of the Isthmus deserve a word in passing. They are
chiefly Chinese coolies and form a large part of the small merchant
class. Others, in the hill districts, cultivate large truck gardens,
bringing their produce swinging over the shoulders on poles to the city
markets. Their houses and grounds are very attractive, built of reed or
bamboo in the eastern fashion and marked everywhere by extreme neatness,
contrasting so strikingly with the homes and surroundings of their negro
neighbors. Many cultivate fields of cane or rice as well, and amidst the
silvery greens, stretching for some distance, the quaint blue figures of
the workmen in their huge hats make a charming picture. Through the
rubber sections Chinese ‘middlemen’ are of late frequently found buying
that valuable commodity for their fellow countrymen in Panama City, who
are now doing quite a large business in rubber. These people live much
as in their native land, seldom learning more than a few words of
Spanish (except those living in the towns), and they form a very
substantial and good element of the population”.

[Illustration: THE PEARL ISLAND VILLAGE OF SABOGA]

To enumerate even by names the aboriginal tribes would be tedious and
unavailing. Among the more notable are the Doracho-Changuina, of
Chiriqui, light of color, believing that the Great Spirit lived in the
volcano of Chiriqui, and occasionally showing their displeasure with him
by shooting arrows at the mountain. The Guaymies, of whom perhaps 6000
are left, are the tribe that buried with their dead the curious golden
images that were once plentiful in the bazaars of Panama, but are now
hard to find. They have a pleasant practice of putting a calabash of
water and some plantains by a man they think dying and leaving him to
his fate, usually in some lonesome part of the jungle. The Cunas or
Caribs are the tribes inhabiting the Darien. All were, and some are,
believed still to be cannibals. Eleven lesser tribes are grouped under
this general name. As a rule they are small and muscular. Most of them
have abandoned their ancient gaudy dress, and so far as they are clothed
at all wear ordinary cotton clothing. Painting the face and body is
still practiced. The dead often are swung in hammocks from trees and
supplied with fresh provisions until the cords rot and the body falls to
the ground. Then the spirit’s journey to the promised land is held to be
ended and provisions are no longer needed. Sorcery and soothsaying are
much in vogue, and the sorcerers who correspond to the medicine men of
our North American Indians will sometimes shut themselves up in a small
hut shrieking, beating tom-toms and imitating the cries of wild animals.
When they emerge in a sort of self-hypnotized state they are held to be
peculiarly fit for prophesying.

[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE AT CAPERA]

All the Indians drink heavily, and the white man’s rum is to some extent
displacing the native drink of chica. This is manufactured by the women,
usually the old ones, who sit in a circle chewing yam roots or cassava
and expectorating the saliva into a large bowl in the center. This
ferments and is made the basis of a highly intoxicating drink. Curiously
enough the same drink is similarly made in far-away Samoa. The dutiful
wives after thus manufacturing the material upon which their spouses get
drunk complete their service by swinging their hammocks, sprinkling them
with cold water and fanning them as they lie in a stupor. Smoking is
another social custom, but the cigars are mere hollow rolls of tobacco
and the lighted end is held in the mouth. Among some of the tribes in
Comagre the bodies of the caciques, or chief men, were preserved after
death by surrounding them with a ring of fire built at a sufficient
distance to gradually dry the body until skin and bone alone remained.

The Indians with whom the visitor to Panama most frequently comes into
contact are those of the San Blas or Manzanillo country. These Indians
hover curiously about the bounds of civilization, and approach without
actually crossing them. They are fishermen and sailors, and many of
their young men ship on the vessels touching at Colon, and, after
visiting the chief seaports of the United States, and even of France and
England, are swallowed up again in their tribe without affecting its
customs to any appreciable degree. If in their wanderings they gain new
ideas or new desires they are not apparent. The man who silently offers
you fish, fruits or vegetables from his cayuca on the beach at Colon may
have trod the docks at Havre or Liverpool, the levee at New Orleans or
wandered along South Street in New York. Not a word of that can you coax
from him. Even in proffering his wares he does so with the fewest
possible words, and an air of lofty indifference. Uncas of the
Leather-Stocking Tales was no more silent and self-possessed a red-skin
than he.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_

A CHOCO INDIAN IN FULL COSTUME

His cuffs are silver; his head adorned with flowers]

In physiognomy the San Blas Indians are heavy of feature and stocky of
frame. Their color is dark olive, with no trace of the negro apparent,
for it has been their unceasing study for centuries to retain their
racial purity. Their features are regular and pleasing and, among the
children particularly, a high order of beauty is often found. To get a
glimpse of their women is almost impossible, and a photograph of one is
practically unknown. If overtaken on the water, to which they often
resort in their cayucas, the women will wrap their clothing about their
faces, rather heedless of what other portions of their bodies may be
exposed, and make all speed for the shore. These women paint their faces
in glaring colors, wear nose rings, and always blacken their teeth on
being married. Among them more pains is taken with clothing than among
most of the savage Indians, many of their garments being made of a sort
of appliqué work in gaudy colors, with figures, often in representation
of the human form, cut out and inset in the garment.

So determined are the men of this tribe to maintain its blood
untarnished by any admixture whatsoever, that they long made it an
invariable rule to expel every white man from their territory at
nightfall. Of late years there has been a very slight relaxation of this
severity. Dr. Henri Pittier of the United States Department of
Agriculture, one of the best-equipped scientific explorers in the
tropics, several of whose photographs elucidate this volume, has lived
much among the San Blas and the Cuna-Cuna Indians and won their
friendship.

[Illustration: SOME SAN BLAS GIRLS

The dresses are covered with elaborate designs in appliqué work]

It was the ancestors of these Indians who made welcome Patterson and his
luckless Scotchmen, and in the 200 years that have elapsed they have
clung to the tradition of friendship for the Briton and hatred for the
Spaniard. Dr. Pittier reports having found that Queen Victoria occupied
in their villages the position of a patron saint, and that they refused
to believe his assertion that she was dead. His account of the attitude
of these Indians toward outsiders, recently printed in the National
Geographic Magazine, is an authoritative statement on the subject:

“The often circulated reports of the difficulty of penetrating into the
territory of the Cuna-Cuna are true only in part”, he says. “The
backwoods aborigines, in the valleys of the Bayano and Chucunaque
rivers, have nourished to this day their hatred for all strangers,
especially those of Spanish blood. That feeling is not a reasoned one:
it is the instinctive distrust of the savage for the unknown or
inexplicable, intensified in this particular case by the tradition of a
long series of wrongs at the hands of the hated Spaniards.

“So they feel that isolation is their best policy, and it would not be
safe for anybody to penetrate into their forests without a strong escort
and continual watchfulness. Many instances of murders, some confirmed
and others only suspected, are on record, and even the natives of the
San Blas coast are not a little afraid of their brothers of the
mountains.

“Of late, however, conditions seem to have bettered, owing to a more
frequent intercourse with the surrounding settlements. A negro of La
Palma, at the mouth of the Tuyra River, told me of his crossing, some
time ago, from the latter place to Chepo, through the Chucunaque and
Bayano territories, gathering rubber as he went along with his party. At
the headwaters of the Canaza River he and his companions were held up by
the ‘bravos’, who contented themselves with taking away the rubber and
part of the equipment and then let their prisoners go with the warning
not to come again.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy of National Geographic Magazine_

CHIEF DON CARLOS OF THE CHOCOES AND HIS SON]

“The narrative of that expedition was supplemented by the reflection of
an old man among the hearers that twenty years ago none of the party
would have come out alive.

[Illustration: _Courtesy of National Geographic Magazine_

THE VILLAGE OF PLAYON GRAND, EIGHTY-FIVE MILES EAST OF THE CANAL

The houses are about 150 x 50 feet and each shelters 16 to 20 families.
The members of each family herd together in a single room]

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy Nat’l Geographic Magazine_

SAN BLAS WOMAN IN DAILY GARB]

“Among the San Blas Indians, who are at a far higher level of
civilization, the exclusion of aliens is the result of well-founded
political reasons. Their respected traditions are a long record of proud
independence; they have maintained the purity of their race and enjoyed
freely for hundreds of years every inch of their territory. They feel
that the day the negro or the white man acquires a foothold in their
midst these privileges will become a thing of the past. This is why,
without undue hostility to strangers, they discourage their incursions.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy Nat’l Geographic Magazine_

A GIRL OF THE CHOCO TRIBE]

“Their means of persuasion are adjusted to the importance of the
intruder. They do not hesitate to shoot at any negro of the nearby
settlements poaching on their cocoanuts or other products; the trader or
any occasional visitor is very seldom allowed to stay ashore at night;
the adventurers who try to go prospecting into Indian territory are
invariably caught and shipped back to the next Panamanian port”.

Among the men of the San Blas tribe the land held by their people is
regarded as a sacred trust, bequeathed to them by their ancestors and to
be handed down by them to the remotest posterity. During the early days
of the Canal project it was desired to dig sand from a beach in the San
Blas country. A small United States man-of-war was sent thither to
broach the subject to the Indians, and the Captain held parley with the
chief. After hearing the plea and all the arguments and promises with
which it was strengthened the old Indian courteously refused the
privilege:

“He who made this land”, said he, “made it for Cuna-Cuna who live no
longer, for those who are here today and also for the ones to come. So
it is not ours only and we could not sell it”.

To this decision the tribe adhered, and the wishes of the aborigines
have been respected. It has been the policy of the United States to
avoid any possibility of giving offense to the native population of the
Isthmus, and even a request from the chief that the war vessel that
brought the negotiator on his fruitless errand should leave was acceded
to. It is quite unlikely, however, that the Indians will be able to
maintain their isolation much longer. Already there are signs of its
breaking down. While I was in Panama they sent a request that a
missionary, a woman it is true, who had been much among them, should
come and live with them permanently. They also expressed a desire that
she should bring her melodeon, thus giving new illustration to the
poetic adage, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast”. Perhaps
the phonograph may in time prove the open sesame to many savage bosoms.
Among this people it is the women who cling most tenaciously to the
primitive customs, as might be expected, since they have been so
assiduously guarded against the wiles of the world. But Catholic
missionaries have made some headway in the country, and at Narganá
schools for girls have been opened under auspices of the church. It is
probably due to the feminine influence that the San Blas men return so
unfailingly to primitive customs after the voyages that have made them
familiar with civilization. If the women yield to the desire for novelty
the splendid isolation of the San Blas will not long endure. Perhaps
that would be unfortunate, for all other primitive peoples who have
surrendered to the wiles of the white men have suffered and disappeared.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_

DAUGHTER OF CHIEF DON CARLOS

This young girl is merry, plump and fond of finger rings]

[Illustration: NATIVE BRIDGE OVER THE CALDERA RIVER]

In their present state the San Blas are relatively rich. All the land
belongs to all the people--that is why the old chief declined to sell
the sandy beach. There is a sort of private property in improvements. A
banana plantation, a cocoanut grove or an orange tree planted and cared
for, becomes a positive possession handed down to descendants of the
owner through the female line. Perhaps one reason for keeping the women
so shut off from the world is that they are the real owners of all
individual property. Ownership does not, however, attach to trees or
plants growing wild; they are as much communal as the land. So the
vegetable ivory, balata and cocoanuts which form the marketable products
are gathered by whomsoever may take the trouble. Land that has been
tilled belongs to the one who improved it. If he let it lapse into
wilderness it reverts to the community. The San Blas Indians have the
essence of the single tax theory without the tax.

They have a hazily defined religious system, and have curiously reversed
the position held by their priests or sorcerers. These influential
persons are not representatives of the spirit of good, but of the bad
spirit. Very logically the San Blas savages hold that any one may
represent the good spirit by being himself good, and that the
unsupported prayers of such a one are sure to be heard. But to reach the
devil, to induce that malicious practitioner of evil to rest from his
persecutions and to abandon the pursuit of the unfortunate, it is
desirable to have as intermediary some one who possesses his confidence
and high regard. Hence the strong position of the sorcerers in the
villages. The people defer to them on the principle that it is well to
make friends with “the Mammon of Unrighteousness”.

Polygamy is permitted among these Indians, but little practiced. Even
the chiefs whose high estate gives them the right to more than one wife
seldom avail themselves of the privilege. The women, as in most
primitive tribes, are the hewers of wood and drawers of water. Dress is
rather a more serious matter with them than among some of the other
Indians, the Chocoes for example. They wear as a rule blouses and two
skirts, where other denizens of the Darien dispense with clothing above
the waist altogether. Their hair is usually kept short. The nose ring is
looked upon as indispensable, and other ornaments of both gold and
silver are worn by both sexes. Americans who have had much to do with
the Indians of the Darien always comment on the extreme reticence shown
by them in speaking of their golden ornaments, or the spot whence they
were obtained. It is as though vague traditions had kept alive the story
of the pestilence of fire and sword which ravaged their land when the
Spaniards swept over it in search of the yellow metal. Gold is in the
Darien in plenty. Everybody knows that, and the one or two mines near
the rivers now being worked afford sufficient proof that the region is
auriferous. But no Indian will tell of the existence of these mines, nor
will any guide a white man to the spot where it is rumored gold is to be
found. Seemingly ineradicably fixed in the inner consciousness of the
Indian is the conviction that the white man’s lust for the yellow metal
is the greatest menace that confronts the well-being of himself and his
people.

The San Blas are decidedly a town-dwelling tribe. They seem to hate
solitude and even today, in their comparatively reduced state, build
villages of a size that make understandable Balboa’s records of the size
and state of the chief with whom he first fought, and then made friends.
At Narganá are two large islands, fairly covered with spacious houses
about 150 feet long by 50 broad. The ridge pole of the palm-thatched
roof is 30 to 40 feet from the ground. A long corridor runs through the
house longitudinally, and on either side the space is divided by upright
posts into square compartments, each of which is supposed to house an
entire family. The side walls are made of wattled reeds caked with clay.
One of these houses holds from sixteen to twenty families, and the
edifices are packed so closely together as to leave scarce room between
for a razor-back hog to browse. The people within must be packed about
as closely and the precise parental relationship sustained to each other
by the various members of the family would be an interesting study.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_

GUAYMI INDIAN MAN

Note the tattoed marking of face and the negroid lips]

The Choco Indians are one of the smaller and least known tribes of the
Darien. Prof. Pittier--who may without disrespect be described as the
most seasoned “tropical tramp” of all Central America--described them so
vividly that extracts from his article in the National Geographic
Magazine will be of interest:

“Never, in our twenty-five years of tropical experience, have we met
with such a sun-loving, bright and trusting people, living nearest to
nature and ignoring the most elementary wiles of so-called civilization.
They are several hundred in number and their dwellings are scattered
along the meandrous Sambu and its main reaches, always at short
distance, but never near enough to each other to form real villages.
Like their houses, their small plantations are close to the river, but
mostly far enough to escape the eye of the casual passer-by.

“Dugouts drawn up on the beach and a narrow trail breaking the reed wall
at the edge of the bank are the only visible signs of human presence,
except at the morning hours and near sunset, when a crowd of women and
children will be seen playing in the water, and the men, armed with
their bows and long harpooned arrows, scrutinizing the deeper places for
fish or looking for iguanas and crabs hidden in the holes of the banks.

“Physically the Chocoes are a fine and healthy race. They are tall, as
compared with the Cuna-Cuna, well proportioned, and with a graceful
bearing. The men have wiry limbs and faces that are at once kind and
energetic, while as a rule the girls are plump, fat, and full of
mischief. The grown women preserve their good looks and attractiveness
much longer than is generally the case in primitive peoples, in which
their sex bears the heaviest share of every day’s work.

“Both males and females have unusually fine white teeth, which they
sometimes dye black by chewing the shoots of one of the numerous wild
peppers growing in the forests. The skin is of a rich olive-brown color
and, as usual, a little lighter in women and children. Though all go
almost naked, they look fairer than the San Blas Cunas, and some of the
women would compare advantageously in this respect with certain
Mediterranean types of the white race.

“The hair is left by all to grow to its natural length, except in a few
cases, in which the men have it cropped at the neck. It is coarse and
not jet black, as reported of most Indians, but with a reddish hue,
which is better noticed when the sun is playing through the thick mass.

“In young children it decidedly turns at times to a blond color, the
only difference from the Caucasian hair being the pronounced coarseness
of the former. As there are no white people living within a radius of
fifty miles, but only negroes, mulattoes and zambos, this peculiarity
cannot be explained by miscegenation, and may therefore be considered as
a racial feature of the Choco tribe.

“In men the every-day dress consists of a scanty clout, made of a strip
of red calico about one foot broad and five feet long. This clout is
passed in front and back of the body over a string tied around the hips,
the forward extremity being left longer and flowing like an apron. On
feast days the string is replaced by a broad band of white beads. Around
the neck and chest they wear thick cords of the same beads and on their
wrists broad silver cuffs. Hats are not used; the hair is usually tied
with a red ribbon and often adorned with the bright flowers of the
forest.

“The female outfit is not less simple, consisting of a piece of calico
less than three feet wide and about nine feet long, wrapped around the
lower part of the body and reaching a little below the knees. This is
all, except that the neck is more or less loaded with beads or silver
coins. But for this the women display less coquetry than the men, which
may be because they feel sufficiently adorned with their mere natural
charms. Fondness for cheap rings is, however, common to both sexes, and
little children often wear earrings or pendants.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_

INDIAN GIRL OF THE DARIEN]

“The scantiness of the clothing is remedied very effectually by face and
body painting, in which black and red colors are used, the first
exclusively for daily wear. At times men and women are painted black
from the waist down; at other times it is the whole body or only the
hands and feet, etc., all according to the day’s fashion, as was
explained by one of our guides. For feast days the paintings are an
elaborate and artistic affair, consisting of elegantly drawn lines and
patterns--red and black or simply black--which clothe the body as
effectually as any costly dress.

“From the above one might conclude that cleanliness and modesty are not
the rule among the Chocos. As a matter of fact, the first thing they do
in the morning is to jump into the near-by river, and these ablutions
are repeated several times in the course of the day.

“The kitchen utensils are always thoroughly washed before using, and,
contrary to our former experience, their simple dishes, prepared mostly
in our presence, looked almost always inviting. During our stay among
these good people nothing was noticed that would hurt the most delicate
sense of decency.

“The Chocoes seem to be exclusively monogamist, and both parents
surround their babies with tender care, being mindful, however, to
prepare them early for the hard and struggling life ahead of them.
Small bows and arrows, dexterously handled by tiny hands, are the
favorite toys of the boys, while the girls spend more time in the water
playing with miniature dugouts, washing, and swimming. The only dolls
seen among them were imported ones, and they seemed to be as much in
favor among grown women as among children. These latter go naked until
they are about five years old, when the girls receive a large
handkerchief to be used as a ‘paruma’, or skirt, and the boys a strip of
some old maternal dress for an ‘antia’ or clout.

“The Chocoes are very industrious. During the dry spells their life, of
course, is an out-of-door one, planting and watching their crops,
hunting, fishing and canoeing. But when the heavy rains come they stay
at home, weaving baskets of all kinds--a work in which the women are
proficient--making ropes and hammocks, carving dishes, mortars, stools,
and other objects out of tree trunks”.

In the country which will be traversed by the Panama-David Railroad are
found the Guaymies, the only primitive people living in large numbers
outside the Darien. There are about 5000 of them, living for the most
part in the valley of Mirando which lies high up in the Cordilleras, and
in a region cut off from the plains. Here they have successfully
defended their independence against the assaults of both whites and
blacks. To remain in their country without consent of the Great Chief is
practically impossible, for they are savage fighters and in earlier days
it was rare to see a man whose body was not covered with scars. It is
apparent that in some ways progress has destroyed their industries and
made the people less rather than more civilized, for they now buy cloth,
arms, tools, and utensils which they were once able to make. At one time
they were much under the influence of the Catholic missionaries, but of
late mission work has languished in wild Panama and perhaps the chief
relic of that earlier religious influence is the fact that the women go
clothed in a single garment. This simple raiment, not needed for warmth,
seems to be prized, for if caught in a rainstorm the women will quickly
strip off their clothing, wrap it in a large banana or palm leaf that it
may not get wet, and continue their work, or their play, in nature’s
garb.

It is said, too, that when strangers are not near clothes are never
thought of. The men follow a like custom, and invariably when pursuing a
quarry strip off their trousers, tying their shirts about their loins.
Trousers seem to impede their movements, and if a lone traveler in
Chiriqui comes on a row of blue cotton trousers tied to the bushes he
may be sure that a band of Guaymies is somewhere in the neighborhood
pursuing an ant bear or a deer.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_

CHOCO INDIAN OF SAMBU VALLEY

Silver beads about his neck and leg. Face painted in glaring colors]

As a rule these Indians--men or women--are not pleasing to the eye. The
lips are thick, the nose flat and broad, the hair coarse and always jet
black. Yet the children are not infrequently really beautiful. Any
traveler in Panama who forsakes the beaten track up and down the Canal
Zone will be impressed by the wide extent to which beauty is found among
the children, whatever their race or combination of races. But the charm
soon fades. It is seldom that one sees a mature woman who is attractive
to Caucasian eyes. Among the women of the Guaymies face painting is
practiced only on great occasions, black, red and white being the usual
colors. The men go painted at all times, the invariable pattern being a
sort of inverted V, with the apex between the eyes, and the two arms
extending to points, half an inch or so from the corners of the mouth.
The lips are colored to make them seem thicker than normal, and heavy
shadows are painted in under the eyes.

Among some tribes the wealth of a man is reckoned by the number of his
cattle; among the Guaymies by the number of his wives. For this reason,
perhaps, the attainment of marriageable age is an occasion of much
festivity for children of both sexes. The boy is exposed to tests of his
manly and war-like qualities, and, in company with his fellows of equal
age, is taken by the wisemen of the tribe into the solitude of the
forest that by performing tasks assigned to him he may prove himself a
man. There, too, they learn from the elders, who go masked and crowned
with wreaths, the traditions of their tribes told in rude chants like
the Norse sagas. Until this ceremony has been fulfilled the youth has no
name whatsoever. After it he is named and celebrates his first birthday.

The ceremonies in which the girls play the chief part are less
elaborate, but one would think rather painful, since they include the
breaking of a front tooth in sign that they are ready for marriage. They
marry young and mothers at twelve years are not uncommon.

Once a year the Guaymies have a great tribal feast--“balceria” the
Spaniards call it. Word is sent to all outlying huts and villages by a
mystic symbol of knotted rags, which is also tied to the branches of the
trees along the more frequented trails. On the appointed day several
hundred will gather on the banks of some river in which a general bath
is taken, with much frolicking and horseplay. Then the women employ
several hours in painting the men with red and blue colors, following
the figures still to be seen on the old pottery, after which the men
garb themselves uncouthly in bark or in pelts like children “dressing
up” for a frolic. At night is a curious ceremonial dance and game called
balsa, in which the Indians strike each other with heavy sticks, and are
knocked down amid the pile of broken boughs. The music--if it could be
so called--the incantations of the wisemen, the frenzy of the dancers,
all combine to produce a sort of self-hypnotism, during which the
Indians feel no pain from injuries which a day later often prove to be
very serious.

[Illustration: PANAMANIAN FATHER AND CHILD]

There are a multitude of distinct Indian tribes on the Isthmus, each
with its own tribal government, its distinctive customs and its allotted
territory, though boundaries are, of course, exceedingly vague and the
territories overlap. The Smithsonian pamphlet enumerates 21 such tribes
in the Darien region alone. But there seems to be among them no such
condition of continual tribal warfare as existed between our North
American Indians as long as they survived in any considerable numbers
the aggressions of the white settlers. It is true that the historian of
Balboa’s expedition records that the great leader was besought by
chieftains to assist them in their affrays with rival tribes, and made
more than one alliance by giving such assistance. But the later
atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards seem to have had the effect of
uniting the Indians in a tacit peaceful bond against the whites.
Picturesque and graphic as are the writings of men like Esquemeling, the
Fray d’Acosta and Wafer, who saw the Indians in the days of their
earliest experience with the sort of civilization that Pedrarias and
Pizarro brought to their villages, they do not bear more convincing
evidence of the savagery of the invaders, than is afforded by the sullen
aloofness with which the Darien Indians of today regard white men of any
race. More than the third and fourth generation have passed away but the
sins of the Spaniards are still recalled among a people who have no
written records whatsoever, and the memory or tradition causes them to
withhold their friendship from the remotest descendants of the historic
oppressors.

There seems to have been no written language, nor even any system of
hieroglyphics among the tribes of Panama, a fact that places them far
below our North American Indians in the scale of mental development. On
the other hand in weaving and in fashioning articles for domestic use
they were in advance of the North American aborigines. Their domestic
architecture was more substantial, and they were less nomadic, the
latter fact being probably due to the slight encouragement given to
wandering by the jungle. The great houses of the San Blas Indians in
their villages recall the “Long houses” of the Iroquois as described by
Parkman.

[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_

_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_

CHOCO INDIAN IN EVERY-DAY DRESS]

Thus far what we call civilization has dealt less harshly with the
Indians of the Isthmus than with our own. They have at least survived it
and kept a great part of their territory for their own. The “squaw-man”
who figures so largely in our own southwestern Indian country is unknown
there. Unquestionably during the feverish days of the Spaniards’ hunt
for gold the tribes were frightfully thinned out, and even today
sections of the country which writers of Balboa’s time describe as
thickly populated are desert and untenanted. Yet much land is still held
by its aboriginal owners, and unless the operation of the Canal shall
turn American settlement that way will continue so to be held. The
Panamanian has not the energy to dislodge the Indians nor to till their
lands if he should possess them.

Many studies of the Panama Indians as a body, or of isolated tribes,
have been made by explorers or scientists, and mainly by French or
Spanish students. The Smithsonian Institution catalogues forty-seven
publications dealing with the subject. But there is an immense mine of
anthropological information yet to be worked in the Isthmus. It is not
to be acquired readily or without heavy expenditure of energy, patience
and money. A thoroughly scientific exploring expedition to unravel the
riddle of the Darien, to count and describe the Indian tribes of the
Isthmus, and to record and authenticate traditions dating back to the
Spanish days, would be well worth the while of a geographical society, a
university or some patron of exploring enterprises.




CHAPTER XVII

SOCIAL LIFE ON THE CANAL ZONE


From ocean to ocean the territory which is called the Canal Zone is
about forty-three miles long, ten miles wide and contains about 436
square miles, about ninety-five of which are under the waters of the
Canal, and Miraflores and Gatun Lakes. It is bounded on the north by the
Caribbean Sea, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, and on the east and
west by the Republic of Panama. It traverses the narrowest part of
Panama, the waist so to speak, and has been taken out of that body
politic by the diplomatic surgeons as neatly as though it had been an
obnoxious vermiform appendix. Its territory does not terminate at low
water-mark, but extends three marine miles out to sea, and, as I write,
a question of jurisdiction has arisen between the two Republics--hardly
twin Republics--of Panama and the United States concerning jurisdiction
over three malefactors captured by the Zone police in a motor boat out
at sea. It may be noted in passing that Panama is properly tenacious of
its rights and dignity, and that cases of conflicting jurisdiction are
continually arising when any offender has only to foot it a mile or two
to be out of the territory in which his offense was committed. The
police officials of the Zone affect to think that the Panama authorities
are inclined to deal lightly with native offenders who commit robbery or
murder on the Zone and then stroll across the line to be arrested in
their native State.

[Illustration: A SQUAD OF CANAL ZONE POLICE OFFICERS]

There was a quarrel on while I was on the Zone over the custody of a
Panamanian who killed his wife, with attendant circumstances of
peculiar brutality, and then balked the vengeance of the Zone criminal
authorities by getting himself arrested in Panama. “We want to show
these fellows”, remarked a high police official of the Zone, “that if
they do murder in our territory we are going to do the hanging”. That
seemed a laudable purpose--that is if hanging is ever laudable--but the
Panama officials are quite as determined to keep the wheels of their
criminal law moving. The proprietors of machines like to see them
run--which is one of the reasons why too many battleships are not good
for a nation.

[Illustration: A PRIMITIVE SUGAR MILL]

To return, however, to the statistics of the Zone. Its population is
shifting, of course, and varies somewhat in its size according to the
extent to which labor is in demand. The completion of a part of the work
occasionally reduces the force. In January, 1912, the total population
of the Zone, according to the official census, was 62,810; at the same
time, by the same authority, there were employed by the Canal Commission
and the Panama Railroad 36,600 men. These figures emphasize the fact
that the working force on the Zone is made up mainly of unmarried men,
for a working population of 36,600 would, under the conditions existing
in the ordinary American community, give a population of well over
100,000. Though statistics are not on hand, and would probably be
impossible to compile among the foreign laborers, it is probable that
not more than one man in four on the Zone is married. From this
situation it results that the average maiden who visits the Zone for a
brief holiday goes rushing home to get her trousseau ready before some
young engineer’s next annual vacation shall give him time to go like a
young Lochinvar in search of his bride. Indeed, the life of the Zone for
many reasons has been singularly conducive to matrimony, and as a game
preserve for the exciting sport of husband-hunting, it has been
unexcelled.

[Illustration: VINE-CLAD FAMILY QUARTERS]

[Illustration: QUARTERS OF A BACHELOR TEACHER]

Perhaps it may be as well to turn aside from the orderly and informative
discussion of the statistics of the Zone to expand a little further here
upon the remarkable matrimonial phenomena it presented in its halcyon
days--for it must be remembered that even as I am writing, that society,
which I found so hospitable and so admirable, has begun to disintegrate.
Marriage, it must be admitted, is a somewhat cosmopolitan passion. It
attacks spiggotty and gringo alike. In an earlier chapter I have
described how the low cost of living enabled Miguel of the Chagres
country to set up a home of his own. Let us consider how the benevolent
arrangements made by the Isthmian Canal Commission impelled a typical
American boy to the same step.

Probably it was more a desire for experience and adventure than any idea
of increased financial returns that led young Jack Maxon to seek a job
in engineering on the Canal. Graduated from the engineering department
of a State university, with two years or so of active experience in the
field, Jack was a fair type of young American--clean, wholesome,
healthy, technically trained, ambitious for his future but quite
solicitious about the pleasures of the present, as becomes a youth of
twenty-three.

[Illustration: MAIN STREET AT GORGONA]

The job he obtained seemed at the outset quite ideal. In the States he
could earn about $225 a month. The day he took his number on the Canal
Zone he began to draw $250 a month. And that $250 was quite as good as
$300 at home. To begin with he had no room-rent to pay, but was assigned
comfortable if not elegant quarters, which he shared with one other man;
carefully screened and protected from all insects by netting, lighted by
electricity, with a shower-bath handy and all janitor or chambermaid
service free. Instead of a boarding-house table or a cheap city
Easter lamb, and while it is still a-cooking experience the inevitable
effects of plentiful wine on an empty stomach. Again, just as the rites
of Eleusis were nocturnal, so the chief services of Holy Week are those
of the Friday night and the Saturday night; and it may be that the
torch-light processions which close the services on those two nights
are related to the δᾳδουχία of Eleusis. But these are minor details;
it is in the actual services of Good Friday and Easter that the most
striking resemblance to the Eleusinian mysteries is found, and the
spirit in which the worshippers approach may still be the same now as
then. Let me briefly describe the festival as I saw it in the island
of Santorini, or, to give it the old name which has revived in modern
times, Thera.

The Lenten fast was drawing to a close when I arrived. For the first
week it is strictly observed, meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, and
even olive-oil being prohibited, so that the ordinary diet is reduced
to bread and water, to which is sometimes added a nauseous soup made
from dried cuttle-fish or octopus; for these along with shellfish
are not reckoned to be animal food, as being bloodless. During the
next four weeks some relaxation is allowed; but no one with any
pretensions to piety would even then partake of fish, meat, or eggs;
the last-mentioned are stored up until Easter and then, being dyed
red, are either eaten or--more wisely--offered to visitors. Then comes
‘the Great Week’ (ἡ μεγάλη ἑβδομάδα), and with it the same strict
regulations come into force as during the first week of Lent. It was
not hard to perceive that for most of the villagers the fast had been
a real and painful abstinence. Work had almost ceased; for there was
little energy left. Leisure was not enjoyed; for there was little
spirit even for chatting. Everywhere white, sharp-featured faces told
of real hunger; and the silence was most often broken by an outburst
of irritability. In a few days time I could understand it; for I too
perforce fasted; and I must own that a daily diet of dry bread for
_déjeuner_ and of dry bread and octopus soup for dinner soon changed my
outlook upon life. Little wonder then if these folk after six weeks of
such treatment were nervous and excitable.

Such was the condition of body and mind in which they attended the
long service of Good Friday night. Service I have said, but drama
were a more fitting word, a funeral-drama. At the top of the nave,
just below the chancel-step, stood a bier and upon it lay the figure
of the Christ, all too death-like in the dim light. The congregation
gaze upon him, reverently hushed, while the priests’ voices rise in
prayer and chant as it were in lamentation for the dead God lying
there in state. Hour after hour passes. The women have kissed the
dead form, and are gone. The moment has come for carrying the Christ
out to burial. The procession moves forward--in front, the priests
with candles and torches and, guarded by them, the open bier borne
shoulder-high--behind, a reverent, bare-headed crowd. The night is
dark and gusty. It rains, and the rugged, tortuous alleys of the town
are slippery. It is late, but none are sleeping. Unheeding of wind
and rain, the women kneel at open door or window, praying, swinging
censers, sprinkling perfume on the passing bier. Slowly, haltingly, led
by the dirge of priests, now in darkness, now lighted by the torches’
flare and intermittent beams from cottage doorways, groping at corners,
stumbling in ill-paved by-ways, the mourners follow their God to his
grave. The circuit of the town is done. All have taken their last look
upon the dead. The sepulchre is reached--a vault beneath the church
from which the funeral started. The priests alone enter with the bier.
There is a pause. The crowd waits. The silence is deep as the darkness,
only broken here and there by a deep-drawn sigh. Is it the last depth
of anguish, or is it well-nigh relief that the long strain is over?
The priests return. In silence the crowd have waited, in silence they
disperse. It is finished.

But there is a sequel on the morrow. Soon after dark on Easter-eve
the same weary yet excited faces may be seen gathered in the church.
But there is a change too; there is a feeling abroad of anxiety, of
expectancy. Hours must yet pass ere midnight, and not till then is
there hope of the announcement, ‘Christ is risen!’ The suspense seems
long. To-night there is restlessness rather than silence. Some go to
and fro between the church and their homes; others join discordantly
in the chants and misplace the responses; anything to cheat the long
hours of waiting. Midnight draws near; from hand to hand are passed
the tapers and candles which shall light the joyful procession, if
only the longed-for announcement be made. What is happening there now
behind those curtains which veil the chancel from the expectant throng?
Midnight strikes. The curtains are drawn back. Yes, there is the
bier, borne but yesternight to the grave. It is empty. That is only
the shroud upon it. The words of the priest ring out true, ‘Christ is
risen!’ And there behind the chancel, see, a second veil is drawn back.
There in the sanctuary, on the altar-steps, bright with a blaze of
light stands erect the figure of the Christ who, so short and yet so
long a while ago, was borne lifeless to the tomb. A miracle, a miracle!
Quickly from the priest’s lighted candle the flame is passed. In a
moment the dim building is illumined by a lighted taper in every hand.
A procession forms, a joyful procession now. Everywhere are light and
glad voices and the embraces of friends, crying aloud the news ‘Christ
is risen’ and answering ‘He is risen indeed.’ In every home the lamb is
prepared with haste, the wine flows freely; in the streets is the flash
of torches, the din of fire-arms, and all the exuberance of simple
joy. The fast is over; the dead has been restored to life before men’s
eyes; well may they rejoice even to ecstasy. For have they not felt the
ecstasy of sorrow? This was no tableau on which they looked, no drama
in which they played a part. It was all true, all real. The figure on
the bier was indeed the dead Christ; the figure on the altar-steps was
indeed the risen Christ. In these simple folk religion has transcended
reason; they have reached the heights of spiritual exaltation; they
have seen and felt as minds more calm and rational can never see nor
feel.

And the ancient Greeks, had not they too the gift of ecstasy, the
faculty to soar above facts on the wings of imagination? When the drama
of Demeter and Kore was played before the eyes of the initiated at
Eleusis, were not they too uplifted in mind until amid the magic of
night they were no longer spectators of a drama but themselves had a
share in Demeter’s sorrow and wandering and joy? For the pagan story
is not unlike the Christian story in its power to move both tears and
gladness. As now men mourn beside the bier of Christ, so in old time
may men have shared Demeter’s mourning for her child who though divine
had suffered the lot of men and passed away to the House of Hades. As
now men rejoice when they behold the risen Christ, so in old time may
men have shared Demeter’s joy when her child returned from beneath the
earth, proving that there is life beyond the grave. But the old story
taught more than this. Not only did Kore live in the lower world, but
her passing thither was not death but wedding. Therefore just as now
the resurrection of Christ, who though divine is the representative of
mankind, is held to be an earnest of man’s resurrection, so the wedded
life of Kore in the nether world may have been to the initiated an
assurance of the same bliss to be vouchsafed to them hereafter.

What was there then in this drama of Demeter and Kore at which the
Christian writers could take offence or cavil? We do not of course
know in what detail the story was represented; but the pivot on which
the whole plot turned was necessarily the rape of Kore. Now it appears
that in the play the part of Aïdoneus was taken by an hierophant and
the part of Kore by a priestess; and it was the alleged indecency
resulting therefrom which the fathers of the Church most severely
censured. Asterius, after defending the Christians from the charge of
worshipping saints as if they had been not human but divine, seeks to
turn the tables on his pagan opponents by accusing them of deifying
Demeter and Kore, whom he evidently regards as having once been human
figures in mythology. Then he continues, ‘Is not Eleusis the scene
of the descent into darkness, and of the solemn acts of intercourse
between the hierophant and the priestess, alone together? Are not the
torches extinguished, and does not the large, the numberless assembly
of common people believe that their salvation lies in that which is
being done by the two in the darkness[1445]?’ Again it was objected
against the Valentinians by Tertullian that they copied ‘the whoredoms
of Eleusis[1446],’ and from another authority we learn that part of the
ceremonies of these heretics consisted in ‘preparing a nuptial chamber’
and celebrating ‘a spiritual marriage[1447].’ These two statements,
read in conjunction, form a strong corroboration of the information
given by Asterius; and we are bound to conclude that the scene of the
rape of Kore was represented at Eleusis by the descent of the priest
and priestess who played the chief parts into a dark nuptial chamber.

Now it is easy enough to suppose, as Sainte-Croix suggests[1448],
that public morals were safeguarded by assigning the chief _rôles_
in the drama to persons of advanced age, or, as one ancient author
states[1449], by temporarily and partially paralysing the hierophant
with a small dose of hemlock. Whether each of the initiated was at any
time conducted through the same ritual is uncertain. In the formulary
of the Eleusinian rites, as recorded by Clement of Alexandria--‘I
fasted; I drank the sacred potion (κυκεῶνα); I took out of the chest;
having wrought (ἐργασάμενος) I put back into the basket and from the
basket into the chest[1450]’--the expression ‘having wrought’ has been
taken to be an euphemism denoting the same mystic union as between
hierophant and priestess[1451]. If this view is correct, it would imply
no doubt that full initiation required the candidate to go through the
whole ritual in person; in this case it must be presumed that some
precaution such as the dose of hemlock was taken in the interests of
morality.

But the mere fact that a scene of rape should form any part of a
religious rite, was to the Christians a stumbling-block. This was their
insurmountable objection to the mysteries, and they were only too prone
to exaggerate a ceremony, which with reverent and delicate treatment
need have been in no way morally deleterious, into a sensual and
noxious orgy. The story, how Demeter’s beautiful and innocent daughter
was suddenly carried off from the meadow where she was gathering
flowers into the depths of the dark under-world, spoke to them only
of the violence and lust of her ravisher Aïdoneus. But the legend
might bear another complexion. Kore, as representative of mankind or
at least of the initiated among mankind, suffers what seems the most
cruel lot, a sudden departure from this life in the midst of youth and
beauty and spring-time; and Demeter searches for her awhile in vain,
and mourns for her as men mourn their dead. Yet afterward it is found
that there is no cruelty in Kore’s lot, for she is the honoured bride
of the king of that world to which she was borne away; and Demeter is
comforted, for her child is not dead nor lost to her, but is allowed
to return in living form to visit her. What then must have been the
‘happier hopes’ held out to those who had looked on the great drama
of Eleusis? What was meant by that prospect of being ‘god-beloved
and sharing the life of gods’? How came it that the assembly of the
initiated believed their salvation to lie in the union of Hades and
Persephone, represented in the persons of hierophant and priestess, in
the subterranean nuptial-chamber? What was the bearing of the legend
dramatically enacted upon these hopes and prospects and beliefs? Surely
it taught that not only was there physical life beyond death, but a
life of wedded happiness with the gods.

And the same doctrine seems to be the _motif_ of many other popular
legends and of mysteries founded thereon; its settings and its
harmonies may be different, but the essential melody is the same. At
Eleusis Demeter’s daughter was the representative of mankind, for she
went down to the house of Hades as is the lot of men. But Crete had
another legend wherein Demeter was the representative deity with whom
mankind might hope for union. Was it not told how Iasion even in this
life found such favour in the goddess’ eyes that she was ‘wed with
him in sweet love mid the fresh-turned furrows of the fat land of
Crete[1452]’? And happiness such as was granted to him here was laid
up for all the initiated hereafter; else would there be no meaning in
those lines, ‘Blessed, methinks, is the lot of him that sleeps, and
tosses not, nor turns, even Endymion; and, dearest maiden, blessed I
call Iasion, whom such things befell, as ye that be profane shall never
come to know[1453].’ Surely that which is withheld from the profane is
by implication reserved to the sanctified, and to them it is promised
that they shall know by their own experience hereafter the bliss which
Iasion even here obtained. It was, I think, in this spirit and this
belief that the Athenians in old time called their dead Δημητρεῖοι
‘Demeter’s folk[1454]’; for the popular belief in the condescension
of the Mistress, great and reverend goddess though she was, was so
firmly rooted, it would seem, that even to this day the folk-stories,
as we have seen, still tell how the ‘Mistress of the earth and of the
sea,’ she whom men still call Despoina and reverence for her love
of righteousness and for her stern punishment of iniquity, has yet
admitted brave heroes to her embrace in the mountain-cavern where, as
of old in Arcady, she still dwells[1455].

Nor did the cults of Demeter and Kore monopolise these hopes and
beliefs. In the religious drama of Aphrodite and Adonis, in the
Sabazian mysteries, in the holiest rites of Dionysus, in the wild
worship of Cybele, the same thought seems ever to recur. It matters
little whether these gods and their rites were foreign or Hellenic in
origin. If they were not native, at least they were soon naturalised,
and that for the simple reason that they satisfied the religious
cravings of the Greek race. The essential spirit of their worship,
whatever the accidents of form and expression, was the spirit of the
old Pelasgian worship of Demeter; and therefore, though Dionysus may
have been an immigrant from northern barbarous peoples, the Greeks did
not hesitate to give him room and honour beside Demeter in the very
sanctuary of Eleusis. Similar, we may well believe, was the lot of
other foreign gods and rites. Whencesoever derived, they owed their
reception in Greece to the fact that their character appealed to
certain native religious instincts of the Greek folk. Once transplanted
to Hellenic soil, they were soon completely Hellenized; those elements
which were foreign or distasteful to Greek religion were quickly
eradicated or of themselves faded into oblivion, while all that
accorded with the Hellenic spirit throve into fuller perfection; for
the character of a deity and of a cult depends ultimately upon the
character of the worshippers.

It is fair therefore to treat of Aphrodite as of a genuinely Greek
deity; for, though she may have entered Greece from Eastern lands,
doubtless long before the Homeric age her worship no less than her
personality was permeated with the spirit of genuinely Greek religion.
Too well known to need re-telling here is the story of how--to use the
words of Theocritus once more--‘the beautiful Cytherea was brought by
Adonis, as he pastured his flock upon the mountain-side, so far beyond
the verge of frenzy, that not even in his death doth she put him from
her bosom[1456].’ Such was the plot of one of the most famous religious
dramas of old time. And what was its moral for those who had ears to
hear? Surely that the beloved of the gods may hope for wedlock with
them in death.

It was certainly in this sense that Clement of Alexandria understood
certain other mysteries of Aphrodite, though, needless to say, he
puts upon them the most obscene construction. After relating in
terms unnecessarily disgusting the legend of how by the very act of
Uranus’ self-mutilation the sea became pregnant and gave birth from
among its foam to the goddess Aphrodite, he states that ‘in the rites
which celebrate this voluptuousness of the sea, as a token of the
goddess’ birth there are handed to those that are being initiated
into the lore of adultery (τοῖς μυουμένοις τὴν τέχνην τὴν μοιχικήν)
a lump of salt and a phallus; and they for their part present her
with a coin, as if they were her lovers and she their mistress (ὡς
ἑταίρας ἐρασταί)[1457].’ Thus Clement; but those who are willing
to see in the mysteries of the Greek religion something more than
organised sensuality will do well to reflect whether that which
Clement calls ‘being initiated into the lore of adultery’ was not
really an initiation into those hopes of marriage with the gods of
which we have already found evidence in the popular religion, and
whether the goddess’ symbolic acceptance of her worshippers as lovers
does not fit in exactly with that bold conception of man’s future
bliss. The symbolism indeed, if Clement’s statement is accurate, was
crude and even repellent, but its significance is clear; and those
who approached these mysteries of Aphrodite in reverent mood need not
have been repelled by that which modern taste would account indecent
in the ritual. Greek feeling never erred on the side of prudery; men
were familiar with the _Hermae_ erected in the streets and with the
symbolism of the _phallus_ in religious ceremonies, and tolerated
the publication of literature--be it the comedy of Aristophanes or
Clement’s own exhortation to the heathen--which neither as a source of
amusement nor of instruction would be tolerated now.

The particular mysteries to which Clement alludes in this passage
seem to have been concerned with the story of Aphrodite’s birth, and
though it is difficult to conjecture how that story can have been made
to illustrate and to inculcate the doctrine of the marriage of men
and gods, the information given by Clement with respect to the ritual
makes it clear that such was their object. But in that other rite of
the same goddess, that namely which celebrated the story of Adonis,
the whole _motif_ of the drama was the continuance of Aphrodite’s love
for him after his death, a love so strong that it prevailed upon the
gods of the lower world to let him return for half of every year to
the upper world and the arms of his mistress. Here, though expressed
in different imagery, is the same doctrine as that which underlay the
drama of Eleusis. Here again is an illustration, or rather, for those
who were capable of religious ecstasy, a proof, of the doctrine that
the dead yet lived, and in that life were both in body and in soul one
with their gods. For ‘thrice-beloved Adonis who even in Acheron is
beloved[1458]’ was the type and forerunner of all those who had part in
his mysteries.

In another version this legend of Adonis is brought into even closer
relation with the Eleusinian mysteries by the introduction of
Persephone[1459]. To her is assigned the part of a rival to Aphrodite,
and being equally enamoured of the beautiful Adonis she is glad of his
death whereby he is torn from the arms of Aphrodite in the upper world,
and enters the chamber of the nether world where her love in turn may
have its will; but in the end Aphrodite descends to the house of Hades,
and a compact is arranged between the two goddesses by which each in
turn may possess Adonis for half the year. This version of the story is
cruder, but its teaching is obviously the same--Adonis, the favourite
of heaven in this life, and the precursor of all who by initiation in
the mysteries win heaven’s favour, survives in the lower world with
both body and soul unimpaired by death, and is admitted to wedlock with
the great goddess of the dead.

The same doctrine again seems to have been the basis of certain
mystic rites associated with Dionysus. From the speech against Neaera
attributed to Demosthenes we learn that at Athens there was annually
celebrated a marriage between the wife of the chief magistrate
(ἄρχων βασιλεύς) and Dionysus. The solemnity was reckoned among
things ‘unspeakable’; foreigners were not permitted to see or to
hear anything of it; and even Athenian citizens, it seems, might not
enter the innermost sanctuary in which the union of Dionysus with the
‘queen’ (βασίλιννα) was celebrated[1460]. There were however present
and assisting in some way fourteen priestesses (γεραραί), dedicated to
the service of the god and bound by special vows of chastity. These
priestesses, we are told, corresponded in number to the altars of
Dionysus[1461], and they were appointed by the archon whose wife was
wed with Dionysus[1462]. There our actual knowledge of the facts ends;
but there is material enough on which to base a rational surmise. The
correspondence between the number of priestesses bound by vows of
purity and the number of the altars suggests that in this custom is to
be sought a relic of human sacrifice. The selection of the priestesses
by the magistrate who held the title of ‘king’ suggests that in bygone
times it had been the duty of the king, as being also chief priest, to
select fourteen virgins who should be sacrificed on Dionysus’ altars
and thereby sent to him as wives. Subsequently maybe, as humanity
gradually mitigated the wilder rites of religion, the number of victims
was reduced to one; and later still the human sacrifice was altogether
abolished, and, instead of sending to Dionysus his wife by the road
of death, the still pious but now more humane worshippers of the god
contented themselves with a symbolic marriage between him and the wife
of their chief magistrate.

The conception of human sacrifice as a means of sending a messenger
from this world to some power above, which receives clear expression in
that modern story from Santorini which I have narrated in an earlier
chapter[1463], was, I have there argued, known also to the ancient
Greeks; and the same means of communication may equally well have been
employed for the despatch of a human wife to some god. Plutarch appears
to have been actually familiar with this idea. In a passage in which
he is attempting to vindicate the purity and goodness of the gods and,
it must be added withal, their aloofness from human affairs, he claims
that all the religious rites and means of communion are concerned, not
with the great gods (θεοί), but with lesser deities (δαίμονες) who
are of varying character, some good, others evil, and that the rites
also vary accordingly. “As regards the mysteries,” he says, “wherein
are given the greatest manifestations or representations (ἐμφάσεις καὶ
διαφάσεις) of the truth concerning ‘daemons,’ let my lips be reverently
sealed, as Herodotus has it”; but the wilder orgies of religion, he
argues, are to be set down as a means of appeasing evil ‘daemons’ and
of averting their wrath; the human sacrifices of old time, for example,
were not demanded nor accepted by gods, but were performed to satisfy
either the vindictive anger of cruel and tormenting ‘daemons,’ or in
some cases “the wild and despotic passions (ἔρωτας) of ‘daemons’ who
could not and would not have carnal intercourse with carnal beings.
Just as Heracles besieged Oechalia to win a girl, so these strong and
violent ‘daemons,’ demanding a human soul that is shut up within a
body, and being unable to have bodily intercourse therewith, bring
pestilences and famines upon cities and stir up wars and tumults,
until they get and enjoy the object of their love.” And reversely,
he continues, some ‘daemons’ have punished with death men who have
forced their love upon them; and he refers to the story of a man who
violated a nymph and was found afterwards with his head severed from
his body[1464]. The whole passage betrays clearly enough what was the
popular belief which Plutarch here set himself so to explain as to
safeguard the goodness of the gods; but perhaps the end of it is the
most significant of all. Plutarch forgets that a nymph, if she is a
‘daemon,’ is by his own hypothesis incapable of bodily intercourse; in
this case then his attempted explanation is not even logically sound,
and his conception of a purely spiritual ‘daemon’ is a failure; but at
the same time, save for this invention, he is following the popular
belief of both ancient and modern Greece that carnal intercourse
between man and nymph is possible but is fraught with grave peril to
the man[1465]. It is impossible then to doubt that in the earlier part
of the passage he was explaining away a popular belief by means of
the same hypothesis. He himself would hold that spiritual ‘daemons’
demanded human sacrifice because they lusted after a soul or spirit
confined out of their reach in a body until death severed it therefrom;
but the popular belief, which he is at pains to emend, was that
corporeal gods demanded human sacrifice because they lusted after the
person who, by death, would be sent, body and soul, to be wed with them.

There is good reason then to suppose that in old time death may have
been even inflicted as the means of effecting wedlock between men and
gods; and that the mystic rite of union between Dionysus and the wife
of the Athenian magistrate was based on the same fundamental idea as
the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone or of Aphrodite. Though in this
instance, when once human sacrifice had been given up, all suggestion
of death was, so far as we know, removed from the solemnity, yet the
repetition year by year of a ceremony of marriage between the god and
a mortal woman representing his worshippers might still keep bright
in their minds those ‘happier hopes’ of the like bliss laid up for
themselves hereafter.

This particular rite escaped the notice, or at any rate the malice,
of Clement; but Dionysus does not for all that go unscathed. Clement
fastens upon a legend concerning him, which, however widely ancient
Greek feeling in the matter of sex differed from modern, cannot but
have seemed to some of the ancients[1466] themselves to be a reproach
and stain upon the honour of their god. The story of Dionysus and
Prosymnus, as told by Clement[1467], must be taken as read. But those
who will investigate it for themselves will see that the same idea of
death being followed by close intercourse with the gods is present
there also. That this was the inner meaning of the peculiarly offensive
story is shown by a curious comment of Heraclitus upon it, which
Clement quotes--ωὐτὸς δε Ἀίδης καὶ Διόνυσος[1468], ‘Hades and Dionysus
are one’; whence it follows that union with Dionysus is a synonym for
that ‘marriage with Hades’ which elsewhere, in both ancient and modern
times, is a common presentment of death.

Again in the Sabazian mysteries, which some connect with Dionysus and
others with Zeus, the little that is known of the ritual favours the
view that here also the _motif_ was the marriage of the deity with his
worshippers. According to Clement[1469], the subject-matter of these
mysteries was a story that Zeus, having become by Demeter the father
of Persephone, seduced in turn his own daughter, having as a means to
that end transformed himself into a snake. That story, it may safely be
said, is presented by Clement in its worst light; but the statement,
that in the ritual the deity was represented by a snake, obtains some
corroboration from Theophrastus, who says of the superstitious man,
that if he see a red snake in his house he will invoke Sabazius[1470].
Now the token of these mysteries for those who were being initiated
in them was, according to Clement[1471] again, ‘the god pressed to
the bosom’ (ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός); which phrase he explains by saying
that the god was represented as a snake, which was passed under the
clothing and drawn over the bosom of the initiated ‘as a proof of the
incontinence of Zeus.’ Clearly then the act of initiation was the
symbolic wedding of the worshipper with the deity worshipped; and it is
probable that the union which was symbolized in this life was expected
to be realised in the next.

Finally in the orgiastic worship of Cybele the same religious doctrine
is revealed. Here to Attis seems to be assigned the same part as to
Adonis in the mysteries of Aphrodite. He is the beloved of the goddess;
he is lost and mourned for as dead; he is restored again from the
grave to the goddess who loved him. And in all this he appears to be
the representative of all Cybele’s worshippers; for the ritual of
initiation into her rites, if once again we may avail ourselves of
Clement’s statements, is strongly imbued with the idea of marriage
between the goddess and her worshipper. The several acts or stages of
initiation are summarised in four phrases: ‘I ate out of the drum; I
drank out of the cymbal; I carried the sacred vessel; I entered privily
the bed-chamber--ἐκ τυμπάνου ἔφαγον· ἐκ κυμβάλου ἔπιον· ἐκερνοφόρησα·
ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν[1472]. In the passage from which these phrases
are culled there appears to be a certain confusion between the rites
of Cybele and those of Demeter; but the fact that Clement shortly
afterwards gives another formulary of Demeter’s ritual is sufficient
proof that he meant this present formulary, as indeed the mention of
kettle-drum and cymbal[1473] suggests, to apply to the mysteries of
Cybele[1474]. It appears then that the final act or stage of initiation
consisted in the secret admission of the worshipper to the bed-chamber
of the goddess. Such ritual can have borne only one interpretation. It
clearly constituted a promise of wedded union between the initiated
and their deity. Viewed in this light even the emasculation of the
priests of Cybele may more readily be understood; it may have been the
consecration of their virility to the service of the goddess, a final
and convincing pledge of celibacy in this life, in return for which
they aspired to be blest by wedlock with their goddess hereafter.

The mention of the goddess’ bed-chamber in the above passage is of
considerable interest. The παστός (or παστάς) in relation to a temple
meant the same thing as it often meant in relation to an ordinary
house, an inner room or recess screened off, and in particular a
bridal chamber. Such provision for the physical comfort of the deity
was probably not rare. Pausanias tells us that on the right of
the vestibule in the Argive Heraeum there was a couch (κλίνη) for
Hera[1475], and he seems to speak of it as if it were a common enough
piece of temple furniture. So too at Phlya in Attica, where were held
the very ancient mystic rites ‘of her who is called the Great,’ there
was a bridal chamber (παστάς), where, it has rightly been argued, there
‘must have been enacted a mimetic marriage[1476].’ Again Clement of
Alexandria speaks of a παστός of Athena in the Parthenon, and makes
it quite clear by the story which he relates that he understood the
word in the sense of bed-chamber. The story is also for other reasons
worth recalling, because it shows how the religious conception of
marriage between men and gods was readily extended to the worship of
other deities than those whose mysteries we have sought to unravel,
and at the same time furnishes the only case known to me in which
that mystic belief was prostituted to the base uses of flattery. The
occasion was the reception accorded by the Athenians to Demetrius
Poliorcetes. Not content with hailing him as a god in name, they went
so far in their mean-spirited subjection as to set up a temple, at
the place where he dismounted from his horse on entering their city,
to Demetrius the Descender (Καταιβάτης)[1477], while on every side
altars were erected to him. But their grossest piece of flattery was
a master-piece of grotesque impiety, and met with a fitting reward. A
marriage was arranged between him (the most notorious profligate of his
age) and Athena. ‘He however,’ we are told, ‘disdained the goddess,
being unable to embrace the statue, but took with him to the Acropolis
the courtesan Lamia, and polluted the bed-chamber of Athena, exhibiting
to the old virgin the postures of the young courtesan[1478].’ Even that
contemptuous response to the Athenians’ flattery did not abash them,
but, finding that he did not favour their acknowledged deity, they
determined to deify his acknowledged favourite, and erected a temple to
Lamia Aphrodite[1479].

But such travesties of holy things were rare; and this one notorious
case excited the contempt alike of the man[1480] to whom the flattery
was paid and of all posterity--a contempt which teaches, hardly less
clearly than the indignation excited a century earlier by the supposed
profanation of the mysteries, in what reverence and high esteem the
idea of marriage between men and gods was generally held.

Even Lucian, in whom reverence was a less pronounced characteristic
than humour, condemns seriously enough a parody of the mysteries
of Eleusis which occurred in his own day; and his account of it at
the same time shows once more that the marriage of men and gods was
the very essence of the mysteries. The impostor Alexander, he says,
instituted rites with carrying of torches (δᾳδουχία) and exposition
of the sacred ceremonies (ἱεροφαντία) lasting for three days. “On
the first there was a proclamation, as at Athens, as follows: ‘If
any atheist, Christian, or Epicurean hath come to spy upon the holy
rites, let him begone, and let the faithful be initiated with heaven’s
blessing.’ Then first of all there was an expulsion of intruders.
Alexander himself led the way, crying ‘Out with Christians,’ and the
whole multitude shouted in answer ‘Out with Epicureans.’ Then was
enacted the story of Leto in child-bed and the birth of Apollo, and his
marriage with Coronis and the birth of Asclepius; and on the second day
the manifestation of Glycon and the god’s birth[1481]. And on the third
day was the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander’s mother; this was
called the Torch-day, for torches were burnt. And finally there was the
love of Selene and Alexander, and the birth of his daughter now married
to Rutilianus[1482]. Our Endymion-Alexander was now torch-bearer and
exponent of the rites. And he lay as it were sleeping in the view of
all, and there came down to him from the roof--as it were Selene from
heaven--a certain Rutilia, a very beautiful woman, the wife of one of
Caesar’s household-officers, who was really in love with Alexander
and was loved by him, and she kissed the rascal’s eyes and embraced
him in the view of all, and, if there had not been so many torches,
worse would perhaps have followed (τάχα ἄν τι καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ κόλπου
ἐπράττετο)[1483].”

The inferences which may be drawn from this narrative are, first, that
the mysteries in general, while reproducing in some dramatic form the
whole story of the deities concerned, culminated in the representation
of a mystic marriage between men and gods; (the birth of a child was
also represented or announced in this parody, as we know that it
was at Eleusis[1484], but it had, I am inclined to think, no mystic
significance otherwise than as proof of the consummation of that
marriage;) and, secondly, that the wild charges of indecency brought by
early Christian writers against the mysteries are baseless; for Lucian
condemns a much lesser license in this parody than that which they
attributed to the genuine rites.

Thus our examination of the mysteries, so far as they are known to us,
tends to prove that the doctrines revealed in them to the initiated
were simply a development of certain vaguer popular ideas which have
been prevalent among the Greek folk from the classical age down to our
own day. The people entertained hopes that this physical life would
continue in a similar form after death; the mysteries gave definite
assurance of that immortality by exhibiting to the initiated Persephone
or Adonis or Attis restored from the lower world in bodily form; and
though that exhibition was in fact merely a dramatic representation,
yet to the eyes of religious ecstasy it seemed just as much a living
reality as does the risen Christ in the modern celebration of Easter.
The people again were wont to think and to speak of death as a marriage
into the lower world; the mysteries showed to the initiated certain
representatives of mankind who by death, or even in life, had been
admitted to the felicity of wedlock with deities, and thereby confirmed
the faithful in their happier hopes of being in like manner themselves
god-beloved and of sharing the life of gods.

Since then there is good reason to believe that this was in effect the
secret teaching of the mysteries, it would naturally be expected that
human marriage should have been reckoned as it were a foretaste of
that union with the divine which was promised hereafter, and also that
death should have been counted the hour of its approaching fulfilment;
in other words, if my view of the mysteries is correct, it would
almost inevitably follow that the mysteries should have been brought
into close association both with weddings and with funerals. This
expectation is confirmed by the facts.

An ordinary wedding was treated as something akin to initiation into
the mysteries. An inscription of Cos[1485], relating to the appointment
of priestesses of Demeter, mentions among other duties certain services
on the occasion of weddings; and the brides, who are the recipients
of these services, are divided into two classes, αἱ τελεύμεναι and αἱ
ἐπινυμφευόμεναι, the maidens who, are being ‘initiated,’ and the widows
who are being married again; a woman’s first marriage in fact is called
by a religious document her initiation, and Demeter’s priestesses
are charged therewith. Nor was this usage or idea confined to Cos;
Plutarch speaks of services rendered by the priestess of Demeter in
the solemnisation of matrimony as part of an ‘ancestral rite[1486]’;
while the term τέλος was commonly used both of the mystic rites and of
marriage, and τέλειοι might denote the newly-wed[1487].

The same thought seems also to have inspired another custom
associated with marriage. The newly-wed, we hear, sometimes attended
a representation of the marriage of Zeus and Hera[1488], an ἱερὸς
γάμος which formed the subject of mystic drama or legend all over
Greece[1489]. The widely extended cults of Hera under the titles of
Maiden (παρθένος or παῖς) and of Bride (τελεία or νυμφευομένη) appear
to have been closely interwoven; indeed for a full appreciation of the
Greek conception of the goddess they must be treated as complementary.
They are well interpreted by Farnell. Rejecting the theory of physical
symbolism, he suggests ‘a more human explanation. Hera was essentially
the goddess of women, and the life of women was reflected in her;
their maidenhood and marriage were solemnised by the cults of Hera
Παρθένος and Hera Τελεία or Νυμφευομένη, and the very rare worship of
Hera Χήρα might allude to the not infrequent custom of divorce and
separation[1490].’ With, Hera the Widow we are not here concerned,
but only with the higher conceptions of Zeus and Hera as expressed in
the representation of the ‘sacred marriage’; the bride and bridegroom
who looked upon that saw in it, we may be sure, not a symbolical
representation of the seasons and the productive powers of the earth,
but rather the divine prototype of human marriage. It reminded them
that deities, like mortals, were married and given in marriage, and it
imparted to their wedding a sacramental character, making it at once a
foretaste and a gage of that close communion with the gods which, when
death the dividing line between mortals and immortals should once be
passed, awaited the blessed among mankind.

Other small points too suggest the same trend of thought. The
preliminaries of a wedding often comprised a sacrifice to Zeus
Teleios and Hera Teleia[1491], and were called προτέλεια being the
‘preliminaries of initiation’ into that mystery, of which the
sacred marriage, enacted before the now wedded pair, was the full
revelation[1492]. Again these preliminaries always included the
solemn ablution[1493] of which I have spoken above, and in this
resembled the preparations for admittance to the mysteries. Moreover
an instance is recorded in which this ablution was itself invested
with the significance of a wedding between the human and the divine.
The maidens of the Troad before marriage were wont to unrobe and bathe
themselves in the Scamander; and the prayer which they made to the
river-god, whose bed they entered, was, ‘Receive thou, Scamander, my
virginity[1494].’ Finally the first night on which the wedded pair came
together was known as the ‘mystic night’ (νὺξ μυστική)[1495], a term
not a little suggestive of the great night of Demeter’s mysteries when
to the eyes of the initiated was displayed the secret proof and promise
of wedlock between men and gods hereafter. In short the ceremonies
of a wedding by one means or another proclaimed it to be a form of
initiation, and the estate of marriage was to the Greeks, as our
prayer-book calls it, ‘an excellent mystery.’

Hence naturally followed the belief that the unmarried and the
uninitiated shared the same fate in the future life. One conception
of the punishment of the uninitiated was, according to Plato[1496],
that they should carry water in a sieve to a broken jar; and this, as
is well known, was also the lot of the Danaids in the nether world.
Commenting on these facts Dr Frazer says, ‘It is possible that the
original reason why the Danaids were believed to be condemned to this
punishment in hell was not so much that they murdered, as that they did
not marry, the sons of Aegyptus. According to one tradition indeed they
afterwards married other husbands (Paus. III. 12. 2); but according
to another legend they were murdered by Lynceus, apparently before
marriage (Schol. on Euripides, _Hecuba_, 886). They may therefore have
been chosen as types of unmarried women, and their punishment need
not have been peculiar to them but may have been the one supposed to
await all unmarried persons in the nether world[1497].’ A passage of
Lucian, which appears to have been overlooked in this connexion[1498],
converts the view of the Danaids which Dr Frazer considers possible
into a practical certainty. The passage in point forms the conclusion
of that dialogue in which Poseidon with the aid of Triton plots and
carries out the rape of Amymone, the Danaid. She has just been seized
and is protesting against her abduction and threatening to call her
father, when Triton intervenes: ‘Keep quiet, Amymone,’ he says, ‘it
is Poseidon.’ And the girl rejoins, ‘Oh, Poseidon you call him, do
you?’ and then turning to her ravisher, ‘What do you mean, sirrah, by
handling me so roughly, and dragging me down into the sea? I shall
go under and be drowned, miserable girl.’ And Poseidon answers, ‘Do
not be frightened, you shall come to no harm; no, I will strike the
rock here, near where the waves break, with my trident, and will let
a spring burst up which shall bear your name, and you yourself shall
be blessed and, unlike your sisters, shall not carry water when you
are dead (καὶ σὺ εὐδαίμων ἔσῃ καὶ μόνη τῶν ἀδελφῶν οὐχ ὑδροφορήσεις
ἀποθανοῦσα)[1499].’ The whole point of Poseidon’s answer clearly
depends upon the existence of a well-known belief that the Danaids were
punished hereafter for remaining unmarried and that the punishment took
the form of vainly fetching water for that bridal bath which was a
necessary preliminary to a wedding; Amymone shall have a very thorough
bridal bath, and the spring that bears her name shall be a monument
of it, while she herself shall be ‘blessed’ by wedlock with Poseidon;
thus shall she escape the fate of the unmarried. Clearly then there was
no distinction between the uninitiated and the unmarried; both alike
were doomed vainly to fetch water for those ablutions which preceded
initiation into the mysteries or into matrimony; and once again the
conception of marriage as a mystic and sacramental rite akin to the
rites of Eleusis is clearly revealed.

It may further be noted here that this idea of the punishment of the
unmarried completely explains the custom, on which I have already
touched, of erecting a water-pitcher (λουτροφόρος) over the grave of
unmarried persons. This intimated, according to Eustathius[1500], that
the person there buried had never taken the bath which both bride and
bridegroom were wont to take before marriage. But this must not be
taken to mean that the water-pitcher was erected as a symbol of the
punishment which the dead person was supposed to be undergoing; this
was not an idea which his relatives and friends, even if they had held
it, would have wished to blazon abroad. One might as soon expect to
find depicted on a modern tombstone the worm that dieth not and the
fire that is not quenched. No; the water-pitcher was not a symbol, it
was an instrument; for my part I have little faith in the existence
of any symbols in popular religion which are not in origin at least
instruments; and the purpose to which this instrument was put was to
supply the dead person with that wedding-bath which he had not taken
in life, and without which he would vainly strive in the under-world
to prepare himself for divine wedlock. The water-pitcher was not
commemorative, but preventive, of future punishment. Its erection was
not a warning to the living, but a service to the dead.

Thus then the evidence for the intimate association of the mysteries,
or of the main idea which runs through them, with human weddings is
complete and, I hope, convincing; and the custom of the water-pitcher,
which concludes it, fitly introduces at the same time the evidence
for the association of the same idea with funerals. This is equally
plentiful. The vague conception of death as a wedding, which as I have
shown was elaborated in the mysteries, has of course already been
exemplified in all those passages of ancient literature and modern
folk-songs which I have adduced, and I have found in it also the motive
for the assimilation of funeral-customs to the customs of marriage.
But the evidence that the actual doctrines of the mysteries, in which
more definite expression was given to that vague idea, were closely
associated with death and funeral-custom is to be found rather in
epitaphs and sepulchral monuments.
The tone of the epitaphs may be sufficiently illustrated by a single
couplet:

    Οὐκ ἐπιδὼν νύμφεια λέχη κατέβην τὸν ἄφυκτον
      Γόργιππος ξανθῆς Φερσεφόνης θάλαμον[1501].

‘I, Gorgippus, lived not to look upon a bridal bed ere I went down
to the chamber of bright-haired Persephone which none may escape.’
There is naturally here a note of lament, as befits any epitaph, and
more especially that of one who dies young and unmarried; but none
the less there is an anticipation--justified, we may think, if we
will, by some ceremony of bridal ablution performed for the dead man
by his friends--that his death is a wedding with the goddess of the
under-world; and indeed the phrase Φερσεφόνης θάλαμος, ‘the bridal
chamber of Persephone,’ recurs with some frequency in this class of
epitaphs[1502].

Considered collectively, such epitaphs would suggest a distinctly
offensive conception of Persephone; but in each taken separately, as
it was composed, it will be allowed, I think, that if there is supreme
audacity, there is equal sublimity. It is just these qualities which
give pungency to a blasphemous parody of such epitaphs, in which the
wit of Ausonius exposes the worst possible aspect of a religious
conception which to the pure-minded was wholly pure. My apology for
quoting lines which I will not translate must be the fact that a
caricature is often no less instructive than a true portrait. The mock
epitaph concludes as follows:

    Sed neque functorum socius miscebere vulgo
      Nec metues Stygios flebilis umbra lacus:
    Verum aut Persephonae Cinyreius ibis Adonis,
      Aut Jovis Elysii tu catamitus eris[1503].

Ausonius in jest bears an unpleasant resemblance to Clement in earnest;
both perverted to their uttermost a doctrine which commanded nothing
but reverence from faithful participants in the mysteries.

Akin to these epitaphs are certain tablets which recently have been
fully discussed by Miss Jane Harrison[1504], and have been shown to
be of Orphic origin. They were buried with the dead, and for this
reason were more outspoken in their references to the mystic doctrines
than was permissible in epitaphs exposed to the vulgar gaze. The most
complete of these tablets is one which was found near Sybaris, and,
with the exception of the last sentence of all, the inscription is in
hexameter verse. Miss Harrison, to whose work I am wholly indebted for
this valuable evidence, translates as follows[1505]:

    ‘Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below,
    Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal.
    For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race,
    But Fate laid me low and the other Gods immortal
                              ... starflung thunderbolt.
    I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel.
    I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired.
    I have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.
    I have passed with eager feet from the Circle desired.
    Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.
            A kid I have fallen into milk.’

The gist of the document which the dead man takes with him is then
briefly this. He claims to have been pure originally and of the same
race as his gods; but as a man he was mortal and exposed to death,
and in this respect differed from his gods. He states however that he
has performed certain ritual acts which entitle him to be re-admitted
to the pure fellowship of the gods now that death is passed. And the
answer comes, ‘Thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’

Now here I wish to consider one only of these ritual acts--that one of
which the meaning is clearest--Δεσποίνας δ’ ὑπὸ κόλπον ἔδυν χθονίας
βασιλείας, which means, if I may give my own rendering, ‘I was admitted
to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the under-world.’ The phrase
is one which repeats the idea which we have already seen expressed
in the formulary of Cybele’s rites, ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν[1506], ‘I
was privily admitted to the bridal chamber,’ and in the token of the
Sabazian mysteries, ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός[1507], ‘the god pressed to
the bosom’; and Lucian’s final phrase in his account of Alexander’s
mock-mysteries shows a kindred phrase, τὰ ὑπὸ κόλπου[1508], as an
euphemism of the same kind[1509]. The Orphic therefore no less than
others based his claim to future happiness on the fact that he had
performed a ritual act, of the nature of a sacrament, which constituted
a pledge that the wedlock between him and his goddess foreshadowed here
should be consummated hereafter.

Even more abundant evidence is furnished by sepulchral monuments;
and in support of my views I cannot do better than quote two high
authorities who coincide in their verdict upon the meaning of the
scenes represented. In reference to those scenes ‘in which death
is conceived in the guise of a marriage’ Furtwängler writes: ‘The
monuments belonging to this class are extraordinarily numerous, and
exhibit very different methods of treating the idea which they carry
out. A relief upon a sarcophagus from the Villa Borghese shows the God
of the dead in the act of carrying down the fair Kore to be his bride
in the lower world. Above the steeds of his chariot, which are already
disappearing into the depths of the earth, flies Eros as guide. The
bride however appears to be going only under compulsion and after some
struggle; the look of the bridegroom expresses sternness rather than
gentleness; and the mother who sits with face averted seems to exclude
all thoughts of the daughter’s return. Only in the torches which the
guide carries in his hand, in the snakes which are looking upward, and
in the observant attitude of Hecate, can a suggestion of the return be
found.

‘On another sarcophagus--from Nazzara--which represents the same
marriage-journey, Eros is not merely the guide of the steeds, but aids
the bridegroom in carrying off Kore, so that in this case the struggle
with death takes purely the form of a struggle with love. At the same
time the mother is driving along with her chariot, thereby signifying
the renewal of life, which is yet more clearly betokened in the
ploughman and the sower at her side.

‘In a yet gentler spirit we see the same journey conceived in a
vase-painting from lower Italy. Here there is a look of gentleness
on Hades’ face; the bride accompanies him gladly, and even takes an
affectionate farewell of her mother, who appears to acquiesce in her
departure. In this case too Eros is flying above the horses, and is
turned towards the lovers, while in front of him there flies a dove,
the bird sacred to the goddess of love. Hecate with torches guides the
steeds; near at hand waits Hermes to escort the procession; and above
the whole scene the stars are shining, as if to indicate the new life
in the region of death.

‘In another form, exalted to a yet higher holiness, the same marriage
is repeated in the sphere of Dionysus-worship. Thus on a cameo in the
Vatican, Dionysus is represented driving with his bride, Ariadne, in
a brightly-decked triumphal car. Holy rapture is manifested on the
features of both, and on top of the chariot stands a Cupid directing
it. Dionysus is arrayed in the doe-skin, and holds in his left hand
a _thyrsus_, in his right a goblet; Ariadne is carrying ears of corn
and poppy-heads, and has her hair wreathed with vine-leaves. The car
is drawn by Centaurs of both sexes, with torches, drinking-horns,
and musical instruments. The idea which underlies this scene is the
reproduction of Life out of Death; Hades has issued forth again for
a new marriage-bond with Kore in the realm of light, appearing now
rejuvenated in the form of Dionysus, just as his bride assumes the form
of Ariadne, and because the power of death is broken behind him, his
car likewise becomes a triumphal car.

‘Just as the marriage of Zeus in the realm of light became a type for
men in this life, so the marriage of Hades, or of Dionysus representing
him, developed into a similar prototype for the dead. Since that which
is true of Death bears directly upon the actual dead, it was quite
natural that gradually the process of death came to be considered in
general as a wedding with the deities of death. With this conception
too harmonize those wedding-scenes which are so common and conspicuous
on funeral monuments, as well as the often-recurring scenes from the
joyous cycle of Dionysus-myths[1510].’
Two brief comments may be made upon this passage. First, Furtwängler
clearly recognises in Dionysus a mere substitute for Hades, and thus
confirms my interpretation of the strange legend concerning Dionysus
and Prosymnus[1511]. We noticed that the somewhat obscure observation
of Heraclitus (as quoted by Clement) upon that story contained the
words ‘Dionysus and Hades are one and the same’; and we now see that
in art too the same identification was made, and that the marriage of
a mortal with Dionysus was used to typify the future marriage of the
dead with their gods. The reason for this identification seems simply
to be that the cults in which the two gods figured, although differing
in outward form, were felt to express one and the same idea--namely the
conception of death as a form of marriage; and the tendency to identify
in such cases was carried so far that the god Dionysus was even, we are
told, identified with the mortal Adonis[1512], presumably because the
worship of each, as I have shown above, turned upon this one cardinal
doctrine.

Secondly, Furtwängler points out that the marriage of Zeus and Hera
represented for living men the same doctrine as the marriage of Hades
and Persephone (or of Dionysus and Ariadne) represented for the dead.
The truth of this is well illustrated by the close resemblance between
Aristophanes’ picture of Hera’s wedding and those funeral monuments
and vases which Furtwängler describes; for there too ‘golden-winged
Eros held firm the reins, and drave the wedding-car of Zeus and blessed
Hera[1513].’ In other words, this Olympian marriage was only one among
several mystic marriages which all conveyed, though in diverse form,
the same lesson, that marriage was the perfection of divine life no
less than of human life, and therefore that hereafter when men, or at
any rate the blessed and initiated among men, should come to dwell with
their gods, no bond of communion between gods and men could be perfect
short of the marriage-bond.

It was natural enough that the drama of Hera’s wedding with Zeus should
most often have been chosen to be played at an ordinary wedding,
because it would not obtrude thoughts of death upon a joyous event
with such insistence as most of the other religious legends which
reposed upon the same fundamental doctrine; but sometimes, we know, it
was the priestesses of Demeter who officiated at wedding-ceremonies,
and in those cases it cannot be doubted that it was Persephone and not
Hera who was the divine prototype of the bride, and the thought that
her wedding was a wedding with the god of death could not have been
excluded. At funerals, on the other hand, the story of Zeus and Hera
which was preferred at weddings owing to its less obvious allusion to
death, would for that same reason have found less favour than those
other marriage-legends in which the identity of death with marriage
was more clearly enunciated; and of these, owing to the exceptional
reverence in which the Eleusinian mysteries were held, the story of
Persephone seems to have been among the most frequent. Yet in the
picture drawn by Aristophanes at which we have just glanced, for one
subtle touch which suggests the connexion of Hera’s wedding with human
weddings, there is another subtle touch which suggests its relation
with human death. The first is an epithet applied to Eros who drove the
wedding-car--the epithet ἀμφιθαλής, used of one who has both parents
living[1514]. The allusion to human weddings is clear. It was no doubt
imperative in old time, as it still is, in Greece, that anyone who
attended upon a bride or bridegroom, as for instance the bearer of
water for the bridal bath, should have both parents living; and the
use of the same term in reference to Eros, the attendant upon Zeus
and Hera, marks the intimate connexion between the divine marriage
and the marriage of living men and women. But another epithet in the
passage conveys no less clear an allusion to the marriage of those,
whom men call dead, with their deities. Hera is named εὐδαίμων, a word
which, meaning ‘favoured by God,’ may seem strangely applied to one
who herself was divine[1515]. But it was selected by Aristophanes for
a good reason; by the word εὐδαιμονία was commonly denoted that future
bliss which the initiated believed to consist in wedlock with their
deities. Like θεοφιλής, ‘god-beloved,’ the term εὐδαίμων, ‘blessed,’
was, so to speak, a catch-word of the mysteries[1516]; and the
application of it to Hera in Aristophanes’ ode brings the legend of
Hera’s marriage into rank with those other wedding-stories whose actual
plot hinged upon the identity of death and marriage. Thus though one
legend might be more appropriate in its externals to one occasion, and
another legend to another occasion, the ultimate and fundamental idea
of them all was single and the same.

This view is boldly championed by the second authority whom I proposed
to quote upon the subject of mystic marriage-scenes depicted on
funeral-monuments. ‘The idea,’ says Lenormant, ‘of mystic union
in death is frequently indicated in the scenes represented upon
_sarcophagi_ and painted vases. But for the most part the idea is
expressed there only in an allusive manner, which depends upon the
identification which this marriage-scene established between the dead
person and the deity, by means of such subjects as the carrying off
of Cephalus by Aurora, or Orithyia by Boreas, or the love-story of
Aphrodite and Adonis[1517].’ ‘Thus,’ he explains, ‘a girl carried
off (by death) from her parents was simply a bride betrothed to the
infernal god, and was identified with Demeter’s maiden daughter, the
victim of the passion and violence of Hades; a young man cut off by an
early fate figured as the beautiful Adonis, snatched away by Persephone
from the love of Aphrodite, and brought, in spite of himself, to the
bed of the queen of the lower world[1518].’ The identification which
Lenormant sees in these several instances is an identification, I
suppose, not of personalities but of destinies. The popular religion
of ancient Greece shows little trace of any pantheistic view which
would have contemplated the absorption of the personality of the dead
man or woman into that of any god or goddess. Indeed the very number
of the personally distinct deities with whom, on such an hypothesis,
the dead would have been identified, as well as that continuance of
sexual difference in the future life which is postulated by the very
doctrine before us, precludes all thought of personal identification.
Rather it is the future destiny of the dead person which was identified
with the destiny of the deity or hero whose marriage was represented on
sarcophagus or _cippus_ or commemorative vase[1519]. The lot of Kore or
Ariadne or Orithyia prefigured the lot of mortal women hereafter; the
fortunes of Adonis or Cephalus typified those of mortal men; and all
the marriage-scenes alike, whatever the differences of presentation,
revealed the hope and the promise of wedlock hereafter between mankind
and their deities.

But Lenormant mentions one vase-painting[1520] in which this
fundamental doctrine is taught not by parables of mythology, but more
overtly and directly. The scene depicted is the marriage of a youth,
whose name, Polyetes, is in pathetic contrast with his short span of
years spent upon earth, with a goddess Eudaemonia (or ‘Bliss’) in the
lower world. In this deity Lenormant sees ‘the infernal goddess under
an euphemistic name.’ Nor could any more significant name have been
used. It has already been pointed out that εὐδαιμονία was a term much
favoured by the initiated in the mysteries, and was openly used by them
to denote that future bliss which secretly was understood to consist in
divine wedlock. Hence the scene upon this vase would at once suggest to
those who were familiar with the doctrines of the mysteries, that the
youth, being presumably of the number of the initiated, had found in
death the realisation of his happy hopes and had entered into blissful
union with the goddess of the lower world.

       *       *       *       *       *

To sum up briefly: we have seen alike in the literature of ancient
Greece and in the folk-songs of modern Greece that death has commonly
been conceived by the Hellenic race in the guise of a wedding; a review
of marriage-customs and funeral-customs both ancient and modern has
re-affirmed the constant association of death and marriage, and has
shown how deep-rooted in the minds of the common people that idea must
have been which produced a deliberate assimilation of funeral-rites
to the ceremonies of marriage. Next we investigated the connexion
of the mysteries with the popular religion, and saw reason to hold
that, far from being subversive of it or alien to it, they inculcated
doctrines which were wholly evolved from vaguer popular ideas always
current in Greece. Finally we traced in many of those legends, on which
the dramatic representations of the mysteries are known to have been
based, a common _motif_, the idea that death is the entrance for men
into a blissful estate of wedded union with their deities. And this
religious ideal not only satisfies the condition of agreement with,
and evolution from, those popular views in which death figured somewhat
vaguely as a form of wedding, but also proves to be the natural and
necessary outcome of two religious sentiments with which earlier
chapters have dealt; first, the ardent desire for close communion with
the gods, and secondly, the belief that men’s bodies as well as their
souls survived death and dissolution; for if the body by means of its
disintegration rejoined the soul in the nether world, and the human
entity was then complete, enjoying the same substantial existence,
the same physical no less than mental powers, which it had enjoyed in
the upper world, and which the immortal gods enjoyed uninterrupted by
death, then, since the same rite of marriage was the consummation both
of divine life and of human life, men’s yearning for close communion
with their gods required for its ideal and perfect satisfaction the
full union of wedlock; and the sacrament which assured men of this
consummation was the highest development of the whole Greek religion,
the mysteries.

Such a sacrament and such aspirations might well have offended even
those Christians of early days, if such there were, who were willing to
deal sympathetically with paganism; that those who were its declared
enemies, and were ready to use against it the weapons of perversion and
vituperation, found in this conception a vulnerable point, is readily
understood. It is true indeed that in the very idea which they most
vilified there was a certain curious analogy between the new religion
and the old. Just as paganism allowed to each man or woman individually
the hope of becoming the bridegroom or the bride of one of their many
deities, so Christianity represented the Church, the whole body of the
faithful collectively, as the bride of its sole deity. But the analogy
is superficial only. The bond of feeling which united the Church with
God was very differently conceived from that which drew together the
pagans and their deities. The chastened ‘charity’ (ἀγάπη) of the
Christians had little in common with the passionate love (ἔρως) with
which the Greeks of old time had dared look upon their gods. Theirs
was the Love that ‘held firm the reins and drave the wedding-car of
Zeus and blessed Hera[1521]’; the Love that hovered above the steeds
of Hades and changed for Persephone the road of death into a road to
bliss; the Love whom ‘no immortal may escape nor any of mankind whose
life passeth it as a day, but whoso hath him is as one mad[1522]’; and
the only true consummation of such love was wedlock.

This conception necessarily implied the equality of men with their gods
in the future life; and that future equality was sometimes represented
as no more than a return to that which was in the beginning. ‘One is
the race of men with the race of gods; for one is the mother that gave
to both our breath; yet are they sundered by powers wholly diverse, in
that mankind is as naught, but heaven is builded of brass that abideth
ever unshaken[1523].’ So sang Pindar of the past and of the present;
but the Orphic tablet which has been already quoted carries on the
thought into the future:

    ‘Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below,
    Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal.
    For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race,
    But Fate laid me low....’

So far with Pindar. But the dead man’s claims do not end there: ‘I was
admitted to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld’; already
had he received a foretaste of that divine wedlock which implied
equality with the gods; and so there comes the answer, ‘Happy and
Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’

This idea commended itself even to thinkers who did not believe in
bodily survival after death. Plato, in the _Phaedo_, where above all
things is taught the perishable nature of the body and the immortality
of the soul alone, yet avails himself of the belief that the pure among
mankind shall attain even to godhead hereafter. To him the pure are
not the initiated indeed, but the earnest strivers after wisdom. In
his theory of retributive metempsychosis he surmises that those who
have followed the lusts of the flesh shall hereafter enter the ranks of
asses and other lustful beasts; that those who have wrought violence
shall enter the ranks of wolves and hawks and kites; that those who
have practised what is popularly accounted virtue, but without true
understanding, shall enter the ranks of harmless and social creatures,
bees, wasps, and ants, or even the ranks of men once more. ‘But
into the ranks of gods none may enter without having followed after
wisdom and so departing hence wholly pure--none save the lover of
knowledge[1524].’ What precise meaning Plato attached to his phrase
‘to enter the ranks’ (εἰς γένος ἐνδύεσθαι or ἀφικνεῖσθαι), to which
he adheres throughout the passage, is a question which agitated the
Neoplatonists[1525] somewhat needlessly. The phrase is intended either
literally throughout or allegorically throughout. If it be allegorical,
the meaning must be that all human souls shall enter again into human
bodies, but that they shall start this new phase of existence with the
qualities of lust, violence, respectability, or real virtue and purity,
acquired in the previous life--merely resembling, as nearly as men may,
asses, wolves, bees, or gods. Now as regards the first three classes,
this allegorical interpretation, if a little forced, is feasible
enough; but what of the fourth class? Shall the soul which has attained
purity, the very negation of fleshliness in Plato’s view, suffer
re-incarnation and struggle once more against the flesh? Surely the
allegorical explanation is at once condemned. The phrase was intended
literally[1526]. Plato signified the re-incarnation of the lustful,
the violent, and the merely respectable, in the forms of animals of
like character, and he signified--I must not say the re-incarnation,
for Plato’s gods were spiritual and not carnal--but the regeneration
of the pure in the form of gods. And in the same spirit Plutarch too
contemplated the possibility of some men’s souls becoming first heroes,
and from heroes rising to the rank of ‘daemons,’ and from ‘daemons’
coming to share, albeit but rarely, in real godhead[1527].

Thus even the highest aspirations of the most spiritually-minded of
pagan thinkers owed much to the purely popular religion. The Orphic
tablet links up the popular conception of death as a wedding with the
Platonic conception of the deification of the soul. ‘I was admitted to
the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the underworld’: ‘Happy and Blessed
One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’

But if Plato, even in his conception of a purely spiritual life
hereafter, owed something to the popular religion, he drew upon it
far more freely in his conception of Love. In the _Symposium_ one
speech after another culminates in the assertion of that belief which
found its highest expression in the mysteries. ‘So then I say,’ says
Phaedrus, ‘that Love is the most venerable of the gods, the most
worthy of honour, the most powerful to grant virtue and blessedness
unto mankind both in life and after death[1528].’ And in the same tone
too Eryximachus: ‘He it is that wields the mightiest power and is
the source for us of all blessedness and of our power to have loving
fellowship both with one another and with the gods that are stronger
than we[1529].’ And finally Aristophanes: It is Love, ‘who in this
present life gives us most joys by drawing like unto like, and for our
hereafter displays hopes most high, if we for our part display piety
towards the gods, that he will restore us to our erstwhile nature and
will heal us and will make us happy and blessed[1530].’

This is not Platonic philosophy but popular religion. Phrase after
phrase reveals the origin of this conception of Love. The hopes most
high were the hopes held forth by the mysteries; the blessedness and
the loving fellowship with gods were the fulfilment of those hopes.
In such language did men ever hint at the joys to which their mystic
sacraments gave access. And Plato here ventures yet further. The author
of those high hopes, the founder of that blessedness, he proclaims, is
none other than Love--Love that appealed not to the soul only of the
initiated, but to the whole man, both soul and body--Love that meant
not only the yearning after wisdom and holiness and spiritual equality
with the gods, but that same passion which drew together man and woman,
god and goddess--the passion of mankind for their deities, fed in this
life by manifold means of communion and even by sacramental union,
satisfied hereafter in the full fruition of wedded bliss.


FOOTNOTES:

[1358] _Il._ XI. 241.

[1359] Hes. _W. and D._ 116.

[1360] e.g. Hom. _Il._ XVI. 454 and 672; XIV. 231.

[1361] Hes. _Theog._ 212, 756.

[1362] See Preller, _Griech. Myth._ I. 690 ff.

[1363] Paus. V. 18. 1. Cf. III. 18. 1.

[1364] Passow, _Popul. Carm._ CCCXCVI.

[1365] Hom. _Od._ XXIV. 1.

[1366] Virg. _Aen._ IV. 242 ff.

[1367] See above, pp. 96 ff. and pp. 134 ff.

[1368] Paus. VIII. 2. 5.

[1369] Paus. _ibid._ § 4.

[1370] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 364.

[1371] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 374.

[1372] The word χαρὰ, (‘joy’), as I have pointed out elsewhere, is
indeed often used technically of marriage.

[1373] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 38 (ll. 13-18) and also nos. 65, 152,
180.

[1374] See above, pp. 255 ff.

[1375] Abbott, _Macedon. Folklore_, p. 255.

[1376] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 370. The phrase κάνει χαρὰ, which I
have inadequately rendered as ‘maketh glad,’ is technically used of
marriage. See above, p. 127.

[1377] For authorities see Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ I. pp. 76 ff.

[1378] Soph. _Antig._ 574-5. I do not know how much stress may be laid
on the repetition of the pronoun ὅδε in these two lines (viz. στερήσεις
τῆσδε and τούσδε τοὺς γάμους); but the lines follow closely on that
in which Creon bids Ismene speak no more of Antigone as ἥδε, and an
ironical stress might well be laid by Creon on the word τούσδε as he
uses it, which would suggest to his audience its antithesis τοὺς ἐκεὶ
γάμους.

[1379] Soph. _Antig._ 804-5.

[1380] _ibid._ 810-16.

[1381] _ibid._ 891-2.

[1382] _ibid._ 1203-7.

[1383] _ibid._ 1240-1.

[1384] Pindar, _Fragm._ 139 (Bergk).

[1385] Aesch. _Prom._ 940 ff.

[1386] _Oneirocr._ II. 49. The word τέλη denotes here not merely a
‘rite,’ but a ‘consummation’ by which a man becomes τέλειος. See below,
p. 591.

[1387] _ibid._ I. 80. To translate the passage more fully is not
convenient; I append the original: θεῷ δὲ ἢ θεᾷ μιγῆναι ἢ ὑπὸ θεοῦ
περανθῆναι νοσοῦντι μὲν θάνατον σημαίνει· τότε γὰρ ἡ ψυχὴ τὰς τῶν θεῶν
συνόδους τε καὶ μίξεις μαντεύεται, ὅταν ἐγγὺς ᾖ τοῦ καταλιπεῖν τὸ σῶμα
ᾧ ἐνοικεῖ.

[1388] _ibid._ II. 65.

[1389] _Oneirocr._ II. 49.

[1390] The majority of the references to ancient usage given below are
borrowed from Becker’s _Charicles_.

[1391] Thuc. II. 15.

[1392] Eur. _Phoen._ 347.

[1393] Aeschines, _Epist._ X. p. 680.

[1394] Cf. Pollux, III. 43.

[1395] Soph. _Antig._ 901.

[1396] _De Luctu_, 11.

[1397] Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, p. 193.

[1398] For a discussion of this point see Becker, _Charicles_ pp. 483-4.

[1399] Harpocrat. s.v. λουτροφόρος. ἔθος δὲ ἦν καὶ τοῖς ἀγάμοις
ἀποθανοῦσι λουτροφορεῖν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ μνῆμα ἐφίστασθαι. τοῦτο δὲ ἦν παῖς
ὑδρίαν ἔχων. The same words are repeated by Photius and Suidas. With
ἐφίστασθαι it appears necessary to supply λουτροφόρον. Cf. Pollux VIII.
66 τῶν δ’ ἀγάμων λουτροφόρος τῷ μνήματι ἐφίστατο, κόρη ἀγγεῖον ἔχουσα
ὑδροφόρον.... For other references see Becker, _Charicles_ p. 484. This
information, as regards the emblem used, is held to be incorrect. The
λουτροφόρος was not a boy bearing a pitcher, but the pitcher itself.
See Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. V. p. 388.

[1400] For this view see Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. V. p. 389. ‘It may
be suggested that originally the custom of placing a water-pitcher on
the grave of unmarried persons ... may have been meant to help them to
obtain in another world the happiness they had missed in this. In fact
it may have been part of a ceremony designed to provide the dead maiden
or bachelor with a spouse in the spirit land. Such ceremonies have
been observed in various parts of the world by peoples, who, like the
Greeks, esteemed it a great misfortune to die unmarried.’

[1401] _Plut._ 529.

[1402] Cf. Lucian, _de Luctu_ 11.

[1403] For a discussion of the point in relation to funerals see
Becker, _Charicles_ pp. 385 f. and in relation to marriage pp. 486 f.

[1404] Lucian, _de Luctu_ 11.

[1405] I. 6.

[1406] Cf. Passow, _Popul. Carm. Graec. Recent._ no. 415, and
Tournefort, _Voyage du Levant_, I. p. 153, who describes a dead woman,
whose funeral he witnessed, as ‘parée à la Gréque de ses habits de
nôces.’

[1407] Passow, _Popul. Carm._ 378.

[1408] _Charicles_ p. 487.

[1409] Lucian, _de Luctu_ 11. Aristoph. _Lysist._ 602 etc.

[1410] The influence of the Church was against the use of garlands in
early times and perhaps suppressed it in some districts. Cf. Minucius,
p. 109 ‘Nec mortuos coronamus. Ergo vos (the heathen) in hoc magis
miror, quemadmodum tribuatis exanimi aut [non] sentienti facem aut
non sentienti coronam: cum et beatus non egeat, et miser non gaudeat
floribus.’ The first _non_ is clearly to be deleted.

[1411] Cf. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, p. 193.

[1412] Cf. _ibid._ p. 197.

[1413] Hom. _Hymn. in Demet._ 372 ff. Hence the pomegranate was treated
as ‘an accursed thing’ in the worship of Demeter at Lycosura, Paus.
VIII. 37. 7.

[1414] Paus. II. 17. 4.

[1415] See above, p. 548.

[1416] See above, p. 80.

[1417] The following references are in the main taken from Lobeck,
_Aglaophamus_.

[1418] Soph. _Fragm._ 719 (Dind.).

[1419] Hom. _Hymn. ad Cer._ 480 ff.

[1420] Pind. _Fragm._ 137 (Bergk).

[1421] Id. _Fragm._ 129. See above, p. 518.

[1422] Aristoph. _Ranae_ 440-459.

[1423] Isocr. _Paneg._ p. 46.

[1424] _Aglaoph._ I. p. 70.

[1425] περὶ εἰρήνης, p. 166.

[1426] Aristid. _Eleusin._ 259 (454).

[1427] Julian. _Or._ VII. 238. The same story in similar words recurs
in Diog. Laert. VI. 39 and Plut. _de Aud. Poet._ II. p. 21 F.

[1428] Crinagoras, _Ep._ XXX.

[1429] Cic. _de Leg._ II. § 36.

[1430] _Mathem._ I. p. 18, ed. Buller.

[1431] _Aglaoph._ I. pp. 39 f.

[1432] See Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ I. pp. 6 ff.

[1433] Diodorus, v. 77. Cf. Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion_, p. 567.

[1434] For references on this point, see Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, I. 14
ff.

[1435] For the evidence that the Achaeans adopted the language of the
Pelasgians, and not _vice versâ_, see Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_,
vol. I. p. 631 ff.

[1436] _Protrept._ § 55.

[1437] Hom. _Il._ I. 221 f.

[1438] Euseb. _Demonstr. Evang._ V. 1, 268 E.

[1439] _Praep. Evang._ XV. 1, 788 C.

[1440] Προτρεπτ. § 61.

[1441] Synes. _de Prov._ II. 124 B.

[1442] Cf. Artemid. _Oneirocr._ Bk III. cap. 61.

[1443] In Thera, as I myself witnessed, and until recently at Delphi.
Greeks with whom I have spoken of this custom have often seen or heard
of it somewhere.

[1444] I regret that my notes contain no mention of my informant’s
name. I must apologise to him for the omission.

[1445] Asterius, _Encom. in SS. Martyr._ in Migne, _Patrolog.
Graeco-Lat._ vol. XL. p. 324.

[1446] _Adv. Valentin._ cap. I.

[1447] Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._ IV. 11. Cf. Sainte-Croix, _Recherches
sur les Mystères_, 2nd ed., I. p. 366.

[1448] _loc. cit._

[1449] [Origen] _Philosophumena_, p. 115 (ed. Miller), p. 170 (ed.
Cruice). Cf. Miss J. Harrison, _Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig._ p. 549.

[1450] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ II. 18.

[1451] Dieterich, _Eine Mithras-Liturgie_, p. 125, cited by Miss J.
Harrison, _Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig._ p. 155, note 3.

[1452] Hesiod, _Theog._ 970 f. Cf. Hom. _Od._ V. 125.

[1453] Theocr. _Id._ III. 49 ff. (A. Lang’s translation).

[1454] Plutarch, _de fac. in orb. lun._ 28, cited by Miss Harrison,
_Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig._ p. 267.

[1455] See above, pp. 91 f. and 96 ff.

[1456] Theocr. _Id._ III. 46 ff.

[1457] _Protrept._ § 14.

[1458] Theocr. _Id._ XV. 86.

[1459] _Orph. Hymn._ LVI.; Bion, _Id._ I. 5. 54; Lucian, _Dial. deor._
XI. 1; Macrob. _Saturn._ I. 21; Procop. _in Esai._ XVIII. p. 258. Cf.
Lenormant, _Monogr. de la voie sacrée éleusin._, where many other
references are given.

[1460] Dem. Κατὰ Νεαίρας, pp. 1369-1371 _et passim_. Cf. Arist. Ἀθην.
Πολ. 3.

[1461] _Etymol. Mag._ 227. 36.

[1462] Hesych. s.v. γεραραί.

[1463] See above, pp. 339 ff.

[1464] Plutarch, _de defectu orac._ cap. 14 (p. 417).

[1465] See above, p. 139.

[1466] Not so, however, to Artemidorus. Cf. _Oneirocr._ I. 80.

[1467] _Protrept._ § 34.

[1468] _l. c._

[1469] _Protrept._ § 16.

[1470] Theophr. _Char._ 28 (ed. Jebb).

[1471] _l. c._

[1472] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ II. 15.

[1473] The cymbal certainly belonged to Demeter also (see Miss
Harrison, _op. cit._ p. 562) but not, I think, the kettle-drum.

[1474] Psellus (_Quaenam sunt Graecorum opiniones de daemonibus_, 3,
ed. Migne) refers the formulary to the rites of Demeter and Kore. But
I cannot agree with Miss J. Harrison (_Prolegomena to the Study of
Greek Religion_, p. 569) as to the importance of Psellus’ testimony
in any respect. He appears to me to give no more than a _résumé_ of
information derived from Clement’s _Protreptica_, misunderstood and
even more confused.

[1475] Paus. II. 17. 3.

[1476] Miss J. Harrison, _op. cit._ p. 536, commenting on
_Philosophumena_, ed. Cruice, v. 3.

[1477] A title under which both Zeus and Hermes were known; see
Aristoph. _Pax_, 42, and Schol. _ibid._ 649.

[1478] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ § 54.

[1479] Athen. VI. p. 253 A. Shortly afterwards he quotes a song (253
D) in which it is the name of Demeter which is coupled with that of
Demetrius.

[1480] Athen. VI. 253 A, and 261 B.

[1481] Glycon was Alexander’s new god, a re-incarnation of Asclepius,
born in the form of a snake out of an egg discovered by Alexander.

[1482] A superstitious old Roman entrapped by Alexander.

[1483] Lucian, _Alexander seu Pseudomantis_, cap. 38-39 (II. 244 ff.).

[1484] See Miss J. Harrison, _op. cit._ pp. 549 ff.

[1485] Paton, _Inscr. of Cos_, 386, cited by Rouse, _Greek Votive
Offerings_, p. 246.

[1486] Plutarch, _Conjug. Praec. ad init._

[1487] Schol. _ad Soph. Antig._ 1241.

[1488] Photius, _Lex. Rhet._ Vol. II. p. 670 (ed. Porson), cited by
Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, I. p. 245.

[1489] For the chief references, see Farnell, _loc. cit._

[1490] Farnell, _op. cit._ p. 191.

[1491] Diod. Sic. V. 73; Pollux III. 38. Cf. Farnell, _op. cit._ p. 246.

[1492] Pollux, _l. c._ ταύτῃ (τῇ Ἤρᾳ) τοῖς προτελείοις προὐτέλουν τὰς
κόρας.

[1493] Cf. Plutarch, _Amator. Narrat._ 1, where the girls of Haliartus
are said to have bathed themselves in the spring Cissoessa immediately
before making the sacrifices just mentioned, and evidently as part of
the same ritual.

[1494] [Aeschines] _Epist._ 10, p. 680.

[1495] Chariton IV. 4.

[1496] _Gorgias_, p. 493 B.

[1497] Frazer, _ad Pausan._ X. 31. 9 (vol. V. p. 389).

[1498] I cannot pretend to have gone into the whole literature of the
subject, but I find no reference to this passage either in Dr Frazer’s
_Pausanias_, _l. c._, or in Miss Harrison’s _Proleg. to Study of Gk
Relig._ pp. 614 ff., where the same topic is fully discussed.

[1499] Lucian, _Dial. Marin._ 6. 3.

[1500] Eustath. _ad Hom. Il._ XXIII. 141.

[1501] _Anthol. Pal._ VII. 507.

[1502] For other examples see Lenormant, _Monographie de la voie sacrée
éleusinienne_, pp. 50 f., where also the above example is quoted.

[1503] Auson. _Epitaph._ no. 33.

[1504] _Prolegomena to Study of Gk Religion_, pp. 573 ff.

[1505] _op. cit._ p. 586; Kaibel, _C.I.G.I.S._, 641.

[1506] See above, p. 586.

[1507] See above, p. 586.

[1508] See above, p. 589.

[1509] I am forced by these considerations to dissent from Miss
Harrison’s view as expressed _op. cit._ p. 594, ‘Here the symbolism
seems to be of birth rather than of marriage,’ and again ‘this rite of
birth or adoption ...’: and indeed this view seems hardly to tally with
that which she suggests later (p. 600), “Burial itself may well have
been to them (the Pythagoreans) as to Antigone a mystic marriage: ‘I
have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.’”

[1510] Furtwängler, _Die Idee des Todes_, p. 293.

[1511] See above, p. 585.

[1512] Plutarch, _Sympos._ IV. 5. 3.

[1513] Aristoph. _Aves_, 1737.

[1514] Cf. Schol. _ad Aristoph._ _l. c._

[1515] This, I am aware, is not an unique case. Plato applies the same
epithet to the gods as a whole, but above all to Eros, clearly, I
think, with something of the same significance. See Plato, _Sympos._ §
21, p. 195 A.

[1516] Cf. Theo Smyrnaeus, _Math._ I. 18; Aristid. _Eleusin._ p. 415;
Plato, _Phaedrus_, p. 48.

[1517] Lenormant, _Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne_, p. 54.

[1518] _l. c._

[1519] For a long list of such monuments dealing with the story of
Persephone, see Clarac, _Musée de Sculpt. anc. at mod._--‘Bas-reliefs
Grecs et Romains,’ pp. 209-10.

[1520] _Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne_, p. 56.

[1521] Aristoph. _Aves_, 1737.

[1522] Soph. _Antig._ 787 ff.

[1523] Pind. _Nem._ VI. _init._

[1524] Plato, _Phaedo_, cap. 32, p. 82 B, C.

[1525] See Geddes’ notes _ad loc._

[1526] For other evidence confirming this view, see Geddes’ notes _ad
loc._

[1527] Plutarch, _de defect. orac._ cap. 10, p. 415.

[1528] Plato, _Symp._ § 7, p. 180.

[1529] _ibid._ § 15, p. 188.

[1530] _ibid._ § 19, p. 193.




GENERAL INDEX


  Ablutions, at weddings and at funerals, 555

  Aborigines, regarded as wizards, 248;
    their relations with invaders, 244

  Absolution, and dissolution, 401;
    of the dead, 396 ff.

  Achaeans, religion of, 521 f.

  Adonis, story of, 582;
    story of, how interpreted, 580;
    as type of the initiated, 582

  Aeschylus, popular beliefs utilised by, 437 ff., 459 f.;
    religious sympathies of, 523

  Aetolus, story of, 273

  Agamemnon, as _revenant_, 438

  Alastor, application of word, 465 ff.;
    as proper name (in Homer), 473;
    as term of abuse, 477;
    derivation of word, 471;
    development of meaning of word, 475 f.;
    meaning of, 476;
    original meaning of, 472

  Alastores, 462 ff.;
    not originally deities, 467 ff.

  Allatius, on _vrykolakes_, 364 ff.

  Amorgos, oracle of, 332

  Amulets, 12-13, 21, 140

  Amymone, story of, 593

  Ancient language, attempted revival of, 30

  Angels, exorcism of, 68;
    good and bad, 288;
    worship of, 42

  Animals, unlucky species of, 307

  Anointing, of the dead, 557

  Anthropomorphic conception of God, 52

  Antigone, as ‘bride of Acheron,’ 551

  Antiphon, on blood-guilt, 443

  Aphrodite, 117-120;
    ‘eldest of the Fates,’ 120;
    mystic rites of, 580

  Apis, story of, 459

  Apollonius of Tyana, 257

  Apostasy, 409

  Apple, symbolic usage of, 558

  ‘Arabs’ (a class of demons), 211, 276 f.;
    identified with _vrykolakes_ (q.v.), 277

  Ariadne, story of, how represented on sepulchral monuments, 598

  Aristomenes, 76

  Arrogance of Greeks, 29

  Art, in relation to religion, 1

  Artemidorus, on death and marriage, 553 ff.

  Artemis, 163-171;
    as huntress, 165;
    as the Moon, 165;
    bathing of, 164-5;
    displaced by S. Artemidos, 44;
    modern character of, 169;
    offerings to, 170

  Asclepius, in serpent-form, 274 f.;
    re-incarnation of, in mock-mysteries, 589

  Ass-centaurs, 235 and 237 f.

  Athene, and the owl, 207;
    succeeded by Virgin Mary, 45

  Athenians, religious sympathies of, 523

  Attis, 586

  Augury (_see_ Auspices)

  August, certain days sacred to Nymphs, 152

  Auspices, 308 ff.;
    affected by number, 313;
    from any movement of birds, 311;
    from cry of birds, 311;
    from flight of birds, 311;
    from posture of birds, 311;
    modified by position of observer, 312

  Avengers, dead persons as, 438

  Avengers of Blood, ancient names for, 462 ff.;
    their resemblance to modern _vrykolakes_, 458

  Axe, double-headed, as religious symbol, 72


  ‘Baboutzicarios,’ 217

  Bacchic rites, 38

  Baptism, exorcisms at, 15;
    neglect of, 409

  Beast-dances, 224 ff.

  Bed-chambers, in temples, 587

  Beehive tombs, original use of, 94

  Bells, worn at popular festivals, 224 ff.

  ‘Binding’ and ‘loosing,’ 397

  Binding-spells, 19;
    means of loosing, 19

  Birds, as messengers, in modern ballads, 316 f.;
    as messengers of particular gods, 309;
    colloquial application of word, 315;
    in popular ballads, 315;
    still acknowledged as messengers of heaven, 315;
    which classes observed for auspices (q.v.), 308 f.;
    why selected for divination, 308

  Black-handled knife, as charm, 286

  Blessing the waters, 197

  Blood-guilt, ancient conception of, 451;
    Attic law concerning, 443;
    penalties for, 453;
    Plato’s legislation concerning, 444

  Blue beads, as amulets, 12

  Body and soul, relation of, 361 ff., 526 ff.;
    re-union of, 538

  Bones of the dead, how treated after exhumation, 540 f.

  Boreas, 52

  Breast-bone of fowl, divination from, 327

  Bridal customs (_see_ Wedding, Marriage)

  ‘Bridge of Arta,’ The, 262 f.

  _Brumalia_ (in Greece), 221

  Burial (_see also_ Cremation, Inhumation);
    demanded by ghosts, 431;
    lack of, 407 f., 427, 449;
    lack of, as punishment, 457

  Buzzing in ear, as omen, 329


  Callicantzari, 190-255;
    afraid of fire, 202;
    beast-like elements in, 203;
    compared with Centaurs, 253;
    demons or men?, 207-211;
    description of, 191;
    description of smaller species of, 193;
    development of superstition concerning, 254;
    dialectic forms of name, 211 ff.;
    footgear of, 221; general habits of, 194;
    how outwitted, 196-200;
    identified with Centaurs, 235;
    identified with were-wolves, 208;
    offerings to, 201, 232;
    originally anthropomorphic, 206;
    origin of name, 211 ff.;
    power of transformation possessed by, 204, 240;
    precautions against, 200-202;
    resembling Satyrs and Centaurs, 192;
    sources of their features and attributes, 237 ff.;
    stories concerning, 196-200;
    their activity limited to Christmastide, 221;
    their relation to Satyrs, etc., 229 ff.;
    two main classes of, 191;
    variously represented, 190;
    whether demons or men originally, 209 ff.;
    wives of, 200

  Callicantzaros, The Great, 195

  Callirrhoë, as sacred spring, 555

  Candles, thrown into grave at funeral, 512

  ‘Captain Thirteen,’ a folk-story, 75

  Carnival, celebrations of, 224 ff.

  Cat, jumping over dead person, 410;
    omens drawn from, 328

  Caves, haunted by Nymphs, 160

  Cenotaphs, 490

  Centauros, son of Ixion, 242

  Centaurs (_see_ Callicantzari), 190-255;
    and Lapithae, 242;
    as wizards, 248 f.;
    compared with Callicantzari, 253;
    general character of, 246;
    Heracles’ fight with, 253;
    how represented in Art, 247;
    in Hesiod, 242;
    in Homer, 243;
    in Pindar, 241;
    popular conception of, how affected by Art, 252;
    Prof. Ridgeway’s view of, 244 ff.;
    various species of, 235, 237;
    whether human or divine in origin, 241 ff.;
    why called ‘Beasts,’ 245 ff.

  Cephalus, 601

  Cerberus, 97, 99

  Character of modern Greeks, 28 ff.

  Charms, 286

  Charon, 98-117;
    addressed as ‘Saint,’ 53;
    ancient literary presentation of, 106;
    as ferryman, earliest mention of, 114;
    brother to Uranos, 116;
    identified with Death, 114

  Charon’s obol, 108, 285;
    as charm to prevent soul from re-entering body, 434;
    custom of, how interpreted, 405 f.

  Charos, appearance of, 100;
    as agent of God, 101-4;
    as archer, 105;
    as ferryman, 107;
    as godfather, story of, 102;
    as horseman, 105;
    as pirate, 107-8;
    as warrior, 105;
    as wrestler, 104, 105;
    Christianised character of, 101;
    coin as fee for, 109;
    functions of, 101;
    household of, 99;
    in connexion with Christianity, 101;
    originally Pelasgian deity, 116;
    pagan character of, 105

  Charun, Etruscan god, 116

  Child-birth, precautions against Nereids observed at, 140;
    precautions at, 10-11

  Children, conceived or born on Church-festivals, how afflicted, 408;
    liable to lycanthropy, 208;
    preyed upon by Gelloudes, 177;
    preyed upon by Striges, 181;
    stricken by Nereids, how treated, 145;
    suspected of lycanthropy, how treated, 210

  Chiron, 241 ff., 248;
    as magician and prophet, 248 f.

  Cholera, personified, 22

  Christ, accepted as new deity by pagans, 41

  ‘Christian,’ popular usage of word, 66

  Christianity, became polytheistic, 42;
    and paganism, 36

  Church, influenced by paganism, 572 f.

  Churching of women, 20

  Clement of Alexandria, on the Mysteries, 570, 572;
    on rites of Aphrodite, 581

  Clytemnestra, ghost of, 474

  Cock, as victim, 326

  Cocks, superstitions concerning, 195

  Coin, as charm, 111;
    placed in mouth of dead persons, 108, 405;
    placed in mouth of dead persons, various substitutes for, 112

  ‘Comforting,’ feast of, 533

  Common origin of gods and men, 65

  Communion with gods, philosophers’ views of, 296

  Conquering and conquered races, relations of, 244

  Conservatism, religious, 95, 295, 337

  ‘Constantine and Areté’ (ballad), 391 f.

  Continuity of Greek life and thought, 552

  Convention, literary, 429

  Corpse, re-animation of, 112 (_see_ Re-animation, Resuscitation)

  Corycian cave, 161

  Courage of Greeks, 28

  Cremation (_see also_ Funeral-rites), 485 ff.;
    ceremonial, 496, 512;
    ceremonial substitute for, 491;
    Christian attitude towards, 501;
    combined with inhumation, 494;
    disuse of, 501 f.;
    for disposing of _revenants_ in Ancient Greece, 416;
    for disposing of _vrykolakes_, 411;
    in theory preferable to inhumation, 488 f.;
    in recent times, 503;
    introduced by Achaeans, 491;
    motives for, 502 f.;
    preferred to inhumation, 500 f.;
    revival of, 502;
    serving same religious end as inhumation, 491 ff.

  Crockery broken at funerals, 520

  Crow, 309;
    exception to ordinary rules of divination, 310

  Curses, 387 ff., 409;
    diagnosed by their effects, 396;
    executed by demonic agents, 448;
    fixity of, 417;
    in Euripides, 418;
    in Sophocles, 419;
    operation of, 447;
    parental, 391 ff.;
    revoking of, 388 f.

  Custom-dues, for passage of soul to other world, 285

  Customs-officers, celestial, 284

  Cybele, rites of, 586


  Daemons, Plutarch’s theory of, 583 f.

  Danaids, as types of unmarried women, 592

  Dances, 34

  Dead, messages to the, 345;
    worship of the, 529 note 1




Creatures that once were Men.



PART I.

In front of you is the main street, with two rows of miserable looking
huts with shuttered windows and old walls pressing on each other and
leaning forward.  The roofs of these time-worn habitations are full of
holes, and have been patched here and there with laths; from underneath
them project mildewed beams, which are shaded by the dusty-leaved
elder-trees and crooked white willows--pitiable flora of those suburbs
inhabited by the poor.

The dull green time-stained panes of the windows look upon each other
with the cowardly glances of cheats. Through the street and towards the
adjacent mountain, runs the sinuous path, winding through the deep
ditches filled with rain-water.  Here and there are piled heaps of dust
and other rubbish--either refuse or else put there purposely to keep
the rain-water from flooding the houses. On the top of the mountain,
among green gardens with dense foliage, beautiful stone houses lie
hidden; the belfries of the churches rise proudly towards the sky, and
their gilded crosses shine beneath the rays of the sun. During the
rainy weather the neighbouring town pours its water into this main
road, which, at other times, is full of its dust, and all these
miserable houses seem, as it were, thrown by some powerful hand into
that heap of dust, rubbish, and rain-water.  They cling to the ground
beneath the high mountain, exposed to the sun, surrounded by decaying
refuse, and their sodden appearance impresses one with the same feeling
as would the half-rotten trunk of an old tree.

At the end of the main street, as if thrown out of the town, stood a
two-storied house, which had been rented from Petunikoff, a merchant
and resident of the town.  It was in comparatively good order, being
further from the mountain, while near it were the open fields, and
about half-a-mile away the river ran its winding course.

This large old house had the most dismal aspect amidst its
surroundings.  The walls bent outwards and there was hardly a pane of
glass in any of the windows, except some of the fragments which looked
like the water of the marshes--dull green.  The spaces of wall between
the windows were covered with spots, as if time were trying to write
there in hieroglyphics the history of the old house, and the tottering
roof added still more to its pitiable condition. It seemed as if the
whole building bent towards the ground, to await the last stroke of
that fate which should transform it into a chaos of rotting remains,
and finally into dust.

The gates were open, one half of them displaced and lying on the ground
at the entrance, while between its bars had grown the grass, which also
covered the large and empty court-yard.  In the depths of this yard
stood a low, iron-roofed, smoke-begrimed building.  The house itself
was of course unoccupied, but this shed, formerly a blacksmith's forge,
was now turned into a "dosshouse," kept by a retired Captain named
Aristid Fomich Kuvalda.

In the interior of the dosshouse was a long, wide and grimy board,
measuring some 28 by 70 feet.  The room was lighted on one side by four
small square windows, and on the other by a wide door.  The unpainted
brick walls were black with smoke, and the ceiling, which was built of
timber, was almost black.  In the middle stood a large stove, the
furnace of which served as its foundation, and around this stove and
along the walls were also long, wide boards, which served as beds for
the lodgers.  The walls smelt of smoke, the earthen floor of dampness,
and the long wide board of rotting rags.

The place of the proprietor was on the top of the stove, while the
boards surrounding it were intended for those who were on good terms
with the owner and who were honoured by his friendship.  During the day
the captain passed most of his time sitting on a kind of bench, made by
himself by placing bricks against the wall of the courtyard, or else in
the eating house of Egor Vavilovitch, which was opposite the house,
where he took all his meals and where he also drank vodki.

Before renting this house, Aristid Kuvalda had kept a registry office
for servants in the town.  If we look further back into his former
life, we shall find that he once owned printing works, and previous to
this, in his own words, he "just lived!  And lived well too, Devil take
it, and like one who knew how!"

He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of fifty, with a rawlooking face,
swollen with drunkenness, and with a dirty yellowish beard. His eyes
were large and grey, with an insolent expression of happiness.  He
spoke in a bass voice and with a sort of grumbling sound in his throat,
and he almost always held between his teeth a German china pipe with a
long bowl.  When he was angry the nostrils of his big crooked red nose
swelled, and his lips trembled, exposing to view two rows of large and
wolf-like yellow teeth.  He had long arms, was lame, and always dressed
in an old officer's uniform, with a dirty, greasy cap with a red band,
a hat without a brim, and ragged felt boots which reached almost to his
knees.  In the morning, as a rule, he had a heavy drunken headache, and
in the evening he caroused.  However much he drank, he was never drunk,
and so was always merry.

In the evenings he received lodgers, sitting on his brickmade bench
with his pipe in his mouth.

"Whom have we here?" he would ask the ragged and tattered object
approaching him, who had probably been chucked out of the town for
drunkenness, or perhaps for some other reason not quite so simple.  And
after the man had answered him, he would say, "Let me see legal papers
in confirmation of your lies."  And if there were such papers they were
shown.  The Captain would then put them in his bosom, seldom taking any
interest in them, and would say:

"Everything is in order.  Two kopecks for the night, ten kopecks for
the week, and thirty kopecks for the month.  Go and get a place for
yourself, and see that it is not other people's, or else they will blow
you up.  The people that live here are particular."

"Don't you sell tea, bread, or anything to eat?"

"I trade only in walls and roofs, for which I pay to the swindling
proprietor of this hole--Judas Petunikoff, merchant of the second
guild--five roubles a month," explained Kuvalda in a business-like
tone.  "Only those come to me who are not accustomed to comfort and
luxuries .... but if you are accustomed to eat every day, then there is
the eating-house opposite.  But it would be better for you if you left
off that habit.  You see you are not a gentleman.  What do you eat?
You eat yourself!"

For such speeches, delivered in a strictly business-like manner, and
always with smiling eyes, and also for the attention he paid to his
lodgers the Captain was very popular among the poor of the town.  It
very often happened that a former client of his would appear, not in
rags, but in something more respectable and with a slightly happier
face.

"Good-day, your honour, and how do you do?"

"Alive, in good health!  Go on."

"Don't you know me?"

"I did not know you."

"Do you remember that I lived with you last winter for nearly a month
.... when the fight with the police took place, and three were taken
away?"

"My brother, that is so.  The police do come even under my hospitable
roof!"

"My God!  You gave a piece of your mind to the police inspector of this
district!"

"Wouldn't you accept some small hospitality from me?  When I lived with
you, you were ..."

"Gratitude must be encouraged because it is seldom met with.  You seem
to be a good man, and, though I don't remember you, still I will go
with you into the public-house and drink to your success and future
prospects with the greatest pleasure."

"You seem always the same ...  Are you always joking?"

"What else can one do, living among you unfortunate men?"

They went.  Sometimes the Captain's former customer, uplifted and
unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse, and on the
following morning they would again begin treating each other till the
Captain's companion would wake up to realise that he had spent all his
money in drink.

"Your honour, do you see that I have again fallen into your hands?
What shall we do now?"

"The position, no doubt, is not a very good one, but still you need not
trouble about it," reasoned the Captain.  "You must, my friend, treat
everything indifferently, without spoiling yourself by philosophy, and
without asking yourself any question.  To philosophise is always
foolish; to philosophise with a drunken headache, ineffably so.
Drunken headaches require vodki and not the remorse of conscience or
gnashing of teeth ... save your teeth, or else you will not be able to
protect yourself.  Here are twenty kopecks.  Go and buy a bottle of
vodki for five kopecks, hot tripe or lungs, one pound of bread and two
cucumbers.  When we have lived off our drunken headache we will think
of the condition of affairs ..."

As a rule the consideration of the "condition of affairs" lasted some
two or three days, and only when the Captain had not a farthing left of
the three roubles or five roubles given him by his grateful customer
did he say:

"You came!  Do you see?  Now that we have drunk everything with you,
you fool, try again to regain the path of virtue and soberness.  It has
been truly said that if you do not sin, you will not repent, and, if
you do not repent, you shall not be saved.  We have done the first, and
to repent is useless.  Let us make direct for salvation.  Go to the
river and work, and if you think you cannot control yourself, tell the
contractor, your employer, to keep your money, or else give it to me.
When you get sufficient capital, I will get you a pair of trousers and
other things necessary to make you seem a respectable and hard-working
man, persecuted by fate.  With decent-looking trousers you can go far.
Now then, be off!"

Then the client would go to the river to work as a porter, smiling the
while over the Captain's long and wise speeches. He did not distinctly
understand them, but only saw in front of him two merry eyes, felt
their encouraging influence, and knew that in the loquacious Captain he
had an arm that would assist him in time of need.

And really it happened very often that, for a month or so, some
ticket-of-leave client, under the strict surveillance of the Captain,
had the opportunity of raising himself to a condition better than that
to which, thanks to the Captain's co-operation, he had fallen.

"Now, then, my friend!" said the Captain, glancing critically at the
restored client, "we have a coat and jacket.  When I had respectable
trousers I lived in town like a respectable man.  But when the trousers
wore out, I too fell off in the opinion of my fellow-men and had to
come down here from the town.  Men, my fine mannikin, judge everything
by the outward appearance, while, owing to their foolishness, the
actual reality of things is incomprehensible to them.  Make a note of
this on your nose, and pay me at least half your debt.  Go in peace;
seek, and you may find."

"How much do I owe you, Aristid Fomich?" asks the client, in confusion.

"One rouble and 70 kopecks....  Now, give me only one rouble, or, if
you like, 70 kopecks, and as for the rest, I shall wait until you have
earned more than you have now by stealing or by hard work, it does not
matter to me."

"I thank you humbly for your kindness!" says the client, touched to the
heart.  "Truly you are a kind man....; Life has persecuted you in
vain....  What an eagle you would have been in your own place!"

The Captain could not live without eloquent speeches.

"What does 'in my own place' mean?  No one really knows his own place
in life, and every one of us crawls into his harness.  The place of the
merchant Judas Petunikoff ought to be in penal servitude, but he still
walks through the streets in daylight, and even intends to build a
factory. The place of our teacher ought to be beside a wife and
half-a-dozen children, but he is loitering in the public-house of
Vaviloff.  And then, there is yourself.  You are going to seek a
situation as a hall porter or waiter, but I can see that you ought to
be a soldier in the army, because you are no fool, are patient and
understand discipline. Life shuffles us like cards, you see, and it is
only accidentally, and only for a time, that we fall into our own
places!"

Such farewell speeches often served as a preface to the continuation of
their acquaintance, which again began with drinking and went so far
that the client would spend his last farthing.  Then the Captain would
stand him treat, and they would drink all they had.

A repetition of similar doings did not affect in the least the good
relations of the parties.

The teacher mentioned by the Captain was another of those customers who
were thus reformed only in order that they should sin again.  Thanks to
his intellect, he was the nearest in rank to the Captain, and this was
probably the cause of his falling so low as dosshouse life, and of his
inability to rise again.  It was only with him that Aristid Kuvalda
could philosophise with the certainty of being understood.  He valued
this, and when the reformed teacher prepared to leave the dosshouse in
order to get a corner in town for himself, then Aristid Kuvalda
accompanied him so sorrowfully and sadly that it ended, as a rule, in
their both getting drunk and spending all their money.  Probably
Kuvalda arranged the matter intentionally so that the teacher could not
leave the dosshouse, though he desired to do so with all his heart.
Was it possible for Aristid Kuvalda, a nobleman (as was evident from
his speeches), one who was accustomed to think, though the turn of fate
may have changed his position, was it possible for him not to desire to
have close to him a man like himself?  We can pity our own faults in
others.

This teacher had once taught at an institution in one of the towns on
the Volga, but in consequence of some story was dismissed.  After this
he was a clerk in a tannery, but again had to leave.  Then he became a
librarian in some private library, subsequently following other
professions.  Finally, after passing examinations in law he became a
lawyer, but drink reduced him to the Captain's dosshouse.  He was tall,
round-shouldered, with a long sharp nose and bald head.  In his bony
and yellow face, on which grew a wedge-shaped beard, shone large,
restless eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, and the corners of his
mouth drooped sadly down.  He earned his bread, or rather his drink, by
reporting for the local papers.  He sometimes earned as much as fifteen
roubles.  These he gave to the Captain and said:

"It is enough.  I am going back into the bosom of culture. Another
week's hard work and I shall dress respectably, and then Addio, mio
caro!"

"Very exemplary!  As I heartily sympathise with your decision, Philip,
I shall not give you another glass all this week," the Captain warned
him sternly.

"I shall be thankful! .... You will not give me one drop?"

The Captain heard in his voice a beseeching note to which he turned a
deaf ear.

"Even though you roar, I shall not give it you!"

"As you like, then," sighed the teacher, and went away to continue his
reporting.  But after a day or two he would return tired and thirsty,
and would look at the Captain with a beseeching glance out of the
corners of his eyes, hoping that his friend's heart would soften.

The Captain in such cases put on a serious face and began speaking with
killing irony on the theme of weakness of character, of the animal
delight of intoxication, and on such subjects as suited the occasion.
One must do him justice: he was captivated by his role of mentor and
moralist, but the lodgers dogged him, and, listening sceptically to his
exhortations to repentance, would whisper aside to each other:

"Cunning, skilful, shifty rogue!  I told you so, but you would not
listen.  It's your own fault!"

"His honour is really a good soldier.  He goes first and examines the
road behind him!"

The teacher then hunted here and there till he found his friend again
in some corner, and grasping his dirty coat, trembling and licking his
dry lips, looked into his face with a deep, tragic glance, without
articulate words.

"Can't you?" asked the Captain sullenly.

The teacher answered by bowing his head and letting it fall on his
breast, his tall, thin body trembling the while.

"Wait another day ... perhaps you will be all right then," proposed
Kuvalda.  The teacher sighed, and shook his head hopelessly.

The Captain saw that his friend's thin body trembled with the thirst
for the poison, and took some money from his pocket.

"In the majority of cases it is impossible to fight against fate," said
he, as if trying to justify himself before someone. But if the teacher
controlled himself for a whole week then there was a touching farewell
scene between the two friends, which ended as a rule in the
eating-house of Vaviloff.  The teacher did not spend all his money, but
spent at least half on the children of the main street.  The poor are
always rich in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street
there were groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and
dirty.  Children are the living flowers of the earth, but these had the
appearance of flowers that have faded prematurely, because they grew in
ground where there was no healthy nourishment.  Often the teacher would
gather them round him, would buy them bread, eggs, apples and nuts, and
take them into the fields by the river side.  There they would sit and
greedily eat everything he offered them, after which they would begin
to play, filling the fields for a mile around with careless noise and
laughter.  The tall, thin figure of the drunkard towered above these
small people, who treated him familiarly, as if he were one of their
own age.  They called him "Philip," and did not trouble to prefix
"Uncle" to his name. Playing around him, like little wild animals, they
pushed him, jumped upon his back, beat him upon his bald head, and
caught hold of his nose. All this must have pleased him, as he did not
protest against such liberties.  He spoke very little to them, and when
he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt
or contaminate them.  He passed many hours thus as their companion and
plaything, watching their lively faces with his gloomy eyes.  Then he
would thoughtfully and slowly direct his steps to the eatinghouse of
Vaviloff, where he would drink silently and quickly till all his senses
left him.

                    *      *      *      *      *

Almost every day after his reporting he would bring a newspaper, and
then gather round him all these creatures that once were men.

On seeing him, they would come forward from all corners of the
court-yard, drunk, or suffering from drunken headache, dishevelled,
tattered, miserable, and pitiable.  Then would come the barrel-like,
stout Aleksei Maksimovitch Simtsoff, formerly Inspector of Woods and
Forests, under the Department of Appendages, but now trading in
matches, ink, blacking, and lemons. He was an old man of sixty, in a
canvas overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, the greasy borders of which hid
his stout fat red face.  He had a thick white beard, out of which a
small red nose turned gaily heavenwards.  He had thick, crimson lips
and watery, cynical eyes.  They called him "Kubar," a name which well
described his round figure and buzzing speech.  After him, Kanets
appeared from some corner--a dark, sad-looking, silent drunkard: then
the former governor of the prison, Luka Antonovitch Martyanoff, a man
who existed on "remeshok," "trilistika," and "bankovka,"* and many such
cunning games, not much appreciated by the police.  He would throw his
hard and oft-scourged body on the grass beside the teacher, and,
turning his eyes round and scratching his head, would ask in a hoarse,
bass voice, "May I?"

*Note by translator.--Well-known games of chance, played by the lower
classes.  The police specially endeavour to stop them, but
unsuccessfully.

Then appeared Pavel Solntseff, a man of thirty years of age, suffering
from consumption.  The ribs of his left side had been broken in a
quarrel, and the sharp, yellow face, like that of a fox, always wore a
malicious smile.  The thin lips, when opened, exposed two rows of
decayed black teeth, and the rags on his shoulders swayed backwards and
forwards as if they were hung on a clothes pole.  They called him
"Abyedok."  He hawked brushes and bath brooms of his own manufacture,
good strong brushes made from a peculiar kind of grass.

Then followed a lean and bony man of whom no one knew anything, with a
frightened expression in his eyes, the left one of which had a squint.
He was silent and timid, and had been imprisoned three times for theft
by the High Court of Justice and the Magisterial Courts.  His family
name was Kiselnikoff, but they called him Paltara Taras, because he was
a head and shoulders taller than his friend, Deacon Taras, who had been
degraded from his office for drunkenness and immorality.  The Deacon
was a short, thick-set person, with the chest of an athlete and a
round, strong head.  He danced skilfully, and was still more skilful at
swearing.  He and Paltara Taras worked in the wood on the banks of the
river, and in free hours he told his friend or any one who would
listen, "Tales of my own composition," as he used to say.  On hearing
these stories, the heroes of which always seemed to be saints, kings,
priests, or generals, even the inmates of the dosshouse spat and rubbed
their eyes in astonishment at the imagination of the Deacon, who told
them shameless tales of lewd, fantastic adventures, with blinking eyes
and a passionless expression of countenance.  The imagination of this
man was powerful and inexhaustible; he could go on relating and
composing all day, from morning to night, without once repeating what
he had said before.  In his expression you sometimes saw the poet gone
astray, sometimes the romancer, and he always succeeded in making his
tales realistic by the effective and powerful words in which he told
them.

There was also a foolish young man called Kuvalda Meteor.  One night he
came to sleep in the dosshouse and had remained ever since among these
men, much to their astonishment.  At first they did not take much
notice of him.  In the daytime, like all the others, he went away to
find something to eat, but at nights he always loitered around this
friendly company till at last the Captain took notice of him.

"Boy!  What business have you here on this earth?"

The boy answered boldly and stoutly:

"I am a barefooted tramp ...."

The Captain looked critically at him.  This youngster had long hair and
a weak face, with prominent cheek-bones and a turned-up nose.  He was
dressed in a blue blouse without a waistband, and on his head he wore
the remains of a straw hat, while his feet were bare.

"You are a fool!" decided Aristid Kuvalda.  "What are you knocking
about here for?  You are of absolutely no use to us ...  Do you drink
vodki? ...  No? ...  Well, then, can you steal?"  Again, "No."  "Go
away, learn, and come back again when you know something, and are a man
..."

The youngster smiled.

"No.  I shall live with you."

"Why?"

"Just because ..."

"Oh you ... Meteor!" said the Captain.

"I will break his teeth for him," said Martyanoff.

"And why?" asked the youngster.

"Just because...."

"And I will take a stone and hit you on the head," the young man
answered respectfully.

Martyanoff would have broken his bones, had not Kuvalda interrupted
with:

"Leave him alone....  Is this a home to you or even to us? You have no
sufficient reason to break his teeth for him.  You have no better
reason than he for living with us."

"Well, then, Devil take him! ...  We all live in the world without
sufficient reason....  We live, and why?  Because!  He also because ...
let him alone...."

"But it is better for you, young man, to go away from us," the teacher
advised him, looking him up and down with his sad eyes. He made no
answer, but remained.  And they soon became accustomed to his presence,
and ceased to take any notice of him.  But he lived among them, and
observed everything.

The above were the chief members of the Captain's company, and he
called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once were men."
For though there were men who had experienced as much of the bitter
irony of fate as these men, yet they were not fallen so low.  Not
infrequently, respectable men belonging to the cultured classes are
inferior to those belonging to the peasantry, and it is always a fact
that the depraved man from the city is immeasurably worse than the
depraved man from the village.  This fact was strikingly illustrated by
the contrast between the formerly well-educated men and the mujiks who
were living in Kuvalda's shelter.

The representative of the latter class was an old mujik called Tyapa.
Tall and angular, he kept his head in such a position that his chin
touched his breast.  He was the Captain's first lodger, and it was said
of him that he had a great deal of money hidden somewhere, and for its
sake had nearly had his throat cut some two years ago: ever since then
he carried his head thus. Over his eyes hung greyish eyebrows, and,
looked at in profile, only his crooked nose was to be seen.  His shadow
reminded one of a poker.  He denied that he had money, and said that
they "only tried to cut his throat out of malice," and from that day he
took to collecting rags, and that is why his head was always bent as if
incessantly looking on the ground.  When he went about shaking his
head, and minus a walking-stick in his hand, and a bag on his back--the
signs of his profession--he seemed to be thinking almost to madness,
and, at such times, Kuvalda spoke thus, pointing to him with his finger:

"Look, there is the conscience of Merchant Judas Petunikoff.  See how
disorderly, dirty, and low is the escaped conscience."

Tyapa, as a rule, spoke in a hoarse and hardly audible voice, and that
is why he spoke very little, and loved to be alone.  But whenever a
stranger, compelled to leave the village, appeared in the dosshouse,
Tyapa seemed sadder and angrier, and followed the unfortunate about
with biting jeers and a wicked chuckling in his throat. He either put
some beggar against him, or himself threatened to rob and beat him,
till the frightened mujik would disappear from the dosshouse and never
more be seen.  Then Tyapa was quiet again, and would sit in some corner
mending his rags, or else reading his Bible, which was as dirty, worn,
and old as himself.  Only when the teacher brought a newspaper and
began reading did he come from his corner once more.  As a rule, Tyapa
listened to what was read silently and sighed often, without asking
anything of anyone.  But once when the teacher, having read the paper,
wanted to put it away, Tyapa stretched out his bony hand, and said,
"Give it to me ..."

"What do you want it for?"

"Give it to me ...  Perhaps there is something in it about us ..."

"About whom?"

"About the village."

They laughed at him, and threw him the paper.  He took it, and read in
it how in the village the hail had destroyed the cornfields, how in
another village fire destroyed thirty houses, and that in a third a
woman had poisoned her family,--in fact, everything that it is
customary to write of,--everything, that is to say, which is bad, and
which depicts only the worst side of the unfortunate village.  Tyapa
read all this silently and roared, perhaps from sympathy, perhaps from
delight at the sad news.

He passed the whole Sunday in reading his Bible, and never went out
collecting rags on that day.  While reading, he groaned and sighed
continually.  He kept the book close to his breast, and was angry with
any one who interrupted him or who touched his Bible.

"Oh, you drunken blackguard," said Kuvalda to him, "what do you
understand of it?"

"Nothing, wizard!  I don't understand anything, and I do not read any
books ...  But I read ..."

"Therefore you are a fool ..." said the Captain, decidedly. "When there
are insects in your head, you know it is uncomfortable, but if some
thoughts enter there too, how will you live then, you old toad?"

"I have not long to live," said Tyapa, quietly.

Once the teacher asked how he had learned to read.

"In prison," answered Tyapa, shortly.

"Have you been there?"

"I was there...."

"For what?"

"Just so....  It was a mistake....  But I brought the Bible out with me
from there.  A lady gave it to me....  It is good in prison, brother."

"Is that so?  And why?"

"It teaches one....  I learned to read there....  I also got this
book....  And all these you see, free...."

When the teacher appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa had already lived
there for some time.  He looked long into the teacher's face, as if to
discover what kind of a man he was.  Tyapa often listened to his
conversation, and once, sitting down beside him, said:

"I see you are very learned.... Have you read the Bible?"

"I have read it...."

"I see; I see.... Can you remember it?"

"Yes.... I remember it...."

Then the old man leaned to one side and gazed at the other with a
serious, suspicious glance.

"There were the Amalekites, do you remember?"

"Well?"

"Where are they now?"

"Disappeared ... Tyapa ... died out ..."

The old man was silent, then asked again: "And where are the
Philistines?"

"These also ..."

"Have all these died out?"

"Yes ... all ..."

"And so ... we also will die out?"

"There will come a time when we also will die," said the teacher
indifferently.

"And to what tribe of Israel do we belong?"

The teacher looked at him, and began telling him about Scythians and
Slavs....

The old man became all the more frightened, and glanced at his face.

"You are lying!" he said scornfully, when the teacher had finished.

"What lie have I told?" asked the teacher.

"You mentioned tribes that are not mentioned in the Bible."

He got up and walked away, angry and deeply insulted.

"You will go mad, Tyapa," called the teacher after him with conviction.

Then the old man came back again, and stretching out his hand,
threatened him with his crooked and dirty finger.

"God made Adam--from Adam were descended the Jews, that means that all
people are descended from Jews ... and we also ..."

"Well?"

"Tartars are descended from Ishmael, but he also came of the Jews ..."

"What do you want to tell me all this for?"

"Nothing!  Only why do you tell lies?"  Then he walked away, leaving
his companion in perplexity.  But after two days he came again and sat
by him.

"You are learned ...  Tell me, then, whose descendants are we? Are we
Babylonians, or who are we?"

"We are Slavs, Tyapa," said the teacher, and attentively awaited his
answer, wishing to understand him.

"Speak to me from the Bible.  There are no such men there."

Then the teacher began criticising the Bible.  The old man listened,
and interrupted him after a long while.

"Stop ...  Wait!  That means that among people known to God there are
no Russians?  We are not known to God?  Is it so?  God knew all those
who are mentioned in the Bible ... He destroyed them by sword and fire,
He destroyed their cities; but He also sent prophets to teach them.
That means that He also pitied them.  He scattered the Jews and the
Tartars ...  But what about us?  Why have we prophets no longer?"

"Well, I don't know!" replied the teacher, trying to understand the old
man.  But the latter put his hand on the teacher's shoulder, and slowly
pushed him backwards and forwards, and his throat made a noise as if he
were swallowing something....

"Tell me!  You speak so much ... as if you knew everything.  It makes
me sick to listen to you ... you darken my soul....  I should be better
pleased if you were silent.  Who are we, eh? Why have we no prophets?
Ha, ha! ...  Where were we when Christ walked on this earth?  Do you
see?  And you too, you are lying....  Do you think that all die out?
The Russian people will never disappear....  You are lying....  It has
been written in the Bible, only it is not known what name the Russians
are given.  Do you see what kind of people they are?  They are
numberless....  How many villages are there on the earth? Think of all
the people who live on it, so strong, so numerous! And you say that
they will die out; men shall die, but God wants the people, God the
Creator of the earth!  The Amalekites did not die out.  They are either
German or French....  But you, eh, you!  Now then, tell me why we are
abandoned by God?  Have we no punishments nor prophets from the Lord?
Who then will teach us?" Tyapa spoke strongly and plainly, and there
was faith in his words.  He had been speaking a long time, and the
teacher, who was generally drunk and in a speechless condition, could
not stand it any longer.  He looked at the dry, wrinkled old man, felt
the great force of these words, and suddenly began to pity himself.  He
wished to say something so strong and convincing to the old man that
Tyapa would be disposed in his favour; he did not wish to speak in such
a serious, earnest way, but in a soft and fatherly tone.  And the
teacher felt as if something were rising from his breast into his
throat ...  But he could not find any powerful words.

"What kind of a man are you? ...  Your soul seems to be torn away--and
you still continue speaking ... as if you knew something ...  It would
be better if you were silent."

"Ah, Tyapa, what you say is true," replied the teacher, sadly. "The
people ... you are right ... they are numberless ... but I am a
stranger to them ... and they are strangers to me ... Do you see where
the tragedy of my life is hidden? ... But let me alone!  I shall suffer
... and there are no prophets also ...  No.  You are right, I speak a
great deal ...  But it is no good to anyone.  I shall be always silent
...  Only don't speak with me like this ...  Ah, old man, you do not
know ...  You do not know ...  And you cannot understand."

And in the end the teacher cried.  He cried so easily and so freely,
with such torrents of flowing tears, that he soon found relief.

"You ought to go into a village ... become a clerk or a teacher ...
You would be well fed there.  What are you crying for?" asked Tyapa,
sadly.

But the teacher was crying as if the tears quieted and comforted him.

From this day they became friends, and the "creatures that once were
men," seeing them together, said: "The teacher is friendly with Tyapa
...  He wishes his money. Kuvalda must have put this into his head ...
To look about to see where the old man's fortune is ..."

Probably they did not believe what they said.  There was one strange
thing about these men, namely, that they painted themselves to others
worse than they actually were.  A man who has good in him does not mind
sometimes showing his worse nature.

          *      *      *      *      *

When all these people were gathered round the teacher, then the reading
of the newspaper would begin.

"Well, what does the newspaper discuss to-day?  Is there any
feuilleton?"

"No," the teacher informs him.

"Your publisher seems greedy ... but is there any leader?"

"There is one to-day....  It appears to be by Gulyaeff."

"Aha!  Come, out with it.  He writes cleverly, the rascal."

"'The taxation of immovable property,'" reads the teacher, "'was
introduced some fifteen years ago, and up to the present it has served
as the basis for collecting these taxes in aid of the city revenue ...'"

"That is simple," comments Captain Kuvalda.  "It continues to serve.
That is ridiculous.  To the merchant who is moving about in the city,
it is profitable that it should continue to serve. Therefore it does
continue."

"The article, in fact, is written on the subject," says the teacher.

"Is it?  That is strange, it is more a subject for a feuilleton..."

"Such a subject must be treated with plenty of pepper...."

Then a short discussion begins.  The people listen attentively, as only
one bottle of vodki has been drunk.

After the leader, they read the local events, then the court
proceedings, and, if in the police court it reports that the defendant
or plaintiff is a merchant, then Aristid Kuvalda sincerely rejoices.
If someone has robbed the merchant, "That is good," says he.  "Only it
is a pity they robbed him of so little."  If his horses have broken
down, "It is sad that he is still alive."  If the merchant has lost his
suit in court, "It is a pity that the costs were not double the amount."

"That would have been illegal," remarks the teacher

"Illegal!  But is the merchant himself legal?" inquires Kuvalda,
bitterly.  "What is the merchant?  Let us investigate this rough and
uncouth phenomenon.  First of all, every merchant is a mujik. He comes
from a village, and in course of time becomes a merchant.  In order to
be a merchant, one must have money.  Where can the mujik get the money
from?  It is well known that he does not get it by honest hard work,
and that means that the mujik, somehow or other, has been swindling.
That is to say, a merchant is simply a dishonest mujik."

"Splendid!" cry the people, approving the orator's deduction, and Tyapa
bellows all the time, scratching his breast.  He always bellows like
this as he drinks his first glass of vodki, when he has a drunken
headache.  The Captain beams with joy.  They next read the
correspondence.  This is, for the Captain, "an abundance of drinks," as
he himself calls it.  He always notices how the merchants make this
life abominable, and how cleverly they spoil everything.  His speeches
thunder at and annihilate merchants. His audience listens to him with
the greatest pleasure, because he swears atrociously.  "If I wrote for
the papers," he shouts, "I would show up the merchant in his true
colours ...  I would show that he is a beast, playing for a time the
role of a man. I understand him!  He is a rough boor, does not know the
meaning of the words 'good taste,' has no notion of patriotism, and his
knowledge is not worth five kopecks."

Abyedok, knowing the Captain's weak point, and fond of making other
people angry, cunningly adds:

"Yes, since the nobility began to make acquaintance with hunger, men
have disappeared from the world ..."

"You are right, you son of a spider and a toad.  Yes, from the time
that the noblemen fell, there have been no men.  There are only
merchants, and I hate them."

"That is easy to understand, brother, because you, too, have been
brought down by them ..."

"I?  I was ruined by love of life ...  Fool that I was, I loved life,
but the merchant spoils it, and I cannot bear it, simply for this
reason, and not because I am a nobleman. But if you want to know the
truth, I was once a man, though I was not noble.  I care now for
nothing and nobody ... and all my life has been tame--a sweetheart who
has jilted me--therefore I despise life, and am indifferent to it."

"You lie!" says Abyedok.

"I lie?" roars Aristid Kuvalda, almost crimson with anger.

"Why shout?" comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff.

"Why judge others?  Merchants, noblemen ... what have we to do with
them?"

"Seeing that we are" ... puts in Deacon Taras.

"Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher, goodnaturedly.

"Why do you provoke him?"  He does not love either discussion or noise,
and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a sickly
grimace, and he endeavours quietly and reasonably to reconcile each
with the other, and if he does not succeed in this he leaves the
company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not very drunk, controls
himself, not wishing to lose, in the person of the teacher, one of the
best of his listeners.

"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life in the
hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of everything good,
avaricious and incapable of adorning existence in any way."

"But all the same," says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak, created
Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants, merchants from
England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants ..."

"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff, who is
one of them...."

"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher,
quietly.

"But do you think that I do not live?  Aha!  I do live, but I suppose I
ought not to be angry at the fact that life is desecrated and robbed of
all freedom by these men."

"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a man
living in retirement?" says Abyedok, teasingly.

"Very well!  I agree with you that I am foolish.  Being a creature who
was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart all those feelings
that once were mine.  You may be right, but then how could I or any of
you defend ourselves if we did away with all these feelings?"

"Now then, you are talking sense," says the teacher, encouragingly.

"We want other feelings and other views on life.... We want something
new ... because we ourselves are a novelty in this life...."

"Doubtless this is most important for us," remarks the teacher.

"Why?" asks Kanets.  "Is it not all the same whatever we say or think?
We have not got long to live ...  I am forty, you are fifty ... there
is no one among us younger than thirty, and even at twenty one cannot
live such a life long."

"And what kind of novelty are we?" asked Abyedok, mockingly.

"Since nakedness has always existed ..."

"Yes, and it created Rome," said the teacher.

"Yes, of course," says the Captain, beaming with joy. "Romulus and
Remus, eh?  We also shall create when our time comes ..."

"Violation of public peace," interrupts Abyedok.  He laughs in a
self-satisfied way.  His laughter is impudent and insolent, and is
echoed by Simtsoff, the Deacon and Paltara Taras.  The naive eyes of
young Meteor light up, and his cheeks flush crimson.

Kanets speaks, and it seems as if he were hammering their heads.

"All these are foolish illusions ... fiddle-sticks!"

It was strange to see them reasoning in this manner, these outcasts
from life, tattered, drunken with vodki and wickedness, filthy and
forlorn.  Such conversations rejoiced the Captain's heart.  They gave
him an opportunity of speaking more, and therefore he thought himself
better than the rest.  However low he may fall, a man can never deny
himself the delight of feeling cleverer, more powerful, or even better
fed than his companions. Aristid Kuvalda abused this pleasure, and
never could have enough of it, much to the disgust of Abyedok, Kubar,
and others of these creatures that once were men, who were less
interested in such things.

Politics, however, were more to the popular taste.  The discussions as
to the necessity of taking India or of subduing England were lengthy
and protracted.  Nor did they speak with less enthusiasm of the radical
measure of clearing Jews off the face of the earth.  On this subject
Abyedok was always the first to propose dreadful plans to effect the
desired end, but the Captain, always first in every other argument, did
not join in this one.  They also spoke much and impudently about women,
but the teacher always defended them, and sometimes was very angry when
they went so far as to pass the limits of decency.  They all, as a
rule, gave in to him, because they did not look upon him as a common
person, and also because they wished to borrow from him on Saturdays
the money which he had earned during the week.  He had many privileges.
They never beat him, for instance, on these occasions when the
conversation ended in a free fight.  He had the right to bring women
into the dosshouse; a privilege accorded to no one else, as the Captain
had previously warned them.

"No bringing of women to my house," he had said. "Women, merchants and
philosophers, these are the three causes of my ruin.  I will horsewhip
anyone bringing in women.  I will horsewhip the woman also....  And as
to the philosopher I'll knock his head off for him."  And
notwithstanding his age he could have knocked anyone's head off, for he
possessed wonderful strength.  Besides that, whenever he fought or
quarrelled, he was assisted by Martyanoff, who was accustomed during a
general fight to stand silently and sadly back to back with Kuvalda,
when he became an all-destroying and impregnable engine of war.  Once
when Simtsoff was drunk, he rushed at the teacher for no reason
whatever, and getting hold of his head tore out a bunch of hair.
Kuvalda, with one stroke of his fist in the other's chest sent him
spinning, and he fell to the ground.  He was unconscious for almost
half-an-hour, and when he came to himself, Kuvalda compelled him to eat
the hair he had torn from the teacher's head. He ate it, preferring
this to being beaten to death.

Besides reading newspapers, fighting and indulging in general
conversation, they amused themselves by playing cards.  They played
without Martyanoff because he could not play honestly. After cheating
several times, he openly confessed:

"I cannot play without cheating ... it is a habit of mine."

"Habits do get the better of you," assented Deacon Taras.  "I always
used to beat my wife every Sunday after Mass, and when she died I
cannot describe how extremely dull I felt every Sunday.  I lived
through one Sunday--it was dreadful, the second I still controlled
myself, the third Sunday I struck my Asok....  She was angry and
threatened to summon me.  Just imagine if she had done so!  On the
fourth Sunday, I beat her just as if she were my own wife!  After that
I gave her ten roubles, and beat her according to my own rules till I
married again!" ...

"You are lying, Deacon!  How could you marry a second time?"
interrupted Abyedok.

"Ay, just so...  She looked after my house...."

"Did you have any children?" asked the teacher.

"Five of them....  One was drowned ... the oldest ... he was an amusing
boy!  Two died of diphtheria ...  One of the daughters married a
student and went with him to Siberia.  The other went to the University
of St. Petersburg and died there ... of consumption they say. Ye--es,
there were five of them.... Ecclesiastics are prolific, you know."  He
began explaining why this was so, and they laughed till they nearly
burst at his tales. When the laughter stopped, Aleksei Maksimovitch
Simtsoff remembered that he too had once had a daughter.

"Her name was Lidka ... she was very stout ..."  More than this he did
not seem to remember, for he looked at them all, was silent and smiled
... in a guilty way. Those men spoke very little to each other about
their past, and they recalled it very seldom and then only its general
outlines.  When they did mention it, it was in a cynical tone.
Probably, this was just as well, since, in many people, remembrance of
the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the future.

          *      *      *      *      *

On rainy, cold, or dull days in the late autumn, these "creatures that
once were men" gathered in the eatinghouse of Vaviloff. They were well
known there, where some feared them as thieves and rogues, and some
looked upon them contemptuously as hard drinkers, although they
respected them, thinking that they were clever.

The eating-house of Vaviloff was the club of the main street, and the
"creatures that once were men" were its most intellectual members.  On
Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, when the eating-house was packed,
the "creatures that once were men" were only too welcome guests.  They
brought with them, besides the forgotten and poverty-stricken
inhabitants of the street, their own spirit, in which there was
something that brightened the lives of men exhausted and worn out in
the struggle for existence, as great drunkards as the inhabitants of
Kuvalda's shelter, and, like them, outcasts from the town.  Their
ability to speak on all subjects, their freedom of opinion, skill in
repartee, courage in the presence of those of whom the whole street was
in terror, together with their daring demeanour, could not but be
pleasing to their companions.  Then, too, they were well versed in law,
and could advise, write petitions, and help to swindle without
incurring the risk of punishment.  For all this they were paid with
vodki and flattering admiration of their talents.

The inhabitants of the street were divided into two parties according
to their sympathies.  One was in favour of Kuvalda, who was thought "a
good soldier, clever, and courageous," the other was convinced of the
fact that the teacher was "superior" to Kuvalda.  The latter's admirers
were those who were known to be drunkards, thieves, and murderers, for
whom the road from beggary to prison was inevitable.  But those who
respected the teacher were men who still had expectations, still hoped
for better things, who were eternally occupied with nothing, and who
were nearly always hungry.

The nature of the teacher's and Kuvalda's relations towards the street
may be gathered from the following:

Once in the eating-house they were discussing the resolution passed by
the Corporation regarding the main street, viz., that the inhabitants
were to fill up the pits and ditches in the street, and that neither
manure nor the dead bodies of domestic animals should be used for the
purpose, but only broken tiles, etc., from the ruins of other houses.

"Where am I going to get these same broken tiles and bricks?  I could
not get sufficient bricks together to build a hen-house," plaintively
said Mokei Anisimoff, a man who hawked kalaches (a sort of white bread)
which were baked by his wife.

"Where can you get broken bricks and lime rubbish?  Take bags with you,
and go and remove them from the Corporation buildings. They are so old
that they are of no use to anyone, and you will thus be doing two good
deeds; firstly, by repairing the main street; and secondly, by adorning
the city with a new Corporation building."

"If you want horses get them from the Lord Mayor, and take his three
daughters, who seem quite fit for harness. Then destroy the house of
Judas Petunikoff and pave the street with its timbers. By the way,
Mokei, I know out of what your wife baked to-day's kalaches; out of the
frames of the third window and the two steps from the roof of Judas'
house."

When those present had laughed and joked sufficiently over the
Captain's proposal, the sober market gardener, Pavlyugus asked:

"But seriously, what are we to do, your honour? ... Eh?  What do you
think?"

"I?  I shall neither move hand nor foot.  If they wish to clean the
street let them do it."

"Some of the houses are almost coming down...."

"Let them fall; don't interfere; and when they fall ask help from the
city.  If they don't give it you, then bring a suit in court against
them!  Where does the water come from?  From the city! Therefore let
the city be responsible for the destruction of the houses."

"They will say it is rain-water."

"Does it destroy the houses in the city?  Eh?  They take taxes from you
but they do not permit you to speak!  They destroy your property and at
the same time compel you to repair it!"  And half the radicals in the
street, convinced by the words of Kuvalda, decided to wait till the
rain-water came down in huge streams and swept away their houses.  The
others, more sensible, found in the teacher a man who composed for them
an excellent and convincing report for the Corporation.  In this report
the refusal of the street's inhabitants to comply with the resolution
of the Corporation was so well explained that the Corporation actually
entertained it.  It was decided that the rubbish left after some
repairs had been done to the barracks should be used for mending and
filling up the ditches in their street, and for the transport of this
five horses were given by the fire brigade.  Still more, they even saw
the necessity of laying a drain-pipe through the street.  This and many
other things vastly increased the popularity of the teacher.  He wrote
petitions for them and published various remarks in the newspapers.
For instance, on one occasion Vaviloff's customers noticed that the
herrings and other provisions of the eating-house were not what they
should be, and after a day or two they saw Vaviloff standing at the bar
with the newspaper in his hand making a public apology.

"It is true, I must acknowledge, that I bought old and not very good
herrings, and the cabbage ... also ... was old.  It is only too well
known that anyone can put many a five-kopeck piece in his pocket in
this way.  And what is the result?  It has not been a success; I was
greedy, I own, but the cleverer man has exposed me, so we are quits ..."

This confession made a very good impression on the people, and it also
gave Vaviloff the opportunity of still feeding them with herrings and
cabbages which were not good, though they failed to notice it, so much
were they impressed.

This incident was very significant, because it increased not only the
teacher's popularity, but also the effect of press opinion.

It often happened, too, that the teacher read lectures on practical
morality in the eating-house.

"I saw you," he said to the painter Yashka Tyarin, "I saw you, Yakov,
beating your wife ..."

Yashka was "touched with paint" after two glasses of vodki, and was in
a slightly uplifted condition.

The people looked at him, expecting him to make a row, and all were
silent.

"Did you see me?  And how did it please you?" asks Yashka.

The people control their laughter.

"No; it did not please me," replies the teacher.  His tone is so
serious that the people are silent.

"You see I was just trying it," said Yashka, with bravado, fearing that
the teacher would rebuke him. "The wife is satisfied....  She has not
got up yet to-day...."

The teacher, who was drawing absently with his fingers on the table,
said, "Do you see, Yakov, why this did not please me? ... Let us go
into the matter thoroughly, and understand what you are really doing,
and what the result may be.  Your wife is pregnant.  You struck her
last night on her sides and breast. That means that you beat not only
her but the child too.  You may have killed him, and your wife might
have died or else have become seriously ill.  To have the trouble of
looking after a sick woman is not pleasant.  It is wearing, and would
cost you dear, because illness requires medicine, and medicine money.
If you have not killed the child, you may have crippled him, and he
will be born deformed, lop-sided, or hunch-backed.  That means that he
will not be able to work, and it is only too important to you that he
should be a good workman.  Even if he be born ill, it will be bad
enough, because he will keep his mother from work, and will require
medicine.  Do you see what you are doing to yourself?  Men who live by
hard work must be strong and healthy, and they should have strong and
healthy children....  Do I speak truly?"

"Yes," assented the listeners.

"But all this will never happen," says Yashka, becoming rather
frightened at the prospect held out to him by the teacher.  "She is
healthy, and I cannot have reached the child ...  She is a devil--a
hag!" he shouts angrily.  "I would ...  She will eat me away as rust
eats iron."

"I understand, Yakov, that you cannot help beating your wife," the
teacher's sad and thoughtful voice again breaks in.  "You have many
reasons for doing so ... It is your wife's character that causes you to
beat her so incautiously ...  But your own dark and sad life ..."

"You are right!" shouts Yakov.  "We live in darkness, like the
chimney-sweep when he is in the chimney!"

"You are angry with your life, but your wife is patient; the closest
relation to you--your wife, and you make her suffer for this, simply
because you are stronger than she.  She is always with you, and cannot
get away.  Don't you see how absurd you are?"

"That is so....  Devil take it!  But what shall I do?  Am I not a man?"

"Just so!  You are a man....  I only wish to tell you that if you
cannot help beating her, then beat her carefully and always remember
that you may injure her health or that of the child.  It is not good to
beat pregnant women ... on their belly or on their sides and chests....
Beat her, say, on the neck ... or else take a rope and beat her on some
soft place ..."

The orator finished his speech and looked upon his hearers with his
dark, pathetic eyes, seeming to apologise to them for some unknown
crime.

The public understands it.  They understand the morale of the creature
who was once a man, the morale of the public-house and much misfortune.

"Well, brother Yashka, did you understand?  See how true it is!"

Yakov understood that to beat her incautiously might be injurious to
his wife.  He is silent, replying to his companions' jokes with
confused smiles.

"Then again, what is a wife?" philosophises the baker, Mokei Anisimoff.
"A wife ... is a friend ... if we look at the matter in that way.  She
is like a chain, chained to you for life ... and you are both just like
galley slaves.  And if you try to get away from her, you cannot, you
feel the chain ..."

"Wait," says Yakovleff; "but you beat your wife too."

"Did I say that I did not?  I beat her...  There is nothing else
handy...  Do you expect me to beat the wall with my fist when my
patience is exhausted?"

"I feel just like that too..." says Yakov.

"How hard and difficult our life is, my brothers!  There is no real
rest for us anywhere!"

"And even you beat your wife by mistake," some one remarks humorously.
And thus they speak till far on in the night or till they have
quarrelled, the usual result of drink or of passions engendered by such
discussions.

The rain beats on the windows, and outside the cold wind is blowing.
The eating-house is close with tobacco smoke, but it is warm, while the
street is cold and wet.  Now and then, the wind beats threateningly on
the windows of the eating-house, as if bidding these men to come out
and be scattered like dust over the face of the earth.  Sometimes a
stifled and hopeless groan is heard in its howling which again is
drowned by cold, cruel laughter.  This music fills one with dark, sad
thoughts of the approaching winter, with its accursed short, sunless
days and long nights, of the necessity of possessing warm garments and
plenty to eat.  It is hard to sleep through the long winter nights on
an empty stomach.  Winter is approaching.  Yes, it is approaching...
How to live?

These gloomy forebodings created a strong thirst among the inhabitants
of the main street, and the sighs of the "creatures that once were men"
increased with the wrinkles on their brows, their voices became thick
and their behaviour to each other more blunt.  And brutal crimes were
committed among them, and the roughness of these poor unfortunate
outcasts was apt to increase at the approach of that inexorable enemy,
who transformed all their lives into one cruel farce.  But this enemy
could not be captured because it was invisible.

Then they began beating each other brutally, and drank till they had
drunk everything which they could pawn to the indulgent Vaviloff.  And
thus they passed the autumn days in open wickedness, in suffering which
was eating their hearts out, unable to rise out of this vicious life
and in dread of the still crueller days of winter.

Kuvalda in such cases came to their assistance with his philosophy.

"Don't lose your temper, brothers, everything has an end, this is the
chief characteristic of life.  The winter will pass, summer will follow
... a glorious time, when the very sparrows are filled with rejoicing."
But his speeches did not have any effect--a mouthful of even the
freshest and purest water will not satisfy a hungry man.

Deacon Taras also tried to amuse the people by singing his songs and
relating his tales.  He was more successful, and sometimes his
endeavours ended in a wild and glorious orgy at the eating-house.  They
sang, laughed and danced, and for hours behaved like madmen.  After
this they again fell into a despairing mood, sitting at the tables of
the eating-house, in the black smoke of the lamp and the tobacco; sad
and tattered, speaking lazily to each other, listening to the wild
howling of the wind, and thinking how they could get enough vodki to
deaden their senses.

And their hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them.



PART II.

All things are relative in this world, and a man cannot sink into any
condition so bad that it could not be worse. One day, towards the end
of September, Captain Aristid Kuvalda was sitting, as was his custom,
on the bench near the door of the dosshouse, looking at the stone
building built by the merchant Petunikoff close to Vaviloff's
eatinghouse, and thinking deeply.  This building, which was partly
surrounded by woods, served the purpose of a candle factory.

Painted red, as if with blood, it looked like a cruel machine which,
though not working, opened a row of deep, hungry, gaping jaws, as if
ready to devour and swallow anything.  The grey wooden eating-house of
Vaviloff, with its bent roof covered with patches, leaned against one
of the brick walls of the factory, and seemed as if it were some large
form of parasite clinging to it.  The Captain was thinking that they
would very soon be making new houses to replace the old building.
"They will destroy the dosshouse even," he reflected.  "It will be
necessary to look out for another, but such a cheap one is not to be
found.  It seems a great pity to have to leave a place to which one is
accustomed, though it will be necessary to go, simply because some
merchant or other thinks of manufacturing candles and soap."  And the
Captain felt that if he could only make the life of such an enemy
miserable, even temporarily, oh! with what pleasure he would do it!

Yesterday, Ivan Andreyevitch Petunikoff was in the dosshouse yard with
his son and an architect.  They measured the yard and put small wooden
sticks in various places, which, after the exit of Petunikoff and at
the order of the Captain, Meteor took out and threw away.  To the eyes
of the Captain this merchant appeared small and thin.  He wore a long
garment like a frock-coat, a velvet cap, and high, well-cleaned boots.
He had a thin face with prominent cheekbones, a wedge-shaped greyish
beard, and a high forehead seamed with wrinkles from beneath which
shone two narrow, blinking, and observant grey eyes ... a sharp,
gristly nose, a small mouth with thin lips ... altogether his
appearance was pious, rapacious, and respectably wicked. "Cursed
cross-bred fox and pig!" swore the Captain under his breath, recalling
his first meeting with Petunikoff. The merchant came with one of the
town councillors to buy the house, and seeing the Captain asked his
companion:

"Is this your lodger?"

And from that day, a year and a half ago, there has been keen
competition among the inhabitants of the dosshouse as to which can
swear the hardest at the merchant.  And last night there was a "slight
skirmish with hot words," as the Captain called it, between Petunikoff
and himself.  Having dismissed the architect the merchant approached
the Captain.

"What are you hatching?" asked he, putting his hand to his cap, perhaps
to adjust it, perhaps as a salutation.

"What are you plotting?" answered the Captain in the same tone. He
moved his chin so that his beard trembled a little; a non-exacting
person might have taken it for a bow; otherwise it only expressed the
desire of the Captain to move his pipe from one corner of his mouth to
the other.  "You see, having plenty of money, I can afford to sit
hatching it.  Money is a good thing, and I possess it," the Captain
chaffed the merchant, casting cunning glances at him.  "It means that
you serve money, and not money you," went on Kuvalda, desiring at the
same time to punch the merchant's belly.

"Isn't it all the same?  Money makes life comfortable, but no money,"
... and the merchant looked at the Captain with a feigned expression of
suffering.  The other's upper lip curled, and exposed large, wolf-like
teeth.

"With brains and a conscience, it is possible to live without it. Men
only acquire riches when they cease to listen to their conscience ...
the less conscience the more money!"

"Just so; but then there are men who have neither money nor conscience."

"Were you just like what you are now when you were young?" asked
Kuvalda simply.  The other's nostrils twitched.  Ivan Andreyevitch
sighed, passed his hand over his eyes and said:

"Oh!  When I was young I had to undergo a great many difficulties ...
Work!  Oh!  I did work!"

"And you cheated, too, I suppose?"

"People like you?  Nobles?  I should just think so! They used to grovel
at my feet!"

"You only went in for robbing, not murder, I suppose?" asked the
Captain.  Petunikoff turned pale, and hastily changed the subject.

"You are a bad host.  You sit while your guest stands."

"Let him sit, too," said Kuvalda.

"But what am I to sit on?"

"On the earth ... it will take any rubbish ..."

"You are the proof of that," said Petunikoff quietly, while his eyes
shot forth poisonous glances.

And he went away, leaving Kuvalda under the pleasant impression that
the merchant was afraid of him.  If he were not afraid of him he would
long ago have evicted him from the dosshouse.  But then he would think
twice before turning him out, because of the five roubles a month. And
the Captain gazed with pleasure at Petunikoff's back as he slowly
retreated from the courtyard. Following him with his eyes, he noticed
how the merchant passed the factory and disappeared into the wood, and
he wished very much that he might fall and break all his bones.  He sat
imagining many horrible forms of disaster while watching Petunikoff,
who was descending the hill into the wood like a spider going into its
web.  Last night he even imagined that the wood gave way before the
merchant and he fell ... but afterwards he found that he had only been
dreaming.

And to-day, as always, the red building stands out before the eyes of
Aristid Kuvalda, so plain, so massive, and clinging so strongly to the
earth, that it seems to be sucking away all its life.  It appears to be
laughing coldly at the Captain with its gaping walls.  The sun pours
its rays on them as generously as it does on the miserable hovels of
the main street.

"Devil take the thing!" exclaimed the Captain, thoughtfully measuring
the walls of the factory with his eyes. "If only ..."

Trembling with excitement at the thought that had just entered his
mind, Aristid Kuvalda jumped up and ran to Vaviloff's eating-house,
muttering to himself all the time.

Vaviloff met him at the bar, and gave him a friendly welcome.

"I wish your honour good health!"  He was of middle height, and had a
bald head, grey hair, and straight moustaches like tooth-brushes.
Upright and neat in his clean jacket, he showed by every movement that
he was an old soldier.

"Egorka, show me the lease and plan of your house," demanded Kuvalda,
impatiently.

"I have shown it you before."  Vaviloff looked up suspiciously and
closely scanned the Captain's face.

"Show it me!" shouted the Captain, striking the bar with his fist and
sitting down on a stool close by.

"But why?" asked Vaviloff, knowing that it was better to keep his wits
about him when Kuvalda got excited.

"You fool!  Bring it at once."

Vaviloff rubbed his forehead, and turned his eyes to the ceiling in a
tired way.

"Where are those papers of yours?"

There was no answer to this on the ceiling, so the old sergeant looked
down at the floor, and began drumming with his fingers on the bar in a
worried and thoughtful manner.

"It's no good your making wry faces!" shouted the Captain, for he had
no great affection for him, thinking that a former soldier should
rather have become a thief than an eating-house keeper.

"Oh!  Yes!  Aristid Fomich, I remember now.  They were left at the High
Court of Justice at the time when I came into possession."

"Get along, Egorka!  It is to your own interest to show me the plan,
the title-deeds, and everything you have immediately.  You will
probably clear at least a hundred roubles over this, do you understand?"

Vaviloff did not understand at all; but the Captain spoke in such a
serious and convincing tone that the sergeant's eyes burned with
curiosity, and, telling him that he would see if the papers were in his
desk, he went through the door behind the bar.  Two minutes later he
returned with the papers in his hand, and an expression of extreme
astonishment on his face.

"Here they are; the deeds about the damned houses!"

"Ah!  You ... vagabond!  And you pretend to have been a soldier, too!"
And Kuvalda did not cease to belabour him with his tongue, as he
snatched the blue parchment from his hands. Then, spreading the papers
out in front of him, and excited all the more by Vaviloff's
inquisitiveness, the Captain began reading and bellowing at the same
time.  At last he got up resolutely, and went to the door, leaving all
the papers on the bar, and saying to Vaviloff:

"Wait!  Don't lift them!"

Vaviloff gathered them up, put them into the cash-box, and locked it,
then felt the lock with his hand, to see if it were secure. After that,
he scratched his bald head, thoughtfully, and went up on the roof of
the eating-house.  There he saw the Captain measuring the front of the
house, and watched him anxiously, as he snapped his fingers, and began
measuring the same line over again. Vaviloff's face lit up suddenly,
and he smiled happily.

"Aristid Fomich, is it possible?" he shouted, when the Captain came
opposite to him.

"Of course it is possible.  There is more than one short in the front
alone, and as to the depth I shall see immediately."

"The depth ... seventy-three feet."

"What?  Have you guessed, you shaved ugly face?"

"Of course, Aristid Fomich!  If you have eyes you can see a thing or
two," shouted Vaviloff, joyfully.

A few minutes afterwards they sat side by side in Vaviloff's parlour,
and the Captain was engaged in drinking large quantities of beer.

"And so all the walls of the factory stand on your ground," said he to
the eating-house keeper.  "Now, mind you show no mercy! The teacher
will be here presently, and we will get him to draw up a petition to
the court.  As to the amount of the damages you will name a very
moderate sum in order not to waste money in deed stamps, but we will
ask to have the factory knocked down.  This, you see, donkey, is the
result of trespassing on other people's property.  It is a splendid
piece of luck for you. We will force him to have the place smashed, and
I can tell you it will be an expensive job for him.  Off with you to
the court.  Bring pressure to bear on Judas.  We will calculate how
much it will take to break the factory down to its very foundations.
We will make an estimate of it all, counting the time it will take too,
and we will make honest Judas pay two thousand roubles besides."

"He will never give it!" cried Vaviloff, but his eyes shone with a
greedy light.

"You lie!  He will give it ...  Use your brains... What else can he do?
But look here, Egorka, mind you don't go in for doing it on the cheap.
They are sure to try to buy you off.  Don't sell yourself cheap.  They
will probably use threats, but rely upon us..."

The Captain's eyes were alight with happiness, and his face red with
excitement.  He worked upon Vaviloff's greed, and urging upon him the
importance of immediate action in the matter, went away in a very
joyful and happy frame of mind.

          *      *      *      *      *

In the evening everyone was told of the Captain's discovery, and they
all began to discuss Petunikoff's future predicament, painting in vivid
colours his excitement and astonishment on the day the court messenger
handed him the copy of the summons.  The Captain felt himself quite a
hero.  He was happy and all his friends highly pleased. The heap of
dark and tattered figures that lay in the courtyard made noisy
demonstrations of pleasure. They all knew the merchant, Petunikoff, who
passed them very often, contemptuously turning up his eyes and giving
them no more attention than he bestowed on the other heaps of rubbish
lying on the ground.  He was well fed, and that exasperated them still
more; and now how splendid it was that one of themselves had struck a
hard blow at the selfish merchant's purse!  It gave them all the
greatest pleasure.  The Captain's discovery was a powerful instrument
in their hands.  Every one of them felt keen animosity towards all
those who were well fed and well dressed, but in some of them this
feeling was only beginning to develop. Burning interest was felt by
those "creatures that once were men" in the prospective fight between
Kuvalda and Petunikoff, which they already saw in imagination.

For a fortnight the inhabitants of the dosshouse awaited the further
development of events, but Petunikoff never once visited the building.
It was known that he was not in town and that the copy of the petition
had not yet been handed to him.  Kuvalda raged at the delays of the
civil court.  It is improbable that anyone had ever awaited the
merchant with such impatience as did this bare-footed brigade.

"He isn't even thinking of coming, the wretch! ..."

"That means that he does not love me!" sang Deacon Taras, leaning his
chin on his hand and casting a humorous glance towards the mountain.

At last Petunikoff appeared.  He came in a respectable cart with his
son playing the role of groom.  The latter was a red-checked,
nice-looking youngster, in a long square-cut overcoat.  He wore smoked
eyeglasses.  They tied the horse to an adjoining tree, the son took the
measuring instrument out of his pocket and gave it to his father, and
they began to measure the ground.  Both were silent and worried.

"Aha!" shouted the Captain, gleefully.

All those who were in the dosshouse at the moment came out to look at
them and expressed themselves loudly and freely in reference to the
matter.

"What does the habit of thieving mean?  A man may sometimes make a big
mistake when he steals, standing to lose more than he gets," said the
Captain, causing much laughter among his staff and eliciting various
murmurs of assent.

"Take care, you devil!" shouted Petunikoff, "lest I have you in the
police court for your words!"

"You can do nothing to me without witnesses ...  Your son cannot give
evidence on your side" ... the Captain warned him.

"Look out all the same, you old wretch, you may be found guilty too!"
And Petunikoff shook his fist at him. His son, deeply engrossed in his
calculations, took no notice of the dark group of men, who were taking
such a wicked delight in adding to his father's discomfiture.  He did
not even once look in their direction.

"The young spider has himself well in hand," remarked Abyedok, watching
young Petunikoff's every movement and action.  Having taken all the
measurements he desired, Ivan Andreyevitch knit his brows, got into the
cart, and drove away.  His son went with a firm step into Vaviloff's
eating-house, and disappeared behind the door.

"Ho, ho!  That's a determined young thief! ...  What will happen next,
I wonder ...?" asked Kuvalda.

"Next?  Young Petunikoff will buy out Egor Vaviloff," said Abyedok with
conviction, and smacked his lips as if the idea gave him great pleasure.

"And you are glad of that?" Kuvalda asked him, gravely.

"I am always pleased to see human calculations miscarry," explained
Abyedok, rolling his eyes and rubbing his hands with delight.  The
Captain spat angrily on the ground and was silent. They all stood in
front of the tumble-down building, and silently watched the doors of
the eating-house.  More than an hour passed thus.  Then the doors
opened and Petunikoff came out as silently as he had entered.  He
stopped for a moment, coughed, turned up the collar of his coat,
glanced at the men, who were following all his movements with their
eyes, and then went up the street towards the town.

The Captain watched him for a moment, and turning to Abyedok said,
smilingly:

"Probably you were right after all, you son of a scorpion and a
wood-louse!  You nose out every evil thing.  Yes, the face of that
young swindler shows that he has got what he wanted...  I wonder how
much Egorka has got out of them.  He has evidently taken something...
He is just the same sort of rogue that they are ... they are all tarred
with the same brush.  He has got some money, and I'm damned if I did
not arrange the whole thing for him!  It is best to own my folly...
Yes, life is against us all, brothers ... and even when you spit upon
those nearest to you, the spittle rebounds and hits your own face."

Having satisfied himself with this reflection, the worthy Captain
looked round upon his staff.  Every one of them was disappointed,
because they all knew that something they did not expect had taken
place between Petunikoff and Vaviloff, and they all felt that they had
been insulted.  The feeling that one is unable to injure anyone is
worse than the feeling that one is unable to do good, because to do
harm is far easier and simpler.

"Well, why are we loitering here?  We have nothing more to wait for ...
except the reward that I shall get out--out of Egorka,..." said the
Captain, looking angrily at the eating-house. "So our peaceful life
under the roof of Judas has come to an end. Judas will now turn us
out....  So do not say that I have not warned you."

Kanets smiled sadly.

"What are you laughing at, jailer?" Kuvalda asked.

"Where shall I go then?"

"That, my soul, is a question that fate will settle for you, so do not
worry," said the Captain, thoughtfully, entering the dosshouse.  "The
creatures that once were men" followed him.

"We can do nothing but await the critical moment," said the Captain,
walking about among them.  "When they turn us out we shall seek a new
place for ourselves, but at present there is no use spoiling our life
by thinking of it ...  In times of crisis one becomes energetic ... and
if life were fuller of them and every moment of it so arranged that we
were compelled to tremble for our lives all the time ...  By God! life
would be livelier and even fuller of interest and energy than it is!"

"That means that people would all go about cutting one another's
throats," explained Abyedok, smilingly.

"Well, what about it?" asked the Captain, angrily.  He did not like to
hear his thoughts illustrated.

"Oh!  Nothing!  When a person wants to get anywhere quickly he whips up
the horses, but of course it needs fire to make engines go ..."

"Well, let everything go to the Devil as quickly as possible. I'm sure
I should be pleased if the earth suddenly opened up or was burned or
destroyed somehow .. only I were left to the last in order to see the
others consumed ..."

"Ferocious creature!" smiled Abyedok.

"Well, what of that?  I ... I was once a man .. now I am an outcast ...
that means I have no obligations. It means that I am free to spit on
everyone.  The nature of my present life means the rejection of my past
... giving up all relations towards men who are well fed and well
dressed, and who look upon me with contempt because I am inferior to
them in the matter of feeding or dressing. I must develop something new
within myself, do you understand?  Something that will make Judas
Petunikoff and his kind tremble and perspire before me!"

"Ah!  You have a courageous tongue!" jeered Abyedok.

"Yes ...  You miser!"  And Kuvalda looked at him contemptuously.  "What
do you understand?  What do you know?  Are you able to think?  But I
have thought and I have read ... books of which you could not have
understood one word."

"Of course!  One cannot eat soup out of one's hand ... But though you
have read and thought, and I have not done that or anything else, we
both seem to have got into pretty much the same condition, don't we?"

"Go to the Devil!" shouted Kuvalda.  His conversations with Abyedok
always ended thus.  When the teacher was absent his speeches, as a
rule, fell on the empty air, and received no attention, and he knew
this, but still he could not help speaking.  And now, having quarrelled
with his companion, he felt rather deserted; but, still longing for
conversation, he turned to Simtsoff with the following question: "And
you, Aleksei Maksimovitch, where will you lay your grey head?"

The old man smiled good-humouredly, rubbed his hands, and replied, "I
do not know ...  I will see.  One does not require much, just a little
drink."

"Plain but honourable fare!" the Captain said.  Simtsoff was silent,
only adding that he would find a place sooner than any of them, because
women loved him.  This was true.  The old man had, as a rule, two or
three prostitutes, who kept him on their very scant earnings.  They
very often beat him, but he took this stoically.  They somehow never
beat him too much, probably because they pitied him.  He was a great
lover of women, and said they were the cause of all his misfortunes.
The character of his relations towards them was confirmed by the
appearance of his clothes, which, as a rule, were tidy, and cleaner
than those of his companions.  And now, sitting at the door of the
dosshouse, he boastingly related that for a long time past Redka had
been asking him to go and live with her, but he had not gone because he
did not want to part with the company.  They heard this with jealous
interest.  They all knew Redka.  She lived very near the town, almost
below the mountain.  Not long ago, she had been in prison for theft.
She was a retired nurse; a tall, stout peasant woman, with a face
marked by smallpox, but with very pretty, though always drunken, eyes.

"Just look at the old devil!" swore Abyedok, looking at Simtsoff, who
was smiling in a self-satisfied way.

"And do you know why they love me?  Because I know how to cheer up
their souls."

"Do you?" inquired Kuvalda.

"And I can make them pity me....  And a woman, when she pities!  Go and
weep to her, and ask her to kill you ... she will pity you--and she
will kill you."

"I feel inclined to commit a murder," declared Martyanoff, laughing his
dull laugh.

"Upon whom?" asked Abyedok, edging away from him.

"It's all the same to me ... Petunikoff ... Egorka ... or even you!"

"And why?" inquired Kuvalda.

"I want to go to Siberia ...  I have had enough of this vile life ...
one learns how to live there!"

"Yes, they have a particularly good way of teaching in Siberia," agreed
the Captain, sadly.

They spoke no more of Petunikoff, or of the turning out of the
inhabitants of the dosshouse.  They all knew that they would have to
leave soon, therefore they did not think the matter worth discussion.
It would do no good, and besides the weather was not very cold though
the rains had begun ... and it would be possible to sleep on the ground
anywhere outside the town.  They sat in a circle on the grass and
conversed about all sorts of things, discussing one subject after
another, and listening attentively even to the poor speakers in order
to make the time pass; keeping quiet was as dull as listening.  This
society of "creatures that once were men" had one fine
characteristic--no one of them endeavoured to make out that he was
better than the others, nor compelled the others to acknowledge his
superiority.

The August sun seemed to set their tatters on fire as they sat with
their backs and uncovered heads exposed to it ... a chaotic mixture of
the vegetable, mineral, and animal kingdoms. In the corners of the yard
the tall steppe grass grew luxuriantly....  Nothing else grew there but
some dingy vegetables, not even attractive to those who nearly always
felt the pangs of hunger.

          *      *      *      *      *

The following was the scene that took place in Vaviloff's eating-house.

Young Petunikoff entered slowly, took off his hat, looked around him,
and said to the eating-house keeper:

"Egor Terentievitch Vaviloff?  Are you he?"

"I am," answered the sergeant, leaning on the bar with both arms as if
intending to jump over it.

"I have some business with you," said Petunikoff.

"Delighted.  Please come this way to my private room."

They went in and sat down, the guest on the couch and his host on the
chair opposite to him.  In one corner a lamp was burning before a
gigantic icon, and on the wall at the other side there were several oil
lamps.  They were well kept and shone as if they were new.  The room,
which contained a number of boxes and a variety of furniture, smelt of
tobacco, sour cabbage, and olive oil.  Petunikoff looked around him and
made a face.  Vaviloff looked at the icon, and then they looked
simultaneously at one another, and both seemed to be favourably
impressed.  Petunikoff liked Vaviloff's frankly thievish eyes, and
Vaviloff was pleased with the open, cold, determined face of
Petunikoff, with its large cheeks and white teeth.

"Of course you already know me, and I presume you guess what I am going
to say to you," began Petunikoff.

"About the lawsuit? ... I presume?" remarked the ex-sergeant,
respectfully.

"Exactly!  I am glad to see that you are not beating about the bush,
but going straight to the point like a business man," said Petunikoff,
encouragingly.

"I am a soldier," answered Vaviloff, with a modest air.

"That is easily seen, and I am sure we shall be able to finish this job
without much trouble."

"Just so."

"Good!  You have the law on your side, and will, of course, win your
case.  I want to tell you this at the very beginning."

"I thank you most humbly," said the sergeant, rubbing his eyes in order
to hide the smile in them.

"But tell me, why did you make the acquaintance of your future
neighbours like this through the law courts?"

Vaviloff shrugged his shoulders and did not answer.

"It would have been better to come straight to us and settle the matter
peacefully, eh?  What do you think?"

"That would have been better, of course, but you see there is a
difficulty ...  I did not follow my own wishes, but those of others ...
I learned afterwards that it would have been better if ... but it was
too late."

"Oh!  I suppose some lawyer taught you this?"

"Someone of that sort."

"Aha!  Do you wish to settle the affair peacefully?"

"With all my heart!" cried the soldier.

Petunikoff was silent for a moment, then looked at him, and suddenly
asked, coldly and drily, "And why do you wish to do so?"

Vaviloff did not expect such a question, and therefore had no reply
ready.  In his opinion the question was quite unworthy of any
attention, and so he laughed at young Petunikoff.

"That is easy to understand.  Men like to live peacefully with one
another."

"But," interrupted Petunikoff, "that is not exactly the reason why.  As
far as I can see, you do not distinctly understand why you wish to be
reconciled to us ...  I will tell you."

The soldier was a little surprised.  This youngster, dressed in a check
suit, in which he looked ridiculous, spoke as if he were Colonel
Rakshin, who used to knock three of the unfortunate soldier's teeth out
every time he was angry.

"You want to be friends with us because we should be such useful
neighbours to you ... because there will be not less than a hundred and
fifty workmen in our factory, and in course of time even more.  If a
hundred men come and drink one glass at your place, after receiving
their weekly wages, that means that you will sell every month four
hundred glasses more than you sell at present.  This is, of course, the
lowest estimate ... and then you have the eating-house besides.  You
are not a fool, and you can understand for yourself what profitable
neighbours we shall be."

"That is true," Vaviloff nodded, "I knew that before."

"Well, what then?" asked the merchant, loudly.

"Nothing ...  Let us be friends!"

"It is nice to see that you have decided so quickly. Look here, I have
already prepared a notification to the court of the withdrawal of the
summons against my father. Here it is; read it, and sign it."

Vaviloff looked at his companion with his round eyes and shivered, as
if experiencing an unpleasant sensation.

"Pardon me ... sign it?  And why?"

"There is no difficulty about it ... write your Christian name and
surname and nothing more," explained Petunikoff, pointing obligingly
with his finger to the place for the signature.

"Oh!  It is not that ...  I was alluding to the compensation I was to
get for my ground."

"But then this ground is of no use to you," said Petunikoff, calmly.

"But it is mine!" exclaimed the soldier.

"Of course, and how much do you want for it?"

"Well, say the amount stated in the document," said Vaviloff, boldly.

"Six hundred!" and Petunikoff smiled softly.  "You are a funny fellow!"

"The law is on my side...  I can even demand two thousand.  I can
insist on your pulling down the building ... and enforce it too.  That
is why my claim is so small. I demand that you should pull it down!"

"Very well.  Probably we shall do so ... after three years, and after
having dragged you into enormous law expenses.  And then, having paid
up, we shall open our public-house and you will be ruined ...
annihilated like the Swedes at Poltava.  We shall see that you are
ruined ... we will take good care of that.  We could have begun to
arrange about a public-house now, but you see our time is valuable, and
besides we are sorry for you.  Why should we take the bread out of your
mouth without any reason?"

Egor Terentievitch looked at his guest, clenching his teeth, and felt
that he was master of the situation, and held his fate in his hands.
Vaviloff was full of pity for himself at having to deal with this calm,
cruel figure in the checked suit.

"And being such a near neighbour you might have gained a good deal by
helping us, and we should have remembered it too.  Even now, for
instance, I should advise you to open a small shop for tobacco, you
know, bread, cucumbers, and so on...  All these are sure to be in great
demand."

Vaviloff listened, and being a clever man, knew that to throw himself
upon the enemy's generosity was the better plan.  It was as well to
begin from the beginning, and, not knowing what else to do to relieve
his mind, the soldier began to swear at Kuvalda.

"Curses be upon your head, you drunken rascal!  May the Devil take you!"

"Do you mean the lawyer who composed your petition?" asked Petunikoff,
calmly, and added, with a sigh, "I have no doubt he would have landed
you in rather an awkward fix ... had we not taken pity upon you."

"Ah!"  And the angry soldier raised his hand.  "There are two of them
...  One of them discovered it, the other wrote the petition, the
accursed reporter!"

"Why the reporter?"

"He writes for the papers ...  He is one of your lodgers ... there they
all are outside ...  Clear them away, for Christ's sake!  The robbers!
They disturb and annoy everyone in the street.  One cannot live for
them ... And they are all desperate fellows ...  You had better take
care, or else they will rob or burn you ..."

"And this reporter, who is he?" asked Petunikoff, with interest.

"He?  A drunkard.  He was a teacher but was dismissed.  He drank
everything he possessed ... and now he writes for the papers and
composes petitions.  He is a very wicked man!"

"H'm!  And did he write your petition, too?  I suppose it was he who
discovered the flaws in the building.  The beams were not rightly put
in?"

"He did!  I know it for a fact!  The dog!  He read it aloud in here and
boasted, 'Now I have caused Petunikoff some loss!'"

"Ye--es...  Well, then, do you want to be reconciled?"

"To be reconciled?"  The soldier lowered his head and thought. "Ah!
This is a hard life!" said he, in a querulous voice, scratching his
head.

"One must learn by experience," Petunikoff reassured him, lighting a
cigarette.

"Learn ...  It is not that, my dear sir; but don't you see there is no
freedom?  Don't you see what a life I lead?  I live in fear and
trembling ...  I am refused the freedom so desirable to me in my
movements, and I fear this ghost of a teacher will write about me in
the papers.  Sanitary inspectors will be called for ... fines will have
to be paid ... or else your lodgers will set fire to the place or rob
and kill me ... I am powerless against them.  They are not the least
afraid of the police, and they like going to prison, because they get
their food for nothing there."

"But then we will have them turned out if we come to terms with you,"
promised Petunikoff.

"What shall we arrange, then?" asked Vaviloff, sadly and seriously.

"Tell me your terms."

"Well, give me the six hundred mentioned in the claim."

"Won't you take a hundred roubles?" asked the merchant, calmly, looking
attentively at his companion, and smiling softly.  "I will not give you
one rouble more," ... he added.

After this, he took out his eye-glasses, and began cleaning them with
his handkerchief.  Vaviloff looked at him sadly and respectfully.  The
calm face of Petunikoff, his grey eyes and clear complexion, every line
of his thickset body betokened self-confidence and a well-balanced
mind.  Vaviloff also liked Petunikoff's straightforward manner of
addressing him without any pretensions, as if he were his own brother,
though Vaviloff understood well enough that he was his superior, he
being only a soldier.  Looking at him, he grew fonder and fonder of
him, and, forgetting for a moment the matter in hand, respectfully
asked Petunikoff:

"Where did you study?"

"In the technological institute.  Why?" answered the other, smiling:

"Nothing.  Only ... excuse me!"  The soldier lowered his head, and then
suddenly exclaimed, "What a splendid thing education is!
Science--light.  My brother, I am as stupid as an owl before the sun
...  Your honour, let us finish this job."

With an air of decision he stretched out his hand to Petunikoff and
said:

"Well, five hundred?"

"Not more than one hundred roubles, Egor Terentievitch." Petunikoff
shrugged his shoulders as if sorry at being unable to give more, and
touched the soldier's hairy hand with his long white fingers.  They
soon ended the matter, for the soldier gave in quickly and met
Petunikoff's wishes.  And when Vaviloff had received the hundred
roubles and signed the paper, he threw the pen down on the table and
said, bitterly:

"Now I will have a nice time!  They will laugh at me, they will cry
shame on me, the devils!"

"I don't know. I'm not a spaceman, responsible for the lives of three
people--at a hundred clams an hour."

"Some day I'm going to shove those hundred fish down your throat."

"Do. And I'll spit 'em back at you!"

Norton roughly took her shoulders in his hands. He twisted her to face
him, clamped down on her soft shoulders until she turned her face up
to complain with welling eyes. He put his lips on hers and tried to
force some warmth into them. She submitted calmly, and when he found no
response and opened his eyes, she was staring at him vacantly.

Abruptly he let her go. She relaxed in the seat.

"I'm not afraid to work," he said in a hollow voice.

"Prove it," she replied flatly.

He got up, left her there, and went below.




                                   V


Wilson sat in the Information Center and eyed the search grid glumly.
It stretched stereoscopically out in the room, a lot of its vacant
network of gleaming white lines frosted over with white shading, to
mark where the search had covered.

There were a lot of untouched spaces--a horde, a myriad. On the side
wall was a chart, showing that nine squadrons of twenty-five spacecraft
each were patrolling back and forth through the uncharted wastes,
seeking the space-wrecked lifeships.

The maddening part was the hourly report from both lifeships. It was
like someone hiding in the dark and calling for aid, invisible and
alone. And not really calling for aid, but only making whimpering
noises. For the signaling equipment on the lifeships was not equipped
with the complicated infrawave phone, but only with the simple
signal-emitter, coded to transmit the identification call of the unit.

On the hour they came in, calling three times, "Lifeship Seventy-nine,
Seventy-nine, Number Three." Number Two had not been heard from.
Presumably it was not in use, or hadn't made the grade.

Wilson chewed his fingernails and fretted. Was Alice on Number One or
Number Three, or was she on Number Two and it had foundered?

If she were still alive, what kind of fellow survivors were with her?

He hoped she was with a group. If she had blown out in a lifeship with
only one other--well, Ted Wilson did not like the idea. Of course, it
was more customary than not for a young woman to love lightly before
she mated permanently. There was a lot less chance of wading into
matrimony wide-eyed and ignorant of what it was all about.

But Wilson, if willing to face such transient loving at all, would
have preferred that Alice have her chance to pick and choose, rather
than have the matter thrust upon her in the middle of a threatening
situation. The passion that comes with the shadow of death is only the
instinct of racial preservation, and it mates men and women unsuited to
one another during subsequent peace and quiet.

Above all, he did not want Alice to emerge from this moment of personal
danger morally bound to some unsuitable mate because of a child
conceived under the shadow of the sword!

Hourly, after the coded signals came in, Ted Wilson took the microphone
himself and called out into space in the infrawave. He called messages
of hope, and explained how many spacecraft were scouring the deep black
void. He could only pray that he would be heard, that his voice would
give Alice some firm foundation for hope.

He could not be sure the passengers from the wrecked spaceship even had
their receivers turned on, because infrawave receivers drink up a lot
of power and lifeships are not equipped with any vast reserve. There
just was not the room in a lifeship for anything more than the bare
necessities of living.

The search grid was a truncated cone, and the whitened areas of
finished search had finally filled the smaller end of the cone. There
was the flared skirt of the cone yet to be combed, and this provided
more volume than the cylinder taken out of the middle. It also provided
a shorter search path as the searching spacecraft built out the volume,
ring after ring around the first pass along the line of flight.

Far, far to one side a detector registered, and brought every man
in the fleet to the alert. Then they relaxed unhappily again as the
scooter returned with another report of a small gas cloud. Wilson
thought glumly that they had discovered enough space meteors, gas
clouds, and unawakened comets to make up a small sun.

Then his attention was taken from his own personal troubles by the
arrival of another squadron from Centauri. He found himself busy
readjusting the search pattern to accommodate this new contingent.

He eyed the pattern in the stereo and hoped it was good enough.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was the basic aggregate of nine full squadrons spread out flat in
a space lattice that ran back and forth from narrow end to wide end of
the cone of probability. There was one full squadron of roving ships
that went aimlessly back and forth across the pattern, just to cope
with the happenstance factor.

One squadron was parked at either end of the search grid as space
markers, with a computer ship at either end to maintain a constant
check on their space coordinates. The big search pattern shuttled from
one end to the other, and if they came back to miss the marker ships,
they retraced their path so that no space went uncombed.

The infrawave chattered and Space Admiral Stone was calling for
Commodore Theodore Wilson.

"How're you coming?"

Wilson replied, "We're still at it, Admiral. So far we haven't seen
her."

"Don't forget, Wilson, there's more lost out there than the woman you
want."

Ted wanted to snap back angrily, but all he said was, "You don't mind
if I take this search personally, do you, Admiral Stone? I'm not
overlooking any bets, but I do admit that Miss Hemingway is a bit more
important to me than any of the rest."

"No, I suppose no one could blame you for that. Just keep it up,
Wilson."

"Sure," Ted said wearily. "After all, this is a black and white job I'm
on. Either we'll be successful--or we won't."

"Luck."

"Spaceman's luck, Admiral."

Wilson went back to his brooding....

Charles Andrews came back into the salon with a brisk air. He
flexed his arms, took a deep breath, and mopped his forehead with a
handkerchief. He sat down beside Alice and smiled at her warmly.

"That thing is a wonder worker," he said, breathing deeply. "Nothing
like exercise to make a man feel fine and fit."

Alice looked up at him with some amusement. "Mr. Andrews, tell me. Are
you the kind of man who opens the window on a winter morning about six
o'clock, and takes deep lungsful of icy air?"

"Not quite that bad, my dear. Not quite. But brisk living does keep a
man sharp and hard. I daresay I acquitted myself well on that pedal
generator despite my fifty years."

"No doubt."

Andrews chuckled. "I'll do better than our young pilot friend. The man
is big, and should be muscular, but he is soft from lack of exercise.
Yet he'll attempt to stay there longer than I did, I guess."

"No doubt."

He eyed her sharply, not missing her repetitious dry reply.

"Which, incidentally," he said, "gives me my first chance to speak with
you alone since we took off from Earth."

"That's so. But--"

"Miss Hemingway, you are an exceedingly brisk young woman, attractive
and intelligent. May I ask if you have ever taken a lover?"

"Why, no."

"Never considered it?"

She smiled thinly. "Naturally. All women think about it. Most do.
I--er--"

Alice let her voice trail away uncertainly. The direct, frontal attack
had put her off-balance, but she realized that this was Andrews' direct
way.

He had smiled at her uncertainty, and said swiftly, "Then may I be the
first--" when he noted the fading amusement in her face and glibly ad
libbed--"to congratulate you on your choice of young men? The space
commodore to whom you bade farewell in Chicago was an up and coming
man, I'd assume."

"I rather imagine he's out here somewhere in the search group," she
said.

"He may even be directing it," Andrews said carefully.

One thing he knew well--never run down a rival. It always brought on
a defensive attitude. Build the rival up, and the return might be
sympathetic. A clever course could be traveled between build-up and
tear-down.

       *       *       *       *       *

Looking at Alice thoughtfully, Andrews got up and began to rummage
through a few lockers. Eventually he found a blanket and brought it to
her.

"I'm not too familiar with these life cans," he told her, with a
disarming smile. "I hope I remain in ignorance of them. But I found
what I was after. Now, Miss Hemingway, if you'll stretch out, I'll tuck
you in, and you can get some shut-eye."

"That I can use," she said honestly.

The blanket felt good. So did his hands, smoothing out the blanket, but
being carefully tender and proper. Andrews was a smooth operator of
many years' experience.

Eventually she slept.

Andrews found another cigar, and smoked it languidly, his eyes roaming
around the metal walls of the cabin. He was thinking that he disliked
Jack Norton immensely, although he knew that chances of survival were
better with Norton's boorish, interfering presence than without. He was
bored, he was angry, he was above all resentful of the time wasted in
this spacewreck business....

An orderly tapped Commodore Wilson on the shoulder. "Message from
Terra," he said.

Wilson groaned and reached for the telephone beside his bunk. "Wilson
here," he said. "Go ahead!"

"Admiral Stone. Wilson, a new ship is on the way. I want you to get
into this thing fully, so I'm briefing you now."

"New type of ship?"

"Well, not a new ship, but some new equipment. The Infrawave Section of
the Space Department Radiation Laboratory has some experimental gear
they want to try in actual service."

"Experimental gear?"

"Sheer experiment, Wilson. It's supposed to be an infrawave detecting
and ranging device. It's shown low grade response so far, and it may
be entirely useless to you. But Radiation feels that even something
incomplete and erratic may be better than going it blind."

Wilson sat up, interested. "How does it work?"

"Darned if I know. It took a whole cruiser class to carry the junk
that makes it tick. It's piled in with twine and baling wire, and when
the crate took off the advanced techs were still connecting cables and
adjusting the guts. Er--how're you feeling?"

"Tired and frustrated."

"Mind a bad joke?"

"Well--"

"Go on and have a laugh, Wilson. This gizmo reminded me of the new
machine that made shoes so fast that it put twelve shoemakers out of
work--and it took only eighteen men to run it."

A silence ensued. Then Stone said:

"Well, Wilson, I thought you'd like to know we're pouring the best
we've got into space for you. Ship should be along in another hour or
two."

"Yeah--thanks, Admiral Stone. And the joke was funny, at least the
first time I heard it, it was. I'll get on the cubes and wait for the
ship."

Wearily Commodore Ted Wilson climbed out of his bunk and began to
dress....

       *       *       *       *       *

Viggon Sarri said, "Now we know more about this race. They definitely
are of the class where the individual is of extreme importance to
the whole. This belies both the communal, or insect type and the
anarchistic, or individualistic type. The quantity of men and machinery
they are pouring into this search is amazing."

"They aren't much closer to success," offered Regin Naylo. "And we're
wasting time."

"You think so?"

"We both think so," Faren Twill said firmly.

"Oh?" Viggon Sarri looked at them in surprise. "Then maybe I have the
wrong idea. Let me hear your suggestions."

Twill and Naylo looked at one another, fencing with their eyes. Finally
Twill nodded and said, "You say it, Regin."

"It's already been said." Regin Naylo looked pointedly at Linus Brein.
"A day or so ago you claimed that you'd picked up some primitive
infrawave emission that looked as though someone might be trying to
develop a detecting and ranging device."

"Yes."

"Then it is my contention that any moves we make against this race
should be made before anybody down there gets such a detector and
ranger working."

"Why?" demanded Viggon Sarri.

Regin Naylo looked at his commander. "We're losing a technical
advantage. Whether we go in with a benign and peaceful-looking air and
show them how big and fast we are, or whether we plunge in and hit 'em
with every battery we've got and reduce 'em to submission, we've got to
do it before anybody succeeds in making an infrawave space detector.
Understand?"

Viggon Sarri looked from one to the other, grimly. "You believe I'm
wasting time? Is that it?"

The two aides answered together, "Yes!" and "Absolutely!"

Viggon Sarri said, "I am still in command of this force. We'll continue
to observe until I am satisfied. You two officers have one common
idea--that of moving in fast. You have differing ideas of how we are
to move in. Until you can settle your difference and provide me with a
good logical basis for your decision--whichever way--then we'll follow
my plan. And my plan is to move in just as soon as we have enough data
on the character and strength of this race to provide us with the
correct way to take them."

"Then you are going to continue stalling?" demanded Naylo.

"Yes, if you wish to call it stalling. Maybe another man might call it
planning."

"We'll be just wasting time, as I've already said. We have enough stuff
to take 'em right now."

Viggon Sarri shrugged. "Yes. We could swoop in and take them like
mowing down a wheat field. Tell me, young men, what happens when you
mow down a wheat field."

They looked at him blankly.

Viggon smiled in a superior manner. "One of two things, depending upon
how you operate. If you mow it down and let it lay, you drop seeds and
next year it comes up thicker. If you mow it down, remove the seeds,
sow it with salt and kill the field, you have a useless plot of land, a
worthless territory. Then some day up comes weed and briar--which then
must be removed root and branch before the land is plantable again.
Just remember, we are after a profitable exchange of economy, not
another stellar system to list as a conquest for the sake of history
our children will read. I want my reward now, or next week. Having my
name on a monument does not have much appeal."

He was half standing with his hands closed into fists, his knuckles on
the table supporting him as he leaned forward to drive his facts home.

"Or," he added scathingly, "are you two firebrands so youthful that you
don't know that a man has only one single lone chance at this business
of living? And that your finest reward at eventide is knowing you have
lived a full and eventful life without screwing it up somewhere along
the line by making a lot of idiotic moves?"

Viggon Sarri turned on a heel and walked out.

       *       *       *       *       *

Naylo and Twill turned to Linus Brein.

"What do you think?" Twill asked.

Linus Brein shrugged. "He is undoubtedly right. Besides, we don't know
all there is to know about the strange race out there yet."

"Oh, faugh! What else--"

Linus Brein smiled. He said slowly. "We don't even know whether or not
they are oxygen-breathing."

"We can assume from the stellar type of their primaries that they are."

Linus nodded. "Probably, but not positively."

Regin Naylo said, "And what's second, Linus?"

"They may be contraterrene."

"Seetee?"

Linus Brein nodded. "In which case from both sides we must watch our
steps. Get involved with a seetee race the wrong way and you have two
cultures with absolutely nothing in common but a life-factor, busy
tossing chunks of their own kind of matter at one another in a fight
to exterminate. So before either of you start making half-baked plans,
you'd better get your heads together and plan something that sounds
reasonable to the Big Boss. Right?"




                                  VI


Commodore Wilson eyed the spacecraft full of hastily assembled
instruments with a grimace. The ship was swarming with techs who were
peering into oscilloscopes, watching meters, and tinkering with signal
generators. A huge concave hemispherical dome above was a splatter of
little flickering green pinpoints and dark patches.

"This idea is hopelessly haywire," Wilson said unhappily.

"It sure is," said Space-Tech Maury Allison. "But everything is, at
first."

"You hope to make something out of it?"

"We hope," replied Allison. "We can't be sure."

"But surely this pile of junk has been tested before?"

Allison nodded.

"Any results?"

"Some. We've had as much as five minutes of constant operation out of
it."

As he spoke, the hemisphere over their heads flashed a full bright
green, then went black. A bell tinkled somewhere and a couple of techs
dropped their tools and headed for the back room on the double. A
couple of others stood up from their work and lit cigarettes because
their instruments had gone dead. Some of the rest continued to nurse
their particular circuits because that section was still running.

[Illustration: The dome became a riot of flaming green.]

After scanning the operation to see which section had gone blooey,
Allison went on. "We've never tested this outfit under anything
but ideal conditions. We've had spacecraft sent out to specified
distances, fired up the gizmo and found fragments of response right
where there should be a response."

"That's hardly fair, is it?" commented Wilson.

"It's a start. You have to start somewhere. Radio--know its start?
The first message was sent across the ocean a few hundred years ago
from one man to the other after they had made a complete plan as to
time, date, location and frequency, and also the transmitted message.
Sure enough, they got through. That, too, was under the ideal test
conditions. So when we finally assembled the half-a-hundred separate
circuits and devices that made it look as though we might have a space
detector, we put up targets, aimed our equipment, and looked for a
response where there should be one."

"We don't know where our target is," objected Wilson.

"And we haven't yet fired up this equipment to seek a target of unknown
position and range," admitted Allison. "But this gear is better than
nothing."

Again the green spots flickered in the dome over their heads.

"What do all those spots mean?" asked Wilson.

"Those are false targets, probably caused by background noise. Although
the infrawave is noiseless, we still seem to be getting it. Dr.
Friedrich disagrees. He claims this is not noise, but interferences.
However, the good doctor is not at all certain that the so-called
interferences come from localized conditions within the equipment or
from external sources."

Wilson shrugged. "I don't see how it's done with a radiation type that
has neither a directional quality nor a velocity of propagation."

"Do you understand Accum?"

"I stopped shortly before Matrix. Accumulative Math is so much pothooks
on a sheet of paper to me."

"Um. Then I'd find it hard to explain. The theory seems to be
demonstrable, and the accumulative mathematics upholds the
experimental evidence. But there hasn't yet been an acceptable verbal
description of what happens."

"I've often wondered, leaving the nondirectional quality out of it,
why we couldn't cut our emitting power and somehow compute range by
observing the incoming power from a distant infrawave transmitter."

Allison shook his head. "Oddly enough, the matrix mathematics that
deal with radiation shows that for any hypothetical radiation with an
infinite velocity of propagation, there can be no attenuation with
distance."

"Meaning that we should be able to transmit all the way from here to
hell and back."

"Not exactly. Infrawave radiation comes in quanta, you know. A kilowatt
covers two point one, seven nine three six plus parsecs. Two kilowatts
covers twice that distance minus the ninth root of two point, seven
nine three six plus. Three kilowatts covers three times two point et
cetera, minus two times the ninth root." Allison shrugged and spread
his hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

"And so on it goes," he said, "indicating that at some devilish
distance--I've forgotten the figure but we had the master computer chew
it out on the big machine at Radiation once--an additional kilowatt
just shoves the signal coverage distance out by a micron. But if you
don't put in your honest kilowatt, you don't excite the infraspace that
carries infrawaves. And if you put in a kilowatt and a half, you have
to dissipate the half."

Wilson grunted. "Nice to have things come out even. Who'd have thunk
that the Creator wanted the Terran kilowatt to equal one quanta of
infrawave distance?"

Allison laughed. "Poor argument, Commodore Wilson. Actually, the figure
is point nine, eight three four plus. Close, but no cigar. We've
just come to accept the figure as a kilowatt, just as for everyday
calculation we accept the less refined figure of two point, one eight
parsecs, or even two point, two. At any rate--"

There was a puff of something, and a sound like the puncture of a tire.
The green speckles on the dome merged with one another and became
a riot of flaming green. There were shouts and cries and a lot of
haphazard orders and several techs scrambled to snap toggle switches.

Down the room one of the techs went head-first into a rack with a pair
of pliers and a soldering iron. He backed out carrying a smoking little
shapeless thing that had lost any character it once possessed. The tech
picked up a nice, shiny new doodad from a small box and went into the
rack again. When he came out this time he gave a hoarse cheer. Toggles
were snapped back and the spreckles reappeared.

One of the techs came up to Allison and said, "See that spot up there,
sir? The one just this side of the eighty-one degree longitude circle,
and a little below the forty-five latitude ring?"

"Yes."

It was a small round disc no more than an inch in diameter.

"We think that may be a response."

Wilson said, "You mean a target? Possibly one of the lifeships?"

"Yes."

"I'll have a scooter go out and see. What's its spacial position?"

The tech took another look. "I'd say eighty-one plus longitude and
forty-three latitude."

"From what?" demanded Wilson.

"From ship's axis, sir."

"Distance?"

"Oh, about half a parsec."

Wilson groaned. "Haven't you determined any spacial attitude?"

"Attitude, sir?"

"The angle of the ship's axis with respect to the stellar positions.
So you've a blotch out there at half a parsec. It's an inch or so in
diameter. Have one of your juniors run off some trig on the calculator
and then tell me how much probable space volume that so-called response
represents."

The tech thought a minute. "We've never run this gear anywhere
but at Radiation, right at Mojave labs, on Earth. Our spacial
coordinates--well, I'm afraid we--" His voice trailed away unhappily.

Wilson picked up the interphone and barked a call.

"Weston? Look, Hugh, can you get over here quick with a couple of your
top astrogators? We've got a bunch of longhairs with a fancy infrawave
detector and ranger, but the damned coordinates are set axially with
the ship."

He listened to Hugh Weston's reply.

"Yeah," he said then. "We know where the target is with respect to the
ship, but we don't know the spacial attitude of the ship with respect
to the galactic check points. Right over? Good."

       *       *       *       *       *

As Wilson hung up the dome flickered, then went into a regular
_flash-flash-flash_ until something else came unglued and the dome
went blank. There was shouting and rather heart-felt cussing, and some
running around again before the dome light came back.

A tech--not the one that had come up before--moved into place alongside
the commodore.

"Mr. Wilson, sir," he said, "I wonder if--er--That is, sir--er--"

"Take it easy," said Wilson, half-smiling.

"Well, sir, we've been getting a lot of interference."

Wilson looked up at the flickering dome. He merely nodded.

"Well, sir--er--I was wondering if you could issue some--er--order to
have the other ships move away? I'm sure we could find those lifeships
if the rest of space were clear. But you've got three hundred--"

Wilson stared the youngster down coldly. "Somewhere out there," he said
sourly, "are two lifeships in which men, and a woman, are waiting for
us to come and collect 'em. I'm combing space almost inch by inch. I
can hardly give up my squadron for a half-finished flash in the dome
like this, can I?"

"No sir--ah--I suppose not."

"Then you live with the responses tossed back by my squadron. It'll be
good training for you. Er--get the hell out of my way!"

The junior tech melted out of sight and went back to his control panel.

Weston came over within the hour. Ted Wilson explained the situation
and told Hugh to set up and measure the coordinates with respect to
the stellar centers. Then he told him to send a space scooter out to
investigate that spot.

Wilson went back to his own flagship wondering whether that fancy
infrawave detector would turn out to be anything. An untried doodad.
But now and then--

Wearily again, Commodore Wilson called Commander Hatch, who skippered
one of the scout carriers. He told Hatch to make himself available
either to Hugh Weston or Maury Allison, to investigate infrawave
response targets as they saw fit.

Then Wilson hit the sack to finish his off-duty.

He dozed fitfully, but he did not sleep worth a damn. He would have
been better off if he could have taken the controls of one of the
spacers and gone out himself. Then, at least, he would have something
to fill his mind and idle hands....

Alice Hemingway awoke from a rather pleasant dream that had something
to do with either ice skating or skiing, or it might have been
tobogganing--the dream had faded so fast she could not be sure--to face
the fact that she was feeling on the chill side.

Her blanket had slipped. She caught it around her, and in minutes
felt fairly warm again. It was not so much, she thought, the actual
temperature in the lifeship, but the whole damned attitude of people,
and everything else that was so chilling.

The lights were running all right, and from deep below she could hear
the ragged throb of the pedal generator. She wondered which of the two
men was pumping it this time.

When Jock Norton came in, she knew. He was mopping his face with a
towel. He looked clean and bright, freshly shaved.

She looked at him and wished she could have a hot shower herself, and a
change of clothing. She wanted a ten-hour sleep in a nice soft bed with
clean sheets, too, and wearing a silk-soft nightgown.

"Awake, Alice?" Norton asked brightly.

"Awake again," she said unhappily. "For.... What is it? The ninth day?"

"Eighth," he said. "Can't go on much longer."

"I hope not."

"You look all in," he said softly. He sat down on the edge of the
divan, beside her, and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Take it
easy, m'lady. They're really scouring space for us. We'll be all right.
You'll see."

       *       *       *       *       *

Unexpectedly he bent and kissed her chastely on the forehead. Alice
tensed at first, but relaxed almost immediately because the warmth of
that honest affection made her feel less alone and cold, in the depths
of uncharted space. Some of the worry and concern was erased, at least.
She stretched warmly as he rubbed her forehead with his cheek.

Then he sat up and looked down at her. He put his hand on her cheek
gently and said, "We'll be all right, kid."

"Eight days," she said in a hoarse whisper.

He nodded solemnly. "Every hour means they must be coming closer and
closer. Every lonely hour means that it can't be many more, because
they've covered all the places where we weren't. Follow me, Alice?"

She shook her head unhappily.

Doggedly he tried to explain. "They know that we must lie within a
certain truncated conical volume of space. They comb this space bit by
bit and chart it. Since the volume is known, and since it takes so many
hours of work to comb a given volume, that means that at the end of a
given time all the predicted volume of space has been covered. Since we
must lie within that, we are bound to be picked up before they cover
the last cubic mile."

"But how long?" she breathed.

"I wouldn't know," he told her honestly. "I have no possible way of
computing it. They've got the best of computers and plotters, and
they've got the law of probabilities on their side. But it's dead
certain we'll be found."

"I hope."

"I know," he said.

"You've changed, Jock Norton."

"Changed?"

"You looked on this as a lark, before."

"Not exactly," he objected.

"But you did."

Slowly he shook his head. "Not exactly," he repeated. "I don't think
I've changed at all. I still think that when you're faced with
something inevitable you might as well look at it from the more
cheerful side. After all, there was the chance that we might not have
made it this far, you know. Now, tell me honestly, does it make sense
getting all worried-up by thinking of how horrible it would have been
if we'd been caught back there when Seventy-nine blew up?"

"I suppose not."

"Well, then," he said in a semi-cheerful tone, "since we did make it
out safely, and are still waiting after eight days, we might as well
expect to be collected soon."

Charles Andrews said, from behind him, "At a hundred dollars an hour,
Norton?"

Norton turned around angrily. "So it's the hundred clams per," he
snapped back. "That's damned poor payment for having to live with the
likes of you in a space can this cramped."

Andrews eyed the pilot with distaste. "Tell me," he said smoothly,
"did my last effort on the pedal generator go for power storage, or
for a couple of gallons of hot water for that shave and shower you've
enjoyed?"

Norton stretched and stood up. "I figured that having a clean face
might help morale," he said pointedly.

"You're a cheap, chiseling--"

"Easy, Andrews! Easy. There's a lady present. Besides, I might forget
my easy-going nature and take a swing at you."

Andrews said scornfully, "Without a doubt, a man of your age and build
could wipe up the lifeship with me."

Norton chuckled. "Don't count on your age being good protection,
Andrews. You may push me far enough to make me forget that you're a
decrepit old man who has to buy what your physique can't get you."

"Now see here!" roared Andrews.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was stopped short by Norton who took one long step forward to grasp
him by the coat lapels. Andrews' face went white, because he was
looking into the face of dark anger. Norton's other hand was clenched
in a large, tight fist. He eyed the older man sourly for a minute, then
shoved him backward to collapse in a chair.

"What are you trying to do?" sneered Norton. "Make me mad enough to
clip you so you can yell 'Foul!'? I know as well as you do that the law
doesn't even recognize taunts and tongue-lashings as contributory to
assault."

Alice got up from her couch and stood between them. "Stop it, both of
you!" she cried. "Stop it!"

Norton's anger subsided. "All right," he said to Andrews. "Now that
we've all had our lungs exercised, I'll go below and pedal that
generator. Alice, you can have the bathroom first. Andrews, you take it
with what she leaves. Is that okay?"

"Aren't you the hard-working little Boy Scout?"

"Sure." Norton grinned. "I am that." He disappeared down the ladder
towards the generator room.

Andrews turned to Alice. "You're not going to go for that fancy
routine, are you?" he demanded crossly.

"What routine?"

"First he uses power for hot water, power that I was storing up. Now
he's going to pedal that thing to waste more power."

Alice shrugged. "He's the spaceman," she said simply. "If he thinks we
can spare the power for a bath, I could certainly use one."

"How can you trust the likes of him?"

"We've got to," she said. "We've got to."

"I wouldn't," said Andrews. "I can't."

She looked at her employer seriously. "We've both got to trust him,"
she said quietly. "Because, right or wrong, he is the only one who
knows anything about space and what's likely to happen next."

"At a hundred an hour," Andrews said for the ninetieth time or so,
scathingly.

Alice nodded soberly. "But you mustn't forget that isn't going to do
him any good unless he gets us all home so that he can use it."

Reluctantly, Andrews nodded. "I suppose you're right."

Then Alice added, "And even if it weren't for the hundred per, he isn't
the kind to kill himself."

Andrews grunted, "No, he isn't. But Alice, I'm not at all sure that
Norton knows whether he's doing the right thing or not."

She shook her head. There was no answer to that argument. Furthermore,
it was the kind of unresolvable argument that could go on and on until
the answer was supplied from the outside. There could be no end to it
until they were either picked up safely or died in lonely space.

She decided to drop the discussion as pointless, so headed for the
bathroom. A hot shower and a quick tubbing of her underclothing were
on her mind. Her garments, of course, would dry instantly. She had
to smile a little. To think that a hundred years ago women thought
something they called nylon was wonderful because it was fairly
quick-drying! Not instantaneous, of course, as was the material of
which her lingerie was made.

Anyhow, getting it clean now, and having a bath herself would make
her feel better. And she would be better equipped to face the
nerve-gruelling business of just sitting there watching the clock go
around and around, with nothing to do but wait.




                                  VII


Regin Naylo faced his superior with a scowl. "That rips it wide open,"
he said.

Viggon Sarri smiled confidently. He glanced at Linus Brein and asked,
"Just how competent do you think this new thing is?"

Linus shrugged. "We've analyzed the infrawave pattern they've
developed. It is obvious that this is their first prototype of an
infrawave space detector. The pattern is of the primitive absorptive
type, which is both inefficient as a detector and is also inclined to
produce spurious responses. From our observations, their equipment
must be extremely complex too. It must be loaded to the scuppers with
fragile circuits and components, because the search pattern keeps
breaking down, or becoming irregular. An efficient detector cannot
be made of the infrawave bands until the third order of reflective
response is discovered. I doubt that any research team, no matter how
big, can start with the primitive absorption phase of the infrawaves
and leap to the higher orders of infrawave radiation in less than a
lifetime of study."

"So, gentlemen?" asked Viggon of his two aides. "Can you predict
whether or not their new detector will deliver the goods?"

All looked expectantly at Linus Brein.

"We've been recalculating our probabilities at the introduction of each
new phase of their behaviour," Linus Brein said seriously. "From their
actions, I would say that they do not know, grasp, or perhaps even
guess that space has flaws and warps in the continuum. They have been
going at their search in a pattern of solid geometrical precision, but
have been paying no attention to those rifts, small as they are, that
actually make a straight course bend aside for a distance. So due to
the fact that their search pattern has already passed over one of these
rifts in which the one lifeship lies, and passed beyond in their line
of search, we have produced a nine-nines probability that they will not
locate this lifeship."

"And the other?" prompted Viggon Sarri, with interest.

"I'm not done with the first yet," Linus Brein said quietly. "There
remains the random search group. Therein lies the eight-oughts-one
positive probability."

Viggon snorted. "I call ten to the minus ten chances rather hopeless.
But go on, Linus."

"The other has a sixty-forty chance," he said. "If the infrawave
detector locates the space rift that lies along our coordinate three
seventy-six, when the ship is near seven sixty-seven, then the scout
craft will pass within magnetic detection range of the lifeship. That's
a lot of 'ifs', I know, but they add up to a sixty-forty chance. I
say this because space rifts tend to produce strong responses in any
of the primitive detecting gear. They've certainly been busy running
down space warps, which indicates that they've been getting a lot
of spurious responses." He smiled. "If space were entirely clear of
foreign matter and space rifts, they'd find their new detector vaguely
inefficient. I--"

Viggon waved a hand to indicate he had heard enough.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I've been criticized for waiting, but
what one man calls study the other man calls timidity. We'll continue
to wait for the final factor. Then we'll know...."

       *       *       *       *       *

The stereo pattern in the Information Center of Commodore Ted Wilson's
flagship was slowly being filled with the hazy white that indicated
that these volumes had been combed carefully. As he watched, he could
see how the search was progressing, and it was painfully obvious that
the search was not going good at all.

The flights of spacecraft in set patterns back and forth through the
stereo had covered nearly all of the truncated space cone. The random
search ships were slowly cutting secondary lines through the regions
already covered. There was a green sphere combing the stereo pattern
now, indicating the new infrawave detector ship and its expected volume
of detector coverage.

Space was filled to overflowing with the fast patter of the
communications officers, using infrawave for talks between flights, and
ordinary radio for talks between ships of the same flight.

Wilson had appointed Chief Communications Officer Haggerty to police
the bands. Haggerty had done a fine job, removing the howling confusion
and interference caused from too many calls on the same channel. But
the result was still a high degree of constant call and reply and
cross talk. Most of the chatter came from the infrawave detector ship,
sending the scout craft flitting hither and thither on the trail of
spurious responses.

It was almost impossible to grasp the extent of the operation. Only in
the stereo pattern could anybody begin to follow the complex operation,
and those who watched the stereo knew that their pattern was only an
idealized space map of what they hoped was going on.

It was worse than combing the area of an ocean from maps that contained
a neat grid of cross rules. Much worse. For the uncharted ocean is
gridded with radio location finders so accurate that the position of
two ships a hundred yards apart shows a hundred yards of difference in
absolute position in the loran.

Some day in the distant future space would be solid-gridded with
infrawave navigation signals. Then the space coordinates of any
spacecraft could be found to a fine degree of precision. But now all
that Wilson and his nav-techs could do was to keep sighting the fixed
stars, and from them compute their position.

This sort of space navigation was good enough to keep a ship on course,
but far from precise enough to pinprick a true position. But, after
all, a crude positioning in the middle of interstellar space is good
enough. One literally has cubic light years to float around in. Once
the spacecraft begins to approach a destination, the space positioning
can be made.

Again, few spacecraft pause in mid-flight between stars long enough to
care about their interstellar position. After all, space flight does
provide a mode of travel where the destination lies within eyesight.
Or rather, it has lain within eyesight ever since it became commonly
accepted that these ultimate destinations were places, instead of holes
poked in an inverted ceramic bowl.

Then, in the middle of the communications confusion, came a call from
one of Commander Hatch's scout flights.

"Pilot Logan, Flight Eighteen, to Commander Hatch. Report."

"Hatch to Logan. Go ahead. Find something, Will?"

Will Logan said, "Solid target detected on radar, Commander. Approached
and found. I am now within five thousand yards of what appears to be
Lifeship One."

The entire fleet went silent, except for the detector ship, the scout
craft, and Wilson's flagship.

Allison asked, "Was that our target, Logan?"

the habits of a lifetime which keeps the mind clear and the nerve
firm. Lois went on quietly preparing some sandwiches, which in all
probability would never be eaten, and Mrs. Carmichael resigned martial
occupation for the cutting-out of a baby's pinafore for an East-end
child whom she had under her special patronage. But her mind was
active and, stern, self-opinionated martinet that she was, she could
not altogether crush the regrets that swarmed up in this last
reckoning up of her life's activity. Better had her charity and
interest been centered on the dirty little children whom she had
indignantly tolerated on her compound! Better for them all would it
have been had each one of them sought to win the love and respect of
the subject race! Then, perhaps, they would not have been deserted in
this last hour of peril.

Mrs. Carmichael glanced at Beatrice Cary with a fresh pricking of
conscience. What, after all, had she done to deserve the chief
condemnation? She had played with fire. Had they not all played with
fire? She had looked upon a native as a toy fit to play with, to break
and throw away. Did they not all, behind their seeming tolerance and
Christian principles, hide an equal depreciation? Was she even as bad
as some? How many men revealed to their syces their darkest moods,
their lowest passions? How many women were to their ayahs subjects for
contemptuous Bazaar gossip. They were all to blame, and this was the
harvest, the punishment for the neglect of a heavy responsibility. The
thought that she had been unjust was iron through Mrs. Carmichael's
soul, for above all things she prided herself on her fairness. She
pushed her work away and went over to Beatrice's side. Mrs. Cary's
head still rested against the aching shoulder, and Mrs. Carmichael
made a sign to let her improvize a cushion substitute. Beatrice shook
her head.

"No, thank you," she whispered, glancing down at the flushed, sleeping
face. "We have done each other so little real service that I am glad
to be able to do even this much. I don't suppose it will be for long.
How quiet everything is!"

Mrs. Carmichael looked at the clock on the writing-table.

"It is not yet midnight," she said. "Probably the Rajah is keeping his
promise." Her expression relaxed a little. "Don't tire yourself," she
added bruskly to Mrs. Berry, who had been fanning the unconscious
woman's face with an improvized paper fan. "I don't think she feels
the heat."

The missionary's wife continued her good work with redoubled energy.
It was perhaps one of the few really unselfish things which she had
ever done in the course of a pious but fundamentally selfish life, and
it gave her pleasure and courage. The knowledge that some one was
weaker than herself and needed her was new strength to her new-born
heroism.

"It is so frightfully hot," she said half apologetically. "Why isn't
the punkah-man at work?"

"The 'punkah-man' has bolted with the rest of them," Mrs. Carmichael
answered. "I dare say I could work it, though I have never tried."

"It is hardly worth while to begin now," Beatrice observed, and this
simple acknowledgment that the end was at hand received no
contradiction.

Once again the silence was unbroken, save for the soft swish of the
fan and Mrs. Cary's heavy, irregular breathing. Yet the five women who
in the full swing of their life had been diametrically opposed to one
another were now united in a common sympathy. Death, far more than a
leveler of class, is the melting-pot into which are thrown all
antagonisms, all violent discords of character. The one great fact
overshadows everything, and the petty stumbling-blocks of daily life
are forgotten. More than that still--it is the supreme moment in man's
existence when the innermost treasures or unsuspected hells are
revealed beyond all denial. And in these five women, hidden in two
cases at least beneath a mass of meanness, selfishness and
indifference, there lay an unusual power of self-sacrifice and pity.
Death was drawing near to them all, and their one thought was how to
make his coming easier for the other. When the silence grew
unbearable, it was Mrs. Carmichael who had the courage to break it
with a trivial criticism respecting the manner in which Lois was
making the sandwiches.

"You should put the butter on before you cut them," she said tartly,
"and as little as possible. I'm quite sure it has gone rancid, and
then George won't touch them. He is so fussy about the butter."

Mrs. Berry looked up. The perspiration of physical fear stood on her
cold forehead, but her roused will-power fought heroically and
conquered.

"And, please, would you mind making one or two without butter?" she
said. "Percy says all Indian butter is bad. Of course, it's only an
idea of his, but men are such faddy creatures, don't you think?"

"They wouldn't be men if they weren't--" Mrs. Carmichael had begun,
when she broke off, and the scissors that had been snipping their way
steadily through the rough linen jagged and dropped on the table. She
picked them up immediately and went on with an impatient exclamation
at her own carelessness. But the involuntary start had coincided with
a loud report from outside in the darkness, and a smothered scream.

Lois put down her knife.

"Won't you come and help me?" she said to Beatrice. "Your mother will
not notice that you have gone."

Beatrice nodded, and letting the heavy head sink back among the
cushions, came over to Lois' side.

"How brave you are!" she said in a whisper. "You seem so cool and
collected, just as though you believed your sandwiches would ever be
eaten!"

"I am not braver than you are. Look how steady your hand is--much
steadier than mine."

Beatrice held out her white hand and studied it thoughtfully.

"I am not afraid," she said, "but not because I am brave. There is no
room for fear, that is all." She paused an instant, and then suddenly
the hand fell on Lois'. The two women looked at each other. "Lois, I
am so sorry."

"For me?"

"For you and every one. I have hurt so many. It has all been my fault.
I would give ten lives if I had them to see the harm undone. But that
isn't possible. Oh, Lois, there is surely nothing worse than helpless
remorse!"

The hand within her own tightened in its clasp.

"Is it ever helpless, though?"

"I can't give the dead life--I can't give back a man's faith, can I?"

The light of understanding deepened in Lois' eyes.

"Beatrice--I believe I know!"

"Yes, I see you do. Do you despise me? What does it matter if you do?
It has been my fear of the world and its opinion that helped to lead
me wrong. Isn't it a just punishment? I have ruined both our lives.
Lois, I couldn't help hearing what Captain Nicholson said to you. It
explained what you said to me about building on the ruins of the past.
That was what he did--he built a beautiful palace on me--and I wrecked
it. I failed him."

"Have you really failed him?"

"Lois, I don't know--I am beginning to believe not. But it is too
late. I meant to clear away the rubbish--and build. But there is no
time."

"You have done your best."

"Oh, if I could only save him, Lois! He was the first man I had ever
met whom I trusted, the first to trust me. I owe him everything, the
little that is good in me. It had to come to life when he believed in
it so implicitly. And he owes me ruin, outward and inward ruin."

Lois made no answer. With a warm, impulsive gesture she put her arms
about the taller woman's neck and, drawing the beautiful face down to
her own, kissed her. Beatrice responded, and thus a friendship was
sealed--not for life but for death, whose grim cordon was with every
moment being drawn closer about them.

The sound of firing had now grown incessant. One report followed
another at swift, irregular intervals, and each sounded like a clap of
thunder in the silent room. Mrs. Cary stirred uneasily in her sleep, a
low, scarcely audible groan escaped the parted lips, as though even in
her dreams she was being pursued by fear's pitiless phantom. Her
self-appointed nurse continued to fan her with the energy of despair,
the poor livid face twitching at every fresh threatening sound. Mrs.
Carmichael still pretended to be absorbed in her pinafore, but the
revolver lay on the table, ready to hand, and there was a look in the
steady eyes which boded ill for the first enemy who should confront
her. Lois and Beatrice continued their fruitless task.

A woman's courage is the supreme victory of mind over matter. It is no
easy thing for a hero to sit still and helpless while death rattles
his bullet fingers against the walls and screams in voices of hate and
fury from a distance which every minute diminishes. For a woman
burdened with the disability of a high-strung nervous system, it is a
martyrdom. Yet these women, brought up on the froth of an enervating,
pleasure-seeking society, held out--held out with a martyr's courage
and constancy--against the torture of inactivity, of an imagination
which penetrated the sheltering walls out into the night where fifty
men writhed in a death-struggle with hundreds--saw every bleeding
wound, heard every smothered moan of pain, felt already the cold iron
pierce their own breasts. The hours passed, and they did not yield.
They had ceased from their incongruous tasks, and stood and waited,
wordless and tearless.

As the first grey lights of dawn crept into the stifling room they
heard footsteps hurrying across the adjacent room, and each drew
herself upright to meet the end. Mrs. Carmichael's hand tightened over
the revolver, but it was only Mr. Berry who entered. The little
missionary, a shy, society-shunning man, noted for doing more harm
than good among the natives by his zealous bigotry and ignorance of
their prejudices, stood revealed in a new light. His face was grimed
with dirt and powder, his clothes disordered, his weak eyes bright
with the fire of battle.

"Do not be afraid," he said quickly. "There is no immediate danger. I
have only been sent to warn you to be ready to leave the bungalow. The
front wall is shot-riddled, and the place may become indefensible at
any moment. When that time comes, you must slip out to the old
bungalow. Nicholson believes he can hold out there."

"My husband--?" interrupted Mrs. Carmichael.

"Your husband is safe. In fact, all three were well when I left. If I
wasn't against such things, I should say it was a splendid fight--and
every man a hero. The Rajah--"

"The Rajah--?"

Mr. Berry looked in stern surprise at the pale face of the speaker.

"The Rajah has a charmed life," he said somberly. "He is always in the
front of his men--we can recognize him by his dress and figure--he is
always within range, but we can't hit him. Not that I ought to wish
his death, though it's our only chance." He put his hands distractedly
to his head. "Heaven knows, it's too hard for a Christian man! Every
time I see an enemy fall, I rejoice--and then I remember that it is my
brother--" He stopped, the expression on his face of profound trouble
giving way to active alarm. "Hush! Some one is coming!"

A second time the door opened, and Travers rushed in. Lois saw his
face, and something in her recoiled in sick disgust. Fear, an almost
imbecilic fear, was written on the wide-open, staring eyes, and the
hand that held the revolver trembled like that of an old man.

"Quick--out by the back way!" he stammered incoherently. "I will lock
the door--so. That will keep them off a minute. They are bound to look
for us here first. Nicholson is retiring with his men--they are going
to have a try to bring down the Rajah. It's our one chance. It may
frighten the devils--they think he's a god. I believe he is, curse
him!" All the time, he had been piling furniture against the door with
a mad and feverish energy. "Help me! Help me!" he screamed. "Why don't
you help? Do you want to be killed like sheep?"

Lois drew him back by the arm.

"You are wasting time," she said firmly. "Come with us! Why, you are
hurt!"

He looked at the thin stream which trickled down the soiled white of
his coat. A silly smile flickered over his big face.

"Oh, yes, a scratch. I hardly feel it. It isn't anything. It can't be
anything. There's nothing vital thereabouts, is there, Berry?"

The missionary shrugged his shoulders. He had flung open the glass
doors which led on to the verandah, and the brightening dawn flooded
in upon them.

"Come and help me carry this poor lady," he said. "We have not a
minute to lose."

Travers tried to obey, but he had no strength, and the other thrust
him impatiently on one side.

"Mrs. Carmichael, you are a strong woman," he appealed. Between them
they managed to bring Mrs. Cary's heavy, unconscious frame down the
steps. It was a nerve-trying task, for their progress was of necessity
a slow one, and the sound of the desperate fighting seemed to surround
them on every side. It was with a feeling of intense relief that the
little party saw Nicholson appear from amidst the trees and run toward
them.

"That's right!" he cried. "Only be quick! They are at us on all sides
now, but my men are keeping them off until you are out of the
bungalow. The old ruin at the back of the garden is our last stand.
Carmichael is there already with a detachment, and is keeping off a
rear attack. I shall remain here."

"Alone?" Berry asked anxiously.

"Yes. I believe they will ransack the bungalow first. When they come,
the Rajah is sure to be at their head, and--well, it's going to be
diamond cut diamond between us two when we meet. I know the beggars
and their superstition. If I get in the first shot, they will bolt. If
_he_ does--"

"You are going to shoot him down like a rat in a trap!" Beatrice burst
out passionately.

The others had already hurried on. With a gentle force he urged her to
follow them.

"Or be shot down myself," he said. "Leave me to do my duty as I think
best."

She met his grave eyes defiantly, but perhaps some instinct told her
that he was risking his life for a poor chance--for their last chance,
for without a word she turned away, apparently in the direction which
her companions had already taken.

As soon as she was out of sight, Nicholson recharged his smoking
revolver, and stood there quietly waiting. His trained ear heard the
firing in front of the bungalow cease. He knew then that his men were
retiring to join Colonel Carmichael, and that he stood alone, the last
barrier between death and those he loved. The sound of triumphant
shouting drew nearer; he heard the wrenching and tearing of doors
crashing down before an impetuous onslaught, the cling of steel, a
howl of sudden satisfaction. His hand tightened upon his revolver; he
stood ready to meet his enemy single-handed, to fight out the duel
between man and man. But no one came. A bewildering silence had
followed upon the last bloodthirsty cry. It was as though the hand of
death had fallen and with one annihilating blow beaten down the
approaching horde in the high tide of their victory. But of the two
this strange stillness was the more terrible. It penetrated to the
little waiting group in the old bungalow and filled them with the
chill horror of the unknown. Something had happened--that they felt.

Lois crept to the doorway and peered out into the gathering daylight.
Here and there, half hidden behind the shelter of the trees, she could
see the khaki-clad figures of the Gurkhas, some kneeling, some
standing, their rifles raised to their dark faces, waiting like
statues for the enemy that never came. A dead, petrified world, the
only living thing the sunshine, which played in peaceful indifference
upon the scene of an old and a new tragedy! Lois thought of her
mother. By the power of an overwrought imagination she looked back
through a quarter of a century to a day of which this present was a
strange and horrible repetition. For a moment she lived her mother's
life, lived through the hours of torturing doubt and fear, and when a
stifled cry called her back to the reality and forced her to turn from
the sunlight to the dark room, it was as though the dead had risen, as
though her dreams had taken substance. She saw pale faces staring at
her; she saw on the rusty truckle-bed a figure which rose up and held
out frantic, desperate arms toward her. But it was no dream--no
phantom. Mrs. Cary, wild-eyed and distraught, struggled to rise to her
feet and come toward her.

"Where is Beatrice?" she cried hysterically. "Where is Beatrice? I
dreamed she was dead!--It isn't true! Say it isn't true!"

Lois hurried back. In the confusion of their retreat she had lost
sight of Beatrice, and now a cold fear froze her blood. She called her
name, adding her voice to the half-delirious mother's appeal; but
there was no answer, and as she prepared to leave the shelter of the
bungalow to go in search of the lost girl, a pair of strong hands
grasped her by the shoulders and forced her back.

"Lois, stand back! They are coming!"

Colonel Carmichael thrust her behind him, and an instant later she
heard the report of his revolver. There was no answering volley. A
dark, scantily-clad figure sprang through the trees, waving one hand
as though in imperative appeal.

"Don't fire--don't fire! It's me!"

The Colonel's still smoking revolver sank, and the supposed native
swayed toward him, only to sink a few yards farther on to the ground.
Carmichael ran to his side and lifted the fainting head against his
shoulder.

"Good God, Geoffries! Don't say I've hit you! How on earth was I to
know!"

"That's all right, Colonel. Only winded--don't you know--never hurried
so much in life. Have been in the midst of the beggars--just managed
to slip through. O Lor', give me something to drink, will you?"
Colonel Carmichael put his flask to the parched and broken lips.
"Thanks, that's better. We got your message, and are coming on like
fun. The regiment's only an hour off. You never saw Saunders in such a
fluster--it's his first big job, you know." He took another deep
draft, and wiped his mouth with the corner of his ragged tunic. "I
say--don't look at me, Miss Lois. I'm not fit to be seen." He laughed
hoarsely. "These clothes weren't made in Bond Street, and Webb assured
me that the fewer I had the more genuine I looked. I say, Colonel,
this is a lively business!"

Colonel Carmichael nodded as he helped the gasping and exhausted man
into the bungalow.

"Too lively to be talked about," he said. "I doubt if the regiment
isn't going to add itself to the general disaster."

"Oh, rot!" was the young officer's forgetful lapse into disrespect.
"The regiment will do for the beggars all right. They didn't expect us
so soon, I fancy. Just listen! I believe I've frightened them away
already. There isn't a sound."

Colonel Carmichael lifted his head. True enough, no living thing
seemed to move. A profound hush hung in the air, broken only by Mrs.
Cary's pitiful meanings.

"Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, where are you?"

Geoffries turned his stained face to the Colonel's.

"Beatrice! That's Miss Cary, isn't it? Anything happened to her?"

Colonel Carmichael shrugged his shoulders with the impatience of a man
whose nerves are overstrained by anxiety.

"I don't know--we've lost her," he said. "We must do something at
once. Heaven alone knows what has happened."

No one indeed knew what had happened--not even the lonely man who
waited, revolver in hand, for the final encounter on whose issue hung
the fortunes of them all.

Only one knew, and that was Beatrice herself as she stood before the
shattered doorway of the Colonel's drawing-room, amidst the debris of
wrecked, shot-riddled furniture, face to face with Nehal Singh.




CHAPTER IX

HALF-LIGHT


Once before she had placed herself in his path, trusting to her skill,
her daring, above all, her beauty. With laughter in her heart and
cold-blooded coquetry she had chosen out the spot before the altar
where the sunlight struck burnished gold from her waving hair and lent
deeper, softening shades to her eyes. With cruel satisfaction, not
unmixed with admiration, she had seen her power successful and the
awe-struck wonder and veneration creep into his face. In the silence
and peace of the temple she had plunged reckless hands into the woven
threads of his life. Amidst the shriek of war, face to face with
death, she sought to save him. It was another woman who stood opposite
the yielding, cracking door, past whose head a half-spent bullet spat
its way, burying itself in the wall behind her,--another woman,
disheveled, forgetful of her wan beauty, trusting to no power but that
which her heart gave her to face the man she had betrayed and ruined.
Yet both in an instantaneous flash remembered that first meeting. The
drawn sword sank, point downward. He stood motionless in the shattered
doorway, holding out a hand which commanded, and obtained, a
petrified, waiting silence from the armed horde whose faces glared
hatred and the lust of slaughter in the narrow space behind. Whatever
had been his resolution, whatever the detestation and contempt which
had filled him, all sank now into an ocean of reborn pain.

"Why are you here?" he asked sternly. "Why have you not fled?"

"We are all here," she answered. "None of us has fled. Did you not
know that?"

He looked about him. A flash of scorn rekindled in his somber eyes.

"You are alone. Have they deserted you?"

"They do not know that I am here. I crept back of my own free will--to
speak with you, Nehal."

Both hands clasped upon his sword-hilt, erect, a proud figure of
misfortune, he stood there and studied her, half-wonderingly,
half-contemptuously. The restless forces at his back were forgotten.
They were no more to him than the pawns with which his will played
life and death. He was their god and their faith. They waited for his
word to sweep out of his path the white-faced Englishwoman who held
him checked in the full course of his victory. But he did not speak to
them, but to her, in a low voice in which scorn still trembled.

"You are here, no doubt, to intercede for those others--or for
yourself. You see, I have learned something in these two years. It is
useless. No one can stop me now."

"No one?"

He smiled, and for the first time she saw a sneer disfigure his lips.

"Not even you, Miss Cary. You have done a great deal with me--enough
perhaps to justify your wildest hopes--but you have touched the limits
of your powers and of my gullibility. Or did you think there were no
limits?"

"I do not recognize you when you talk like that!" she exclaimed.

"That is surprising, seeing that you have made me what I am," he
answered. Then he made a quick gesture of apology. "Forgive me, that
sounded like a reproach or a complaint. I make neither. That is not my
purpose."

"And yet you have the right," she said, drawing a deep breath, "you
have every right, Nehal. It does not matter what the others did to
you. I know that does not count an atom in comparison to my
responsibilities. You trusted me as you trusted no one else, and I
deceived you. So you have the right to hate me as you hate no one
else. And yet--is it not something, does it not mitigate my fault a
little, that I deceived myself far, far more than I ever deceived
you?" He raised his eyebrows. There was mockery in the movement, and
she went on, desperately resolute: "I played at loving you, Nehal. I
played a comedy with you for my own purposes. And one day it ceased to
be a comedy. I did not know it. I did not know what was driving me to
tell the truth, and reveal myself to you in the ugliest light I could.
I only knew it was something in me stronger than any other impulse of
my life. I know what it is now, and you must know, too. Can't you
understand? If it had been no more than a comedy, you must have found
me out--months ago. But you never found me out. It was _I_ who told
you what I had done and who I was--"

"Why did you tell me?" He took an involuntary step toward her.
Something in his face relaxed beneath the force of an uncontrollable
emotion. He was asking a question which had hammered at the gates of
his mind day after day and in every waking hour. "Why?" he repeated.

"I have told you--because I had to. I had to speak the truth. I
couldn't build up my new life on an old lie. You had to know. I had
won your love by a trick. I had to show you the lowest and worst part
of myself before the best in me could grow--the best in me, which is
yours."

"You are raving!"

"I am not raving. You must see I am not. Look at me. I am calmer than
you, though I face certain death. I knew when I came here that the
chances were I should be killed before I even saw you, but I had to
risk that. I had to win your trust back somehow, honestly and fairly.
I can not live without your trust."

"Beatrice!" The name escaped him almost without his knowledge. He saw
tears spring to her eyes.

"It is true. Your love and your trust have become my life. Then I was
unworthy of both. I tried to make myself worthy. I did what I could. I
told you the truth--I threw away the only thing that mattered to me. I
could not hold your love any longer by a lie--I loved you too much!"

For that moment the passionate energy of her words, the sincerity and
eloquence of her glance, swept back every thought of suspicion. He
stood stupefied, almost overwhelmed. Mechanically his lips formed
themselves to a few broken sentences.

"You can not know what you are saying. You are beside yourself. Once,
in my ignorance, I believed it possible, but now I know that it could
never be. Your race despises mine--"

"I do not care what you are nor to whom you belong!" she broke in,
exulting. "You are the man who taught me to believe that there is
something in this world that is good, that is worthy of veneration;
who awoke in me what little good I have. I love you. If I could win
you back--"

"What then?"

"I would follow you to the world's end!"

"As my wife?"

"As your wife!"

He held out his arms toward her, impulse rising like the sun high and
splendid above the mists of distrust. It was an instant's
forgetfulness, which passed as rapidly as it had come. His arms sank
heavily to his side.

"Have you thought what that means? If you go with me, you must leave
your people for ever."

"I would follow you gladly."

He shook his head.

"You do not understand. You must leave them now--now when I go against
them."

"No!" she broke in roughly. "You can't, Nehal, you can't. You have the
right to be bitter and angry; you have not the right to commit a
crime. And it would be a crime. You are plunging thousands into
bloodshed and ruin--" He lifted his hand, and the expression in his
eyes checked her.

"So it is, after all, a bargain that you offer me!" he said. "You are
trying to save them. You offer a high price, but I am not a merchant.
I can not buy you, Beatrice."

"It is not a bargain!" For the first time she faltered, taken aback by
the pitiless logic of his words. "Can't you see that? Can't you see
that, however much I loved you, I could not act otherwise than implore
you to turn back from a step that means destruction for those bound to
me by blood and country? Could I do less?"

"No," he said slowly.

She held out her hands to him.

"Oh, Nehal, turn back while there is yet time! For my sake, for yours,
for us all, turn back from a bloody, cruel revenge. The power is
yours. Be generous. If we have wronged you, we have suffered and are
ready to atone. _I_ am ready to atone. I _can_ atone, because I love
you. I have spoken the truth to you. I have laid my soul bare to you
as I have done to no other being. Won't you trust me?"

His eyes met hers with a somber, hopeless significance which cut her
to the heart.

"I can't," he said. "I can't. That is what you have taught me--to
distrust you--and every one."

She stood silent now, paralyzed by the finality of his words and
gesture. It was as though the shadow of her heartless folly had risen
before her and become an iron wall of unrelenting, measured
retribution against which she beat herself in vain. He lifted his head
higher, seeming to gather together his shaken powers of self-control.

"I can not trust you," he said again, "nor can I turn back. But there
is one thing from the past which can not be changed. I love you. It
seems that must remain through all my life. And because of that love I
must save you from the death that awaits your countrymen." He smiled
in faint self-contempt. "It is not for your sake that I shall save
you; it is because I am too great a coward, and can not face the
thought that anything so horrible should come near you." He turned to
two native soldiers behind him and gave an order. When he faced
Beatrice again he saw that she held a revolver in her hand.

"You do not understand," she said. "You say you mean to save me, but
that is not in your power. It is in your power to save us all, but not
one alone. I know what my people have resolved to do. There are weak,
frightened women among them, but not one of them will fall into your
hands alive. Whatever happens, I shall share their fate."

Though her tone was quiet and free from all bravado, he knew that she
was not boasting. He knew, too, that she was desperate.

"You can not force me to kill you," he said sternly.

"I think it possible," she answered. She was breathing quickly, and
her eyes were bright with a reckless, feverish excitement. But the
hand that held the revolver pointed at the men behind him was
steady--steadier than his own.

Nehal Singh motioned back the two natives who had advanced at his
order.

"You play a dangerous game," he said, "and, as before, your strength
lies in my weakness--in my folly. But this time you can not win. My
word is given--to my people."

"I shall not plead with you," she returned steadily, "and you may be
sure I shall not waver. I am not afraid to die. I had hoped to atone
for all the wrong that has been done you with my love for you, Nehal.
I had hoped that then you would turn away from this madness and become
once more our friend. To this end I have not hesitated to trample on
my dignity and pride. I have not spared myself. But you will not
listen, you are determined to go on, and I"--she caught her breath
sharply--"surely you can understand? I love you, and you have made
yourself the enemy of my country. Death is the easiest, the kindest
solution to it all."

Nehal Singh's brows knitted themselves in the anguish of a man who
finds himself thwarted by his own nature. He tried not to believe her,
and indeed, in all her words, though they had rung like music, his
ear, tuned to suspicion, had heard the mocking undercurrent of
laughter. She had laughed at him secretly through all those months
when he had offered up to her the incense of an absolute faith, an
unshared devotion. Even now she might be laughing at him, playing on
that in him which nothing could destroy or conceal--his love for her.
And yet--! Behind him he heard the uneasy stir of impatient feet, the
hushed clash of arms. He stood between her and a certain, terrible
death. One word from him, and it would be over--his path clear. But he
could not speak that word. Treacherous and cruel as she had been, the
halo of her first glory still hung about her. He saw her as he had
first seen her--the golden image of pure womanhood--and, strange,
unreasoning contradiction of the human heart, beneath the ashes of his
old faith a new fire had kindled and with every moment burned more
brightly. Unquenchable trust fought out a death struggle with
distrust, and in that conflict her words recurred to him with poignant
significance: "Death is the easiest, the kindest solution to it all."
For him also there seemed no other escape. He pointed to the revolver.

"For whom is that?" he asked.

"I do not know--but I will make them kill me."

"Why do you not shoot me, then?" he demanded, between despair and
bitterness. "That would save you all. If I fell, they would turn and
fly. They think I am Vishnu. Haven't you thought of that? I am in your
power. Why don't you make yourself the benefactress of your country?
Why don't you shoot her enemy?"

She made no answer, but her eyes met his steadily and calmly. He
turned away, groaning. In vain he fought against it, in vain stung
himself to action by the memory of all that she had done to him. His
love remained triumphant. In that supreme moment his faith burst
through the darkness, and again he believed in her, believed in her
against reason, against the world, against the ineffaceable past, and
against himself. And it was too late. He no longer stood alone. His
word was given.

"Have pity on me!" he said, once more facing her. "Let me save you!"

"I should despise myself, and you would despise me--even more than you
do now. I can not do less than share the fate of those whose lives my
folly has jeopardized."

"At least go back to them--do not stay here. Beatrice, for God's
sake!--I can not turn back. You have made me suffer enough--." He
stood before her now as an incoherent pleader, and her heart burned
with an exultation in which the thought of life and death played no
part. She knew that he still loved her. It seemed for the moment all
that mattered.

"I can not," she said.

"Beatrice, do not deceive yourself. Though my life is nothing to
me--though I would give it a dozen times to save you--I can not do
otherwise than go on. I may be weak, but I shall be stronger than my
weakness. My word is given!"

He spoke with the tempestuous energy of despair. The minutes were
passing with terrible swiftness, and any moment the sea behind him
might burst its dam and sweep her and him to destruction. Already in
the distance he heard the dull clamour of voices raised in angry
remonstrance at the delay. Only those immediately about him were held
in awed silence by the power of his personality. Again Beatrice shook
her head. She stood in the doorway which opened out into the garden
where the besieged had taken refuge. There was no other way. He
advanced toward her. Instantly she raised her revolver and pointed it
at the first man behind him.

"If I fire," she said, "not even you will be able to hold them back."

It seemed to her that she stood like a frail wall between two
overwhelming forces--on the one side, Nehal with his thousands; on the
other, Nicholson--alone, truly, but armed with a set and pitiless
resolve. A single sentence, which had fallen upon her ears months
before, rose now out of an ocean of half-forgotten memories:
"Nicholson is the best shot in India," some one had said: "he never
misses." And still Nehal advanced. His jaws were locked, his eyes had
a red fire in them. She knew then that the hour of hesitation was
over, and that in that desperate struggle she had indeed lost.
Uncontrollable words of warning rushed to her lips.

"Nehal--turn back! Turn back!"

He did not understand her. He thought she was still pleading with him.

"I can not--God have pity on us both!"

Then she too set her lips. She could not betray the last hope of that
heroic handful of men and women behind her. He must go to his
death--and she to hers. She fired,--whether with success or not, she
never knew. In that same instant another sound broke upon their
ears--the sound of distant firing, the rattle of drums and the high
clear call of a trumpet. Nehal Singh swung around. She caught a
glimpse of his face through the smoke, and she saw something written
there which she could not understand. She only knew that his features
seemed to bear a new familiarity, as though a mask had been torn from
them, revealing the face of another man, of a man whom she had seen
before, when and where she could not tell. She had no time to analyze
her emotions nor the sense of violent shock which passed over her. She
heard Nehal Singh giving sharp, rapid orders in Hindustani. The room
emptied. She saw him follow the retreating natives. At the door he
turned and looked back at her. At no time had his love for her
revealed itself more clearly than in that last glance.

"The English regiment has come to help you," he said. "Fate has
intervened between us this time. May we never meet again!"

He passed out through the shattered doorway, but she stood where he
had left her, motionless, almost unconscious. It was thus Nicholson
and the Colonel found her when, a moment later, they entered the room
by the verandah. Colonel Carmichael's passionate reproaches died away
as he saw her face.

"You must not stop here," he said. "You have frightened us all
terribly. The regiment has come and is attacking. There will be some
desperate fighting. We must all stick together."

She caught Nicholson's eyes resting on her. She thought she read pity
and sympathy in their steady depths, and wondered if he guessed what
she had tried to do. But he said nothing, and she followed the two men
blindly and indifferently back to the bungalow.




CHAPTER X

TRAVERS


They had no light. They talked in whispers, and now and again, when
the darkness grew too oppressive, they stretched out groping hands and
touched each other. They did this without explanation. Though none
complained or spoke of fear, each needed the consolation of the
other's company, and a touch was worth more than words. Mrs. Cary
alone needed nothing. She lay on the rough truckle-bed and slept. Thus
she had been for a week--a whole week of nerve-wrecking struggle
against odds which marked hope as vain. Bullets had beaten like rain
upon the walls about her, the moaning of wounded men on the other side
of the hastily constructed partition mingled unceasingly with the
cries of the ever-nearing enemy. And she had lain there quiet and
indifferent. Martins, the regiment's doctor, had looked in once at her
and had shaken his head. "In all probability she will never wake," he
had said. "Perhaps it is the kindest thing that could happen to her."
And then he had gone his way to those who needed him more.

Mrs. Berry knelt by the bedside. Her hands were folded. She had been
praying, but exhaustion had overcome her, and her quiet, peaceful
breathing contrasted strangely with the other sounds that filled the
bungalow. Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice sat huddled close together,
listening. They could do nothing--not even help the wounded men who
lay so close to them. Everything was in pitch darkness, and no lights
were allowed. They could not go out and help in the stern, relentless
struggle that was going on about them. They bore the woman's harder
lot of waiting, inactive, powerless, fighting the harder battle
against uncertainty and all the horrors of the imagination.

"I am sorry the regiment has come," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "There
is no doubt they will be massacred with the rest of us. What are a few
hundreds against thousands? It is a pity. They are such fine fellows."

Her rough, tired voice had a ring of unconquerable pride in it. She
was thinking of the gallant charge her husband's men had made only two
weeks before; how they had broken through the wall of the enemy, and,
cheering, had rushed to meet the besieged garrison. That had been a
moment of rejoicing, transitory and deceptive. Then the wall closed in
about them again, and they knew that they were trapped.

"Perhaps we can hold out till help comes," Beatrice said.

She tried not to be indifferent. For the sake of her companions she
would gladly have felt some desire for life, but in truth it had no
value for her. She could think of nothing but the evil she had done
and of the atonement that had been denied her. It was to no purpose
that she worked unceasingly for the wounded. The sense of
responsibility never left her. Each moan, each death-sigh brought the
same meaning to her ear: "You have helped to do this--this is your
work."

"No help will come," Mrs. Carmichael said, shaking her head at the
darkness. "When a whole province rises as this has done, it takes
months to organize a sufficient force, and we shan't last out many
days. I wonder what people in England are saying. How well I can see
them over their breakfast cups! Oh, dear, I mustn't think of breakfast
cups, or I shall lose my nerve." She laughed under her breath, and
there was a long silence.

Presently the door of the bungalow opened, letting in a stream of
moonlight. It was closed instantly, and soft footfalls came over the
boarded floor.

"Who is it?" Mrs. Carmichael whispered.

"I--Lois," was the answer. The new-comer crept down by Beatrice's side
and leaned her head against the warm shoulder. "I am so tired," she
said faintly. "I have been with Archibald. He has been moaning so. Mr.
Berry says he is afraid mortification has set in. It is terrible."

"Poor little woman!" Beatrice put her arm about the slender figure and
drew her closer. "Lay your head on my lap and sleep a little. You can
do no good just now."

"Thank you. I will, if you don't mind. You will wake me if anything
happens, won't you?"

"Yes, I promise." It gave Beatrice a sense of comfort to have Lois
near her. Very gently she passed her hand over the aching forehead,
and presently Lois fell into a sleep of absolute exhaustion.

By mutual consent, Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice ceased to talk, but
when suddenly there was a movement close to them, and a dim light
flashed over the partition, they exchanged a glance of meaning.

"That is my husband," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "Something is going
to happen. Listen!"

She was not wrong in her supposition. The Colonel had entered the next
room, followed by Nicholson and Saunders, and had closed the door
carefully after him. All three men carried lanterns. They glanced
instinctively at the wooden partition which divided them from the four
women, but Carmichael shook his head.

"It's all right," he said. "They must be fast asleep, poor souls.
Let's have a look at these fellows." He went over to a huddled-up
figure lying in the shadow. The corner of a military cloak had been
thrown over the face. He drew it on one side and then let it drop.
"Gone!" he said laconically. He passed on to the next. There were in
all three men ranged against the wall. Two of them were dead. "Martins
told me they couldn't last," Colonel Carmichael muttered. "It is
better for them. They are out of it a little sooner, that's all." The
third man was Travers. He lay on his back, his face turned slightly
toward the wall, his eyes closed. He seemed asleep. The Colonel nodded
somberly. "Another ten hours," he calculated.

He came back to the table, where the others waited, and drew out a
paper from his pocket.

"Give me your light a moment, Nicholson," he said.

No one spoke while he examined the list before him. All around them
was a curious hush--a new thing in their struggle, and one that seemed
surcharged with calamity. After a moment Colonel Carmichael looked up.
He was many years the senior of his companions, but just then there
seemed no difference in years between them. They were three wan,
haggard men, weakened with hunger, exhausted with sleepless watching.
That week had killed the youth in two of them.

"Geoffries has just given me this," Carmichael said. "It is a list of
our provisions. We have enough food, but there is no fresh water. The
enemy has cut off the supply. We could not expect them to do
otherwise." He waited, and then, as neither spoke, he went on: "I have
spoken with the others. You know, gentlemen, we can not go on another
twenty-four hours without water. We have made a good fight for it, but
this is the end. We must look the fact in the face."

"Surely they must know at headquarters what a state we are in--"
Saunders began.

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.

"No doubt they know, but they can not help in time. This is not a
petty frontier business. It is something worse--a rising with a leader.
A rising with a leader is a lengthy business to tackle, and it
requires its victims. In this case we are the victims." He smiled
grimly. "We have only one thing left to do--make a dash for it while we
have the strength. You must know as well as I do that there is
scarcely anything worth calling a hope, but it's a more agreeable way
of dying than being starved out like rats and then butchered like
sheep. I know these devils." He glanced around the shadowy room with a
curious light in his eyes. "My best friend was murdered in this room,"
he added. "Personally, I prefer a fair fight in the open."

"When do you propose to make the start, Colonel?" Nicholson asked.

"Within an hour. The night favors us. The women must be kept in the
center as much as possible. I have given Geoffries special charge over
them. They will be told at the last moment. There is no use in
spoiling what little rest they have had." He drew out a pencil and
began to scribble a despatch on the back of an old letter. "I advise
you gentlemen to do likewise," he said. "Very often a piece of paper
gets through where a man can not, and it is our bounden duty to supply
the morning periodicals with as much news as possible."

For some minutes there was no sound save that of the pencils scrawling
the last messages of men with the seal of death already stamped upon
their foreheads. All three had forgotten Travers, and yet from the
moment they had begun to speak he had been awake and listening. He sat
up now, leaning upon his elbow.

"Nicholson!" he said faintly.

Nicholson turned and came to his side.

"Hullo!" he said. "Awake, are you? How are you?"

Travers made no immediate answer; he took Nicholson's hand in a
feverish clasp and drew him nearer.

"I am in great pain," he said. "You don't need to pretend. I know. The
fear of death has been on me all day. Just now I am not afraid. Is
there no hope?"

"You mean--for us? None."

Travers nodded.

"I heard you talking, but I wanted to make sure. It has all been my
fault--every bit of it. It's decent of you not to make me feel it
more. You are not to blame--her. You know I tempted her, I made her
help me. She isn't responsible. At any rate, she made a clean breast
of it--that's something to her credit. I didn't want to--I never meant
to. I am not the sort that repents. But this last week you have been
so decent, and Lois such a plucky little soul--she ought to hate
me--and perhaps she does--but she has done her best. Nicholson, are
you listening? Can you hear what I say? It's so damned hard for me to
talk."

"I can hear," Nicholson said kindly. "Don't worry about what can't be
helped." In spite of everything, he pitied the man, and his tone
showed it.

Travers lifted himself higher, clinging to the other's shoulder. His
voice began to come in rough, uneven jerks.

"But it can be helped--it must be helped! Don't you see--I came
between you and Lois purposely. From the first moment you spoke of her
I knew that you loved her--and I wanted her. I never gave your
message. I didn't dare. You are the sort of man a woman cares for--a
woman like Lois. I couldn't risk it. But now--well, I'm done, and
afterward she will be free--"

Nicholson drew back stiffly.

"You are talking nonsense," he said, in a colder tone. "No one wants
you to die--and in any case, you know very well we have no chance of
getting through this alive."

Travers seized his arm. His eyes shone with a painful excitement.

"Yes--yes!" he stammered. "You have a chance--a sure hope. I can save
you; I can--atone. That's what I want. Only you must help me. I am a
dying man. I want you to bring me to the Rajah--at once. Only five
minutes with him--that will be enough. Then he will let you go--he
must!"

Nicholson freed himself resolutely from the clinging hands.

"You exaggerate your power," he said, "and, besides, what you ask is
an impossibility."

He turned away, but Travers caught his arm and held him with a
frantic, desperate strength.
little given to humiliating your neighbours, male or female....”

“Yes, yes; but we are not so conceited or such play-actors as you are.
A woman may think herself pretty and amiable and sweet, and not be so.
That is true; but on the other hand, every man thinks himself braver
than the Cid, even if he is afraid of a fly, and more talented than
Seneca, even if he is a dolt.”

“To sum up, men are a calamity.”

“Just so.”

“And women spend their lives fishing for these calamities.”

“They need them; there are inferior things which still are necessary.”

“And there are superior things which are good for nothing.”

“Will you come and take a drive with me, philosopher brother?”

“Where?”

“Let’s go to the Villa Borghese. The carriage will be here in a moment.”

“All right. Let us go there.”

A two-horse victoria with rubber tires was waiting at the door, and
Laura and Cæsar got in. The carriage went past the Treasury, and out
the Porta Salaria, and entered the gardens of the Villa Borghese.

The morning had been rainy; the ground was damp; the wind waved the
tree-tops gently and caused a murmur like the tide. The carriage rolled
slowly along the avenues. Laura was very gay and chatty. Cæsar listened
to her as one listens to a bird warbling.

Many times while listening he thought: “What is there inside this head?
What is the master idea of her life? Has she really any idea about life,
or has she none?”

After several rounds they crossed the viaduct that unites the Villa
Borghese with the Pincio gardens.



_FROM THE PINCIO TERRACE_

They approached the great terrace of the gardens by an avenue that has
busts of celebrated men along both sides.

“Poor great men!” exclaimed Cæsar. “Their statues serve only to
decorate a public garden.” “They had their lives,” replied Laura, gaily;
“now we have ours.”

Laura ordered the coachman to stop a moment. The air was still murmuring
in the foliage, the birds singing, and the clouds flying slowly across
the sky.

A man with a black box approached the carriage to offer them postcards.

“Buy two or three,” said Laura.

Cæsar bought a few and put them into his pocket. The vendor withdrew
and Laura continued to look at Rome with enthusiasm.

“Oh, how beautiful, how lovely it is! I never get tired of looking at
it. It is my favourite city. ‘_O fior d’ogni cittá, donna del mondo_.’”

“She is no longer mistress of the world, little sister.”

“For me she is. Look at St. Peter’s. It looks like a shred of cloud.”

“Yes, that’s so. It’s of a blue shade that seems transparent.”

Bells were ringing and great majestic white clouds kept moving along the
horizon; on the Janiculum the statue of Garibaldi rose up gallantly into
the air, like a bird ready to take wing.

“When I look at Rome this way,” murmured Laura, “I feel a pang, a pang
of grief.”

“Why?”

“Because I remember that I must die, and then I shall not come back
to see Rome. She will be here still, century after century, full of
sunlight, and I shall be dead.... It is horrible, horrible!”

“And your religion?”

“Yes, I know. I believe I shall see other things; but not these things
that are so beautiful.”

“You are an Epicurean.”

“It is so beautiful to be alive!”

They stayed there looking at the panorama. Below, in the Piazza del
Popólo, they saw a red tram slipping along, which looked, at that
distance, like a toy.

A tilbury, driven by a woman, stopped near their carriage. The woman was
blond with green eyes, prominent cheek-bones, and a little fur cap. At
her feet lay an enormous dog with long flame-coloured hair.

“She must be a Russian,” said Cæsar.

“Yes. Do you like that type?”

“She has a lot of character. She looks like one of the women that would
order servants to be whipped.”

The Russian was smiling vaguely. Laura told the coachman to drive on.
They made a few rounds in the avenues of the Pincio. The music was
beginning; a few carriages, and groups of soldiers and seminarians,
crowded around the bandstand; Laura didn’t care for brass bands, they
were too noisy for her, and she gave the coachman orders to drive to the
Corso.



_MEETING MARCHMONT_

They passed in front of the Villa Medici, and when they got near the
Piazza, della Trinitá de’ Monti they met a man on horseback, who, on
seeing them, immediately approached the carriage. It was Archibald
Marchmont, who had just arrived in Rome.

“I thought you had forgotten us,” said Laura.

“I forget you, Marchesa! Never.”

“You say you came to Rome....”

“From Nice I had to return to London, because my father was seriously
ill with an attack of gout.”

“He is well again?”

“Yes, thank you. You are coming back from a drive?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you want to come and have tea with my wife and me?”

“Where?”

“At the Hotel Excelsior. We are staying there. Will you come?” “All
right.”

Laura accepted, and they went to the Via Veneto with the Englishman
riding beside them.

They went into the hotel and passed through to the “hall” full of
people, Marchmont sent word to his wife by a servant, to come down.
Laura and Cæsar seated themselves with the Englishman.

“This hotel is unbearable,” exclaimed Marchmont; “there is nothing here
but Americans.”

“Your wife, however, must like that,” said Cæsar.

“No. Susanna is more European every day, and she doesn’t care for the
shrieking elegance of her compatriots. Besides, her father is here, and
that makes her feel less American.”

“It is an odd form of filial enthusiasm,” remarked Cæsar.

“It doesn’t shock me. I almost think it’s the rule,” replied Marchmont;
“at home I could see that my brothers and sisters hated one another
cordially, and that every member of the family wanted to get away from
the others. You two who are so fond of each other are a very rare
instance. Is it frequent in Spain that brothers and sisters like one
another?”

“Yes, there are instances of it,” answered Cæsar, laughing.

Mrs. Marchmont arrived, accompanied by an old man who evidently was her
father, and two other men. Susanna was most smart; she greeted Laura and
Cæsar very affably, and presented her father, Mr. Russell; then she
presented an English author, tall, skinny, with blue eyes, a white
beard, and hair like a halo; and then a young Englishman from the
Embassy, a very distinguished person named Kennedy, who was a Catholic.



_TEA_

After the introductions they passed into the dining-room, which was
most impressive. It was an exhibition of very smart women, some of
them ideally beautiful, and idle men. All about them resounded a nasal
English of the American sort.

Susanna Marchmont served the tea and did the honours to her guests.
They all talked French, excepting Mr. Russell, who once in a long while
uttered some categorical monosyllable in his own language.

Mr. Russell was not of the classic Yankee type; he looked like a vulgar
Englishman. He was a serious man, with a short moustache, grey-headed,
with three or four gold teeth.

What to Cæsar seemed wonderful in this gentleman was his economy of
words. There was not one useless expression in his vocabulary, and
not the slightest redundancy; whatever partook of merit, prestige, or
nobility was condensed, for him, to the idea of value; whatever partook
of arrangement, cleanliness, order, was condensed to the word “comfort”;
so that Mr. Russell, with a very few words, had everything specified.

To Susanna, imbued with her preoccupation in supreme _chic_, her father
no doubt did not seem a completely decorative father; but he gave Cæsar
the impression of a forceful man.

Near them, at a table close by, was a little blond man, with a hooked
nose and a scanty imperial, in company with a fat lady. They bowed to
Marchmont and his wife.

“That gentleman looks like a Jew,” said Cæsar.

“He is,” replied Marchmont, “that is Señor Pereyra, a rich Jew; of
Portuguese origin, I think.”

“How quickly you saw it!” exclaimed Susanna.

“He has that air of a sick goat, so frequent in Jews.”

“His wife has nothing sickly about her, or thin either,” remarked Laura.

“No,” said Cæsar; “his wife represents another Biblical type; one of
the fat kine of somebody’s dream, which foretold abundance and a good
harvest.”

The Englishman, Kennedy, had also little liking for Jews.

“I do not hate a Jew as anti-Christian,” said Cæsar; “but as
super-Christian. Nor do I hate the race, but the tendency they have
never to be producers, but always middlemen, and because they incarnate
so well for our era the love of money, and of joy and pleasure.”

The English author was a great partisan of Jews, and he asserted that
they were more distinguished in science and the arts than any other
race. The Jewish question was dropped in an instant, when they saw a
smart lady come in accompanied by a pale man with a black shock of hair
and an uneasy eye.

“That is the Hungarian violinist Kolozsvar,” said Susanna.

“Kolozsvar, Kolozsvar!” they heard everybody saying.

“Is he a great virtuoso?” Cæsar asked Kennedy.

“No, I think not,” answered Kennedy. “It seems that this Hungarian’s
speciality is playing the waltzes and folk-songs of his own country,
which is certainly not anything great; but his successes are not
obtained with the violin, but among the women. The ladies in London
fight for him. His game is to pass himself off as a fallen man,
depraved, worn-out. There you have his phraseology.... They see a man to
save, to raise up, and convert into a great artist, and almost all of
them yield to this temptation.”

“That is comical,” said Cæsar, looking curiously at the fiddler and his
lady.

“To a Spaniard,” replied Kennedy, “it is comical; and probably it would
be to an Italian too; but in England there are many women that have a
purely imaginative idealism, a romanticism fed on ridiculous novels, and
they fall into traps like these, which seem clumsy and grotesque to you
here in the South, where people are more clear-sighted and realistic.”

Cæsar watched the brave fiddler, who played the role of a man used up,
to great perfection.

After tea, Susanna invited them to go up to her rooms, and Laura and her
brother and Kennedy and Mr. Russell went.

The English author had met a colleague, with whom he stayed behind
talking, and Marchmont remained in the “hall,” as if it did not seem to
him proper for him to go to his wife’s rooms.

Susanna’s rooms were very high, had balconies on the Via Veneto, and
were almost opposite Queen Margherita’s palace. One overlooked the
garden and could see the Queen Mother taking her walks, which is not
without its importance for persons who live in a republic.

Susanna was most amiable to Laura; repeated to all of them her
invitation to come and see her again; and after they had all promised
to see one another frequently, Cæsar and Laura went down to their
carriage, and took a turn on the Corso by twilight.




XIII. ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY

_SUSANNA AND THE YOUNGSTERS_


From this meeting on, Cæsar noticed that Marchmont paid court to Laura
with much persistence. A light-hearted, coquettish woman, it pleased
Laura to be pursued by a person like this Englishman, young,
distinguished, and rich; but she was not prepared to yield. Her
bringing-up, her class-feelings impelled her to consider adultery a
heinous thing. Nor was divorce a solution for her, since accepting it
would oblige her to cease being a Catholic and to quarrel irrevocably
with the Cardinal. Marchmont showed no discretion in the way he paid
court to Laura; he cared nothing about his wife, and talked of her with
profound contempt....

Laura found herself besieged by the Englishman; she couldn’t decide to
discourage him entirely, and at critical moments she would take the
train, go off to Naples, and come back two or three days later,
doubtless with more strength for withstanding the siege.

“As a matter of reciprocal justice, since he makes love to my sister,
I ought to make love to his wife,” thought Cæsar, and he went several
times to the Hotel Excelsior to call on Susanna.

The Yankee wife was full of complaints against her husband. Her father
had advised her simply to get a divorce, but she didn’t want to.
She found such a solution lacking in distinction, and no doubt she
considered the advice of an author in her own country very true, who had
given this triple injunction to the students of a woman’s college: “Do
not drink, that is, do not drink too much; do not smoke, that is, do not
smoke too much; and do not get married, that is, do not get married too
much.”

It did not seem quite right to Susanna to get married too much. Besides
she had a desire to become a Catholic. One day she questioned Cæsar
about it:

“You want to change your religion!” exclaimed Cæsar, “What for? I don’t
believe you are going to find your lost faith by becoming a Catholic.”

“And what do you think about it, Kennedy?” Susanna asked the young
Englishman, who was there too.

“To me a Catholic woman seems doubly enchanting.”

“You would not marry a woman who wasn’t a Catholic?”

“No, indeed,” the Englishman proclaimed.

Cæsar and Kennedy disagreed about everything.

Susanna discussed her plans, and constantly referred to Paul Bourget’s
novel _Cosmopolis_, which had obviously influenced her in her
inclination for Catholicism.

“Are there many Jewish ladies who aspire to be baptized and become
Catholics, as Bourget says?” asked Susanna.

“Bah!” exclaimed Cæsar.

“You do not believe that either?”

“No, it strikes me as a piece of naïvety in this good soul of a
novelist. To become a Catholic, I don’t believe requires more than some
few pesetas.”

“You are detestable, as a Cardinal’s nephew.”

“I mean that I don’t perceive that there are any obstacles to prevent
anybody from becoming a Catholic, as there are to prevent his becoming
rich. What a high ambition, to aspire to be a Catholic! While nobody
anywhere does anything but laugh at Catholics; and it has become an
axiom: ‘A Catholic country is a country bound for certain ruin.’”

Kennedy burst out laughing.

Susanna said that she had no real faith, but that she did have a great
enthusiasm for churches and for choirs, for the smell of incense and
religious music.

“Spain is the place for all that,” said Kennedy. “Here in Italy the
Church ceremonies are too gay. Not so in Spain; at Toledo, at Burgos,
there is an austerity in the cathedrals, an unworldliness....”

“Yes,” said Cæsar; “unhappily we have nothing left there but
ceremonies. At the same time, the people are dying of hunger.”

They discussed whether it is better to live in a decorative, esthetic
sphere, or in a more humble and practical one; and Susanna and Kennedy
stood up for the superiority of an esthetic life.

As they left the hotel Cæsar said to Kennedy:

“Allow me a question. Have you any intentions concerning Mrs.
Marchmont?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Simply because I shouldn’t go to see her often, so as not to be in the
way.”

“Thank you ever so much. But I have no intentions in relation to her.
She is too beautiful and too rich a woman for a modest employee like me
to fix his eyes on.”

“Bah! A modest diplomat! That is absurd. It is merely that you don’t
take to her.”

“No. It’s because she is a queen. There ought to be some defect in her
face to make her human.”

“Yes; that’s true. She is too much of a prize beauty.”

“That is the defect in the Yankee women; they have no character. The
weight of tradition might be fatal to industry and modern life, but it
is the one thing that creates the spirituality of the old countries.
Beyond contradiction American women have intelligence, beauty, energy,
attractive flashes, but they lack that particular thing created by
centuries: character. At times they have very charming impulses. Have
you heard the story about Prince Torlonia’s wife?”

“No.”

“Well, Torlonia’s present wife was an American girl worth millions, who
came with letters to the prince. He took her about Rome, and at the end
of some days he said to her, supposing that the beautiful American had
the intention of marrying: ‘I will introduce some young noblemen to
you’; and she answered: ‘Don’t introduce anybody to me; because you
please me more than anybody’; and she married him.”

“It was a pretty impulse.”

“Yes, Americans do things like that on the spur of the moment. But if
you saw a Spanish woman behave that way, it would seem wrong to you.”

Chattering amicably they came to the Piazza Esedra.

“Would you care to have lunch with me?” said Kennedy.

“Just what I was going to propose to you.”

“I eat alone.”

“I do not. I eat with my sister.”

“The Marchesa di Vaccarone?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must pardon me if I accept your invitation, for I am very
anxious to meet her.”

“Then come along.”



_RUSKIN AND THE PHILISTINES_

They reached the hotel and Cæsar introduced his friend to Laura.

“He is an admirer of yours.”

“A respectful admirer... from a distance,” explained Kennedy.

“But are there admirers of that sort?” asked Laura, laughing.

“Here you have one,” said the Englishman. “I have known you by sight
ever since I came to Rome, and have never had the pleasure of speaking
to you until today.”

“And have you been here a long time?”

“Nearly two years.”

“And do you like Rome; eh?”

“I should say so! At first, I didn’t, I must admit. It was a
disappointment to me. I had dreamed so much about Rome!” and Kennedy
talked of the books and guides he had read about the Eternal City.

“I must admit that I had never dreamed about Rome,” said Cæsar. “And
you boast of that?” asked Laura.

“No, I don’t boast of it, I merely state it. I understand how agreeable
it is to know things. Cæsar died here! Cicero made speeches here! Saint
Peter stumbled over this stone! It is fine! But not knowing things
is also very comfortable. I am rather like a barbarian walking
indifferently among monuments he knows nothing about.”

“Doesn’t such an idea make you ashamed?”

“No, why? It would be a bother to me to know a lot of things offhand. To
pass by a mountain and know how it was thrown up, what it is composed
of, what its flora and fauna are; to get to a town and know its history
in detail.... What things to be interested in! It’s tiresome! I hate
history too much. I far prefer to be ignorant of everything, and
especially the past, and from time to time to offer myself a capricious,
arbitrary explanation.”

“But I think that knowing things not only is not tiresome,” said
Kennedy, “but is a great satisfaction.”

“You think even learning things is a satisfaction?”

“Thousands of years ago one could know things almost without learning
them; nowadays in order to know, one has to learn. That is natural and
logical.”

“Yes, certainly. And the effort to learn about useful things seems
natural and logical to me too, but not to learn about merely agreeable
things. To learn medicine and mechanics is logical; but to learn to look
at a picture or to hear a symphony is an absurdity.”

“Why?”

“At any rate the neophytes that go to see a Rafael picture or to hear
a Bach sonata and have an exclamation all ready, give me the sad
impression of a flock of lambs. As for your sublime pedagogues of the
Ruskin type, they seem to me to be the fine flower of priggishness, of
pedantry, of the most objectionable bourgeoisie.”

“What things your brother is saying!” exclaimed Kennedy.

“You shouldn’t notice him,” said Laura.

“Those artistic pedagogues enrage me; they remind me of Protestant
pastors and of the friars that go around dressed like peasants, and who
I think are called Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. The pedagogues
are Brothers of the Esthetic Doctrine, one of the stupidest inventions
that ever occurred to the English. I don’t know which I find more
ridiculous, the Salvation Army or Ruskin’s books.”

“Why have you this hatred for Ruskin?”

“I find him an idiot. I only skimmed through a book of his called _The
Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and the first thing I read was a paragraph
in which he said that to use an imitation diamond or any other imitation
stone was a lie, an imposition, and a sin. I immediately said: ‘This man
who thinks a diamond is the truth and paste a lie, is a stupid fool who
doesn’t deserve to be read.’”

“Yes, all right: you take one point of view and he takes another. I
understand why Ruskin wouldn’t please you. What I do not understand is
why you find it absurd that if a person has a desire to penetrate into
the beauties of a symphony or a picture, he should do so. What is there
strange in that?”

“You are right,” said Cæsar; “whoever wants to learn, should. I have
done so about financial questions.”

“Is it true that your brother knows all about questions of money?”
 Kennedy asked Laura.

“He says so.”

“I haven’t much belief in his financial knowledge.”

“No?”

“No, I have not. You are a sort of dilettante, half nihilist, half
financier. You would like to pass for a tranquil, well-balanced man, for
what is called a philistine, but you cannot compass it.”

“I will compass it. It is true that I want to be a philistine, but a
philistine out in the real world. All those great artists you people
admire, Goethe, Ruskin, were really philistines, who were in the
business of being interested in poetry and statues and pictures.”

“Moncada, you are a sophist,” said Kennedy. “Possibly I am wrong in this
discussion,” retorted Cæsar, “but the feeling I have is right. Artists
irritate me; they seem to me like old ladies with a flatulency that
prevents their breathing freely.”

Kennedy laughed at the definition.



_CHIC AND THE REVOLUTION_

“I understand hating bad kings and conquerors; but artists! What harm do
they do?” said Laura.

“Artists are always doing harm to the whole of humanity. They have
invented an esthetic system for the use of the rich, and they have
killed the Revolution. The _chic_ put an end to the Revolution. And
now everything is coming back; enthusiasm for the aristocracy, for the
Church; the cult of kings. People look backward and the Revolutionary
movement is paralysed. The people that irritate me most are those
esthetes of the Ruskin school, for whom everything is religious: having
money, buying jewels, blowing one’s nose... everything is religious.
Vulgar creatures, lackeys that they are!”

“My brother is a demagogue,” said Laura ironically.

“Yes,” added Kennedy; “he doesn’t like categories.”

“But each thing has its value whether he likes it or not.”

“I do not deny different values, or even categories. There are things of
great value in life; some natural, like youth, beauty, strength;
others more artificial, like money, social position; but this idea of
distinction, of aristocratic fineness, is a farce. It is a literary
legend in the same style as the one current in novels, which tells
us that the aristocrats of old families close their doors to rich
Americans, or like that other story Mrs. Marchmont was talking to us of,
about the Jewish ladies who were crazy to become Catholics.”

“I don’t see what you are trying to prove by all this,” said Laura.

“I am trying to prove that all there is underneath distinguished society
is money, for which reason it doesn’t matter if it is destroyed. The
cleverest and finest man, if he has no money, will die of hunger in a
corner. Smart society, which thinks itself superior, will never receive
him, because being really superior and intelligent is of no value on
the market. On the other hand, when it is a question of some very rich
brute, he will succeed in being accepted and fêted by the aristocrats,
because money has a real value, a quotable value, or I’d better say, it
is the only thing that has a quotable value.”

“What you are saying isn’t true. A man doesn’t go with the best people
merely because he is rich.”

“No, certainly; not immediately. There is a preparatory process. He
begins by robbing people in some miserable little shop, and feels
himself democratic. Then he robs in a bank, and at that period he feels
that he is a Liberal and begins to experience vaguely aristocratic
ideas. If business goes splendidly, the aristocratic ideas get
crystallized. Then he can come to Rome and go into ecstasies over
all the humbugs of Catholicism; and after that, one is authorized to
acknowledge that the religion of our fathers is a beautiful religion,
and one finishes by giving a tip to the Pope, and another to Cardinal
Verry, so that they will make him Prince of the Ecumenical Council or
Marquis of the Holy Crusade.”

“What very stupid and false ideas,” exclaimed Laura. “Really I
appreciate having a brother who talks in such a vulgar way.”

“You are an aristocrat and the truth doesn’t please you. But such are
the facts. I can see the chief of the bureau of Papal titles. What fun
he must have thinking up the most appropriate title for a magnate of
Yankee tinned beef or for an illustrious Andean general! How magnificent
it would be to gather all the Bishops _in partibus infidelium_ and all
the people with Papal titles in one drawing-room! The Bishop of Nicaea
discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire; the Marchioness of
Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop of Sion, while the Patriarchs
of Thebes, Damascus, and Trebizond played bridge with the sausage
manufacturer, Mr. Smiles, the pork king, or with the illustrious General
Pérez, the hero of Guachinanguito. What a moving spectacle it would be!”

“You are a clown!” said Laura.

“He is a finished satirist,” added Kennedy.



_CÆSAR’S PLAN_

After lunch, Laura, Kennedy, and Cæsar went into the salon, and Laura
introduced the Englishman to the San Martino girls and the Countess
Brenda. They stayed there chatting until four o’clock, at which time the
San Martinos got ready to go out in a motor car, and Laura, with the
Countess and her daughter, in a carriage.

Cæsar and Kennedy went into the street together.

“You are awfully well fixed here,” said Kennedy, “with no Americans, no
Germans, or any other barbarians.”

“Yes, this hotel is a hive of petty aristocrats.”

“Your sister was telling me that you might pick out a very rich wife
here, among the girls.”

“Yes, my sister would like me to live here, in a foreign country, in
cowlike tranquillity, looking at pictures and statues, and travelling
pointlessly. That wouldn’t be living for me; I am not a society man. I
require excitement, danger.... Though I warn you that I am not in the
least courageous.”

“You’re not?”

“Not at all. Not now. At moments I believe I could control myself and
take a trench without wavering.”

“But you have some fixed plan, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I expect to go back to Spain, and work there.”

“At what?”

“In politics.”

“Are you patriotic?”

“Yes, up to a certain point. I have no transcendental idea of patriotism
at all. Patriotism, as I interpret it, is a matter of curiosity. I
believe that there is strength in Spain. If this strength could be
led in a given direction, where would it get to? That is my form of
patriotism; as I say, it is an experimental form.”

Kennedy looked at Cæsar with curiosity.

“And how can it help you with your plans to stay here in Rome?” he
asked.

“It can help me. In Spain nobody knows me. This is the only place where
I have a certain position, through being the nephew of a Cardinal. I am
trying to build on that. How am I going to arrange it? I don’t know. I
am feeling out my future course, taking soundings.”

“But the support you could find here would be all of a clerical nature,”
 said Kennedy.

“Of course.”

“But you are not Clerical!”

“No; but it is necessary for me to climb. Afterwards there will be time
to change.”

“You are not taking it into account, my dear Cæsar, that the Church is
still powerful and that it doesn’t pardon people who impose upon it.”

“Bah! I am not afraid of it.”

“And you were just saying you are not courageous! You are courageous, my
dear man.... After this, I don’t doubt of your success.”

“I need data.”

“If I can furnish you with any....”

“Wouldn’t it be disagreeable for you to help a man who is your enemy, so
far as ideas go?”

“No; because I am beginning to have some curiosity too, as to whether
you will succeed in doing something. If I can be of any use, let me
know.”

“I will let you know.”

Cæsar and Kennedy took a walk about the streets, and at twilight they
took leave of each other affectionately.




XIV. NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES

_CARDINAL SPADA_


“I have arranged two interesting conferences for you,” said Kennedy, a
few days later.

“My dear man!”

“Yes; one with Cardinal Spada, the other with the Abbé Tardieu. I have
spoken to them both about you.”

“Splendid! What kind of people are they?”

“Cardinal Spada is a very intelligent man and a very amiable one. At
heart he is a Liberal and fond of the French. As to the Abbé Tardieu, he
is a very influential priest at the church of San Luigi.”

After lunch they went direct to a solitary street in the old part of
Rome. At the door of the big, sad palace where Cardinal Spada lived, a
porter with a cocked hat, a grey greatcoat, and a staff with a silver
knob, was watching the few passers-by.

They went in by the broad entry-way, as far as a dark colonnaded court,
paved with big flags which had grass between them.

In the middle of the court a fountain shot up a little way and fell into
a stone basin covered with moss.

Kennedy and Cæsar mounted the wide monumental stairway; on the first
floor a handsome glassed-in gallery ran around the court. The whole
house had an air of solemnity and sadness. They entered the Cardinal’s
office, which was a large, sad, severe room.

Monsignor Spada was a vigorous man, despite his age. He looked frank
and intelligent, but one guessed that there was a hidden bitterness and
desolation in him. He wore a black cassock with red edges and buttons.

Kennedy went close and was about to kneel to the Cardinal, but he
prevented him.

Cæsar explained his ideas to the Cardinal with modesty. He felt that
this man was worthy of all his respect.

Monsignor Spada listened attentively, and then said that he understood
nothing about financial matters, but that on principle he was in favour
of having the administration of all the Church’s property kept entirely
at home, as in the time of Pius IX. Leo XIII had preferred to replace
this paternal method by a trained bureaucracy, but the Church had not
gained anything by it, and they had lost credit through unfortunate
negotiations, buying land and taking mortgages.

Cæsar realized that it was useless to attempt to convince a man of
the intelligence and austerity of the Cardinal, and he listened to him
respectfully.

Monsignor Spada conversed amiably, he escorted them as far as the door,
and shook hands when they said good-bye.



THE ABBÉ TARDIEU

Then they went to see the Abbé Tardieu. The abbé lived in the Piazza.
Navona. His office, furnished in modern style, produced the effect of a
violent contrast with Cardinal Spada’s sumptuous study, and yet brought
it to mind. The Abbé Tardieu’s work-room was small, worldly, full of
books and photographs.

The abbé, a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long nose, and a
mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an astute but jolly person,
and laughed at everything said to him. He was liveliness personified.
When they entered his office he was writing and smoking.

Cæsar explained about his financial knowledge, and how he had gone on
acquiring it, until he got to the point where he could discern a law, a
system, in things where others saw nothing more than chance. The Abbé
Tardieu promised that if he knew a way to utilize Cæsar’s knowledge, he
would send him word. In respect to giving him letters of introduction to
influential persons in Spain, he had no objection.

They took leave of the abbé.

“All this has to go slowly,” said Kennedy.

“Of course. One cannot insist that it should happen all at once.”



_BERNINI_

“If you have nothing to do, let’s take a walk,” said the Englishman.

“If you like.”

“Have you noticed the fountains in this square?”

“No.”

“They are worth looking at.”

Cæsar contemplated the central obelisk. It is set on top of a rock
hollowed out like a cavern, in the mouth of which a lion is seen.
Afterwards they looked at the fountains at the ends of the square.

“The sculptures are by Bernini,” explained Kennedy. “Bernini belonged to
an epoch that has been very much abused by the critics, but nowadays he
is much praised. He enchants me.”

“It is rather a mixed style, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“The artist is not living?”

“For heaven’s sake, man! No.”

“Well, if he were alive today they would employ him to make those
gewgaws some people present to leading ladies and to the deputies of
their district. He would be the king of the manufacturers of ornate
barometers.”

“It is undeniable that Bernini had a baroque taste.”

“He gives the impression of a rather pretentious and affected person.”

“Yes, he does. He was an exuberant, luxuriant Neapolitan; but when he
chose he could produce marvels. Haven’t you seen his Saint Teresa?”

“No.”

“Then you must see it. Let’s take a carriage.”

They drove to the Piazza San Bernardo, a little square containing three
churches and a fountain, and went into Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Kennedy went straight toward the high altar, and stopped to the left of
it.

In an altar of the transept is to be seen a group carved in marble,
representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Cæsar gazed at it absorbed.
The saint is an attractive young girl, falling backward in a sensual
spasm; her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her jaw a bit
dislocated. In front of the swooning saint is a little angel who
smilingly threatens her with an arrow.

“Well, what do you think of it?” said Kennedy.

“It is wonderful,” exclaimed Cæsar. “But it is a bedroom scene, only
the lover has slipped away.”

“Yes, that is true.”

“It really is pretty; you seem to see the pallor of the saint’s face,
the circles under her eyes, the relaxation of all her muscles. Then the
angel is a little joker who stands there smiling at the ecstasy of the
saint.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Kennedy; “it is all the more admirable for the
very reason that it is tender, sensual, and charming, all at once.”

“However, this sort of thing is not healthy,” murmured Cæsar, “this
kind of vision depletes your life-force. One wants to find the same
things represented in works of art that one ought to look for in life,
even if they are not to be found in life.”

“Good! Here enters the moralist. You talk like an Englishman,” exclaimed
Kennedy. “Let us go along.”

“Where?”

“I have to stop in at the French Embassy a moment; then we can go where
you like.”



_CORNERS OF ROME_

They went back to the carriage, and having crossed through the centre of
Rome, got out in front of the Farnese Palace.

“I will be out inside of ten minutes,” said Kennedy.

The Farnese Palace aroused great admiration in Cæsar; he had never
passed it before. By one of the fountains in the _piazza,_ he stood
gazing at the huge square edifice, which seemed to him like a die cut
from an immense block of stone.

“This really gives me an impression of grandeur and force,” he said to
himself. “What a splendid palace! It looks like an ancient knight in
full armour, looking indifferently at everything, sure of his own
worth.”

Cæsar walked from one end of the _piazza_ to the other, absorbed in the
majestic pile of stone.

Kennedy surprised him in his contemplation.

“Now will you say that you are a good philistine?”

“Ah, well, this palace is magnificent. Here are grandeur, strength,
overwhelming force.”

“Yes, it is magnificent; but very uncomfortable, my French colleagues
tell me.”

Kennedy related the history of the Farnese Palace to Cæsar. They went
through the Via del Mascherone and came out into the Via Giulia.

“This Via Giulia is a street in a provincial capital,” said Kennedy;
“always sad and deserted; a Cardinal or two who like isolation are still
living here.”

At the entrance to the Via dei Farnesi, Cæsar stopped to look at two
marble tablets set into the wall at the two sides of a chapel door.

Cut on the tablets were skeletons painted black; on one, the words:
“Alms for the poor dead bodies found in the fields,” and on the other:
“Alms for the perpetual lamp in the cemetery.”

“What does this mean?” said Cæsar.

“That is the Church of the Orison of the Confraternity of Death. The
tablets are modern.”

They passed by the “Mascherone” again, and went rambling on until they
reached the Synagogue and the Theatre of Marcellus.

They went through narrow streets without sidewalks; they passed across
tiny squares; and it seemed like a dead city, or like the outskirts of a
village. In certain streets towered high dark palaces of blackish stone.
These mysterious palaces looked uninhabited; the gratings were eaten
with rust, all sorts of weeds grew on the roofs, and the balconies were
covered with climbing plants. At corners, set into the wall, one saw
niches with glass fronts. A painted madonna, black now, with silver
jewels and a crown, could be guessed at inside, and in front a little
lantern swung on a cord.

Suddenly a cart would come down one of these narrow streets without
sidewalks, driving very quickly and scattering the women and children
seated by the gutter.

In all these poor quarters there were lanes crossed by ropes loaded with
torn washing; there were wretched black shops from which an odour of
grease exhaled; there were narrow streets with mounds of garbage in the
middle. In the very palaces, now shorn of their grandeur, appeared
the same decoration of rags waving in the breeze. In the Theatre of
Marcellus one’s gaze got lost in the depths of black caves, where smiths
stood out against flames.

This mixture of sumptuousness and squalor, of beauty and ugliness, was
reflected in the people; young and most beautiful women were side by
side with fat, filthy old ones covered with rags, their eyes gloomy, and
of a type that recalled old African Jewesses.



_WHAT CAN BE READ ON WALLS_

Cæsar and Kennedy went on toward the Temple of Vesta and followed the
river bank until the Tiber Embankment ended.

Here the banks were green and the river clearer and more poetic. To the
left rose the Aventine with its villas; in the harbour two or three tugs
were tied up; and here and there along the pier stood a crane. Evening
was falling and the sky was filling with pink clouds.

They sat down awhile on the side of the road, and Cæsar entertained
himself deciphering the inscriptions written in charcoal on a mud-wall.

“Do you go in for modern epigraphy?” asked Kennedy.

“Yes. It is one of the things I take pleasure in reading, in the towns
I go to; the advertisements in the newspapers and the writings on the
wall.”

“It’s a good kind of curiosity.”

“Yes, I believe one learns more about the real life in a town from such
inscriptions than from the guide- and text-books.”

“That’s possible. And what conclusions have you drawn from your
observations?”

“They are not of much value. I haven’t constructed a science of
wall-inscriptions, as that fake Lambroso would have done.”

“But you will construct it surely, when you have lighted on the
underlying system.”

“You think my epigraphical science is on the same level as my financial
science. What a mistake!”

“All right. But tell me what you have discovered about different towns.”

“London, for instance, I have found, is childish in its inscriptions and
somewhat clownish. When some sentimental foolishness doesn’t occur to a
Londoner of the people, some brutality or rough joke occurs to him.”

“You are very kind,” said Kennedy, laughing.

“Paris has a vulgar, cruel taste; in the Frenchman of the people you
find the tiger alternating with the monkey. There the dominant note on
the walls is the patriotic note, insults to politicians, calling them
assassins and thieves, and also sentiments of revenge expressed by
an _‘A mort Dupin!’_ or _‘A mort Duval!’_ Moreover, there is a great
enthusiasm for the guillotine.”

“And Madrid?”

“Madrid is at heart a rude, moral town with little imagination, and
the epigraphs on the walls and benches are primitive.”

“And in Rome what do you find?”

“Here one finds a mixture of pornography, romanticism, and politics.
A heart pierced by an arrow and poetic phrases, alternate with some
enormous piece of filthiness and with hurrahs for Anarchy or for the
_‘Papa-re.’_”

“Well done!” said Kennedy; “I can see that the branch of epigraphy you
practise amounts to something. It should be systematized and given a
name.”

“What do you think we should name it? Wallography?”

“Very good.”

“And one of these fine days we can systematize it. Now we might go and
get dinner.”

They took a tram which was coming back from St. Paul’s beyond the Walls,
and returned to the heart of the city.



_THE MONK WITH THE RED NOSE_

The next day Cæsar was finishing dressing when the servant told him
that a gentleman was waiting for him.

“Who is it?” asked Cæsar.

“It’s a monk.”

Cæsar went to the salon and there found a tall monk with an evil face,
a red nose, and a worn habit.

Cæsar recalled having seen him, but didn’t know where.

“What can I do for you?” asked Cæsar.

“I come from His Eminence, Cardinal Fort. I must speak with you.”

“Let’s go into the dining-room. We shall be alone there.”

“It would be better to talk in your room.”

“No, there is no one here. Besides, I have to eat breakfast. Will you
join me?”

“No, thanks,” said the monk.

Cæsar remembered having seen that face in the Altemps palace. He was
doubtless one of the domestic monks who had been with the Abbé Preciozi.

The waiter came bringing Cæsar’s breakfast. “Will you tell me what it
is?” said Cæsar to the ecclesiastic, while he filled his cup.

The monk waited until the waiter was gone, and then said in a hard
voice:

“His Eminence the Cardinal sent me to bid you not to present yourself
anywhere again, giving his name.”

“What? What does this mean?” asked Cæsar, calmly.

“It means that His Eminence has found out about your intrigues and
machinations.”

“Intrigues? What intrigues were those?”

“You know perfectly well. And His Eminence forbids you to continue in
that direction.”

“His Eminence forbids me to pay calls? And for what reason?”

“Because you have used his name to introduce yourself into certain
places.”

“It is not true.”

“You have told people you went to that you are Cardinal Fort’s nephew.”

“And I am not?” asked Cæsar, after taking a swallow of coffee.

“You are trying to make use of the relationship, we don’t know with what
end in view.”

“I am trying to make use of my relationship to Cardinal Fort? Why
shouldn’t I?”

“You admit it?”

“Yes, I admit it. People are such imbeciles that they think it is an
honour to have a Cardinal in the family; I take advantage of this stupid
idea, although I do not share it, because for me a Cardinal is merely an
object of curiosity, an object for an archeological museum....”

Cæsar paused, because the monk’s countenance was growing dark. In the
twilight of his pallid face, his nose looked like a comet portending
some public calamity.

“Poor wretch!” murmured the monk. “You do not know what you are saying.
You are blaspheming. You are offending God.” “Do you really believe that
God has any relation to my uncle?” asked Cæsar, paying more attention
to his toast than to his visitor.

And then he added:

“The truth is that it would be extravagant behaviour on the part of
God.”

The monk looked at Cæsar with terrible eyes. Those grey eyes of his,
under their long, black, thick brows, shot lightning.

“Poor wretch!” repeated the monk. “You ought to have more respect for
things above you.”

Cæsar arose.

“You are bothering me and preventing me from drinking my coffee,” he
said, with exquisite politeness, and touched the bell.

“Be careful!” exclaimed the monk, seizing Cæsar’s arm with violence.

“Don’t you touch me again,” said Cæsar, pulling away violently, his
face pale and his eyes flashing. “If you do, I have a revolver here with
five chambers, and I shall take pleasure in emptying them one by one,
taking that lighthouse you carry about for a nose, as my target.”

“Fire it if you dare.”

Fortunately the waiter had come in on hearing the bell.

“Do you wish anything, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, please escort this clerical gentleman to the door, and tell him on
the way not to come back here.”

Days later Cæsar found out that there had been a great disturbance at
the Altemps palace in consequence of the calls he had made. Preciozi
had been punished and sent away from Rome, and the various Spanish
monasteries and colleges warned not to receive Cæsar.




XV. GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN


“My dear Cæsar,” said Kennedy, “I believe it will be very difficult for
you to find what you want by looking for it. You ought to leave it a
little to chance.”

“Abandon myself to events as they arrive? All right, it seems a good
idea.”

“Then if you find something practicable, utilize it.”

Kennedy took his friend to a statue-shop where he used to pass some of
his hours. The shop was in a lane near the Forum, and its stock was in
antiques, majolicas, and plaster casts of pagan gods.

The shop was dark and rather gloomy, with a small court at the back
covered with vines. The proprietor was an old man, with a moustache,
an imperial, and a shock of white hair. His name was Giovanni Battista
Lanza. He professed revolutionary ideas and had great enthusiasm about
Mazzini. He expressed himself in an ironical and malicious manner.

Signora Vittoria, his wife, was a grumbling old woman, rather devoted to
wine. She spoke like a Roman of the lowest class, was olive-coloured and
wrinkled, and of her former beauty there remained only her very black
eyes and hair that was still black.

The daughter, Simonetta, a girl who resembled her father, blond, with
the build of a goddess, was the one that waited on customers and kept
the accounts.

Simonetta, being the manager, divided up the profits; the elder son was
head of the workshop and he made the most money; then came two workmen
from outside; and then the father who still got his day’s wages, out
of consideration for his age; and finally the younger son, twelve or
fourteen years old, who was an apprentice.

Simonetta gave her mother what was indispensable for household expenses
and managed the rest herself.

Kennedy retailed this information the first day they went to Giovanni
Battista Lanza’s house. Cæsar could see Simonetta keeping the books,
while the small brother, in a white blouse that came to his heels, was
chasing a dog, holding a pipe in his hand by the thick part, as if it
were a pistol, the dog barking and hanging on to the blouse, the small
boy shrieking and laughing, when Signora Vittoria came bawling out.

Kennedy presented Simonetta to his friend Cæsar, and she smiled and
gave her hand.

“Is Signore Giovanni Battista here?” Kennedy asked Signora Vittoria.

“Yes, he is in the court.” she answered in her gloomy way.

“Is something wrong with your mamma?” said Kennedy to Simonetta.

“Nothing.”

They went into the court and Giovanni Battista arose, very dignified,
and bowed to Cæsar. The elder son and the two workmen in white blouses
and paper caps were busy with water and wires, cleaning a plaster mould
they had just emptied.

The mould was a big has-relief of the Way of the Cross. Giovanni
Battista permitted himself various jocose remarks about the Way of
the Cross, which his son and the other two workmen heard with
great indifference; but while he was still emptying his store of
anti-Christian irony, the voice of Signora Vittoria was heard, crying
domineeringly:

“Giovanni Battista!”

“What is it?”

“That’s enough, that’s enough! I can hear you from here.”

“That’s my wife,” said Giovanni Battista, “she doesn’t like me to be
lacking in respect for plaster saints.” “You are a pagan!” screamed the
old woman. “You shall see, you shall see what will happen to you.”

“What do you expect to have happen to me, darling?”

“Leave her alone,” exclaimed the elder son, ill at ease; “you always
have to be making mother fly into a rage.”

“No, my boy, no; she is the one who makes me fly into a rage.”

“Giovanni Battista is used to living among gods,” said Kennedy, “and he
despises saints.”

“No, no,” replied the cast-maker; “some saints are all right. If all
the churches had figures by Donatello or Robbia, I would go to church
oftener; but to go and look at those statues in the Jesuit churches,
those figures with their arms spread and their eyes rolling.... Oh, no!
I cannot look at such things.”

Cæsar could see that Giovanni Battista expressed himself very well;
but that he was not precisely a star when it came to working. After the
mould for the bas-relief was cleaned and fixed, the cast-maker invited
Cæsar and Kennedy to have a glass of wine in a wine-shop near by.

“How’s this, are you leaving already, father?” said Simonetta, as he
went through the shop to get to the street.

“I’m coming back, I’m coming back right away.”



_SUPERSTITIONS_

The three of them went to a rather dirty tavern in the same lane,
and settled themselves by the window. This post was a good point of
observation for that narrow street, so crowded and so picturesque.

Workmen went by, and itinerant vendors, women with kerchiefs, half
head-dress and half muffler, and with black eyes and expressive faces.
Opposite was a booth of coloured candies, dried figs strung on a reed,
and various kinds of sweets.

A wine-cart passed, and Kennedy made Cæsar observe how decorative it
was with its big arm-seat in the middle and its hood above, like a
prompter’s box.

Giovanni Battista ordered a flask of wine for the three of them. While
he chatted and drank, friends of his came to greet them. They were men
with beards, long hair, and soft hats, of the Garbaldi and Verdi type so
abundant in Italy.

Among them were two serious old men; one was a model, a native of
Frascati, with the face of a venerable apostle; the other, for contrast,
looked like a buffoon and was the possessor of a grotesque nose, long,
thin at the end and adorned with a red wart.

“My wife has a deadly hatred for all of them,” said Giovanni Battista,
laughing.

“And why so?” asked Cæsar.

“Because we talk politics and sometimes they ask me for a few
pennies....”

“Your wife must have a lively temper,...” said Cæsar.

“Yes, an unhappy disposition; good, awfully good; but very
superstitious. Christianity has produced nothing but superstitions.”

“Giovanni Battista is a pagan, as his wife well says,” asserted Kennedy.

“What superstitions has your wife?” asked Cæsar.

“All of them. Romans are very superstitious and my wife is a Roman. If
you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you see three, then your luck
is magnificent and you have to swallow your saliva three times; on the
other hand, if you see a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must
spit on the ground to keep away the _jettatura_. Three priests together
is a very good sign. We ought all to get along very well in Rome,
because we see three and up to thirty priests together.”

“A spider is also very significant,” said Kennedy; “in the morning it is
of bad augury, and in the evening good.”

“And at noon?” asked Cæsar.

“At noon,” answered Lanza, laughing, “it means nothing to speak of. But
if you wish to make sure whether it is a good auspice or a bad, you kill
the spider and count its legs. If they are an even number, it is a good
omen; if uneven, bad.”

“But I believe spiders always have an even number of legs,” said Cæsar.

“Certainly,” responded the old man; “but my wife swears they do not;
that she has seen many with seven and nine legs. It is religious
unreasonableness.”

“Are there many people like that, so credulous?” asked Cæsar.

“Oh, lots,” replied Lanza; “in the shops you will find amulets, horns,
hands made of coral or horseshoes, all to keep away bad luck. My wife
and the neighbour women play the lottery, by combining the numbers of
their birthdays, and the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their
children. When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of
the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and buy a lottery
ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing that their systems
are of no avail, they say that they omitted to count in the number of
letters in the name or something of that sort. It is comical, so much
religion and so much superstition.”

“But you confuse religion and superstition, my friend,” said Kennedy.

“It’s all the same,” answered the old man, smiling his suavely ironical
smile. “There is nothing except Nature.”

“You do not believe in miracles, Giovanni Battista?” asked the
Englishman.

“Yes, I believe in the earth’s miracles, making trees and flowers grow,
and the miracle of children’s being born from their mothers. The other
miracles I do not believe in. What for? They are so insignificant beside
the works of Nature!”

“He is a pagan,” Kennedy again stated.



_YOUNG PAINTERS_

They were chatting, when three young lads came into the tavern, all
three having the air of artists, black clothes, soft hats, flowing
cravats, long hair, and pipes. “Two of them are fellow-countrymen of
yours,” Kennedy told Cæsar.

“They are Spanish painters,” the old man added. “The other is a sculptor
who has been in the Argentine, and he talks Spanish too.”

The three entered and sat down at the same table and were introduced to
Cæsar. Everybody chattered. Buonacossi, the Italian, was a real type.
Of very low stature, he had a giant’s torso and strong little legs. His
head was like a woe-begone eagle, his nose hooked, thin, and reddish,
eyes round, and hair black.

Buonacossi proved to be gay, exuberant, changeable, and full of
vehemence.

He explained his artistic ideas with picturesque warmth, mingling them
with blasphemies and curses. Things struck him as the best or the worst
in the world. For him there doubtless were no middle terms.

One of the two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, sour-visaged,
and named Cortés; the other, large, ordinary, fleshy, and coarse, seemed
rather a bully.

Giovanni Battista was not able to be long outside the workshop, no doubt
because his conscience troubled him, and though with difficulty, he got
up and left. Kennedy, Cæsar, and the two Spaniards went toward the
Piazza, del Campidoglio, and Buonacossi marched off in the opposite
direction.

On reaching the Via Nazionale, Kennedy took his leave and Cæsar
remained with the two Spaniards. The red, fleshy one, who had the air of
a bully, started in to make fun of the Italians, and to mimic their bows
and salutes; then he said that he had an engagement with a woman and
made haste to take his leave.

When he had gone, the grave Spaniard with the sour face, said to Cæsar:

“That chap is like the dandies here; that’s why he imitates them so
well.”

Afterwards Cortés talked about his studies in painting; he didn’t get
on well, he had no money, and anyway Rome didn’t please him at all.
Everything seemed wrong to him, absurd, ridiculous.

Cæsar, after he had said good-bye to him, murmured: “The truth is that
we Spaniards are impossible people.”




XVI. THE PORTRAIT OF A POPE


Two or three days later Cæsar met the Spaniard Cortés in the Piazza
Colonna. They bowed. The thin, sour-looking painter was walking with a
beardless young German, red and snub-nosed. This young man was a painter
too, Cortés said; he wore a green hat with a cock’s feather, a blue
cape, thick eyeglasses, big boots, and had a certain air of being a
blond Chinaman.

“Would you like to come to the Doria gallery with us?” asked Cortés.

“What is there to see there?”

“A stupendous portrait by Velázquez.”

“I warn you that I know nothing about pictures.”

“Nobody does,” Cortés declared roundly. “Everybody says what he thinks.”

“Is the gallery near here?”

“Yes, just a step.”

In company with Cortés and the German with the green hat with the cock’s
feather, Cæsar went to the Piazza del Collegio Romano, where the Doria
palace is. They saw a lot of pictures which didn’t seem any better to
Cæsar than those in the antique shops and the pawnbrokers’, but which
drew learned commentaries from the German. Then Cortés took them to a
cabinet hung in green and lighted by a skylight. There was nothing to
be seen in the cabinet except the portrait of the Pope. In order that
people might look at it comfortably, a sofa had been installed facing
it.

“Is this the Velázquez portrait?” asked Cæsar.

“This is it.”

Cæsar looked at it carefully. “That man had eaten and drunk well before
his portrait was painted,” said Cæsar; “his face is congested.”

“It is extraordinary!” exclaimed Cortés. “It is something to see, the
way this is done. What boldness! Everything is red, the cape, the cap,
the curtains in the background.... What a man!”

The German aired his opinions in his own language, and took out a
notebook and pencil and wrote some notes.

“What sort of man was this?” asked Cæsar, whom the technical side of
painting did not preoccupy, as it did Cortés.

“They say he was a dull man, who lived under a woman’s domination.”

“The great thing is,” murmured Cæsar, “how the painter has left him
here alive. It seems as if we had come in here to salute him, and he
was waiting for us to speak. Those clear eyes are questioning us. It is
curious.”

“Not curious,” exclaimed Cortés, “but admirable.”

“For me it is more curious than admirable. There is something brutal in
this Pope; through his grey beard, which is so thin, you can see his
projecting chin. The good gentleman was of a marked prognathism, a type
of degeneration, indifference, intellectual torpor, and nevertheless, he
reached the top. Perhaps in the Church it’s the same as in water, only
corks float.”



_LEGEND AND HISTORY_


Cæsar went out of the cabinet, leaving the German and Cortés seated on
the sofa, absorbed in the picture; he looked at various paintings in the
gallery, went back, and sat down, beside the artists.

“This portrait,” he said presently, “is like history by the side of
legend. All the other paintings in the gallery are legend, ‘folk-lore,’
as I believe one calls it. This one is history.”

“That’s what it is. It is truth,” agreed Cortés.

“Yes, but there are people who do not like the truth, my friend. I tell
you: this is a man of flesh, somewhat enigmatic, like nature herself,
and with arteries in which blood flows; this is a man who breathes and
digests, and not merely a pleasant abstraction; you, who understand such
things, will tell me that the drawing is perfect, and the colour such
as it was in reality; but how about the person who doesn’t ask for
reality?”

“Stendhal, the writer, was affected that way by this picture,” said
Cortés; “he was shocked at its being hung among masterpieces.”

“He found it bad, no doubt.”

“Very bad?”

“Was this Stendhal English?”

“No, French.”

“Ah, then, you needn’t be surprised. A Frenchman has no obligation to
understand anything that’s not French.”

“Nevertheless he was an intelligent man.”

“Did he perhaps have a good deal of veneration?”

“No, he boasted of not having any.”

“Doubtless he did have without suspecting it. With a man who had no
veneration, what difference would it make whether there was one bad
thing among a lot of good ones?”

The German with the green hat, who understood something of the
conversation, was indignant at Cæsar’s irreverent ideas. He asked him
if he understood Latin, and Cæsar told him no, and then, in a strange
gibberish, half Latin and half Italian, he let loose a series of facts,
dates, and numbers. Then he asserted that all artistic things of great
merit were German: Greece. Rome, Gothic architecture, the Italian
Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, Velázquez, all German.

The snub-nosed young person, with his cape and his green hat with its
cock-feather, did not let a mouse escape from his German mouse-trap.

The data of the befeathered German were too much for Cæsar, and he took
his leave of the painters.




XVII. EVIL DAYS


Accompanied by Kennedy, Cæsar called repeatedly on the most auspicious
members of the French clerical element living in Rome, and found persons
more cultivated than among the rough Spanish monks; but, as was natural,
nobody gave him any useful information offering the possibility of his
putting his financial talents to the proof.

“Something must turn up,” he used to say to himself, “and at the least
opening we will dive into the work.”

Cæsar kept gathering notes about people who had connections in Spain
with the Black party in Rome; he called several times on Father
Herreros, despite his uncle’s prohibition, and succeeded in getting the
monk to write to the Marquesa de Montsagro, asking if there were no
means of making Cæsar Moneada, Cardinal Fort’s nephew, Conservative
Deputy for her district.

The Marquesa wrote back that it was impossible; the Conservative Deputy
for the district was very popular and a man with large properties there.

When Holy Week was over, Laura and the Countess Brenda and her daughter
decided to spend a while at Florence, and invited Cæsar to accompany
them; but he was quite out of harmony with the Brenda lady, and said
that he had to stay on in Rome.

A few days later Mme. Dawson and her daughters left, and the San
Martinos and the Marchesa Sciacca; and an avalanche of English people
and Germans, armed with their red Baedekers, took the hotel by storm.
Susanna Marchmont had gone to spend some days at Corfu.

In less than a week Cæsar remained alone, knowing nobody in the hotel,
and despite his believing that he was going to be perfectly indifferent
about this, he felt deserted and sad. The influence of the springtime
also affected him. The deep blue sky, cloudless, dense, dark, made him
languish. Instead of entertaining himself with something or other, he
did scarcely anything all day long but walk.



_TWO ABSURD MEN_


“I have continually near me in the hotel,” wrote Cæsar to Alzugaray,
“two absurd fellows: one is one of those stout red Germans with a square
head; the other a fine slim Norwegian. The German, who is a captain in
some service or other, is a restless man, always busy about what the
devil I don’t know. He is constantly carrying about trunks and boxes,
with the aid of a sorrowful valet, dressed in black, who appears to
detest his position. The captain must devote the morning to doing
gymnastics, for I hear him from my room, which is next to his, jumping
and dropping weights on the floor, each of which must weigh half a ton,
to judge by the noise they make.

“He does all this to vocal commands, and when some feat doesn’t go right
he reprimands himself.

“This German isn’t still a moment; he opens the salon door, crosses the
room, stands at the window, takes up a paper, puts it down. He is a type
that makes me nervous.

“The Norwegian at first appeared to be a reasonable man, somewhat
sullen. He looked frowningly at me, and I watched him equally
frowningly, and took him for a thinker, an Ibsenite whose imagination
was lost among the ice of his own country. Now and then I would see
him walking up and down the corridor, rubbing his hands together so
continuously and so frantically that they made a noise like bones.

“Suddenly, this gentleman is transformed as if by magic; he begins to
joke with the servants, he seizes a chair and dances with it, and the
other day I saw him alone in the salon marching around with a paper hat
on his head, like children playing soldiers, and blowing on a cornet,
also made of paper.” I stared at him in amazement, he smiled like a
child, and asked if he was disturbing me.

“‘No, no, not in the least,’ I told him.

“I have asked in the hotel if this man is crazy, and they have told me
that he is not, but is a professor, a man of science, who is known to
have these strange fits of gaiety.

“Another of the Norwegian’s doings has been to compose a serenade, with
a vulgar melody that would disgust you, and which he has dedicated ‘_A
la bella Italia_.’ He wrote the Italian words himself, but as he knows
no music, he had a pianist come here and write out his serenade. What
he especially wants is that it should be full of sentiment; and so the
pianist arranged it with directions and many pauses, which satisfied
the Norwegian. Almost every night the serenade ‘_A la bella Italia_’
is sung. Somebody who wants to amuse himself goes to the piano, the
Norwegian strikes a languid attitude and chants his serenade. Sometimes
he goes in front of the piano, sometimes behind, but invariably he hears
the storm of applause when it ends, and he bows with great gusto.

“I don’t know whether it’s the other people who are laughing at him, or
he who is laughing at the others.

“The other day he said to me in his macaronic Italian:

“‘Mr. Spaniard, I have good eyesight, good hearing, a good sense of
smell, and... lots of sentiment.’

“I didn’t exactly understand what he meant me to think, and I didn’t pay
any attention to him.

“It seems that the Norwegian is going away soon, and as the day of his
departure approaches, he grows funereal.”


_THE SADNESS OF LIFE_

“I don’t know why I don’t go away,” Cæsar wrote to his friend another
time. “When I go out in the evening and see the ochre-coloured houses on
both sides and the blue sky above, a horrible sadness takes me. These
spring days oppress me, make me want to weep; it seems to me it would
be better to be dead, leaving no tomb or name or other ridiculous and
disagreeable thing, but disappearing into the air or the sea. It
doesn’t seem natural; but I have never been so happy as one time when I
was in Paris sick, alone and with a fever. I was in an hotel room and
my window looked into the garden of a fine house, where I could see the
tops of the trees; and I transformed them into a virgin forest, wherein
marvellous adventures happened to me.

“Since then I have often thought that things are probably neither good
nor bad, neither sad nor happy, in themselves; he who has sound, normal
nerves, and a brain equally sound, reflects the things around him like a
good mirror, and feels with comfort the impression of his conformity to
nature; nowadays we who have nerves all upset and brains probably upset
too, form deceptive reflections. And so, that time in Paris, sick and
shut in, I was happy; and here, sound and strong, when toward nightfall,
I look at the splendid skies, the palaces, the yellow walls that take an
extraordinary tone, I feel that I am one of the most miserable men on
the planet....”



_ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON_

His lack of tranquillity led Cæsar to make absurd resolutions which he
didn’t carry out.

One Sunday in the beginning of April, he went out into the street,
disposed to take a walk outside of Rome, following the road anywhere it
led. A hard, fine rain was falling, the sky was grey, the air mild, the
streets were full of puddles, the shops closed; a few flower merchants
were offering branches of almond in blossom.

Cæsar was very depressed. He went into a church to get out of the rain.
The church was full; there were many people in the centre of it; he
didn’t know what they were doing. Doubtless they were gathered there for
some reason, although Cæsar didn’t understand what. Cæsar sat down on
a bench, worn out; he would have liked to listen to organ music, to a
boy choir. No ideas occurred to him but sentimental ones. Some time
passed, and a priest began to preach. Cæsar got up and went into the
street.

“I must get rid of these miserable impressions, get back to noble ideas.
I must fight this sentimental leprosy.”

He started to walk with long strides through the sad, empty streets.

He went toward the river and met Kennedy, who was coming back, he told
him, from the studio of a sculptor friend of his.

“You look like desolation. What has happened to you?”

“Nothing, but I am in a perfectly hellish humour.”

“I am melancholy too. It must be the weather. Let’s take a walk.”

They went along the bank of the Tiber. Full of clay, more turbid than
ever, and very high between the white embankments hemming it in, the
river looked like a big sewer.

“This is not the ‘coeruleus Tibris’ that Virgil speaks of in the
Aeneld, which presented itself to Aeneas in the form of an ancient man
with his head crowned with roses,” said Kennedy.

“No. This is a horrible river,” Cæsar opined.

They followed the shore, passed the Castel Sant’ Angelo and the bridge
with the statues.

From the embankment, to the right, they could now see narrow lanes, sunk
almost below the level of the river. On the other bank a new, white
edifice towered in the rain.

They went as far as the Piazza d’Armi, and then came back at nightfall
to Rome. The rain was gradually ceasing and the sky looked less
threatening. A file of greenish gaslights followed the river-wall and
then crossed over the bridge.

They walked to the Piazza del Popólo and through the Via Babuino to the
Piazza di Spagna.

“Would you like to go to a Benedictine abbey tomorrow?” asked Kennedy.

“All right.”

“And if you are still melancholy, we will leave you there.”



_THE ABBEY_

The next day, after lunch, Kennedy and Cæsar went to visit the abbey of
Sant’ Anselmo on the Aventine. The abbot, Hildebrand, was a friend
of Kennedy’s, and like him an Englishman.

They took a carriage and Kennedy told it to stop at the church of Santa
Sabina.

“It is still too early to go to the abbey. Let us look at this church,
which is the best preserved of all the old Roman ones.”

They entered the church; but it was so cold there that Cæsar went out
again directly and waited in the porch. There was a man there selling
rosaries and photographs who spoke scarcely any Italian or French, but
did speak Spanish. Probably he was a Jew.

Cæsar asked him where they manufactured those religious toys, and the
pedlar told him in Westphalia.

Kennedy went to look at a picture by Sassoferrato, which is in one of
the chapels, and meanwhile the rosary-seller showed the church door to
Cæsar and explained the different bas-reliefs, cut in cypress wood by
Greek artists of the V Century, and representing scenes from the Old and
New Testaments.

Kennedy came back, they got into the carriage again, and they drove to
the Benedictine abbey.

“Is the abbot Hildebrandus here?” asked Kennedy.

Out came the abbot, a man of about fifty, with a gold cross on his
breast. They exchanged a few friendly words, and the superior showed
them the convent.

The refectory was clean and very spacious; the long table of shining
wood; the floor made of mosaic. The crypt held a statue, which Cæsar
assumed must be of Sant’ Anselmo. The church was severe, without
ornaments, without pictures; it had a primitive air, with its columns of
fine granite that looked like marble. A monk was playing the harmonium,
and in the opaque veiled light, the thin music gave a strange impression
of something quite outside this life.

Afterwards they crossed a large court with palm-trees. They went up to
the second story, and down a corridor with cells, each of which had on
the lintel the name of the patron saint of the respective monk. Each
door had a card with the name of the occupant of the room.

It looked more like a bath-house than a monastery. The cells were
comfortable inside, without any air of sadness; each held a bed, a
divan, and a small bookcase.

By a window at the end of the passage, one could see, far away, the
Alban Hills, looking like a blue mountain-range, half hidden in white
haze, and nearby one could see the trees in the Protestant cemetery and
the pyramid of Caïus Cestius close to them.

Cæsar felt a sort of deep repugnance for the people shut up here,
remote from life and protected from it by a lot of things.

“The man who is playing the harmonium in this church with its opaque
light, is a coward,” he said to himself. “One must live and struggle in
the open air, among men, in the midst of their passions and hatreds,
even though one’s miserable nerves quiver and tremble.”

After showing them the monastery, the abbot Hildebrand took them to his
study, where he worked at revising ancient translations of the Bible. He
had photographic copies of all the Latin texts and he was collating them
with the original.

They talked of the progress of the Church, and the abbot commented with
some contempt on the worldly success of the Jesuit churches, with their
saints who serve as well to get husbands and rich wives as to bring
winning numbers in the lottery.

Before going out, they went to a window, at the other end of the
corridor from where they had looked out before. Below them they could
see the Tiber as far as the Ripa harbour; opposite, the heights of the
Janiculum, and further, Saint Peter’s.

When they went out, Kennedy said to Cæsar:

“What devilish effect has the abbey produced in you, that you are so
much gayer than when we went in?”

“It has confirmed me in my idea, which I had lost for a few days.”

“What idea is that?”

“That we must not defend ourselves in this life, but attack, always
attack.”

“And now you are contented at having found it again?”

“Yes.”


_PIRANESI’S GARDEN_


“I am glad, because you have such a pitiable air when you are sad. Would
you like to go to the Priory of Malta, which is only a step from here?”

“Good.”

They went down in the carriage to the Priory of Malta. They knocked at
the gate and a woman came out who knew Kennedy, and who told them to
wait a moment and she would open the church.

“Here,” said Kennedy, “you have all that remains of the famous Order of
Saint John of Jerusalem. That anti-historic man Bonaparte rooted it
out of Malta. The Order attempted to establish itself in Catania, and
afterwards at Ferrara, and finally took refuge here. Now it has no
property left, and all that remains are its memories and its archives.”

“That is how our descendants will see our Holy Mother the Church. In
Chicago or Boston some traveller will find an abandoned chapel, and will
ask: ‘What is this? ‘And they will tell him: ‘This is what remains of
the Catholic Church.’”

“Don’t talk like an Homais,” said Kennedy.

“I don’t know who Homais is,” retorted Cæsar.

“An atheistical druggist in Flaubert’s novel, _Madame Bovary_. Haven’t
you read it?”

“Yes; I have a vague idea that I have read it. A very heavy thing; yes,
... I think I have read it.”

The woman opened the door and they went into the church. It was small,
overcharged with ornaments. They saw the tomb of Bishop Spinelli and
Giotto’s Virgin, and then went into a hall gay with red flags with a
white cross, on whose walls they could read the names of the Grand
Masters of the Order of Malta. The majority of the names were French and
Polish. Two or three were Spanish, and among them that of Cæsar Borgia.

“Your countryman and namesake was also a Grand Master of Malta,” said
Kennedy.

“So it seems,” replied Cæsar with indifference. “I see that you speak
with contempt of that extraordinary man. Is he not congenial to you?”

“The fact is I don’t know his history.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“How strange! We must go tomorrow to the Borgia Apartment in the
Vatican.”

“Good.”

They saw the model of an ancient galley which was in the same hall, and
went out through the church into the garden planned by Piranesi.
The woman showed them a very old palm, with a hole in it made by a
hand-grenade in the year ‘49. It had remained that way more than half
a century, and it was only a few days since the trunk of the palm had
broken.

From the garden they went, by a path between trees, to the bastion of
Paul III, a little terrace, from which they could see the Tiber at their
feet, and opposite the panorama of Rome and its environs, in the light
of a beautiful spring sunshine....




XVIII. CÆSAR BORGIA’S MOTTO, “AUT CÆSAR, AUT NIHIL”

_THE BORGIAS_


The next day was one of the days for visiting the Borgia Apartment.
Cæsar and Kennedy met in the Piazza di San Pietro, went into the
Vatican museum, and walked by a series of stairs and passageways to the
Gallery of Inscriptions.

Then they went down to a hall, at whose door there were guards dressed
in slashed clothes, which were parti-coloured, red, yellow, and black.
Some of them carried lances and others swords.

“Why are the guards here dressed differently?” asked Cæsar.

“Because this belongs to the Dominions of the Pope.”

“And what kind of guards are these?”

“These are pontifical Swiss guards.”

“They look comic-opera enough,” said Cæsar.

“My dear man, don’t say that. This costume was designed by no one less
than Michelangelo.”

“All right. At that time they probably looked very well, but now they
have a theatrical effect.”

“It is because you have no veneration. If you were reverential, they
would look wonderful to you.”

“Very well, let us wait and see whether reverence will not spring up in
me. Now, you go on and explain what there is here.”

“This first room, the Hall of Audience, or of the Popes, does not
contain anything notable, as you see,” said Kennedy; “the five we are
coming to later, have been restored, but are still the same as at the
time when your countryman Alexander VI was Pope. All five were decorated
by Pinturicchio and his pupils, and all with reference to the Borgias.
The Borgias have their history, not well known in all its details, and
their legend, which is more extensive and more picturesque. Really, it
unconquerable.

"I should have climbed that peak long ago if you, Miss Torsen, hadn't
forbidden me," said the lawyer.

"You'd never have made it," said Mrs. Molie in an indifferent tone. This
was probably her revenge. She turned to the Dane again as though ready to
believe him capable of anything.

"I shouldn't want anyone to think of climbing that peak," said Miss
Torsen. "It's as bare as a ship's mast."

"What if I tried it, Gerda?" the manufacturer asked his wife with a smile.
"After all, I'm an old sailor."

"Nonsense," she said, smiling a little.

"Well, I climbed the mast of a schooner last spring."

"Where?"

"In Iceland."

"What for?"

"I don't know, though--all this mountain climbing--I haven't much use for
it," said the manufacturer.

"What did you do it for? What did you climb the mast for?" his wife
repeated nervously.

The manufacturer laughed.

"The curiosity of the female sex--!"

"How can you do a thing like that! And what about me and the children if
you--"

She broke off. Her husband grew serious and took her hand.

"It was stormy, my dear; the sails were flapping, and it was a question of
life and death. But I shouldn't have told you. Well--we'd better say good
night now, Gerda."

The manufacturer and his wife got up.

Then the first man from Bergen made another speech.

       *       *       *       *       *

The manufacturer stayed with us for the promised three days, and then made
ready to travel again. His mood never changed; he was contented and
entertaining the whole time. Every evening one whisky and soda was brought
him--no more. Before their bedtime, his little girls had a wildly
hilarious half-hour with him. At night a tremendous snoring could be heard
from his cottage. Before his arrival, the little girls had spent a good
deal of time with me, but now they no longer knew I existed, so taken up
with their father were they. He hung a swing for them between the two
rowan trees in the field, taking care to pack plenty of rag under the rope
so as not to injure the tree.

He also had a talk with Paul; there were rumors that he was intending to
take his money out of the Tore Peak resort. Paul's head was bent now, but
he seemed even more hurt that the manufacturer should have paid a visit to
the cotters to see how they were getting on.

"So that's where he's gone?" he said. "Well, let him stay there, for all I
care!"

The manufacturer cracked jokes to the very end. Of course he was a little
depressed by the farewells, too, but he had to keep his family's courage
up. His wife stood holding one of his arms with both hands, and the
children clung to his other arm.

"I can't salute you," the manufacturer said to us, smiling. "I'm not
allowed to say good-bye."

The children rejoiced at this and cried, "No, he can't have his arm back;
Mummy, you hold him tight, too!"

"Come, come!" the father said. "I've got to go to Scotland, just a short
trip. And when you come home from the mountains, I'll be there, too."

"Scotland? What are you going to Scotland for?" the children asked.

He twisted round and nodded to us.

"These women! All curiosity!" he said.

But none of his family laughed.

He continued to us:

"I was telling my wife a story about a rich man who was curious, too. He
shot himself just to find out what comes after death. Ha, ha, ha! That's
the height of curiosity, isn't it? Shooting yourself to find out what
comes after death!"

But he could not make his family laugh at this tale, either. His wife
stood still; her face was beautiful.

"So you're leaving now," was all she said.

Mr. Brede's porter came out with his luggage; he had stayed at the farm
for these three days in order to be at hand.

Then the manufacturer walked down through the field, accompanied by his
wife and children.

I don't know--this man with his good humor and kindliness and money and
everything, fond of his children, all in all to his wife--

Was he really everything to his wife?

The first evening he wasted time on a party, and every night he wasted
time in snoring. And so the three days and nights went by....




XIX


It is very pleasant here at harvest time. Scythes are being sharpened in
the field, men and women are at work; they go thinly clad and bareheaded,
and call to one another and laugh; sometimes they drink from a bucket of
whey, then set to work again. There is the familiar fragrance of hay,
which penetrates my senses like a song of home, drawing me home, home,
though I am not abroad. But perhaps I am abroad after all, far away from
the soil where I have my roots.

Why, indeed, do I stay here any longer, at a resort full of
schoolmistresses, with a host who has once more said farewell to sobriety?
Nothing is happening to me; I do not grow here. The others go out and lie
on their backs; I steal off and find relish in myself, and feel poetry
within me for the night. The world wants no, poetry; it wants only verses
that have not been sung before.

And Norway wants no red-hot irons; only village smiths forge irons now,
for the needs of the mob and the honor of the country.

No one came; the stream of tourists went up and down Stordalen and left
our little Reisa valley deserted. If only the Northern Railway could have
come to Reisa with Cook's and Bennett's tours--then Stordalen in its turn
would have lain deserted. Meanwhile, the cotters who are cultivating the
soil will probably go on harvesting half the crop of the outlying fields
for the rest of time. There is every reason to think so--unless our
descendants are more intelligent than we, and refuse to be smitten with
the demoralizing effects of the tourist traffic.

Now, my friend, you mustn't believe me; this is the point where you must
shake your head. There is a professor scuttling about the country, a born
mediocrity with a little school knowledge about history; you had better
ask him. He'll give you just as much mediocre information, my friend, as
your vision can grasp and your brain endure.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hardly had Manufacturer Brede left when Paul began to live a most
irregular life again. More and more all roads were closed to him; he saw
no way out and therefore preferred to make himself blind, which gave him
an excuse for not seeing. Seven of our permanent guests now left together:
the telephone operators, Tradesman Batt, Schoolmistresses Johnsen and
Palm, and two men who were in some sort of business, I don't quite know
what. This whole party went across the fjeld to Stordalen to be driven
about in cars.

Cases of various kinds of foodstuffs arrived for Paul; they were carried
up one evening by a man from the village. He had to make several journeys
with the side of his cart let down, and bring the cases over the roughest
spots one by one. That was the kind of road it was. Josephine received the
consignment, and noticed that one of the cases gave forth the sound of a
liquid splashing inside. That had come to the wrong place, she said, and
writing another address on it, she told the man to take it back. It was
sirup that had come too late, she said; she had got sirup elsewhere in the
meantime.

Later in the evening we heard them discussing it in the kitchen; the sirup
had not come too late, Paul said angrily.

"And I've told you to clear these newspapers away!" he cried. We heard the
sound of paper and glass being swept to the floor.

Well, things were not too easy for Paul; the days went by dull and empty,
nor had he any children to give him pleasant thoughts at times. Though he
wanted to build still more houses, he could not use half those he had
already. There was Mrs. Brede living alone with her children in one of
them, and since seven of the guests had left, Miss Torsen was also alone
in the south wing. Paul wanted at all costs to build roads and share in
the development of the tourist traffic; he even wanted to run a fleet of
motor cars. But since he had not the power to do this alone and could get
no assistance, nothing was left him but to resign himself. And now to make
matters worse Manufacturer Brede had said he would withdraw his money....

Paul's careworn face looked out of the kitchen door. Before going out
himself he wanted to make sure there was no one about, but he was
disappointed in this, for the lawyer at once greeted him loudly: "Good
evening, Paul!" and drew him outside.

They strolled down the field in the dusk.

Assuredly there is little to be gained by "having a good talk" with a man
about his drinking; such matters are too vital to be settled by talking.
But Paul seems to have admitted that the lawyer was right in all he said,
and probably left him with good resolutions.

Paul went down to the village again. He was going to the post office; the
money he had from the seven departed guests would be scattered to all
quarters of the globe. And yet it was not enough to cover everything--in
fact not enough for anything, for interest, repayments, taxes, and
repairs. It paid only for a few cases of food from the city. And of course
he stopped the case of sirup from going back.

Paul returned blind-drunk because he no longer wished to see. It was the
same thing all over again. But his brain seemed in its own way to go on
searching for a solution, and one day he asked the lawyer:

"What do you call those square glass jars for keeping small fish
in--goldfish?"

"Do you mean an aquarium?"

"That's it," said Paul. "Are they dear?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"I wonder if I could get one."

"What do you want it for?"

"Don't you think it might attract people to the place? Oh, well, perhaps
it wouldn't."

And Paul withdrew.

Madder than ever. Some people see flies. Paul saw goldfish.




XX


The lawyer is constantly in Miss Torsen's company; he even swings her in
the children's swing, and puts his arm around her to steady her when the
swing stops. Solem watches all this from the field where he is working,
and begins to sing a ribald song. Certainly these two have so ill-used him
that if he is going to sing improper songs in self-defense, this is the
time to do it; no one will gainsay that. So he sang his song very loud,
and then began to yodel.

But Miss Torsen went on swinging, and the lawyer went on putting his arm
round her and stopping her....

It was a Saturday evening. I stood talking to the lawyer in the garden; he
didn't like the place, and wanted to leave, but Miss Torsen would not go
with him, and going alone was such a bore. He did not conceal that the
young woman meant something to him.

Solem approached, and lifted his cap in greeting. Then he looked round
quickly and began to talk to the lawyer--politely, as became his position
of a servant:

"The Danish gentleman is going to climb the peak tomorrow. I'm to take a
rope and go with him."

The lawyer was startled.

"Is he--?"

The blankness of the lawyer's face was a remarkable sight. His small,
athletic brain failed him. A moment passed in silence.

"Yes, early tomorrow morning," said Solem. "I thought I'd tell you.
Because after all it was your idea first."

"Yes, so it was," said the lawyer. "You're quite right. But now he'll be
ahead of me."

Solem knew how to get round that.

"No, I didn't promise to go," he said. "I told him I had to go to the
village tomorrow."

"But we can't deceive him. I don't want to do that."

"Pity," said Solem. "Everybody says the first one to climb the Blue Peak
will be in all the papers."

"He'll take offense," the lawyer murmured, considering the matter.

But Solem urged him on:

"I don't think so. Anyhow, you were the first one to talk about it."

"Everybody here will know, and I'll be prevented," said the lawyer.

"We can go at dawn," said Solem.

In the end they came to an agreement.

"You won't tell anyone?" the lawyer said to me.

       *       *       *       *       *

The lawyer was missed in the course of the morning; he was not in his
room, and not in the garden.

"Perhaps the Danish mountaineer can tell us where he is," I said. But it
transpired that the Dane had not even thought of climbing the Blue Peak
that day, and knew nothing whatever about the expedition.

This surprised me greatly.

I looked at the clock; it was eleven. I had been watching the peak through
my field glasses from the moment I got up, but there was nothing to be
seen. It was five hours since the two men had left.

At half-past eleven Solem came running back; he was drenched in sweat and
exhausted.

"Come and help us!" he called excitedly to the group of guests.

"What's happened?" somebody asked.

"He fell off."

How tired Solem was and drenched to the skin! But what could we do? Rush
up the mountainside and look at the accident too?

"Can't he walk?" somebody asked.

"No, he's dead," said Solem, looking from one to another of us as though
to read in our faces whether his message seemed credible. "He fell off; he
didn't want me to help him."

A few more questions and answers. Josephine was already halfway across the
field; she was going to the village to telephone for the doctor.

"We shall have to get him down," said the Danish mountaineer.

So he and I improvised a stretcher; Solem was instructed to take brandy
and bandages to the site of the accident, and the Bergensians, the
Associate Master, Miss Torsen, and Mrs. Molie went with him.

"Did you really say nothing to Solem about climbing the peak today?" I
asked the Dane.

"No," he replied. "I never said a word about it. If I had meant to go, I
should certainly not have wanted company...."

Later that afternoon we returned with the lawyer on the stretcher. Solem
kept explaining all the way home how the accident had happened, what he
had said and what the lawyer had said, pointing to objects on the way as
though this stone represented the lawyer and that the abyss into which he
had plunged.... Solem still carried the rope he had not had a chance to
use. Miss Torsen asked no more than anyone else, and made purely
conventional comments: "I advised him against it, I begged him not to
go...."

But however much we talked, we could not bring the lawyer back to life.
Strange--his watch was still going, but he himself was dead. The doctor
could do nothing here, and returned to his village.

There followed a depressing evening. Solem went to the village to send a
telegram to the lawyer's family, and the rest of us did what we thought
decent under the circumstances: we all sat in the living room with books
in our hands. Now and again, some reference would be made to the accident:
it was a reminder, we said, how small we mortals were! And the Associate
Master, who had not the soul of a tourist, greatly feared that this
disaster would injure the resort and make things still more difficult for
Paul; people would shun a place where they were likely to fall off and be
killed.

No, the Associate Master was no tourist, and did not understand the
Anglo-Saxon mind.

Paul himself seemed to sense that the accident might benefit him rather
than do him harm. He brought out a bottle of brandy to console us on this
mournful evening.

And since it was a death to which we owed this attention, one of the men
from Bergen made a speech.




XXI


The accident became widely known. Newspapermen came from the city, and
Solem had to pilot them up the mountain and show them the spot where it
had taken place. If the body had not been removed at once, they would have
written about that, too.

Children and ignoramuses might be inclined to think it foolish that Solem
should be taken from the work in the fields at harvest time, but must not
the business of the tourist resort go before all else?

"Solem, tourists!" someone called to him. And Solem left his work. A flock
of reporters surrounded him, asked him questions, made him take them to
the mountains, to the river. A phrase was coined at the farm for Solem's
absences:

"Solem's with death."

But Solem was by no means with death; on the contrary, he was in the very
midst of life, enjoying himself, thriving. Once again he was an important
personage, listened to by strangers, doling out information. Nor did his
audience now consist of ladies only--indeed, no; this was something new, a
change; these were keen, alert gentlemen from the city.

To me, Solem said:

"Funny the accident should have happened just when the scratch on my nail
has grown out, isn't it?"

He showed me his thumbnail; there was no mark on it.

The newspaper reporters wrote articles and sent telegrams, not only about
the Blue Peak and the dreadful death, but about the locality, and about
the Tore Peak resort, that haven for the weary, with its wonderful
buildings set like jewels in the mountains. What a surprise to come here:
gargoyles, living room, piano, all the latest books, timber outside ready
for new jewels in their setting, altogether a magnificent picture of
Norway's modern farming.

Yes, indeed, the newspapermen appreciated it. And they did their
advertising.

The English arrived.

"Where is Solem?" they asked, and "Where is the Blue Peak?" they asked.

"We ought to get the hay in," said Josephine and the wife at the farm.
"There'll be rain, and fifty cartloads are still out!"

That was all very well, but "Where is Solem?" asked the English. So Solem
had to go with them. The two casual laborers began to cart away the hay,
but then the women had no one to help them rake. Confusion was rife.
Everyone rushed wildly hither and thither because there was no one to lead
them.

The weather stayed fine overnight; it was patient, slow-moving weather. As
soon as the dew dried up, more hay would be brought in, perhaps all the
hay. Oh, we should manage all right.

More English appeared; and "Solem--the Blue Peak?" they said. Their
perverse, sportsmen's brains tingled and thrilled; they had successfully
eluded all the resorts on the way, and arrived here without being caught.
There was the Blue Peak, like a mast against the sky! They hurried up so
fast that Solem was hardly able to keep pace with them. They would have
felt for ever disgraced if they had neglected to stand on this admirable
site of a disaster, this most excellent abyss. Some said it would be a
lifelong source of regret to them if they did not climb the Blue Peak
forthwith; others had no desire but to gloat over the lawyer's death fall,
and to shout down the abyss, gaping at the echo, and advancing so far out
on the ledge that they stood with their toes on death.

But it's an ill wind that blows good to none, and the resort earned a
great deal of money. Paul began to revive again, and the furrows in his
face were smoothed out. A man of worth grows strong and active with good
fortune; in adversity he is defiant. One who is not defiant in adversity
is worth nothing; let him be destroyed! Paul stopped drinking; he even
began to take an interest in the harvesting, and worked in the field in
Solem's place. If only he had begun when the weather was still slow and
patient!

But at least Paul began to tackle things in the right spirit again; he
only regretted that he had set aside for the cotters those outlying fields
from which they were used to getting half the hay; this year he would have
liked to keep it himself. But he had given his word, and there was nothing
to be done about it.

Besides, it was raining now. Haymaking had to stop; they could not even
stack what had already been gathered. Outside, three cartloads of fodder
were going to waste.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before long the novelty of the Tore Peak resort wore off again. The
newspapermen wrote and sent telegrams about other gratifying misfortunes,
the death on the Blue Peak having lost its news value. It had been an
intoxication; now came the morning after.

The Danish mountaineer quite simply deserted. He strapped on his knapsack
and walked across the field like one of the villagers, caring no more for
the Blue Peak. The commotion he had witnessed in the last week had taught
him a lesson.

And the tourists swarmed on to other places.

"What harm have I done them," Paul probably
thought, "that they should be going again? Have I been
too much in the fields and too little with them? But I
greeted them humbly and took my man out of the
harvesting work to help them...."

Then two young men arrived, sprouts off the Norwegian tree, sportsmen to
their finger tips, who talked of nothing but sailing, cycling, and
football; they were going to be civil engineers--the young Norway. They,
too, wanted to see the Blue Peak to the best of their ability; after all,
one must keep pace with modern life. But they were so young that when they
looked up at the peak, they were afraid. Solem had learned more than one
trick in tourist company; craftily he led them on, and then extorted money
from them in return for a promise not to expose their foolishness. So all
was well; the young sprouts came down the mountain again, bragging and
showing off their sportsmanship. One of them brought down a bloodstained
rag which he flung on the ground, saying,

"There's what's left of your lawyer that fell off."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other sprout.

Yes, truly, they had acquired dashing ways among their sporting
acquaintances.

It rained for three weeks; then came two fine days, and then rain again
for a fortnight. The sun was not to be seen, the sky was invisible, the
mountain tops had disappeared; we saw nothing but rain. The roofs at the
Tore Peak resort began to leak more and more.

The hay that still lay spread on the ground was black and rotting, and the
stacks had gone moldy.

The cotters had got their hay indoors during the patient spell. They had
carried it, man, woman, and child, on their backs.

The men from Bergen and Mrs. Brede with her children have left for home.
The little girls curtsied and thanked me for taking them walking in the
hills and telling them stories. The house is empty now. Associate Master
Höy and Mrs. Molie were the last to go; they left last week, traveling
separately, though both were going to the same small town.

He went by way of the village--a very roundabout route--while she crossed
the field. It is very quiet now, but Miss Torsen is still here.

Why do I not leave? Don't know. Why ask? I'm here. Have you ever heard
anyone ask: "How much is a northern light?" Hold your tongue.

Where should I go if I did leave? Do you imagine I want to go to the town
again? Or do you think I'm longing for my old hut and the winter, and
Madame? I'm not longing for any specific place; I am simply longing.

Of course I ought to be old enough to understand what all sensible
Norwegians know, that our country is once more on the right road. The
papers are all writing about the splendid progress the tourist traffic has
made in Stordalen since the motor road was opened--ought I not to go there
and feel gratified?

From old habit, I still take an interest in the few of us who are left;
Miss Torsen is still here.

Miss Torsen--what more is there to be said about her? Well, she does not
leave; she stays here to complete the picture of the woman Torsen, child
of the middle class who has read schoolbooks all through her formative
years, who has learned all about _Artemis cotula_, but undernourished
her soul. That is what she is doing here.

I remember a few weeks ago, when we were infested with Englishmen, a young
sprout coming down from the mountain top with a bloodstained rag which he
threw on the ground, saying, "Here's what's left of your lawyer that fell
off!" Miss Torsen heard it, and never moved a muscle. No, she never
mourned the death of the lawyer very keenly; on the contrary, she wrote
off at once to ask another friend to come. When he came, he turned out to
be a swaggering scatterbrain--a "free lance," he called himself in the
visitors' book. I have not mentioned him before because he was less
important than she; less important, in fact, than any of us. He was
beardless and wore his collar open; heaven knows if he wasn't employed at
a theater or in the films. Miss Torsen went to meet him when he came, and
said, "Welcome to our mountains," and "Thanks for coming." So evidently
she had sent for him. But why did she not leave? Why did she seem to
strike root in the place, and even ask others to come here? Yet she had
been the first to want to leave last summer! There was something behind
this.




XXII


I muse on all this, and understand that her staying here is somehow
connected with her carnal desires, with the fact that Solem is still here.
How muddled it all is, and how this handsome girl has been spoiled! I saw
her not long ago, tall and proud, upright, untouched, walking
intentionally close to Solem, yet not replying to his greeting. Did she
suspect him of complicity in the death of the lawyer and avoid him for
that reason? Not in the least; she avoided him less than before, even
letting him take her letters to the post office, which she had not done
previously. But she was unbalanced, a poor thing that had lost her
bearings. Whenever she could, she secretly defiled herself with pitch,
with dung; she sniffed at foulness and was not repelled.

One day, when Solem swore a needlessly strong oath at a horse that was
restless, she looked at him, shivered, and went a deep red. But she
mastered herself at once, and asked Josephine:

"Isn't that man leaving soon?"

"Yes," Josephine replied, "in a few days."

Though she had seized this opportunity to ask her question with a great
show of indifference, I am certain it was an important one to her. She
went away in silence.

Yes, Miss Torsen stayed, for she was sexually bound to Solem. Solem's
despair, Solem's rough passion that she herself had inflamed, his
brutality, his masculinity, his greedy hands, his looks--she sniffed at
all this and was excited by it. She had grown so unnatural that her sexual
needs were satisfied by keeping this man at a distance. The Torsen type no
doubt lies in her solitary bed at night, reveling in the sensation that in
another house a man lies writhing for her.

But her friend, the actor? He was in no sense the other's equal. There was
nothing of the bull in him, nothing of action, only the braggadocio of the
theater....

       *       *       *       *       *

Here am I, growing small and petty with this life. I question Solem about
the accident. We are alone together in the woodshed.

Why had he lied and said the Dane wanted to climb the Blue Peak that
unfortunate Sunday morning?

Solem looked at me, pretending not to understand.

I repeated my question.

Solem denied he had said any such thing.

"I heard you," I said.

"No, you didn't," he said.

A pause.

Suddenly he dropped to the floor of the shed, convulsed, without shape, an
outline merely; a few minutes passed before he got up again. When he was
on his feet once more, pulling his clothes to rights, we looked at each
other. I had no wish to speak to him further, and left him. Besides, he
was going away soon.

After this, everything was dull and empty again. I went out alone, aping
myself and shouting: "Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger
today!" And when this was done, I did other nothings, and when my money
began to run out, I wrote to my publisher, pretending I would soon send
him an unbelievably remarkable manuscript. In short, I behaved like a man
in love. These were the typical symptoms.

And to take the bull by the horns: no doubt you suspect me of dwelling on
the subject of Miss Torsen out of self-interest? In that case I must have
concealed well in these pages that I never think of her except as an
object, as a theme; turn back the pages and you will see! At my age, one
does not fall in love without becoming grotesque, without making even the
Pharaohs laugh.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Finis._

But there is one thing I cannot finish doing, and that is withdrawing to
my room, and sitting alone with the good darkness round me. This, after
all, is the last pleasure.

An interlude:

Miss Torsen and her actor are walking this way; I hear their footsteps and
their voices; but since I am sitting in the dark of the evening, I cannot
see them. They stop outside my open window, leaning against it, and the
actor says something, asks her to do something she does not want to do,
tries to draw her with him; but she resists.

Then he grows angry.

"What the devil did you send for me for?" he asks roughly.

And she begins to weep and says:

"So that's all you've come for! Oh, oh! But I'm not like that at all. Why
can't you leave me alone? I'm not hurting you."

Am I one who understands women? Self-deception. Vain boasting. I made my
presence known then because her weeping sounded so wretched; I moved a
chair and cleared my throat.

The sound caught his attention at once, and he hushed her, trying to
listen; but she said:

"No, it was nothing...."

But she knew very well this was not true; she knew what the sound was. It
was not the first time Miss Torsen used this trick with me; she had often
pretended that she thought I was not within hearing, and then created some
such delicate situation. Each time I had promised myself not to intervene;
but she had not wept before; now she wept.

Why did she use these wiles? To clear herself in my eyes--mine, the eyes
of a settled man--to make me believe how good she was, how well-behaved!
But, dear child, I knew that before; I could see it from your hands! You
are so unnatural that in your seven and twentieth year, you walk
unmarried, barren and unopen!

The pair drifted away.

And there is something else I cannot finish doing: withdrawing into
solitude in the woods, alone with the good darkness round me. This is the
last pleasure.

One needs solitude and darkness, not because one flees the company of
others and can endure only one's own, but because of their quality of
loftiness and religion. Strange how all things pass distantly, yet all is
near; we sit in an omnipresence. It must be God. It must be ourselves as a
part of all things.

  What would my heart, where would I stray?
  Shall I leave the forest behind me?
  It was my home but yesterday;
  now toward the city I wend my way;
  to the darkness of night I've resigned me.

  The world round me sleeps as I tarry, alone,
  soothing my ear with its quiet.
  How large and gray is the city of stone
  in which the many all hopes enthrone!
  Shall I, too, accept their fiat?

  Hark! Do the bells ring on the hillside?

  Back to the peace of the forest I turn
  in the nightly hour that's hoarest.
  There's a sweet-smelling hedgerow to which I yearn;
  I shall rest my head on heather and fern,
  and sleep in the depths of the forest.

  Hark, how the bells ring on the hillside!

Romantic? Yes. Mere sentimentality, mood, rhyme--nothing? Yes.

It is the last happiness.




XXIII


The sun has returned. Not darkly glowing and regal--more than that:
imperial, because it is flaming. This you do not understand, my friend,
whatever the language in which it is dished up for you. But I say there is
an imperial sun in the sky.

It's a good day for going to the woods; it is sweeping time, for the woods
are full of yellow things that have come suddenly into being. A short time
ago they were not there, or I did not see them, or they had the earth's
own complexion. There is something unborn about them, like embryos in an
early stage. But if I whirl them about, they are miracles of fulfillment.

Here are fungi of every sort, mushrooms and puffballs. How close is the
poisonous mushroom to the happy family of the edible mushroom, and how
innocently it stands there! Yet it is deadly. What magnificent cunning! A
spurious fruit, a criminal, habitual vice itself, but preening in splendor
and brilliance, a very cardinal of fungi. I break off a morsel to chew; it
is good and soft on the tongue, but I am a coward and spit it out again.
Was it not the poisonous mushroom that drove men berserker? But in the
dawn of our own day, we die of a hair in the throat.

The sun is already setting. Far up the mountainside are the cattle, but
they are moving homeward now; I can hear by their bells that they are
moving. Tinkling bells and deep-mouthed bells, sometimes sounding together
as though there were a meaning in it, a pattern of tones, a rapture.

And rapture, too, to see all the blades of grass and the tiny flowers and
plants. Beside me where I lie is a small pod plant, wonderfully meek, with
tiny seeds pushing out of the pod--God bless it, it's becoming a mother!
It has got caught in a dry twig and I liberate it. Life quivers within it;
the sun has warmed it today and called it to its destiny. A tiny, gigantic
miracle.

Now it is sunset, and the woods bend under a rustling that passes
through them sweet and heavy; it is the evening.

I lie for another hour or two; the birds have long since gone to rest, and
darkness falls thick and soft.... As I walk homeward, my feet feel their
way and I hold my hands before me till I reach the field, where it is a
little lighter. I walk on the hay that has been left outdoors; it is tough
and black, and I slip on it because it is already rotting. As I approach
the houses, bats fly noiselessly past me, as though on wings of foam. A
slight shudder convulses me whenever they pass.

Suddenly I stop.

A man is walking here. I can see him against the wall of the new house. He
has on a coat that looks like the actor's raincoat, but it is not the
little comedian himself. There he goes, into the house, right into the
house. It is Solem.

"Why, that's where she sleeps!" I think. "Ah, well. Alone in the building,
in the south wing, Miss Torsen alone--yes, quite alone. And Solem has just
gone in."

I stand there waiting to be at hand, to rush in to the rescue, for after
all I am a human being, not a brute. Several minutes pass. He has not even
bothered to be very quiet, for I hear him clicking the key in the lock.
Surely I ought to hear a cry now? I hear nothing, nothing; a chair
scraping across the floor, that is all.

"But good heavens, he may do her some harm! He may injure her; he may
overpower her with rape! Ought I not to tap on the window? I--what for?
But at the very first cry, I shall be on the spot, take my word for it."

Not a single cry.

The hours pass; I have settled down to wait. Of course I cannot go my way
and desert a helpless woman. But the hours wear on. A very thorough
business in there, nothing niggardly about this; it is almost dawn. It
occurs to me that he may be killing her, perhaps has killed her already; I
am alarmed and about to get up--when the key clicks in the lock again and
Solem emerges. He does not run, but walks back the way he came, down to
the veranda of my own house. There he hangs the actor's raincoat where it
hung before, and emerges again. But this time he is naked. He has been
naked under the coat all this time. Is it possible? Why not? No
inhibitions, no restraint, no covering; Solem has thought it all out. Now,
stark naked, he stalks to his room.

What a man!

I sit thinking and collecting myself and regaining my wits. What has
happened? The south wing is still wrapped in silence, but the lady is not
dead; I can see that from Solem's fearless manner as he goes to his room,
lights the lamp, and goes to bed.

It relieves me to know she is alive, revives me, and makes me
superlatively brave: if he has dared to kill her, I will report it at
once. I shall not spare him. I shall accuse him of both her death and the
lawyer's. I shall go further: I shall accuse others--the thief of last
winter, the man that stole the sides of bacon from a tradesman and sold me
rolls of tobacco out of his bag. No, I shall not keep silence about
anything then....




XXIV


When it grew light, Solem went to the kitchen, had his breakfast, settled
his business with Paul and the women, and returned to his room. He was in
no hurry; though it was no longer early in the day, he took his time about
tying his bundles, preparatory to leaving. Lingeringly he looked into the
windows of the south wing as he passed.

Then Solem was gone.

A little later Miss Torsen came in to breakfast. She asked at once about
Solem. And why might she be so interested in Solem? She had certainly
stopped in her room intentionally so as to give him time to leave; if she
wanted to see him she could have been here long ago. But was it not safest
to seem a little angry? Supposing, night owl that I was, that I had seen
something!

"Where is Solem?" she asked indignantly.

"Solem has gone now," Josephine replied.

"Lucky for him!"

"Why?" asked Josephine.

"Oh, he's a dreadful creature!"

How agitated she was! But in the course of the day she calmed down. Her
anger dissolved, and there was neither weeping nor a scene; only she did
not walk proudly, as was her habit, but preferred to sit in silence.

That passed too; she roused herself briskly soon after Solem's departure,
and in a few days she was the same as ever. She took walks, she talked and
laughed with us, she made the actor swing her in the children's swing, as
in the lawyer's day....

I went out one evening, for there was good weather and darkness for
walking; there was neither a moon nor stars. The gentle ripple of the
little Reisa river was all the sound I heard; there were God and Goethe
and _über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh'_ that night. On my return, I was in
the mood to walk softly and on tiptoe, so I undressed and went to bed in
the dark.

Then they came again to my window, those two lunatics, the lady and the
actor. What next? But it was not he that chose this spot; of that I was
sure. She chose it because she was convinced I had returned. There was
something she _wanted_ me to hear.

Why should I listen to him still pleading with her?

"I've had enough of this," he said. "I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Oh, well...." she said. "No, let's not tonight," she added suddenly;
"some other time. Yes? In a few days? We'll talk about it tomorrow. Good
night."

For the first time it struck me: she wants to rouse you, too, settled man
though you are; she wants to make you as mad as the others! That's what
she's after!

And now I remember, before the lawyer arrived, when there was Tradesman
Batt--I remember how during his first few days here, she would give me a
kind word or a look that was quite out of the picture, and as unmistakable
as her pride would permit. No, she had no objections to seeing old age
wriggle. And listen to this: before this she had been intent to show a
well-behaved indifference to sex, but that was finished; was she not at
this moment resisting only faintly, and raising definite hopes? "Not
tonight, but some other time," she had said. Yes, a half-refusal, a mere
postponement, that I was meant to hear. She was corrupt, but she was also
cunning, with the cunning of a madman. So corrupt.

Dear child, Pharaoh laughs before his pyramids; standing before his
pyramids he laughs. He would laugh at me, too.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next day we three remaining guests were sitting in the living room. The
lady and the actor read one book; I read another.

"Will you," she says to him, "do me a great favor?"

"With pleasure."

"Would you go out in the grounds where we sat yesterday and fetch my
galoshes?"

So he went out to do her this great favor. He sang a well-known popular
song as he crossed the yard, cheerful in his own peculiar way.

She turned to me.

"You seem silent."

"Do I?"

"Yes, you're very silent."

"Listen to this," I said, and began to read to her from the book I held in
my hands. I read a longish bit.

She tried to interrupt me several times, and at length said impatiently:

"What is this you want me to listen to?"

"The _Musketeers_. You must admit it's entertaining."

"I've read it," she said. And then she began to clasp her hands and drag
them apart again.

"Then you must hear something you haven't read before," I replied, and
went across to my room to fetch a few pages I had written. They were only
a few poems--nothing special, just a few small verses. Not that I am in
the habit of reading such things aloud, but I seized on this for the
moment because I wanted to prevent her from humbling herself, and telling
me anything more.

While I was reading the poems to her, the actor returned.

"I couldn't find any galoshes there," he said.

"No?" she replied absently.

"No, I really looked everywhere, but...."

She got up and left the room.

He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a moment. Then it
occurred to him.

"I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he said, and
hurried after her.

I sat back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as
she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my
pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the
fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some
practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love,
because they find it so agreeable; I have never practiced sport of any
kind. I have loved and raged and suffered and stormed according to my
nature--that is all; I am an old-fashioned man. And here I sit in the
shadow of evening, the shadow of the half-century. Let me have done!

The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She had
turned him out; she had wept.

I was not surprised, for it was the mode of expression of her type.

"Have you ever heard the like of it? She told me to get out! I shall leave
tomorrow."

"Have you found the galoshes?" I asked.

"Of course," he replied. "They were right in the passage. 'Here they are,'
I said to her. 'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Right under your nose,' I said.
'Yes, yes, go away,' she said, and began to cry. So I went away."

"She'll get over it."

"Do you think so? Yes, I expect she will. Oh, well, it's my opinion nobody
can understand women, anyhow. But they're a mighty sex, the women, a
mighty sex. They certainly are."

He sat on a while, but he had no peace of mind, and soon went out again.

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening the lady was in the dining room before us; she was there when
we came in, and we all nodded slightly in greeting. To the actor she was
very kind, quite making up for her petulance of the afternoon.

When he sat down he found a letter in his table napkin: a written note
folded into the napkin. He was so surprised that he dropped everything he
was doing to unfold and read it. With an exclamation and a smile, his
blue, delighted eyes splashed over her; but she was looking down into her
lap with her forehead wrinkled, so he put the note away in his vest
pocket.

Then it probably dawned on him that he had betrayed her, and he tried to
cover it up somehow.

"Well, here goes for food!" he said, as though he were going to require
all his energy for the task of eating.

Why had she written? There was nothing to prevent her speaking to him. He
had, after all, been sitting on the doorstep when she emerged from her
room and passed him. Had she foreseen that the good comedian could not
contain himself, but would surely let a third person into the secret?

Why probe or question further? The actor did not eat much, but he looked
very happy. So the note must have said yes, must have been a promise;
perhaps she would not tantalize him further.




XXV


A few days later, they were going to leave. They would travel together,
and that would be the end.

I might have pitied them both, for though life is good, life is stern. One
result at any rate was accomplished. She had not sent for him in vain, nor
had he come in vain.

That was the end of the act. But there were more acts to come--many more.

She had lost much: having been ravished, she gave herself away; why be
niggardly now? And this is the destiny of her type, that they lose
increasingly much, retaining ever less; what need to hold back now? The
ground has been completely shifted: from half-measures to the immolation
of all virtue. The type is well-known, and can be found at resorts and
boarding-houses, where it grows and flourishes.

In spite of her wasted adolescence, her examination and her
"independence," she has been coming home from her office stool or her
teacher's desk more or less exhausted; suddenly she finds herself in the
midst of a sweet and unlimited idleness, with quantities of tinned food
for her meals. The company round her is continually changing, tourists
come and go, and she passes from hand to hand for walks and talks; the
tone is "country informality." This is sheer loose living; this is a life
stripped of all purpose. She does not even sleep enough because she hears
through the thin wall every sound made by her neighbor in the next room,
while arriving or departing Englishmen bang doors all night. In a short
time she has become a neurotic, sated with company, surfeited with herself
and the place. She is ready to go off with the next halfway respectable
organ grinder that happens along. And so she pairs off with the most
casual visitors, flirts with the guide, hovering about him and making
bandages for his fingers, and at last throws herself into the arms of a
nameless nobody who has arrived at the house today.

This is the Torsen type.

And now, at this very moment, she retires to her room to collect the
fragments of herself, in preparation for her departure--at the end of the
summer. It takes time; there are so many fragments, one in every corner.
But perhaps it consoles her to think that she knows the genitive of
_mensa_.

Things are not quite so bad for the actor. He has staked nothing, is
committed to nothing. No part of his life is destroyed, nor anything
within him. As he came, so he goes, cheerful, empty, nice. In fact he is
even something more of a man because he has really made a conquest. He has
no wish but to spend some pleasant hours with the Torsen type.

He strolled about the garden waiting for her to get ready. Once she was
visible through the doorway, and he called to her:

"Aren't you coming soon? Don't forget we've got to cross the mountain!"

"Well, I can't go bareheaded," she replied.

He was impatient.

"No, you've got to put your hat on, and what a lot of time that takes!
Ugh!"

She measured him coldly and said:

"You're very--familiar."

If he had paid her back in the same coin there would have been weeping and
gnashing of teeth and cries of "Go away! Go alone!" and an hour's delay,
and reconciliation and embraces. But the actor's manner changed at once,
and he replied docilely, as his nature was,

"Familiar? Well--perhaps. Sorry!"

Then he strolled about the garden again, humming occasionally and swinging
his stick. I took note of the oddly feminine shape of his knees, and the
unusual plumpness of his thighs; there was something unnatural about this
plumpness, as though it did not belong to his sex.

His shoes were down at the heel, and his collar was open. His raincoat
hung regally from his shoulders and flapped in the wind, though it was not
raining. He was a proud and comical sight. But why speak harsh words about
a raincoat? It was not he, the owner, that had abused it, and it hung from
his shoulders as innocently as a bridal veil.

Why speak harsh words about anyone? Life is good, but life is stern.
Perhaps when she comes out, I think to myself, the following scene will
take place: I stand here waiting only for this departure. So she gives me
her hand and says good-bye.

"Why don't you say something?" she asks in order to seem bright and easy
in her mind.

"Because I don't want to hurt you in the great error of your ways."

"Ha, ha, ha," she laughs, too loudly and in a forced tone; "the great
error of my ways! Well, really!"

And her anger grows, while I am assured and fatherly, standing on the firm
ground of conscious virtue. Yet I say an unworthy thing like this:

"Don't throw yourself away, Miss Torsen!"

She raises her head then; yes, the Torsen type would raise her head and
reply, pale and offended:

"Throw myself away?--I don't understand you."

But it is possible, too, that Miss Torsen, at heart a fine, proud girl,
would have a lucid moment and see things in their true light:

"Why not, why shouldn't I throw myself away? What is there to keep? I am
thrown away, wasted ever since my school days, and now I am seven and
twenty...."

My own thoughts run away with me as I stand there wishing I were somewhere
else. Perhaps she, too, in her room wishes me far away.

"Good-bye," I say to the actor. "Will you remember me to Miss Torsen? I
must go now."

"Good-bye," says he, shaking hands in some surprise. "Can't you wait a few
minutes? Well, all right, I'll give her your greeting. Good-bye,
good-bye."

I take a short cut to get out of the way, and as I know every nook and
corner, I am soon outside the farm, and find a good shelter. From here I
shall see when these two leave. She has only to say good-bye now to the
people of the farm.

It struck me that yesterday was the last time I spoke to her. We spoke
only a few insignificant words that I have forgotten, and today I have not
spoken to her....

Here they come.

Curious--they seemed somehow to have become welded together; though they
walked separately up the mountain track, yet they belonged together. They
did not speak; the essential things had probably already been said. Life
had grown ordinary for them; it still remained to them to be of use to
each other. He walked first, while she followed many paces behind; it was
lonely to look at against the rugged background of the mountain. Where had
her tall figure gone to? She seemed to have grown shorter because she had
hitched up her skirt and was carrying her knapsack on her back. They each
carried one, but he carried hers and she his, probably because, owing to
the greater number of her clothes, hers was the heavier sack. Thus had
they shifted their burdens; what burdens would they carry in the future?
She was, after all, no longer a schoolmistress, and perhaps he was no
longer with the theater or the films.

I watched those two crossing rocky, mountainous ground, bare ground, with
not a tree anywhere except a few stunted junipers; far away near the ridge
murmured the little Reisa. Those two had put their possessions together,
were walking together; at the next halt they would be man and wife, and
take only one room because it was cheaper.

Suddenly I started up and, moved by some impulse of human sympathy--nay,
of duty--I wanted to run across to her, talk to her, say a word of
warning: "Don't go on!" I could have done it in a few minutes--a good
deed, a duty....

They disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill.

Her name was Ingeborg.




XXVI


And now I, too, must wander on again, for I am the last at the Tore Peak
farm. The season is wearing on, and this morning it snowed for the first
time--wet, sad snow.

It is very quiet at the farm now, and Josephine might have played the
piano again and been friendly to the last guest; but now I am leaving,
too. Besides, Josephine has little to play and be cheerful for; things
have gone badly this year, and may grow worse as time goes on. The
prospect is not a good one. "But something will turn up," says Josephine.
She need not worry, for she has money in the bank, and no doubt there is a
young man in the offing, on the other side of the fjeld.

Oh, yes, Josephine will always manage; she thinks of everything. The other
day, for instance--when Miss Torsen and her friend left. The friend could
not pay his bill, and all he said was that he had expected money, but it
hadn't come, and he couldn't stay any longer because of his private
affairs. That was all very well, but when would the bill be paid? Why, he
would send it from the town, of course; that was where he had his money!

"But how do we know we'll get the money?--from him, anyway," said
Josephine. "We've had these actor-people here before. And I didn't like
the way he swanked about outside, thinking he was as good as anybody, and
throwing his stick up in the air and catching it again. And then when Miss
Torsen came in to say good-bye, I told her, and I wondered if she couldn't
let me have the money for him. Miss Torsen was shocked, and said, 'Hasn't
he paid himself?' 'No,' I said, 'he hasn't, and this year being such a bad
one, we need every penny.' So then Miss Torsen said of course we should
get the money; how much was it? And I told her, and she said she couldn't
pay for him now, but she would see the money was sent; we could trust her
for that. And I think we can, too. We'll get the money all right, if not
from him. I daresay she'll send it herself...."

And Josephine went off to serve me my dinner.

Paul is on his feet now, too. Not that his step is always very steady, but
at least he puts his feet to the ground. But he takes no interest in
things; he does little more than feeding the horses and chopping some
wood. He ought to be clearing the manure out of the summer cow houses for
autumn use, but he keeps putting it off, and probably it will not be done
at all. So far it hasn't mattered, but this morning's first wet snow has
covered the hay outdoors and the maltreated land. And so it will remain
till next spring. Poor Paul! He is an easygoing man at heart, but he
pushes doggedly on against a whirlwind; sometimes he smiles to himself,
knowing how useless it is to struggle--a distorted smile.

His father, the old man alone in his room, stands sometimes on his
threshold, as he used to do, and reflects. He is lost in memories, for he
has ninety years behind him. The many houses on the farm confuse him a
little; the roofs are all too big for him, and he is afraid they might
come down and carry him off. Once he asked Josephine if it was right that
his hands and fingers should run away from him every day across the
fields. So they put mittens on his hands, but he took to chewing them; in
fact he ate everything he was given, and enjoyed a good digestion. So they
must be thankful he had his health, Josephine said, and could be up and
about.

       *       *       *       *       *

I did not follow the others across the field, but returned the way I had
come last spring, down toward the woods and the sea. It is fitting that I
should go back, always back, never forward again.

I passed the hut where Solem and I had lived together, and then the
Lapps--the two old people and Olga, this strange cross between a human
being and a dwarf birch. A stove stood against the peat wall, and a
paraffin lamp hung from the roof of their stone-age dwelling. Olga was
kind and helpful, but she looked tiny and pathetic, like a ruffled hen; it
pained me to watch her flit about the room, tiny and crooked, as she
looked for a pair of reindeer cheeses for me.

Then I reached my own hut of last winter where I had passed so many lonely
months. I did not enter it.

Or rather, I did enter it, for I had to spend the night there. But I shall
skip this, so for the sake of brevity, I call it not entering. This
morning I wrote something playful about Madame, the mouse I left here last
spring; but tonight I am taking it out again because I am no longer in the
mood, and because there is no point in it. Perhaps it would have amused
you to read it, my friend; but there is no point in amusing you now. I
must deject you now and make you listen to me; there is not much more to
hear.

Am I moralizing? I am explaining. No, I am not moralizing; I am
explaining. If it is moralizing to see the truth and tell it to you, then
I am moralizing. Can I help that? Intuitively I see into what is distant;
you do not, for this is something you cannot learn from your little
schoolbooks. Do not let this rouse your hatred for me. I shall be merry
again with you later, when my strings are tuned to merriment. I have no
power over them. Now they are tuned to a chorale....

       *       *       *       *       *

At dawn, in the bright moonlight, I leave the hut and push on quickly in
order to reach the village as soon as possible. But I must have started
too early or walked too fast, for at this rate I shall reach the village
at high noon. What am I chasing after? Perhaps it is feeling the nearness
of the sea that drives me forward. And as I stand on the last high ridge,
with the glitter and roar of the sea far beneath, a sweetness darts
through me like a greeting from another world. "_Thalatta!_" I cry;
and I wipe my eyeglasses tremblingly. The roar from below is sleepless and
fierce, a tone of jungle passion, a savage litany. I descend the ridge as
though in a trance and reach the first house.

There was no one about, and a few children's faces at a window suddenly
disappeared. Everything here was small and poor, though only the barn was
of peat; the house was a timbered fisherman's home. As I entered the
house, I saw that though it was as poor within as without, the floor was
clean and covered with pine twigs. There were many children here. The
mother was busy cooking something over the fire.

I was offered a chair, and sitting down, began to chat with a couple of
small boys. As I was in no hurry and asked for nothing, the woman said:

"I expect you want a boat?"

"A boat?" I said in my turn, for I had not come by boat on my last visit;
I had walked instead over fjelds and valleys many miles from the sea.
"Yes, why not?" I said. "But where does it go?"

"I thought you wanted a boat to go to the trading center," she replied,
"because that's where the steamer stops. We've rowed over lots of people
this year."

Great changes here; the motor traffic in Stordalen must have completely
altered all the other traffic since my last visit ten months ago.

"Where can I stop for a few days?" I asked.

"At the trading center, the other side of the islands. Or there's Eilert
and Olaus; they're both on this side. You could go there; they've got big
houses."

She showed me the two places on this side of the water, close to the
shore, and I proceeded thither.




XXVII


A large house, with and upper story of planks built on later, displayed a
new signboard on the wall: Room and Board. The barn, as usual, was a peat
hut.

As I did not know which was Eilert and which Olaus, and had stopped to
consider which road to take, a man came hurrying toward me. Ah, well, the
world is a small place; we meet friends and acquaintances everywhere. Here
am I, meeting an old acquaintance, the thief of last winter, the pork
thief. What luck, what a satisfaction!

This was Eilert. He took in paying guests now.

At first he pretended not to recognize me, but he soon gave that up. Once
he had done so, however, he carried the thing off in style:

"Well, well," he said, "what a nice surprise! You are most welcome under
my humble roof, and such it is!"

My own response was rather less jaunty, and I stood still collecting my
thoughts. When I had asked a few questions, he explained that since the
motor traffic had started in Stordalen, many visitors came through this
way, and sometimes they wanted to stop over at his house before being
rowed across to the steamer. They always came down in the evenings, and it
might be fine, or it might not, and at night the fjord was often wild. He
had therefore had to arrange to house them, because after all, you can't
expect people to spend the night outdoors.

"So you've turned into a hotelkeeper," I said.

"Well, you can joke about it," he returned, "but all I do is to give
shelter to the people who come here. That's all the hotel there is to it.
My neighbor Olaus can't do any more either, even if he builds a place
that's ten times as big. Look over there--now he's building another
house--a shed, I'd call it--and he's got three grown men working on it so
he can get it done by next summer. But it won't be much bigger than my
place at that, and anyhow, the gentry don't want to be bothered walking
all that distance to his place when here's my house right at the car stop.
And besides it was me that started it, and if I was Olaus I wouldn't have
wanted to imitate me like a regular monkey and started keeping boarders
which I didn't know the first thing about. But he can't make himself any
different from what he is, so he puts up a few old bits of canvas and rugs
and cardboard inside his barn and gets people to sleep there. But I'd
never ask the gentry to sleep in a barn, a storehouse for fodder and hay
for dumb beasts, if you'll excuse my mentioning it! But of course if
you've no shame in you and don't know how to behave in company--"

"Lucky I've met you," I said. "Why, I might have gone on down the road to
his place!"

We walked on together, with Eilert talking and explaining all the way, and
assuring me over and over again that Olaus was a good-for-nothing for
copying him as he did.

If I had known what was awaiting me, I should certainly have passed by
Eilert's house. But I did not know. I was innocent, though I may not have
appeared so. It cannot be helped.

"It's too bad I've got somebody in the best room," said Eilert. "They're
gentlefolk from the city. They came down here through Stordalen, and they
had to walk because the cars have stopped for the season. They've been in
my house for quite some days, and I think they'll be staying on a while
yet. I think they're out now, but of course it means I can't let you have
my best room."

I looked up, and saw a face in the window. A shiver ran through me--no, of
course not a shiver, far from it, but certainly this was a fresh surprise.
What a coincidence! As we were about to enter the door, there was the
actor, too--standing there looking at me: the actor from the Tore Peak
resort. It was his knees, his coat, and his stick. So I was right--I
_had_ recognized her face at an upper window. Yes, indeed, the world
is small.

The actor and I greeted each other and began to talk. How nice to see me
again! And how was Paul, the good fellow--still soaking himself in liquor,
he supposed? Funny effect it has sometimes; Paul seemed to think the whole
inn was an aquarium and we visitors the goldfish! "Ha, ha, ha, goldfish; I
wish we were, I must say!--Well, Eilert, are we getting some fresh haddock
for supper? Good!--Really, we like it here very much; we've already been
here several days; we want to stay and get a good rest."

As we stood there, a rather stout girl came down from the loft and
addressed the actor:

"The missis wants you to come right upstairs."

"Oh? Very well, at once.... Well, see you later. You'll be stopping here,
too, I expect?"

He hurried up the stairs.

Eilert and I followed to my room.

       *       *       *       *       *

As a matter of fact, I went out again with Eilert at once. He had a great
deal to tell me and explain to me, and I was not unwilling to listen to
him then. Really, Eilert was not too bad, a fine fellow with four ragged,
magnificent youngsters by his first wife, who had died two years before,
and another child by his second wife. He must have forgotten, as he told
me this, the yarn about the sick wife and the ailing children that he had
spun for me last winter. The girl who had come down the stairs with the
message from the "missis" was no servant, but Eilert's young wife. And
she, too, was all right--strong and good, handy about the stables, and
pregnant again.

It all looks good to me, Eilert: your wife and everything you tell me
about your family.

No one will understand my strange contentment, then; I had been full of an
obscure happiness from the moment I came to this house. Probably a mere
coincidence, but that did not detract from my satisfactory state of mind;
I was pleased with everything, and all things added to my cheerful frame
of mind. There were some pigs by the barn, very affectionate pigs, because
they were used to the children playing with them and kissing them and
riding on their backs. And there was one of the goats, up on the roof of
course, standing so far out along the edge that it was a wonder he didn't
grow dizzy. Seagulls flew criss-cross over the fields, screaming their
own language to one another, and being friends or enemies to the best of
their ability. Down by the mouth of the river, just beneath the sunset,
began the great road that winds up through the woods and the valley. There
is something of the friendliness of a living being about such a forest
road.

Eilert was going out in his boat to fish haddock, and I went with him.
Actually he should have been getting some meat for us; but he had promised
the gentry from the city some fish, and fish was one of the gifts of God.
Besides, if he lacked meat, he could always slaughter one of the pigs.

There was a slight wind; but then we wanted some wind, Eilert said, as
long as there was not too much of it.

"Not reliable tonight though," he said, looking up into the sky; "the
bigger the wind, the stronger the current."

At first I was very brave, and sat on the thwart thinking of Eilert's
French words: _travali, prekevary, sutinary, mankémang_, and many
others. They've had a long way to travel, coming here by ancient routes
via Bergen, and now they're common property.

And then suddenly I lost all interest in French words, and felt extremely
ill. It was much too windy, and we got no haddock.

"Pity she's come up so quick," said Eilert; "let's try inshore for a
while."

But we got nothing there either, and as the wind increased and the sea
rose, "We'd better go home," said Eilert.

The sea had been just right before, remarkably so, but now there was
entirely too much of it. Why on earth did I feel so bad? An inner
exhaustion, some emotional excitement, would have explained it. But I had
experienced no emotional excitement.

We rowed in the foam and feathery jets of spray. "She's rising fast!"
cried Eilert, rowing with all his might.

I felt so wretched that Eilert told me to ship my oars; he would manage by
himself. But for all my wretchedness, I remembered that they could see me
from the shore, and I would not put down my oars. Eilert's wife might see
me and laugh at me.

What a revolting business, this seasickness that forced me to put my head
over the gunwale and make a pig of myself! I had a moment's relief, and
then it began all over again. Charming! I felt as though I were in labor;
the wrong way up, of course, through my throat, but it was a delivery
nonetheless. It moved up, then stopped, came on again and stopped, came on
and stopped once more. It was a lump of iron--iron, did I say? No, steel;
I had never felt anything like it before; it was not something I was born
with. All my internal mechanism was stopped by it. Then I took a running
start far down inside me and began, strangely, to howl with all my
strength; but a howl, however successful, cannot break down a lump of
steel. The pains continued. My mouth filled with bile. Soon, thank heaven,
my chest would burst. O--oh--oh.... Then we rowed inside the islands that
served as a breakwater, and I was saved.

Quite suddenly I was well again, and began to play the clown, imitating my
own behavior in order to deceive the people ashore. And I assured Eilert,
too, that this was the first time I had ever been seasick, so that he
should understand it was nothing to gossip about. After all, he had not
heard about the great seas I had sailed without the slightest discomfort;
once I had been four-and-twenty days on the ocean, with most of the
passengers in bed, and even the captain sick in cascades; but not me!

"Yes, I get seasick sometimes, too," says Eilert.

That evening I sat eating alone in the dining room. Since we had not
brought back any haddock, the visitors upstairs had no desire to come
down. All they wanted, Eilert's wife said, was some bread and butter and
milk to be sent up.




XXVIII


Next morning they had gone.

Yes, indeed, they left at four in the morning, at dawn; I heard them
perfectly well, for my room was near the stairs. The knight of the plump
thighs came first, clumping heavily down the stairs. She hushed him, and
her voice sounded angry.

Eilert had just risen too, and they stood outside for some minutes,
negotiating with him for the boat--yes, at once; they had changed their
minds and wanted to leave, immediately. Then they went down to the boat,
Eilert with them. I could see them through the window, chilled by the cold
of early morning and short-tempered with each other. There had been a
frost during the night; ice lay on the water in the buckets, and the
ground was harsh to walk on. Poor things--no food, no coffee; a windy
morning, with the sea still running rather high. There they go with their
knapsacks on their backs; she is still wearing her red hat.

Well, it was no concern of mine, and I lay down again, intending to sleep
till about noon. Nothing was any concern of mine, except myself. I could
not see the boat from my bed, so I got up again--just to while the time
away--to see how far they had gone. Not very far, though both men were
rowing. A little later I got up and looked again--oh, yes, they were
getting on. I took up my post by the window. It was really quite
interesting to watch the boat getting smaller and smaller; finally I
opened the window, even looked through my field-glasses. As it was not yet
quite light, I could not see them very clearly, but the red hat was still
discernible. Then the boat disappeared behind an island. I dressed and
went down. The children were all still in bed, but the wife, Regine, was
up. How calmly and naturally she took everything!

"Do you know where your husband is?" I asked her.

"Yes--funny, aren't they?" she replied. "I never saw them till after
they'd left--gone down to the fjord. Where do you suppose they're going?
Haddock fishing?"

"Maybe," was all I said. But I thought to myself: "They're leaving, all
right. They had their knapsacks on their backs."

"Funny couple," Regine resumed. "Nothing to eat, no coffee, not a thing!
And the missis not wanting anything to eat last night, neither!"

I merely shook my head and went out. Regine called to me that coffee was
nearly ready, so if I'd like a cup--

Of course the only thing I could do in the face of such foolishness was to
shake my head and go away. One must take the sensible view. How was it
possible to understand such behavior? Nevertheless I, the undersigned,
should have gone on to Olaus yesterday, instead of going fishing. That
would have been still more sensible. What business had I at this house?
Very likely she found it embarrassing to be called the "missis," and this
was why she could neither eat last night nor stay here today. So she had
beaten a retreat, with her friend and her knapsack.

Well, it was not much to go away with, but perhaps that doesn't matter. As
long as one has a reason to go away.

       *       *       *       *       *

Later in the forenoon Eilert returned home. He was alone, but he came up
the path carrying one of the knapsacks--the larger one. He was in a
furious temper, and kept saying they'd better not try it on him--no,
they'd just better not.

Of course it was the bill again.

"She'll probably have a good deal of this sort of trouble," I thought to
myself, "but no doubt she'll get used to it, and take it as nonchalantly
as it should be taken. There are worse things."

But the fact remains that it was I that upset them, I that had driven them
away without their clothes; perhaps they had really expected some money to
be sent here--who knows?

I got hold of Eilert. How big was the bill? What, was that all? "Good
heavens! Here you are, here's your money; now row across to them at once
with their clothes!"

But it all proved in vain, for the strangers had gone; they had arrived
just in time for the boat, and were aboard it at that very moment.

Well, there was no help for it.

"Here's their address," says Eilert. "We can send the clothes next
Thursday; that's the next trip the boat goes south again."

I took down the address, but I was most ungracious to Eilert. Why couldn't
he have kept the other knapsack--why this particular one?

Eilert replied that it was true the gentleman had offered him the other
one, but he could see from the outside that it was not so good as this
one. And I should remember that the money the missis had paid him hadn't
covered more than the bill for one of them. So it was only reasonable that
he should take the fullest knapsack. As a matter of fact, he had behaved
very well, and that was the truth. Because when she gave him the larger
knapsack, and wrote the address, she had scolded, but he had kept quiet,
and said not another word. And anyway, nobody had better try it on
him--they'd better not, or he'd know the reason why!

Eilert shook a long-armed fist at the sky.

When he had eaten, drunk his coffee, and rested for a while, he was not so
lively and talkative as on the previous day. He had been brooding and
speculating ever since last summer, when the motor traffic started, and
did I think it would be a good idea for him to hire three grown men, too,
and build a much bigger house than Olaus's?

So he had caught it, too--the great, modern Norwegian disease!

The knapsack was back in her room again; yes, these were her clothes; I
recognized her blouses, her skirts and her shoes. I hardly looked at them,
of course; just unpacked them, folded them neatly, and put them back in
the bag again; because no doubt Eilert had had them all out in a heap.
This was really my only reason for unpacking them.




XXIX


Once more I was run into a party of English, the last for this year.

They arrived by steamer in the morning and stopped at the trading station
for a few hours, meanwhile sending up a detachment through the valley to
order a car to meet them. Stordalen, Stordalen, they said. So they had
apparently not yet seen Stordalen--an omission they must repair at once.

And what a sensation they made!

They came across by rowboat from the trading station; we could hear them a
long way off, an old man's voice drowning out all the others. Eilert
dropped everything he had in hand, and ran down to the landing place in
order to be the first on the spot. From Olaus's house, too, a man and a
few half-grown boys went down, and from all the houses round swarmed
curious and helpful crowds. There were so many spectators at the landing
place that the old man with the loud voice drew himself up to his full
height in the boat and majestically shouted his English at us, as though
his language must of course be ours as well:

"Where's the car? Bring the car down!"

Olaus, who was sharp, guessed what he meant and at once sent his two boys
up the valley to meet the car and hurry it on, for the Englishmen had
arrived.

They disembarked, they were in a great hurry, they could not understand
why the car had not come to meet them: "What was the meaning of this?"
There were four of them. "Stordalen!" they said. As they came up past
Eilert's house, they looked at their watches and swore because so many
minutes were being wasted. Where the devil was the car? The populace
followed at some distance, gazing with reverence on these dressed-up
fools.

I remember a couple of them: an old man--the one with the loud voice--who
wore a pleated kilt on each thigh and a jacket of green canvas with braid
and buckles and straps and innumerable pockets all over it. What a man,
what a power! His beard, streaming out from under his nose like the
northern lights, was greenish-white, and he swore like a madman. Another
of the party was tall and bent, a flagpole of sorts, astonishing,
stupendous, with sloping shoulders, a tiny cap perched above extravagantly
arched eyebrows; he was an upended Roman battering ram, a man on stilts. I
measured him with my eyes, and still there was something left over. Yet he
was bent and broken, old before his time, quite bald; but his mouth was
tight as a tiger's, and he had a madness in his head that kept him on the
move.

"Stordalen!" he cried.

England will soon have to open old people's homes for her sons. She
desexes her people with sport and obsessive ideas: were not other
countries keeping her in perpetual unrest, she would in a couple of
generations be converted to pederasty....

Then the horn of the car was heard tooting in the woods, and everyone
raced to meet it.

Of course Olaus's two boys had done an honest day's work in meeting the
car so far up the road, and urging the driver to hurry; were they not to
get any reward? True, they were allowed to sit in the back seat for their
return journey and thus enjoyed the drive of a lifetime; but money! They
had acquired enough brazenness in the course of the summer not to
hesitate, and approached the loud-voiced old man, holding out their palms
and clamoring: "Money!" But that did not suit the old man, who entered the
car forthwith, urging his companions to hurry. The driver, no doubt
thinking of his own tips, felt he would serve his passengers best by
driving off with them at once. So off he went. A toot of the horn, and a
rapid fanfare--tara-ra-boom-de-ay!

The spectators turned homeward, talking about the illustrious visitors.
Foreign lands--ah, no, this country will not bear comparison with them!
"Did you see how tall the younger lord was?" "And did you see the other
one, the one with the skirts and the northern lights?"

But some of the homeward-turning bumpkins, such as the Olaus family, had
more serious matters on their minds. Olaus for the first time understood
what he had read in the paper so many times, that the Norwegian elementary
school is a worthless institution because it does not teach English to the
children of the lower orders. Here were his boys, losing a handsome tip
merely because they could not swear back intelligibly at the gentleman
with the northern lights. The boys themselves had also something to think
about: "That driver, that scoundrel, that southerner! But just wait!" They
had heard that bits of broken bottle were very good for tires....

       *       *       *       *       *

I return to her knapsack and her clothes, and the reason why I do so is
that Eilert is so little to be trusted. I want to count her clothes to
make sure none of them disappear; it was a mistake not to have done so at
once.

It may seem as though I kept returning to these clothes and thinking about
them; but why should I do that? At any rate it is now evident that I was
right in suspecting Eilert, for I heard him going upstairs, and when I
came in, he was turning out the bag and going through the clothes.

"What are you doing?" I said.

At first he tried to brazen it out.

"Never you mind," he replied. But my knowing something about him was so
much to my advantage that he soon drew in his horns. How I wronged him, he
complained, and exploited him:

"You haven't bought these clothes," he said. "I could have got more for
them if I'd sold them." He had been paid, but he still wanted more, like
the stomach, which goes on digesting after death. That was Eilert. Yet he
was not too bad; he had never been any better, and he certainly had grown
no worse with his new livelihood.

May no one ever grow worse with a new livelihood!

So I moved the knapsack and the clothes into my own room in order to take
better care of them. It was a slow job to tidy everything up for the
second time, but it had to be done. Later that evening I would resume my
journey, taking the knapsack with me. I had done with the place, and the
nights were moonlit again.

Enough of these clothes!




XXX


Once again I am at an age when I walk in the moonlight. Thirty years ago I
walked in the moonlight, too, walked on crackling, snowy roads, on bare,
frozen ground, round unlocked barns, on the hunt for love. How well I
remember it! But it is no longer the same moonlight. I could even read by
it the letter she gave me. But there are no such letters any more.

Everything is changed. The tale is told, and tonight I walk abroad on an
errand of the head, not of the heart: I shall go across to the trading
center and dispatch a knapsack by the steamer; after that I shall wander
on. And that requires nothing but a little ordinary training in walking,
and the light of the moon to see by. But in those old days, those young
days, we studied the almanac in the autumn to find out if there would be a
moon on Twelfth Night, for we could use it then.

Everything is changed; I am changed. The tale lies within the teller.

They say that old age has other pleasures which youth has not: deeper
pleasures, more lasting pleasures. That is a lie. Yes, you have read
right: that is a lie. Only old age itself says this, in a self-interest
that flaunts its very rags. The old man has forgotten when he stood on the
summit, forgotten his own self, his own _alias_, red and white,
blowing a golden horn. Now he stands no longer--no, he sits--it is less of
a strain to sit. But now there comes to him, slow and halting, fat and
stupid, the honor of old age. What can a sitting man do with honor? A man
on his feet can use it; to a sitting man it is only a possession. But
honor is meant to be used, not to be sat with.

Let sitting men wear warm stockings.

       *       *       *       *       *

What a coincidence: another barn on my road, just as in the days of the
golden horn! It offers me plenty of straw and shelter for the night; but
where is the girl who gave me the letter? How warm her breath was, coming
between lips a little parted! She will come again, of course; let us wait,
we have plenty of time, another twenty years--oh, yes, she will come....

I must be on my guard against such traps. I have entered upon the
honorable years; I am weak and quite capable of believing that a barn is a
gift from above: thou well-deserving old man, here is a barn for thee!

No, thank you, I'm only just in my seventies.

And so in my errand of the head I pass by the barn.

Toward morning I find shelter under a projecting crag. It is fitting that
I should live under crags hereafter, and I lie down in a huddle, small and
invisible. Anything else you please, as long as you don't flaunt your
selfishness and your rags!

I am comfortable now, lying with my head on another person's knapsack full
of used clothes; I am doing this solely because it is just the right size.
But sleep will not come; there are only thoughts and dreams and lines of
poetry and sentimentality. The sack smells human, and I fling it away,
laying my head on my arm. My arm smells of wood--not even wood.

But the slip of paper with the address--have I got the address? And I
scratch a match to read it through and know it by heart tomorrow. Just a
line in pencil, nothing; but perhaps there is a softness in the letters, a
womanliness--I don't know.

It doesn't matter.

I manage to reach the trading center at midday, when everyone is up and
about, and the post office open. They give me a large sheet of wrapping
paper and string and sealing wax; I wrap the parcel and seal it and write
on the outside. There!

Oh--I forgot the slip of paper with the address--to put it inside, I mean.
Stupid! But otherwise I have done what I should. As I continue on my way,
I feel strangely void and deserted; no doubt because the knapsack was
quite heavy after all, and now I am well rid of it. "The last pleasure!" I
think suddenly. And as I walk on I think irrelevantly: "The last country,
the last island, the last pleasure...."




XXXI


What now?

I didn't know at first. The winter stood before me, my summer behind
me--no task, no yearning, no ambition. As it made no difference where I
stayed, I remembered a town I knew, and thought I might as well go
there--why not? A man cannot forever sit by the sea, and it is not
necessary to misunderstand him if he decides to leave it. So he leaves
his solitude--others have done so before him--and a mild curiosity drives
him to see the ships and the horses and the tiny frostbitten gardens of a
certain town. When he arrives there, he begins to wonder in his idleness
if he does not know someone in this town, in this terrifyingly large town.
The moonlight is bright now, and it amuses him to give himself a certain
address to visit evening after evening, and to take up his post there as
though something depended on it. He is not expected anywhere else, so he
has the time. Then one evening someone finds him reading under a lamppost,
stops suddenly and stares, takes a few steps toward him, and bends
forward searchingly.

"Isn't it--? Oh, no, excuse me, I thought--"

"Yes, it is. Good evening, Miss Torsen."

"Why, good evening. I thought it looked like you. Good evening. Yes, thank
you, very well. And thanks for the knapsack; I understood all at once--I
quite understand--"

"Do you live here? What a strange coincidence!"

"Yes, I live here; those are my windows. You wouldn't like to come up,
would you? No, perhaps you wouldn't."

"But I know where there are some benches down by the shore. Unless you're
cold?" I suggested.

"No, I'm not cold. Yes, thank you, I'd like to."

We went down to a bench, looking like a father and daughter out walking.
There was nothing striking about us, and we sat the whole evening
undisturbed. Later we sat undisturbed on other evenings all through a cold
autumn month.

Then she told me first the short chapter of her journey home, some of it
only hinted, suggested, and some of it in full; sometimes with her head
deeply bowed, sometimes, when I asked a question, replying by a brief word
or a shake of the head. I write it down from memory; it was important to
her, and it became important for others as well.

Besides--in a hundred years it will all be forgotten. Why do we struggle?
In a hundred years someone will read about it in memoirs and letters and
think: "How she wriggled, how she fussed--dear me!" There are others about
whom nothing at all will be written or read; life will close over them
like a grave. Either way....

What sorrows she had--dear, dear, what sorrows! The day she had been
unable to pay the bill, she thought herself the center of the universe;
everybody stared at her, and she was at her wits' end. Then she heard a
man's voice outside saying: "Haven't you watered Blakka yet?" That was
_his_ preoccupation. So she was not the center of the universe after
all.

Then she and her companion had left the house, and set out on their tour.
The center? Not at all. Day after day they walked across fields, and
through valleys, had meals in houses by the way, and water from the
brooks. If they met other travelers, they greeted them, or they did not
greet them; no one was less a center of attention than they, and no one
more. Her companion walked in vacant thoughtlessness, whistling as he
went.

At one place they stopped for food.

"Will you pay for mine for the time being?" he said.

She hesitated and then said briefly that she could not pay "for the time
being" all the way.

"Of course not, by no means," said he. "Just for the moment. Perhaps we
can get a loan further down the valley."

"I don't borrow."

"Ingeborg!" said he, pretending playfully to whimper.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Can't I say 'Ingeborg' to my own wife?"

"I'm not your own wife," she said, getting up.

"Pish! We were man and wife last night. It says so in the visitors' book."

She was silent at this. Yes, last night they had been man and wife; that
was to save getting two rooms, and travel economically. But she had been
very foolish to agree to it.

"'Miss Torsen,' then?" he whimpered.

And to put an end to the game, she paid for both of them and took her
knapsack on her back.

They walked again. At the next stop she paid for them both without
discussion--for the evening meal, for bed and breakfast. It grew to be a
habit. They walked on once more. They reached the end of the valley by the
sea, and here she revolted again.

"Go away--go on by yourself; I don't want you in my room any more!"

The old argument no longer held good. When he repeated that they saved
money by it, she replied that she for her part required no more than one
room, and was quite able to pay for it. He joked again, whimpered,
"Ingeborg!" and left her. He was beaten, and his back was bent.

She ate alone that evening.

"Isn't your husband coming in?" asked the woman of the house.

"Perhaps he doesn't want anything," she replied.

There he stood, away by the tiny barn pretending to be interested in the
roof, in the style of building, and walked round looking at it, pursing
his lips and whistling. But she could see perfectly well from the window
that his face was blue and dejected. When she had eaten, she walked down
to the shore, calling as she passed him:

"Go in and eat!"

But he had not sunk quite so low; he would not go in to eat, and slept
towards the papers in the seed-tray.

“You have great strength of character. You will marry a red-haired man
and have three children. Beware of a blonde woman.” Look out! Look out!
A motor-car driven by a fat chauffeur comes rushing down the hill.
Inside there a blonde woman, pouting, leaning forward—rushing through
your life—beware! beware!

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am an auctioneer by profession, and if what I
tell you is not the truth I am liable to have my licence taken away
from me and a heavy imprisonment.” He holds the licence across his
chest; the sweat pours down his face into his paper collar; his eyes
look glazed. When he takes off his hat there is a deep pucker of angry
flesh on his forehead. Nobody buys a watch.

Look out again! A huge barouche comes swinging down the hill with two
old, old babies inside. She holds up a lace parasol; he sucks the knob
of his cane, and the fat old bodies roll together as the cradle rocks,
and the steaming horse leaves a trail of manure as it ambles down the
hill.

Under a tree, Professor Leonard, in cap and gown, stands beside his
banner. He is here “for one day,” from the London, Paris and Brussels
Exhibition, to tell your fortune from your face. And he stands, smiling
encouragement, like a clumsy dentist. When the big men, romping and
swearing a moment before, hand across their sixpence, and stand before
him, they are suddenly serious, dumb, timid, almost blushing as the
Professor’s quick hand notches the printed card. They are like little
children caught playing in a forbidden garden by the owner, stepping
from behind a tree.

The top of the hill is reached. How hot it is! How fine it is! The
public-house is open, and the crowd presses in. The mother sits on the
pavement edge with her baby, and the father brings her out a glass of
dark, brownish stuff, and then savagely elbows his way in again. A reek
of beer floats from the public-house, and a loud clatter and rattle of
voices.

The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever.
Outside the two swing-doors there is a thick mass of children like
flies at the mouth of a sweet-jar.

And up, up the hill come the people, with ticklers and golliwogs, and
roses and feathers. Up, up they thrust into the light and heat,
shouting, laughing, squealing, as though they were being pushed by
something, far below, and by the sun, far ahead of them—drawn up into
the full, bright, dazzling radiance to... what?




An Ideal Family


That evening for the first time in his life, as he pressed through the
swing door and descended the three broad steps to the pavement, old Mr.
Neave felt he was too old for the spring. Spring—warm, eager,
restless—was there, waiting for him in the golden light, ready in front
of everybody to run up, to blow in his white beard, to drag sweetly on
his arm. And he couldn’t meet her, no; he couldn’t square up once more
and stride off, jaunty as a young man. He was tired and, although the
late sun was still shining, curiously cold, with a numbed feeling all
over. Quite suddenly he hadn’t the energy, he hadn’t the heart to stand
this gaiety and bright movement any longer; it confused him. He wanted
to stand still, to wave it away with his stick, to say, “Be off with
you!” Suddenly it was a terrible effort to greet as usual—tipping his
wide-awake with his stick—all the people whom he knew, the friends,
acquaintances, shopkeepers, postmen, drivers. But the gay glance that
went with the gesture, the kindly twinkle that seemed to say, “I’m a
match and more for any of you”—that old Mr. Neave could not manage at
all. He stumped along, lifting his knees high as if he were walking
through air that had somehow grown heavy and solid like water. And the
homeward-looking crowd hurried by, the trams clanked, the light carts
clattered, the big swinging cabs bowled along with that reckless,
defiant indifference that one knows only in dreams....

It had been a day like other days at the office. Nothing special had
happened. Harold hadn’t come back from lunch until close on four. Where
had he been? What had he been up to? He wasn’t going to let his father
know. Old Mr. Neave had happened to be in the vestibule, saying
good-bye to a caller, when Harold sauntered in, perfectly turned out as
usual, cool, suave, smiling that peculiar little half-smile that women
found so fascinating.

Ah, Harold was too handsome, too handsome by far; that had been the
trouble all along. No man had a right to such eyes, such lashes, and
such lips; it was uncanny. As for his mother, his sisters, and the
servants, it was not too much to say they made a young god of him; they
worshipped Harold, they forgave him everything; and he had needed some
forgiving ever since the time when he was thirteen and he had stolen
his mother’s purse, taken the money, and hidden the purse in the cook’s
bedroom. Old Mr. Neave struck sharply with his stick upon the pavement
edge. But it wasn’t only his family who spoiled Harold, he reflected,
it was everybody; he had only to look and to smile, and down they went
before him. So perhaps it wasn’t to be wondered at that he expected the
office to carry on the tradition. H’m, h’m! But it couldn’t be done. No
business—not even a successful, established, big paying concern—could
be played with. A man had either to put his whole heart and soul into
it, or it went all to pieces before his eyes....

And then Charlotte and the girls were always at him to make the whole
thing over to Harold, to retire, and to spend his time enjoying
himself. Enjoying himself! Old Mr. Neave stopped dead under a group of
ancient cabbage palms outside the Government buildings! Enjoying
himself! The wind of evening shook the dark leaves to a thin airy
cackle. Sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs, conscious all the while
that his life’s work was slipping away, dissolving, disappearing
through Harold’s fine fingers, while Harold smiled....

“Why will you be so unreasonable, father? There’s absolutely no need
for you to go to the office. It only makes it very awkward for us when
people persist in saying how tired you’re looking. Here’s this huge
house and garden. Surely you could be happy in—in—appreciating it for a
change. Or you could take up some hobby.”

And Lola the baby had chimed in loftily, “All men ought to have
hobbies. It makes life impossible if they haven’t.”

Well, well! He couldn’t help a grim smile as painfully he began to
climb the hill that led into Harcourt Avenue. Where would Lola and her
sisters and Charlotte be if he’d gone in for hobbies, he’d like to
know? Hobbies couldn’t pay for the town house and the seaside bungalow,
and their horses, and their golf, and the sixty-guinea gramophone in
the music-room for them to dance to. Not that he grudged them these
things. No, they were smart, good-looking girls, and Charlotte was a
remarkable woman; it was natural for them to be in the swim. As a
matter of fact, no other house in the town was as popular as theirs; no
other family entertained so much. And how many times old Mr. Neave,
pushing the cigar box across the smoking-room table, had listened to
praises of his wife, his girls, of himself even.

“You’re an ideal family, sir, an ideal family. It’s like something one
reads about or sees on the stage.”

“That’s all right, my boy,” old Mr. Neave would reply. “Try one of
those; I think you’ll like them. And if you care to smoke in the
garden, you’ll find the girls on the lawn, I dare say.”

That was why the girls had never married, so people said. They could
have married anybody. But they had too good a time at home. They were
too happy together, the girls and Charlotte. H’m, h’m! Well, well.
Perhaps so....

By this time he had walked the length of fashionable Harcourt Avenue;
he had reached the corner house, their house. The carriage gates were
pushed back; there were fresh marks of wheels on the drive. And then he
faced the big white-painted house, with its wide-open windows, its
tulle curtains floating outwards, its blue jars of hyacinths on the
broad sills. On either side of the carriage porch their
hydrangeas—famous in the town—were coming into flower; the pinkish,
bluish masses of flower lay like light among the spreading leaves. And
somehow, it seemed to old Mr. Neave that the house and the flowers, and
even the fresh marks on the drive, were saying, “There is young life
here. There are girls—”

The hall, as always, was dusky with wraps, parasols, gloves, piled on
the oak chests. From the music-room sounded the piano, quick, loud and
impatient. Through the drawing-room door that was ajar voices floated.

“And were there ices?” came from Charlotte. Then the creak, creak of
her rocker.

“Ices!” cried Ethel. “My dear mother, you never saw such ices. Only two
kinds. And one a common little strawberry shop ice, in a sopping wet
frill.”

“The food altogether was too appalling,” came from Marion.

“Still, it’s rather early for ices,” said Charlotte easily.

“But why, if one has them at all....” began Ethel.

“Oh, quite so, darling,” crooned Charlotte.

Suddenly the music-room door opened and Lola dashed out. She started,
she nearly screamed, at the sight of old Mr. Neave.

“Gracious, father! What a fright you gave me! Have you just come home?
Why isn’t Charles here to help you off with your coat?”

Her cheeks were crimson from playing, her eyes glittered, the hair fell
over her forehead. And she breathed as though she had come running
through the dark and was frightened. Old Mr. Neave stared at his
youngest daughter; he felt he had never seen her before. So that was
Lola, was it? But she seemed to have forgotten her father; it was not
for him that she was waiting there. Now she put the tip of her crumpled
handkerchief between her teeth and tugged at it angrily. The telephone
rang. A-ah! Lola gave a cry like a sob and dashed past him. The door of
the telephone-room slammed, and at the same moment Charlotte called,
“Is that you, father?”

“You’re tired again,” said Charlotte reproachfully, and she stopped the
rocker and offered her warm plum-like cheek. Bright-haired Ethel pecked
his beard, Marion’s lips brushed his ear.

“Did you walk back, father?” asked Charlotte.

“Yes, I walked home,” said old Mr. Neave, and he sank into one of the
immense drawing-room chairs.

“But why didn’t you take a cab?” said Ethel. “There are hundreds of
cabs about at that time.”

“My dear Ethel,” cried Marion, “if father prefers to tire himself out,
I really don’t see what business of ours it is to interfere.”

“Children, children?” coaxed Charlotte.

But Marion wouldn’t be stopped. “No, mother, you spoil father, and it’s
not right. You ought to be stricter with him. He’s very naughty.” She
laughed her hard, bright laugh and patted her hair in a mirror.
Strange! When she was a little girl she had such a soft, hesitating
voice; she had even stuttered, and now, whatever she said—even if it
was only “Jam, please, father”—it rang out as though she were on the
stage.

“Did Harold leave the office before you, dear?” asked Charlotte,
beginning to rock again.

“I’m not sure,” said Old Mr. Neave. “I’m not sure. I didn’t see him
after four o’clock.”

“He said—” began Charlotte.

But at that moment Ethel, who was twitching over the leaves of some
paper or other, ran to her mother and sank down beside her chair.

“There, you see,” she cried. “That’s what I mean, mummy. Yellow, with
touches of silver. Don’t you agree?”

“Give it to me, love,” said Charlotte. She fumbled for her
tortoise-shell spectacles and put them on, gave the page a little dab
with her plump small fingers, and pursed up her lips. “Very sweet!” she
crooned vaguely; she looked at Ethel over her spectacles. “But I
shouldn’t have the train.”

“Not the train!” wailed Ethel tragically. “But the train’s the whole
point.”

“Here, mother, let me decide.” Marion snatched the paper playfully from
Charlotte. “I agree with mother,” she cried triumphantly. “The train
overweights it.”

Old Mr. Neave, forgotten, sank into the broad lap of his chair, and,
dozing, heard them as though he dreamed. There was no doubt about it,
he was tired out; he had lost his hold. Even Charlotte and the girls
were too much for him to-night. They were too... too.... But all his
drowsing brain could think of was—too _rich_ for him. And somewhere at
the back of everything he was watching a little withered ancient man
climbing up endless flights of stairs. Who was he?

“I shan’t dress to-night,” he muttered.

“What do you say, father?”

“Eh, what, what?” Old Mr. Neave woke with a start and stared across at
them. “I shan’t dress to-night,” he repeated.

“But, father, we’ve got Lucile coming, and Henry Davenport, and Mrs.
Teddie Walker.”

“It will look so _very_ out of the picture.”

“Don’t you feel well, dear?”

“You needn’t make any effort. What is Charles _for_?”

“But if you’re really not up to it,” Charlotte wavered.

“Very well! Very well!” Old Mr. Neave got up and went to join that
little old climbing fellow just as far as his dressing-room....

There young Charles was waiting for him. Carefully, as though
everything depended on it, he was tucking a towel round the hot-water
can. Young Charles had been a favourite of his ever since as a little
red-faced boy he had come into the house to look after the fires. Old
Mr. Neave lowered himself into the cane lounge by the window, stretched
out his legs, and made his little evening joke, “Dress him up,
Charles!” And Charles, breathing intensely and frowning, bent forward
to take the pin out of his tie.

H’m, h’m! Well, well! It was pleasant by the open window, very
pleasant—a fine mild evening. They were cutting the grass on the tennis
court below; he heard the soft churr of the mower. Soon the girls would
begin their tennis parties again. And at the thought he seemed to hear
Marion’s voice ring out, “Good for you, partner.... Oh, _played_,
partner.... Oh, _very_ nice indeed.” Then Charlotte calling from the
veranda, “Where is Harold?” And Ethel, “He’s certainly not here,
mother.” And Charlotte’s vague, “He said—”

Old Mr. Neave sighed, got up, and putting one hand under his beard, he
took the comb from young Charles, and carefully combed the white beard
over. Charles gave him a folded handkerchief, his watch and seals, and
spectacle case.

“That will do, my lad.” The door shut, he sank back, he was alone....

And now that little ancient fellow was climbing down endless flights
that led to a glittering, gay dining-room. What legs he had! They were
like a spider’s—thin, withered.

“You’re an ideal family, sir, an ideal family.”

But if that were true, why didn’t Charlotte or the girls stop him? Why
was he all alone, climbing up and down? Where was Harold? Ah, it was no
good expecting anything from Harold. Down, down went the little old
spider, and then, to his horror, old Mr. Neave saw him slip past the
dining-room and make for the porch, the dark drive, the carriage gates,
the office. Stop him, stop him, somebody!

Old Mr. Neave started up. It was dark in his dressing-room; the window
shone pale. How long had he been asleep? He listened, and through the
big, airy, darkened house there floated far-away voices, far-away
sounds. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, he had been asleep for a long
time. He’d been forgotten. What had all this to do with him—this house
and Charlotte, the girls and Harold—what did he know about them? They
were strangers to him. Life had passed him by. Charlotte was not his
wife. His wife!

... A dark porch, half hidden by a passion-vine, that drooped
sorrowful, mournful, as though it understood. Small, warm arms were
round his neck. A face, little and pale, lifted to his, and a voice
breathed, “Good-bye, my treasure.”

My treasure! “Good-bye, my treasure!” Which of them had spoken? Why had
they said good-bye? There had been some terrible mistake. _She_ was his
wife, that little pale girl, and all the rest of his life had been a
dream.

Then the door opened, and young Charles, standing in the light, put his
hands by his side and shouted like a young soldier, “Dinner is on the
table, sir!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said old Mr. Neave.




The Lady’s Maid


_Eleven o’clock. A knock at the door._

... I hope I haven’t disturbed you, madam. You weren’t asleep—were you?
But I’ve just given my lady her tea, and there was such a nice cup
over, I thought, perhaps....

... Not at all, madam. I always make a cup of tea last thing. She
drinks it in bed after her prayers to warm her up. I put the kettle on
when she kneels down and I say to it, “Now you needn’t be in too much
of a hurry to say _your_ prayers.” But it’s always boiling before my
lady is half through. You see, madam, we know such a lot of people, and
they’ve all got to be prayed for—every one. My lady keeps a list of the
names in a little red book. Oh dear! whenever some one new has been to
see us and my lady says afterwards, “Ellen, give me my little red
book,” I feel quite wild, I do. “There’s another,” I think, “keeping
her out of her bed in all weathers.” And she won’t have a cushion, you
know, madam; she kneels on the hard carpet. It fidgets me something
dreadful to see her, knowing her as I do. I’ve tried to cheat her; I’ve
spread out the eiderdown. But the first time I did it—oh, she gave me
such a look—holy it was, madam. “Did our Lord have an eiderdown,
Ellen?” she said. But—I was younger at the time—I felt inclined to say,
“No, but our Lord wasn’t your age, and he didn’t know what it was to
have your lumbago.” Wicked—wasn’t it? But she’s _too_ good, you know,
madam. When I tucked her up just now and seen—saw her lying back, her
hands outside and her head on the pillow—so pretty—I couldn’t help
thinking, “Now you look just like your dear mother when I laid her
out!”

... Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did
her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty curls, and just
to one side of her neck I put a bunch of most beautiful purple pansies.
Those pansies made a picture of her, madam! I shall never forget them.
I thought to-night, when I looked at my lady, “Now, if only the pansies
was there no one could tell the difference.”

... Only the last year, madam. Only after she’d got a
little—well—feeble as you might say. Of course, she was never
dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. But how it took her was—she
thought she’d lost something. She couldn’t keep still, she couldn’t
settle. All day long she’d be up and down, up and down; you’d meet her
everywhere,—on the stairs, in the porch, making for the kitchen. And
she’d look up at you, and she’d say—just like a child, “I’ve lost it,
I’ve lost it.” “Come along,” I’d say, “come along, and I’ll lay out
your patience for you.” But she’d catch me by the hand—I was a
favourite of hers—and whisper, “Find it for me, Ellen. Find it for me.”
Sad, wasn’t it?

... No, she never recovered, madam. She had a stroke at the end. Last
words she ever said was—very slow, “Look in—the—Look—in—” And then she
was gone.

... No, madam, I can’t say I noticed it. Perhaps some girls. But you
see, it’s like this, I’ve got nobody but my lady. My mother died of
consumption when I was four, and I lived with my grandfather, who kept
a hair-dresser’s shop. I used to spend all my time in the shop under a
table dressing my doll’s hair—copying the assistants, I suppose. They
were ever so kind to me. Used to make me little wigs, all colours, the
latest fashions and all. And there I’d sit all day, quiet as quiet—the
customers never knew. Only now and again I’d take my peep from under
the table-cloth.

... But one day I managed to get a pair of scissors and—would you
believe it, madam? I cut off all my hair; snipped it off all in bits,
like the little monkey I was. Grandfather was _furious_! He caught hold
of the tongs—I shall never forget it—grabbed me by the hand and shut my
fingers in them. “That’ll teach you!” he said. It was a fearful burn.
I’ve got the mark of it to-day.

... Well, you see, madam, he’d taken such pride in my hair. He used to
sit me up on the counter, before the customers came, and do it
something beautiful—big, soft curls and waved over the top. I remember
the assistants standing round, and me ever so solemn with the penny
grandfather gave me to hold while it was being done.... But he always
took the penny back afterwards. Poor grandfather! Wild, he was, at the
fright I’d made of myself. But he frightened me that time. Do you know
what I did, madam? I ran away. Yes, I did, round the corners, in and
out, I don’t know how far I didn’t run. Oh, dear, I must have looked a
sight, with my hand rolled up in my pinny and my hair sticking out.
People must have laughed when they saw me....

... No, madam, grandfather never got over it. He couldn’t bear the
sight of me after. Couldn’t eat his dinner, even, if I was there. So my
aunt took me. She was a cripple, an upholstress. Tiny! She had to stand
on the sofas when she wanted to cut out the backs. And it was helping
her I met my lady....

... Not so very, madam. I was thirteen, turned. And I don’t remember
ever feeling—well—a child, as you might say. You see there was my
uniform, and one thing and another. My lady put me into collars and
cuffs from the first. Oh yes—once I did! That was—funny! It was like
this. My lady had her two little nieces staying with her—we were at
Sheldon at the time—and there was a fair on the common.

“Now, Ellen,” she said, “I want you to take the two young ladies for a
ride on the donkeys.” Off we went; solemn little loves they were; each
had a hand. But when we came to the donkeys they were too shy to go on.
So we stood and watched instead. Beautiful those donkeys were! They
were the first I’d seen out of a cart—for pleasure as you might say.
They were a lovely silver-grey, with little red saddles and blue
bridles and bells jing-a-jingling on their ears. And quite big
girls—older than me, even—were riding them, ever so gay. Not at all
common, I don’t mean, madam, just enjoying themselves. And I don’t know
what it was, but the way the little feet went, and the eyes—so
gentle—and the soft ears—made me want to go on a donkey more than
anything in the world!

... Of course, I couldn’t. I had my young ladies. And what would I have
looked like perched up there in my uniform? But all the rest of the day
it was donkeys—donkeys on the brain with me. I felt I should have burst
if I didn’t tell some one; and who was there to tell? But when I went
to bed—I was sleeping in Mrs. James’s bedroom, our cook that was, at
the time—as soon as the lights was out, there they were, my donkeys,
jingling along, with their neat little feet and sad eyes.... Well,
madam, would you believe it, I waited for a long time and pretended to
be asleep, and then suddenly I sat up and called out as loud as I
could, “_I do want to go on a donkey. I do want a donkey-ride!_” You
see, I had to say it, and I thought they wouldn’t laugh at me if they
knew I was only dreaming. Artful—wasn’t it? Just what a silly child
would think....

... No, madam, never now. Of course, I did think of it at one time. But
it wasn’t to be. He had a little flower-shop just down the road and
across from where we was living. Funny—wasn’t it? And me such a one for
flowers. We were having a lot of company at the time, and I was in and
out of the shop more often than not, as the saying is. And Harry and I
(his name was Harry) got to quarrelling about how things ought to be
arranged—and that began it. Flowers! you wouldn’t believe it, madam,
the flowers he used to bring me. He’d stop at nothing. It was
lilies-of-the-valley more than once, and I’m not exaggerating! Well, of
course, we were going to be married and live over the shop, and it was
all going to be just so, and I was to have the window to arrange....
Oh, how I’ve done that window of a Saturday! Not really, of course,
madam, just dreaming, as you might say. I’ve done it for
Christmas—motto in holly, and all—and I’ve had my Easter lilies with a
gorgeous star all daffodils in the middle. I’ve hung—well, that’s
enough of that. The day came he was to call for me to choose the
furniture. Shall I ever forget it? It was a Tuesday. My lady wasn’t
quite herself that afternoon. Not that she’d said anything, of course;
she never does or will. But I knew by the way that she kept wrapping
herself up and asking me if it was cold—and her little nose looked...
pinched. I didn’t like leaving her; I knew I’d be worrying all the
time. At last I asked her if she’d rather I put it off. “Oh no, Ellen,”
she said, “you mustn’t mind about me. You mustn’t disappoint your young
man.” And so cheerful, you know, madam, never thinking about herself.
It made me feel worse than ever. I began to wonder... then she dropped
her handkerchief and began to stoop down to pick it up herself—a thing
she never did. “Whatever are you doing!” I cried, running to stop her.
“Well,” she said, smiling, you know, madam, “I shall have to begin to
practise.” Oh, it was all I could do not to burst out crying. I went
over to the dressing-table and made believe to rub up the silver, and I
couldn’t keep myself in, and I asked her if she’d rather I... didn’t
get married. “No, Ellen,” she said—that was her voice, madam, like I’m
giving you—“No, Ellen, not for the _wide world_!” But while she said
it, madam—I was looking in her glass; of course, she didn’t know I
could see her—she put her little hand on her heart just like her dear
mother used to, and lifted her eyes... Oh, _madam_!

When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky
little brooch he’d given me—a silver bird it was, with a chain in its
beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger. Quite the
thing! I opened the door to him. I never gave him time for a word.
“There you are,” I said. “Take them all back,” I said, “it’s all over.
I’m not going to marry you,” I said, “I can’t leave my lady.” White! he
turned as white as a woman. I had to slam the door, and there I stood,
all of a tremble, till I knew he had gone. When I opened the
door—believe me or not, madam—that man _was_ gone! I ran out into the
road just as I was, in my apron and my house-shoes, and there I stayed
in the middle of the road... staring. People must have laughed if they
saw me....

... Goodness gracious!—What’s that? It’s the clock striking! And here
I’ve been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped
me.... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady’s feet, every
night, just the same. And she says, “Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and
wake early!” I don’t know what I should do if she didn’t say that, now.

... Oh dear, I sometimes think... whatever should I do if anything were
to.... But, there, thinking’s no good to anyone—is it, madam? Thinking
won’t help. Not that I do it often. And if ever I do I pull myself up
sharp, “Now, then, Ellen. At it again—you silly girl! If you can’t find
anything better to do than to start thinking!...”








  LONDON: G. BELL & SONS, LIMITED,
  PORTUGAL STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.
  CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
  NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
  BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER & CO





  THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I

  INCLUDING NEW MATERIALS FROM THE BRITISH OFFICIAL RECORDS



  BY JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, LITT.D.
  LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE,
  CAMBRIDGE



   "Let my son often read and reflect on history: this is the only
   true philosophy."--_Napoleon's last Instructions for the King of
    Rome_.








  LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
  1910

POST 8VO EDITION, ILLUSTRATED
First Published, December 1901.
Second Edition, revised, March 1902.
Third Edition, revised, January 1903.
Fourth Edition, revised, September 1907.
Reprinted, January 1910.


CROWN 8VO EDITION
First Published, September 1904.
Reprinted, October 1907; July 1910.


DEDICATED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ACTON,
K.C.V.O., D.C.L., LL.D. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN ADMIRATION OF HIS PROFOUND HISTORICAL
LEARNING, AND IN GRATITUDE FOR ADVICE AND HELP GENEROUSLY GIVEN.






PREFACE


An apology seems to be called for from anyone who gives to the world a
new Life of Napoleon I. My excuse must be that for many years I have
sought to revise the traditional story of his career in the light of
facts gleaned from the British Archives and of the many valuable
materials that have recently been published by continental historians.
To explain my manner of dealing with these sources would require an
elaborate critical Introduction; but, as the limits of my space
absolutely preclude any such attempt, I can only briefly refer to the
most important topics.

To deal with the published sources first, I would name as of chief
importance the works of MM. Aulard, Chuquet, Houssaye, Sorel, and
Vandal in France; of Herren Beer, Delbrück, Fournier, Lehmann, Oncken,
and Wertheimer in Germany and Austria; and of Baron Lumbroso in Italy.
I have also profited largely by the scholarly monographs or
collections of documents due to the labours of the "Société d'Histoire
Contemporaine," the General Staff of the French Army, of MM. Bouvier,
Caudrillier, Capitaine "J.G.," Lévy, Madelin, Sagnac, Sciout, Zivy,
and others in France; and of Herren Bailleu, Demelitsch, Hansing,
Klinkowstrom, Luckwaldt, Ulmann, and others in Germany. Some of the
recently published French Memoirs dealing with those times are not
devoid of value, though this class of literature is to be used with
caution. The new letters of Napoleon published by M. Léon Lecestre and
M. Léonce de Brotonne have also opened up fresh vistas into the life
of the great man; and the time seems to have come when we may safely
revise our judgments on many of its episodes.

But I should not have ventured on this great undertaking, had I not
been able to contribute something new to Napoleonic literature. During
a study of this period for an earlier work published in the "Cambridge
Historical Series," I ascertained the great value of the British
records for the years 1795-1815. It is surely discreditable to our
historical research that, apart from the fruitful labours of the Navy
Records Society, of Messrs. Oscar Browning and Hereford George, and of
Mr. Bowman of Toronto, scarcely any English work has appeared that is
based on the official records of this period. Yet they are of great
interest and value. Our diplomatic agents then had the knack of
getting at State secrets in most foreign capitals, even when we were
at war with their Governments; and our War Office and Admiralty
Records have also yielded me some interesting "finds." M. Lévy, in the
preface to his "Napoléon intime" (1893), has well remarked that "the
documentary history of the wars of the Empire has not yet been
written. To write it accurately, it will be more important thoroughly
to know foreign archives than those of France." Those of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia have now for the most part been examined; and I
think that I may claim to have searched all the important parts of our
Foreign Office Archives for the years in question, as well as for part
of the St. Helena period. I have striven to embody the results of this
search in the present volumes as far as was compatible with limits of
space and with the narrative form at which, in my judgment, history
ought always to aim.

On the whole, British policy comes out the better the more fully it is
known. Though often feeble and vacillating, it finally attained to
firmness and dignity; and Ministers closed the cycle of war with acts
of magnanimity towards the French people which are studiously ignored
by those who bid us shed tears over the martyrdom of St. Helena.
Nevertheless, the splendour of the finale must not blind us to the
flaccid eccentricities that made British statesmanship the laughing
stock of Europe in 1801-3, 1806-7, and 1809. Indeed, it is
questionable whether the renewal of war between England and Napoleon
in 1803 was due more to his innate forcefulness or to the contempt
which he felt for the Addington Cabinet. When one also remembers our
extraordinary blunders in the war of the Third Coalition, it seems a
miracle that the British Empire survived that life and death struggle
against a man of superhuman genius who was determined to effect its
overthrow. I have called special attention to the extent and
pertinacity of Napoleon's schemes for the foundation of a French
Colonial Empire in India, Egypt, South Africa, and Australia; and
there can be no doubt that the events of the years 1803-13 determined,
not only the destinies of Europe and Napoleon, but the general trend
of the world's colonization.

As it has been necessary to condense the story of Napoleon's life in
some parts, I have chosen to treat with special brevity the years
1809-11, which may be called the _constans aetas_ of his career, in
order to have more space for the decisive events that followed; but
even in these less eventful years I have striven to show how his
Continental System was setting at work mighty economic forces that
made for his overthrow, so that after the _débâcle_ of 1812 it came to
be a struggle of Napoleon and France _contra mundum_.

While not neglecting the personal details of the great man's life, I
have dwelt mainly on his public career. Apart from his brilliant
conversations, his private life has few features of abiding interest,
perhaps because he early tired of the shallowness of Josephine and the
Corsican angularity of his brothers and sisters. But the cause also
lay in his own disposition. He once said to M. Gallois: "Je n'aime pas
beaucoup les femmes, ni le jeu--enfin rien: _je suis tout à fait un
être politique_." In dealing with him as a warrior and statesman, and
in sparing my readers details as to his bolting his food, sleeping at
concerts, and indulging in amours where for him there was no glamour
of romance, I am laying stress on what interested him most--in a word,
I am taking him at his best.

I could not have accomplished this task, even in the present
inadequate way, but for the help generously accorded from many
quarters. My heartfelt thanks are due to Lord Acton, Regius Professor
of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, for advice of the
highest importance; to Mr. Hubert Hall of the Public Record Office,
for guidance in my researches there; to Baron Lumbroso of Rome,
editor of the "Bibliografia ragionata dell' Epoca Napoleonica," for
hints on Italian and other affairs; to Dr. Luckwaldt, Privat Docent of
the University of Bonn, and author of "Oesterreich und die Anfänge des
Befreiungs-Krieges," for his very scholarly revision of the chapters
on German affairs; to Mr. F.H.E. Cunliffe, M.A., Fellow of All Souls'
College, Oxford, for valuable advice on the campaigns of 1800, 1805,
and 1806; to Professor Caudrillier of Grenoble, author of "Pichegru,"
for information respecting the royalist plot; and to Messrs. J.E.
Morris, M.A., and E.L.S. Horsburgh, B.A., for detailed communications
concerning Waterloo, The nieces of the late Professor Westwood of
Oxford most kindly allowed the facsimile of the new Napoleon letter,
printed opposite p. 156 of vol. i., to be made from the original in
their possession; and Miss Lowe courteously placed at my disposal the
papers of her father relating to the years 1813-15, as well as to the
St. Helena period. I wish here to record my grateful obligations for
all these friendly courtesies, which have given value to the book,
besides saving me from many of the pitfalls with which the subject
abounds. That I have escaped them altogether is not to be imagined;
but I can honestly say, in the words of the late Bishop of London,
that "I have tried to write true history."

J.H.R.

[NOTE.--The references to Napoleon's "Correspondence" in the notes are
to the official French edition, published under the auspices of
Napoleon III. The "New Letters of Napoleon" are those edited by Léon
Lecestre, and translated into English by Lady Mary Loyd, except in a
very few cases where M. Léonce de Brotonne's still more recent edition
is cited under his name. By "F.O.," France, No.----, and "F.O.,"
Prussia, No.----, are meant the volumes of _our_ Foreign Office
despatches relating to France and Prussia. For the sake of brevity I
have called Napoleon's Marshals and high officials by their names, not
by their titles: but a list of these is given at the close of vol.
ii.]





PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION


The demand for this work so far exceeded my expectations that I was
unable to make any considerable changes in the second edition, issued
in March, 1902; and circumstances again make it impossible for me to
give the work that thorough recension which I should desire. I have,
however, carefully considered the suggestions offered by critics, and
have adopted them in some cases. Professor Fournier of Vienna has most
kindly furnished me with details which seem to relegate to the domain
of legend the famous ice catastrophe at Austerlitz; and I have added a
note to this effect on p. 50 of vol. ii. On the other hand, I may
justly claim that the publication of Count Balmain's reports relating
to St. Helena has served to corroborate, in all important details, my
account of Napoleon's captivity.

It only remains to add that I much regret the omission of Mr. Oman's
name from II. 12-13 of page viii of the Preface, an omission rendered
all the more conspicuous by the appearance of the first volume of his
"History of the Peninsular War" in the spring of this year.

J.H.R.

_October, 1902._

Notes have been added at the end of ch. v., vol. i.; chs. xxii.,
xxiii., xxviii., xxix., xxxv., vol. ii.; and an Appendix on the Battle
of Waterloo has been added on p. 577, vol. ii.

       *       *       *       *       *




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER


VOL. I


         NOTE ON THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR

      I. PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS

     II. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND CORSICA

    III. TOULON

     IV. VENDÉMIAIRE

      V. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN (1796)

     VI. THE FIGHTS FOR MANTUA

    VII. LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO

   VIII. EGYPT

     IX. SYRIA

      X. BRUMAIRE

     XI. MARENGO: LUNÉVILLE

    XII. THE NEW INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE

   XIII. THE CONSULATE FOR LIFE

    XIV. THE PEACE OF AMIENS

     XV. A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE: ST.
         DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA

    XVI. NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS

   XVII. THE RENEWAL OF WAR

  XVIII. EUROPE AND THE BONAPARTES

    XIX. THE ROYALIST PLOT

     XX. THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE

    XXI. THE BOULOGNE FLOTILLA

    APPENDIX: REPORTS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED
     ON
    (_a_) THE SALE OF LOUISIANA;
    (_b_) THE IRISH DIVISION IN NAPOLEON'S SERVICE

  ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND PLANS

  THE SIEGE OF TOULON, 1793

  MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH ITALY

  PLAN TO ILLUSTRATE THE VICTORY OF ARCOLA

  THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF RIVOLI

  FACSIMILE OF A LETTER OF NAPOLEON TO "LA CITOYENNE
  TALLIEN," 1797

  CENTRAL EUROPE, after the Peace of Campo Formio, 1797

  PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE, from a contemporary sketch

  THE BATTLE OF MARENGO, to illustrate Kellermann's charge

  FRENCH MAP OF THE SOUTH OF AUSTRALIA, 1807


VOL. II


     XXII. ULM AND TRAFALGAR
    XXIII. AUSTERLITZ
     XXIV. PRUSSIA AND THE NEW CHARLEMAGNE
      XXV. THE FALL OF PRUSSIA
     XXVI. THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: FRIEDLAND
    XXVII. TILSIT
   XXVIII. THE SPANISH RISING
     XXIX. ERFURT
      XXX. NAPOLEON AND AUSTRIA
     XXXI. THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT
    XXXII. THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
   XXXIII. THE FIRST SAXON CAMPAIGN
    XXXIV. VITTORIA AND THE ARMISTICE
     XXXV. DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG
    XXXVI. FROM THE RHINE TO THE SEINE
   XXXVII. THE FIRST ABDICATION
  XXXVIII. ELBA AND PARIS
    XXXIX. LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS
       XL. WATERLOO
      XLI. FROM THE ELYSÉE TO ST. HELENA
     XLII. CLOSING YEARS

           APPENDIX I: LIST OF THE CHIEF APPOINTMENTS
             AND DIGNITIES BESTOWED BY NAPOLEON

           APPENDIX II: THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

           INDEX


MAPS AND PLANS

  BATTLE OF ULM
  BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ
  BATTLE OF JENA
  BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND
  BATTLE OF WAGRAM
  CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER 1810
  CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA
  BATTLE OF VITTORIA
  THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813
  BATTLE OF DRESDEN
  BATTLE OF LEIPZIG
  THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814                              _to face_
  PLAN OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
  BATTLE OF LIGNY
  BATTLE OF WATERLOO, about 11 o'clock a.m.    _to face_
  ST. HELENA











NOTE ON THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR


The republican calendar consisted of twelve months of thirty days
each, each month being divided into three "decades" of ten days. Five
days (in leap years six) were added at the end of the year to bring it
into coincidence with the solar year.

  An    I began Sept. 22, 1792.
  "    II  "      "       1793.
  "   III  "      "       1794.
  "    IV (leap year)     1795.

       *       *       *       *       *

  "  VIII began Sept. 22, 1799.
  "    IX   "   Sept. 23, 1800.
  "     X   "      "      1801.

       *       *       *       *       *

  "   XIV   "      "      1805.

The new computation, though reckoned from Sept. 22, 1792, was not
introduced until Nov. 26, 1793 (An II). It ceased after Dec. 31, 1805.

The months are as follows:

    Vendémiaire              Sept. 22 to Oct. 21.
    Brumaire                 Oct. 22  "  Nov. 20.
    Frimaire                 Nov. 21  "  Dec. 20.
    Nivôse                   Dec. 21  "  Jan. 19.
    Pluviôse                 Jan. 20  "  Feb. 18.
    Ventôse                  Feb. 19  "  Mar. 20.
    Germinal                 Mar. 21  "  April 19.
    Floréal                  April 20 "  May 19.
    Prairial                 May 20   "  June 18.
    Messidor                 June 19  "  July 18.
    Thermidor                July 19  "  Aug. 17.
    Fructidor                Aug. 18  "  Sept. 16.

Add five (in leap years six) "Sansculottides" or "Jours
complémentaires."

In 1796 (leap year) the numbers in the table of months, so far as
concerns all dates between Feb. 28 and Sept. 22, will have to be
_reduced by one_, owing to the intercalation of Feb. 29, which is not
compensated for until the end of the republican year.

The matter is further complicated by the fact that the republicans
reckoned An VIII as a leap year, though it is not one in the Gregorian
Calendar. Hence that year ended on Sept. 22, and An IX and succeeding
years began on Sept. 23. Consequently in the above table of months the
numbers of all days from Vendémiaire 1, An IX (Sept. 23, 1800), to
Nivôse 10, An XIV (Dec. 31, 1805), inclusive, will have to be
_increased by one_, except only in the next leap year between Ventôse
9, An XII, and Vendémiaire 1, An XIII (Feb. 28-Sept, 23, 1804), when
the two Revolutionary aberrations happen to neutralize each other.

       *       *       *       *       *





THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I





CHAPTER I

PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS


"I was born when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand French
vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of
blood, such was the sight which struck my eyes." This passionate
utterance, penned by Napoleon Buonaparte at the beginning of the
French Revolution, describes the state of Corsica in his natal year.
The words are instinct with the vehemence of the youth and the
extravagant sentiment of the age: they strike the keynote of his
career. His life was one of strain and stress from his cradle to his
grave.

In his temperament as in the circumstances of his time the young
Buonaparte was destined for an extraordinary career. Into a tottering
civilization he burst with all the masterful force of an Alaric. But
he was an Alaric of the south, uniting the untamed strength of his
island kindred with the mental powers of his Italian ancestry. In his
personality there is a complex blending of force and grace, of animal
passion and mental clearness, of northern common sense with the
promptings of an oriental imagination; and this union in his nature of
seeming opposites explains many of the mysteries of his life.
Fortunately for lovers of romance, genius cannot be wholly analyzed,
even by the most adroit historical philosophizer or the most exacting
champion of heredity. But in so far as the sources of Napoleon's power
can be measured, they may be traced to the unexampled needs of mankind
in the revolutionary epoch and to his own exceptional endowments.
Evidently, then, the characteristics of his family claim some
attention from all who would understand the man and the influence
which he was to wield over modern Europe.

It has been the fortune of his House to be the subject of dispute from
first to last. Some writers have endeavoured to trace its descent back
to the Cæsars of Rome, others to the Byzantine Emperors; one
genealogical explorer has tracked the family to Majorca, and, altering
its name to Bonpart, has discovered its progenitor in the Man of the
Iron Mask; while the Duchesse d'Abrantès, voyaging eastwards in quest
of its ancestors, has confidently claimed for the family a Greek
origin. Painstaking research has dispelled these romancings of
historical _trouveurs_, and has connected this enigmatic stock with a
Florentine named "William, who in the year 1261 took the surname of
_Bonaparte_ or _Buonaparte_. The name seems to have been assumed when,
amidst the unceasing strifes between Guelfs and Ghibellines that rent
the civic life of Florence, William's party, the Ghibellines, for a
brief space gained the ascendancy. But perpetuity was not to be found
in Florentine politics; and in a short time he was a fugitive at a
Tuscan village, Sarzana, beyond the reach of the victorious Guelfs.
Here the family seems to have lived for well nigh three centuries,
maintaining its Ghibelline and aristocratic principles with surprising
tenacity. The age was not remarkable for the virtue of constancy, or
any other virtue. Politics and private life were alike demoralized by
unceasing intrigues; and amidst strifes of Pope and Emperor, duchies
and republics, cities and autocrats, there was formed that type of
Italian character which is delineated in the pages of Macchiavelli.
From the depths of debasement of that cynical age the Buonapartes
were saved by their poverty, and by the isolation of their life at
Sarzana. Yet the embassies discharged at intervals by the more
talented members of the family showed that the gifts for intrigue were
only dormant; and they were certainly transmitted in their intensity
to the greatest scion of the race.

In the year 1529 Francis Buonaparte, whether pressed by poverty or
distracted by despair at the misfortunes which then overwhelmed Italy,
migrated to Corsica. There the family was grafted upon a tougher
branch of the Italian race. To the vulpine characteristics developed
under the shadow of the Medici there were now added qualities of a
more virile stamp. Though dominated in turn by the masters of the
Mediterranean, by Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, by the men of Pisa,
and finally by the Genoese Republic, the islanders retained a striking
individuality. The rock-bound coast and mountainous interior helped to
preserve the essential features of primitive life. Foreign Powers
might affect the towns on the sea-board, but they left the clans of
the interior comparatively untouched. Their life centred around the
family. The Government counted for little or nothing; for was it not
the symbol of the detested foreign rule? Its laws were therefore as
naught when they conflicted with the unwritten but omnipotent code of
family honour. A slight inflicted on a neighbour would call forth the
warning words--"Guard thyself: I am on my guard." Forthwith there
began a blood feud, a vendetta, which frequently dragged on its dreary
course through generations of conspiracy and murder, until, the
principals having vanished, the collateral branches of the families
were involved. No Corsican was so loathed as the laggard who shrank
from avenging the family honour, even on a distant relative of the
first offender. The murder of the Duc d'Enghien by Napoleon in 1804
sent a thrill of horror through the Continent. To the Corsicans it
seemed little more than an autocratic version of the _vendetta
traversale_.[1]

The vendetta was the chief law of Corsican society up to comparatively
recent times; and its effects are still visible in the life of the
stern islanders. In his charming romance, "Colomba," M. Prosper
Mérimée has depicted the typical Corsican, even of the towns, as
preoccupied, gloomy, suspicious, ever on the alert, hovering about his
dwelling, like a falcon over his nest, seemingly in preparation for
attack or defence. Laughter, the song, the dance, were rarely heard in
the streets; for the women, after acting as the drudges of the
household, were kept jealously at home, while their lords smoked and
watched. If a game at hazard were ventured upon, it ran its course in
silence, which not seldom was broken by the shot or the stab--first
warning that there had been underhand play. The deed always preceded
the word.

In such a life, where commerce and agriculture were despised, where
woman was mainly a drudge and man a conspirator, there grew up the
typical Corsican temperament, moody and exacting, but withal keen,
brave, and constant, which looked on the world as a fencing-school for
the glorification of the family and the clan[2]. Of this type Napoleon
was to be the supreme exemplar; and the fates granted him as an arena
a chaotic France and a distracted Europe.

Amidst that grim Corsican existence the Buonapartes passed their lives
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Occupied as advocates
and lawyers with such details of the law as were of any practical
importance, they must have been involved in family feuds and the
oft-recurring disputes between Corsica and the suzerain Power, Genoa.
As became dignitaries in the municipality of Ajaccio, several of the
Buonapartes espoused the Genoese side; and the Genoese Senate in a
document of the year 1652 styled one of them, Jérome, "Egregius
Hieronimus di Buonaparte, procurator Nobilium." These distinctions
they seem to have little coveted. Very few families belonged to the
Corsican _noblesse_, and their fiefs were unimportant. In Corsica, as
in the Forest Cantons of Switzerland and the Highlands of Scotland,
class distinctions were by no means so coveted as in lands that had
been thoroughly feudalized; and the Buonapartes, content with their
civic dignities at Ajaccio and the attachment of their partisans on
their country estates, seem rarely to have used the prefix which
implied nobility. Their life was not unlike that of many an old
Scottish laird, who, though possibly _bourgeois_ in origin, yet by
courtesy ranked as chieftain among his tenants, and was ennobled by
the parlance of the countryside, perhaps all the more readily because
he refused to wear the honours that came from over the Border.

But a new influence was now to call forth all the powers of this tough
stock. In the middle of the eighteenth century we find the head of the
family, Charles Marie Buonaparte, aglow with the flame of Corsican
patriotism then being kindled by the noble career of Paoli. This
gifted patriot, the champion of the islanders, first against the
Genoese and later against the French, desired to cement by education
the framework of the Corsican Commonwealth and founded a university.
It was here that the father of the future French Emperor received a
training in law, and a mental stimulus which was to lift his family
above the level of the _caporali_ and attorneys with whom its lot had
for centuries been cast. His ambition is seen in the endeavour,
successfully carried out by his uncle, Lucien, Archdeacon of Ajaccio,
to obtain recognition of kinship with the Buonapartes of Tuscany who
had been ennobled by the Grand Duke. His patriotism is evinced in his
ardent support of Paoli, by whose valour and energy the Genoese were
finally driven from the island. Amidst these patriotic triumphs
Charles confronted his destiny in the person of Letizia Ramolino, a
beautiful girl, descended from an honourable Florentine family which
had for centuries been settled in Corsica. The wedding took place in
1764, the bridegroom being then eighteen, and the bride fifteen years
of age. The union, if rashly undertaken in the midst of civil strifes,
was yet well assorted. Both parties to it were of patrician, if not
definitely noble descent, and came of families which combined the
intellectual gifts of Tuscany with the vigour of their later island
home[3]. From her mother's race, the Pietra Santa family, Letizia
imbibed the habits of the most backward and savage part of Corsica,
where vendettas were rife and education was almost unknown. Left in
ignorance in her early days, she yet was accustomed to hardships, and
often showed the fertility of resource which such a life always
develops. Hence, at the time of her marriage, she possessed a firmness
of will far beyond her years; and her strength and fortitude enabled
her to survive the terrible adversities of her early days, as also to
meet with quiet matronly dignity the extraordinary honours showered on
her as the mother of the French Emperor. She was inured to habits of
frugality, which reappeared in the personal tastes of her son. In
fact, she so far retained her old parsimonious habits, even amidst the
splendours of the French Imperial Court, as to expose herself to the
charge of avarice. But there is a touching side to all this. She seems
ever to have felt that after the splendour there would come again the
old days of adversity, and her instincts were in one sense correct.
She lived on to the advanced age of eighty-six, and died twenty-one
years after the break-up of her son's empire--a striking proof of the
vitality and tenacity of her powers.

A kindly Providence veiled the future from the young couple. Troubles
fell swiftly upon them both in private and in public life. Their first
two children died in infancy. The third, Joseph, was born in 1768,
when the Corsican patriots were making their last successful efforts
against their new French oppressors: the fourth, the famous Napoleon,
saw the light on August 15th, 1769, when the liberties of Corsica were
being finally extinguished. Nine other children were born before the
outbreak of the French Revolution reawakened civil strifes, amidst
which the then fatherless family was tossed to and fro and finally
whirled away to France.

Destiny had already linked the fortunes of the young Napoleon
Buonaparte with those of France. After the downfall of Genoese rule in
Corsica, France had taken over, for empty promises, the claims of the
hard-pressed Italian republic to its troublesome island possession. It
was a cheap and practical way of restoring, at least in the
Mediterranean the shattered prestige of the French Bourbons. They had
previously intervened in Corsican affairs on the side of the Genoese.
Yet in 1764 Paoli appealed to Louis XV. for protection. It was
granted, in the form of troops that proceeded quietly to occupy the
coast towns of the island under cover of friendly assurances. In 1768,
before the expiration of an informal truce, Marbeuf, the French
commander, commenced hostilities against the patriots[4]. In vain did
Rousseau and many other champions of popular liberty protest against
this bartering away of insular freedom: in vain did Paoli rouse his
compatriots to another and more unequal struggle, and seek to hold the
mountainous interior. Poor, badly equipped, rent by family feuds and
clan schisms, his followers were no match for the French troops; and
after the utter break-up of his forces Paoli fled to England, taking
with him three hundred and forty of the most determined patriots. With
these irreconcilables Charles Buonaparte did not cast in his lot, but
accepted the pardon offered to those who should recognize the French
sway. With his wife and their little child Joseph he returned to
Ajaccio; and there, shortly afterwards, Napoleon was born. As the
patriotic historian, Jacobi, has finely said, "The Corsican people,
when exhausted by producing martyrs to the cause of liberty, produced
Napoleon Buonaparte[5]."

Seeing that Charles Buonaparte had been an ardent adherent of Paoli,
his sudden change of front has exposed him to keen censure. He
certainly had not the grit of which heroes are made. His seems to have
been an ill-balanced nature, soon buoyed up by enthusiasms, and as
speedily depressed by their evaporation; endowed with enough of
learning and culture to be a Voltairean and write second-rate
verses; and with a talent for intrigue which sufficed to embarrass
his never very affluent fortunes. Napoleon certainly derived no
world-compelling qualities from his father: for these he was indebted
to the wilder strain which ran in his mother's blood. The father
doubtless saw in the French connection a chance of worldly advancement
and of liberation from pecuniary difficulties; for the new rulers now
sought to gain over the patrician families of the island. Many of them
had resented the dictatorship of Paoli; and they now gladly accepted
the connection with France, which promised to enrich their country and
to open up a brilliant career in the French army, where commissions
were limited to the scions of nobility.

Much may be said in excuse of Charles Buonaparte's decision, and no
one can deny that Corsica has ultimately gained much by her connection
with France. But his change of front was open to the charge that it
was prompted by self-interest rather than by philosophic foresight. At
any rate, his second son throughout his boyhood nursed a deep
resentment against his father for his desertion of the patriots'
cause. The youth's sympathies were with the peasants, whose allegiance
was not to be bought by baubles, whose constancy and bravery long held
out against the French in a hopeless guerilla warfare. His hot
Corsican blood boiled at the stories of oppression and insult which he
heard from his humbler compatriots. When, at eleven years of age, he
saw in the military college at Brienne the portrait of Choiseul, the
French Minister who had urged on the conquest of Corsica, his passion
burst forth in a torrent of imprecations against the traitor; and,
even after the death of his father in 1785, he exclaimed that he could
never forgive him for not following Paoli into exile.

What trifles seem, at times, to alter the current of human affairs!
Had his father acted thus, the young Napoleon would in all probability
have entered the military or naval service of Great Britain; he might
have shared Paoli's enthusiasm for the land of his adoption, and have
followed the Corsican hero in his enterprises against the French
Revolution, thenceforth figuring in history merely as a greater
Marlborough, crushing the military efforts of democratic France, and
luring England into a career of Continental conquest. Monarchy and
aristocracy would have gone unchallenged, except within the "natural
limits" of France; and the other nations, never shaken to their
inmost depths, would have dragged on their old inert fragmentary
existence.

The decision of Charles Buonaparte altered the destiny of Europe. He
determined that his eldest boy, Joseph, should enter the Church, and
that Napoleon should be a soldier. His perception of the characters of
his boys was correct. An anecdote, for which the elder brother is
responsible, throws a flood of light on their temperaments. The master
of their school arranged a mimic combat for his pupils--Romans against
Carthaginians. Joseph, as the elder was ranged under the banner of
Rome, while Napoleon was told off among the Carthaginians; but, piqued
at being chosen for the losing side, the child fretted, begged, and
stormed until the less bellicose Joseph agreed to change places with
his exacting junior. The incident is prophetic of much in the later
history of the family.

Its imperial future was opened up by the deft complaisance now shown
by Charles Buonaparte. The reward for his speedy submission to France
was soon forthcoming. The French commander in Corsica used his
influence to secure the admission of the young Napoleon to the
military school of Brienne in Champagne; and as the father was able to
satisfy the authorities not only that he was without fortune, but also
that his family had been noble for four generations, Napoleon was
admitted to this school to be educated at the charges of the King of
France (April, 1779). He was now, at the tender age of nine, a
stranger in a strange land, among a people whom he detested as the
oppressors of his countrymen. Worst of all, he had to endure the taunt
of belonging to a subject race. What a position for a proud and
exacting child! Little wonder that the official report represented him
as silent and obstinate; but, strange to say, it added the word
"imperious." It was a tough character which could defy repression
amidst such surroundings. As to his studies, little need be said. In
his French history he read of the glories of the distant past (when
"Germany was part of the French Empire"), the splendours of the reign
of Louis XIV., the disasters of France in the Seven Years' War, and
the "prodigious conquests of the English in India." But his
imagination was kindled from other sources. Boys of pronounced
character have always owed far more to their private reading than to
their set studies; and the young Buonaparte, while grudgingly learning
Latin and French grammar, was feeding his mind on Plutarch's
"Lives"--in a French translation. The artful intermingling of the
actual and the romantic, the historic and the personal, in those vivid
sketches of ancient worthies and heroes, has endeared them to many
minds. Rousseau derived unceasing profit from their perusal; and
Madame Roland found in them "the pasture of great souls." It was so
with the lonely Corsican youth. Holding aloof from his comrades in
gloomy isolation, he caught in the exploits of Greeks and Romans a
distant echo of the tragic romance of his beloved island home. The
librarian of the school asserted that even then the young soldier had
modelled his future career on that of the heroes of antiquity; and we
may well believe that, in reading of the exploits of Leonidas,
Curtius, and Cincinnatus, he saw the figure of his own antique
republican hero, Paoli. To fight side by side with Paoli against the
French was his constant dream. "Paoli will return," he once exclaimed,
"and as soon as I have strength, I will go to help him: and perhaps
together we shall be able to shake the odious yoke from off the neck
of Corsica."

But there was another work which exercised a great influence on his
young mind--the "Gallic War" of Cæsar. To the young Italian the
conquest of Gaul by a man of his own race must have been a congenial
topic, and in Cæsar himself the future conqueror may dimly have
recognized a kindred spirit. The masterful energy and all-conquering
will of the old Roman, his keen insight into the heart of a problem,
the wide sweep of his mental vision, ranging over the intrigues of the
Roman Senate, the shifting politics of a score of tribes, and the
myriad administrative details of a great army and a mighty
province--these were the qualities that furnished the chief mental
training to the young cadet. Indeed, the career of Cæsar was destined
to exert a singular fascination over the Napoleonic dynasty, not only
on its founder, but also on Napoleon III.; and the change in the
character and career of Napoleon the Great may be registered mentally
in the effacement of the portraits of Leonidas and Paoli by those of
Cæsar and Alexander. Later on, during his sojourn at Ajaccio in 1790,
when the first shadows were flitting across his hitherto unclouded
love for Paoli, we hear that he spent whole nights poring over Cæsar's
history, committing many passages to memory in his passionate
admiration of those wondrous exploits. Eagerly he took Cæsar's side as
against Pompey, and no less warmly defended him from the charge of
plotting against the liberties of the commonwealth[6]. It was a
perilous study for a republican youth in whom the military instincts
were as ingrained as the genius for rule.

Concerning the young Buonaparte's life at Brienne there exist few
authentic records and many questionable anecdotes. Of these last, that
which is the most credible and suggestive relates his proposal to his
schoolfellows to construct ramparts of snow during the sharp winter of
1783-4. According to his schoolfellow, Bourrienne, these mimic
fortifications were planned by Buonaparte, who also directed the
methods of attack and defence: or, as others say, he reconstructed
the walls according to the needs of modern war. In either case, the
incident bespeaks for him great power of organization and control. But
there were in general few outlets for his originality and vigour. He
seems to have disliked all his comrades, except Bourrienne, as much as
they detested him for his moody humours and fierce outbreaks of
temper. He is even reported to have vowed that he would do as much
harm as possible to the French people; but the remark smacks of the
story-book. Equally doubtful are the two letters in which he prays to
be removed from the indignities to which he was subjected at
Brienne[7]. In other letters which are undoubtedly genuine, he refers
to his future career with ardour, and writes not a word as to the
bullying to which his Corsican zeal subjected him. Particularly
noteworthy is the letter to his uncle begging him to intervene so as
to prevent Joseph Buonaparte from taking up a military career. Joseph,
writes the younger brother, would make a good garrison officer, as he
was well formed and clever at frivolous compliments--"good therefore
for society, but for a fight--?"

Napoleon's determination had been noticed by his teachers. They had
failed to bend his will, at least on important points. In lesser
details his Italian adroitness seems to have been of service; for the
officer who inspected the school reported of him: "Constitution,
health excellent: character submissive, sweet, honest, grateful:
conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his
application to mathematics: knows history and geography passably: very
weak in accomplishments. He will be an excellent seaman: is worthy to
enter the School at Paris." To the military school at Paris he was
accordingly sent in due course, entering there in October, 1784. The
change from the semi-monastic life at Brienne to the splendid edifice
which fronts the Champ de Mars had less effect than might have
been expected in a youth of fifteen years. Not yet did he become
French in sympathy. His love of Corsica and hatred of the French
monarchy steeled him against the luxuries of his new surroundings.
Perhaps it was an added sting that he was educated at the expense of
the monarchy which had conquered his kith and kin. He nevertheless
applied himself with energy to his favourite studies, especially
mathematics. Defective in languages he still was, and ever remained;
for his critical acumen in literature ever fastened on the matter
rather than on style. To the end of his days he could never write
Italian, much less French, with accuracy; and his tutor at Paris not
inaptly described his boyish composition as resembling molten granite.
The same qualities of directness and impetuosity were also fatal to
his efforts at mastering the movements of the dance. In spite of
lessons at Paris and private lessons which he afterwards took at
Valence, he was never a dancer: his bent was obviously for the exact
sciences rather than the arts, for the geometrical rather than the
rhythmical: he thought, as he moved, in straight lines, never in
curves.

The death of his father during the year which the youth spent at Paris
sharpened his sense of responsibility towards his seven younger
brothers and sisters. His own poverty must have inspired him with
disgust at the luxury which he saw around him; but there are good
reasons for doubting the genuineness of the memorial which he is
alleged to have sent from Paris to the second master at Brienne on
this subject. The letters of the scholars at Paris were subject to
strict surveillance; and, if he had taken the trouble to draw up a
list of criticisms on his present training, most assuredly it would
have been destroyed. Undoubtedly, however, he would have sympathized
with the unknown critic in his complaint of the unsuitableness of
sumptuous meals to youths who were destined for the hardships of the
camp. At Brienne he had been dubbed "the Spartan," an instance of that
almost uncanny faculty of schoolboys to dash off in a nickname the
salient features of character. The phrase was correct, almost for
Napoleon's whole life. At any rate, the pomp of Paris served but to
root his youthful affections more tenaciously in the rocks of Corsica.

In September, 1785, that is, at the age of sixteen, Buonaparte was
nominated for a commission as junior lieutenant in La Fère regiment of
artillery quartered at Valence on the Rhone. This was his first close
contact with real life. The rules of the service required him to
spend three months of rigorous drill before he was admitted to his
commission. The work was exacting: the pay was small, viz., 1,120
francs, or less than £45, a year; but all reports agree as to his keen
zest for his profession and the recognition of his transcendent
abilities by his superior officers.[8] There it was that he mastered
the rudiments of war, for lack of which many generals of noble birth
have quickly closed in disaster careers that began with promise:
there, too, he learnt that hardest and best of all lessons, prompt
obedience. "To learn obeying is the fundamental art of governing,"
says Carlyle. It was so with Napoleon: at Valence he served his
apprenticeship in the art of conquering and the art of governing.

This spring-time of his life is of interest and importance in many
ways: it reveals many amiable qualities, which had hitherto been
blighted by the real or fancied scorn of the wealthy cadets. At
Valence, while shrinking from his brother officers, he sought society
more congenial to his simple tastes and restrained demeanour. In a few
of the best bourgeois families of Valence he found happiness. There,
too, blossomed the tenderest, purest idyll of his life. At the country
house of a cultured lady who had befriended him in his solitude, he
saw his first love, Caroline de Colombier. It was a passing fancy;
but to her all the passion of his southern nature welled forth. She
seems to have returned his love; for in the stormy sunset of his life
at St. Helena he recalled some delicious walks at dawn when Caroline
and he had--eaten cherries together. One lingers fondly over these
scenes of his otherwise stern career, for they reveal his capacity for
social joys and for deep and tender affection, had his lot been
otherwise cast. How different might have been his life, had France
never conquered Corsica, and had the Revolution never burst forth! But
Corsica was still his dominant passion. When he was called away from
Valence to repress a riot at Lyons, his feelings, distracted for a
time by Caroline, swerved back towards his island home; and in
September, 1786, he had the joy of revisiting the scenes of his
childhood. Warmly though he greeted his mother, brothers and sisters,
after an absence of nearly eight years, his chief delight was in the
rocky shores, the verdant dales and mountain heights of Corsica. The
odour of the forests, the setting of the sun in the sea "as in the
bosom of the infinite," the quiet proud independence of the
mountaineers themselves, all enchanted him. His delight reveals almost
Wertherian powers of "sensibility." Even the family troubles could not
damp his ardour. His father had embarked on questionable speculations,
which now threatened the Buonapartes with bankruptcy, unless the
French Government proved to be complacent and generous. With the hope
of pressing one of the family claims on the royal exchequer, the
second son procured an extension of furlough and sped to Paris. There
at the close of 1787 he spent several weeks, hopefully endeavouring to
extract money from the bankrupt Government. It was a season of
disillusionment in more senses than one; for there he saw for himself
the seamy side of Parisian life, and drifted for a brief space about
the giddy vortex of the Palais Royal. What a contrast to the limpid
life of Corsica was that turbid frothy existence--already swirling
towards its mighty plunge!

After a furlough of twenty-one months he rejoined his regiment, now at
Auxonne. There his health suffered considerably, not only from the
miasma of the marshes of the river Saône, but also from family
anxieties and arduous literary toils. To these last it is now needful
to refer. Indeed, the external events of his early life are of value
only as they reveal the many-sidedness of his nature and the growth of
his mental powers.

How came he to outgrow the insular patriotism of his early years? The
foregoing recital of facts must have already suggested one obvious
explanation. Nature had dowered him so prodigally with diverse gifts,
mainly of an imperious order, that he could scarcely have limited his
sphere of action to Corsica. Profoundly as he loved his island, it
offered no sphere commensurate with his varied powers and masterful
will. It was no empty vaunt which his father had uttered on his
deathbed that his Napoleon would one day overthrow the old monarchies
and conquer Europe.[9] Neither did the great commander himself
overstate the peculiarity of his temperament, when he confessed that
his instincts had ever prompted him that his will must prevail, and
that what pleased him must of necessity belong to him. Most spoilt
children harbour the same illusion, for a brief space. But all the
buffetings of fortune failed to drive it from the young Buonaparte;
and when despair as to his future might have impaired the vigour of
his domineering instincts, his mind and will acquired a fresh rigidity
by coming under the spell of that philosophizing doctrinaire,
Rousseau.

There was every reason why he should early be attracted by this
fantastic thinker. In that notable work, "Le Contrat Social" (1762),
Rousseau called attention to the antique energy shown by the Corsicans
in defence of their liberties, and in a startlingly prophetic phrase
he exclaimed that the little island would one day astonish Europe. The
source of this predilection of Rousseau for Corsica is patent. Born
and reared at Geneva, he felt a Switzer's love for a people which was<
"neither rich nor poor but self-sufficing "; and in the simple life
and fierce love of liberty of the hardy islanders he saw traces of
that social contract which he postulated as the basis of society.
According to him, the beginnings of all social and political
institutions are to be found in some agreement or contract between
men. Thus arise the clan, the tribe, the nation. The nation may
delegate many of its powers to a ruler; but if he abuse such powers,
the contract between him and his people is at an end, and they may
return to the primitive state, which is founded on an agreement of
equals with equals. Herein lay the attractiveness of Rousseau for all
who were discontented with their surroundings. He seemed infallibly
to demonstrate the absurdity of tyranny and the need of returning to
the primitive bliss of the social contract. It mattered not that the
said contract was utterly unhistorical and that his argument teemed
with fallacies. He inspired a whole generation with detestation of the
present and with longings for the golden age. Poets had sung of it,
but Rousseau seemed to bring it within the grasp of long-suffering
mortals.

The first extant manuscript of Napoleon, written at Valence in April,
1786, shows that he sought in Rousseau's armoury the logical weapons
for demonstrating the "right" of the Corsicans to rebel against the
French. The young hero-worshipper begins by noting that it is the
birthday of Paoli. He plunges into a panegyric on the Corsican
patriots, when he is arrested by the thought that many censure them
for rebelling at all. "The divine laws forbid revolt. But what have
divine laws to do with a purely human affair? Just think of the
absurdity--divine laws universally forbidding the casting off of a
usurping yoke! ... As for human laws, there cannot be any after the
prince violates them." He then postulates two origins for government
as alone possible. Either the people has established laws and
submitted itself to the prince, or the prince has established laws. In
the first case, the prince is engaged by the very nature of his office
to execute the covenants. In the second case, the laws tend, or do not
tend, to the welfare of the people, which is the aim of all
government: if they do not, the contract with the prince dissolves of
itself, for the people then enters again into its primitive state.
Having thus proved the sovereignty of the people, Buonaparte uses his
doctrine to justify Corsican revolt against France, and thus concludes
his curious medley: "The Corsicans, following all the laws of justice,
have been able to shake off the yoke of the Genoese, and may do the
same with that of the French. Amen."

Five days later he again gives the reins to his melancholy. "Always
alone, though in the midst of men," he faces the thought of suicide.
With an innate power of summarizing and balancing thoughts and
sensations, he draws up arguments for and against this act. He is in
the dawn of his days and in four months' time he will see "la patrie,"
which he has not seen since childhood. What joy! And yet--how men have
fallen away from nature: how cringing are his compatriots to their
conquerors: they are no longer the enemies of tyrants, of luxury, of
vile courtiers: the French have corrupted their morals, and when "la
patrie" no longer survives, a good patriot ought to die. Life among
the French is odious: their modes of life differ from his as much as
the light of the moon differs from that of the sun.--A strange
effusion this for a youth of seventeen living amidst the full glories
of the spring in Dauphiné. It was only a few weeks before the ripening
of cherries. Did that cherry-idyll with Mdlle. de Colombier lure him
back to life? Or did the hope of striking a blow for Corsica stay his
suicidal hand? Probably the latter; for we find him shortly afterwards
tilting against a Protestant minister of Geneva who had ventured to
criticise one of the dogmas of Rousseau's evangel.

The Genevan philosopher had asserted that Christianity, by enthroning
in the hearts of Christians the idea of a Kingdom not of this world,
broke the unity of civil society, because it detached the hearts of
its converts from the State, as from all earthly things. To this the
Genevan minister had successfully replied by quoting Christian
teachings on the subject at issue. But Buonaparte fiercely accuses
the pastor of neither having understood, nor even read, "Le Contrat
Social": he hurls at his opponent texts of Scripture which enjoin
obedience to the laws: he accuses Christianity of rendering men slaves
to an anti-social tyranny, because its priests set up an authority in
opposition to civil laws; and as for Protestantism, it propagated
discords between its followers, and thereby violated civic unity.
Christianity, he argues, is a foe to civil government, for it aims at
making men happy in this life by inspiring them with hope of a future
life; while the aim of civil government is "to lend assistance to the
feeble against the strong, and by this means to allow everyone to
enjoy a sweet tranquillity, the road of happiness." He therefore
concludes that Christianity and civil government are diametrically
opposed.

In this tirade we see the youth's spirit of revolt flinging him not
only against French law, but against the religion which sanctions it.
He sees none of the beauty of the Gospels which Rousseau had
admitted. His views are more rigid than those of his teacher.
Scarcely can he conceive of two influences, the spiritual and the
governmental, working on parallel lines, on different parts of man's
nature. His conception of human society is that of an indivisible,
indistinguishable whole, wherein materialism, tinged now and again by
religious sentiment and personal honour, is the sole noteworthy
influence. He finds no worth in a religion which seeks to work from
within to without, which aims at transforming character, and thus
transforming the world. In its headlong quest of tangible results his
eager spirit scorns so tardy a method: he will "compel men to be
happy," and for this result there is but one practicable means, the
Social Contract, the State. Everything which mars the unity of the
Social Contract shall be shattered, so that the State may have a clear
field for the exercise of its beneficent despotism. Such is
Buonaparte's political and religious creed at the age of seventeen,
and such it remained (with many reservations suggested by maturer
thought and self-interest) to the end of his days. It reappears in his
policy anent the Concordat of 1802, by which religion was reduced to
the level of handmaid to the State, as also in his frequent assertions
that he would never have quite the same power as the Czar and the
Sultan, because he had not undivided sway over the consciences of his
people.[10] In this boyish essay we may perhaps discern the
fundamental reason of his later failures. He never completely
understood religion, or the enthusiasm which it can evoke; neither did
he ever fully realize the complexity of human nature, the
many-sidedness of social life, and the limitations that beset the
action even of the most intelligent law-maker.[11]

His reading of Rousseau having equipped him for the study of human
society and government, he now, during his first sojourn at Auxonne
(June, 1788--September, 1789), proceeds to ransack the records of the
ancient and modern world. Despite ill-health, family troubles, and the
outbreak of the French Revolution, he grapples with this portentous
task. The history, geography, religion, and social customs of the
ancient Persians, Scythians, Thracians, Athenians, Spartans,
Egyptians, and Carthaginians--all furnished materials for his
encyclopædic note-books. Nothing came amiss to his summarizing genius.
Here it was that he gained that knowledge of the past which was to
astonish his contemporaries. Side by side with suggestions on
regimental discipline and improvements in artillery, we find notes on
the opening episodes of Plato's "Republic," and a systematic summary
of English history from the earliest times down to the Revolution of
1688. This last event inspired him with special interest, because the
Whigs and their philosophic champion, Locke, maintained that James II.
had violated the original contract between prince and people.
Everywhere in his notes Napoleon emphasizes the incidents which led to
conflicts between dynasties or between rival principles. In fact,
through all these voracious studies there appear signs of his
determination to write a history of Corsica; and, while inspiriting
his kinsmen by recalling the glorious past, he sought to weaken the
French monarchy by inditing a "Dissertation sur l'Autorité Royale."
His first sketch of this work runs as follows:

     "23 October, 1788. Auxonne.

     "This work will begin with general ideas as to the origin and the
     enhanced prestige of the name of king. Military rule is favourable
     to it: this work will afterwards enter into the details of the
     usurped authority enjoyed by the Kings of the twelve Kingdoms of
     Europe.

     "There are very few Kings who have not deserved dethronement[12]."

This curt pronouncement is all that remains of the projected work. It
sufficiently indicates, however, the aim of Napoleon's studies. One
and all they were designed to equip him for the great task of
re-awakening the spirit of the Corsicans and of sapping the base of
the French monarchy.

But these reams of manuscript notes and crude literary efforts have an
even wider source of interest. They show how narrow was his outlook on
life. It all turned on the regeneration of Corsica by methods which he
himself prescribed. We are therefore able to understand why, when his
own methods of salvation for Corsica were rejected, he tore himself
away and threw his undivided energies into the Revolution.

Yet the records of his early life show that in his character there was
a strain of true sentiment and affection. In him Nature carved out a
character of rock-like firmness, but she adorned it with flowers of
human sympathy and tendrils of family love. At his first parting from
his brother Joseph at Autun, when the elder brother was weeping
passionately, the little Napoleon dropped a tear: but that, said the
tutor, meant as much as the flood of tears from Joseph. Love of his
relatives was a potent factor of his policy in later life; and slander
has never been able wholly to blacken the character of a man who loved
and honoured his mother, who asserted that her advice had often been
of the highest service to him, and that her justice and firmness of
spirit marked her out as a natural ruler of men. But when these
admissions are freely granted, it still remains true that his
character was naturally hard; that his sense of personal superiority
made him, even as a child, exacting and domineering; and the sequel
was to show that even the strongest passion of his youth, his
determination to free Corsica from France, could be abjured if
occasion demanded, all the force of his nature being thenceforth
concentrated on vaster adventures.

       *      *      *      *      *




CHAPTER II

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND CORSICA


"They seek to destroy the Revolution by attacking my person: I will
defend it, for I am the Revolution." Such were the words uttered by
Buonaparte after the failure of the royalist plot of 1804. They are a
daring transcript of Louis XIV.'s "L'état, c'est moi." That was a bold
claim, even for an age attuned to the whims of autocrats: but this of
the young Corsican is even more daring, for he thereby equated himself
with a movement which claimed to be wide as humanity and infinite as
truth. And yet when he spoke these words, they were not scouted as
presumptuous folly: to most Frenchmen they seemed sober truth and
practical good sense. How came it, one asks in wonder, that after the
short space of fifteen years a world-wide movement depended on a
single life, that the infinitudes of 1789 lived on only in the form,
and by the pleasure, of the First Consul? Here surely is a political
incarnation unparalleled in the whole course of human history. The
riddle cannot be solved by history alone. It belongs in part to the
domain of psychology, when that science shall undertake the study, not
merely of man as a unit, but of the aspirations, moods, and whims of
communities and nations. Meanwhile it will be our far humbler task to
strive to point out the relation of Buonaparte to the Revolution, and
to show how the mighty force of his will dragged it to earth.

The first questions that confront us are obviously these. Were the
lofty aims and aspirations of the Revolution attainable? And, if so,
did the men of 1789 follow them by practical methods? To the former of
these questions the present chapter will, in part at least, serve as
an answer. On the latter part of the problem the events described in
later chapters will throw some light: in them we shall see that the
great popular upheaval let loose mighty forces that bore Buonaparte on
to fortune.

Here we may notice that the Revolution was not a simple and therefore
solid movement. It was complex and contained the seeds of discord
which lurk in many-sided and militant creeds. The theories of its
intellectual champions were as diverse as the motives which spurred on
their followers to the attack on the outworn abuses of the age.

Discontent and faith were the ultimate motive powers of the
Revolution. Faith prepared the Revolution and discontent accomplished
it. Idealists who, in varied planes of thought, preached the doctrine
of human perfectibility, succeeded in slowly permeating the dull
toiling masses of France with hope. Omitting here any notice of
philosophic speculation as such, we may briefly notice the teachings
of three writers whose influence on revolutionary politics was to be
definite and practical. These were Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Rousseau. The first was by no means a revolutionist, for he decided in
favour of a mixed form of government, like that of England, which
guaranteed the State against the dangers of autocracy, oligarchy, and
mob-rule. Only by a ricochet did he assail the French monarchy. But he
re-awakened critical inquiry; and any inquiry was certain to sap the
base of the _ancien régime_ in France. Montesquieu's teaching inspired
the group of moderate reformers who in 1789 desired to re-fashion the
institutions of France on the model of those of England. But popular
sentiment speedily swept past these Anglophils towards the more
attractive aims set forth by Voltaire.

This keen thinker subjected the privileged classes, especially the
titled clergy, to a searching fire of philosophic bombs and barbed
witticisms. Never was there a more dazzling succession of literary
triumphs over a tottering system. The satirized classes winced and
laughed, and the intellect of France was conquered, for the
Revolution. Thenceforth it was impossible that peasants who were
nominally free should toil to satisfy the exacting needs of the
State, and to support the brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily
round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is
true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength
of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the
nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State. Thus, down to
1789, the middle classes and peasants bore nearly all the weight of
taxation, while the peasants were also encumbered by feudal dues and
tolls. These were the crying grievances which united in a solid
phalanx both thinkers and practical men, and thereby gave an immense
impetus to the levelling doctrines of Rousseau.

Two only of his political teachings concern us here, namely, social
equality and the unquestioned supremacy of the State; for to these
dogmas, when they seemed doomed to political bankruptcy, Napoleon
Buonaparte was to act as residuary legatee. According to Rousseau,
society and government originated in a social contract, whereby all
members of the community have equal rights. It matters not that the
spirit of the contract may have evaporated amidst the miasma of
luxury. That is a violation of civil society; and members are
justified in reverting at once to the primitive ideal. If the
existence of the body politic be endangered, force may be used:
"Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do
so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be
forced to be free." Equally plausible and dangerous was his teaching
as to the indivisibility of the general will. Deriving every public
power from his social contract, he finds it easy to prove that the
sovereign power, vested in all the citizens, must be incorruptible,
inalienable, unrepresentable, indivisible, and indestructible.
Englishmen may now find it difficult to understand the enthusiasm
called forth by this quintessence of negations; but to Frenchman
recently escaped from the age of privilege and warring against the
coalition of kings, the cry of the Republic one and indivisible was a
trumpet call to death or victory. Any shifts, even that of a
dictatorship, were to be borne, provided that social equality could be
saved. As republican Rome had saved her early liberties by intrusting
unlimited powers to a temporary dictator, so, claimed Rousseau, a
young commonwealth must by a similar device consult Nature's first law
of self-preservation. The dictator saves liberty by temporarily
abrogating it: by momentary gagging of the legislative power he
renders it truly vocal.

The events of the French Revolution form a tragic commentary on these
theories. In the first stage of that great movement we see the
followers of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau marching in an
undivided host against the ramparts of privilege. The walls of the
Bastille fall down even at the blast of their trumpets. Odious feudal
privileges disappear in a single sitting of the National Assembly; and
the _Parlements_, or supreme law courts of the provinces, are swept
away. The old provinces themselves are abolished, and at the beginning
of 1790 France gains social and political unity by her new system of
Departments, which grants full freedom of action in local affairs,
though in all national concerns it binds France closely to the new
popular government at Paris. But discords soon begin to divide the
reformers: hatred of clerical privilege and the desire to fill the
empty coffers of the State dictate the first acts of spoliation.
Tithes are abolished: the lands of the Church are confiscated to the
service of the State; monastic orders are suppressed; and the
Government undertakes to pay the stipends of bishops and priests.
Furthermore, their subjection to the State is definitely secured by
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July, 1790) which invalidates
their allegiance to the Pope. Most of the clergy refuse: these are
termed non-jurors or orthodox priests, while their more complaisant
colleagues are known as constitutional priests. Hence arises a serious
schism in the Church, which distracts the religious life of the land,
and separates the friends of liberty from the champions of the
rigorous equality preached by Rousseau.

The new constitution of 1791 was also a source of discord. In its
jealousy of the royal authority, the National Assembly seized very
many of the executive functions of government. The results were
disastrous. Laws remained without force, taxes went uncollected, the
army was distracted by mutinies, and the monarchy sank slowly into the
gulf of bankruptcy and anarchy. Thus, in the course of three years,
the revolutionists goaded the clergy to desperation, they were about
to overthrow the monarchy, every month was proving their local
self-government to be unworkable, and they themselves split into
factions that plunged France into war and drenched her soil by
organized massacres.

       *       *       *       *       *

We know very little about the impression made on the young Buonaparte
by the first events of the Revolution. His note-book seems even to
show that he regarded them as an inconvenient interference with his
plans for Corsica. But gradually the Revolution excites his interest.
In September, 1789, we find him on furlough in Corsica sharing the
hopes of the islanders that their representatives in the French
National Assembly will obtain the boon of independence. He exhorts
his compatriots to favour the democratic cause, which promises a
speedy deliverance from official abuses. He urges them to don the new
tricolour cockade, symbol of Parisian triumph over the old monarchy;
to form a club; above all, to organize a National Guard. The young
officer knew that military power was passing from the royal army, now
honeycombed with discontent, to the National Guard. Here surely was
Corsica's means of salvation. But the French governor of Corsica
intervenes. The club is closed, and the National Guard is dispersed.
Thereupon Buonaparte launches a vigorous protest against the tyranny
of the governor and appeals to the National Assembly of France for
some guarantee of civil liberty. His name is at the head of this
petition, a sufficiently daring step for a junior lieutenant on
furlough. But his patriotism and audacity carry him still further. He
journeys to Bastia, the official capital of his island, and is
concerned in an affray between the populace and the royal troops
(November 5th, 1789). The French authorities, fortunately for him, are
nearly powerless: he is merely requested to return to Ajaccio; and
there he organizes anew the civic force, and sets the dissident
islanders an example of good discipline by mounting guard outside the
house of a personal opponent.

Other events now transpired which began to assuage his opposition to
France. Thanks to the eloquent efforts of Mirabeau, the Corsican
patriots who had remained in exile since 1768 were allowed to return
and enjoy the full rights of citizenship. Little could the friends of
liberty at Paris, or even the statesman himself, have foreseen all the
consequences of this action: it softened the feelings of many
Corsicans towards their conquerors; above all, it caused the heart of
Napoleon Buonaparte for the first time to throb in accord with that of
the French nation. His feelings towards Paoli also began to cool. The
conduct of this illustrious exile exposed him to the charge of
ingratitude towards France. The decree of the French National
Assembly, which restored him to Corsican citizenship, was graced by
acts of courtesy such as the generous French nature can so winningly
dispense. Louis XVI. and the National Assembly warmly greeted him, and
recognized him as head of the National Guard of the island. Yet,
amidst all the congratulations, Paoli saw the approach of anarchy, and
behaved with some reserve. Outwardly, however, concord seemed to be
assured, when on July 14th, 1790, he landed in Corsica; but the hatred
long nursed by the mountaineers and fisherfolk against France was not
to be exorcised by a few demonstrations. In truth, the island was
deeply agitated. The priests were rousing the people against the newly
decreed Civil Constitution of the Clergy; and one of these
disturbances endangered the life of Napoleon himself. He and his
brother Joseph chanced to pass by when one of the processions of
priests and devotees was exciting the pity and indignation of the
townsfolk. The two brothers, who were now well known as partisans of
the Revolution, were threatened with violence, and were saved only by
their own firm demeanour and the intervention of peacemakers.

Then again, the concession of local self-government to the island, as
one of the Departments of France, revealed unexpected difficulties.
Bastia and Ajaccio struggled hard for the honour of being the official
capital. Paoli favoured the claims of Bastia, thereby annoying the
champions of Ajaccio, among whom the Buonapartes were prominent. The
schism was widened by the dictatorial tone of Paoli, a demeanour which
ill became the chief of a civic force. In fact, it soon became
apparent that Corsica was too small a sphere for natures so able and
masterful as those of Paoli and Napoleon Buonaparte.

The first meeting of these two men must have been a scene of deep
interest. It was on the fatal field of Ponte Nuovo. Napoleon doubtless
came there in the spirit of true hero-worship. But hero-worship which
can stand the strain of actual converse is rare indeed, especially
when the expectant devotee is endowed with keen insight and habits of
trenchant expression. One phrase has come down to us as a result of
the interview; but this phrase contains a volume of meaning. After
Paoli had explained the disposition of his troops against the French
at Ponte Nuovo, Buonaparte drily remarked to his brother Joseph, "The
result of these dispositions was what was inevitable." [13]

For the present, Buonaparte and other Corsican democrats were closely
concerned with the delinquencies of the Comte de Buttafuoco, the
deputy for the twelve nobles of the island to the National Assembly of
France. In a letter written on January 23rd, 1791, Buonaparte
overwhelms this man with a torrent of invective.--He it was who had
betrayed his country to France in 1768. Self-interest and that alone
prompted his action then, and always. French rule was a cloak for his
design of subjecting Corsica to "the absurd feudal _régime_" of the
barons. In his selfish royalism he had protested against the new
French constitution as being unsuited to Corsica, "though it was
exactly the same as that which brought us so much good and was wrested
from us only amidst streams of blood."--The letter is remarkable for
the southern intensity of its passion, and for a certain hardening of
tone towards Paoli. Buonaparte writes of Paoli as having been ever
"surrounded by enthusiasts, and as failing to understand in a man any
other passion than fanaticism for liberty and independence," and as
duped by Buttafuoco in 1768.[14] The phrase has an obvious reference
to the Paoli of 1791, surrounded by men who had shared his long exile
and regarded the English constitution as their model. Buonaparte, on
the contrary, is the accredited champion of French democracy, his
furious epistle being printed by the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio.

After firing off this tirade Buonaparte returned to his regiment at
Auxonne (February, 1791). It was high time; for his furlough, though
prolonged on the plea of ill-health, had expired in the preceding
October, and he was therefore liable to six months' imprisonment. But
the young officer rightly gauged the weakness of the moribund
monarchy; and the officers of his almost mutinous regiment were glad
to get him back on any terms. Everywhere in his journey through
Provence and Dauphiné, Buonaparte saw the triumph of revolutionary
principles. He notes that the peasants are to a man for the
Revolution; so are the rank and file of the regiment. The officers
are aristocrats, along with three-fourths of those who belong to "good
society": so are all the women, for "Liberty is fairer than they, and
eclipses them." The Revolution was evidently gaining completer hold
over his mind and was somewhat blurring his insular sentiments, when a
rebuff from Paoli further weakened his ties to Corsica. Buonaparte had
dedicated to him his work on Corsica, and had sent him the manuscript
for his approval. After keeping it an unconscionable time, the old man
now coldly replied that he did not desire the honour of Buonaparte's
panegyric, though he thanked him heartily for it; that the
consciousness of having done his duty sufficed for him in his old age;
and, for the rest, history should not be written in youth. A further
request from Joseph Buonaparte for the return of the slighted
manuscript brought the answer that he, Paoli, had no time to search
his papers. After this, how could hero-worship subsist?

The four months spent by Buonaparte at Auxonne were, indeed, a time of
disappointment and hardship. Out of his slender funds he paid for the
education of his younger brother, Louis, who shared his otherwise
desolate lodging. A room almost bare but for a curtainless bed, a
table heaped with books and papers, and two chairs--such were the
surroundings of the lieutenant in the spring of 1791. He lived on
bread that he might rear his brother for the army, and that he might
buy books, overjoyed when his savings mounted to the price of some
coveted volume.

Perhaps the depressing conditions of his life at Auxonne may account
for the acrid tone of an essay which he there wrote in competition for
a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on the subject--"What truths
and sentiments ought to be inculcated to men for their happiness." It
was unsuccessful; and modern readers will agree with the verdict of
one of the judges that it was incongruous in arrangement and of a bad
and ragged style. The thoughts are set forth in jerky, vehement
clauses; and, in place of the _sensibilité_ of some of his earlier
effusions, we feel here the icy breath of materialism. He regards an
ideal human society as a geometrical structure based on certain
well-defined postulates. All men ought to be able to satisfy certain
elementary needs of their nature; but all that is beyond is
questionable or harmful. The ideal legislator will curtail wealth so
as to restore the wealthy to their true nature--and so forth. Of any
generous outlook on the wider possibilities of human life there is
scarcely a trace. His essay is the apotheosis of social mediocrity. By
Procrustean methods he would have forced mankind back to the dull
levels of Sparta: the opalescent glow of Athenian life was beyond his
ken. But perhaps the most curious passage is that in which he preaches
against the sin and folly of ambition. He pictures Ambition as a
figure with pallid cheeks, wild eyes, hasty step, jerky movements and
sardonic smile, for whom crimes are a sport, while lies and calumnies
are merely arguments and figures of speech. Then, in words that recall
Juvenal's satire on Hannibal's career, he continues: "What is
Alexander doing when he rushes from Thebes into Persia and thence into
India? He is ever restless, he loses his wits, he believes himself
God. What is the end of Cromwell? He governs England. But is he not
tormented by all the daggers of the furies?"--The words ring false,
even for this period of Buonaparte's life; and one can readily
understand his keen wish in later years to burn every copy of these
youthful essays. But they have nearly all survived; and the diatribe
against ambition itself supplies the feather wherewith history may
wing her shaft at the towering flight of the imperial eagle.[15]

At midsummer he is transferred, as first lieutenant, to another
regiment which happened to be quartered at Valence; but his second
sojourn there is remarkable only for signs of increasing devotion to
the revolutionary cause. In the autumn of 1791 he is again in Corsica
on furlough, and remains there until the month of May following. He
finds the island rent by strifes which it would be tedious to
describe. Suffice it to say that the breach between Paoli and the
Vivie's health gradually recovered from the effects of the forcible
feeding; the prison fare, supplemented by the weekly parcels, suited
her digestion; the peace of the prison life and the regular work at
interesting trades soothed her nerves. She enjoyed the respite from
the worries of her complicated toilettes, the perplexity of what to
wear and how to wear it; in short, she was finding a spell of prison
life quite bearable, except for the cold and the attentions of the
chaplain. She gathered from the fortnightly letter which her
industry and good conduct allowed her to receive, and to answer,
that unwearied efforts were being made by her friends outside to
shorten her sentence. Mrs. Warren through Bertie Adams had found out
the cases where jockeys and stable lads had lost their effects in
the fires or explosions which had followed Vivie's visits to their
employers' premises, and had made good their losses. As to their
employers, they had all been heavily insured, and recovered the
value of their buildings; and as to the insurance companies _they_
had all been so enriched by Mr. Lloyd George's legislation that the
one-or-two hundred thousand pounds they had lost, through Vivie's
revenge for the seemingly-fruitless death of Emily Wilding Davison,
was a bagatelle not worth bothering about. But all attempts to get
the Home Office to reconsider Miss Warren's case or to shorten her
imprisonment (except by the abridgment that could be earned in the
prison itself) were unavailing. So long as the Cabinet held Vivie
under lock and key, the Suffrage movement--they foolishly
believed--was hamstrung.

So the months went by, and Vivie almost lost count of time and
almost became content to wait. Till War was declared on August 4th,
1914. A few days afterwards followed the amnesty to Suffragist
prisoners. From this the Home Office strove at first to exclude
Vivien Warren on the plea that her crime was an ordinary crime and
admitted of no political justification; but at this the wrath of
Rossiter and the indignation of the W.S.P.U. became so alarming that
the agitated Secretary of State--not at all sure how we were going
to come out of the War--gave way, and an order was signed for
Vivie's release on the 11th of August; on the understanding that she
would immediately proceed abroad; an understanding to which she
would not subscribe but which in her slowly-formed hatred of the
British Government she resolved to carry out.

Mrs. Warren, assured by Praed and Rossiter that Vivie's release was
a mere matter of a few days, had left for Brussels on the 5th of
August. If--as was then hoped--the French and Belgian armies would
suffice to keep the Germans at bay on the frontier of Belgium, she
would prefer to resume her life there in the Villa de Beau-séjour.
If however Belgium was going to be invaded it was better she should
secure her property as far as possible, transfer her funds, and make
her way somehow to a safe part of France. Vivie would join her as
soon as she could leave the prison.




CHAPTER XVI

BRUSSELS AND THE WAR: 1914


The Lilacs in Victoria Road had been disposed of--through
Honoria--as soon as possible, after the sentence of Three years'
imprisonment had been pronounced on Vivie; and the faithful
Suffragette maid had passed into Honoria's employ at Petworth, a
fact that was not fully understood by Colonel Armstrong until he had
become General Armstrong and perfectly indifferent to the Suffrage
agitation which had by that time attained its end. So when Vivie had
come out of prison and had promised to write to all the wardresses
and to meet them some day on non-professional ground; had found
Rossiter waiting for her in his motor and Honoria in hers; had
thanked them both for their never-to-be-forgotten kindness, and had
insisted on walking away in her rather creased and rumpled clothes
of the previous year with Bertie Adams; she sought the hospitality
of Praddy at Hans Place. The parlour-maid received her sumptuously,
and Praddy's eyes watered with senile tears.

But Vivie would have no melancholy. "Oh Praddy! If you only knew.
It's worth going to prison to know the joy of coming out of it! I'm
so happy at thinking this is my last day in England for ever so
long. When the War is over, I think I shall settle in Switzerland
with mother--or perhaps all three of us--you with us, I mean--in
Italy. We'll only come back here when the Women have got the Vote.
Now to-night you shall take me to the theatre--or rather I'll take
_you_. I've thought it all out beforehand, and Bertie Adams has
secured the seats. It's _The Chocolate Soldier_ at the Adelphi, the
only war piece they had ready; there are two stalls for us and
Bertie and his wife are going to the Dress Circle. My Cook's ticket
is taken for Brussels and I leave to-morrow by the Ostende route."

"To-morrow" was the 12th of August, and Dora was not yet in being to
interpose every possible obstacle in the way of the civilian
traveller. Down to the Battle of the Marne in September, 1914, very
little difficulty was made about crossing the Channel, especially
off the main Dover-Calais route.

So in the radiant noon of that August day Vivie looked her last on
the brown-white promontories, cliffs and grey castle of Dover,
scarcely troubling about any anticipations one way or the other, and
certainly having no prevision she would not recross the Channel for
four years and four months, and not see Dover again for five or six
years.

British war vessels were off the port and inside it. But there was
not much excitement or crowding on the Ostende steamer or any of
those sensational precautions against being torpedoed or mined,
which soon afterwards oppressed the spirits of cross-Channel
passengers. Vessels arriving from Belgium were full of passengers of
the superior refugee class, American and British tourists, or
wealthy people who though they preferred living abroad had begun to
think that the Continent just now was not very healthy and England
the securest refuge for those who wished to be comfortable.

Vivie being a good sailor and economical by nature, never thought of
securing a cabin for the four or five hours' sea-journey. She sat on
the upper deck with her scanty luggage round her. A nice-looking
young man who had a cabin the door of which he locked, was walking
up and down on the level deck and scrutinizing her discreetly. And
when at last they worked their way backwards into Ostende--the
harbour was full of vessels, chiefly mine-dredgers and torpedo
boats--she noticed the obsequiousness of the steamer people and how
he left the ship before any one else.

She followed soon afterwards, having little encumbrances in the way
of luggage; but she observed that he just showed a glimpse of some
paper and was allowed to walk straight through the Douane with
unexamined luggage, and so, on to the Brussels train.

But she herself had little difficulty. She put her hand luggage--she
had no other--into a first-class compartment, and having an hour and
a half to wait walked out to look at Ostende.

Summer tourists were still there; the Casino was full of people, the
shops were doing an active trade; the restaurants were crowded with
English, Americans, Belgians taking tea, chocolate, or liqueurs at
little tables and creating a babel of talk. Newspapers were being
sold everywhere by ragamuffin boys who shouted their head-lines in
French, Flemish, and quite understandable English. A fort or two at
Liége had fallen, but it was of no consequence. General Léman could
hold out indefinitely, and the mere fact that German soldiers had
entered the town of Liége counted for nothing. Belgium had virtually
won the war by holding up the immense German army. France was
overrunning Alsace, Russia was invading East Prussia and also
sending uncountable thousands of soldiers, via Archangel, to
England, whence they were being despatched to Calais for the relief
of Belgium.

"It looks," thought Vivie, after glancing at the _Indépendance
Belge_, "As though Belgium were going to be extremely interesting
during the next few weeks; I may be privileged to witness--from a
safe distance--another Waterloo."

Then she returned to the train which in her absence had been so
crowded with soldiers and civilian passengers that she had great
difficulty in finding her place and seating herself. The young man
whom she had seen pacing the deck of the steamer approached her and
said: "There is more room in my compartment; in fact I have
selfishly got one all to myself. Won't you share it?"

She thanked him and moved in there with her suit case and rugs.
When the train had started and she had parried one or two polite
enquiries as to place and ventilation, she said: "I think I ought to
tell you who I am, in case you would not like to be seen speaking to
me--I imagine you are in diplomacy, as I noticed you went through
with a Red passport.--I am Vivien Warren, just out of prison, and an
outlaw, more or less."

"'The outlaws of to-day are the in-laws of to-morrow,' as the
English barrister said when he married the Boer general's daughter.
I have thought I recognized you. I have heard you speak at Lady
Maud's and also at Lady Feenix's Suffrage parties. My name is Hawk.
I suppose you've been in prison for some Suffrage offence? So has my
aunt, for the matter of that."

_Vivie_: "Yes, but in her case they only sentenced her to the First
Division; whereas _I_ have been doing nine months' hard."

_Hawk_: "What was your crime?"

_Vivie_: "I admit nothing, it is always wisest. But I was accused of
burning down Mr. ----'s racing stables--and other things..."

_Hawk_: "_That_ beast. Well, I suppose it was very wrong. Can't
quite make up my mind about militancy, one way or the other. But
here we are up against the biggest war in history, and such
peccadilloes as yours sink into insignificance. By the bye, my aunt
was amnestied and so I suppose were you?"

_Vivie_: "Yes, but not so handsomely. I was requested to go away
from England for a time, so here I am, about to join my mother in
Brussels--or in a little country place near Brussels."

_Hawk_: "Well, I've been Secretary of Legation there. I'm just going
back to--to--well I'm just going back."

At Bruges they were told that the train would not leave for Ghent
and Brussels for another two hours--some mobilization delay; so Hawk
proposed they should go and see the Memlings and then have some
dinner.


"Don't you think they're perfectly wonderful?"--_àpropos_ of the
pictures in the Hospital of St. Jean.

_Vivie_: "It depends on what you mean by 'wonderful.' If you admire
the fidelity of the reproduction in colour and texture of the
Flemish costumes of the fifteenth century, I agree with you. It is
also interesting to see the revelations of their domestic
architecture and furniture of that time, and the types of domestic
dog, cow and horse. But if you admire them as being true pictures of
life in Palestine in the time of Christ, or in the Rhineland of the
fifth century, then I think they--like most Old Masters--are
perfectly rotten. And have you ever remarked another thing about all
paintings prior to the seventeenth century: how _plain_, how _ugly_
all the people are? You never see a single good-looking man or
woman. Do let's go and have that dinner you spoke of. I've got a
prison appetite."


At Ghent another delay and a few uneasy rumours. The Court was said
to be removing from Brussels and establishing itself at Antwerp. The
train at last drew into the main station at Brussels half an hour
after midnight. Vivie's mother was nowhere to be seen. She had
evidently gone back to the Villa Beau-séjour while she could. It was
too late for any tram in the direction of Tervueren. There were no
taxis owing to the drivers being called up. Leaving most of her
luggage at the cloak-room--it took her about three-quarters of an
hour even to approach the receiving counter--Vivie walked across to
the _Palace Hotel_ and asked the night porter to get her a room. But
every room was occupied, they said--Americans, British, wealthy war
refugees from southern Belgium, military officers of the Allies. The
only concession made to her--for the porter could hold out little
hope of any neighbouring hotel having an empty room--was to allow
her to sit and sleep in one of the comfortable basket chairs in the
long atrium. At six o'clock a compassionate waiter who knew the name
of Mrs. Warren gave her daughter some coffee and milk and a
_brioche_. At seven she managed to get her luggage taken to one of
the trams at the corner of the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique. The
train service to Tervueren was suspended--and at the Porte de Namur
she would be transferred to the No. 45 tram which would take her out
to Tervueren.

Even at an early hour Brussels seemed crowded and as the tram passed
along the handsome boulevards the shops were being opened and
tourists were on their way to Waterloo in brakes. Every one seemed
to think in mid-August, 1914, that Germany was destined to receive
her _coup-de-grâce_ on the field of Waterloo. It would be so
appropriate. And no one--at any rate of those who spoke their
thoughts aloud--seemed to consider that Brussels was menaced.

Leaving her luggage at the tram terminus, Vivie sped on foot through
forest roads, where the dew still glistened, to the Villa
Beau-séjour. Mrs. Warren was not yet dressed, but was rapturous in
her greeting. Her chauffeur had been called up, so the auto could
not go out, but a farm cart would be sent for the luggage.

"I believe, mother, I'm going to enjoy myself enormously," said
Vivie as she sat in the verandah in the morning sunshine, making a
delicious _petit déjeuner_ out of fresh rolls, the butter of the
farm, a few slices of sausage, and a big cup of frothing chocolate
topped with whipped cream. The scene that spread before her was
idyllic, from a bucolic point of view. The beech woods of Tervueren
shut out any horizon of town activity; black and white cows were
being driven out to pasture, a flock of geese with necks raised
vertically waggled sedately along their own chosen path, a little
disturbed and querulous over the arrival of a stranger; turkey hens
and their half-grown poults and a swelling, strutting turkey cock, a
peacock that had already lost nearly all his tail and therefore
declined combat with the turkey and was, moreover, an isolated
bachelor; guinea-fowls scratching and running about alternately; and
plump cocks and hens of mixed breed covered most of the ground in
the adjacent farm yard and the turf of an apple orchard, where the
fruit was already reddening under the August sun. Pigeons circled
against the sky with the distinct musical notes struck out by their
wings, or cooed and cooed round the dove cots. The dairy women of
the farm laughed and sang and called out to one another in Flemish
and Wallon rough chaff about their men-folk who were called to the
Colours. There was nothing suggestive here of any coming tragedy.

This was the morning of the 13th of August. For three more days
Vivie lived deliriously, isolated from the world. She took new books
to the shade of the forest, and a rug on which she could repose, and
read there with avidity, read also all the newspapers her mother had
brought over from England, tried to master the events which had so
rapidly and irresistibly plunged Europe into War. Were the Germans
to blame, she asked herself? Of course they were, technically, in
invading Belgium and in forcing this war on France. But were they
not being surrounded by a hostile Alliance? Was not this hostility
on the part of Servia towards Austria stimulated by Russia in order
to forestal the Central Powers by a Russian occupation of
Constantinople? Why should the Russian Empire be allowed to stretch
for nine millions of square miles over half Asia, much of Persia,
and now claim to control the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor? If
England might claim a large section of Persia as her sphere of
influence, and Egypt likewise and a fourth part of Africa, much of
Arabia, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, why might not Germany and
Austria expect to have their little spheres of influence in the
Balkans, in Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia? We had helped France to
Morocco and Italy to Tripoli; why should we bother about Servia? It
might be unkind, but then were we not unkind towards her father's
country, Ireland? Were we very tender towards national independence
in Egypt, in Persia?

Yet this brutal invasion of France, this unprovoked attack on Liège
were ugly things. France had shown no disposition to egg Servia on
against Austria, and Sir Edward Grey in the last days of June--she
now learnt for the first time, for she had seen no newspapers in
prison, where it is part of the dehumanizing policy of the Home
Office to prevent their entry, or the dissemination of any
information about current events--Sir Edward Grey had clearly shown
Great Britain did not approve of Servian intrigues in Bosnia. Well:
let the best man win. Germany was just as likely to give the Vote to
her women as was Britain. The Germans were first in Music and in
Science. She for her part didn't wish to become a German subject,
but once the War was over she would willingly naturalize herself
Belgian or Swiss.

And the War must soon be over. Europe as a whole could not allow
this devastation of resources. America would intervene. Already the
Germans realized their gigantic blunder in starting the attack.
Their men were said to be--she read--much less brave than people had
expected. The mighty German Armies had been held up for ten days by
a puny Belgian force and the forts of Liège and Namur. There would
presently be an armistice and Germany would have to make peace with
perhaps the cession to France of Metz as a _solatium_, while Germany
was given a little bit more of Africa, and Austria got nothing....

Meantime the Villa Beau-séjour seemed after Holloway Prison a
paradise upon earth. Why quarrel with her fate? Why not drop
politics and take up philosophy? She felt herself capable of writing
a Universal History which would be far truer if more cynical than
any previous attempt to show civilized man the route he had followed
and the martyrdom he had undergone.

On the 17th of August she took the tram into Brussels. It seemed
however as if it would never get there, and when she reached the
Porte de Namur she was too impatient to wait for the connection. She
could not find any gendarme, but at a superior-looking flower-shop
she obtained the address of the British Legation.

She asked at the lodge for Mr. Hawk; but there was only a Belgian
coachman in charge, and he told her the Minister and his staff had
followed the Court to Antwerp. Mr. Hawk had only left that morning.
"What a nuisance," said Vivie to herself. "I might have found out
from him whether there is any truth in the rumours that are flying
about Tervueren."

These rumours were to the effect that the Germans had captured all
the forts of Liège and their brave defender, General Léman; that
they were in Namur and were advancing on Louvain. "I wonder what we
had better do?" pondered Vivie.

In her bewilderment she took the bold step of calling at the Hotel
de Ville, gave her name and nationality, and asked the advice of
the municipal employé who saw her as to what course she and her
mother had better pursue: leave Tervueren and seek a lodging in
Brussels; or retreat as far as Ghent or Bruges or even Holland? The
clerk reassured her. The Germans had certainly occupied the
south-east of Belgium, but dared not push as far to the west and
north as Brussels. They risked otherwise being nipped between the
Belgian army of Antwerp and the British force marching on Mons....
He directed her attention to the last _communiqué_ of the Ministry
of War: "La situation n'a jamais été meilleure. Bruxelles, à l'abri
d'un coup de main, est défendue par vingt mille gardes civiques
armés d'un excellent fusil," etc.

Vivie returned therefore a trifle reassured. At the same time she
and her mother spent some hours in packing up and posting valuable
securities to London, via Ostende, in packing for deposit in the
strong rooms of a Brussels bank Mrs. Warren's jewellery and plate.
The tram service from Tervueren had ceased to run. So they induced a
neighbour to drive them into Brussels in a chaise: a slow and
wearisome journey under a broiling sun. Arrived in Brussels they
found the town in consternation. Placarded on the walls was a notice
signed by the Burgomaster--the celebrated Adolphe Max--informing the
Bruxellois that in spite of the resistances of the Belgian army it
was to be feared the enemy might soon be in occupation of Brussels.
In such an event he adjured the citizens to avoid all panic, to give
no legitimate cause of offence to the Germans, to renounce any idea
of resorting to arms! The Germans on their part were bound
by the laws of war to respect private property, the lives of
non-combatants, the honour of women, and the exercise of religion.

Vivie and her mother found the banks closed and likewise the railway
station. They now had but one thought: to get back as quickly as
possible to Villa Beau-séjour, and fortunately for their dry-mouthed
impatience their farmer friend was of the same mind. Along the
Tervueren road they met numbers of peasant refugees in carts and on
foot, driving cattle, geese or pigs towards the capital; urging on
the tugging dogs with small carts and barrows loaded with personal
effects, trade-goods, farm produce, or crying children. All of them
had a distraught, haggard appearance and were constantly looking
behind them. From the east, indeed, came the distant sounds of
explosions and intermittent rifle firing. Mrs. Warren was blanched
with fear, her cheeks a dull peach colour. She questioned the people
in French and Flemish, but they only answered vaguely in raucous
voices: "Les Allemands!" "De Duitscher."

One old woman, however, had flung herself down by the roadside,
while her patient dog lay between the shafts of the little cart till
she should be pleased to go on. She was more communicative and told
Mrs. Warren a tale too horrible to be believed, about husband, son,
son-in-law all killed, daughter violated and killed too, cottage in
flames, livestock driven off. Recovering from her exhaustion she
rose and shook herself. "I've no business to be here. I should be
with _them_. I was just packing this cart for the market when it
happened. Why did I go away? Oh for shame! I'll go back--to
_them_..." And forthwith she turned the dog round and trudged the
same way they were going.

At last they came opposite the courtyard of the Villa and saw the
lawn and gravel sweep full of helmeted soldiers in green-grey
uniform, their bodies hung with equipment--bags, great-coats,
rolled-up blankets, trench spades, cartridge bandoliers. Vivie
jumped down quickly, said to her mother in a low firm voice: "Leave
everything to me. Say as little as possible." Then to the farmer:
"Nous vous remercions infiniment. Vous aurez mille choses à faire
chez vous, je n'en doute. Nous réglerons notre compte tout-à
l'heure.... Pour le moment, adieu." She clutched the handbags of
valuables, slung them somehow on her left arm, while with her other
she piloted the nearly swooning Mrs. Warren into the court.

They were at once stopped by a non-commissioned officer who asked
them in abrupt, scarcely understandable German what they wanted.
Vivie guessing his meaning said in English--she scarcely knew any
German: "This is our house. We have been absent in Brussels. We want
to see the officer in command." The soldier knew no English, but
likewise guessed at their meaning. He ordered them to wait where
they were. Presently he came out of the Villa and said the Herr
Oberst would see them. Vivie led her mother into the gay little
hall--how pleasant and cool it had looked in the early morning! It
was now full of surly-looking soldiers. Without hesitating she took
a chair from one soldier and placed her mother in it. "You rest
there a moment, dearest, while I go in and see the officer in
command." The corporal she had first spoken with beckoned her into
the pretty sitting-room at the back where they had had their early
breakfast that morning.

Here she saw seated at a table consulting plans of Brussels and
other papers a tall, handsome man of early middle age, who might
indeed have passed for a young man, had he not looked very tired and
care-worn and exhibited a bald patch at the back of his head,
rendered the more apparent because the brown-gold curls round it
were dank with perspiration. He rose to his feet, clicked his heels
together and saluted. "An English young lady, I am told, rather ...
a ... surprise ... on ... the ... outskirts ... of Brussels..." (His
English was excellent, if rather staccato and spaced.) "It ... is
... not ... usual ... for ... Englishwomen ... to ... be owners ...
of chateaux ... in Belgium. But I ... hear ... it ... is ... your
mother ... who is the owner ... from long time, and you are her
daughter newly arrived from England? Nicht wahr? Sie verstehen nicht
Deutsch, gnädiges Fraulein?"

"No," said Vivie, "I don't speak much German, and fortunately you
speak such perfect English that it is not necessary."

"I have stayed some time in England," was the reply; "I was once
military attaché in London. Both your voice and your face seem--what
should one say? Familiar to me. Are you of London?"

"Yes, I suppose I may say I am a Londoner, though I believe I was
born in Brussels. But I don't want to beat about the bush: there is
so much to be said and explained, and all this time I am very
anxious about my mother. She is in the hall outside--feels a little
faint I think with shock--might she--might I?"--

"But my dear Miss--?"

"Miss Warren--"

"My dear Miss Warren, of course. We are enemies--pour le moment--but
we Germans are not monsters. ("What about those peasants' stories?"
said Vivie to herself.) Your lady mother must come in here and take
that fauteuil. Then we can talk better at our ease."

Vivie got up and brought her mother in.

"Now you shall tell me everything--is it not so? Better to be quite
frank. À la guerre comme à la guerre. First, you are English?"

"Yes. My mother is Mrs. Warren, I am her daughter, Vivien Warren. My
mother has lived many years in Belgium, though also in other places,
in Germany, Austria and France. Of late, however, she has lived
entirely here. This place belongs to her."

"And you?"

"I? I have just been released from prison in London, Holloway
Prison..."

"My dear young lady! You are surely joking--what do you say? You
pull my leg? But no; I see! You have been Suffragette. Aha! _I_
understand you are _the_ Miss Warren, the Miss Warren who make the
English Government afraid, nicht wahr? You set fire to Houses of
Parliament..."

_Vivie_ (interrupting): "No, no! Only to some racing stables..."

_Oberst_: "I understand. But you are rebel?"

_Vivie_: "I hate the present British Government--the most
hypocritical, the most..."

_Oberst_: "But we are in agreement, you and I! This is splendid. But
now we must be praktisch. We are at war, though we hope here for a
peaceful occupation of Belgium. You will see how the Flämisch--Ah,
you say the Fleming?--the Flemish part of Belgium will receive us
with such pleasure. It is only with the Wälsch, the Wallon part we
disagree.... But there is so much for me to do--we must talk of all
these things some other time. Let us begin our business. I must
first introduce myself. I am Oberst Gottlieb von Giesselin of the
Saxon Army. (He rose, clicked heels, bowed, and sat down.) I see you
have three heavy bags you look at often. What is it?"

_Vivie_ (taking courage): "It is my mother's jewellery and some
plate. She fears--"

_Von G._: "I understand! We have a dr-r-eadful reputation, we poor
Germans! The French stuff you up with lies. But we are better than
you think. You shall take them in two--three days to Brussels when
things are quiet, and put them in some bank. Here I fear I must
stay. I must intrude myself on your hospitality. But better for you
perhaps if I stay here at present. I will put a few of my men in
your--your--buildings. Most of them shall go with their officers to
Tervueren for billet." (Turning to Mrs. Warren.) "Madam, you must
cheer up. I foresee your daughter and I will be great friends. Let
us now look through the rooms and see what disposition we can make.
I think I will have to take this room for my writing, for my work. I
see you have telephone here. _Gut_!"

Leaving Mrs. Warren still seated, but a little less stertorous in
breathing, a little reassured, Vivie and Oberst von Giesselin then
went over the Villa, apportioning the rooms. The Colonel and his
orderly would be lodged in two of the bedrooms. Vivie and her mother
would share Mrs. Warren's large bedroom and retain the salon for
their exclusive occupation. They would use the dining-room in common
with their guest.

Vivie looking out of the windows occasionally, as they passed from
room to room, saw the remainder of the soldiery strolling off to be
lodged at their nearest neighbour's, the farmer who had driven them
in to Brussels that morning. There were perhaps thirty, accompanying
a young lieutenant. How would he find room for them, poor man? They
were more fortunate in being asked only to lodge six or seven in
addition to the Colonel's orderly and soldier-clerk. Before sunset,
the Villa Beau-séjour was clear of soldiers, except the few that had
gone to the barn and the outhouses. The morning room had been fitted
up with a typewriter at which the military clerk sat tapping. The
Colonel's personal luggage had been placed in his bedroom. A soldier
was even sweeping up all traces of the invasion of armed men and
making everything tidy. It all seemed like a horrid dream that was
going to end up happily after all. Presently Vivie would wake up
completely and there would even be no Oberst, no orderly; only the
peaceful life of the farm that was going on yesterday. Here a sound
of angry voices interrupted her musings. The cows returning by
themselves from the pasture were being intercepted by soldiers who
were trying to secure them. Vivie in her indignation ran out and
ordered the soldiers off, in English. To her surprise they obeyed
silently, but as they sauntered away to their quarters she was
saddened at seeing them carrying the bodies of most of the turkeys
and fowls and even the corpse of the poor tailless peacock. They had
waited for sundown to rob the hen-roosts.

Very much disillusioned she ran to the morning room and burst in on
the Colonel's dictation to his clerk. "Excuse me, but if you don't
keep your soldiers in better order you will have very little to eat
whilst you are here. They are killing and carrying off all our
poultry."

The Colonel flushed a little at the peremptory way in which she
spoke, but without replying went out and shouted a lot of orders in
German. His orderly summoned soldiers from the barn and together
they drove the cows into the cow-sheds. All the Flemish servants
having disappeared in a panic, the Germans had to milk the cows that
evening; and Vivie, assisted by the orderly, cooked the evening
meal in the kitchen. He was, like his Colonel, a Saxon, a
pleasant-featured, domesticated man, who explained civilly in the
Thuringian dialect--though to Vivie there could be no discrimination
between varieties of High German--that the Sachsen folk were "Eines
gütes leute" and that all would go smoothly in time.

Nevertheless the next morning when she could take stock she found
nearly all the poultry except the pigeons had disappeared; and most
of the apples, ripe and unripe, had vanished from the orchard trees.
The female servants of the farm, however, came back; and finding no
violence was offered took up their work again. Two days afterwards,
von Giesselin sent Vivie into Brussels in his motor, with his
orderly to escort her, so that she might deposit her valuables at a
bank. She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with
grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent.
Those who were on the march, thinking Vivie must be the wife of some
German officer of high rank, struck up a dismal chant from dry
throats with a refrain of "Gloria, Viktoria, Hoch! Deutschland,
Hoch!" At the bank the Belgian officials received her with
deference. Apart from being the daughter of the well-to-do Mrs.
Warren, she was English, and seemed to impose respect even on the
Germans. They took over her valuables, made out a receipt, and
cashed a fairly large cheque in ready money. Vivie then ventured to
ask the bank clerk who had seen to her business if he had any news.
Looking cautiously round, he said the rumours going through the town
were that the Queen of Holland, enraged that her Prince Consort
should have facilitated the crossing of Limburg by German armies,
had shot him dead with a revolver; that the Crown Prince of Germany,
despairing of a successful end of the War, had committed suicide at
his father's feet; that the American Consul General in Brussels--to
whom, by the bye, Vivie ought to report herself and her mother, in
order to come under his protection--had notified General Sixt von
Arnim, commanding the army in Brussels, that, _unless he vacated the
Belgian capital immediately_, England would bombard Hamburg and the
United States would declare war on the Kaiser. Alluring stories like
these flitted through despairing Brussels during the first two
months of German occupation, though Vivie, in her solitude at
Tervueren, seldom heard them.

After her business at the bank she walked about the town. No one
took any notice of her or annoyed her in any way. The restaurants
seemed crowded with Belgians as well as Germans, and the Belgians
did not seem to have lost their appetites. The Palace Hotel had
become a German officers' club. On all the public buildings the
German Imperial flag hung alongside the Belgian. Only a few of the
trams were running. Yet you could still buy, without much difficulty
at the kiosques, Belgian and even French and British newspapers.
From these she gathered that the German forces were in imminent
peril between the Belgian Antwerp army on the north and the British
army advancing from the south; and that in the plains of Alsace the
French had given the first public exhibition of the new "Turpin"
explosive. The results had been _foudroyant_ ... and simple.
Complete regiments of German soldiers had been destroyed in _one
minute_. It seemed curious, she thought, that with such an arm as
this the French command did not at once come irresistibly to the
rescue of Brussels....

However, it was four o'clock, and there was her friend the enemy's
automobile drawn up outside the bank, awaiting her. She got in, and
the soldier chauffeur whirled her away to the Villa Beau-séjour,
beyond Tervueren.

On her return she found her mother prostrate with bad news. Their
nearest neighbour, Farmer Oudekens who had driven them into Brussels
the preceding day had been executed in his own orchard only an hour
ago. It seemed that the lieutenant in charge of the soldiers
billeted there had disappeared in the night, leaving his uniform and
watch and chain behind him. The farmer's story was that in the night
the lieutenant had appeared in his room with a revolver and had
threatened to shoot him unless he produced a suit of civilian
clothes. Thus coerced he had given him his eldest son's Sunday
clothes left behind when the said son went off to join the Belgian
army. The lieutenant, grateful for the assistance, had given him as
a present his watch and chain.

On the other hand the German non-commissioned officers insisted
their lieutenant had been made away with in the night. The farmer's
allegation that he had deserted (as in fact he had) only enhanced
his crime. The finding of the court after a very summary trial was
"guilty," and despite the frantic appeals of the wife, reinforced
later on by Mrs. Warren, the farmer had been taken out and shot.

The evening meal consequently was one of strained relations. Colonel
von Giesselin came to supper punctually and was very spruce in
appearance. But he was gravely polite and uncommunicative. And after
dessert the two ladies asked permission to retire. They lay long
awake afterwards, debating in whispers what terror might be in store
for them. Mrs. Warren cried a good deal and lamented futilely her
indolent languor of a few days previously. _Why_ had she not, while
there was yet time, cleared out of Brussels, gone to Holland, and
thence regained England with Vivie, and from England the south of
France? Vivie, more stoical, pointed out it was no use crying over
lost opportunities. Here they were, and they must sharpen their wits
to get away at the first opportunity. Perhaps the American Consul
might help them?

The next morning, however, their guest, who had insensibly turned
host, told Vivie the tram service to Brussels, like the train
service, was suspended indefinitely, and that he feared they must
resign themselves to staying where they were. Under his protection
they had nothing to fear. He was sorry the soldiers had helped
themselves so freely to the livestock; but everything had now
settled down. Henceforth they would be sure of something to eat, as
he himself had got to be fed. And all he asked of them was their
agreeable society.

Two months went by of this strange life. Two months, in which Vivie
only saw German newspapers--which she read with the aid of von
Giesselin. Their contents filled her with despair. They made very
little of the Marne rebuff, much of the capture of Antwerp and
Ostende, and the occupation of all Belgium (as they put it). Vivie
noted that the German Emperor's heart had bled for the punishment
inflicted on Louvain. (She wondered how that strange personality,
her father, had fared in the destruction of monastic buildings.) But
she had then no true idea of what had taken place, and the
far-reaching harm this crime had done to the German reputation. She
noted that the German Press expressed disappointment that the cause
of Germany, the crusade against Albion, had received no support from
the Irish Nationalists, or from the "revolting" women, the
Suffragettes, who had been so cruelly maltreated by the
administration of Asquith and Sir Grey.

This point was discussed by the Colonel, but Vivie found herself
speaking as a patriot. How _could_ the Germans expect British women
to turn against their own country in its hour of danger?

"Then you would not," said von Giesselin, "consent to write some
letters to your friends, if I said I could have them sent safely to
their destination?--only letters," he added hastily, seeing her
nostrils quiver and a look come into her eyes--"to ask your Suffrage
friends to bring pressure to bear on their Government to bring this
d-r-r-eadful War to a just peace. That is all we ask." But Vivie
said "with all her own private grudge against the present ministry
she felt _au fond_ she was _British_; she must range herself in time
of war with her own people."

Mrs. Warren went much farther. She was not very voluble nowadays.
The German occupation of her villa had given her a mental and
physical shock from which she never recovered. She often sat quite
silent and rather huddled at meal times and looked the old woman
now. In such a conversation as this she roused herself and her voice
took an aggressive tone. "My daughter write to her friends to ask
them to obstruct the government at such a time as this? _Never!_ I'd
disown her if she did, I'd repudiate her! She may have had her own
turn-up with 'em. I was quite with her there. But that, so to
speak, was only a domestic quarrel. We're British all through, and
don't you forget it--sir--(she added deprecatingly): British _all
through_ and we're goin' to beat Germany yet, _you'll_ see. The
British navy never _has_ been licked nor won't be, this time."

Colonel von Giesselin did not insist. He seemed depressed himself at
times, and far from elated at the victories announced in his own
newspapers. He would in the dreary autumn evenings show them the
photographs of his wife--a sweet-looking woman--and his two
solid-looking, handsome children, and talk with rapture of his home
life. Why, indeed, was there this War! His heart like his Emperor's
bled for these unhappy Belgians. But it was all due to the
Macchiavellian policy of "Sir Grey and Asquiss." If Germany had not
felt herself surrounded and barred from all future expansion of
trade and influence she would not have felt forced to attack France
and invade Belgium. Why, see! All the time they were talking,
barbarous Russia, egged on by England, was ravaging East Prussia!

Then, in other moods, he would lament the war and the policy of
Prussia. How he had loved England in the days when he was military
attaché there. He had once wanted to marry an Englishwoman, a Miss
Fraser, a so handsome daughter of a Court Physician.

"Why, that must have been Honoria, my former partner," said Vivie,
finding an intense joy in this link of memory. And she told much of
her history to the sentimental Colonel, who was conceiving for her a
sincere friendship and camaraderie. They opened up other veins of
memory, talked of Lady Feenix, of the musical parties at the Parrys,
of Emily Daymond's playing, of this, that and the other hostess, of
such-and-such an actress or singer.

The Colonel of course was often absent all day on military duties.
He advised Vivie strongly on such occasions not to go far from Mrs.
Warren's little domain. "I am obliged to remind you, dear young
lady, that you and your mother are my prisoners in a sense. Many bad
things are going on--things we cannot help in war--outside this
quiet place..."

In November, however, there was a change of scene, which in many
ways came to Vivie and her mother with a sense of great relief.
Colonel von Giesselin told them one morning he had been appointed
Secretary to the German Governor of Brussels, and must reside in the
town not far from the Rue de la Loi. He proposed that the ladies
should move into Brussels likewise; in fact he delicately insisted
on it. Their pleasant relations could thus continue--perhaps--who
knows?--to the end of this War, "to that peace which will make us
friends once more?" It would in any case be most unsafe if, without
his protection, they continued to reside at this secluded farm, on
the edge of the great woods. In fact it could not be thought of, and
another officer was coming here in his place with a considerable
suite. Eventually compensation would be paid to Mrs. Warren for any
damage done to her property.

The two women readily agreed. In the curtailment of their movements
and the absence of normal means of communication their life at Villa
Beau-séjour was belying its name. Their supply of money was coming
to an end; attempts must be made to regularize that position by
drawing on Mrs. Warren's German investments and the capital she
still had in Belgian stock--if that were negotiable at all.

Where should they go? Mrs. Warren still had some lien on the Hotel
Édouard-Sept (the name, out of deference to the Germans, had been
changed to Hotel Impérial). With the influence of the Government
Secretary behind her she might turn out some of its occupants and
regain the use of the old "appartement." This would accommodate
Vivie too. And there was no reason why their friend should not place
his own lodging and office at the same hotel, which was situated
conveniently on the Rue Royale not far from the Governor's residence
in the Rue de la Loi.

So this plan was carried out. And in December, 1914, Mrs. Warren had
some brief flicker of happiness once more, and even Vivie felt the
nightmare had lifted a little. It was life again. Residence at the
Villa Beau-séjour had almost seemed an entombment of the living.
Here, in the heart of Brussels, at any rate, you got some news every
day, even if much of it was false. The food supply was more certain,
there were 700,000 people all about you. True, the streets were very
badly lit at night and fuel was scarce and dear. But you were in
contact with people.

In January, Vivie tried to get into touch with the American
Legation, not only to send news of their condition to England but to
ascertain whether permission might not be obtained for them to leave
Belgium for Holland. But this last plea was said by the American
representative to be unsustainable. For various reasons, the German
Government would not permit it, and he was afraid neither Vivie nor
her mother would get enough backing from the British authorities to
strengthen the American demand. She must stop on in Brussels till
the War came to an end.

"But how are we to live?" asked Vivie, with a catch in her throat.
"Our supply of Belgian money is coming to an end. My mother has
considerable funds invested in England. These she can't touch. She
has other sums in German securities, but soon after the War they
stopped sending her the interest on the plea that she was an
'enemy.' As to the money we have in Belgium, the bank in Brussels
can tell me nothing. What are we to do?" The rather cold-mannered
American diplomatist--it was one of the Secretaries of Legation and
he knew all about Mrs. Warren's past, and regarded Vivie as an
outlaw--said he would try to communicate with her friends in England
and see if through the American Relief organization, funds could be
transmitted for their maintenance. She gave him the addresses of
Rossiter, Praed, and her mother's London bankers.

Vivie now tried to settle down to a life of usefulness. To increase
their resources she gave lessons in English to Belgians and even to
German officers. She offered herself to various groups of Belgian
ladies who had taken up such charities as the Germans permitted. She
also asked to be taken on as a Red Cross helper. But in all these
directions she had many snubs to meet and little encouragement.
Scandal had been busy with her name--the unhappy reputation of her
mother, the peculiar circumstances under which she had left England,
the two or three months shut up at Tervueren with Colonel von
Giesselin, and the very protection he now accorded her and her
mother at the Hotel Impérial. She felt herself looked upon almost as
a pariah, except among the poor of Brussels in the Quartier des
Marolles. Here she was only regarded as a kind Englishwoman,
unwearied in her efforts to alleviate suffering, mental and bodily.


And meantime, silence, a wall of silence as regarded
England--England which she was beginning to look upon as the
paradise from which she had been chased. Not a word had come through
from Rossiter, from Honoria, Bertie Adams, or any of her Suffrage
friends. I can supply briefly what she did not know.

Rossiter at the very outbreak of War had offered his services as one
deeply versed in anatomy and in physiology to the Army Medical
Service, and especially to a great person at the War Office; but had
been told quite cavalierly that they had no need of him. As he
persisted, he had been asked--in the hope that it might get rid of
him--to go over to the United States in company with a writer of
comic stories, a retired actor and a music-hall singer, and lecture
on the causes of the War in the hope of bringing America in. This he
had declined to do, and being rich and happening to know personally
General Armstrong (Honoria's husband) he had been allowed to
accompany him to the vicinity of the front and there put his
theories of grafting flesh and bone to the test; with the ultimate
results that his work became of enormous beneficial importance and
he was given rank in the R.A.M.C. Honoria, racked with anxiety about
her dear "Army," and very sad as to Vivie's disappearance, slaved at
War work as much as her children's demands on her permitted; or even
put her children on one side to help the sick and wounded. Vivie's
Suffrage friends forgot she had ever existed and turned their
attention to propaganda, to recruiting for the Voluntary Army which
our ministers still hoped might suffice to win the War, to the
making of munitions, or aeroplane parts, to land work and to any
other work which might help their country in its need.

And Bertie Adams?

When he realized that his beloved and revered Miss Warren was shut
off from escape in Belgium, could not be heard of, could not be got
at and rescued, he went nearly off his nut.... He reviewed during a
succession of sleepless nights what course he might best pursue. His
age was about thirty-two. He might of course enlist in the army. But
though very patriotic, his allegiance lay first at the feet of Vivie
Warren. If he entered the army, he might be sent anywhere but to the
Belgian frontier; and even if he got near Belgium he could not dart
off to rescue Vivie without becoming a deserter. So he came speedily
to the conclusion that the most promising career he could adopt,
having regard to his position in life and lack of resources, was to
volunteer for foreign service under the Y.M.C.A., and express the
strongest possible wish to be employed as near Belgium as was
practicable. So that by the end of September, 1914, Bertie was
serving out cocoa and biscuits, writing paper and cigarettes, hot
coffee and sausages and cups of bovril to exhausted or resting
soldiers in the huts of the Y.M.C.A., near Ypres. Alternating with
these services, he was, like other Y.M.C.A. men in the same district
and at the same time, acting as stretcher bearer to bring in the
wounded, as amateur chaplain with the dying, as amateur surgeon with
the wounded, as secretary to some distraught officer in high command
whose clerks had all been killed; and in any other capacity if
called upon. But always with the stedfast hope and purpose that he
might somehow reach and rescue Vivie Warren.




CHAPTER XVII

THE GERMANS IN BRUSSELS: 1915-1916


In the early spring of 1915, Vivie, anxious not to see her mother in
utter penury, and despairing of any effective assistance from the
Americans (very much prejudiced against her for the reasons already
mentioned), took her mother's German and Belgian securities of a
face value amounting to about £18,000 and sold them at her Belgian
bank for a hundred thousand francs (£4,000) in Belgian or German
bank notes. She consulted no one, except her mother. Who was there
to consult? She did not like to confide too much to Colonel von
Giesselin, a little too prone in any case to "protect" them. But as
she argued with Mrs. Warren, what else were they to do in their
cruel situation? If the Allies were eventually victorious, Mrs.
Warren could return to England. There at least she had in safe
investments £40,000, ample for the remainder of their lives. If
Germany lost the War, the German securities nominally worth two
hundred thousand marks might become simply waste paper; even now
they were only computed by the bank at a purchase value of about one
fifth what they had stood at before the War. If Germany were
victorious or agreed to a compromise peace, her mother's shares in
Belgian companies might be unsaleable. Better to secure now a lump
sum of four thousand pounds in bank notes that would be legal
currency, at any rate as long as the German occupation lasted. And
as one never knew what might happen, it was safer still to have all
this money (equivalent to a hundred thousand francs), in their own
keeping. They could live even in war time, on such a sum as this
for four, perhaps five years, as they would be very economical and
Vivie would try to earn all she could by teaching. It was useless to
hope they would be able to return to Villa Beau-séjour so long as
the German occupation lasted, or during that time receive a penny in
compensation for the sequestration of the property.

The notes for the hundred thousand francs therefore were carefully
concealed in Mrs. Warren's bedroom at the Hotel Impérial and Vivie
for a few months afterwards felt slightly easier in her mind as to
the immediate future; for, as a further resource, there were also
the jewels and plate at the bank.

They dared hope for nothing from Villa Beau-séjour. Von Giesselin,
after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with
a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor
to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring
away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily
transportable nature. But the visit was a heart-breaking
disappointment. Their reception was surly; the place was little else
than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers. Any
search for clothes or books was a mockery. Nothing was to be found
in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and
unnameable horrors or military equipment articles. The garden was
trampled out of recognition. There had been a beautiful vine in the
greenhouse. It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung
withered and russet coloured. The soldiers, grinning when Vivie
noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches. It
had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse
deliberately smashed.

On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears,
descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their
farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens. She asked the orderly that they
might stop and greet her. She approached. Mrs. Warren got out of the
car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish. Since
her husband's execution, the woman said, she had had to become the
mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only
means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile
in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment;
though she added, "As to their virtue, _that_ has long since
vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the
soldiers get drunk. Oh Madame! If you could only say a word to that
Colonel with whom you are living?"

Mrs. Warren dared not translate this last sentence to Vivie, for
fear her daughter forced her at all costs to leave the Hotel
Impérial. Where, if she did, were they to go?

The winter of 1914 had witnessed an appalling degree of
frightfulness in eastern Belgium, the Wallon or French-speaking part
of the country more especially. The Germans seemed to bear a special
grudge against this region, regarding it as doggedly opposed to
absorption into a Greater Germany; whereas they hoped the Flemish
half of the country would receive them as fellow Teutons and even as
deliverers from their former French oppressors. Thousands of old men
and youths, of women and children in the provinces south of the
Meuse had been shot in cold blood; village after village had been
burnt. Scenes of nearly equal horror had taken place between
Brussels and Antwerp, especially around Malines. Von Bissing's
arrival as Governor General was soon signalized by those dreaded Red
Placards on the walls of Brussels, announcing the verdicts of
courts-martial, the condemnation to death of men and women who had
contravened some military regulation.

Yet in spite of this, life went on in Brussels once more--by von
Bissing's stern command--as though the country were not under the
heel of the invader. The theatres opened their doors; the cinemas
had continuous performances; there was Grand Opera; there were
exhibitions of toys, or pictures, and charitable bazaars. Ten days
after the fall of Antwerp _char-à-bancs_ packed with Belgians drove
out of Brussels to visit the scenes of the battles and those
shattered forts, so fatuously deemed impregnable, so feeble in their
resistance to German artillery.

Vivie, even had she wished to do so, could not have joined the
sight-seers. As the subjects of an enemy power she and her mother
had had early in January to register themselves at the Kommandantur
and were there warned that without a special passport they might not
pass beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs. Except in the
matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was
reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she
was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether
her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order--she had
an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes
for raising the Irish against the British Government. Von Giesselin
however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw
no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations. Frau
von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not
join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of
the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels
society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of
his loneliness alarmed her.

The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn
of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous
banquet given at the Palace Hotel. The King--whom the still defiant
Brussels Press, especially that unkillable _La Libre Belgique_,
reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring
whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra--was
gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important
duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of
von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an
influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in
softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and
exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and
kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or
French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie
about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.

This caused her complicated annoyances. Seeing there was some hope
in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses,
tutors, clerks, tailors' assistants and cutters, music-hall singers,
grooms appealed to Vivie to support their petitions. They paid her
or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit assumption that
she--Vivie--had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special
obligations. If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a
case and von Giesselin granted the petition or had it done in a
higher quarter, his action was clearly a personal favour to her; and
the very petitioners went away, with the ingratitude common in such
cases, and spread the news of Vivie's privileged position at the
Hotel Impérial. It was not surprising therefore that in the small
circles of influential British or American people in Brussels she
was viewed with suspicion or contempt. She supported this odious
position at the Hotel Impérial as long as possible, in the hope that
Colonel von Giesselin when he had realized the impossibility of
using herself or her mother in any kind of intrigue against the
British Government would do what the American Consul General
professed himself unable or unwilling to do: obtain for them
passports to proceed to Holland.

Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that
of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity. After the
occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic"
Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had
stopped publication. Its newspapers had been invited to continue
their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion,
but of course under the German Censorate and martial law. As one
editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the
publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would
all be shot in a week."

But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press.
Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a
direction favourable to German policy. The German Government had
already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German
coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no
intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old
dominions of the House of Burgundy. On the contrary, in their tenure
of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of
showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were
under a German regime to give it a new literature. Whether or not
they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or
Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as
a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German
idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian. It
suffered from that extraordinary misplacement and exchange in the
upper and lower consonants which has distinguished the German
people--that nation of great philologists--since the death of the
Roman Empire. German officers still said "Barton, die fous brie,"
instead of "Pardon, je vous prie" (if they were polite), but they
were quite able to contribute _articles de fond_ to a pretended
national Belgian press. Besides there was a sufficiency of Belgian
"Sans-Patries" ready to come to their assistance: Belgian nationals
of German-Jewish or Dutch-Jewish descent, who in the present
generation had become Catholic Christians as it ranged them with the
best people. They were worthy and wealthy Belgian citizens, but
presumably would not have deeply regretted a change in the political
destinies of Belgium, provided international finance was not
adversely affected. There were also a few Belgian Socialists--a few,
but enough--who took posts under the German provisional government,
on the plea that until you could be purely socialistic it did not
matter under what flag you drew your salary.

Von Giesselin was most benevolently intentioned, in reality a
kind-hearted man, a sentimentalist. Not quite prepared to go to the
stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but
ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences.
(There were others like him--Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian,
Württembergisch--or the German occupation of Belgium might have
ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened
people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they
slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the
theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the
Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of
existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on
him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They
were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French
operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music,
need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the
least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the
Central Powers. Thus the couplets

          "Dans le service de l'Autriche
           Le militaire n'est pas riche"

were changed to

          "Dans le service de la Suisse
           Le militaire n'est pas riche."

These passionate lines of a political exile:

          "A l'étranger un pacte impie
           Vendait mon sang, liait ma foi,
           Mais à present, o ma patrie
           Je pourrai done mourir pour toi!"

were rendered harmless as

          "A l'étranger, en réverie
           Chaque jour je pleurais sur toi
           Mais à present, o ma patrie
           Je penserai sans cesse à toi!"

The pleasure he took in recasting this doggerel--calling in Vivie to
help him as presumably a good scholar in French--got on her nerves,
and she was hard put to it to keep her temper.

Sometimes he proposed that she should take a hand, even become a
salaried subordinate; compose articles for his subsidized paper,
"_L'Ami de l'Ordre_" (nicknamed "L'Ami de L'Ordure" by the
Belgians), "_La Belgique_," "_Le Bruxellois_," "_Vers la Paix_."
He would allow her a very free hand, so long as she did not attack
the Germans or their allies or put in any false news about military
or naval successes of the foes of Central Europe. She might, for
instance, dilate on the cruel manner in which the Woman Suffragists
had been persecuted in England; give a description of forcible
feeding or of police ferocity on Black Friday.

Vivie declined any such propositions. "I have told you already, and
often," she said, "I am deeply grateful for all you have done for
my mother and me. We might have been in a far more uncomfortable
position but for your kindness. But I cannot in any way associate
myself with the German policy here. I cannot pretend for a moment to
condone what you do in this country. If I were a Belgian woman I
should probably have been shot long ago for assassinating some
Prussian official--I can hardly see von Bissing pass in his
automobile, as it is, without wishing I had a bomb. But there it is.
It is no business of mine. As I can't get away, as you won't let us
go out of the country--Switzerland, Holland--and as I don't want to
go mad by brooding, find something for me to do that will occupy my
thoughts: and yet not implicate me with the Germans. Can't I go and
help every day in your hospitals? If you'll continue your kindness
to mother--and believe me"--she broke off--"I _do_ appreciate what
you have done for us. I shall _never_ forget I have met _one true
German gentleman_--if you'll continue to be as kind as before, you
will simply give instructions that mother is in no way disturbed or
annoyed. There are Germans staying here who are odious beyond
belief. If they meet my mother outside her room they ask her
insulting questions--whether she can give them the addresses
of--of--light women ... you know the sort of thing. I have always
been outspoken with you. All I ask is that mother shall be allowed
to stay in her own room while I am out, and have her meals served
there. But the hotel people are beginning to make a fuss about the
trouble, the lack of waiters. A word from you--And then if my mind
was at ease about her I could go out and do some good with the poor
people. They are getting very restive in the Marolles quarter--the
shocking bad bread, the lack of fuel--Most of all I should like to
help in the hospitals. My own countrywomen will not have me in
theirs. They suspect me of being a spy in German pay. Besides, your
von Bissing has ordered now that all Belgian, British, and French
wounded shall be taken to the German Red Cross. Well: if you want
to be kind, give me an introduction there. Surely it would be bare
humanity on your part to let an Englishwoman be with some of those
poor lads who are sorely wounded, dying perhaps"--she broke
down--"The other day I followed two of the motor ambulances along
the Boulevard d'Anspach. Blood dripped from them as they passed, and
I could hear some English boy trying to sing 'Tipperary--'"

"My _tear_ Miss Warren--I will try to do all that you want--You will
not do _anything I_ want, but never mind. I will show you that
Germans can be generous. I will speak about your mother. I am sorry
that there are bad-mannered Germans in the hotel. There are
some--what-you-call 'bounders'--among us, as there are with you. It
is to be regretted. As to our Red Cross hospitals, I know of a
person who can make things easy for you. I will write a letter to my
cousin--like me she is a Saxon and comes from Leipzig--Minna von
Stachelberg. She is but a few months widow, widow of a Saxon
officer, Graf von Stachelberg who was killed at Namur. Oh! it was
very sad; they were but six months married. Afterwards she came here
to work in our Red Cross--I think now she is in charge of a ward..."

So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter
humiliation. Gräfin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her
cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental. In fact she was of
that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by
our Press at the time of the War. There were many like her of the
upper middle class, the professorial class, the lesser nobility to
be found not only in Leipzig but in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort,
Halle, Bonn, München, Hannover, Bremen, Jena, Stuttgart,
Cologne--nice to look at, extremely modern in education and good
manners, tasteful in dress, speaking English marvellously well,
highly accomplished in music or with some other art, advocates of
the enfranchisement of women. The War came just too soon. Had Heaven
struck down that epilept Emperor and a few of his ministers, had
time been given for the New German Woman to assert herself in
politics, there would have been no invasion of Belgium, no
maltreatment of Servia. Germany would have ranged herself with the
Western powers and Western culture.

Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin's note and received the worn
and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ... like a comrade, she
said, in the War for the Vote ... "which we will resume, my dear, as
soon as this dreadful Man's war is over, only we won't fight with
the same weapons."

But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in
nursing she was a novice and had much to learn. She introduced her
to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of
entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by
degrees. But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy,
she should be called in to his ward ... From that interview Vivie
returned almost happy.

In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany
Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of
wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers
would be amongst them. These would cheer up at the sound of her
pleasant voice speaking their tongue. Yet she would witness on such
occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality. Once there came
out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends
evidently. They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier
stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp. At that
moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face. The
Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear.
Alarums! Excursions! A German officer rushed up to enquire while the
Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen
and the Englishman was striving to free him. Vivie explained to the
officer what had occurred. He bowed and saluted: seized the
soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that
Vivie had to implore him to cease.

Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing
frequency. As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of
them, and that wasn't very much, for German spies were everywhere,
inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue
de la Loi--a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental
anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror.
But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in
October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red
Placard which had been posted up in a public place. The daylight had
almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice
legible. It ran:

                        CONDAMNATIONS

     Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a
     prononcé les condamnations suivantes pour trahison commise
     pendant l'état de guerre (pour avoir fait passer des recrues
     à l'ennemi):

     1° Philippe BAUCQ, architecte à Bruxelles;

     2° Louise THULIEZ, professeur à Lille;

     3° Edith CAVELL, directrice d'un institut médical à
     Bruxelles;

     4° Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien à Bruxelles;

     5° Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, à Montignies.

                       À LA PEINE DE MORT

       *       *       *       *       *

Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the
words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms
of hard labour for the same offence--assisting young Belgians to
leave the Belgium that was under German occupation. And further,
the information that of the five condemned to death, _Philip Bauck_
and _Edith Cavell_ had already been _executed_.

       *       *       *       *       *

The monsters! Oh that von Bissing. How gladly she would die if she
might first have the pleasure of killing him! That pompous old man
of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that
wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted
with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that
he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split
the tongues of finches to make them sing better. Edith Cavell--she
did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women--but
Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far
and wide for her goodness of heart. She had held aloof from Vivie,
but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her
suspect--living, seemingly, under the protection of a German
official? But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross
hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home
to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was
no room in the military hospitals--And for such a trivial offence as
_that_--and to kill her before there could be any appeal for
reconsideration or clemency. Oh _what_ a nation! She would tend
their sick and wounded no more.

She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden
on her way to the Rue Royale. She burst into von Giesselin's office.
He was not there. A clerk looking at her rather closely said that
the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away. Vivie scarcely took in
the meaning of his German phrases. She waited there, her eyes
ablaze, feeling she must tell her former friend and protector what
she thought of his people before she renounced any further
relations with him.

Presently he entered, his usually rather florid face pale with
intense sorrow or worry, his manner preoccupied. She burst out:
"_Have_ you seen the Red Placard they have just put up?"

"What about?" he said wearily.

"The assassination by your Government of Edith Cavell, a crime for
which England--yes, and America--will _never_ forgive you.... From
this moment I--"

"But have you not heard what has happened to _me_? I am _dismissed_
from my post as Secretary, I am ordered to rejoin my regiment in
Lorraine--It is very sad about your Miss Cavell. I knew nothing of
it till this morning when I received my own dismissal--And _oh_ my
dear Miss, I fear we shall never meet again."

"Why are they sending you away?" asked Vivie drily, compelled to
interest herself in his affairs since they so closely affected her
own and her mother's.

"Because of this," said von Giesselin, nearly in tears, pulling from
a small portfolio a press cutting. "Do you remember a fortnight ago
I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and
sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the
time and you said--you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem
to have much point.'" Vivie did remember having glanced very
perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed
unobjectionable piffle. She hadn't cared two straws whether he
accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly
indifferent. Now she took it up and still read it through
uncomprehendingly, her thoughts absent with the fate of Miss Cavell.
"Well! what is all the fuss about? I still see nothing in it. It is
just simply the ordinary sentimental flip-flap that a French
versifier can turn out by the yard."

"It is _far_ worse than that! It is a horrible--what the French
call 'acrostiche,' a deadly insult to our people. And I never saw
it, the Editor never saw it, and you, even, never guessed its real
meaning![1] The original, as you say, was in typewriting, and at the
bottom was the name and address of a very well-known homme de
lettres: and the words: 'Offert à la rédaction de l'Ami de L'Ordre.'
He say now, _never never_ did he send it. It was a forgery. When we
came to understand what it meant all the blame fall on me. I am sent
back to the Army--I shall be killed before Verdun, so good-bye dear
Miss--We have been good friends. Oh this War: this d-r-r-eadful
War--It has spoilt everything. Now we can never be friends with
England again."

  [Footnote 1: I have obtained a copy and give it here as it had an
  almost historical importance in the events of the German occupation.
  But the reader must interpret its meaning for himself.

        LA GUERRE

        Ma soeur, vous souvient-il qu'aux jours de notre enfance,
        En lisant les hauts fails de l'histoire de France,
        Remplis d'admiration pour nos frères Gaulois,
        Des généraux fameux nous vantions les exploits?

        En nos âmes d'enfants, les seuls noms des victoires
        Prenaient un sens mystique evocateur de gloires;
        On ne rêvait qu'assauts et combats; a nos yeux
        Un général vainqueur etait l'égal des dieux.

        Rien ne semblait ternir l'éclat de ces conquétes.
        Les batailles prenaient des allures de fêtes
        Et nous ne songions pas qu'aux hurrahs triomphants
        Se mêlaient les sanglots des mères, des enfants.

        Ah! nous la connaissons, hélas, l'horrible guerre:
        Le fléau qui punit les crimes de la terre,
        Le mot qui fait trembler les mères à genoux
        Et qui seme le deuil et la mort parmi nous!

        Mais ou sqnt les lauriers que réserve l'Histoire
        A celui qui demain forcera la Victoire?
        Nul ne les cueillira: les lauriers sont flétris
        Seul un cypres s'élève aux torubes de nos fils.]



He gave way to much emotion. Vivie, though still dazed with the
reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain
her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them.
But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be
undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected
that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by
their own exile to some other lodging. They would share in his
disgrace.

The next morning in fact the Belgian manager of the hotel with many
regrets gave them a month's warning. The hotel would be required for
some undefined need of the German Government and he had been told no
one could be lodged there who was not furnished with a permit from
the Kommandantur.

For three weeks Vivie sought in vain for rooms. Every suitable place
was either full or else for reasons not given they were refused. She
was reduced to eating humble pie, to writing once more to Gräfin von
Stachelberg and imparting the dilemma in which they were placed. Did
this kind lady know where a lodging could be obtained? She herself
could put up with any discomfort, but her mother was ill. If she
could help them, Vivie would humbly beg her pardon for her angry
letter of three weeks ago and resume her hospital work. Minna von
Stachelberg made haste to reply that there were some things better
not discussed in writing: if Vivie could come and see her at six one
evening, when she had a slight remission from work--

Vivie went. Out of hearing, Gräfin von Stachelberg--who, however, to
facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"--"We may
all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from
your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter--" said
very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes
me think of Talleyrand--was it not?--who said 'It is a blunder;
worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know
nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb
von Giesselin--"Really dear, if in this time of horrors one _dare_
laugh at anything, I feel--oh it is too funny, but also, too
'schokking,' as we suppose all English women say. Yet of course I am
sad about him, because he is a good, kind man, and I know his wife
will be very very unhappy when she hears--And it means he will die,
for certain. He must risk his life to--to--regain his position, and
he will be shot before Verdun in one of those dreadful assaults."
Then she told Vivie where she might find rooms, where at any rate
she could use her name as a reference. Also: "Stay away at present
and look after your mother. When she is quite comfortably settled,
come back and work with me--here--it is at any rate the only way in
which you can see and help your countrymen."

One day in November when their notice at the hotel was nearly
expired, Vivie proposed an expedition to her mother. They would walk
slowly--because Mrs. Warren now got easily out of breath--up to the
Jardin Bontanique; Vivie would leave her there in the Palm House. It
was warm; it was little frequented; there were seats and the
Belgians in charge knew Mrs. Warren of old time. Vivie would then go
on along the inner Boulevards by tram and look at some rooms
recommended by Minna von Stachelberg in the Quartier St. Gilles.

Mrs. Warren did as she was told. Vivie left her seated in one of the
long series of glass houses overlooking Brussels from a terrace,
wherein are assembled many glories of the tropics: palms, dracaenas,
yuccas, aloes, tree-ferns, cycads, screw-pines, and bananas:
promising to be back in an hour's time.

Somehow as she sat there it seemed to Mrs. Warren it was going for
her to be the last hour of fully conscious life--fully conscious and
yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat
here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young
Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest
in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever,
when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to
bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and
palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. Some she had
loved, more or less; some she had exploited frankly. Some--like
George Crofts and Baxendale Strangeways--she had feared, though in
her manner she had tried to conceal her dread of their violence.
Well! she had taken a lot of money off the rich, but she had never
plundered the poor. Her greatest conquest--and that when she was a
woman of forty--was the monarch of this very country which now lay
crushed under the Kaiser's heel. For a few months he had taken a
whimsical liking to her handsome face, well-preserved figure, and
amusing cockney talk. But he had employed her rather as the mistress
of his menus plaisirs, as his recruiting agent. He had rewarded her
handsomely. Now it was all in the dust: her beautiful Villa
Beau-séjour a befouled barrack for German soldiers. She herself a
homeless woman, repudiated by the respectable British and Americans
more or less interned in this unhappy city.

Not much more than a year ago she had been one of the most respected
persons in Brussels, with a large income derived from safe
investments. Now all she had for certain was something over three
thousand pounds in bank notes that might turn out next month to be
worthless paper. And was she certain even of them? Had Vivie before
they left the hotel remembered to put some, at least, of this
precious sum on her person? Suppose, whilst they were out, looking
for a fresh dwelling place, the hotel servants or the police raided
her bedroom and found the little hoard of notes? This imagined
danger made her want to cry. They were so friendless now, she in
particular felt so completely deserted. Had she deserved this
punishment by Fate? Was there after all a God who minded much about
the sex foolishnesses and punished you for irregularities--for
having lovers in your youth, for selling your virtue and inducing
other women to sell theirs? Was she going to die soon and was there
a hereafter?' She burst out crying in an abandonment of grief.

An elderly gardener who had been snipping and sweeping in the next
house came up and vaguely recognized her as a well-known
Bruxelloise, a good-natured lady, a foreigner who, strange to say,
spoke Flemish. "Ach," he said, looking out where he thought lay the
source of her tears, at the dim view of beautiful Brussels through
the steamy glass, "Onze arme, oude Brüssel." Mrs. Warren wept
unrestrainedly. "Madame is ill?" he enquired. Mrs. Warren
nodded--she felt indeed very ill and giddy. He left her and returned
shortly with a small glass of Schnapps. "If Madame is faint--?" She
sipped the cordial and presently felt better. Then they talked of
old times. Madame had kept the Hotel Leopold II in the Rue
Royale? Ah, _now_ he placed her. A _superb_ establishment, always
well-spoken of. Her self-respect returned a little. "Yes," she said,
"never a complaint! I looked after those girls like a mother, indeed
I did. Many a one married well from there." The gardener
corroborated her statement, and added that her _clientèle_ had been
of the most chic. He had a private florist's business of his own and
he had been privileged often to send bouquets to the pensionnaires
of Madame. But Madame was not alone surely in these sad times. Had
he not seen her come here with a handsome English lady who was said
to have been--to have been--fortunately--_au mieux_ with one of the
German officials?

"_That_ was my daughter," Mrs. Warren informed him with pride....
"She is a lady who has taken a high degree at an English University.
She has been an important person in the English feminist movement.
When this dreadful war is over, I and my daughter will--"

At this juncture Vivie entered. "_Mother_, I hope you haven't
missed me, haven't been unwell?" she said, looking rather
questioningly at the little glass of Schnapps, only half of which
had been drunk.

"Well yes, dear, I have. _Terrible_ low spirits and all swimmy-like.
Thought I was going to faint. But this man here has been so kind
"--her tears flowed afresh--"We've bin talking of old times; he used
to know me before--"

_Vivie_: "Quite so. But I think, dear, we had better be going back.
I want to talk to you about the new rooms I've seen. Are you equal
to walking? If not perhaps this kind man would try to get us a
cab...?"

But Mrs. Warren said it was no distance, only round the corner, and
she could well walk. When they got back she would go and lie down.
Vivie, reading her mother's thoughts, pressed a five-franc note into
the gardener's not reluctant palm, and they regained the Rue Royale.

But just as they were passing through the revolving door of the
Hotel Impérial, a German who had been installed as manager came up
with two soldiers and said explosively: "Heraus! Foutez-nous le
camp! Aout you go! Don't show your face here again!"

"But," said Vivie, "our notice doesn't expire till the end of this
week...!"

"Das macht nichts. The rooms are wanted and I won't have you on the
premises. Off you go, or these soldiers shall take you both round to
the Kommandantur."

"But our luggage? _Surely_ you will let me go up to our room and
pack it--and take it away? We..."

"Your luggage has been packed and is in the corridor. If you send
round for it, it shall be delivered to your messenger. But you are
not to stop on the premises another minute. You understand?" he
almost shrieked.

"But--"

For answer, the soldiers took them by the shoulders and whirled
them through the revolving door on to the pavement, where a crowd
began to collect, as it does in peace or war if you cough twice or
sneeze three times in Brussels. "Englische Hure! Englische
Küpplerin," shouted the soldiers as they retreated and locked the
revolving door. Mrs. Warren turned purple and swayed. Vivie caught
her round the waist with her strong arm.... Thus was Mrs. Warren
ejected from the once homely inn which she had converted by her
energy, management and capital into the second most magnificent
hostelry of Brussels; thus was Vivie expelled from the place of her
birth....

Hearing the shouting and seeing the crowd a Belgian gendarme came
up. To him Vivie said, "Si vous êtes Chrétien et pas Allemand--"
"Prenez garde, Madame," he said warningly--"Vous m'aiderez à porter
ma mère à quelqu' endroit ou elle peut se remettre..."

He assisted her to carry the inert old woman across the street and a
short distance along the opposite pavement. Here, there was a
pleasant, modest-looking tea-shop with the name of Walcker over the
front, and embedded in the plate glass were the words "Tea Rooms."
These of course dated from long before the war, when the best
Chinese tea was only four francs the demi-kilo and the fashion for
afternoon tea had become established in Brussels. Vivie and her
mother had often entered Walcker's shop in happier days for a cup of
tea and delicious forms of home-made pastry. Besides the cakes,
which in pre-war times were of an excellence rarely equalled, they
had been drawn to the pleasant-looking serving woman. She was so
English in appearance, though she only spoke French and Flemish.
Behind the shop was a cosy little room where the more intimate
clients were served with tea; a room with a look-out into a little
square of garden. Thither Mrs. Warren was carried or supported. She
regained consciousness slightly as she was placed on a chair,
opened her eyes, and said "Thank you, my dears." Then her head fell
over to one side and she was dead--seemingly....

The _agent de police_ went away to fetch a doctor and to disperse
the crowd of _ketjes_[1] and loafers which had transferred itself
from the hotel to the tea-shop. The shop woman, who was one of those
angels of kindness that turn up unexpectedly in the paths of unhappy
people, called in a stout serving wench from the kitchen, and the
three of them carried Mrs. Warren out of the inner tea-room into the
back premises and a spare bedroom. Here she was laid on the bed,
partially undressed and all available and likely restoratives
applied.

  [Footnote 1: Street urchins of Brussels. How they harassed the
  Germans and maddened them by mimicking their military manoeuvres!]

The doctor when he came pronounced her dead, thought it was probably
an effusion of blood on the brain but couldn't be certain till he
had made an autopsy.

"What _am_ I to do?" said Vivie thinking aloud....

"Why, stay here till all the formalities are over and you can find
rooms elsewhere," said Mme. Trouessart, the owner-servant of the
tea-shop. "I have another spare room. For the moment my locataires
are gone. I know you both very well by sight, you were clients of
ours in the happy days before the War. Madame votre mère was, I
think, the gérante of the Hotel Édouard-Sept when I first came to
manage here. Since then, you have often drunk my tea. Je me nomme
'Trouessart' c'est le nom de mon mari qui est ... qui est--Vous
pouvez diviner où il est, où est à present tout Belge loyal qui peut
servir. Le nom Walcker? C'était le nom de nom père, et de plus est,
c'était un nom Anglais transformé un peu en Flamand. Mon
arrière-grand-père etait soldat Anglais. Il se battait à Waterloo.
For me, I spik no English--or ver' leetle."

She went on to explain, whilst the doctors occupied themselves with
their gruesome task, and Vivie was being persuaded to take some
nourishment, that her great grandfather had been a soldier servant
who had married a Belgian woman and settled down on the site of this
very shop a hundred years ago. He and his wife had even then
made a specialty of tea for English tourists. She, his great
grand-daughter, had after her marriage to Monsieur Trouessart
carried on the business under the old name--Walker, made to look
Flemish as Walcker.

Vivie when left alone suddenly thought of the money question. She
remembered then that before going out to look for rooms she had
transferred half the notes from their hiding-place to an inner
pocket. They were still there. But what about her luggage and her
mother's, and the remainder of the money? In her distress she wrote
to Gräfin von Stachelberg. Minna came over from her hospital at half
past six in the evening. By that time the doctor had given the
necessary certificate of the cause of death, and an undertaker had
come on the scene to make his preparations.

Minna went over to the Hotel Impérial with Vivie. Appearing in her
Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Gräfin
von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager
could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English
ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady.
The manager replied that inasmuch as the All Highest himself was to
arrive that very evening to take up his abode at the Hotel Impérial,
the hotel premises had been requisitioned, etc., etc. He still
refused absolutely to allow Vivie to proceed to her room and look
for her money. She might perhaps be allowed to do so when the
Emperor was gone. As to her luggage he would have it sent over to
the tea-shop. (The money, it might be noted, she never recovered.
There were many things also missing from her mother's trunks and no
satisfaction was ever obtained.)

So there was Vivie, one dismal, rainy November evening in 1915;
homeless, her mother lying dead in a room of this tea-shop, and in
her own pocket only a matter of thirty thousand francs to provide
for her till the War was over. A thousand pounds in fluctuating
value was all that was left of a nominal twenty thousand of the year
before.

But the financial aspect of the case for the time being did not
concern her. The death of her mother had been a stunning shock, and
when she crossed over to the hotel--what irony, by the bye, to think
she had been born there thirty-nine years ago, in the old inn that
had preceded the twice rebuilt hotel!--when she crossed the street
with Minna, it had been with blazing, tearless eyes and the desire
to take the hotel manager and his minions by the coat collar, fling
_them_ into the street, and assert her right to go up to her room.
But now her violence was spent and she was a broken, weeping woman
as she sat all night by the bedside of her dead mother, holding the
cold hand, imprinting kisses on the dead face which was now that of
a saintly person with nothing of the reprobate in its lineaments.

       *       *       *       *       *

The burial for various reasons had to take place in the Cemetery of
St. Josse-ten-Noode, near the shuddery National Shooting Range where
Edith Cavell and numerous Belgian patriots had recently been
executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one
else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment.
This might have been purely "laïc"; not on account of any harsh
dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the
fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the
grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to
utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, a
relation of Mme. Trouessart.

Waterloo left many curious things behind it. Not only a tea-shop or
two; but a Nonconformist nucleus, that intermarried, as Sergeant
Walker or Walcker had done, with Belgian women and left descendants
who in the third generation--and by inherent vigour, thrift,
matrimony and conversion--had built up quite a numerous
congregation, which even grew large enough and rich enough to
maintain a mission of its own in Congoland. Kind Mme. Trouessart
(née Walcker), distressed and unusually moved at the sad
circumstances of Mrs. Warren's death, had called in her uncle the
Baptist pastor (who also in some unexplained way seemed to hold a
brief for the Salvation Army). He prayed silently by the death-bed
which, under the circumstances, was more tactful than open
intercession. He helped greatly over all the formalities of the
funeral, and he took upon himself the arrangement of the ceremony,
so that everything was done decorously, and certainly to the
satisfaction of the Belgians, who attended. Such people would be
large-minded in religion--you might be Protestant, if you were not
Catholic, or you might be Jewish; but a funeral without some outward
sign of faith and hope would have puzzled and distressed them.

To Vivie's great surprise, there was a considerable attendance at
the ceremony. She had expected no more than the company of Minna--an
unprofessing but real Christian, if ever there were one, and the
equally Christian if equally hedonist Mme. Trouessart. But there
came in addition quite a number of shopkeepers from the Rue Royale,
the Rues de Schaerbeek, du Marais, de Lione, and de l'Association,
with whom Mrs. Warren had dealt in years gone by. "C'etait une dame
_très_ convenable," said one purveyor, and the others agreed. "Elle
me paya écus sonnants," said another, "et toujours sans
marchander." There was even present a more distinguished
acquaintance of the past: a long-retired Commissaire de Police of
the Quartier in which Mrs. Warren's hotel was situated.

He appeared in the tightly-buttoned frock-coat of civil life, with a
minute disc of some civic decoration in his button hole, and an
incredibly tall chimney-pot hat. He came to render his _respectueux
hommages_ to the maîtresse-femme who had conducted her business
within the four corners of the law, "sans avoir maille à partir avec
la police des moeurs."

Mrs. Warren at least died with the reputation of one who promptly
paid her bills; and the whole _assistance_, as it walked slowly back
to Brussels, recalled many a deed of kindness and jovial charity on
the part of the dead Englishwoman.

        *       *       *       *       *

Vivie, on sizing up her affairs, got Monsieur Walcker, the Baptist
pasteur, to convey a letter to the American Consulate General.
Walcker was used to such missions as these, of which the German
Government was more or less cognizant. The Germans, among their many
contradictory features, had a great respect for religion, a great
tolerance as to its forms. They not only appreciated the difference
between Jews and Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, but between
the Church of England and the various Free Churches of Britain and
America. The many people whom they sentenced to death must all have
their appropriate religious consolation before facing the firing
party. Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists were all provided for;
there was a Church of England chaplain for the avowed Anglicans; but
what was to be done for the Free Churches and Nonconformist sects of
the Anglo-Saxons? They were not represented by any captive pastor;
so in default this much respected Monsieur Walcker, the Belgian
Baptist, was called in to minister to the Nonconformist mind in its
last agony. He therefore held a quasi-official position and was
often entrusted with missions which would have been dealt with
punitorily on the part of any one else. Consequently he was able to
deliver Vivie's communication to the American Consul-General with
some probability of its being sent on. It contained no further
appeal to American intervention than this: that the Consul-General
would try to convey to England the news of her mother's death to
such-and-such solicitors, and to Lewis Maitland Praed A.R.A. in Hans
Place.

She went to the Brussels bank a fortnight after her mother's death
whilst still availing herself of the hospitality of Madame
Trouessart: to withdraw the jewellery and plate which she had
deposited there on her mother's account. But there she found herself
confronted with the red tape of the Latin which is more formidable,
even, than that of the land of Dora at the present day. These
deposited articles were held on the order of Mrs. Warren; they could
not be given up till her will was proved and letters of
administration had been granted. So _that_ small resource in funds
was withheld, at any rate till some time after peace had been
declared. However she had a thousand pounds (in notes) between her
and penury, and the friendship of Minna von Stachelberg. She would
resume her evening lessons in English--Madame Trouessart had found
her several pupils--and she would lodge--as they kindly invited her
to do--with the Baptist pastor and his wife in the Rue Haute. And
she would help Minna at the hospital, and hope to be rewarded with
the opportunity of bringing comfort and consolation to the wounded
British prisoners.

Thus, with no unbearable misery, she passed the year 1916. There
were short commons in the way of food, and the cold was sometimes
cruel. But Madame Walcker was a wonderful cook and could make soup
from a sausage skewer, and heaped _édredons_ on Vivie's bed. Vivie
sighed a little over the Blue Placards which announced endless
German victories by land and sea; and she gasped over the dreadful
Red Placards with their lists of victims sentenced to death by the
military courts. She ground her teeth over the announcement of
Gabrielle Petit's condemnation, and behind the shut door of Minna's
small sitting-room--and she only shut the door not to compromise
Minna--she raved over the judicial murder of this Belgian heroine,
who was shot, as was Edith Cavell, for nothing more than assisting
young Belgians to escape from German-occupied Belgium.

She witnessed the air-raids of the Allies, when only comforting
papers were dropped on Brussels city, but bombs on the German
aerodromes outside; and she also saw the Germans turn their guns
from the aeroplanes--which soared high out of their reach or skimmed
below range--on to thickly-inhabited streets of the poorer quarters,
to teach them to cheer the air-craft of the Allies!

She beheld--or she was told of--many acts of rapine, considered
cruelty and unreasoning ferocity on the part of German officials or
soldiers; yet saw or heard of acts and episodes of unlooked-for
kindness, forbearance and sympathy from the same hated people. Von
Giesselin, after all, was a not uncommon type; and as to Minna von
Stachelberg, she was a saint of the New Religion, the Service of
Man.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE BOMB IN PORTLAND PLACE


Mrs. Rossiter said to herself in 1915 that she had scarcely known a
happy day, or even hour, since the War began. In the first place
Michael had again shown violence of temper with ministers of state
over the release from prison of "that" Miss Warren--"a convict doing
a sentence of hard labour." And then, when he had got her released,
and gone himself with their beautiful new motor--whatever _could_
the chauffeur have thought?--to meet her at the prison gates,
_there_ he was, afterwards, worrying himself over the War: not
content as she was, as most of her friends were, as the newspapers
were, to leave it all to Lord Kitchener and Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward
Grey, and even Mr. Lloyd George--though the latter had made some
rather foolish and exaggerated speeches about Alcohol. Michael, if
he went on like this, would _never_ get his knighthood!

Then when Michael had at last, thanks to General Armstrong, found
his right place and was accomplishing marvels--the papers said--as a
"mender of the maimed"--here was she left alone in Portland Place
with hardly any one to speak to, and all her acquaintances--she now
realized they were scarcely her friends--too much occupied with war
work to spend an afternoon in discussing nothing very important over
a sumptuous tea, still served by a butler and footman.

Presently, too, the butler left to join the Professor in France and
the footman enlisted, and the tea had to be served by a _distraite_
parlour-maid, with her eye on a munitions factory--so that she
might be "in it"--and her heart in the keeping of the footman, who,
since he had gone into khaki, was irresistible.

Mrs. Rossiter of course said, in 1914, that she would take up war
work. She subscribed most handsomely to the Soldiers' and Sailors'
Families' Association, to the Red Cross, to the Prince of Wales's
Fund (one of the unsolved war-time mysteries ... what's become of
it?), to the Cigarette Fund, the 1914 Christmas Plum Pudding Fund,
the Blue Cross, the Purple Cross, the Green Cross funds; to the
outstandingly good work at St. Dunstan's and at Petersham--(I am
glad she gave a Hundred pounds each to _them_); and to the
French, Belgian, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Portuguese and Japanese
Flag Days and to Our Own Day; besides enriching a number of
semi-fraudulent war charities which had alluring titles.

But if, from paying handsomely to all these praise-worthy endeavours
to mitigate the horrors of war, she proceeded to render personal
service, she became the despair of the paid organizers and
business-like workers. She couldn't add and she couldn't subtract or
divide with any certainty of a correct result; she couldn't spell
the more difficult words or remember the right letters to put after
distinguished persons' names when she addressed envelopes in her
large, childish handwriting; she couldn't be trusted to make
enquiries or to detect fraudulent appeals. She lost receipts and
never grasped the importance of vouchers; she forgot to fill up
counterfoils, or if reminded filled them up "from memory" so that
they didn't tally; she signed her name, if there was any choice of
blank spaces, in quite the wrong place.

So, invariably, tactful secretaries or assistant secretaries were
told off to explain to her--ever so nicely--that "she was no
business woman" (this, to the daughter of wholesale manufacturers,
sounded rather flattering), and that though she was invaluable as a
"name," as a patroness, or one of eighteen Vice Presidents, she was
of no use whatever as a worker.

She had no country house to place at the disposal of the Government
as a convalescent home. Michael after a few experiments forbade her
offering any hospitality at No. 1 Park Crescent to invalid officers.
Such as were entrusted to her in the spring of 1915 soon found that
she was--as they phrased it--"a pompous little, middle-class fool,"
wielding no authority. They larked in the laboratory with Red Cross
nurses, broke specimens, and did very unkind and noisy things ...
besides smoking in both the large _and_ the small dining-rooms. So,
after the summer of 1915, she lived very much alone, except that she
had the Adams children from Marylebone to spend the day with her
occasionally.

Poor Mrs. Adams, though a valiant worker, was very downcast and
unhappy. She confided to Mrs. Rossiter that although she dearly
loved her Bert--"and a better husband I defy you to find"--he never
seemed all hers. "Always so wrapped up in that Miss Warren or 'er
cousin the barrister." And no sooner had war broken out than off he
was to France, as a kind of missionary, she believed--the Young
Men's Christian Something or other; "though before the War he didn't
seem particular stuck on religion, and it was all she could do to
get him sometimes to church on a Sunday morning. Oh yes: she got 'er
money all right; and she couldn't say too much of Mr. and Mrs.
Rossiter's kindness. There was Bert, not doin' a stroke of work for
the Professor, and yet his pay going on all the same. Indeed she was
putting money by, because Bert was kep' out there, and all found."

However his two pretty children were some consolation to Mrs.
Rossiter, whom they considered as a very grand lady and one that was
lavishly kind.

Mrs. Rossiter tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her
house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them
such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was
done, especially as she herself loved a long, aimless gossip about
the Royal Family or whether Lord Kitchener had ever _really_ been in
love. Or she tried, since she was a poor worker herself--her only
jersey and muffler were really finished by her maid--reading aloud
to the knitters or stitchers, preferably from the works of Miss
Charlotte Yonge or some similar novelist of a later date. But that
was found to be too disturbing to their sense of the ludicrous. For
she read very stiltedly, with a strange exotic accent for the love
passages or the death scenes. As Lady Victoria Freebooter said, she
would have been _priceless_ at a music-hall matinée which was
raising funds for war charities, if only she could have been induced
to read passages from Miss Yonge in _that_ voice for a quarter of an
hour. Even the Queen would have had to laugh.

But as that could not be brought off, it was decided that working
parties at her house led to too much giddiness from suppressed
giggles or torpor from too much food. So she relapsed once more into
loneliness. Unfortunately air-raids were now becoming events of
occasional fright and anxiety in London, and this deterred Cousin
Sophie from Darlington, Cousin Matty from Leeds, Joseph's wife from
Northallerton or old, married schoolfellows from other northern or
midland towns coming to partake of her fastuous hospitality. Also,
they all seemed to be busy, either over their absent husbands'
business, or their sons', or because they were plunged in war work
themselves. "And really, in these times, I couldn't stand Linda for
more than five minutes," one of them said.

As to the air-raids, she was not greatly alarmed at them. Of course
it was very uncomfortable having London so dark at night, but then
she only went out in the afternoon, and never in the evening. And
the Germans seemed to be content and discriminating enough not to
bomb what she called "the resi_den_tial" parts of London. The
nearest to Portland Place of their attentions was Hampstead or
Bloomsbury. "We are protected, my dear, by the open spaces of
Regent's Park. They wouldn't like to waste their bombs on poor me!"

However her maid didn't altogether like the off chance of the
Germans or our air-craft guns making a mistake and trespassing on
the residential parts of London, so she persuaded her mistress to
spend part of the winter of 1915-16 at Bournemouth. Here she was not
happy and far lonelier even than in London. She did not like to send
all that way for the Adams children, she had a parlour suite all to
herself at the hotel, and was timid about making acquaintances
outside, since everybody now-a-days wanted you to subscribe to
something, and it was so disagreeable having to say "no." She was
not a great walker so she could not enjoy the Talbot woods; the sea
made her feel sad, remembering that Michael was the other side and
the submarines increasingly active: in short, air-raids or no
air-raids, she returned home in March, and her maid, who had been
with her ten years, gave her warning.

But then she had an inspiration! She engaged Mrs. Albert Adams to
take her place, and although the parlour-maid at this took offence
and cut the painter of domestic service, went off to the munitions
till Sergeant Frederick Summers should get leave to come home and

A number of British soldiers gathered round the entrance of the
waiting-room, curious to see the prisoners and hear what they had to
say.

"Ask 'em if they're glad to be out of it."

I put the question and there was a chorus of fervent "Ja's" and "Gott
sei Dank's."

They were all glad to be out of it. No more fighting for them, Gott sei
Dank! War was no good, at least not for the common soldier.

"Ask him what he thinks of Hindenburg."

A cheerful youngster from East Prussia answered: "Der's' nicht besser
als wir--He's no better than we are!"

"Did you ever see him?"

"Yes, he came into the trenches a week ago and gave us cakes and
cigars."

"But that was jolly sporting of him, wasn't it?"

"He can keep his cigars--_he_ doesn't have to lie in shell holes for
days on end."

"War's no good," said a small man with a protruding forehead and keen
eyes and wearing a red-cross on his arm. "Ich danke meinem Gott--I thank
my God that I've never taken up a rifle during the whole war, and I've
been in it since the beginning. No human being has lost his life through
me, thank God."

"Was für'n Zweck hat es--What's the good of shooting each other like
this? The heads ought to come and fight it out amongst themselves."

"It's good for politicians and profiteers--für die ist's gut."

"Ask them what they think of the submarines."

A Lieutenant of the Prussian Guard answered contemptuously that he
didn't think much of them. He didn't believe stories of food-shortage in
England, he didn't believe anything the papers said, they were all full
of lies.

"Ask them if they're satisfied with their treatment."

Yes, they were all satisfied. The Lieutenant pronounced it "blendend"
(dazzling). They had not eaten so much and such good food for months and
months. Oh it was good to be out of the fighting. Yes, their treatment
was perfect--except for the thieving. Why were British soldiers allowed
to steal the buttons, caps, rings, and watches belonging to their
prisoners?

A German private, a tall thin man with bushy eyebrows, who had not
spoken hitherto, said he didn't mind losing a few buttons--but to rob a
man of his marriage ring, that was very mean--eine Gemeinheit--his
marriage ring had been taken from him: he would have lost anything
rather than that, for it always reminded him of home.

The boy from East Prussia said he didn't care what they took from him as
long as they didn't take his life. He was safe now and nothing else
mattered. He spoke with a Polish accent.

I asked him what town he came from.

"Allenstein."

"Did you see anything of the Russians in 1914?"

"Jawohl"--he had seen plenty of Russian troops. They behaved very well.
"Die sind besser als die Deutschen--They're better than the Germans...."

But the theatre orderly interrupted us and asked us to "send two or
three across."

I went to the Prep. to see if there were any new arrivals. It was full
once again and the wounded were streaming into the station.

It was quite dark outside. The duckboards were lit up by rows of
hurricane lamps. The bombardment was still going on.

When I got back to the waiting-room all the prisoners were gone and
English wounded were taking their places. Soon the benches round the
stove were crowded with dark figures whose hands and faces were lit up
by the glow.

A man with haggard features and a bandage round his head began to talk
in a mournful voice:

"Oh, it's 'ard ter lose yer mates. There was three of us--we was always
together--we couldn't bear the idea o' separatin'. One of us copped a
packet [got wounded] about three months ago an' went inter dock
[hospital]--'e wasn't 'alf upset when 'e left us, though 'e was a sure
Blighty--'e was afeard they'd send 'im to another mob when 'e got well
agin. But 'e came back to us arter all--we didn't 'alf 'ave a bust up
that evenin'. The two of us was absolutely canned to the wide [dead
drunk]--'e wasn't though, 'e didn' drink much--'e was better'n what we
was--well-spoken like--didn' go arter no tarts--didn' do no swearin'.
Yer never came acrorst a better mate'n what 'e was! We was goin' over
the top when a shell busted in front of us. It blinded me for a moment
and then when I could see agin--gorblimy--it must 'a' copped 'im in the
stomach an' ripped it open--ugh!--'e was rollin' over wi' all 'is guts
'angin' out--ugh!--yer should 'a' 'eard 'im groan. 'Me own mate,' I says
ter 'im, but 'e didn't rekkernize nothin' and then we 'ad to go on--yer
can't stop when yer goin' over! Soon arter me other mate copped it too.
Somethin' bowled 'im clean over, but 'e gets up again an' shows me 'is
arm. 'There's a bastard,' 'e says, as cool as yer like--'is 'and was
blown clean orf at the wrist! He just turned round an' was walkin' orf
to the dressin' station when a shell busted atween us. It copped me in
the 'ead an' knocked me senseless. Arterwards I 'eard me mate 'ad bin
blowed ter bits. Oh, it's 'ard when yer've bin together all the time an'
shared everythink."

He buried his face in his hands and made no further sound except an
occasional sniff and a hasty drawing in of the breath through trembling
lips.

"It's bloody murder up the line," said a full Corporal. "We were in a
trench four feet deep and up to our waist in water. A Jerry sniper
spotted us and one man got biffed, [killed] and then the next, and then the
next all along the trench. We were packed together like sardines and had
no cover at all for our heads and shoulders. I got the wind up terribly
'cause I knew my turn was coming. He only gave me a Blighty though--I
reckon I'm bloody lucky!"

"We was ready for to go over the top an' waitin' for the whistle to
blow. We didn't 'alf 'ave the wind up. You could 'ear the teeth
chatterin' all along the trench. I was shiverin' all over, I...."

"Next man!" The conversation stopped while the next man went across, but
having once begun to tell their experiences, the men would not stop
altogether, and after a brief silence an elderly little man with a
bandaged foot said:

"What I couldn't get over was insomnia. I could never sleep at the
right time and I was always dead tired on duty. Once I worked
forty-three hours at a stretch and after that I had to do a guard in our
trench. I felt sleepy all of a sudden. I pinched myself and banged the
butt of my rifle on my toes, but everything seemed to swim round me.
Then, I don't know how, I went off to sleep. I was awakened by an
officer who shook me and swore at me. I was a bit dazed at first and
then suddenly it struck me what had happened. I never had the wind up so
much in all my life and I implored him not to report me. I don't
remember what happened next, I was in such a state. But he did report
me. I got a court martial and was sentenced to death for sleeping at my
post. They put me into the guard-room and I expected to be shot the next
day. It was a rotten feeling, I can tell you. I didn't think about
myself so much as about the wife and the little boy. I wouldn't go
through a night like that again for anything. But I went to sleep all
the same. I woke up the next morning when someone came into the
guard-room. I didn't know where I was for a second or two, and then in a
flash I realized I'd got to die. I don't mind admitting that I rested my
face against the wall and blubbered like a kid. Anyone would have done
the same, I don't care what you say. But the man who'd just come in
said:

"'Pull yourself together, old chap--you're all right for to-day,
anyhow.' I sat bolt upright and stared at him.

"'They're not going to shoot me?'

"'Not to-day,' he answered. 'Cheer up, all sorts of things might happen
before to-morrow.'

"The joy I felt was so big that I can't tell you how big it was. But I
soon felt miserable again. I couldn't understand what had happened. I
didn't know whether I was going to die or live. The uncertainty became
so terrible that I wished I'd been shot that morning--all would have
been over then. They brought me a meal, but I couldn't eat. I asked
them what was going to happen, but they didn't know. Another night came,
but I didn't get any sleep at all. I lay tossing about on my bed, now
hoping, now despairing. I thought of home mostly, but once or twice I
thought of the kids in the school where I taught--to die like this after
the send-off they gave me! Still, they wouldn't know, they'd think I was
killed in an accident, and that was some consolation to me. And the next
morning--I can't bear to think of it--nothing happened: that was just
the terrible thing about it--nothing happened. The day passed and then
another day. At times I longed to be taken out and shot, and once or
twice I felt I didn't care about anything. I didn't care whether I died
or not. A week passed and then another week. I don't know how I lived
through it. Then, one day, I was told to pack up and rejoin my unit. I
don't know exactly what I did, but I think I must have gone hysterical.
I remember some N.C.O. saying I ought to stay a bit because I wasn't
well enough to go up the line. He said he'd speak to the officer and get
me a few days' rest. But the thought of staying in that place made me
shiver. I said I was absolutely all right and went back to my unit.

"But I never found out what had happened--you see, I was only a common
soldier, so they didn't trouble to tell me--until I got a letter from
the Captain who was in charge of me when I was on that forty-three hour
job. He said he'd heard I was in for a court martial for sleeping when
on guard, so he wrote to our headquarters to tell them I'd worked
forty-three hours on end and wasn't fit to do a guard after a spell like
that. Then they must have made a lot of inquiries--I expect there's a
whole file of papers about me at headquarters. Anyhow, that's how I got
off--it's more than a month ago now. Well, yesterday morning I was put
on guard again. I tried to get out of it, but the officer said I was
swinging the lead and he wouldn't listen to any excuses. I told him I'd
had insomnia overnight and could hardly keep my eyes open. I said I'd do
anything rather than a guard--a fatigue job or a patrol, no matter how
dangerous, as long as it kept me on the move. The very thought of doing
a guard made me tremble all over. He swore at me and said he'd heard
these tales before and told me to shut up and get on with it. Well, I
had to stand in the trench in front of a steel plate with holes in it
through which I had to peer. It was just about daybreak. There was a
tree growing about fifty yards off. It had been knocked about pretty
badly, but there were plenty of leaves left on it. I stared at it,
trying hard to keep awake. But soon the trunk began to quiver, then it
wobbled with a wavy motion like a snake. Then the leafy part seemed to
shoot out in all directions until there was nothing but a green blur,
and I fell back against the trench wall and my rifle clattered down. I
pulled myself together, absolutely mad with fear, because I kept on
thinking of the last time I went on guard and the court martial and the
death sentence. I ground my teeth and stared at the tree again. But the
trunk began to wobble with snaky undulations and the green blur grew
bigger and bigger in sudden jerks, while I tried frantically and
desperately to keep it small. But it got the better of me and all at
once it obscured everything with a rush and I dropped forward and
knocked my forehead against the steel plate. I pulled myself together
and prayed for a Blighty or something that would get me out of this
misery. I looked at my watch--O God, only five minutes had gone,
one-twelfth of my time! I had a kind of panic then and I dashed my head
wildly against the trench wall and I bit my lips--I almost enjoyed the
pain. I looked through the hole. The tree was steady at first, but it
soon began to wobble again. Then I said to myself: 'I don't care, I'll
risk it, I won't look out, I'll just keep awake. I don't suppose any
Fritzes will come along--I'll just peep through the holes from time to
time so as to make sure.' I stamped on the duckboard and kicked the
sides of the trench and jerked my rifle up and down just to keep myself
awake. It was all right at first and I was beginning to think I would
get over it somehow, but my feet soon felt as heavy as lead and my head
began to swim until I fell forward once again. Jesus Christ--I didn't
know what to do. I thought of looking at my watch, but I hadn't the
courage at first. Besides, I felt the seconds would slip by while I was
hesitating and so I'd gain at least a little time. I counted the
seconds--one, two, three ... four ... five ... six ... my head dropped
forward and I nearly fell over. I looked at my watch--fourteen minutes
had gone, nearly a quarter of an hour! That wasn't so bad. I felt a
little relieved, but drowsiness came on again. I fought against it with
all my strength, but with an agony no words can describe I realized that
it was too strong for me. I pulled myself together with another
despairing effort. I noticed that my clothing felt cold and clammy--I
had been sweating all over...."

The theatre orderly burst into the waiting-room and shouted: "Are you
all deaf? I've been yelling out 'Next man' the last five minutes, but
you won't take no bloody notice. Send us two or three. The Colonel's in
the theatre--he'll kick up a hell of a row if you don't get a move on."

We were scared and sent three men across. When they had gone, we asked
to hear the end of the story.

"Well, I was absolutely desperate. I kept on looking at my watch, but
the minutes crawled along. I believe I must have started crying once,
but I don't know for certain, I was so sleepy that I don't remember half
of what I did and what I dreamt--I know I did dream, it's funny how you
can start dreaming even when you're standing up or moving about. I
couldn't keep my eyes open and I kept on dropping off and pulling myself
together. Suddenly, there was a terrific crash and a shell burst, it
must have been forty or fifty yards off. I thought, bitterly, that
there'd be no Blighty for me--no such luck. Then, high up in the air, I
saw a big shell-fragment sailing along in a wide curve, spinning and
turning. I looked at it--it was coming my way--Jesus Christ, perhaps I'd
have some luck after all--and in any case a few more seconds would have
passed by. It descended like a flash, I started back in spite of myself
and held one hand out in front of my face. I felt a kind of numb pain in
my right foot--nothing very bad. I looked down and, oh joy, I saw a big,
jagged bit of shell imbedded in my foot. I tried to move it, but the
pain was too great. Joy seemed to catch me by the throat, I began to
dance, but such a pang shot through my leg that I had to stop. I dropped
my rifle and hopped towards the dressing-station. I think it was the
happiest moment in my life. I lost the sensation of weariness for the
time being. But my foot began to hurt very badly and I got someone to
help me along. My wound was dressed. I got on to a stretcher and I
didn't know anything more until I was taken out of the motor ambulance
here at the C.C.S. Anyhow, I'm all right now and I'm going to try and
get across to Blighty and swing the lead as long as I can."

There was silence for a while. It had grown dark outside. But the call
from the theatre sounded again. Gradually the waiting-room emptied
itself until at last there were only two men left sitting in front of
the fire. They both seemed depressed and gloomy. Then one of them broke
the silence and said:

"We was goin' over when a 'eavy one burst. I didn't 'alf cop a packet in
me shoulder. It's the third time too, an' I've got the wind up about
goin' up the line agin when I'm out o' dock. The third time's yer last,
yer know. Fritz'll send one over with me number on it, that's a bloody
cert!"

"If yer number's up it's up," said the other, who had a big patch over
his right ear. "If yer've got ter die yer've got ter die, an' it's no
use worryin' about it."

Their turn came before long and I helped each one to get on to a table.
Then I went over to the Prep. to see if any more walking wounded had
arrived, but there were none at all.

I stood out in the open for a few minutes in order to breathe the fresh
air. There was a roar and rumble of distant drum-fire. The trees behind
the C.C.S. stood out blackly against the pallid flashes that lit up the
entire horizon.

The mortuary attendant came walking along the duckboards.

As he passed by me he growled:

"There's a 'ell of a stunt on--there'll be umpteen slabs for the
mortuary."




VI

AIR-RAIDS


It was a warm, sunny afternoon. About a dozen of us were pitching a
marquee in leisurely fashion, when suddenly there was a shout of "Fritz
up!"

We gazed at the sky, and, after searching for a while, saw a tiny white
speck moving slowly across the blue at an immense height. Then, at some
distance from it, a small white puff, like a little ball of cotton-wool,
appeared. A few seconds passed and we heard a faint pop. More puffs
appeared around the moving speck, each one followed by a pop. All at
once, behind us, a bright tongue of flame flashed out above a group of
bushes. There was a sharp report and a whizzing, rustling noise that
died down gradually. Then another puff and another pop. The bright
flames flashed out again in rapid succession. The little speck moved on
and on. Grouped closely round it were compact little balls of
cotton-wool, but trailing behind were thin wisps and semi-transparent
whitish blurs. Above a belt of trees in the distance we observed a
series of rapid flashes followed by an equal number of detonations. The
upper air was filled with a blending of high notes--a whizzing, droning,
and sibilant buzzing, and pipings that died down in faint wails. The
little white speck moved on. It entered a film of straggling cloud, but
soon re-emerged. It grew smaller and smaller. Our eyes lost it for a
moment and found it again. Then they lost it altogether and nothing
remained save the whitish blurs in the blue sky and a hardly audible
booming in the far distance.

"I bet 'e's took some photographs--'e'll be over to-night. I reckon
we're bloody lucky to be at a C.C.S."

"D'yer think 'e wouldn't bomb a C.C.S.?"

"Course 'e wouldn't--'e knows as well as what we do that there's some of
'is own wounded at C.C.S.'s."

"Yer've got some bleed'n' 'opes--do anythink, 'e would. Didn't yer see
it in the papers? 'E bombed a French C.C.S. at Verd'n an' knocked out
umpteen wounded."

"I bet that's all bloody lies--yer can't believe nothin' what's in the
papers."

"Can't yer! If yer don't it's because yer don't want ter. I believe yer
a bleed'n' Fritz yerself, always stickin' up fer the bastard. Everythink
what's in the papers is true--the Government wouldn't allow it if it
wasn't! That's got yer, ain't it?"

"Yer want ter look at it a bit more broad-minded. Course 'e makes
mistakes sometimes like anybody else--'ow do 'e know it's a C.C.S.--'e
can't see no Red Crorss at night?"

"Mistakes be blowed--'e knows what's what, you take my word for it ..."

We gathered idly round the disputants, glad of a distraction that would
help to pass the time. A third person joined in the argument:

"If 'e bombs 'orspitals an' C.C.S.'s it's our own bloody fault. Look at
our C.C.S. 'ere. There's a ordnance park and a R.E. dump up the road.
There's a railway in front an' a sidin' where troops is always
detrainin'. Then there's a gas dump over yonder. An' if we're bloody
fools an' leave the lights on at night, 'ow can 'e tell what's what when
everything's mixed up together? Why the bloody 'ell don't they put
C.C.S.'s away from dumps an' railways? Why don't they stick 'em right in
the fields somewhere? I bet we'll cop it one o' these nights, an' serve
us right too."

German aeroplanes had passed overhead almost every clear windless
night, but the buzz of propellers, that often went on for hours, and the
dull boom of bombs exploding far away had never caused anything more
than slight uneasiness and apprehension.

One night, after we had been at the C.C.S. for about a month, we heard
the uproar of a distant air-raid. Early the next morning a number of
motor-ambulances arrived with their loads of wounded men. A camp, a mile
or two from the station, had been bombed and fifty men had been killed
and many more wounded. One of the "cases" brought into the theatre had
been hit on the forehead. The bomb-fragment had not penetrated the
skull, but had passed along its surface. The scalp hung over the
forehead loosely like an enormous flap, the red, jagged edge nearly
touching the eyebrows. Since then I thought of this man every time there
was an air-raid.

The event increased our uneasiness. After each "bombing-stunt" we
thought: "We were lucky this time--it will be our turn next though."
Moreover, we began to realize our helplessness. We were compelled to
remain in our tents during a raid and there was no possibility of taking
shelter. We could have put on our steel helmets--they would at least
have afforded some head protection, but hardly any of us had the courage
to do anything that might be regarded by the others as a sign of fear.

The discussion about the bombing of hospitals had made us all think of
air-raids. We had nearly finished our day's work when we noticed a few
clouds on the horizon. We felt relieved. Perhaps the sky would be
overcast and we would have an undisturbed night.

"I can't stick night raids," said one of our number. "They don't put my
wind up a bit, but they interfere with my sleep and make me feel tired
in the mornings."

A man who had been in the war from the beginning answered:

"I can see you haven't been out here long, and have never been in a
proper raid. I'll never forget the last time we were bombed. We were out
on rest about fifteen miles behind the line. Fritz came over and I had
the wind up so badly that I left the tent to go into the open fields.
(I'd had a taste of it before, you know, and that makes all the
difference.) Then he bombed us before I knew where I was. I ran for my
life. There was a hell of a crash behind me and a bit caught me in the
shoulder and knocked me down. When it was all over I got up and went
back, although my shoulder hurt like anything. A lot of our fellows were
running about and shouting. Where my tent used to be, there was a big
bomb-hole and my mates were lying dead all round--fourteen of them. I
didn't recognize most of them, they were so smashed up. Fritz had
dropped one right on the tent. I reckon I was lucky to get off with a
Blighty! I was in hospital six weeks and then I got ten days' sick leave
in London. Fritz came over one night--Christ, I didn't half have the
wind up! We were sitting in the kitchen, mother and father didn't seem
to mind much--they didn't know what it meant. Fritz had never dropped
any our way before. I never heard such a barrage, at least not for
aeroplanes. It wasn't so bad as out here all the same--you could take
shelter, anyhow. Air-raids are bloody awful things, they put my wind up
much more than shell-fire."

We finished our work as the sun was setting. The clouds on the horizon
had vanished. One by one the stars came out. It was "an ideal night for
a raid."

Soon after dark a man was brought into the station with a crushed knee.
Immediate operation was necessary. He was carried into the theatre and
laid on to one of the tables. He received an anæsthetic and became
unconscious. With his scalpel the surgeon made a deep cut in the
knee-joint and searched the cavity with his finger. There was a Sister
standing by. Also an orderly who had won the Military Medal for bravery
in an air-raid some months before. Suddenly there was an outburst of
anti-aircraft firing and a tumultuous whistling of shells overhead. It
lasted for several seconds and then with a deafening, reverberating
thunder-clap that shook the entire theatre, the first bomb fell. Before
our ears had ceased drumming another bomb exploded and then another. The
orderly, who had held his hands in front of his face, now gave way to
fear. He darted madly to and fro and then scuttled beneath a table. The
Sister, who had remained quite calm, said in an amused voice: "Pull
yourself together, it's all over now." The orderly got up trembling, his
face very white. The surgeon had not moved away. He had just grasped the
edge of the table tightly and had bent his head forward, while his
muscles seemed stiff with a violent but successful effort at
self-control. The anæsthetist, too, had remained on his stool, but was
leaning right over his patient. I had been conscious of a powerful
impulse to duck down, but I grasped the table and gave way to the
impulse so far as to lean slightly forward. This compromise saved me
from any violent expression of fear. The Sister was the only one of us
who showed no sign of fear at all.

The surgeon went on with his work and extracted several fragments of
bone from the injured limb. A few seconds passed and suddenly the
electric light went out in accordance with the orders that decreed that
all lights should be extinguished on the approach of hostile aeroplanes.
The surgeon cursed loudly and the Sister fetched an electric torch which
she held over the knee. The operation continued, but it was not long
before anti-aircraft fire broke out once more. Then there was a weird
bustling, rushing sound, followed by a roar that again shook the theatre
and rattled the windows. Six explosions followed in rapid succession.
This time the orderly controlled himself, for he knew the Sister was
watching. Nevertheless, his knees trembled violently. The Sister held
the torch steadily and the surgeon paused for a moment and went on with
the operation as soon as all was quiet.

In a few minutes it was finished. The wound was dressed and bandaged and
the patient carried away.

I stepped out into the clear night. The sky was thronged with glittering
stars. Everything seemed strangely peaceful. I walked round the station,
trying to find out where the bombs had fallen, but nobody knew. I went
to the marquee and found Private Trotter sitting there, breathless and
white. The neighbouring C.C.S. a few hundred yards away had been hit. A
Sister and an orderly had been killed and several patients wounded.

"It didn't 'alf put me wind up," said Trotter, excitedly. "When the
first'n drops I lays down flat on the duckboards and one bursts just
aside o' me an' smothers me with earth. Then another'n bursts an' I
'ears a man 'oller out--krikey, 'e didn't 'alf scream. I gets up and
another'n bursts, so I flops down agin, but it didn't come so near that
time. I waits a bit an' then I gets up an' goes to see what they done. I
couldn't see nothin' at first, but I sees some fellers runnin' about wi'
lights. There was a noise in one o' the wards, so I goes in. A bomb must
'a' burst on the roof--there was a big 'ole in the canvas. The bed
underneath was all twisted an' torn, but there wasn't nobody in it.
There was some wounded lyin' in beds at the fur end of the ward, an' one
of 'em was cryin' somethin' chronic. Then someone brings a light an' I
sees an orderly lyin' by the side o' the bed with a big 'ole in 'is face
an' the blood pourin' out. I goes roun' to the other side--gorblimy--an'
there I sees the Sister lyin' on the floor with 'er 'ead blown clean
off--I dunno where it was blown to, I couldn't see it nowhere. Krikey,
it wasn't 'alf a sight to see 'er body without a 'ead lyin' in a pool o'
blood. It made me feel sick, so I ran orf an' came 'ere."

Private Trotter was trembling in every limb. He was the pluckiest man I
ever knew and capable of any piece of foolhardy daring. But this time he
was near a nervous breakdown.

We went to bed full of anxiety. For a long while we lay awake, straining
our ears to catch the sound of firing or the drone of German propellers.
But no sound broke the stillness of the night, and one by one we dropped
off to sleep.

The next morning was clear and sunny. The sky remained blue all day. Not
a cloud could be seen. "Our turn next"--that was the thought in
everybody's mind.

The evening was starlit once again. As we lay on the floor of the
marquee, wrapped up in our blankets, we heard the sound of bombing and
firing in the distance.

Clear days and clear nights followed each other. Sometimes a train would
stop in front of the C.C.S., hissing and puffing, and throwing up a
great shaft of light. We would curse it, fearing that it would attract
German raiders.

If only the fine weather would come to an end! Give us wind and rain so
that we could lie in bed without being oppressed by anxiety! But the sun
continued to shine and the stars to glitter.

The disaster that had befallen the adjoining C.C.S., which had been
brilliantly lit up during the raid, had acted as a warning example to
us. At nightfall the windows of the theatre were screened with blankets
and no lights were allowed to show in the wards or on the duckboards.

If only the trains would halt somewhere else at night-time!

One day a number of Flemish peasants began to collect hop-refuse in the
surrounding fields. They made three great heaps of it and set fire to
them. In the evening the heaps were burning brightly, but no one took
any notice.

The canteen was crowded. All the benches were occupied and men who were
unable to find seats stood around in groups. There was noisy
conversation and singing and shouting. Nearly everyone was drinking
beer. Those who sat at the tables were playing cards. The air was thick
with tobacco-smoke. Two or three candles were burning on every table.
And all at once, without any warning, the thunder was loosened upon us.
There was an ear-splitting roar and in a moment candles were swept away,
benches and tables overturned, and the whole crowd of men was down on
the floor, trembling and panic-stricken. Another detonation, and then
another, shaking the ground and reverberating, and sending up showers of
stones and loose earth that came rattling down on to the canteen-roof,
while the huddled, sprawling mass of human bodies shook and squirmed
with terror. The droning of propellers could be plainly heard, then it
grew weaker and weaker, until it passed away. One by one the men got up.
Someone lit a candle. Tables, benches, and prostrate bodies had been
thrown into confusion. Cards and coins and overturned beer-mugs littered
the floor. The smell of spilt beer mingled with the smell of stale
tobacco. A few of us stepped out into the open air. We inhaled a
pungent, sulphurous stench. We were sure our camp had been bombed this
time and were fearful lest any of our friends had been hit. We walked
past the Church tent--it was full of rents and holes. And just beyond it
was a huge pit with fresh soil heaped up in a ring around it. Loose
earth and stones and sods were scattered everywhere. Then we saw
something move in the darkness--it was a man on all fours, dragging
himself painfully along and uttering a groan with every breath. Two
bearers arrived with a stretcher. They put it down by his side and
helped him on to it. Then they picked it up and disappeared in the
gloom. We had hardly walked a few yards further when we saw a light
approaching us. We went towards it. A man was staggering slowly along
and leaning on the shoulder of a comrade who was carrying a lantern. He
supported his right elbow with his left hand, down the back of which
two thin streams of blood were winding. His left sleeve was darkly
stained and the blood was dripping from it. His face was very pale and
the corners of his mouth were slightly turned down.

Suddenly the broad white beam of a searchlight swung across the
darkness. For a time it seemed to paw the sky in a hesitating fashion
and then it remained fixed on one spot.

"There 'e is! There 'e is!" someone shouted in an excited voice.

In the white track was a brilliant silver object travelling along at a
great speed. A number of anti-aircraft guns opened fire simultaneously,
and all around the shining fugitive innumerable stars of pale, liquid
gold flashed out and melted away again.

"I bet they're puttin' 'is bloody wind up! Rotten bastard, bombin' a lot
o' wounded! If I get 'old of a Fritz up the line, I'll murder 'im. Yer
won't catch me takin' no more pris'ners, I tell yer."

A flashing star suddenly seemed to envelop the aeroplane.

"Got 'im that time--bloody good shot--'e's comin' down, look, look, 'e's
comin' down! Look, 'e's all in flames!"

But the aeroplane sped on, growing smaller and smaller. Then the white
beam swung back and was extinguished, while the guns ceased firing.

"Fine lot o' gunners we got--couldn't 'it a Zep 'alf a yard orf! They
ain't worth the grub they get!"

We returned to our marquee and sat down on our kits. My friend Private
Black came in after us, smiling ruefully. I asked him what was the
matter.

"I was playing the piano in the Sergeants' Mess when the first one
dropped. We all jumped up together and rushed out. Then the second one
burst and I lost my head and didn't know where I was going. I darted to
and fro, tripping over tent-ropes and dashing up against revetments. I
never had the wind up so much in all my life. I couldn't get my breath,
there was a kind of weight on my stomach and a tightness round my chest
and throat, and my knees kept on giving way all the time. The third one
burst and I fell down and crawled under some ropes and lay flat against
some sand-bags, trembling all over and feeling as though I was going to
choke. I waited for a long time, but nothing happened, so I got up and
looked round. Lucky escape for us! There's a terrific hole by the Red
Cross and another one behind the bath-house. The third's in the next
field. Only two men hit. O'Neil's got it in the elbow--he's all right
for Blighty. Poor old Hartog's badly hurt--a frightful gash in the thigh
with the piece still in it. I hope he won't have to lose his leg.
Christ, I'm glad it's all over--I wouldn't like to go through that
again."

There was silence for a while, but soon the silence was broken by the
distant muttering of anti-aircraft fire.

"Jesus Christ Almighty--'e's comin' again--O God, why can't 'e leave us
alone."

We stood outside the marquee and anxiously watched the horizon. We heard
a faint humming noise. It grew louder and louder until it became a deep,
droning buzz that rose and fell in regular pulsation. Then
boom--boom--boom--three times the sullen roar of distant explosions
sounded. Then there came the familiar rushing, whistling noise of a
descending bomb. We flung ourselves down in the wet grass. I felt every
muscle in my body contract as though I were trying to make myself as
small as a pin point in expectation of the terrible moment. There was a
dull thud close by and I felt the earth vibrate. The bomb had fallen a
few yards away, but had merely buried itself in the earth without
exploding.

There was no anti-aircraft fire, but the droning noise continued loudly,
rising and falling. Private Trotter, who was lying beside me, was
drawing his breath in sharply between his lips. Our fear of impending
disaster was prolonged intolerably. The droning propeller seemed to be
directly above us. I tried to analyse my feelings. If one finger is held
close to the middle of the forehead a curious sensation of strain seems
to gather in that spot. That was precisely the sensation I had at the
back of my head and neck, only with far greater intensity. It was the
concentrated, agonizing consciousness of the swift descent of a huge
iron mass that will strike the base of the head and blow the whole body
to pieces. In the region of the solar-plexus I had a feeling of
oppression such as one often has before an examination, before jumping
into an icy river, before opening a letter that may contain bad news. I
also breathed more heavily than usual. I made no attempt to master these
sensations. It occurred to me that fear is merely a physical reaction
that cannot be avoided. If a man reacts so violently that he is overcome
and rushes about as though he were demented, it is no more his fault
than if he shivers with cold. A man can stop shivering by an effort of
the will, but only to a certain extent. And no effort of the will can
prevent him from feeling cold. In the same way, no effort of the will
can prevent him from feeling fear, and only to a limited extent can the
will control the outward manifestations of fear. Nevertheless, some
distraction may enable a man to forget his fear for a while, just as it
may enable him to forget the cold. I was so intent upon self-analysis
that I lost consciousness of everything except my mental concentration,
even of those sensations I was trying to analyse, for the very act of
analysis was destroying them. As they grew weaker, the effort of my will
increased. It became so great that I grew conscious of great mental
tension and at the same time I realized that my fear had vanished
altogether. For a brief space I had a sensation of vacuity as though I
could neither think nor feel. Then my mental effort suddenly collapsed,
I once more became aware of the droning overhead, and with a rush my
former fears were upon me again. I pressed myself flat to earth. I heard
the descent of a bomb. I trembled and tried to shrink to nothing. There
was a deafening thunder-clap and the ground shook. A quantity of loose
earth came down upon us. Another bomb descended--every muscle in my body
tightened and I stopped breathing altogether. But the explosion that
followed was fainter than the last. Then there was another, still
further off. All my muscles gradually relaxed and a delicious feeling of
relief pervaded my whole being. The buzzing noise became more and more
feeble. I got up and walked back to the marquee, trembling and weak at
the knees. The others followed.

Most of us went to bed, but a few continued to pace up and down in great
agitation. One man picked up his blankets in a bundle and went off in
order to sleep in the open fields, far away from the camp.

An hour had hardly passed before distant anti-aircraft fire broke out
again. Anxiety began to renew its tortures. We heard the dull, sullen
roar of bombs exploding at intervals. Then fourteen burst in rapid
succession as though a gigantic ball of solid iron had bounced fourteen
times with thundering reverberations on a resonant surface. But the
sound of firing died down and soon all was quiet. And then sleep came
upon us and our troubles were over for a time.

The next morning was windless and clear. All day we kept looking at the
sky, but not a cloud was to be seen.

The evening approached, darkness fell, and the stars shone. "Lights Out"
was sounded and we extinguished our candles. None of us said a word, but
everybody knew what everybody else was thinking of. And soon we heard
the familiar buzz. At first it only came from one propeller, but others
arrived and the sound multiplied and increased in volume, and at the
same time it rose and fell in irregular gusts and regular pulsations.
Anti-aircraft firing burst out suddenly and for a few minutes there was
a blending of whining, whistling, rushing sounds overhead punctuated by
faint reports. The firing ceased, but the droning noises continued
louder than ever. The German aeroplanes seemed to be above us like a
swarm of angry wasps, and above us they seemed to remain, hovering and
circling. We awaited the downward rush and the deafening thunder-clap
that would destroy us all. One man was groaning loudly. Another
shivered. I could hear the chattering of many teeth. My neighbour
trembled violently and cowered beneath his blankets. But his fear grew
so strong that he could not bear it any longer. He got up and said in a
strained voice, trying to appear calm, "I'm goin' to 'ave a look at
'em." He ran out of the marquee and disappeared. I found my powers of
resistance ebbing. I was unable to control my imagination. I saw my
comrades and myself blown to pieces. I saw the clerk in the office of
the C.C.S. write out the death-intimations on a buff slip and filling in
a form. I saw a telegraph boy taking the telegram to my home. He stopped
on the way in order to talk to a friend. Then he whistled and threw a
stone at a dog. He sauntered through the garden gate and knocked at the
front door. The door opened ... but I could not face the rest, and with
a tremendous mental impulse I turned my mind away to other things. But
my terrible thoughts lay in wait for me like tigers ready to rush upon
me as soon as my will relaxed its efforts. I tried to compromise, and I
imagined myself killed and invented all the details of a post-mortem
examination and burial. I found some relief in these imaginings, but
soon that implacable telegram claimed my attention once more and drew me
on to what I dared not face. I sought distraction by muttering some
verses of poetry to myself. They had no meaning to me, they were just
empty sound and their rhythm had a hideous pulsation like that other
pulsation overhead:

    "He above the rest
    In shape and gesture proudly eminent
    Stood like a tower...."

and so on, line after line. The dreariness of the verses grew so intense
as to be almost intolerable. At the same time I was dimly conscious of
the fact that at one time I thought this passage beautiful. But the beat
of the blank verse carried me on. Sometimes it seemed to blend with the
buzzing of those angry wasps above and sometimes the two rhythms would
vie with each other for speed, so that they hurried along each
alternately ahead of the other. I came to a line where my memory failed
me. I faltered for a moment, but the droning sound seemed to grow into
an enormous roar, and I leapt back to the beginning:

    "He above the rest...."

and then on and on a second time until my head throbbed with the double
pulsation.

Suddenly a man who had been lying on the far side of the marquee got up
and said:

"I've had enough of this, I'm going to sleep in a ditch."

He went off. The wasps were still buzzing, but the interruption had
broken the spell. I felt a sense of relief. I became conscious of
intense weariness and felt ashamed of my fears. I cursed the German
aeroplanes and thought, "Let them do their worst, I don't care." I made
up my mind to go to sleep and resolutely buried my face in my pillow.
Then it occurred to me that I would never be able to enjoy _Paradise
Lost_ again, and I was half-amused and agreeably distracted by the
trivial thought.

But the wasps were still buzzing. Another man began to groan loudly:

"Gawd--this is bloody awful--why the bloody 'ell can't they leave us
alone!"

Thereupon his neighbour tried to create an impression by appearing calm
and philosophical. He said in a strained, breaking voice:

"Think of all the waste in life and treasure this frightful war
involves. Think of the moral degradation. Think of the widows and
orphans. Think of the...." He was unequal to the effort and his voice
trailed away and then seemed to catch in his throat. But he recovered
and with a kind of gasp he squeezed out a few more words: "Bill, forgive
me for insulting you to-day--I didn't mean it, Bill. Forget it, Bill,
forget it! If you get killed without forgiving me, my conscience will
always torture...."

"For Christ's sake shut up, yer bleed'n' 'ypocrite," interrupted the
gruff voice of "Bill" somewhere out of the darkness. "Yer always
bleed'n' well preachin'--it's bad enough 'avin' Fritz over us without
you bloody well rubbin' it in. If yer don't shut yer mouth, I'll come
over an' shut it for yer, 'struth I will."

The philosopher said no more, but another voice made itself heard, that
of a good-natured, elderly bachelor, who said with melancholy
resignation:

"It's jolly hard, all the same, to be knocked out like this. You're so
helpless--no dug-outs, no shelters anywhere...."

"It's doubly hard when you're married," said another. "I haven't got the
wind up about myself at all, but I can't help thinking about my wife....
They're going away now, thank the Lord. You never know when they won't
be coming back though--that's just the worst of it."

The noise of the propellers was indeed dying away.

Several voices muttered "Thank God," but one man's teeth were still
chattering as though he was so absorbed by his own fear that he had not
noticed the disappearance of its cause. Soon there was complete silence
and one by one we fell asleep.

Another clear day and another clear night. We lay awake listening
anxiously to the bursting of bombs and the muttering of anti-aircraft
fire. But we went to sleep in the end and felt drowsy all the following
day--a clear day. Casualties came in from a camp that had been bombed
overnight, and we saw shattered limbs, smashed heads, and lacerated
flesh. Several of our men were looking pale through lack of sleep and
had dark rings round their eyes.

Another clear night. The agonizing vigil began again, but I was so weary
that I went to sleep a few minutes after lights out. Sullen thunders
mingled with my dreams and did not wake me up.

Another clear day. Would the fine weather never end? Late in the
afternoon, however, a few clouds collected on the horizon. In the
evening the entire sky was overcast and not a star was to be seen. And
as we went to bed we heard the rain swishing down upon the canvas roof.
The unspeakable joy we all felt at the prospect of an untroubled night!

"Bloody fine, this rain: we'll get some proper sleep now, thank God. I
never had the wind up so much in all my life, and I've been out here
since '15 and in some pretty hot places too."

"I reckon the longer yer out 'ere the windier yer get. I joined up in
'14 like a bloody fool. At first I didn't care a damn for anything. Then
I was wounded on the Somme an' sent across to Blighty. I dreaded comin'
back agin. I only 'ad a little wound in me 'and, an' I used ter plug it
wi' dubbin' an' boot-polish ter keep it raw. It didn't 'alf 'urt, but it
gave me a extra week or two in 'orspittle. I 'ad to go in the end
though--the M.O. didn't 'alf give me a tellin' orf. Jesus Christ, didn't
I 'ave the wind up when we went up the line! An' now I'm scared at the
slightest sound, an' I sometimes wake up out o' me sleep shiverin' all
over. When I was on leave a motor-car backfired in the street--it didn't
'alf make me jump; me mate 'oo was with me said I looked as white as a
sheet. The longer yer out 'ere the worse yer get--it's yer nerves, yer
know, they can't stand it. In the line it's always the new men what's
the most reliable...."

"That's a bloody fact. When we first come out, I thought all the Belgian
civvies a lot o' bloody cowards takin' cover whenever Fritz came over.
_We_ used to stand an' look at 'im. They wasn't cowards, it was us who
was bloody fools. They knew summat about it, we didn't. All the same, I
know one or two old reg'lars 'oo was in it from the first an' never 'ad
the wind up any time--there's not many like that though, generally it's
the old soldiers what's the worst o' the lot for wanglin' out o' risky
jobs."

"Napoleon was right," observed a small, red-haired lance-corporal, whose
remarks generally had a sardonic touch, "when he said the worse the man
the better the soldier. It's only people who have no imagination and no
intelligence who are courageous in modern war. Nobody with any sense
would expose himself unnecessarily and rush a machine-gun position or do
the sort of thing they give you a V.C. for. Of course, there are a few
cases where it's deserved, and it isn't always the one who deserves it
that gets it. I'm quite certain the refined, sensitive, imaginative kind
of man is no good as a soldier. He may be able to control himself better
than the others at first--educated people are used to self-control--but
in the long run his nerves will give way sooner. Moral courage is a
thing I admire more than anything, but there's no use for it in the
army, in fact it's worse than useless in the army. The man who's too
servile to be capable of feeling humiliation and too stupid to
understand what danger is--that's the man who makes a good, steady
soldier. We've seen men so horribly smashed up by bombs that it makes
you sick to look at them, and then people expect us not to be afraid of
air-raids. The civvies haven't seen that sort of thing, so they may well
show plenty of pluck, although I believe there are a good many with
enough imagination to have the wind up when there's an air-raid on."

"Bloody true. You know, if there was a lot o' civvies an' a lot of
Tommies in a Blighty air-raid, I reckon the civvies'd show more pluck
than the Tommies. My mate who's workin' on munitions told me 'e saw
'underds o' soldiers rushin' to take shelter in the last raid on London.
O' course there was crowds o' civvies doin' the same, but 'e says there
was a lot what didn't seem to care a damn. The other day we 'ad a bloody
parson spoutin' to us--'e said war brings out a man's pluck an' makes an
'ero of 'im. I reckon that's all bloody tosh! War makes cowards of yer,
that's the 'ole truth o' the matter, I don't care what yer say. I didn't
know what fear was afore I joined the army. I know now, you bet! I'm a
bloody coward now--I don't mind admittin' it. There's things I used ter
do what I wouldn't dare do now. When we go up the line I'm in a blue
funk from the time I 'ears the first shell burst to the time we goes
over the top. An' when we goes over I forgets everythink an' don't know
what I'm doin'. P'raps I'll get a V.C. some day wi'out knowin' what I
done ter get it. And I'm not the only one like that. Anyone 'oo's bin
out 'ere a few months an' says 'e ain't windy up the line's a bloody
liar, there now...."

"By the way," I interrupted, "how did that orderly who works in the
theatre get his Military Medal--he had the wind up more than any of us
the other night?"

"I know whom you mean," answered a private of the R.A.M.C. "He got it
that bombing-stunt a few months ago. It was bloody awful too--the worst
thing I've ever been in. I was standing next to him when the first one
exploded. He flopped down and lay flat on the ground, but I rushed away
into the fields with a lot of others. When it was all over we went back
and heard the wounded crying out in a way that was dreadful to hear.
This fellow was still lying on the ground by the duckboards, trembling
all over and paralysed with fear. We went to help the wounded, but he
was in such a state that he could not come with us, so we left him
behind. There was an inquiry afterwards and _we_ got into a frightful
row for running away. He got the M.M. for sticking to his post!"




VII

THE GERMAN PUSH


     "What madness there is in this arithmetic that counts men by the
     millions like grains of corn in a bushel.... A newspaper has just
     written about an encounter with the enemy: 'Our losses were
     insignificant, one dead and five wounded.' It would be interesting
     to know for whom these losses are insignificant? For the one who
     was killed?... If he were to rise from his grave, would he think
     the loss 'insignificant'? If only he could think of everything from
     the very beginning, of his childhood, his family, his beloved wife,
     and how he went to the war and how, seized by the most conflicting
     thoughts and emotions, he felt afraid, and how it all ended in
     death and horror.... But they try to convince us that 'our losses
     are insignificant.' Think of it, godless writer! Go to your master
     the Devil with your clever arithmetic.... How this man revolts
     me--may the Devil take him!"

     (ANDREYEFF.)


Throughout the winter one question above all others was discussed by the
few who took an interest in the war: "What were the Germans going to
do?" It was clear that they had been able to withdraw many divisions
from their Eastern Front. Would they be numerically equal or superior to
the Allies on the Western Front?

On the whole we were of opinion that, whatever happened, our positions
would prove impregnable, although we observed with some astonishment
that there were no extensive trench systems or fortified places behind
our lines. I doubted whether the Germans would even attempt to break
through--I thought they would merely hold the Western Front and throw
the Allies out of Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.

The winter was over and the fine weather had set in. For several months
we had been working in a wood-yard and saw-mills. Our lives had become
unspeakably monotonous, but the coming of warm days banished much of our
dreariness. The hazy blue sky was an object of real delight. I often
contrived to slip away from my work and lean idly against a wall in the
mild sunshine. At times I was so filled with the sense of physical
well-being, and so penetrated by the sensuous enjoyment of warmth and
colour, that I even forgot the war.

At the bottom of the wood-yard was a little stream, and on the far bank
clusters of oxlips were in bloom. Here we would lie down during the
midday interval and surrender to the charm of the spring weather. It
seemed unnatural and almost uncanny that we should be happy, but there
were moments when we felt something very much like happiness. Moreover,
it was rumoured that leave was going to start. How glorious it would be
to spend a sunny May or June in England!

Once a fortnight we paraded for our pay outside one of the bigger sheds
of the yard. As a rule, I was filled with impatience and irritation at
having to wait in a long queue and move forward step by step, but now it
had become pleasant to tarry in the sunshine. One day, when we were
lined up between two large huts, a deep Yellow Brimstone butterfly came
floating idly past. It gave me inexpressible delight, a delight tempered
by sadness and a longing for better times. I drew my pay and saluted
perfunctorily, being unable and unwilling to think of anything but the
beauty of the sky, the sun, and the wonderful insect.

I held my three ten-franc notes in my hand and thought: "I _will_ enjoy
this lovely day to the full. When we get back to camp I will do without
the repulsive army fare, I will dine at the St. Martin and buy a bottle
of the best French wine, even if it costs me twenty francs. And then
I'll walk to the little wood on the hill-slope and there I'll lie all
the evening and dream or read a book."

The whistle sounded. It was time to go back to work. But I cursed the
work and decided to take the small risk and remain idle for an hour or
two. I went to an outlying part of the yard and sat down on a patch of
long grass and leant back against a shed. The air was hot and several
bees flew by. Their buzzing reminded me of summer holidays spent in
southern France before the war. I thought of vineyards and orchards, of
skies intensely blue, of scorching sunshine, of the tumultuous chirping
of cicadas and grasshoppers, and then of the tepid nights crowded with
glittering stars and hushed except for the piping of tree-frogs.

Before the war--before the war--I repeated the words to myself. They
conveyed a sense of immeasurable remoteness, of something gone and lost
for ever. But I _wouldn't_ think about it. I _would_ enjoy the present.
But the calm waters of happiness had been ruffled and it was beyond my
power to restore their tranquillity. I began to think of many things, of
the war itself, of the possible offensive, and soon the fretful
rebellious discontent, that obsessed all those of us who had not lost
their souls, began to reassert itself.

But why not desert? Why not escape to the south of France? Why not enjoy
a week, a fortnight, a month of freedom? I would be caught in the end--I
would be punished. I would receive Number 1 Field Punishment, and I
would be tied to a wheel or post, but nevertheless it would be worth
it! I imagined myself slipping out of camp at night and walking until
dawn. Then I would sleep in some wood or copse and then walk on again,
calling at remote farms to buy bread and eggs and milk. I would reach
the little village, the main street winding between white houses and
flooded with brilliant moonlight. I would climb the wall and drop into
the familiar garden and await the morning. Then I would knock at the
door and I would be welcomed by an old peasant woman, and she would ask:
"Tu viens en perme?" How could I answer that question? It worried me, I
felt it was spoiling my dream. But I dreamt on and at the same time
battled against increasing depression. Even a few days of freedom would
be a break, a change from routine. And would the little village be the
same as when I saw it last? No, it would be different, it would be at
war. I might escape from the army, but I could never escape from the
war. My dream had vanished.

But I _would_ make the best of things. I _would_ enjoy the immediate
present--was I not losing hours of sheer pleasure by harbouring these
thoughts and ignoring the beauty of the day?

Some distance ahead was a farm of the usual Flemish type--a thatched
roof, whitewashed walls, and green shutters. Near by was a little pond
with willows growing round it. In the field beyond, a cow was grazing
peacefully. The sky seemed a deeper blue through the willow-branches.
The tender green of the grass was wonderfully refreshing to the eyes.
The cow had a beautiful coat of glossy brown that shone in the sunlight.
I abandoned myself to the charm of the little idyll that was spread out
before me and forgot the war once again.

And then all at once a gigantic, plume-shaped, sepia coloured mass rose
towering out of the ground. There was a rending, deafening, double
thunder-clap that seemed to split my head. For a moment I was dazed and
my ears sang. Then I looked up--the black mass was thinning and
collapsing. The cow had disappeared.

I walked into the yard full of rage and bitterness. All the men had left
the sheds and were flocking into the road. Some were strolling along in
leisurely fashion, some were walking with hurried steps, some were
running, some were laughing and talking, some looked startled, some
looked anxious, and some were very pale.

We crossed the road and the railway. Then, traversing several fields, we
came to a halt and waited. We waited for nearly an hour, but nothing
happened and we gradually straggled back to the yard.

Some of us walked to the spot where the shell had burst. There was a
huge hole, edged by a ring of heaped-up earth, and loose mould and
grassy sods lay scattered all round. Here and there lay big lumps of
bleeding flesh. The cow had been blown to bits. The larger pieces had
already been collected by the farmer, who had covered them with a
tarpaulin sheet from which a hoof protruded.

The next day, at about the same hour, the dark cloud again rose from the
ground and the double explosion followed. We again abandoned the yard
and waited in the field. But this time there were several further
shell-bursts. No dull boom in the distance followed by a long-drawn
whine, but only the earth and smoke thrown darkly up and then the
deafening double detonation.

The next day more shells came over, and the next day also.

The big holes with their earthen rims began to dot the fields in many
places. No damage of "military importance" had been done. Not even a
soldier had been killed, but only an inoffensive cow.

At night the sky was alive with the whirr of propellers, and shells
whistled overhead and burst a long way off.

One Sunday, toward the end of March, when we had a half-holiday, I
walked up the hill that was crowned by a large monastery and sat down
on the slope by a group of sallows. They were in full bloom. A swarm of
bees and flies were buzzing round. Peacock and Tortoiseshell butterflies
were flitting to and fro. The sunlight filtered down through the bluish
haze. I rested and let an hour or two slip by. Then I got up and crossed
a little brook and strolled along a narrow path that wound its way
through a copse. The ground was starred with wood-anemones, oxlips,
violets, cuckoo-flowers, and in damp places with green-golden saxifrage.
I came to a small cottage that had pots of flowers in every window. I
sat down while a hospitable old woman made coffee and chattered volubly
in Flemish. Another soldier arrived soon after. Had I heard the news?
The Germans had broken through on the Somme and had captured Bapaume. I
asked him if he had seen it in print. No, he had heard it from an A.S.C.
driver. He hoped it wasn't true, but he feared it was.

I returned to camp full of suppressed excitement.

Something was wrong. The shelling of the back-areas continued; air-raids
became more and more frequent. These were ominous signs.

Then the newspapers arrived. The Somme front had collapsed. The Fifth
Army was in full retreat. The Germans had taken Bapaume and Peronne and
were threatening Amiens.

       *       *       *       *       *

Had I been living in Germany during the war I would have felt a powerful
tendency to defend the cause of the Allies, to excuse their misdeeds, to
overrate their ability, while being highly critical and censorious of
every German shortcoming.

A nation at war is a mob whose very blatancy, injustice and cruelty
drive one to hatred and opposition. The enemy mob seems less detestable
because it is out of sight and one thinks almost involuntarily: "It
cannot be as bad as our own."

I could not bear to hear a victory joyfully announced. The jubilation
and the self-glorification of the crowd filled me with loathing, and I
could only think of the intensified slaughter and misery that are the
price of every victory. They who pay the price, they alone have the
right to rejoice, but they do not rejoice. The German mob revealed its
depravity when it hung out flags in the streets to celebrate the first
German victories. And, when the first battle of Cambrai was won, London
jeered at the bereaved and mocked the dead by ringing the joy-bells.

Every genuine patriot is called a traitor in his own country. But
patriotism, however genuine, is a thing that must be surmounted. There
is only one good that war can bring to a nation--defeat. A patriot,
loving his own country, would therefore wish his country defeat in war.
But he who has surmounted his patriotism and has attained complete
impartiality would not selfishly claim the only benefit of war entirely
for his own country, but would desire all to share it alike, and would
therefore wish defeat for every warring nation.

If a horde of British and a horde of German soldiers engage in mutual
butchery, and if the maimed, broken remnants of the British horde have
just enough order left to drive back the remnants of the German horde,
leaving innumerable dead and wounded and for ever darkening the lives of
countless friends and wives--in other words, if the British army wins
what our infamous Press would call a "glorious victory"--then all that
is evil in the life of the nation is encouraged and justified. It is
then that the diplomatists who lied and schemed to bring on the
monstrous event, that all the politicians who exploit and foster the
nation's madness and misery to enhance their own reputations, that those
who batten on the slaughter, and that those who glorify the carnage at
a safe distance and fight the enemy with their lying tongues, are
justified. They all are justified. But if, instead of victory, there is
defeat, then they tremble lest they should be disgraced and lose their
places, lest they should be victims of a disillusioned people's anger,
lest they should forfeit their plunder, lest they should be called to
account for the lies with which they fooled the masses. Defeat is the
defeat of evil, victory is the victory of evil.

       *       *       *       *       *

A second batch of papers arrived. The German advance was continuing. The
British reverse was becoming catastrophic. At first I felt a kind of
grimness, and then I was thrilled by the thought that perhaps the end of
the war might be near. We might not have a good peace, but peace of any
kind was preferable to war. The mendacious Press talked much about a
"dishonourable peace," as though any peace could be as dishonourable as
a prolonged war.

But the immediate reality became too overwhelming. Grey multitudes were
sweeping khaki multitudes before them. High-explosives, shrapnel,
grenades, bombs, bullets were rending, piercing, and shattering the
living flesh and muscle and bone. Towns and villages were being turned
into heaps of brick and wreckage. Hordes of old men, women, and children
were thronging the roads, and fleeing from approaching disaster.

We went to work as usual although we worked less than usual, for we now
had something to talk about. Would the Germans reach the coast? If they
did, then the northern armies would be cut off and destroyed. A general
retreat from our front might be ordered at any moment. We stood in
groups and discussed these problems hour by hour.

One day we were returning from work and passing through the village. A
crowd of civilians was standing round the window of the Mairie, where a
written notice was exposed. An old woman dressed in black was moaning,
"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, mon Dieu." The '19, '20, and '21 classes had been
called up.

Then the German advance came to an end. A French army had arrived and
saved the situation. The shelling of the back areas had ceased. The
danger was over for a time.

Had the Germans assembled all their strength for one supreme attempt at
breaking through the Western Front? Or was it only the beginning of a
whole series of operations?

One morning, as we woke up, we heard the roar and rumble of a
bombardment. We did not take much notice of it, for we had heard the
sound so often.

We paraded, and marched off to work. The continuous roar gradually gave
place to irregular, though frequent, outbursts of firing along the
entire front.

The next day the sound seemed to have come nearer. Rumours began to
circulate--it was said that Armentières had fallen, that the Portuguese
had been annihilated at Merville, that the British had counter-attacked
and taken Lille.

Rations, newspapers and letters were delayed. Large bodies of troops
passed through the village. We got no definite or official news, and
nobody had any clear notion of what was happening.

But the sound of firing grew louder and louder and our anxiety deepened.
There could no longer be any doubt about it--the Germans were advancing
on our front.

The sickening certainty transcended all other considerations. A few
miles from us thousands were being slaughtered. I ceased to ponder the
problems of failure and success. I forgot the politicians and was
conscious of only one despairing wish, that the terrible thing might
come to an end. Victory and defeat seemed irrelevant considerations. If
only the end would come quickly--nothing else really mattered.

I often wondered what was in the minds of the other men. Many of them
looked anxious, but on the whole they were normal in their behaviour.
They grumbled and quarrelled much as usual and talked rather more than
usual--but so did I, in spite of my intense mental agitation.

The sound of firing grew louder.

We marched to an extensive R.E. park and saw-mill near a railway siding.
We had to dismantle the machinery and load everything of any value on to
a train. For several hours five of us dragged a huge cylinder and piston
along the ground. We toiled and perspired. We made a ramp of heavy
wooden beams in front of the train and then we slowly pushed the iron
mass into a truck. We went back and, raising a big fly-wheel on its edge
and supporting it with a wooden beam under each axle, we rolled it
painfully along, swaying from side to side.

Then there came the long-drawn familiar whine, and the black smoke arose
behind some trees a hundred yards away and the thunder-clap followed. A
jagged piece of steel came whizzing by and lodged in a stack of timber
behind us.

We pushed the wheel up the ramp and returned to fetch heavy coils of
wire, bundles of picks and shovels, sacks and barrels of nails. Our
backs and shoulders ached, our hands and finger-tips were sore.

Another shell came whining over. It burst by a little cottage. Its
thunder made our ears sing. The fragments of flying metal made us duck
or scatter behind the stacks.

We worked until we almost dropped with sheer fatigue. Iron rods and bars
for reinforcing pill-boxes, bags of cement, boxes of tools, parts of
machinery, all went on to the train. Then we entered a big shed, where
a number of tar-barrels stood in a row. We rolled them out and placed
them by the timber stacks. We laid a pick beside each barrel so that it
could be broached, the tar set alight, and the entire park destroyed at
a moment's notice.

It was dark when we stopped work. We reached camp after an hour's
wearisome marching. We waited in a long queue outside the cook-house.
The cooks served out the greasy stew as quickly as they could, but we
were so tired and ill-tempered that we shouted abuse at them without
reason and without being provoked, and banged our plates and tins. The
war, the advance, the slaughter were forgotten. We were conscious of
nothing but weariness, stiffness, and petty irritation.

The following day we marched to a ration dump. The wooden cases of
rations were piled up in gigantic cubes, so that the entire dump looked
like a town of windowless, wooden buildings. We formed one long file
that circled slowly past the stacks, each man taking one case on to his
shoulder or back and carrying it to the train. And so we circled round
and round throughout the monotonous day.

In the evening I did not wait in the dinner queue, but went to the St.
Martin. It was kept by an old woman and her two daughters. They were
tortured by anxiety:

"Les Allemands vont venir ici--de Shermans come heer?" they asked. But I
knew no more than they did. I told them, against my own conviction, that
the German advance would be held up, but they remained anxious. The
uproar of the cannonade was louder than ever. All the windows of the
building shook and rattled. The old woman muttered: "'Tis niet goet,
'tis niet goet," and the elder daughter echoed: "Oh, 'tiss no bon, 'tiss
no bon."

Two British officers entered. They looked round and saw that private
soldiers were sitting at the tables. But the St. Martin was the biggest
estaminet in the village and provided the best wines and coffees, so
they stood in the doorway, undecided what to do. They asked one of the
girls if there was a restaurant for officers in the neighbourhood. She
answered: "No--no restaurant for officeerss--you come heer--privates,
zey no hurt you--privates, officeerss, all same."

Encouraged by these assurances, one of the newcomers said to the other:

"Come on, let's sit down here and have a coffee--we needn't stop long."

All the smaller tables were occupied, but there was one long table that
stretched across the room and only a few men were sitting at the far end
of it. The officers sat down at the near end and ordered coffee. They
seemed a little embarrassed at first, but they soon began to talk freely
to each other:

"I wonder if there's a war on in these parts--I hear the Huns have made
a bit of a push."

"Curse the blighters--they'll mess up my leave, it's due in a week's
time."

"Jolly good coffee, this! Here, Marie, bring us another two cups--der
coop der caffay--that's right, isn't it?"

"Dat's right," said the girl, "you speak goot French--vous avez tout a
fait l'accent parisien."

Suddenly her sister came running into the room, sobbing loudly:

"English soldier come round from Commandant--he tell us Shermans
come--ve got to go 'vay at once, ve got to leave everysing--ve go 'vay
and English troops steal everysing and shellss come and smash everysing
and ve looss everysing."

The civilians of the village had received orders to leave immediately.
Through the window we could see groups of people standing in the street
and talking together. They were greatly agitated.

The old woman sniffed and wiped her eyes. The elder daughter was
packing a few things in a bundle. One of the officers asked: "What about
our coffee?" but she took no notice. Her sister had gone out in search
of further information.

She soon returned. Yes, they would all have to leave at once, but, if
they liked to take the risk, they could come back to-morrow with a
wagon, if they could get one, and fetch their belongings.

They were comforted. They knew where they would be able to get a wagon.
They would cart their stock and their household property away on the
morrow. They would start another estaminet somewhere. They would suffer
loss and inconvenience, but they would not be ruined--their valuable
stock of wines would save them from that.

The bundle was made up and they prepared to leave. We paid our bill and
went out into the street. Numbers of soldiers were straggling past. They
looked wretched and exhausted. Their boots and puttees were caked with
mud. They had neither rifles nor packs. Three men were lying up against
a garden wall. We asked them for news. They could not tell us much,
except that the Germans were still advancing.

"We was at Dickebusch when 'e started slingin' stuff over--gorblimy, 'e
don't 'alf wallop yer--umpteen of our mates got bleed'n' well biffed. We
cleared out afore it got too 'ot."

Several famished "battle-stragglers" had entered our camp in order to
beg for food. They sat round the cook-house and ate in gloomy silence.

In the adjoining field a number of tents had sprung up. Blue figures
were moving in and out amongst them. The French had arrived.

The next morning, about breakfast time, the first shell burst near the
camp--a short rapid squeal followed by a sharp report. The second shell
burst a few minutes after, throwing up earth and smoke. A steel fragment
came sailing over in a wide parabola and struck the foot of a man
standing in the breakfast queue. He limped to the first-aid hut, looking
very pale. When he got there, he had some difficulty in finding his
wound, it was so slight.

We paraded and marched off. Several shells burst in the neighbouring
fields. We reached the ration dump and began to load the train. A
civilian arrived with the newspapers. Our N.C.O.'s were powerless to
stop the general stampede that surged towards the paper-vendor.

The Germans had advanced on a wide front ... Armentières had fallen. The
news was several days old and much might have happened since.

We went back to our work and discussed events. We were bullied and
threatened with arrest, but we talked in groups while we carried cases
of rations. Would we be involved in the advance? We might even be
captured--that would at least be an experience and a change.

In the evening a few of us went to the St. Martin to see if the old
woman and her daughter had been able to fetch their property away. We
observed that the windows, where tinned fruit, chocolate, cakes, soap,
postcards, and other articles used to be exhibited, had been cleared
completely. We entered and found one of the girls in tears:

"All gone--all gone--I show you--you come into de cellar--all de wine
gone--bottles all, all broken. English soldiers come in de night and
take everysing 'vay--ve nussing left--it's de soldiers in de camp over
zair in de field--zey plenty drunk dis morning--ve lose everysing--ve
poor now."

Besides the windows, the till and the shelves had been cleared, and
empty drawers and boxes had been thrown on to the floor. We went down
into the cellar. All the cases had been opened and the stone floor was
littered with empty and broken bottles. The girl began to sob again when
she saw the ruin that had been inflicted:

"All gone, all gone--ve poor now."

"Why don't you complain to the Town Major?" one of us suggested.

"Complain?--vat's de use complain?--de Town Major, he nice man, he kind
to us, but he no find de soldiers dat come, and if he find zem he punish
zem but ve get nussing. Vat's de use punish zem if ve get nussing? All
gone, ve poor now--oh, dis var, dis var--dis de second time ve
refugeess--ve lose eversing 1914, ve come here from Zandvoorde and ve
start again--ve do business vis soldiers, soldiers plenty money, ve do
goot business, and now ve refugeess again and ve novair to go. If de
Shermans come, ve do business vis de Shermans--but de shells come first
and ve all killed--ah, dis var, dis var! Vat's de use fighting? All for
nussing! Var over, me plenty dance!"

We ascended the cellar stairs. The mother was in the main room, wiping
her eyes. We said good-bye to her and her daughter, feeling ashamed of
our uniforms, and walked out into the street.

A mass of French cavalry were galloping past. It was growing dark. The
cannonade had become deafening. Over the town a few miles off there was
a crimson glare in the sky.

A horde of civilians was thronging the main street of the village. Old
men and women were carrying all that was left to them of their property
on their backs. Others were pushing wheelbarrows heaped up with clothes
and household utensils. Girls were carrying heavy bundles under their
arms and dragging tired, tearful children along. White-faced, sorrowful
mothers were carrying peevish babies. Great wagons, loaded with
furniture and bedding, and whole families sitting on top, were drawn by
lank and bony horses. A little cart, with a pallid, aged woman cowering
inside, was drawn painfully along by a white-haired man. They passed by
us in the gathering gloom, and there seemed to be no end to these
straggling multitudes of ruined, homeless people who were wandering
westwards to escape the disaster that threatened to engulf us all.

The eastern sky flickered with vivid gun-flashes and scintillated with
brilliant shell-bursts. The night was full of rustling noises and sullen
thunder-claps, while a more distant roaring and rumbling seemed to break
against some invisible shore like the breakers of a stormy sea.

We retired to our huts and tents. Soon after lights-out the Police
Corporal came round and shouted:

"Parade at 4.45 to-morrow morning in marching order."

The tumult increased as though the surge were coming nearer and nearer.
Shells of small calibre passed overhead with a prolonged whistle and
burst with a hardly audible report. The thunder of bigger explosions
shook the huts and caused the ground to tremble.

As I woke the next morning the din of the cannonade broke in upon my
senses with a sudden impact. Rumbling, thundering, bellowing, rushing,
whistling, and whining, the tumult seemed all around and above us.
Sudden flashes lit up the whole camp so that for fractions of seconds
every hut and tent was brilliantly illuminated. Multitudes of dazzling
stars appeared and disappeared.

We drew our breakfast and packed up our belongings. All was confusion in
the hut.

We paraded, the roll was called, and as the day began to dawn we marched
off.

We passed down the main road in long, swaying columns of fours. We left
the woodyard behind us and hoped it would be destroyed--how we hated the
place for the dreary months we had spent there! The westward stream of
refugees had ceased, but an eastward stream of French infantry and field
artillery thronged the roads. The artillerymen were mostly tall and
powerfully built. The infantry were nearly all elderly men of poor
physique. They looked desperately miserable. We exchanged greetings:

"It's a good war!"

"C'est une bonne guerre!"

And then we broke into song:

"Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, _Oh_ it's a lovely war!"

The French did not sing, but we, who were escaping destruction, passed
from one song to another:

    "I don't want to fight the Germans,
    I don't want to go to war,
    I'd sooner be in London,
    Dear old dirty London."

And

    "Far, far from Ypers,
    I'd like to be,
    Where German snipers
    Can't get at me."

And

    "When this bloody war is over,
    O how happy I shall be,
    When I get my civvy clothes on,
    No more soldiering for me."

and all the other songs familiar to every soldier in the British army.

We marched all day along straight roads running in between flat fields
and past ugly little villages. As we grew tired and footsore our
rollicking spirit abated and the singing died down.

Towards nightfall we halted in a large meadow with a pond in one corner.
Several lorries loaded with tents were waiting for us. We unloaded them,
pitched the tents, crept into them, and went to bed.

The rumble of the cannonade sounded faintly in the far distance.

"I reckon it's a bloody shame to let the other Tommies and the
Frenchies...."

The voice seemed to die away into a drawl as weariness overcame me. I
continued to hear the sound of words for a little while, but they
conveyed no meaning. And then sleep descended and brought entire
oblivion.




VIII

HOME ON LEAVE


     "I have several times expressed the thought that in our day the
     feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful
     feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind
     is suffering; and that, consequently, this feeling should not be
     cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be
     suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men."

     (TOLSTOY.)

A change had come over us all. Instead of long spells of dreary silence
interrupted by outbursts of irritability, by grumbling and by violent
quarrels over nothing, there was animated conversations and sometimes
even gaiety. Our talk was all about one subject--not about peace, for we
had abandoned all hope of peace and hardly ever thought of it--but about
leave. We had been waiting for seventeen months when, without warning, a
leave allotment was assigned to our unit. About half a dozen men were
going every day and no one knew whose turn would come next. We were full
of intense excitement and glad expectation, but also of anxiety in case
something should happen to stop our leave altogether.

I made up my mind to enjoy myself thoroughly. I would see parents and
friends and forget all about the army and the war. I would be gay and
frivolous and go to theatres, music-halls and cafés. And one day I would
spend in the British Museum and lose myself in books--that would be
just like old times! Of course, our leave would not last for ever and
the return journey would be terrible. No doubt the fortnight would pass
very quickly, but I determined to enjoy every single hour with
deliberation and understanding, and to squeeze every drop of pleasure
out of it. How many hours were there in a fortnight? More than three
hundred! Many would be wasted in sleep, but still, there would be many
left and by dwelling upon each one, the fortnight would seem an age.

       *       *       *       *       *

An afternoon and an evening in a train that travelled all too slowly. A
night and half a day at Calais Rest Camp. How terrible was the rankling
impatience that gnawed our hearts as the hours dragged on.

But at last we were on the leave boat. There was another long delay, and
then, with a feeling of immense relief, we heard the engines throb and
the paddle-wheels begin to turn. I looked overboard and saw white foam
hissing along the surface of water rapidly widening between us and the
quay.

Seventeen months of exile and slavery had come to an end and before us
lay a wonderful fortnight of freedom and happiness. And at the end of
the fortnight? There was no need to think of that now.

The sea was blue and smooth and a cool breeze was blowing. We saw the
cliffs of England grow larger and larger. Soon we were able to
distinguish the town of Dover, the houses clustered round the harbour,
and the Castle up on the cliff. It was there that I had begun my career
as a soldier more than two years before. How much had happened since
then! I felt that I had become a different being altogether.

The boat entered the harbour and ran alongside the quay. A train was
waiting for us. We poured out of the ship in two streams that spread out
fan-wise and flowed into the carriages.

It was good to sit by the window in a comfortable compartment and lean
back against soft cushions.

Glad anticipation and barely suppressed excitement were visible on
everybody's face.

The train sped through familiar country: meadows, pastures, cornfields,
orchards and woodlands. People waved their handkerchiefs at us from
cottage windows.

It was growing dark as the first rows of drab suburban houses began to
glide past.

So this was London. I stared out of the window and tried to grasp the
tremendous, wonderful fact with all the power of my mind. Somehow or
other it did not seem real, but I felt I could make it real by an effort
of the will.

Streets and houses and moving people soon crowded the whole view. The
people filled me with intense curiosity. I longed to talk to them and
find out what they felt and thought about the war.

We entered Victoria Station. I opened the door of the compartment with
hasty, trembling hands. I did not wait to change my French money, but
hurried out into a street and got on to a 'bus.

London, with its subdued lights, lay all around me. It had not changed
since I saw it last, and yet I felt it ought to have changed. The reason
was that I had changed. And then I began to fear that I had changed
beyond the power of recovery. The oppressive sensation that I was in a
dream forced itself upon me. I felt that there was only one reality in
the whole world--the war. Would I ever escape from the war? It would
come to an end some day, and I would leave the army, but would not the
war obsess me until the end of my life? Would I ever be myself again?

But this was not the way to enjoy my leave! I began to feel
disappointed at not being so happy as I had expected to be. Why was I
not full of rapture? Why did not every object fill me with delight? But
I ought to have known that habitual discontent and bitterness and revolt
are not shaken off in a few hours or a few days, and that they persist
even after their immediate cause has been removed.

I looked round at the other people sitting on the 'bus. I had visited
foreign countries in former years, but never before had I felt that I
was amongst complete strangers. There are moments when a dog, a horse,
or a bird fills us with a sense of the uncanny--its mind is an insoluble
mystery, with depths so dark and inscrutable that one feels something
that approaches fear and horror. And so it was as I sat on the 'bus. The
civilians around me seemed like animals of a different species. They
were not human at all--or was it I who was not human?

I went to another seat in order to listen to a man and woman who were
talking together. I felt that if they were to talk about the war, the
uncanny spell would be broken, the dream would dissolve and I would be
restored to my own fellow creatures. But they spoke about trivial
domestic matters and about a flower show. If they had only mentioned the
word "war" I would have felt relieved by its familiarity, but they did
not mention it once.

And then, in great mental agony, I said to myself: "I _will_ be happy, I
_will_ enjoy my leave." But a number of invisible cobwebs hung between
myself and the world around me. I tried to brush them away, but they
were so impalpable that the movement of my hand did not disturb them at
all.

I gave up the attempt. I would wait until I got home. Then I would talk
and forget myself--only by forgetting myself would I enjoy the present.
Only those who forget themselves are happy. The obsession of self is
the most oppressive of all burdens.

I descended from a 'bus and took a train. A girl sitting opposite me
stared at my blue chevrons and whispered to her fellow passenger: "He's
just come from the front." So I too was regarded as a strange kind of
animal. I got out at my home-station. I showed my leave-warrant to the
ticket collector. He was a benevolent looking old man. He smiled and
wished me good luck. Things began to seem a little less foreign. And
then the thought of being home in a few minutes absorbed me entirely.

I hurried down the street. I knocked at the door, and it opened. The
long yearned-for meeting took place at last.

I threw my pack, equipment and steel helmet contemptuously into a
corner. I took an infantile delight in clean, furnished rooms, in the
white table-cloth, the shining silver, the cut flowers, and the
oil-paintings on the wall. And we talked until late into the night.

It was good to wake up the next morning and to know that the first day
of my leave was still before me. I felt encouraged to face my new
surroundings boldly. I would understand them and identify myself with
them. If the sensation that I was dreaming came upon me again, I would
welcome it and then I would destroy it once and for all. I would enjoy
my leave at any cost. It would become my only reality, and when it was
over it would be a reality which I would take back to the front. I would
hoard it and always think of it out there, so that the war would seem
like a dream, the end of which I could await with patience and
resignation.

I went out to seek friends and acquaintances. I also hoped to meet some
war enthusiasts. I would tell them something about the war. How would
their theories be able to stand before my actual experiences!

I was soon disillusioned.

I dined with a wealthy kinsman. The slaughter of millions had brought
him prosperity. He had never done any fighting except with his mouth,
but it is precisely that kind of fighting that infuriates the spirit,
engenders heroic ardour, and causes the nostrils to dilate. He was so
bellicose that he even desired to do some _real_ righting, not
understanding the difference between the two. He thought of joining an
infantry unit--the artillery were not good enough, he did not want to
fire at an enemy he could not see, he wanted to use the bayonet and
murder his fellow men in hand-to-hand encounters.

I began to understand why many men I had met were glad to come back from
leave.

I tried to dissuade him, although I felt it would do him good to see
something of the war and he would learn a much-needed lesson. And yet I
did not want him killed or horribly mutilated, although I knew that he
and those like him were alone responsible for the entire war, both at
its origins and its continuance.

But he would not be persuaded. He said he was _dying_ to go out and see
the fun.

At the word "fun" I felt a sudden and violent contraction of all my
muscles. I had an almost irresistible impulse to stand up and strike him
across the face. But I was in a public restaurant and I controlled
myself. He did not seem to notice anything.

The conversation drifted away from the war and became commonplace. I
tried to relate a few of my experiences, but somehow or other they
seemed unsuited to the occasion.

I had set out with the intention of destroying a mouldering, tottering
edifice built up of illusions and ignorant prejudices, and I found
myself face to face with towering, strong, unshakable walls, strong and
unshakable precisely because it was built of illusions, lies, and
prejudices.

I felt the burden of war descending upon me with all its crushing,
annihilating weight. I fought a losing fight against the conviction
that for the rest of my leave I would be able to talk of nothing else
and think of nothing else but the war. If only I could talk to someone
who would understand, that at least would bring relief!

I longed to see my two friends, although I felt some anxiety lest they
might have changed, or rather lest they might not have changed with me.

It was in the evening of my first day that we met. At first the one
embarrassed me a little by his apparent cold aloofness. But his caustic
observations on the war soon made it clear that he had stood the test. I
realized, from the hatred that lay behind them, that he had suffered as
much as many a soldier in the trenches.

Then the other said to me:

"This is a thing I have never told anyone yet, but I will tell it to you
now. There are times when I almost wish I could see German troops
marching victoriously through the streets of London. It is not my reason
that is speaking now, but my bitterness, which has become stronger than
my reason."

I understood him far too well to make any comment.

And then after a long silence, I said: "I wonder if anybody else thinks
like that."

And he answered: "Yes, there are many--more than you would believe."

But the first added: "We must remain neutral--that is our one and only
duty. The more malevolent our neutrality the better, but it must be
neutrality. Remember that there are Germans whose bitterness prompts
them to wish that British troops were marching through the streets of
Berlin. I think their wish is juster than yours, but both wishes cannot
be fulfilled, and it is therefore desirable that the next best thing
should happen, namely, that both the Allies and their enemies should be
entirely deprived of victory."

I agreed, but added:

"Yes, fundamentally one must remain neutral, but in relation to present
circumstances one cannot remain neutral. It is our business to arraign
England, our own country, and not Germany. It is for every nation to
discover its own faults. There are many Germans of courage and honesty
who will condemn their country for the crimes she has committed. But
condemnation from outside is useless and is always discredited. In all
probability the Allies and the Central Powers are both equally bad, and
to denounce the enemy only is mere yelping with the rest of the savage,
vindictive pack."

"That is true, but what is the good of saying it, or thinking it!
Ignorance, prejudice, and intellectual dishonesty are far stronger than
you are. The depravity of mankind is such that only failure and
humiliation will carry conviction. Mere words are only wasted. If any
nation is completely defeated in this war, then its people will rise
against its rulers, whether they are guilty or not, and they will fix
all the responsibility of war upon them and upon themselves. There will
be a frenzy of self-accusation--whether just or unjust it doesn't
matter--and as for the victors, they will say: 'Our enemies admit their
guilt, so what further proof is needed?' Where the _real_ guilt is, that
is an irrelevant and trivial question. Success or failure will be the
sole ultimate criterion. There is only one hope for the world--that
failure will be so evenly distributed that there will be anxious
heart-searchings in every country. Failure alone makes ignorant people
think. Success is taken for granted. Even after a single battle lost,
the Press is full of explanations and excuses, but after a battle won,
there is only complacency and self-glorification, and questions as to
the why and wherefore are considered out of place or even treasonable."

When we parted I was seized with a feeling of intense loneliness, but
nevertheless I realized with satisfaction that I was not entirely alone.
I also gave up the idea of enjoying my leave and conceived a deep
aversion for all pleasures and amusements.

The next day I wandered into the British Museum. The 600,000 volumes
that surrounded me on the shelves of the reading-room had a depressing
effect. I took out a few books, but was too distracted for serious
study.

I almost smiled with self-contempt when I thought how I had set out the
previous morning in order to conquer my old world, and how it was now
receding further and further from me. I looked at the other readers.
They were mostly old men, engrossed in their studies, just as they had
been in peace time. I wondered what they thought about the war. I knew
they would not allow it to disturb them much or interfere with their
studies and their sleep. And after all, why should they care? It was
only youth that was being slaughtered on the battlefields and not old
age.

The sleepy dullness of the museum became unbearable and I walked out
into the street.

I spent the evening with a member of the National Liberal Club, an
intimate family friend, whose intellectual arrogance was one of the evil
memories of my childhood, when many eager impulses and aspirations had
been turned to bitterness by his lofty depreciation and his
imperturbable assumption of superiority based on maturer years and
experience. Having at different times received material kindnesses at
his hands, I knew I could not tell him what I really thought, and the
prospect of meeting him filled me with uneasiness. Moreover, in his
presence I felt a kind of pride which I did not usually feel in the
presence of others--a pride that forbade me to express any sentiment or
to reveal my inner mind. And yet my inner mind was clamouring
intolerably for revelation. I realized the advantage he would derive
from his simple attitude and from his lack of mental integrity, which
enabled him to ignore any considerations that did not conform to his
preconceived notions, and I realized the disadvantage of my complex
attitude, made up as it was of so many conflicting impulses, at war with
each other and with the world around me.

My fears were justified.

At first the conversation was commonplace, and I related various
experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were
most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and
then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and
denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette.
I beat in vain against the solid walls of obstinate prejudice and
superficiality. His statements were uttered with dogmatic emphasis. They
expressed beliefs held with all the self-assurance born of ignorance.
They were based on no independent reasoning or observation, but had been
assimilated either directly from the daily Press or from a circle of
acquaintances whose entire political outlook was the creation of the
Press. It was only then that I realized the immense power of newspapers.

For most people "thinking" is just the discovery of convenient phrases
or labels, such as "pessimist," or "socialist," or "pacifist" or
"Bolshevik." When any puzzling mental attitude comes before their
notice, they pin one of their labels to it, and, having labelled it,
they think they understand it. The Press supplies them with these
labels, and, consciously or unconsciously, they store them up in their
minds and always have a few ready for immediate use.

So familiar and commonplace were the phrases which my opponent selected
from his store in order to reply to my every utterance, that I could
almost tell what he was going to say before he said it. Moreover, the
fact that he had travelled abroad and had associated with foreigners,
instead of widening his view had only narrowed it. Had he never
travelled he might have been sufficiently modest to admit that he knew
nothing of foreign countries and he might have suspended judgment about
them; but the mere fact that he had travelled filled him with a deep
conviction that he knew all about the places he had visited, and this
conviction, enunciated with pompous emphasis, supplanted the real
knowledge and understanding derived from honest observation. Like so
many people who do not possess the faculty of experiencing, he
continually appealed to his own experience and continually referred to
his maturer years, as though old age of itself brought wisdom.

As for the war itself he took no deep interest in it, although he
glanced at the war news every day. But to understand it, to analyse its
causes, to grasp its significance, to realize its true nature, that he
never attempted to do. His labels and his alleged experiences and his
years were sufficient to cope with the entire question and answer it
satisfactorily for himself. I almost envied him for his
self-sufficiency. He would never suffer acutely from any mental strife
or agitation due to any but immediate and personal causes. Perhaps such
a stable mentality that can without effort reject all inconvenient data
is the most desirable of all and the most conducive to happiness.
Certain it is that the stability of society and the very existence of
civilization itself depend upon the preponderance of that particular
type.

I knew that the argument was hopeless. Indeed, it was no argument. It
was no exchange of ideas. It was no mutual attempt at discovering truths
by an impartial comparison of two different attitudes.

At times there were signs of heat on both sides. My opponent spoke of
"our democratic army" (familiar phrase!) and the overbearing manner in
which he connected this dictum with a number of false, irrelevant or
arbitrary generalizations made me feel a momentary pang of anger and I
wished he could experience a term of military service. Nevertheless,
there was no actual display of bad temper or emotion and we parted with
all the habitual formulae imposed by social decorum.

I knew I had come into contact with the truly representative man. His
opinion and the opinions of those like him, they all made up popular
opinion. All other opinion was abnormal and negligible. It was with
despair that I realized the hopelessness of my own position and that of
my friends.

The public did not understand the war and did not want to understand it.
It was far away from them and they did not realize the amount of
suffering caused by it. It also brought wealth to many who would
therefore have regretted its sudden termination. This seems a hard thing
to say, but nevertheless it is true. The so-called "working-classes" had
developed an appetite for wealth and power that nothing could satisfy.
This appetite was being fed continually, but the more it devoured the
more voracious it became. Nor did the shameless profiteering of the
wealthy tend to allay it in any way. Protests against the war never went
beyond the passing of mere resolutions. Those who had sufficient
humanity and imagination to hate the war in its entirety and to suffer
from it, although not necessarily taking any part in it, were too few
and too scattered and isolated to take any effective action.

The extent to which a man can suffer is the precise measure of his
merit, and thus it was that our patriots and war-enthusiasts being
incapable, by reason of their grossness and vulgarity, of suffering in a
spiritual sense, were immune from the misery caused by the war and yet
it was they above all others upon whose support the continuance of the
war depended.

This was the terrible fatality. The more a man suffered from the war the
smaller was his control over it.

Everywhere, those who deserved to suffer did not suffer and those who
did not deserve to suffer suffered. And that was why the war went on.
Most people were so indifferent that it was impossible to talk to them
without anger. I could think of nothing else but the war. I could not
escape from its invisible presence. The streets and houses seemed the
immaterial creations of some dream, and somewhere behind them the
slaughter was going on, and amid the noise of the traffic the throbbing
of the bombardment was plainly audible.

Sometimes I felt an impulse to shout from the house-tops like a Hebrew
prophet and denounce this most wicked of generations. But the very
futility of the idea filled me with mortification.

Our enlightened twentieth century has no use for prophets. Christ
Himself would have been arrested as a pacifist or a lunatic if He had
spoken His mind in the streets of London. And the clergy would have
applauded the imprisonment of a dangerous "pro-German." The scribes and
Pharisees were more numerous and more powerful than ever before.

Particularly the scribes.

There never was in all the world an infamy as great as the infamy of our
war-time Press. A horde of unscrupulous liars and hirelings spat hatred
and malice from safe and comfortable positions. They played the hero
when no danger threatened. They defied an enemy who could not reach
them. They boasted of the deeds they had not done. They gloried in the
victories they did not win. They mouthed frantic protestations of
injured innocence when they should have felt the burden of guilty shame.
They were mawkishly sentimental when they should have felt keen grief
and horror. They denounced murder and they urged others to commit
murder. They spewed their venomous slime into every spring of healing
water. At a time when clear thinking and balanced judgments were needed
more desperately than ever before, they squirted into the air thick
clouds of lies, and half-truths, and misleading phrases, and judgments
distorted by hatred and warped by malice. And as for those who were
either lured on to perpetrate the great iniquity by grandiose and
seductive falsehoods or were dragged from their homes and families and
sent unwilling to the slaughter, these miserable slaves the Press of all
countries urged on, one against the other, brutally deaf to their
misery, representing them as glad and cheerful when they had reached the
extreme of human suffering, magnifying them into heroes of epic
proportions (before they donned their dingy garb of war they were "lice"
that had to be "combed out"), endowing them with absurdly impossible
virtues--when they were just ordinary human beings in misfortune with no
ambition except to live in peace and comfort--and at the same time
bestowing lofty patronage upon them and calling them "Tommies" and
sending them cigarettes, chocolates and advice, as though they were
children to be petted, with no will or intelligence of their own.

The Press, the cinema, the atrocity placards, and propagandist leaflets,
they all practised the same deliberate and colossal deceit and kindled
hatred against the enemy. And so successful was this diabolical
conspiracy that hatred became second nature to vast masses of people. To
think evil of the enemy was an article of national faith, and to
question this faith, or still more to repudiate it, that was heresy of
the most heinous kind. Religion died long ago, but the cult of
nationalism that replaced it was infinitely more pernicious in its
intolerance and cruelty than religion at its very worst.

Individually men are often good, but collectively men are always bad.
The national mob had never been so powerful, nor had it ever been so
servile, and that was why its passions were those of the coward and not
of the brave man; that was why chivalry and generosity and
fair-mindedness were execrated, and only hatred and boastfulness and
vindictive malice were allowed to live.

Entman's little eyes shone with affection. "I can only wish you good
luck."

"Thanks. I'll need it."

"And one more thing I was wondering."

"What's that?"

"Why do you suppose the tenth android killed the one in the Village?"

"Another case of taking one reason for want of a better one. I think it
was his way of delivering the creature to us for research. He couldn't
know for sure that we already had his 'brothers.'"

"You're right--you must be," Entman agreed.

"Small consolation. I'd like a few facts to go on for a change instead
of having to depend on logic all the time," Taber growled.

"What are you referring to?"

"The data. I'm assuming, _if_ that's what's important, that the tenth
creature has a way of getting the stuff back up there."

"I can help a little on that," Entman said. "I can assure you that from
what I've found in those brains, the data could, most likely, be sent
mentally."

"You're sure of that?"

"I've found a certain part of those brains developed in a peculiar
way--"

Taber smiled. "You're sure of that?"

"Well ... that's my theory. It would appear logical that--"

Taber leaned forward suddenly and extended his glass, the grin on his
face showing some genuine humor. "Let's have another drink, Doctor. Then
I'll go. I love the factual way this Scotch of yours hits my stomach."




12


Frank Corson entered the office of Wilson Maynard, Superintendent of
Park Hill Hospital. Maynard looked out over the tops of his
old-fashioned pince-nez glasses and said, "Oh, Doctor Corson. You phoned
for a chat."

It was the rather pompous superintendent's way of saying he was happy to
give Frank Corson a little time. He considered all the doctors and
nurses at Park Hill his "boys and girls," and he did the "father" bit
very well.

"Yes, I--"

Maynard peered even harder. "You don't look well, Frank. Pale. You've
been working too hard."

"Nothing important, Doctor Maynard."

"Sit down. Will you have a cigarette?"

"No, thank you. I just wanted to ask you about a transfer."

"A transfer!" This was amazing. "Aren't you happy at Park Hill?"

"I've been very happy."

Maynard went swiftly through a card file on his desk. "You have--let's
see--five more months of internship. Then--"

"Then I'd planned to enter private practice. But something personal has
come up and I think a change is for the best."

"I'm certainly sorry to hear that."

"One of the men I graduated with went to a hospital in a small Minnesota
town. We've corresponded and he's given me a pretty clear picture--a
nice town, a need for doctors and physicians--"

"But we need them here in the East, too."

"I realize that, and I'm making the move with some regret. But, frankly,
New York City no longer appeals to me. I think perhaps a small hospital
is more suited to my temperament."

"I'm certainly sorry to hear this, Corson. But I won't try to dissuade
you. Normally, I might bring a little more personal pressure to bear,
but I sense that your mind is made up. We're sorry to see you go, but
the best of luck to you."

"Thank you, sir."

After Frank Corson left, Superintendent Maynard sorted a memo out of the
pile on his desk. The memo concerned Frank Corson. Superintendent
Maynard reread it and thought how well things usually worked out. Now it
wouldn't be necessary to have that talk with Corson about sloppy work.
Obviously there had been something on the young intern's mind for weeks
now. Too bad. But let the Minnesota hospital, wherever it was, worry
about the trouble and perhaps put Corson on the right track again.

He was their baby now.

Maynard took Corson's card from the files and wrote across it: _Transfer
approved with regret._

       *       *       *       *       *

Brent Taber stood in the shelter of a doorway on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan and watched an entrance across the street. He had been there
for over an hour.

Another hour passed and Taber shifted from one aching foot to the other
as a man in a blue suit emerged from the entrance and moved off down the
street.

When the man had turned a corner, Taber crossed over and looked up at
the brownstone. It was a perfect place to hide--one of the many rooming
houses in the city where, if you paid your rent and kept your peace, no
one cared who you were or where you came from.

Not even, Taber reflected, if you had been born in a laboratory and had
come from someplace among the stars.

He climbed the steps of the brownstone and tried the knob. The door
opened. He went inside and found himself in a drab, dark hall furnished
with an umbrella stand, a worn carpet, and a table spread with mail.

There was a bell on the table. He tapped it and, after a lazy length of
time, a shapeless woman came through a door on the right and regarded
him with no great show of cordiality.

"Nothing vacant, mister. Everything I've got is rented."

"I wasn't looking for a room. I'm just doing a little checking."

"My license is okay," the woman said belligerently. "The place is clean
and orderly."

"That's not what I'm checking about. There's been some counterfeit money
passed in this neighborhood and we're trying to trace it down."

The woman had a pronounced mustache that quivered at this news.
"Counterfeit! My roomers are honest."

"I'm sure they are. But some people carry counterfeit money without
knowing it. Do they all pay in cash?"

"Only two of them."

"Men or women?"

"One girl--Katy Wynn."

"Where does she work?"

"Down in Wall Street."

"Not much chance we're interested. This money has been turning up around
Times Square."

"The other's a man--quiet, no trouble, pays his rent right on the dot
every week. John Dennis his name is and he doesn't look like no
counterfeiter."

Taber took a forward step. "What's his room number?"

"Six--on the second floor. But he isn't in now. He just went out."

"Okay. Maybe I'll be back. As I said, we don't suspect anybody. We're
just checking for sources."

Taber turned toward the door. The woman vanished back into her own
quarters as Taber snapped the lock. He stood in the vestibule for a
minute or two, studying some cards he took from his pocket, and when she
did not reappear, he opened the door, went back in, and climbed the
stairs.

The door to number six was not locked. Taber went inside. The window was
small and gave on an areaway. He could see nothing until he turned on
the light. Even then, he could see nothing of interest--the room was
ordinary in every sense.

But as Brent Taber checked it out, some unusual aspects became apparent.
There were two pieces of luggage in the closet. One, an oversized
suitcase, stood on end.

And jammed neatly down behind it was the body of Les King. His throat
had been cut.

Brent Taber stared down into the closet for what seemed like an
interminable time. His eyes were bleak and his mouth was grim and stiff
as he passed a slow hand along his jaw.

He took a long, backward step and closed his eyes for a moment as though
hoping the whole improbable mess would go away. But it was still there
when he opened them again.

He turned, went downstairs, and took the receiver off the phone on the
wall by the front door.

The shapeless landlady came out again. She scowled at Taber. "What are
you doing here?"

He regarded her with a kind of affectionate weariness. "Have you got a
dime, lady?"

Gaping, she pawed into her apron pocket and handed him a coin.

"Thanks much." He dialed. "Is Captain Abrams there?"

There was a wait, during which Brent Taber asked the oddly bemused
landlady: "Are you afraid of the dead?"

But before she could decide whether she was or not, Taber turned to the
phone. "Captain?.... That's right, Brent Taber ... No, right, here in
Manhattan. There's been a little trouble. You'd better come over
personally."

He turned to the landlady. "What's the address here, sister?"

And later, with the landlady back in her lair, Brent Taber sat down on
the stairs to wait; sat there with surprise at the feeling of relief
that filled his mind. He had no feeling of triumph about it; no sense of
a job well done. But there was no great guilt at having failed, either.

Mostly, he thought, it was the simplification that had come about. There
had been so many confusing and bewildering complications in the affair;
improbability piled on the impossible; the ridiculous coupled with the
incredible.

But now, with one stroke of a knife, it had been simplified and brought
into terms everyone could understand; into terms Captain Abrams of the
New York Police Department would grasp in an instant.

A killer was on the loose.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of Senator Crane's priceless gifts was a sense of timing. Much of
his success had sprung from the instinctive knowledge of when to act. He
had a sense of the dramatic which never deserted him. As a result, he
had been known to turn in an instant from one subject to another--to
dodge defeats and score triumphs with bewildering agility.

His preoccupation on this particular day was with a home-state
issue--the location of a government plant. After he obtained the floor,
he counted the house and noted that only a bare quorum was present.
Gradually, the members of the Senate of the United States would drift to
their seats. So Crane began reading letters which tended to support his
state's claim to the new plant and the benefits that would accrue
therefrom.

Crane droned on. The Vice-President of the United States looked down on
the top of Senator Crane's massive head and became fruitfully
preoccupied with thoughts of his own.

Then, quite suddenly, the line of Crane's exposition changed. The
Vice-President wasn't quite sure at what precise point this had come
about. He wasn't aware of the change until some very strange words
penetrated:

" ... so, therefore, it has become starkly apparent that the American
people have been denied the information which would have made them
aware of their own deadly danger. Invasion from space is now imminent."

The Vice-President tensed. Had the stupid idiot gone mad? Or had he, the
Vice-President, been in a fog when vital, top-secret information had
been made public?

He banged the gavel down hard, for want of a better gesture, and was
grateful when a tall, dignified man with a look of deepest concern on
his face rose from behind his desk out on the floor.

"Will the Senator yield to his distinguished colleague from
Pennsylvania?"

Crane turned, scowling. "I will yield to no man on matters of grave
import." With that he turned and continued with his revelations. "The
people of this nation have been deprived of the knowledge that the
invasion from space has already begun. A vanguard of hideous, half-human
creatures have even now achieved a beach-head on our planet. Even now,
the evil hordes from beyond the stars ..."

The Vice-President looked around in a daze. Had someone forgotten to
brief him? Had that project come to a head overnight? The last he'd
heard there had been much doubt as to--

" ... The injustice perpetrated on the American people in this matter
has been monstrous. And this is not because of any lack of knowledge on
the part of the government. It has been because of the petty natures of
the men to whom this secret has been entrusted. Jealousies have dictated
policy where selfless public service was of the most vital importance
..."

The floor was filling up. The visitor's gallery was wrapped in hushed
silence. Newsmen, informed of sensational developments, were rushing
down corridors.

And the Vice-President was wondering why he hadn't had the good sense to
refuse the nomination.

" ... These invaders from another planet are not strangers to the men in
power. It is on record that they are inhuman monsters capable of killing
without mercy--yet they are quite ordinary in appearance. They walk the
streets, unsuspected, among us. It is on record right here in Washington
that these creatures are not human but, rather, soulless androids,
manufactured to destroy us, by a race so far ahead of us in scientific
knowledge that we are like children by comparison ..."

"Will the Senator yield to the Senator from Alabama?"

"I will not. I refuse to be gagged in the process of acquainting the
American people with facts upon which their very survival depends."

The floor was crowded now. The press and the visitors' galleries were
packed as Senator Crane's words continued to boom forth.

And in the press gallery a reporter from the Sioux City _Clarion_ looked
at a representative of the London _Times_, and said, "Good God! He's
gone off his rocker!"

The Englishman, aloof but definitely enthralled, touched his mustache
delicately and answered, "Quite."

       *       *       *       *       *

Frank Corson rang the bell and waited at the door of Rhoda Kane's
apartment. The door opened. She wore a pale blue brunch coat. Her hair
glowed in the light of midmorning, but her face was pale and a little
drawn.

Her eyes were slightly red, as though she might have been crying.

"Hello, Rhoda."

"Hello, Frank."

"I really didn't expect to find you. I was going to write a note and
slip it under the door."

"I didn't feel well today so I didn't go to work."

"May I come in?"

"Of course."

Inside, a shadow of concern moved like a quick cloud across her
beautiful face. "You don't look well, Frank."

"I'm quite all right, really. Haven't been sleeping too well, but
there's been a lot on my mind."

"I've been hoping you'd phone."

"I wanted to but there didn't seem to be anything to say. Nothing except
that I'm sorry I let you down so miserably."

"Frank! You didn't. You really didn't. It was just that--oh, it's not
important any more."

"No. It's not important now."

"Would you like a drink?"

"Thanks, no. I've come to say good-bye."

"Good-bye?"

"Yes. I'm leaving Park Hill--leaving New York. I'm going into a small
Minnesota hospital to finish my internship. Then I'll probably practice
out there somewhere."

Behind the new glitter of her eyes there was stark misery.
"Frank--Frank--what went wrong with us?"

The appeal was a labored whisper.

"I don't know, Rhoda. I should know but I don't. I should have known
what was wrong so I could have done something about it. It just went
sour, I guess."

She turned and walked to the window. He wondered if there were tears in
her eyes.

"Good-bye, Rhoda."

"Good-bye, Frank. I'm sorry."

The door hadn't quite closed. Now, as Frank Corson turned, he found it
open. A man stood there--a man in a blue suit with empty eyes.

Frank stared at the man for long seconds. His eyes went toward the
window. Rhoda had turned. She was watching the man in the doorway,
looking past Frank at the creature from somewhere in space who was
neither man nor machine. _But how--?_ Frank Corson asked himself the
question. _Good God! How had this thing come about?_

"Not--not _him_," he finally exploded.

Rhoda was walking forward. The look of fevered excitement was in her
eyes. "Please leave, Frank." She did not look at him as she spoke. She
kept her eyes on the man in the blue suit.

"Not him!"

"Please leave, Frank."

But it was too late. The door had closed. The man was looking at Frank.
"Sit down," he said.

Frank Corson sat down. He saw the man and he saw Rhoda, but they seemed
unimportant. Something had happened to his mind and he was busy
struggling with it. That was all that was important.

The strange lethargy that came like a cloud over his mind was beyond
understanding.

       *       *       *       *       *

Captain Abrams looked into the closet and back at Brent Taber. His lips
were back a little off his teeth. With Abrams, this indicated anger.

"All right. What does Washington do about this one? Does Washington tell
us to be good little boys and go hand out parking tickets?"

"It wasn't like that," Taber said.

"It doesn't much matter how it was. The thing is--how is it going to be
now?"

"You got a murder, friend. Plain and simple. What do the New York police
do when they get a murder?"

Abrams spoke bitterly. "Sometimes they let a panel truck drive in and
haul the body away and that's that."

"Let's save the sarcasm until later. I called you in. It's your case.
What do you want me to do?"

"Talk a little, maybe. The other one--now this one. The same killer?"

"I think so."

"What does he look like?"

"Medium height. One-eighty. Around forty. And dangerous."

"Dangerous, he says," Abrams muttered. "Any idea where we might go to
have a little talk with him?"

"No, can't say that I have."

"Try the streets of Manhattan--is that it?"

"I guess that's about it." Taber paused. "Wait a minute. If he's looking
for a spot to hide in he wouldn't come back here and he certainly
wouldn't try King's room. There's just a wide-open chance he might have
another location. Wait a minute while I look up an address."

       *       *       *       *       *

An hour after he'd finished delivering his speech on the floor of the
Senate, Crane held a press conference in one of Washington's most
important hotels. The place was crowded. He stood on a platform, looked
out over a sea of heads, and pointed at an upraised hand for the first
question.

"Senator, have you gotten any reaction from the people of your state on
the revelations contained in your speech?"

"There has been very little time, but telegrams have been pouring in."

"What is the reaction?"

"Frankly, I haven't had time to read them. However, I think there is
little doubt as to the mood of my people. They will be indignant and
angry at Washington bungling."

He pointed to another hand.

"Senator, granting the details you outlined are accurate, have you any
knowledge as to--"

"Young man. _Every_ detail I outlined was completely accurate." Senator
Crane withered the reporter with a hostile look and pointed elsewhere.

"Senator, did you consult with the people responsible for handling the
situation before making your speech?"

"I tried. I was willing to co-operate in every way, but my patience ran
out. Also, I was alarmed at the bungling and inefficiency I saw. For
that reason I went straight to the people with my story."

"Senator, I have a wire from the governor of your state. It just arrived
in response to my query as to his attitude on this affair. The governor
says, quote, _No comment_, unquote. Would _you_ care to comment on his
statement?"

Senator Crane thought he heard a faint ripple of mirth drift across the
room. But, of course, he had to be mistaken. "I think the governor
replied wisely. I expect to return home and confer with him as soon as
possible."

"Senator, can you explain why, out of all the able, sincere officials in
Washington, D.C., elected or otherwise, you were the only one with
enough wisdom and courage to put this matter before the people?"

"Young man, I am not going to pass judgment on anyone in Washington or
elsewhere. Each of us, I'm sure, does his duty as he sees it."

Again it seemed to Senator Crane that he heard a ripple of mirth--louder
this time. It had to be something to do with the acoustics. Except that
he was suddenly aware of smiles, too. The next question had to do with
possible consultation with Russia on the matter of the coming space
invasion.

Senator Crane agreed that such consultation should be made and then
retired hastily into seclusion. A touch of panic hit him. He felt like a
man who was far out in the water without a boat, with the closest land a
few hundred feet straight down. Good God! Had he miscalculated? Of
course not. He had only to await the verdict of the nation's top
newspapers before proceeding with the publicity program that might well
make him presidential timber.

       *       *       *       *       *

John Dennis, for the first time since Rhoda had known him, seemed
nervous. He kept licking his lips and shifting his eyes from Rhoda to
Frank Corson.

Frank Corson sat quietly, keeping his thoughts to himself. Rhoda crossed
to the liquor cabinet and poured a double Scotch. She went to the sofa
and sat down a little uncertainly.

"I guess you two haven't met. John, this is Frank Corson."

John Dennis paid no attention. He walked to the sofa, sat down, and took
a sheaf of notes from his jacket pocket.

"I've known Mr. Dennis for quite some time," Frank commented wryly.

"Be quiet."

John Dennis' tone was neither hostile nor friendly. They were the words
of a person whose mind was on other things. They watched him as his eyes
scanned the notes.

He appeared to be memorizing them.

The air became somewhat electric, the silence so deep it seemed to
scream. Rhoda looked across at Frank Corson. Frank's expression was
empty, as though he'd suffered some traumatic emotional blow and was
struggling to recover.

John Dennis stirred. He also appeared to be struggling. He turned his
eyes on the drink Rhoda was holding. He took it out of her hand and
downed it in a single gulp.

They watched as he went back to work, leafing through the notes, one at
a time. As he came close to the end, he lifted his head and shook it
violently, as though from sudden pain. He scowled at the empty glass
he'd handed back to Rhoda.

"Do you want another?" she inquired.

"Give me another."

She poured a second Scotch and handed it to him. He drank it like so
much water.

The last sheet of notations was covered. Then John Dennis sat motionless
for a minute, his frown and uncertainty returning. "It's hard to project
the details," he said. "All this detail. Difficult."

He dropped the last sheet and got up and poured himself another Scotch.
"They will make an army now," he said. The Scotch went down smoothly. He
went to the window and looked out. "This planet is different. The sun
there is blue and the air is very thin. Their bodies are nothing, but
their heads are very big. Now they will create an army and take this
planet."

Frank Corson was shaking his head slowly like a groggy fighter. Rhoda
sat huddled on the sofa, her mind such a mixture of tumbling emotions
that it seemed to be trying to tear itself out of her head. John Dennis
came back and stood in the middle of the room. He swayed drunkenly. "So
many things I don't understand. I see people I know--or I should know.
I--" He turned his eyes--eyes no longer empty--on Rhoda.

"I want to make love!"

Frank Corson got up from his chair and hurled himself on Dennis.

Rhoda screamed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Senator Crane sat at his desk. There were a pile of newspapers in front
of him. The first one carried a front page story with the headline:

  SENATOR CRANE WARNS OF SPACE INVASION

  SHADES OF ORSON WELLS' MARTIAN
  SCARE STALKS CAPITOL CORRIDORS.

Crane tossed the paper aside listlessly and picked up the second one:

  SENATORS VOICE CONCERN FOR SANITY
  OF COLLEAGUE

  CRANE IN STUNNING TIRADE
  WARNS OF SCIENCE-FICTION
  DISASTER.

The third paper featured an internationally syndicated columnist, famous
for his biting wit:

       *       *       *       *       *

Senator Crane today launched a one-man campaign to make America
space-conscious. If there was any Madison Avenue thinking behind the
launching it was certainly lower Madison Avenue.

In order to make his point--exactly what this was confused a vast
roomful of newspapermen--the Senator invented a race of creatures called
androids. These androids, it seems, look exactly like Tom Smith down the
block except that they'd just as soon cut your throat as not.

We fear the Senator must have been watching the wrong television
shows--knives yet, ugh!--possibly _Jim Bowie_, because there wasn't a
ray gun nor a disintegrator in his whole bag of exhibits.

All in all, it would appear that the project was pointed toward making
the people Senator Crane-conscious rather than aiming their attention at
the deadly heavens.

       *       *       *       *       *

Senator Crane put that paper aside and looked at the next. This one,
more so than all the rest, was completely factual:

  SENATOR CRANE DELUGED WITH WIRES
  FROM HOME

  CONSTITUENTS CLAIM WASHINGTON RIDICULE
  HEAPED ON SENATOR REFLECTS AGAINST STATE.

  Crane dropped the paper and got up from the desk.
  That son-of-a-bitch Taber was to blame for this. Shaping
  up a goddamn hoax and feeding it out piecemeal. By
  God--!

He went to the desk and dialed, and when the answer came he said,
"Halliday? Senator Crane here. I want to have a little talk with you
about that damned tape. It's pretty obvious now that Taber planted it in
a deliberate attempt to ... What's that? An appointment! Why, goddamn
it, who the hell do you think you are?.... Fifteen minutes next
Wednesday? You're talking to a United States Senator--"

But Crane was no longer talking to Halliday. He had hung up.

Crane dialed another number. A pleasant female voice said, "Matthew
Porter's office."

"This is Senator Crane. Put Porter on."

"Just a moment."

Crane waited. He waited for what seemed like ages, but a glance at his
watch told him it had been less than five minutes. He disconnected and
dialed again.

"This is Crane. We got cut off. I want to talk to Porter."

"I'm sorry but Mr. Porter has gone for the day."

"Well, where can I reach him? It's important."

"I'm sorry. Mr. Porter left no number."

"When will he be back?"

"He didn't say."

Crane slammed the phone down. "The bastards!" he snarled. "The lousy,
crummy bastards. Running like a pack of scared rats. Bureaucrats!
Damned, cowardly, self-appointed opportunists!"

He stopped cursing and sat for a while.

When he got up and left the office he looked and felt old but he had
faced a truth. It would not be necessary to campaign next year.

It wouldn't be of any use.




13


John Dennis showed human surprise as Frank Corson lunged at him. He had
either been lax in using the controlling power he'd been given, or else
Frank Corson had an exceptional resistance.

Dennis released Rhoda, swayed drunkenly under Frank Corson's clumsy
football-type tackle, and swung his arm like a pivoting beam. The blow
was a lucky one. His fist smashed low on Corson's jaw, numbing the
nerves of his neck on the left side.

Corson went down and, as he lay helpless, Dennis kicked him twice--once
in the side and once, viciously effectively, in the head. Corson rolled
over and lay still.

Dennis looked down at him in a drunken daze. "They will make an army and
bring it here."

Rhoda, standing in the center of an emotional maelstrom, watched the
struggle from the prison of her own horror. At that moment she was
physically, mentally and spiritually ill; a human being caught in the
midst of forces beyond her knowledge and control.

Dennis laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "I want to make love."

"No--no. Please--"

The drunkenness ebbed slightly and his eyes emptied. They looked into
Rhoda's. She shivered. He took the neck of her brunch coat in his fist
and jerked downward. She had just come from the shower when she'd first
opened the door for Frank Corson, and the vicious denuding gesture left
her completely naked.

Dennis went clumsily to his knees, his arms around her, and he pulled
her to the floor. She sobbed, but the tears were gone now and they were
dry, wracking sobs.

"Undress me."

She fumbled with his jacket and pulled it off while he knelt there in
anticipation of he knew not what; wondering, wanting, knowing only an
urge he could not understand but which had become a compulsion.

She took off his necktie and unbuttoned his shirt. Frank Corson stirred
but did not regain consciousness. "Please," Rhoda said, "let me help
him."

In answer, Dennis put his arms around her and drew her to him. "We will
make love."

"Yes--yes, we will make love--"

The ring of the doorbell was like thunder in the room. Dennis tensed,
his eyes widened, and he got to his feet and stood swaying. Looking up
at him, Rhoda saw a trapped animal, but the excitement was still there
and she wanted to take him in her arms and hold him and protect him from
the world.

But he had forgotten her. A cunning sneer took the place of the
slavering animal look and he ran to the kitchen to reappear moments
later with a butcher knife in his hand.

The bell rang again. Dennis snarled at the door and, in some kind of
sheer ecstatic bravado, emitted a Tarzan roar.

Instantly a weight hit the door from the outside. It shuddered but did
not give. Dennis crouched, gripping his knife. Frank Corson staggered to
his feet and hurled himself groggily at the android. Dennis roared
again, pushed away and arced the knife at his throat.

Rhoda screamed and lunged at Dennis' legs. "No! No! Stop it! Please!"

Dennis teetered under her weight and the knife slanted downward across
Frank's chest. It ripped a red gash as the door shuddered a third time.

Dennis turned in that direction and crouched. The door splintered and
flew open. Dennis lunged, like a line-bucking football player. He hit
both Brent Taber and Captain Abrams simultaneously, sprawling them both
and sending Abrams' gun spinning out of his hand.

He leaped over them and dashed down the hall where the elevator man
waited uncertainly, not sure whether to dispute the right of way or not.
His indecision was fatal. Dennis wrapped an arm around his neck, pulled
his head back and cut his throat with one slash of the knife.

Captain Abrams' head had hit a doorjamb opposite the entrance to Rhoda's
apartment. He stirred and tried to come erect but he was unable to make
it.

Brent Taber clawed the gun off the floor and came to one knee. He got
off one shot as the elevator door was closing and saw the android spin
away from the controls as the impact of the slug smashed the bone of his
shoulder.

Taber lunged to his feet and went for the stairs.

There was no one in the lobby when he arrived there--no dead bodies,
either. But on the sidewalk, in front of the building, a woman lay dead
in a pool of blood.

In a sick rage, Taber looked in both directions and saw the android dive
through a group of people half a block away. He tipped them over like
tenpins and ran on. Taber gripped the gun tight and started in pursuit.

He could not fire because there was enough sidewalk traffic to make it
dangerous. On ahead, the android's path was blocked by a man. He sought
to get clear but the android passed him close enough to jam the knife
into his neck and send him screaming to the sidewalk.

A uniformed patrolman appeared on the other side of the street, further
down. He took the situation in and understood Taber's frantic gesture. A
car screamed to a halt as the patrolman raced across the street, drawing
his gun.

The android, seeing his escape cut off, veered into an areaway. The
patrolman got there first and plunged in after him.

Taber, gasps tearing at his lungs, arrived thirty seconds later. During
that time, he'd expected the sound of shots from the patrolman's gun.
But there was silence.

He braked on his heels, skidded into the areaway, and saw the android
advancing on the patrolman. The latter stood motionless, the gun hanging
useless at his side.

"Drop! Drop!" Taber yelled. He cursed as he tried to angle in the narrow
areaway in order to get a clear shot.

The android advanced with his knife raised. In desperation, Taber fired
at the lethal fist that held the weapon. And he was lucky. The hand
snapped open under the ripping impact of the bullet and the knife rang
sharply against the wall as it ricocheted to the ground.

Only then, did the patrolman obey the order to drop. He went to one knee
and Brent Taber fired three shots into the chest of the android.

He hesitated. There was only one slug left in the revolver. If the three
didn't spot the android, he planned to wait for closer contact and put
the sixth slug into the forehead.

The android shuddered. The fire and frenzy went out of him. He tried to
lift a leg and was surprised when it didn't move. He looked down at it.
Completely bemused, he peered down at his crimson chest. He looked up at
Taber without anger, only with surprise. A distinct expression of
wistful regret crossed his face as he sank to the ground.

The tenth android was dead.

The patrolman came shakily to his feet. His face was as pale as death.
"I--I don't know what happened. Buck fever. Pure buck fever, and I've
been on the force for ten years."

"Don't worry about it," Taber said.

"Don't _worry_. All of a sudden I freeze under pressure and he says,
'Don't worry.'"

"I meant it. This is no ordinary man. It wasn't buck fever at all. I
couldn't have faced him myself if I hadn't rattled him with that lucky
shot."

The patrolman wanted to believe. He most pathetically wanted to believe.
"Honest?"

"It's the God's honest truth. No man could have stood in front of that
killer and pulled a trigger. He's a master hypnotist. You're all right.
We won't say a word about what happened in here. And you'll have no
trouble in the future."

The patrolman shook his head. "Still, I gotta do something about it."

"Talk to your psychiatrist," Taber said. "In the meantime, keep that
crowd out there from spilling in here."

Taber pushed out through the choked entrance to the areaway and went
back up the street. It was alive with activity now and he passed
unnoticed. No one recognized him as the man who had given chase in the
bloody business that would make headlines that evening in every New York
newspaper.

And yet the radio and TV news commentators gave it no special attention.
It went in along with other items of the day's news as a more or less
routine big-city happening.

One national-hookup headliner stated: "In New York City today, a man
identified as John Dennis, address unknown, went berserk in a
fashionable Upper East Side apartment. Dennis, wielding a knife, killed
a man and a woman, and seriously wounded another man before he was cut
down by police bullets.

"A jet airliner, down in the North Atlantic today, imperiled the lives
of seventy-six ..."

       *       *       *       *       *

Frank Corson lay propped on two pillows in a private room of the Park
Hill Hospital. Rhoda Kane sat in a chair beside the bed. She was pale
and very beautiful. The fire was now gone from her body and the fever
from her eyes.

"They say he wasn't human. They say he was an android." She shuddered,
looked down quickly, then slowly raised her head.

"Yes."

"I'll--I'll never understand. I get sick thinking about it. I'll just
never understand."

"He was human and yet not human. He had extraordinary powers that we
don't begin to understand, so that what happened to you is no disgrace."

"It's a terrible disgrace."

"It happened to me, too. When he told me to sit down I had to do it. I
was helpless."

"But you fought! You overcame it."

Frank Corson smiled wryly. "No, I didn't. It was just that he'd had
little time to work on me. It was a single mental blow, so to speak,
that laid me out. Like one punch in the ring. Gradually, I came out of
it."

"I think I _tried_ to fight."

"Of course, you did. The disgrace was mine. I acted like a child. I
should have realized that something extraordinary had happened. But I
nursed my miserable little ego like a three-year-old."

"How could you know? My cruelty to you--"

"Don't talk like that! I knew about the ninth android, and I met the
tenth one in front of your apartment that second morning. I should have
associated. Brent Taber did, otherwise we might both be dead."

"It's all over now. It doesn't make any difference."

"No, it doesn't make any difference."

She looked at him in silence for several moments. "You've changed,
Frank."

"Yes, I guess I have. I guess we all grow up eventually. We all face
reality and live with it."

"Frank--I think I'm going to cry."

He could not turn his eyes in her direction. He looked straight ahead
but his voice was soft. "Go ahead, Rhoda. I understand."

They were silent for a time, then Rhoda began to cry quietly into her
handkerchief. After a while even that sound was stilled.

He turned to look at her. She was standing beside the bed. He almost
reached out and took her hand, but drew his own back at the last minute.

"How soon will you be leaving?" she asked.

"The wound was superficial. I really didn't need to be hospitalized. I'm
being released tomorrow morning. I'll probably leave immediately."

"You'll make a fine doctor, Frank."

"Thank you, I'll try."

"Good-bye, Frank."

"Good-bye--darling."

She turned and fled.

And judging by the deep sadness in his soul, he knew he had hit bottom.

There was no place to go but up.

       *       *       *       *       *

Brent Taber's phone rang.

"Hello, Taber. Halliday here."

"How are you, Halliday."

"Tops, old man. Ragged by the stress of it all, of course, but tops."

Taber waited. Halliday waited. Seeing that he would get no help, he
said, "By the way, that little ... misunderstanding we had, the Senator
Crane thing, I'm sure you realized that our talk was ... well, the words
were put into my mouth. I felt the same way about the oaf as you did.
But sometimes, in the line of duty, old man ... well, I know you were
reading between my lines all the time."

"I'm pretty good at that."

"I knew we understood each other."

"Is that what you called about?"

"Yes, but I've got a little tip for you. They want to see you upstairs.
I happen to know they liked the way things turned out. Just between you
and me, the humiliation of Crane made certain high officials pretty
happy. I was queried and I gave you all the credit."

"Before or after the good Senator fell on his face?"

Halliday laughed. "Okay, pal. You're entitled to your little dig. But
you know this--I'm with you and I always will be."

"And I'm with you, too, pal," Brent said wearily and hung up.

The phone rang again. Automatically, Brent picked up the receiver.

"Brent? Porter on this end. How is it with you, old man?"

"Ducky. Just ducky."

Porter laughed. "Just called to say, 'Good job well done.'"

"Thanks."

"Want to give you a little tip, too. They want you upstairs. A
commendation. Not generally known, though. And you deserve it. You'll be
called up tomorrow."

"You never know the day or the hour."

The laugh came again. "You're humor is priceless, old man."

"Isn't it?"

"Another thing--I got pretty hot when I got wind of how the ground was
being cut out from under you. I made it my business to do something
about it. I hate to see a good man pushed around. Of course I okayed the
orders cutting you down--a matter of routine--I had to follow through.
But then I got busy. A thing like that won't happen again."

"Thanks, Porter. It warms a man to know he's got a friend--a friend like
you."

"Just between us, old man, I'm one of your admirers." Porter laughed and
sprayed charm through the phone like perfume from an atomizer. "But if
you quote me, I'll deny it."

"Oh, I wouldn't think of quoting you, old man," Taber replied in a
kindly voice and put down the phone.

He sat back and closed his eyes. Three people dead. One person maimed.
Blood in the streets.

Good job well done.

He opened a drawer of his desk and reached for the Scotch bottle.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the Newark Airport he would not trust his suitcase to a porter
because the leather loop holding one side of the handle was very thin
and he was afraid it would break.

Once he had been ashamed of the shabbiness of the bag and had planned to
buy a new one, but now there was an affinity between them, a kind of
warmth.

Were they companions in misery?

He asked the question with a quick smile and then realized he was not
miserable. A little bleak of mind, perhaps, with Minnesota and what lay
ahead affording no glow of anticipation in his mind. But that would
pass. No, he had relegated the hurt to a mental pigeonhole; maybe he
would bring it out and look at it once in a while, after enough time had
passed.

But he was not miserable.

He went to the counter, checked in, and they told him his plane would
take off on time. He glanced at his watch. Thirty-two minutes.

He went back to the bench and found Rhoda Kane sitting beside his
suitcase.

She wore a plain, black suit with a ridiculous little black hat and she
was so beautiful he was angry with her. He hated her. This good-bye
wasn't necessary. Why had she come?

Her face was pale and drawn; her smile was as abstract as the mystery on
the lips of the Mona Lisa. She laid a hand on the suitcase.

"We had our first quarrel over it, remember? We went to Puerto Rico for
that week and I wanted to use mine but you said, 'Goddamn it, if you're
ashamed of my suitcase you're ashamed of me, so the hell with it.'"

"I remember."

He sat down beside her, lit a cigarette, and then dropped it on the
floor and stepped on it. They both looked straight ahead.

"Take me with you, Frank."

"That's impossible."

"I know, but take me with you."

"There will be no money. I'll live in a stuffy room somewhere."

"What difference does that make? Take me."

"You have your job. You're on the way up. It would be unthinkable."

"I don't have any job. I quit. I was halfway through a piece of
copy--very important copy--and I got up and walked into Mr. Frankel's
office. I said, 'Mr. Frankel, it's been very nice working for you. I
appreciate all you've done but I'm leaving now. The pencils are all
sharpened on my desk and the next girl can have the new leather-bound
address book in the lower right hand drawer that I bought but never
used! That was a silly thing to say, wasn't it?"

"I suppose so."

"And the way I phrased it. I actually said I'd bought the lower right
hand drawer and hadn't used it--take me with you, Frank."

"Rhoda, I was so wrong in--"

"_I_ was wrong, Frank. I was trying to mold you into my way of life. I
wanted you, but only as a part of my own eager little world. I had money
so I furnished my apartment. I put this here and that there, and hung a
toothbrush over the sink as necessarily functional, and then I decided I
needed a man in the same way and so I picked you.

"But I found out that the man in the bed was the most important part of
it and without him there wasn't anything. Without him I didn't want any
of the other. Now ... I want to be a wife. A wife is a person who goes
where her husband goes and lives where he lives and shares what he has.
You don't barter and trade--this for that--give up this part to get
that. You give up everything and yet it isn't like that at all because
you're really getting everything."

He took out another cigarette.

"Oh, Frank, it's all mixed up and I'm going to cry, I think."

"It's not mixed up at all," he said quietly. He turned to look at her,
half frowning, half smiling. "Now why in the hell couldn't you have
given me a little notice? Twenty minutes to plane time and I've got to
get another reservation."

"I'm sorry, Frank."

"Maybe there isn't a seat."

"Wouldn't that be terrible?"

"Then we'll have to wait over."

"Why don't you go and see?"

Five minutes later they were walking down the west tunnel to gate
twenty-six.

Frank Corson grinned. "Come on, woman, I'm going to take you across
state lines for immoral purposes."

"How wonderful," she breathed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Brent Taber was human and his triumph had been a thing of satisfaction
to him--but only momentarily. Now it had a slightly sour taste.

Not that he was unhappy. He was content and almost relaxed as he sat in
Doctor Entman's patio and worked on a Scotch and soda.

"A nice night," Entman said.

"Beautiful. Those stars are about ready to fall into our laps."

"Menace out there? It seems unthinkable."

"Doesn't it?"

"The human animal is a strange creature. He's so capable of refusing to
believe what he doesn't want to believe."

"Maybe he's smarter than we think. Maybe there's no point in looking at
a pending disaster from every angle. The what-will-be-will-be attitude
isn't necessarily like that of the ostrich which sticks its head in the
sand."

"Do the people inside really believe?" Entman asked.

"It's pretty difficult to tell. Sometimes I wonder what my own real
feelings are."

"I wasn't completely briefed on how it ended," Entman said delicately.

"I think the phony specifications got through."

"If they did--if things are really as they appear--"

Taber smiled in the darkness. "Are _you_ beginning to doubt, Doctor?"

"Oh, be quiet," Entman said with friendly petulance. "I was going to say
that I was rather proud of those details. If our hostiles out there
follow my specifications, they'll create androids with much smaller
lungs and non-porous skin that will give them no end of trouble when
they start chasing frightened householders down the streets of the
world."

Taber chuckled. "I remember a story about the Japanese Navy. They were
supposed to have built some ships to specifications stolen in England.
When launched, they slid out into the bay and tipped over."

Entman sighed. "I wish I could get some of the data those creatures
used in the construction of the androids."

"You'd like to make one of your own?"

"It would solve the servant problem. Terrible here in Washington."

"Labor unions would holler bloody murder."

"You can't stop progress."

Suddenly Entman got to his feet. He walked to the edge of the patio and
looked upward. Taber saw his face in the light streaming from the living
room--he seemed frightened.

"Brent! It's such a helpless feeling. What do we do?"

Brent Taber got up and went over and stood beside Entman. He, too,
looked up into the velvet night; the beautiful, quiet, impersonal night.

The sinister night.

"We watch the stars," Brent said. "And we wait."

THE END

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_A Terrifying Tale Of Horror In The Skies_

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_A Destroyer From Another Planet--Bent On Mastery Of The World_

       *       *       *       *       *

ENCOUNTER

By J. Hunter Holly Author of THE GREEN PLANET

It came plummeting out of the sky--a soundless, streaking, purple glow,
moving faster and faster until it ripped at the trees, crashed through
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       *       *       *       *       *

THE POWER OF EVIL

"You might call it a fight," Elizabeth said, "but they never actually
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REVENGE IN AN ALIEN WORLD

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TEN FROM INFINITY

Ten men walked Earth--ten men in different cities in the United States.
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Published By MONARCH BOOKS, INC.









_Beginning a thrilling New Serial of Interplanetary Life and Travel by
Edward E. Smith, Ph.D._

_Author of "Skylark of Space" and "Skylark Three"_




Spacehounds of IPC


    _A good many of us, who are now certain beyond a doubt that space
    travel will forever remain in the realm of the impossible, probably
    would, if a rocket that were shot to the moon, for instance, did
    arrive, and perhaps return to give proof of its safe arrival on our
    satellite, accept the phenomenon in a perfectly blasé, twentieth
    century manner. Dr. Smith, that phenomenal writer of classic
    scientific fiction, seems to have become so thoroughly convinced of
    the advent of interplanetary travel that it is difficult for the
    reader to feel, after finishing "Spacehounds of IPC," that travel
    in the great spaces is not already an established fact. Dr. Smith,
    as a professional chemist, is kept fairly busy. As a writer, he is
    satisfied with nothing less than perfection. For that reason, a
    masterpiece from his pen has become almost an annual event. We know
    you will like "Spacehounds" even better than the "Skylark" series._


Illustrated by WESSO




CHAPTER I

The IPV _Arcturus_ Sets Out for Mars


A narrow football of steel, the Interplanetary Vessel _Arcturus_ stood
upright in her berth in the dock like an egg in its cup. A hundred feet
across and a hundred and seventy feet deep was that gigantic bowl, its
walls supported by the structural steel and concrete of the dock and
lined with hard-packed bumper-layers of hemp and fibre. High into the
air extended the upper half of the ship of space--a sullen gray expanse
of fifty-inch hardened steel armor, curving smoothly upward to a needle
prow. Countless hundred of fine vertical scratches marred every inch
of her surface, and here and there the stubborn metal was grooved and
scored to a depth of inches--each scratch and score the record of an
attempt of some wandering cosmic body to argue the right-of-way with
the stupendous mass of that man-made cruiser of the void.

A burly young man made his way through the throng about the entrance,
nodded unconcernedly to the gatekeeper, and joined the stream of
passengers flowing through the triple doors of the double air-lock
and down a corridor to the center of the vessel. However, instead of
entering one of the elevators which were whisking the passengers up to
their staterooms in the upper half of the enormous football, he in some
way caused an opening to appear in an apparently blank steel wall and
stepped through it into the control room.

"Hi, Breck!" the burly one called, as he strode up to the instrument-desk
of the chief pilot and tossed his bag carelessly into a corner. "Behold
your computer in the flesh! What's all this howl and fuss about poor
computation?"

"Hello, Steve!" The chief pilot smiled as he shook hands cordially.
"Glad to see you again--but don't try to kid the old man. I'm simple
enough to believe almost anything, but some things just aren't being
done. We have been yelling, and yelling hard, for trained computers
ever since they started riding us about every one centimeter change in
acceleration, but I know that you're no more an I-P computer than I am
a Digger Indian. They don't shoot sparrows with coast-defense guns!"

[Illustration]

"Thanks for the compliment, Breck, but I'm your computer for this trip,
anyway. Newton, the good old egg, knows what you fellows are up against
and is going to do something about it, if he has to lick all the rest of
the directors to do it. He knew that I was loose for a couple of weeks
and asked me to come along this trip to see what I could see. I'm to
check the observatory data--they don't know I'm aboard--take the peaks
and valleys off your acceleration curve, if possible, and report to
Newton just what I find out and what I think should be done about it.
How early am I?" While the newcomer was talking, he had stripped the
covers from a precise scale model of the solar system and from a large
and complicated calculating machine and had set to work without a wasted
motion or instant--scaling off upon the model the positions of the
various check-stations and setting up long and involved integrals and
equations upon the calculator.

The older man studied the broad back of the younger, bent over his
computations, and a tender, almost fatherly smile came over his careworn
face as he replied:

"Early? You? Just like you always were--plus fifteen seconds on the
deadline. The final dope is due right now." He plugged the automatic
recorder and speaker into a circuit marked "Observatory," waited until
a tiny light above the plug flashed green, and spoke.

"IPV _Arcturus_; Breckenridge, Chief Pilot; trip number forty-three
twenty-nine. Ready for final supplementary route and flight data, Tellus
to Mars."

"Meteoric swarms still too numerous for safe travel along the scheduled
route," came promptly from the speaker. "You must stay further away from
the plane of the ecliptic. The ether will be clear for you along route
E2-P6-W41-K3-R19-S7-M14. You will hold a constant acceleration of 981.27
centimeters between initial and final check stations. Your take-off
will be practically unobstructed, but you will have to use the utmost
caution in landing upon Mars, because in order to avoid a weightless
detour and a loss of thirty-one minutes, you must pass very close
to both the Martian satellites. To do so safely you must pass the
last meteorological station, M14, on schedule time plus or minus five
seconds, at scheduled velocity plus or minus ten meters, with exactly
the given negative acceleration of 981.27 centimeters, and exactly upon
the pilot ray M14 will have set for you."

"All x." Breckenridge studied his triplex chronometer intently, then
unplugged and glanced around the control room, in various parts of which
half a dozen assistants were loafing at their stations.

"Control and power check-out--Hipe!" he barked. "Driving converters and
projectors!"

The first assistant scanned his meters narrowly as he swung a
multi-point switch in a flashing arc. "Converter efficiency 100,
projector reactivity 100; on each of numbers one to forty-five
inclusive. All x."

"Dirigible projectors!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Two more gleaming switches leaped from point to point. "Converter
efficiency 100, projector reactivity 100, dirigibility 100, on each of
numbers one to thirty-two, inclusive, of upper band; and numbers one to
thirty-two, inclusive, of lower band. All x."

"Gyroscopes!"

"35,000. Drivers in equilibrium at ten degrees plus. All x."

"Upper lights and lookout plates!"

The second assistant was galvanized into activity, and upon a screen
before him there appeared a view as though he were looking directly
upward from the prow of the great vessel. The air above them was full of
aircraft of all shapes and sizes, and occasionally the image of one of
that flying horde flared into violet splendor upon the screen as it was
caught in the mighty, roving beam of one of the twelve ultra-light
projectors under test.

"Upper lights and lookout plates--all x," the second assistant reported,
and other assistants came to attention as the check-out went on.

"Lower lights and lookout plates!"

"All x," was the report, after each of the twelve ultra-lights of the
stern had swung around in its supporting brackets, illuminating every
recess of the dark depths of the bottom well of the berth and throwing
the picture upon another screen in lurid violet relief.

"Lateral and vertical detectors!"

"Laterals XP2710--all x. Verticals AJ4290--all x."

"Receptors!"

"15,270 kilofranks--all x."

"Accumulators!"

"700,000 kilofrank-hours--all x."

Having thus checked and tested every function of his department,
Breckenridge plugged into "Captain," and when the green light went on:

"Chief pilot check-out--all x," he reported briefly.

"All x," acknowledged the speaker, and the chief pilot unplugged.
Fifteen minutes remained, during which time one department head after
another would report to the captain of the liner that everything in his
charge was ready for the stupendous flight.

"All x, Steve?" Breckenridge turned to the computer. "How do you check
acceleration and power with the observatory?"

"Not so good, old bean," the younger man frowned in thought. "They
figure like astronomers, not navigators. They've made no allowances for
anything, not even the reversal--and I figure four thousands for that
and for minor detours. Then there's check station errors...."

"Check-station errors! Why, they're always right--that's what they're
for!"

"Don't fool yourself--they've got troubles of their own, the same as
anybody else. In fact, from a study of the charts of the last few weeks,
I'm pretty sure that E2 is at least four thousand kilometers this side
of where he thinks he is, that W41 is ten or twelve thousand beyond his
station, and that they've both got a lateral displacement that's simply
fierce. I'm going to check up, and argue with them about it as we pass.
Then there's another thing--they figure to only two places, and we've
got to have the third place almost solid if we expect to get a smooth
curve. A hundredth of a centimeter of acceleration means a lot on a long
trip when they're holding us as close as they are doing now. We'll ride
this trip on 981.286 centimeters--with our scheduled mass, that means
thirty six points of four seven kilofranks _plus_ equilibrium power. All
set to go," the computer stated, as he changed, by fractions of arc, the
course-plotters of the automatic integrating goniometer.

"You're the doctor--but I'm glad it's you that'll have to explain to the
observatory," and Breckenridge set his exceedingly delicate excess power
potentiometer exactly upon the indicated figure. "Well, we've got a few
minutes left for a chin-chin before we lift her off."

"What's all this commotion about? Dish out the low-down."

"Well, it's like this, Steve. We pilots are having one sweet
time--we're being growled at on every trip. The management squawks if
we're thirty seconds plus or minus at the terminals, and the passenger
department squalls if we change acceleration five centimeters total en
route--claims it upsets the dainty customers and loses business for
the road. They're tightening up on us all the time. A couple of years
ago, you remember, it didn't make any difference what we did with the
acceleration as long as we checked in somewhere near zero time--we used
to spin 'em dizzy when we reversed at the half-way station--but that
kind of stuff doesn't go any more. We've got to hold the acceleration
constant and close to normal, got to hold our schedule on zero, _plus_
or _minus_ ten seconds, and yet we've got to make any detours they
tell us to, such as this seven-million kilometer thing they handed
us just now. To make things worse, we've got to take orders at every
check-station, and yet _we_ get the blame for everything that happens
as a consequence of obeying those orders! Of course, I know as well
as you do that it's rotten technique to change acceleration at every
check-station; but we've told 'em over and over that we can't do any
better until they put a real computer on every ship and tell the
check-stations to report meteorites and other obstructions to us and
then to let us alone. So you'd better recommend us some computers!"

"You're getting rotten computation, that's a sure thing, and I don't
blame you pilots for yelling, but I don't believe that you've got the
right answer. I can't help but think that the astronomers are lying down
on the job. They are so sure that you pilots are to blame that it hasn't
occurred to them to check up on themselves very carefully. However,
we'll know pretty quick, and then we'll take steps."

"I hope so--but say, Steve, I'm worried about using that much plus
equilibrium power. Remember, we've got to hit M14 in absolutely good
shape, or plenty heads will drop."

"I'll say they will. I know just how the passengers will howl if we
hold them weightless for half an hour, waiting for those two moons to get
out of the way, and I know just what the manager will do if we check in
minus thirty-one minutes. Wow! He'll swell up and bust, sure. But don't
worry, Breck--if we don't check in all right, anybody can have my head
that wants it, and I'm taking full responsibility, you know."

"You're welcome to it." Breckenridge shrugged and turned the
conversation into a lighter vein. "Speaking of weightlessness,
it's funny how many weight-fiends there are in the world, isn't
it? You'd think the passengers would enjoy a little weightlessness
occasionally--especially the fat ones--but they don't. But say, while
I think of it, how come you were here and loose to make this check-up?
I thought you were out with the other two of the Big Three, solving
all the mysteries of the Universe?"

"Had to stay in this last trip--been doing some work on the ether,
force-field theory, and other advanced stuff that I had to go to Mars
and Venus to get. Just got back last week. As for solving mysteries,
laugh while you can, old hyena. You and a lot of other dim bulbs think
that Roeser's Rays are the last word--that there's nothing left to
discover--are going to get jarred loose from your hinges one of these
days. When I came in nine months ago they were hot on the trail of
something big, and I'll bet they bring it in...."

Out upon the dock an insistent siren blared a crescendo and diminuendo
blast of sound, and two minutes remained. In every stateroom and in
every lounge and saloon speakers sounded a warning:

"For a short time, while we are pulling clear of the gravitational field
of the Earth, walking will be somewhat difficult, as everything on board
will apparently increase in weight by about one-fifth of its present
amount. Please remain seated, or move about with caution. In about an
hour weight will gradually return to normal. We start in one minute."

"Hipe!" barked the chief pilot as a flaring purple light sprang into
being upon his board, and the assistants came to attention at their
stations. "Seconds! Four! Three! Two! One! LIFT!" He touched a
button and a set of plunger switches drove home, releasing into the
forty-five enormous driving projectors the equilibrium power--the
fifteen-thousand-and-odd kilofranks of energy that exactly
counterbalanced the pull of gravity upon the mass of the cruiser.
Simultaneously there was added from the potentiometer, already set
to the exact figure given by the computer, the _plus_-equilibrium
power--which would not be changed throughout the journey if the ideal
acceleration curve were to be registered upon the recorders--and the
immense mass of the cruiser of the void wafted vertically upward at a
low and constant velocity. The bellowing, shrieking siren had cleared
the air magically of the swarm of aircraft in her path, and quietly,
calmly, majestically, the _Arcturus_ floated upward.

       *       *       *       *       *

Breckenridge, sixty seconds after the initial lift, actuated the system
of magnetic relays which would gradually cut in the precisely measured
"starting power," which it would be necessary to employ for sixty-nine
minutes--for, without the acceleration given by this additional power,
they would lose many precious hours of time in covering merely the
few thousands of miles during which Earth's attraction would operate
powerfully against their progress.

Faster and faster the great cruiser shot upward as more and more of the
starting power was released, and heavier and heavier the passengers
felt themselves become. Soon the full calculated power was on and the
acceleration became constant. Weight no longer increased, but remained
constant at a value of plus twenty three and six-tenths percent. For a
few moments there had been uneasy stomachs among the passengers--perhaps
a few of the first-trippers had been made ill--but it was not much worse
than riding in a high-speed elevator, particularly since there was no
change from positive to negative acceleration such as is experienced in
express elevators.

The computer, his calculations complete, watched the pilot with
interest, for, accustomed as he was to traversing the depths of space,
there was a never-failing thrill to his scientific mind in the delicacy
and precision of the work which Breckenridge was doing--work which could
be done only by a man who had had long training in the profession and
who was possessed of instantaneous nervous reaction and of the highest
degree of manual dexterity and control. Under his right and left hands
were the double-series potentiometers actuating the variable-speed
drives of the flight-angle directors in the hour and declination ranges;
before his eyes was the finely marked micrometer screen upon which the
guiding goniometer threw its needle-point of light; powerful optical
systems of prisms and lenses revealed to his sight the director-angles,
down to fractional seconds of arc. It was the task of the chief pilot
to hold the screened image of the cross-hairs of the two directors in
such position relative to the ever-moving point of light as to hold the
mighty vessel precisely upon its course, in spite of the complex system
of forces acting upon it.

For almost an hour Breckenridge sat motionless, his eyes flashing from
micrometer screen to signal panel, his sensitive fingers moving the
potentiometers through minute arcs because of what he saw upon the
screen and in instantaneous response to the flashing, multi-colored
lights and tinkling signals of his board. Finally, far from earth, the
moon's attraction and other perturbing forces comparatively slight, the
signals no longer sounded and the point of light ceased its irregular
motion, becoming almost stationary. The chief pilot brought both
cross-hairs directly upon the brilliant point, which for some time they
had been approaching more and more nearly, adjusted the photo-cells
and amplifiers which would hold them immovably upon it, and at the
calculated second of time, cut out the starting power by means of
another set of automatically timed relays. When only the regular driving
power was left, and the acceleration had been checked and found to be
exactly the designated value of 981.286 centimeters, he stood up and
heaved a profound sigh of relief.

"Well, Steve, that's over with--we're on our way. I'm always glad when
this part of it is done."

"It's a ticklish job, no fooling--even for an expert," the mathematician
agreed. "No wonder the astronomers think you birds are the ones who are
gumming up their dope. Well, it's about time to plug in on E2. Here's
where the fireworks start!" He closed the connections which transferred
the central portion of the upper lookout screen to a small micrometer
screen at Breckenridge's desk and plugged it into the first
check-station. Instantly a point of red light, surrounded by a vivid
orange circle, appeared upon the screen, low down and to the left of
center, and the timing galvanometer showed a wide positive deflection.

"Hashed again!" growled Breckenridge. "I must be losing my grip,
I guess. I put everything I had on that sight, and missed it ten
divisions. I think I'll turn in my badge--I've cocked our perfect curve
already, before we got to the first check-station!" His hands moved
toward the controls, to correct their course and acceleration.

"As you were--hold everything! Lay off those controls!" snapped the
computer. "There's something screwy, just as I thought--and it isn't
you, either. I'm no pilot, of course, but I do know good compensation
when I see it, and if you weren't compensating that point I never saw it
done. Besides, with your skill and my figures I know darn well that we
aren't off more than a tenth of one division. He's cuckoo! Don't call
him--let him start it, and refer him to me."

"All x--I'll be only too glad to pass the buck. But I still think,
Steve, that you're playing with dynamite. Who ever heard of an
astronomer being wrong?"

"You'd be surprised," grinned the physicist, "Since this fuss has
just started, nobody has tried to find out whether they were wrong
or not...."

"IPV _Arcturus_, attention!" came from the speaker curtly.

"IPV _Arcturus_, Breckenridge," from the chief pilot.

"You have been on my ray almost a minute. Why are you not correcting
course and acceleration?"

"Doctor Stevens is computing us and has full control of course and
acceleration," replied Breckenridge. "He will answer you."

"I am changing neither course nor acceleration because you are not
in position," declared Stevens, crisply, "Please give me your present
supposed location, and your latest precision goniometer bearings on the
sun, the moon, Mars, Venus, and your Tellurian reference limb, with
exact time of observations, gyroscope zero-planes, and goniometer
factors!"

"Correct at once or I shall report you to the Observatory," E2 answered
loftily, paying no attention to the demand for proof of position.

"Be sure you do that, guy--and while you're at it report that your
station hasn't taken a precision bearing in a month. Report that you've
been muddling along on radio loop bearings, and that you don't know
where you are, within seven thousand kilometers. And speaking of
reporting--I know already that a lot of you astronomical guessers
have only the faintest possible idea of where you really are, _plus_,
_minus_, or lateral; and if you don't get yourselves straightened out
before we get to W41, I'm going to make a report on my own account that
will jar some of you birds loose from your upper teeth!" He unplugged
with a vicious jerk, and turned to the pilot with a grin.

"Guess that'll hold him for a while, won't it?"

"He'll report us, sure," remonstrated Breckenridge. The older man was
plainly ill at ease at this open defiance of the supposedly infallible
check-stations.

"Not that baby," returned the computer confidently. "I'll bet you a
small farm against a plugged nickel that right now he's working his
goniometer so hard that it's pivots are getting hot. He'll sneak back
into position as soon as he can calculate his results, and pretend he's
always been there."

"The others will be all right, then, probably, by the time we get to
them?"

"Gosh, no--you're unusually dumb today, Breck. He won't tell anybody
anything--he doesn't want to be the only goat, does he?"

"Oh, I see. How could you dope this out, with only the recorder charts?"

"Because I know the kind of stuff you pilots are--and those humps are
altogether too big to be accounted for by anything I know about you.
Another thing--the next station, P6, I think is keeping himself all x.
If so, when you corrected for E2, which was wrong, it'd throw you all
off on P6, which was right, and so on--a bad hump at almost every
check-station. See?"

       *       *       *       *       *

True to prediction, the pilot ray of P6 came in almost upon the exact
center of the micrometer screen, and Breckenridge smiled in relief as he
began really to enjoy the trip.

"How do we check on chronometers?" asked P6 when Stevens had been
introduced. "By my time you seem to be about two and a half seconds
_plus_?"

"All x--two points four seconds plus--we're riding on 981.286
centimeters, to allow for the reversal and for minor detours. Bye."

"All this may have been coincidence, Breck, but we'll find out pretty
quick now," the computer remarked when the flying vessel was nearing
the third check-station. "Unless I'm all out of control we'll check in
almost fourteen seconds minus on W41, and we may not even find him on
the center block of the screen."

When he plugged in W41 was on the block, but was in the extreme upper
right corner. They checked in thirteen and eight-tenths seconds minus on
the station, and a fiery dialogue ensued when the computer questioned
the accuracy of the location of the station and refused point-blank to
correct his course.
"Not I, my friend, I have robbed you enough."

"And about time for the luck to turn, isn't it? Well, I don't care! What
shall we do?"

"What you will," answered the Frenchman absently.

Benham pulled his beard, then leant forward and put a question with an
intoxicated leer. A laugh of feigned reproof burst from Gaspard. Benham
seemed to urge him, and at last he said,

"Oh, if you're bent on it, I can be your guide."

The two men left the house arm-in-arm, went down the street, and crossed
Digby Square. It was late, and few people were about, but Gaspard saw
one acquaintance. The doorkeeper was strolling along on his way home,
and Gaspard bade him good-night in a cheery voice as they passed him.
The doorkeeper stood and watched the pair for a minute as they left the
Square and turned down a narrow street which led to the poorer part of
the town, and thence to the quays. He heard Gaspard's high-pitched voice
and shrill laughter, and, in answer, Benham's thick tones and heavy
shout of drunken mirth. Once or twice these sounds repeated themselves,
then they ceased; the footsteps of the Frenchman and his companion died
away in the distance. The doorkeeper went on his way, thinking with
relief that Mr. Gaspard, for all his tall talk, was more at home with a
bottle than with a knife or a bomb.

Notwithstanding his dissipation, Gaspard was afoot very early in the
morning. It was hardly light, and the deep scratch of finger-nails on
his face--it is so awkward when drunken fools wake at the wrong
minute--attracted no attention from the few people he encountered. He
did not give them long to look at him, for he hurried swiftly through
the streets, towards the quays where the ships lay loading their
cargoes. He seemed to have urgent business to transact down there,
business that would brook no delay, and that was, if one might guess
from his uneasy glances over his shoulder, of a private nature. With one
hand he held tight hold of something in his trousers pocket, the other
rested on his belt, hard by a little revolver. In his business it is
necessary to be ready for everything.

Meanwhile Mr. Benham, having no affairs to trouble him, and no more
business to transact, stayed where he was.




CHAPTER XIX.

LAST CHANCES.


At an early hour on Sunday all Kirton seemed astir. The streets were
alive with thronging people, with banners, with inchoate and still
amorphous processions, with vendors of meat, drink, and newspapers.
According to the official arrangements, the proceedings were not to
begin till one o'clock, and, in theory, the forenoon hours were left
undisturbed; but, what with the people who were taking part in the
demonstration, and those who were going to look on, and those who hoped
to suck some profit to themselves out of the day's work, the ordinary
duties and observances of a Sunday were largely neglected, and Mr.
Puttock, passing on his way to chapel at the head of his family, did not
lack material for reprobation in the temporary superseding of religious
obligations.

The Governor and his family drove to the Cathedral, according to their
custom, Eleanor Scaife having pleaded in vain for leave to walk about
the streets instead. Lady Eynesford declined to recognise the occasion,
and Eleanor had to content herself with stealthy glances to right and
left till the church doors engulfed her. The only absentee was Alicia
Derosne, and she was not walking about the streets, but sitting under
the verandah, with a book unopened on her knees, and her eyes set in
empty fixedness on the horizon. The luxuriant growth of a southern
summer filled her nostrils with sweet scents, and the wind, blowing off
the sea, tempered the heat to a fresh and balmy warmth; the waves
sparkled in the sun, and the world was loud in boast of its own beauty;
but poor Alicia, like many a maid before, was wondering how long this
wretched life was to last, and how any one was ever happy. Faith bruised
and trust misplaced blotted out for her the joy of living and the
exultation of youth. If these things were true, why did the sun shine,
and how could the world be merry? If these things were true, for her the
sun shone no more, and the merriment was stilled for ever. So she
thought, and, if she were not right, it needed a philosopher to tell her
so; and then she would not have believed him, but caught her woe closer
to her heart, and nursed it with fiercer tenderness against his shallow
prating. Perhaps he might have told her too, that it is cruel kindness
unasked to set people on a pinnacle, and, when they cannot keep foothold
on that slippery height, to scorn their fall. Other things such an one
might well have said, but more wisely left unsaid; for cool reason is a
blister to heartache, and heartache is not best cured by blisters. Never
yet did a child stop crying for being told its pain was nought and would
soon be gone. Yet this prescription had been Lady Eynesford's--although
she was no philosopher, to her knowledge--for Alicia, and it had left
the patient protesting that she felt no pain at all, and yet feeling it
all the more.

"What do you accuse me of? Why do you speak to me?" she had burst out.
"What is it to me what he has done or not done? What do you mean, Mary?"

Before this torrent of questions Lady Eynesford tactfully retreated a
little way. A warning against hasty love dwindled to an appeal whether
so much friendliness, such constant meetings, either with daughter or
with father, were desirable.

"I'm sure I'm sorry for the poor child," she said; "but in this
world----"

"Suppose it's all a slander!"

"My dear Alicia, do they say such things about a man in his position
unless there's something in them?"

"It's nothing to me," said Alicia again.

"Of course, you can do nothing abrupt; but you'll gradually withdraw
from their acquaintance, won't you?"

Alicia had escaped without a promise, pleading for time to think in the
same breath that she denied any concern in the matter. She was by way of
thinking now, and all that Lady Eynesford had said repeated itself in
her mind as she looked out on the garden and the glimpses of the town
beyond. She understood now Dick's banishment, her sister-in-law's
unresting hostility to the Medlands, and the reason why she had been
pressed to go to Australia. She spared a minute to grief for Daisy, but
her own sorrow would not be denied, and engrossed her again. In the
solitude she had sought, she cried to herself, "Why didn't they tell me
before? What's the use of telling me now?" Then she would fly back to
the hope that the thing was not true, that her friends had clutched too
hastily at anything which would save her from what they dreaded, and,
she confessed to herself, rightly dreaded. No, she would not believe it
yet; and, if it were not true, why should she not be happy? Why should
she not, even though she did what Dick had not dared to do, and what,
when Coxon asked her, she had laughed at for an absurdity?

There began to be more movement outside the gates. The first note of
band-music was wafted to her ear, and the roll of wheels announced the
return of the church-goers. She roused herself and went to meet them.
They were agog with excitement, partly about the meeting, partly about
the murder. While Eleanor was trying to tell her of the state of
popular feeling, the Governor seized her arm and began to detail the
story of the discovery.

"You remember the man?" he asked. "He was at our flower-show--had a sort
of row with Medland, you know. Well, he's been found murdered (so the
police think) in a low part of the town! The woman who keeps the house
found him. He didn't come down in the morning, and, as she couldn't make
him hear, she forced the door, and found him with his throat cut."

"Awful!" shuddered Lady Eynesford. "He looked such a respectable man
too."

"Ah, I fancy he'd gone a bit to the bad lately--taken to drinking and so
on."

"He was a friend of Mr. Kilshaw's, wasn't he?" asked Alicia.

"A sort of hanger-on, I think. Anyhow, there he was dead, and with his
pockets empty."

"Perhaps he killed himself," she suggested.

"They think not. They've arrested the woman, but she declares she knows
nothing about it!"

"Poor man!" said Alicia; and, at another time, she might have thought a
good deal about the horrible end of a man whom she had known as an
acquaintance. But, as it was, she soon forgot him again, and, leaving
the rest, returned to her solitary seat.

In the town, the news of the murder was but one ruffle more on the wave
of excitement, and not a very marked one. Few people knew Benham's
name, and when the first agitation following on the discovery of the
body died away and the onlookers found there was no news to be had, they
turned away to join the processions or to stare at them. The police were
left to pursue their investigations in peace, and they soon reached a
conclusion. The landlady of the house where Benham died lived alone,
save for the occasional presence of her son: he was away at work in an
outlying district, and she had been the only person in the house that
night. She let beds to single men, she said, and the night before two
men had arrived, one the worse for drink. They had asked for adjoining
rooms. As they went up-stairs, she had heard the one who had been
drinking say to the other, "What are you bringing me here for? This
isn't the place for what I want." His companion, the shorter of the two,
whom she thought she would know again, had answered--"All in good time;
you go and lie down, and I'll fetch what you want." Soon after, the
short one came down and asked if she had any brandy; she gave him a
bottle half full and he went up-stairs again. She heard voices raised as
if in dispute for a few minutes, and one of them--she could not say
which--said something which sounded like "Well, finish the drink first,
and then I'll go." Silence followed, at least she could not hear any
more talking; and presently, it not being her business to spy on
gentlemen, she went to bed, and knew nothing more till she woke at
seven o'clock. Going up-stairs, she found one door open and the room
empty, not the room the two men had been in together, but the other. The
second door was locked, and she did not knock; gentlemen often slept
late. At half-past ten she ventured to knock, got no answer, knocked
again and again, and finally, with the help of the man from next door,
broke the lock and found the taller of the two men dead on the bed. She
had at once summoned the police; and that, she concluded, was all she
knew about the matter, and she was a respectable, hard-working woman, a
widow who could produce her marriage certificate in case any person
present desired to inspect it.

The Superintendent listened to her protestations of virtue with an
ironical smile, told her the police knew her house very well, frightened
her wholesomely, took down her very vague description of the missing
man, and kept her in custody; but he did not seriously doubt the truth
of her story, and, if it were true, the man he wanted was evidently the
sober man, the shorter man, who had introduced his friend to the house
on a pretext, had called for drink, and vanished in the early morning,
leaving a dead man behind him. Who was this man? Where did he come from?
Had he been missing since last night? On these inquiries the
Superintendent launched several intelligent men, and then was forced for
the time to turn his attention to the business of the day.

To search a large town for a missing man takes time, and the searchers
did not happen to fall in with Company B of Procession 3, which at one
o'clock had mustered in Digby Square, prepared to march to the Public
Park. Had they done so, it might or might not have seemed to them worth
noticing that Company B of Procession 3, which was composed of
carpenters and joiners, had missed some one, namely the officer whom
they called their "Marshal," and who was to have ordered their ranks and
marched at their head; and the name of their Marshal was none other than
François Gaspard. The Superintendent himself was keeping watch over
Company B, but, in a professionally Olympian scorn of processions, he
was far from asking or caring to know who the Marshal was, and indeed,
if he had known, he would scarcely have drawn such a lightning-quick
inference as that the missing Marshal and the missing murderer were one
and the same. So Mr. Gaspard's absence was passed over with a few curses
on his laziness, or, from the more charitable, a surmise that there had
been a misunderstanding, and Company B, having appointed a new Marshal,
went on its way.

One demonstration of the public will is much like another in the shape
it takes and the incidents it produces. This Sunday's was, however, as
friends and foes agreed, remarkable not only for the numbers who took
part, but still more for the spirit which animated it, and when the
Premier and his colleagues made their appearance on the great platform
there was no room to doubt that somehow, by his gifts or his faults, his
policy or his demagogic arts, his love of humanity or his adroit wooing
of popularity, Medland held a position in the eyes of the common people
of the capital which had seldom or never been equalled in the history of
the Colony. He had caused them to be called together in order to raise
their enthusiasm, and to elicit from them a visible, unmistakable pledge
of support. But, when he stood before them, bareheaded, in vain
beckoning for silence, their cries and cheers told him that his task was
rather to moderate than to stir up, and the first part of his speech was
a somewhat laboured proof of the consistency of gatherings of that
nature with the proper independence of representative assemblies. The
people heard him through this argument in respectful silence, clapping
their hands when, at the end of it, he paused before he passed to the
second part of his speech. At the first sign of attack, at the first
quietly drawn contrast between what the seceders had promised and what
they were doing, his audience was a changed one. Fierce murmurs of
assent and groans became audible now, and when Medland, caught by the
contagion that spread to him from his listeners, gave rein to his
feelings, and launched into a passionate declaration that, to his mind,
the liberty claimed for members did not mean liberty to betray those
who had trusted them, the murmurs and groans rose into one tumult of
savage applause, and men raised both hands over their heads and shook
them, as though they would have clenched every word that fell from him
with a blow of the fist.

Daisy Medland sat just behind her father, exulting in his triumph, and,
at every happy stroke, glancing at Norburn, and by sharing her joy with
him doubling his. When the Premier had finished, and the last resolution
had been carried, she ran to him, crying, "Splendid! I never heard you
so good. Wasn't he splendid?" and looking so completely joyful that
Medland was sure she must quite have forgotten Dick Derosne. She took
his arm, and they made their way together to a carriage which was in
waiting. An escort of police surrounded it, to save the Premier from his
friends, and he, with Daisy, Norburn, and Mr. Floyd, the Treasurer, got
in without disturbance. The coachman drove off rapidly down the main
avenue, distancing the enthusiasts who would have had the horses out of
the shafts. They passed a long row of carriages, belonging to people who
had not feared to come and look on from a distance, and at last, knowing
the procession would go back another way, Medland bade his driver stop
under the trees, and lit a cigar.

"And I wonder if it will all make any difference!" said he, puffing
delightedly. He had all an old political organiser's love for a big
meeting, which does not exclude scepticism as to its value.

"Oh, you gave it 'em finely," said the Treasurer.

"I believe it'll frighten two or three anyhow," observed Norburn.

"I _know_ we shall win to-morrow," cried Daisy, squeezing her father's
arm.

"Ah! here's a special Sunday evening paper--how we encourage
wickedness!" said the Premier, seeing a newsvendor approaching. "Let's
see what they say of us!"

"I've seen it all for myself," remarked Daisy, and she went on
chattering to the other two, who were ready to talk over every incident
of the meeting, as people who have been to meetings ever are. On they
went, reminding one another of the bald man in the third row who cheered
so lustily, of the fat woman who had somehow got into the front row and
fanned herself all the time, of rude things shouted about Messrs.
Puttock and Coxon, and so forth. The Premier, listening with one ear,
opened his paper; but the first thing he saw was not about his
procession. He started and looked closer, then gave a sudden, covert
glance at his companions; they were busy in talk, and, with breathless
haste, he devoured the meagre details of Benham's wretched death. The
end reached, he let the paper fall on his knees, lay back, and took a
long pull at his cigar. He was shocked--yes, he supposed he was
shocked. He had known the man, and it was shocking to think of his
throat being cut; yes, he had known him, and he didn't like to think of
that. But--The Premier gave a long-drawn sigh of relief. That unknown
murderer's hand had done great things for him. His daughter was safe
now--anyhow, she was safe. She could never be subject to the degradation
the dead man had once hinted at; and when he thought of what the man had
threatened, pity for him died out of Medland's heart. More--although
Kilshaw no doubt knew something--there was a chance that Benham had kept
his own counsel, and that his employer would be helpless without his
aid. Medland's sanguine mind caught eagerly at the chance, and in a
moment turned it into a hope--almost a conviction. Then the whole thing
would go down to the grave with the unlucky man, and not even its
spectre survive to trouble him. For if no one had certain knowledge, if
there were never more than gossip, growing, as time passed, fainter and
fainter from having no food to feed on, would not utter silence follow
at last, so that the things that had been might be as if they had never
been?

"Well, what do they say about us?" asked the Treasurer.

"Oh, nothing much," he answered, thrusting the paper behind him with a
careless air. He did not want to discuss what the paper had told him.

"What's happened to-day," said Daisy, "ought to make all the difference,
oughtn't it, father?"

"I hope it will," replied the Premier; but, for once in his life, he was
not thinking most about political affairs.




CHAPTER XX.

THE LAW _VERSUS_ RULE 3.


Among the many tired but satisfied lovers of liberty who sought their
houses that night, while an enthusiastic remnant was still parading the
streets, illuminations yet shining from windows, and weary police
treading their unending beats, was the doorkeeper, who had borne a
banner in Company A of Procession 1. His friend the watchmaker came with
him, to have a bit of supper and exchange congratulations and
fulminations. Hardly, however, had the doorkeeper pledged the cause in a
first draught when his wife broke in on his oration by handing him a
letter, which she said a boy in a blue jersey had left for him about ten
o'clock in the morning, just after he had started to join his company.
The envelope was cheap and coarse; there was no direction outside. The
doorkeeper opened it. It was addressed to no named person and it bore no
signature. It was very brief, being confined to these simple words--"You
did not see me last night. Remember Rule 3."

The doorkeeper laid the letter down, with a hurried glance at his
friend, whose face was buried in a mug. He knew the handwriting; he knew
who it was that he had not seen; he remembered Rule 3, the rule that
said--"The only and inevitable penalty of treachery is death." He turned
white and took a hasty gulp at his liquor.

"Who brought this?" he asked.

"I told you," answered his wife; "a lad in a blue jersey; he looked as
if he might be from the harbour." She put food before them, adding as
she did so--"I suppose you've been too full of your politics to hear
much about the murder?"

"The murder?" exclaimed the watchmaker. The doorkeeper crumpled up his
letter and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, while his wife read
to them the story of the discovery. The watchmaker listened with
interest.

"Benham!" he remarked. "I never heard the name, did you?"

"You know him, Ned," said the doorkeeper's wife; "him as Mr. Gaspard
used to go about with."

By a sudden common impulse, the eyes of the two men met; the woman went
off to brew them a pot of tea, and left them fearfully gazing at one
another.

"What stuff!" said the watchmaker uneasily. "It was only his blow. What
reason had he--?" He paused and added, "Seen him to-day, Ned?"

"No," answered Ned, fingering his note.

"Wasn't he in the procession?"

"I didn't see him."

"When did you see him last?"

The doorkeeper hesitated.

"Night of our last committee," he whispered finally.

"Oh, there's nothing in it," said the watchmaker reassuringly. He had
not a letter in his pocket.

The doorkeeper opened his mouth to speak, but seeing his wife
approaching, he shut it again and busied himself with his meal.

"What was the letter, Ned?"

"Oh, about the procession," he answered.

"Then you got it too late. Who was it from?"

"If you'd give us the tea," he broke out roughly, "and let the damned
letter alone, it 'ud be a deal better."

"La, you needn't fly out at a woman so," said Mrs. Evans. "It ain't the
way to treat his wife, is it, mister?"

"Mister" gallantly reproved his friend, but pleaded that they were both
weary, and weary legs made short tempers. Giving them the tea, she left
them to themselves; her work was not finished till three small children
were safely in bed.

The sensation of having one's neck for the first time within measurable
distance of a rope must needs be somewhat disquieting. The doorkeeper,
in spite of his secret society doings, was a timid man, with a vastly
respectful fear of the law. To talk about things, to vapour idly about
them over the cups, is very different from being actually, even though
remotely, mixed up in them. Ned Evans was a man of some education: he
read the papers, accounts of crimes and reports of trials; he had heard
of accessories after and before the fact. Was he not an accessory after
the fact? He fancied they did not hang such; but if they caught him, and
all that about Gaspard and the society came out, would they not call him
an accessory before the fact? The noose seemed really rather near, and
in his frightened fancy, as he lay sleepless beside his snoring wife,
the rope dangled over his head. The poor wretch was between the devil
and the deep sea--between stern law and cruel Rule 3. He dared not toss
about, his wife would ask him what ailed him; he lay as still as he
could, bitterly cursing his folly for mingling in such affairs, bitterly
cursing the Frenchman who led him on into the trap and left him fast
there. How could he save his neck? And he restlessly rent the band of
his coarse night-shirt, that pressed on his throat with a horrible
suggestion of what might be. Where was that Gaspard? Had he fled over
the sea? Ah, if he could be sure of that, and sure that the dreaded man
would not return! Or was he lurking in some secret hole, ready to steal
out and avenge a violation of Rule 3? The doorkeeper had always feared
the man; in the lurid light of this deed, Gaspard's image grew into a
monster of horror, threatening sudden and swift revenge for disobedience
or treachery. No; he must stand firm. But what of the police? Well, men
sleep somehow, and at last he fell asleep, holding the band of the
night-shirt away from his throat: if he fell asleep with that pressing
on him, God knew what he might dream.

"It's very lucky," remarked the Superintendent of Police, who had a
happy habit of looking at the bright side of things, to one of his
subordinates, "that this Benham seems to have had no relations and
precious few friends."

"No widows coming crying about," observed the subordinate, with an
assenting nod.

"Nothing known of him except that he came to Kirton a few months back,
did nothing, seemed to have plenty of money, took his liquor, played a
hand at cards, hurt nobody, seemingly knew nobody."

"Why, I saw him with Mr. Puttock."

"Yes; but Mr. Puttock knows nothing of him, except that he said he came
from Shepherdstown. That's why Puttock was civil to him. The place is in
his constituency."

"Got any idea, sir?" the subordinate ventured to ask.

The Superintendent was about to answer in the negative, when a detective
entered the room.

"Well, I've found one missing man for you," he said, in a satisfied
tone.

"One missing man!" echoed his superior, scornfully. "In a place o' this
size I'd always find you twenty."

The sergeant went on, unperturbed,

"François Gaspard, known as politician and agitator, didn't go home to
his lodgings in Kettle Street last night, was to have acted as Marshal
in Company B of Procession 3 to-day, didn't turn up, hasn't turned up
to-night, don't owe any rent, hasn't taken any clothes."

"Oh!" said the Superintendent morosely. "Left an address?"

"Left no address, sir."

"How did he go, and where?"

"Not known, sir."

"Good Lord!" moaned the Superintendent, "and what's your salary?"

The sergeant's good-humour was impregnable.

"Give me time," he said, and the sentence was almost drowned in a loud
knock at the door. An instant later Kilshaw rushed in.

"What's this, Dawson?" he cried to the Superintendent; "what's this
about the murder?"

"You haven't heard, sir?"

"I went out of town to avoid this infernal row to-day, and am only just
back."

Dawson smiled discreetly. He could understand that the proceedings of
the day would not attract Mr. Kilshaw.

"But is it true," Kilshaw went on eagerly, "that Mr. Benham has been
murdered?"

"Well, it looks like it, sir," and Dawson gave a full account of the
circumstances.

"And the motive?" asked Kilshaw.

"Robbery, I suppose. His pockets were empty, and according to our
information he was generally flush of money; where he got it, I don't
know."

"Ah!" said Kilshaw meditatively; "his pockets empty! And have you no
clue?"

"Not what you'd call a clue. Did you know the gentleman, sir?"

Kilshaw replied by saying that Mr. Puttock had introduced Benham to him
and the acquaintance had continued--it was a political acquaintance
purely.

"You don't know anything about him before he came here?"

Kilshaw suddenly perceived that he was being questioned, whereas his
object had been to question.

"You say," he observed, "that you haven't got what you'd call a clue.
What do you mean?"

"You can tell Mr. Kilshaw, if you like," said the Superintendent to the
sergeant, who repeated his information.

"Gaspard! why that's the fellow the Premier--" and Mr. Kilshaw stopped
short. After a moment, he asked abruptly, "Were there any papers on the
body?"

"None, sir."

"I suppose there's nothing really to connect this man Gaspard with it?"

"Oh, nothing at present, sir. Did you say you'd known the deceased
before he--?"

"If I'm called at the inquest, I shall tell all I know," said Kilshaw,
rising. "It's not much."

"Happen to know if he had any relations, sir?"

"H'm. He was a widower, I believe."

"Children?"

"Really," said Mr. Kilshaw, with a faint smile, "I don't know."

And he escaped from pertinacious Mr. Dawson with some alacrity. When he
was outside, he stopped suddenly. "Shall I tell 'em to apply to
Medland?" he asked himself, with a malicious chuckle. "No, I'll wait a
bit yet," and he walked on, wondering whether by any chance Mr. Benham
had been done to death to save the Premier. This fanciful idea he soon
dismissed with a laugh; it never entered his head, prejudiced as he was,
to think that Medland himself had any hand in the matter. After all, he
was a man of common sense, and he quickly arrived at a conclusion which
he expressed by exclaiming,

"The poor fool's been showing his money. Who's got my five hundred now,
I wonder?"

His wonderings would have been satisfied, had Aladdin's carpet or other
magical contrivance transported him to where the steamship _Pride of the
South_ was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San
Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A
thick-set, short man, shipped at the last moment as cook's mate, in
substitution for a truant, was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette,
looking up at the bright stars, and ever and again gently pressing his
hand on a little lump inside his shirt. He seemed at peace with all the
world, though he was ready to be at war, if need be, and his knife,
burnished and clean, lay handy to his fingers. He turned on his side and
composed himself to sleep, his chest rising and falling with regular,
uninterrupted breathing. Once he smiled: he was thinking of Ned Evans,
the doorkeeper; then he gave himself a little shake, closed his eyes,
and forgot all the troubles of this weary world. So sleep children,
so--we are told--the just: so slept M. François Gaspard, on his way to
seek fresh woods and pastures new.




CHAPTER XXI.

ALL THERE WAS TO TELL.


The custom in New Lindsey was that every Monday during the session of
Parliament the Executive Council should meet at Government House, and,
under the presidency of the Governor, formally ratify and adopt the
arrangements as to the business of the coming week which its members had
decided upon at their Cabinet meetings. It is to be hoped that, in these
days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that
the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of
that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet,
consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that
the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent
when it is of the Cabinet--a difference of less moment than it sounds,
seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but
listen to what is going to be done. However, forms doubtless have their
value, and at any rate they must be observed, so on this Monday morning
the Executive Council was to meet as usual, although nobody knew where
the Cabinet would be that time twenty-four hours. Lady Eynesford, who
wanted her husband to drive her out, thought the meeting under the
circumstances mere nonsense--which it very likely was--and said so,
which betrayed inexperience, and Alicia Derosne asked what time it took
place.

"Eleven sharp," said the Governor, and returned to the account of the
murder.

Time after time in the last few days Alicia had told herself that she
could bear it no longer. At one moment she believed nothing, the next,
nothing was too terrible for her to believe; now she would fly to
Australia, or home, or anywhere out of New Lindsey; now a
straightforward challenge to Medland alone would serve her turn.
Sometimes she felt as if she could put the whole thing on one side; five
minutes later found her pinning her whole life on the issue of it. Under
her guarded face and calm demeanour, the storm of divided and
conflicting instincts and passions raged, and long solitary rambles
became a necessary outlet for what she dared show to none. She shrank
from seeing Medland, and yet longed to speak with him; she felt that to
mention the topic to him was impossible, and yet, if they met,
inevitable; that she would not have strength to face him, and yet could
not let him go without clearing up the mystery. She told herself at one
moment that she hardly knew him, at the next that between them nothing
could be too secret for utterance.

What she hoped and feared befell her that morning. She went out for a
walk in the Park, and before long she met the Premier, with his daughter
and Norburn. The two last were laughing and talking--their quarrel was
quite forgotten now--and Medland himself, she thought, looked as though
his load of care were a little less heavy. The two men explained that
they were on their way--a roundabout way, they confessed--to the
Council, and had seized the chance of some fresh air, while Daisy was
full of stories about yesterday's triumph, that left room only for a
passing reference to yesterday's tragedy.

"I didn't like him at all," she said; "but still it's dreadful--a man
one knew ever so slightly!"

Alicia agreed, and the next instant she found herself practically alone
with Medland; for Daisy ran off to pick a wild-flower that caught her
eye in the wood, and Norburn followed her. Not knowing whether to be
glad or sorry, she made no effort to escape, and was silent while
Medland began to speak of his prospects in that evening's division.

Suddenly she paused in her walk and lifted her eyes to his.

"You look happier," she said.

Medland's conscience smote him: he was looking happier because the man
was dead.

"It's at the prospect of being a free man to-morrow," he answered, with
a smile. "You know, Cincinnatus was very happy."

"But you're not like that."

"No, I suppose not. Say it's----"

"Never mind."

After a pause she made another attempt.

"Mr. Medland!"

"Yes?"

"You've been very good to me--yes, very good."

He turned to her with a gesture of disclaimer. She thought he was going
to speak, but he did not.

"Whatever happens, I shall always remember that with--with deep
gratitude."

"What is going to happen?" he asked, with an uneasy smile.

"Oh, how can I?" she burst out. "How can I say it? How can I ask you?"

As she spoke she stopped, and he followed her example. They stood facing
one another now, as he replied gravely,

"Whatever you ask--let it be what it will--I will answer, truthfully." A
pause before the last word perhaps betrayed a momentary struggle.

"What right have I? Why should you?"

"The right my--my desire to have your regard gives you. How can I ask
for that, unless I am ready to tell you all you can wish to know?"

"I have heard," she began falteringly, "I have been told by--by people
who, I suppose, were right to tell me----"

In a moment he understood her. A slight twitch of his mouth betrayed his
trouble, but he came to her rescue.

"I don't know how it reached you," he said. "Perhaps I think you might
have been--you need not have known it. But there is only one thing you
can have heard, that it would distress you to speak of."

She said nothing, but fixed her eyes on his.

"I am right?" he asked. "It is about--my wife?"

She bowed her head. He stood silent for a moment, and she cried,

"It was only gossip--a woman's gossip; I did wrong to listen to it."

"Gossip," he said, "is often true. This is true," and he set his lips.

The worst often finds or makes people calm. She had flushed at first,
but the colour went again, and she said quietly,

"If you have time and don't mind, I should like to hear it all."

She had forgotten what this request must mean to him, or perhaps she
thought the time for pretence had gone by. If so, he understood, for he
answered,

"It's your right."

Her eyes sank to the ground, but she did not quarrel with his words. She
stood motionless while he told his story. He spoke with wilful brevity
and dryness.

"I was a young man when I met her. She was married, and I went to the
house. Her husband----"

"Did he ill-treat her?"

"No. In his way, I suppose he was fond of her. But--she didn't like his
way. She was very beautiful, and I fell in love with her, and she with
me. And we ran away."

"Is--is that all? Is there no----?"

"No excuse? No, I suppose, none. And I lived with her till she died four
years ago. And--Daisy is our daughter."

"And he--the husband?"

"He did not divorce her. I don't know why not, perhaps because she asked
him to--anyhow he didn't. And he outlived her: so she died--as she had
lived."

"And is he still alive?"

"No; he is dead now." He was about to go on, but checked himself. Why
add that horror? How the man died was nothing between her and him.

"Have you no--nothing to say?" she burst out, almost angrily. "You just
tell me that and stop!"

"What is there to say? I have told you all there is to tell. I loved her
very much. I did what I could to make her happy, and I try to make up
for it to Daisy. But there is nothing more to say."

She was angry that he would not defend himself. She was ready--ah, so
ready!--to listen to his pleading. But he would not say a word for
himself. Instead, he went on,

"She didn't want to come, but I made her. She repented, poor girl, all
her life; she was never quite happy. It was all my doing. Still, I think
she was happier with me, in spite of it."

A movement of impatience escaped from Alicia. Seeing it he added,

"I beg your pardon. I didn't want you to think hardly of her."

"I don't want to think of her at all. Was she--was she like Daisy?"

"Yes; but prettier."

"I don't know what you expect me to say," she exclaimed. "I know--I
suppose some men don't think much of--of a thing like that. To me it is
horrible. You simply followed your-- Ah, I can't speak of it!" and she
seemed to put him from her with a gesture of disgust.

He walked beside her in silence, his face set in the bitter smile it
always wore when fate dealt hardly with him.

"I think I'll go straight home," she said, stopping suddenly. "You can
join the others."

"Yes, that will be best. I'm not due at the Council just yet."

"I suppose I ought to thank you for telling me the truth. I--" Her false
composure suddenly gave way. With a sob she stretched out her hands
towards him, crying, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" and before he
could answer her she turned and walked swiftly away, leaving him
standing still on the pathway.

She was hardly inside the gates of Government House when she saw Eleanor
Scaife, who hurried to meet her.

"Only think, Alicia!" she cried. "Dick is on his way home, and with such
good news. We've just had a cable from him."

"Coming back!"

"Yes. He's engaged! He met the Grangers on their tour round the
world--you know them, the great cotton people?--at Sydney, and he's
engaged to the youngest girl, Violet--you remember her? It all happened
in a fortnight. Mary and Lord Eynesford are delighted. It's just
perfect. She's very pretty, and tremendously well off. I do declare, I
never thought Dick would end so well! What a happy thought it was
sending him away! Aren't you delighted?"

"It sounds very nice, doesn't it? I don't think I knew her more than
just to speak to."

"Dick'll be here in four days. I've been looking for you to tell you for
the last hour. Where have you been?"

"In the Park."

"Alone, as usual, you hermit?"

"Well, I met the Medlands and Mr. Norburn, and talked to them for a
little while."

"Alicia! But it's no use talking to you. Come and find Mary."

"No, Eleanor, I'm tired, and--and hot. I'll go to my room."

"Oh, you must come and see her first."

"I can't."

"She'll be hurt, Alicia. She'll think you don't care. Come, dear."

"Tell her--tell her I'm coming directly. Eleanor, you must let me go,"
and breaking away she fled into the house.

Eleanor went alone to seek Lady Eynesford. Somehow Alicia's words had
quenched her high spirits for the moment.

"Poor child! I do hope she hasn't been foolish," she mused. "Surely
after what Mary told her--! Oh dear, I'm afraid it isn't all as happy as
it is about Dick!"

And then she indulged in some very cynical meditations on the advantages
of being a person of shallow emotions and changeful fancies, until she
was roused by the sight of Medland and Norburn walking up to the house,
to attend the Executive Council. From the window she closely watched
the Premier as he approached; her mood wavered to and fro, but at last
she summed up her impressions by remarking,

"Well, I suppose one might."




CHAPTER XXII.

THE STORY OF A PHOTOGRAPH.


Mr. Coxon may be forgiven for being, on this same important Monday, in a
state of some nervous excitement. He had a severe attack of what are
vulgarly called "the fidgets," and Sir John, who was spending the
morning at the Club (for his court was not sitting), glanced at him over
his eye-glasses with an irritated look. The ex-Attorney-General would
not sit still, but flitted continually from window to table, and back
from table to window, taking up and putting down journal after journal.
Much depended, in Mr. Coxon's view, on the event of that day, for Sir
John spoke openly of his approaching retirement, and an appointment
sometimes thought worthy of a Premier's acceptance might be in Coxon's
grasp before many weeks were past, if only Medland and his noxious idea
of getting a first-class man out from England could be swept together
into limbo.

"What's the betting about to-night?" asked the Chief Justice, as in one
of his restless turns the brooding politician passed near.

"We reckon to beat him by five," answered Coxon.

"Unless any of your men turn tail, that is? I hear Fenton's very
wobbly--says he daren't show his face in the North-east Ward if he
throws Medland over."

"Oh, he's all right."

"Been promised something?"

"You might allow some of us to have consciences, Chief Justice," said
Coxon, with an attempt at geniality.

"Oh, some of you, yes. But I'll pick my men, please," remarked Sir John,
with a pleasant smile. "Perry's got a conscience, and Kilshaw--well,
Kilshaw's got a gadfly that does instead, and of course, Coxon, I add
you to the list."

"Much obliged for your testimonial," said Coxon sourly.

"I add any man I'm talking to, to the list," continued the Chief
Justice. "I expect him to do the same by me. But, honestly, I add you
even in your absence. You're not a man who puts party ties above
everything."

Mr. Coxon darted a suspicious glance at the head of his profession, but
the Chief Justice's air was blandly innocent.

"My party's my party," he remarked, "just so long as it carries out my
principles. I don't say either party does it perfectly."

"I dare say not; but of course you're right to act with the one that
does most for you."

Again the Chief Justice had hit on a somewhat ambiguous expression.
Coxon detected a grin on the face of Captain Heseltine, who was sitting
near, but he could not hold Sir John's grave face guilty of the
Captain's grin.

"I see," remarked the Captain, perhaps in order to cover the retreat of
his grin, "that they've discharged the woman who was arrested last night
for the murder."

"Really no evidence against her," said the Chief Justice. "But,
Heseltine, wasn't this man Benham the fellow Medland had a sort of
shindy with at that flower-show?"

"Yes, he was. Kilshaw seemed to know all about him."

"He was talking to Miss Medland."

"And the Premier had her away from him in no time. Queer start, Sir
John?"

"Oh, well, he seems to have been a loose fellow, and I suppose was
murdered for the money he had on him. But I mustn't talk about it. I may
have to try it."

"Gad! you'll be committing contempt of yourself," suggested the Captain.

"Like that snake that swallows itself, eh?"

"What snake?" asked the Captain, with interest.

"The snake in the story," answered the Chief Justice; and he added in an
undertone--"Why can't that fellow sit still?"

Mr. Coxon had wandered to the window again, and was thrumming on the
panes. He turned on hearing some one enter. It was Sir Robert Perry.

"Well," he began, "I bring news of the event of the day."

"About to-night?" asked Coxon eagerly.

"To-night! That's not the event of the day. Ministers are a deal
commoner than murders. No, last night."

Coxon turned away disappointed.

"The murder!" exclaimed the Captain.

"Don't talk to me about it, Perry," the Chief Justice requested, opening
a paper in front of his face. He did not, however, withdraw out of
earshot.

"They've got a sort of a clue. A wretched hobbledehoy of a fellow,
something in the bookseller's shop at the corner of Kettle Street, has
come with a rigmarole about a society that he and a few more belonged
to, including this François Gaspard, who is missing. He protests that
the thing was legal, and all that--only a Radical inner ring--but he
says that at the last meeting this fellow was dropping hints about
putting somebody out of the way. Dyer--that's the lad's name--swears the
rest of them disowned him and said they'd have nothing to do with it,
and hoped he'd given up the idea."

"I suppose he's in a blue funk?" asked the Captain.

"He is no doubt alarmed," said Sir Robert. "He gave the police the names
of the rest of their precious society, and, oddly enough, Ned Evans, of
the House--you know him, Coxon?--was one."

"Heard such an awful lot of debates, poor chap," observed Captain
Heseltine.

"Well, they went to Evans' and collared him. For a time he stuck out
that he knew nothing about it, but they threatened him with heaven knows
what, and at last he confessed to having seen this Gaspard in company
with the murdered man in Digby Square a little before twelve on the
night."

"By Jove! That's awkward!" said the Captain.

Coxon showed more interest now, and remarked,

"Why, Gaspard was one of Medland's organisers. I saw him with both
Medland and Norburn on Saturday."

"I don't suppose they were planning to murder this Benham. Indeed, I
don't see that the thing can have been political at all. What did it
matter whether Benham lived or died?"

"I don't see that it did, except to Benham," assented the Captain. "But
what's become of Gaspard?"

"Ah, that they don't know. He's supposed to have taken ship, and they've
cabled to search all ships that left the port that morning."

"He'll find the man in blue--or the local equivalent--on the wharf,"
said the Captain. "Rather a jar that, Sir Robert, when you're in from a
voyage. What are they doing now?"

"Well, the Superintendent said they were going to have a thorough search
through the dead man's lodgings, to see if they could find out anything
about him which would throw light on the motive. The police don't think
much of the political theory of the crime."

"Dashed nonsense, _I_ should think," said the Captain, and he sauntered
off to play billiards.

"That young man," said the Chief Justice, "is really not a fool, though
he does his best to look like one."

"That queer conduct seems to me rather common in young men at home. I
noticed it when I was over."

"Is it meant to imply independent means?"

"I dare say that idea may be dormant under it somewhere. My wife says
the girls like it."

"Then your wife, Perry, is a traitor to her sex to make such
confessions. Besides, they didn't in my time."

"Come, you know, you're a forlorn bachelor. What can you know about it?"

"Bachelors, Perry, are the men who know. Which gathers most knowledge
from a vivisection, the attentive student or the writhing frog?"

"The operator, most of all."

"Doubtless."

"And that's the woman. Therefore, Oakapple, you're wrong and my wife's
right."

"The deuce!" said the Chief Justice. "I wonder how I ever got any
briefs."

In the afternoon, when these idlers had one and all set out for the
Legislative Assembly, some to work, others still to idle, Mr. Kilshaw
felt interest enough in the fate of his late henchman to drop in at the
police office on his way to the same destination. He was well known, and
no one objected to his walking in and making for the door of the
Superintendent's room. An officer to whom he spoke told him that Ned
Evans was in custody, and that it was rumoured that some startling
discoveries had been made at Benham's lodgings.

"Indeed, sir," said the man, "I believe the Superintendent wished to see
you."

"Ah, I dare say," said Kilshaw. "Tell him I'm here."

When he was ushered into the inner room, the Superintendent confirmed
the officer's surmise.

"I was going to send a message to ask you to step round, sir," he
remarked.

"Here I am, but don't be long. I don't want to miss the Premier's
speech."

"Mr. Medland speaking to-day?"

"Of course. It's a great day with us at the House."

"I think it looks like being a great day all round. Well, Mr. Kilshaw,
you told me you knew the deceased."

"Yes, I knew Benham."

"Benyon," corrected the Superintendent.

"Yes, that was his real name," assented Kilshaw.

"At his lodgings there was found a packet. That's the wrapper," and he
handed a piece of brown paper to Kilshaw.

"In case," Kilshaw read, "of my death or disappearance, please deliver
this parcel to Mr. Kilshaw, Legislative Assembly, Kirton."

"I'm sorry to say, sir," said the Superintendent, "that the detective
sergeant conducting the search took upon him to open this packet in the
presence of one or two persons. It ought to have been opened by no one
but----"

"Myself."

"Pardon me, but myself," said the Superintendent, with a slight smile.
"Owing to the inexcusable blunder, I'm afraid something about what it
contains may leak out prematurely. Those pests, the reporters, are
everywhere; you can't keep 'em out."

"Well, what does it contain?" asked Kilshaw. He was annoyed at this
unsought publicity, but he saw at once that he must show no sign of
vexation.

"That, for one thing," and the Superintendent handed Kilshaw a
photograph of two persons, a young woman and a young man. "Look at the
back," he added.

Kilshaw looked, and read--"My wife and M."

"That's the deceased's handwriting?"

"Yes."

"And you know the persons?"

"I've no doubt about them. It's the Premier--and--and Mrs. Medland."

"Exactly. Now read this," and he gave him the copy of a certificate of
marriage between George Benyon and Margaret Aspland.

"Quite so," nodded Kilshaw.

"And this."

Kilshaw took the slip of newspaper, old and yellow. It contained a few
lines, briefly recording that Mrs. Benyon had left her home secretly by
night, in her husband's absence, and could not be found.

Kilshaw nodded again.

"It doesn't surprise me," he said. "I knew all this. I was in Mr.
Benyon's confidence."

"Perhaps you can tell us how he lived?" hazarded the Superintendent,
with a shrewd look.

Mr. Kilshaw looked doubtful.

"The inquest is fixed for to-morrow. The more we know now, the less it
will be necessary to protract it."

"I have been helping him lately," admitted Kilshaw; and he added, "Look
here, Superintendent, I don't want that more talked about than
necessary."

"You needn't say a word to me now unless you like, sir; but I only want
to make things as comfortable as I can. You see, the coroner is bound to
look into it a bit. Had you given him money lately?"

"Yes."

"Much?"

Kilshaw leant forward and answered, almost in a whisper,

"Five hundred on Friday night," and in spite of himself he avoided the
Superintendent's shrewd eye. But that officer's business was not to pass
moral judgments. Law is one thing, morality another.

"Then the thing's as plain as a pikestaff. This Gaspard got to know
about the money, and murdered him to get it. We needn't look further for
a motive."

"I suppose all this will have to come out? I wonder if Gaspard knew who
Benham was?"

"It's not necessary to suppose that, unless we believe all Evans says.
Certainly, if we trust Evans, Gaspard hinted designs on some one before
he could have known Benyon had this money. Could he have known he was
going to have it?"

"Benyon may have told him I had promised to help him."

"Well, sir, we must see about that. We shall want you at the inquest,
sir."

"I suppose you will, confound you! And I should think you'd want a
greater man than I am, too."

The Superintendent looked grave.

"I am going up to try and see the Premier at the House to-day," he said.
"I think we shall have to trouble him. You see, he knew Gaspard as well
as the deceased."

"I'll give you a lift. You can keep out of the way till he's at
leisure."

At this moment one of the police entered, and handed the Superintendent
a copy of the _Evening Mail_.

"It's as you feared, sir," he remarked as he went out.

The Superintendent opened the paper, looked at it for an instant, and
then indicated a passage with his forefinger.

"It is rumoured," read Mr. Kilshaw, "that certain very startling facts
have come to light regarding the identity of the deceased man Benham,
and that the name of a very prominent politician, now holding an exalted
office, is likely to be introduced into the case. As the matter will be
public property to-morrow, we may be allowed to state that trustworthy
reports point to the fact of the Premier being in a position to give
some important information as to the past life of the deceased. It is
said that a photograph of two persons, one of whom is Mr. Medland, has
been discovered among the papers at Mr. Benham's (or we should say
Benyon's) lodgings. Further developments of this strange affair will be
awaited with interest."

"I wish," commented the Superintendent grimly, "that my men could keep a
secret as well as their man can sniff one out."

But Mr. Kilshaw was too excited to listen.

"By Jove," he cried, "the news'll be at the House by now! Come along,
man, come along!"

And, as they went, they read the rest; for the paper had it all--even a
copy of that marriage certificate.




CHAPTER XXIII.

AN ORATOR'S RIVAL.


The House was crowded, and every gallery full. Lady Eynesford and
Eleanor Scaife, attended by Captain Heseltine, occupied their appointed
seats; the members of the Legislative Council overflowed from their
proper pen and mingled with humbler folk in the public galleries;
reporters wrote furiously, and an endless line of boys bearing their
slips came and went. The great hour had arrived: the battle-field was
reached at last. Sir Robert Perry sat and smiled; Puttock played with
the hair chain that wandered across his broad waistcoat; Coxon
restlessly bit his nails; Norburn's face was pale with excitement, and
he twisted his hands in his lap; the determined partisans cheered or
groaned; the waverers looked important and felt unhappy; all eyes were
steadily fixed on the Premier, and all ears intent on his words.

For the moment he had forgotten everything but the fight he was
fighting. No thought of the wretched Benham, who lay dead, no thought of
his daughter, who watched him as he spoke, no thought of Alicia
Derosne, who stayed away that she might not see him, crossed his brain
now, or turned his ideas from the task before him. It was no ordinary
speech, and no ordinary occasion. He spoke only to five men out of all
his audience--the rest were his, or were beyond the power of his charm;
on those five important-looking, unhappy-feeling men he bent every
effort of his will, and played every device of his mind and his tongue.
Now and then he distantly threatened them, oftener he made as though to
convince their cool judgment; again he would invoke the sentiment of old
alliance in them, or stir their pity for the men whose cause he pleaded.
Once he flashed out in bitter mockery at Coxon, then jested in mild
irony at Puttock and his "rich man's revolution." Returning to his text,
he minutely dissected his own measure, insisting on its promise,
extenuating its fancied danger, claiming for it the merits of a
courageous and well-conceived scheme. Through all the changes that he
rang, he was heard with close attention, broken only by demonstrations
of approval or of dissent. At last one of his periods extorted a cheer
from a waverer. It acted on him as a spur to fresh exertions. He raised
his voice till it filled the chamber, and began his last and most
elaborate appeal.

Suddenly a change came over his hearers. The breathless silence of
engrossed attention gave place to a subdued stir; whispers were heard
here and there. Men were handing a newspaper about, accompanying its
transfer with meaning looks. He was not surprised, for members made no
scruple of reading their papers or writing their letters in the House,
but he was vexed to see that he had not gripped them closer. He went on,
but that ever-circulating paper had half his attention now. He noticed
Kilshaw come in with it and press it on Sir Robert's notice. Sir Robert
at first refused, but when Kilshaw urged, he read and glanced up at him,
so Medland thought, with a look of sadness. Coxon had got a paper now,
and left biting his nails to pore over it; he passed it to Puttock, and
the fat man bulged his cheeks in seeming wonder. Even his waverer, the
one who had cheered, was deep in it. Only Norburn was unconscious of it.
And, when they had read, they all looked at him again, not as they had
looked before, but, it seemed to him, with a curious wonder, half
mocking, half pitying, as one looks at a man who does not know the thing
that touches him most nearly. He glanced up at the galleries: there too
was the ubiquitous sheet; the Chief Justice and the President of the
Legislative Council were cheek by jowl over it, and it fell lightly from
Lady Eynesford's slim fingers, to be caught at eagerly by Eleanor
Scaife.

"What is it?" he whispered impatiently to Norburn; but his absorbed
disciple only bewilderedly murmured "What?" and the Premier could not
pause to tell him.

Now followed what Sir Robert maintained was the greatest feat of oratory
he had ever witnessed. Gathering his wandering wits together, Medland
plunged again whole-heartedly into his speech, and slowly, gradually,
almost, it seemed, step by step and man by man, he won back the thoughts
of his audience. He wrestled with that strange paper rival and overthrew
it. Man after man dropped it; its course was stayed; it fell underfoot
or fluttered idly down the gangways. The nods ceased, the whispers were
hushed, the stir fell and rose no more. Once again he had them, and,
inspired by that knowledge, the surest spur of eloquence, there rang
from his lips the last burning words, the picture of the vision that
ruled his life, the hope for the days that he might not see.

"Believe!" he cried, in passionate entreaty, "believe, and your sons
shall surely see!"

He sank in his seat, and the last echo of his resonant voice died away.
First came silence, and then a thunder of applause. Men stood up and
waved what they had in their hands, hats or handkerchiefs or papers;
women sat with their eyes still on him, or, with a gasp, leant back and
closed their lids. He sat with his head sunk on his breast, till the
tumult died away. No one rose. The Speaker looked round once and again.
Could it be that no one----? Slowly he began to rise. The movement
caught Sir Robert's attention: he signed to Puttock, who sprang heavily
to his feet. Puttock was no favourite as a speaker, and generally his
rising was a signal for the House to thin. He began his speech with his
stolid deliberation. Not a man stirred. They waited for something still.

"And now," whispered Medland to the Treasurer, who sat by him, "let's
see what it was in that infernal paper."

The Treasurer handed him what he asked.

"You ought to see it," he whispered back.

Mr. Puttock's voice droned on, and his sheaf of notes rustled in his
hand. No one looked at him or listened to him. Their eyes were still on
Medland. The Premier read--it seemed so slowly--put the paper down, and
gazed first up at the ceiling; then he glanced round, and found all the
attentive eyes on him: he smiled--it was just a visible smile, no
more--and his head fell again on his breast, while his hand idly twisted
a button on his coat.

The show was over, or had never come, and the deferred rush to the doors
began. They almost tumbled over one another now in their haste to reach
where their tongues could play freely. Kilshaw and Perry, the Treasurer
and the waverers, all slipped out, and Norburn, knowing nothing but
simply wearied of Puttock, followed them. Scarce twenty were left in the
House, and the galleries had poured half their contents into the great
room which served for a lobby outside. There the talk ran swift and
eager. The very name of "Benyon" was enough for many, who remembered
that it had always been said to be the maiden name of Medland's wife.
Could any one doubt who the other person in that strangely revealed
photograph was, or fail to guess the relation between the man they had
been listening to and the man who was dead? A few had known Benyon, more
Gaspard, all Medland--the three figures of this drama; many remembered
the fourth, the central character, who had not tarried for the end of
it: the man was rare who did not spend a thought on the bright girl,
whose face was so familiar in these walls, and who must be dragged into
it. Where was she? asked one. She was gone. Norburn, with rapid
instinct, as soon as he had read, had run to her and forced her to go
home. He was back from escorting her now, and walked up and down with
hands behind him, speaking to no one among all the busily babbling
throng.

The waverers stood in a little group by themselves, talking earnestly in
undertones, while men wondered whether the paper would undo what the
speech had done, and whether the Premier's words had won a victory, only
for his deeds to leap to light and rob it from him again.

Inside, the debate lagged on, surely the dullest, emptiest, most
neglected debate that had ever decided the fate of a Government. The men
who had been set down to speak came in and spoke and went out again; a
House was kept, but with little to spare. Sir Robert went in and took
his place, opposite Medland, who never stirred through all the hours.
Presently Sir Robert wrote a note, twisted it, and flung it to the
Premier. "A splendid performance of yours, _mes compliments_," it said,
and, when Medland looked across to acknowledge it, Sir Robert smiled
kindly, and nodded his silver head, and the Premier answered him with a
glad gleam in his deep-set eyes. These two men, who were always
fighting, knew one another, and liked one another for what they knew.
And this little episode done, Sir Robert rose and pricked and pinked the
Premier's points, making sharp fun of his heroics, and weightily
criticising his proposals. Now the House did fill a little, for after
all the debate was important, and the hour of the division drew near;
and when the question was put and the bell rang, nearly half the House
trooped out with virtuous air to join the other half, persistently
gossiping in the lobby, and, with them, decide the fateful question.

One more strange thing was to happen at that sitting.

It was not strange that the Government were beaten by three votes, that
only one of those wavering men voted with his old party at last, but it
was strange that when this result was announced, and Medland's followers
settled sturdily in their seats to endure the celebration of the
triumph, the celebration did not come. There was hardly a cheer, and
Medland himself, whom the result seemed hardly to have roused, woke with
a start to the unwonted silence. It struck to his heart: it seemed like
a tribute of respect to a dead enemy. But he rose and briefly said that
on the next day an announcement of the Government's intentions would be
made by himself--he paused here a moment--or one of his colleagues. He
sat down again. The sitting was at an end, and the House adjourned.
Members began to go out, but, as the Premier rose, they drew back and
left a path for him down the middle of the House. As he went, one or two
thrust out their hands to him, and one honest fellow shouted in his
rough voice--he was a labouring-man member--"You're not done yet,
Jimmy!"

The shout touched him, he lifted his head, looked round with a smile,
and, just raising again the hat he had put on as he neared the door,
took Norburn's arm and passed out of the House.

When Sir Robert followed, he found the Chief Justice waiting for him,
and they walked off together. For a long while neither spoke, but at
last Sir Robert said peevishly,

"I wish this confounded thing hadn't happened. It spoils our win."

The Chief Justice nodded, and whistled a bar or two of some sad ditty.

"I'm glad she's dead, poor soul, Perry," he said.

"There's the girl," said Sir Robert.

"Ay, there's the girl."

They did not speak again till they were just parting, when the Chief
Justice broke out,

"Why the deuce couldn't the fellow take his beastly photograph with
him?"

"It's very absurd," answered Sir Robert, "but I feel just the same about
it."

"I'm hanged if you're not a gentleman, Perry," said the Chief Justice,
and he hastened away, blowing his nose.




CHAPTER XXIV.

THREE AGAINST THE WORLD.


Though the House had risen early that evening, the Central Club sat very
late. The smoking-room was crowded, and tongues wagged briskly. Every
man had a hare to hunt; no one lacked irrefragable arguments to prove
what must happen; no one knew exactly what was going to happen. The
elder men gathered round Puttock and Jewell, and listened to a
demonstration that the Premier's public life was at an end; the younger
rallied Coxon, whose premature stateliness sometimes invited this
treatment, dubbing him "Kingmaker Coxon," and hilariously repudiating
the idea that he did not enjoy the title. Captain Heseltine dropped in
about eleven; cross-questioning drew from him the news that
communications had passed, informal communications, he insisted, from
the Governor to Sir Robert, as well as to the Premier.

"In fact," he said, "poor old Flemyng's cutting up and down all over
the place. Glad it's his night on duty."

Presently Mr. Flemyng himself appeared, clamorous for cigars and drink,
but mighty discreet and vexatiously reticent. Yes, he had taken a letter
to Medland; yes, and another to Perry; no, he had no idea what the
missives were about. He believed Medland was to see the Governor
to-morrow, but it was beyond him to conjecture the precise object of the
interview. Was it resignation or dissolution? Really, he knew no more
than that waiter--and so forth; very likely his ignorance was real, but
he diffused an atmosphere of suppressed knowledge which whetted the
curiosity of his audience to the sharpest edge.

A messenger entered and delivered a note to Puttock and another to
Coxon. The two compared their notes for a moment, and went out together.
The arguments rose furiously again, some maintaining that Medland must
disappear altogether, others vehemently denying it, a third party
preferring to await the disclosures at the inquest before committing
themselves to an opinion. An hour passed; the noise in the streets began
to abate, and the clock of the Roman Catholic cathedral hard by struck
twelve. Captain Heseltine yawned, stretched, and rose to his feet.

"Come along, Flemyng," he said. "The show's over for to-night."

He seemed to express the general feeling, but men were reluctant to
acknowledge so disappointing a conclusion, and the preparations for
departure were slow and lingering. They had not fairly begun before Mr.
Kilshaw's entrance abruptly checked them. Instantly he became the centre
of a crowd.

"Now, Kilshaw," they cried, "you know all about it. Oh, come now! Of
course you do! Secret? Nonsense! Out with it!" and one or two of his
intimates added imploringly, "Don't be an ass, Kilshaw."

Kilshaw flung himself into a chair.

"They resign," he said.

"At once?"

"Yes. Perry's to be sent for. Medland, I'm told, insists on going. For
my own part, I think he's right."

"Of course," said somebody sapiently, "he doesn't want to dissolve with
this affair hanging over him."

"It comes to the same thing," observed Kilshaw. "Perry will dissolve;
the Governor has promised to do it, if he likes."

"Perry dissolve!"

"Yes," nodded Kilshaw. "You see--" He paused and added, "Our present
position isn't very independent."

Everybody understood what he hinted. Sir Robert did not care to depend
on the will of Coxon and his seceders.

"And what about Coxon and Puttock?" was the next question.

"Haven't I been indiscreet enough?"

"Well, what are you going to do yourself?"

"My duty," answered Mr. Kilshaw, with a smile, and the throng, failing
to extract any more from him, did at last set about the task of getting
home to bed in good earnest.

They could rest sooner than the man who occupied so much of their
interest. It had been a busy evening for the defeated Minister; he had
colleagues to see, letters to write, messages to send, conferences to
hold. No doubt there was much to do, and yet Norburn, who watched him
closely, doubted whether he did not make work for himself, perhaps as a
means of distraction, perhaps as a device for postponing an interview
with his daughter. He had seen her for a minute when he came in, and
told her he would tell her all there was to tell some time that night;
but the moment for it was slow in coming. Norburn had been struck with
Daisy's composure. She had seen the _Evening Mail_, and, without
attempting to discuss the matter with him, she expressed her conviction
that there could be nothing distressing behind the mysterious paragraph.
Norburn did not know what to say to her. He felt that in a case of this
sort a girl's mind was a closed book to him. He had himself, on the way
back from the House, heard a brief account of the whole matter from the
Premier's lips; it seemed to him, in the light of his ideas and
theories, a matter of very little moment. He was of course aware how
widely the judgment of many would differ from his, and when his mind was
directed to the political aspect of the situation, he acknowledged the
gravity of the disclosure. But honestly he could not pretend to think it
a thing which should alter or lessen the esteem or love in which
Medland's friends held him. And even if the original act were seriously
worthy of blame, the lapse of years made present severity as
unreasonable as it would be unkind. In vain Medland reminded him that,
let the act be as old and long past as it would, the consequences
remained.

"What!" Norburn cried, "would any one think the worse of Daisy? The more
fools they!" and he laughed cheerfully, adding, "I only wish she'd let
me show her I think none the worse of her. Why, it's preposterous, sir!"

"Preposterous or not," answered Medland, "half the people in the place
will let her know the difference. I may agree with you--God knows how I
should like to be able to!--but there's no blinking the fact. Well, I
must tell her."

He recollected telling the same story to the other woman he loved, and
he shrank in sudden dread, lest his daughter should say what Alicia had
said, "To me it is--horrible!" The words echoed in his brain. "Ah, I
can't speak of it," she had cried, and the gesture of her hand as she
repelled him lived before his eyes again. Surely Daisy would not do that
to him!

"I should be like Lear--without a grievance," he said to himself, with
a wry smile. "The very height of tragedy!"

It was near midnight before he put away his work. Norburn had left him
alone two hours before, and he rose now, laid down his pipe, and went to
look for his daughter in her little sitting-room. His heart was very
heavy; he must make her understand now why a man who made love to her
should be hastily sent away by his friends, what her father had
condemned her to, what manner of man he was; he must seem to destroy or
impair the perfect sweetness of memory wherein she held her mother.

He opened the door softly. She was sitting in a large armchair, over a
little bit of bright fire; save for gleams suddenly coming and going, as
a coal blazed and died down again, the room was in darkness. He walked
up to her and knelt by the chair, his head almost on a level with hers.

"Well, Daisy, what are you doing?"

She put out a hand and laid it on his with a gentle pressure.

"I'm thinking," she said. "Do you want a light?"

"No, I like it dark best--best for what I have to say."

Suddenly she threw her arms round his neck, drawing him to her and
kissing his face.

"I'd do the same if you'd killed him yourself," she whispered in the
extravagance of her love, and kissed him again.

"But, Daisy, you don't know."

"Yes, I do. He told me. He's been here."

"Who?"

"Jack Norburn. He said you would hate telling me, so he did. You mustn't
mind, dear, you mustn't mind. Oh, you didn't think it would make any
difference to me, dear, did you? What do I care? Mrs. Puttock may care,
and Lady Eynesford, and all the rest, but what do I care if I have you
and him?"

"Me and him, Daisy?"

"Yes," she answered, smiling boldly. "He's asked me to marry him--just
to show he didn't mind--and I think I will, father. We three against the
world! What need we care? Father, we'll beat Sir Robert!" and she seized
his two hands and laughed.

In vain Medland tried to tell her what he had come to say. Mighty as his
relief and joy were, he still felt a burden lay on him. She would not
hear.

"Don't you see I'm happy?" she cried. "It can't be your duty to make me
unhappy. Jack doesn't mind, I don't mind!" Her voice sank a little and
she added, "It can't hurt mother now. Oh, don't be unhappy about it,
dear--don't, don't!"

They were standing now, and his arm was about her. Looking up at him,
she went on,

"They shan't beat us! They shan't say they beat us. We three, father!"

He stooped and kissed her. There is love that lies beyond the realm of
giving or taking, of harm or good, of wrong, or even of forgiveness.
With all his faults, this love he had won from his daughter, and it
stood him in stead that night. He drew himself up to his height, and the
air of despondency fell from him. The girl's brave love braced him to
meet the world again.

"No, by Jove, we're not beat yet, Daisy!" he said, and she kissed him
again and laughed softly as she made him sit, and herself sat upon his
knee.




CHAPTER XXV.

THE TRUTH TOO LATE.


By four o'clock the next afternoon the Club had gathered ample materials
for fresh gossip. The formalities attendant on the change of government,
the composition of the new Cabinet, the prospects of the election--these
alone would have supplied many hours, and besides them, indeed
supplanting them temporarily by virtue of an intenser interest, there
was the account of the inquest on Benyon's body. Medland had gone to it,
almost direct from his final interview with the Governor, and Kilshaw
had been there, fresh from a conference with Perry. The inquiry had
ended, as was foreseen directly Ned Evans' evidence was forthcoming, in
a verdict of murder against Gaspard; but the interest lay in the course
of the investigation, not in its issue. Mr. Duncombe, a famous comedian,
who was then on tour in New Lindsey and had been made an honorary member
of the Club, smacked his lips over the dramatic moment when the
ex-Premier, calmly and in a clear voice, had identified the person in
the photograph, declared the deceased man to have been Benyon, and very
briefly stated how he had been connected with him in old days.

"The lady," he said, "is Mrs. Benyon. The other figure is that of
myself. I had not seen the deceased for many years."

"You were not on terms with him?" asked the coroner, who, in common with
half the listeners, had known the lady as Mrs. Medland.

"No," said Mr. Medland; "I lost sight of him."

"You did not hear from--from any one about him?"

"No."

He gave the dates when he had last seen Benyon in old days. Asked
whether he had communicated with him between that date and the dead
man's reappearance, he answered,

"Once, about four years ago. I wrote to tell him of that lady's death,"
and he pointed again to the picture, and went on to tell the details of
Benyon's subsequent application to him for a post under Government.

"You refused it?" he was asked.

"Yes, I refused it. I spoke to him once again, when we met on a social
occasion. We had a sort of dispute then. I never saw him again to speak
to."

"It was all done," said Mr. Duncombe, describing the scene, "in a
repressed way that was very effective--to a house that knew the
circumstances most effective. And the other fellow--Kilshaw--he gave
some sport too. The coroner (they told me he was one of Medland's men,
and I noticed he spared Medland all he could) was inclined to be a bit
down on Kilshaw. Kilshaw was cool and handy in his answers, but, Lord
love you! his game came out pretty plain. A monkey! You don't give a man
a monkey unless there's value received! So people saw, and Mr. Kilshaw
looked a bit uncomfortable when he caught Medland's eye. He looked at
him like that," and Mr. Duncombe assumed the finest wronged-hero glance
in his repertory.

"Oh, come, old chap, I bet he didn't," observed Captain Heseltine.
"We've seen him, you know."

Duncombe laughed good-humouredly.

"At any rate he made Kilshaw look a little green, and some of the people
behind called out 'Shame!' and got themselves sat upon. Then they had
Medland up again and twisted him a bit about his acquaintance with
Gaspard; but the coroner didn't seem to think there was anything in it,
and they found murder against Gaspard, and rang down the curtain. And
when we got outside there was a bit of a rumpus. They hooted Kilshaw and
cheered Medland, and yelled like mad when a dashed pretty girl drove up
in a pony-cart and carried him off. Altogether it wasn't half bad."

"Glad you enjoyed yourself," observed Captain Heseltine. "If it amuses
strangers to see our leading celebrities mixed up in a murder and other
distressing affairs, it's the least we can do to see that they get it."

The Captain's facetiousness fell on unappreciative ears. Most of Mr.
Duncombe's audience were too alive to the serious side of the matter to
enjoy it. To them it was another and a very striking scene in the fight
which had long gone on between Medland and Kilshaw, and had taken a
fresh and fiercer impetus from the well-remembered day when Medland had
spoken his words about Kilshaw and his race-horses. Nobody doubted that
Kilshaw had kept this man Benyon, or Benham, as a secret weapon, and
that the murder had only made the disclosure come earlier. Kilshaw's
reputation suffered somewhat in the minds of the scrupulous, but his
partisans would hear of no condemnation. They said, as he had said, that
in dealing with a man like Medland it would have been folly not to use
the weapons fate, or the foe himself by his own misdeeds, offered. As
for the disapprobation of the Kirton mob, they held that in high scorn.

"They'd cheer burglary, if Medland did it," said one.

"Well, he wants to, pretty nearly," added a capitalist.

"But the country will take a very different view. Puttock'll rub it into
all his people: _they_'ll not vote for him. What do you say, Coxon?"

"I think we shall beat him badly," said that gentleman, as he rose and
went out.

Captain Heseltine soon followed, and was surprised to see Coxon's figure
just ahead of him as he entered the gates of Government House.

"Hang the fellow! What does he want here?" asked the Captain.

Mr. Coxon asked for Lady Eynesford. When he entered, she rose with a
newspaper in her hand.

"What a shocking, shameful thing this is!" she said. "What a blessing it
is that the Government was beaten!"

Coxon acquiesced in both these opinions.

"I never thought well of him," continued the lady. "Now everybody sees
him in his true colours. And it's you we have chiefly to thank for our
deliverance."

Coxon murmured a modest depreciation of his services, and said,

"I hope Miss Derosne is well?"

Something in his tones brought to his hostess one of those swift fits of
repentance that were apt to wait for her whenever she allowed herself to
treat this visitor with friendliness. He was so very prompt in
responding!

"She is not very well," she answered, rather coldly.

"I--I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing her?"

Mr. Coxon's wishes were fulfilled to the moment. The door opened and
Alicia came in. On seeing him she stopped.

"Come in, Alicia," said Lady Eynesford. "Here's Mr. Coxon come to be
congratulated."

Coxon stood up with a propitiatory smile.

"How do you do, Mr. Coxon?" said Alicia, giving him a limp hand. "Shall
I ring for tea, Mary?"

"They'll bring it. You haven't wished him joy."

"Oh, are you in the new Ministry?"

"I have that honour, Miss Derosne. I hope you are on our side?"

"I don't quite know which side you are on--now," observed Alicia, in
slow but distinct tones.

Coxon grew red.

"I--I have joined Sir Robert Perry's Ministry," he answered.

"Of course he has, Alicia," interposed Lady Eynesford hastily.

Alicia seated herself on the sofa, remarking as she did so,

"Well, you do change a good deal, don't you?"

"Really, Miss Derosne," he stammered, "I don't understand you."

"Oh, I only mean that you were first with Sir Robert, then with Mr.
Medland, and now with Sir Robert again! And presently with Mr. Medland
again, I suppose?"

"She doesn't appreciate the political reasons," began Lady Eynesford,
with troubled brow and smiling lips; but Coxon, frowning angrily, broke
in,

"Not the last, I promise you, anyhow, Miss Derosne."

"What, you think he's finally beaten then?"

"That's not the question. Beaten or not, he is discredited, and no
respectable man would act with him."

"We needn't discuss--" began Lady Eynesford again, but this time Alicia
was the interrupter. She spoke in a cold, hard way, very unlike her own.

"If he won, you would all be at his feet."

Coxon was justified in being angry at her almost savage scorn of him;
regardless of anything except his wrong, he struck back the sharpest
blow he could.

"I know some people are very ready to be at his feet," he said, with a
sneering smile.

His shaft hit the mark. Alicia flushed and sat speechless. A glance at
Lady Eynesford's face told him the scene had lasted too long: he rose
and took his leave, paying Alicia the homage of a bow, but not seeking
her hand. She took no notice of his salute, and Lady Eynesford only
gasped "Good-bye."

The two sat silent for some moments after he had gone; then Lady
Eynesford remarked,

"Were you mad, Alicia? See what you laid yourself open to! Oh, of course
a gentleman wouldn't have said it, but you yourself didn't treat him as
if he was a gentleman. Really, I can make a great deal of allowance for
him. Your manner was inexcusable."

Alicia did not attempt to defend herself.

"You are out of temper," continued her sister-in-law, "and you choose to
hit the first person within reach; if you can do that you care nothing
for my dignity or your own self-respect. You parade your--your interest
in this man----"

"I shall never speak to him again."

"I'm glad to hear it, and, if you come into my drawing-room, I will
thank you to behave yourself properly and be civil to my guests," and
Lady Eynesford walked out of the room.

Alicia huddled herself in a heap on the sofa, turning her face to the
wall. She felt Lady Eynesford's scornful rebuke like the stroke of a
whip. She had descended to a vulgar wrangle, and had been worsted in it:
the one thing of all which it concerned her to hide had by her own act
been opened to the jeer of a stranger; she had violated every rule of
good breeding and self-respect. No words--not even Lady
Eynesford's--were too strong to describe what she had done. Yet she
could not help it; she could not hear a creature like that abuse or
condemn a man like Medland--though all that he had said she had said,
and more, to Medland himself. She was too miserable to think; she lay
with closed eyes and parted lips, breathing quickly, and restlessly
moving her limbs in that strange physical discomfort which great
unhappiness brings with it.

A footstep roused her; she sat up, hurriedly smoothing her hair and
clutching at a book that lay on the table by her. The intruder was her
brother, and fortunately he was too intent on the tidings he brought to
notice her confusion.

"Great news, Al!" he cried. "They've offered me Ireland. We shall start
home in a month."

"Home in a month?" she echoed.

"Yes. Splendid, isn't it?"

"You're pleased, Willie?"

The Governor was very pleased. He liked the promotion, he liked going
home; and finally, pleasant as his stay in New Lindsey had been on the
whole, there were features in the present position which made him not
sorry to depart.

"I shall just see the elections through, and Perry well started--at
least, I suppose it'll be Perry--and then we'll be off. Shan't you be
glad to see the old home again, Al?"

"It's so sudden," she said. "I shall be sorry to leave here."

"Oh, so shall I--very sorry to leave some of the people too. Still, it's
a good thing. Where's Eleanor? I must tell her. I say, Dick gets here
to-morrow."

"Oh, I'm so glad."

The Governor hurried out again, and Alicia returned to the sofa. The
knot of her troubles had been rudely cut. Perhaps this summary ending
was best. She herself would not, she knew, have had the strength to tear
herself away from that place, but if fate tore her--perhaps well and
good. Nothing but unhappiness waited there for her; it seemed to her
that nothing but unhappiness waited anywhere now; but at least, over at
home, she would not have to fear the discovery of her secret, the secret
she herself kept so badly, nor to endure the torture of gossip, hints,
and clumsy pity. No one, over at home, would think of Medland; they
might just know his name, might perhaps have heard him rumoured for a
dangerous man and a vexatious opponent of good Sir Robert. Certainly
they would never think of him as the cause of bruising of heart to a
young lady in fashionable society. So he would pass out of her life; she
would leave him to his busy, strenuous, happy-unhappy life, so full of
triumphs and defeats, of ups and downs, of the love of many and the hate
of many. Perhaps she, like the rest, would read his name in the _Times_
now and then, unless indeed he were utterly vanquished. No, he was not
finally beaten. Of that she was sure. His name would be read often in
cold print, but the glow of the life he lived would be henceforth
unknown to her. She would go back to the old world and the old circle of
it. What would happen after that she was too listless to think. It was
summed up in negations; and these again melted into one great want, the
absence of the man to whom her imagination and her heart blindly and
obstinately clung.

Lady Eynesford had left her newspaper, and Alicia found her hand upon
it. Taking it up, she read Medland's evidence at the inquest. A sudden
revulsion of feeling seized her. Was this the man she was dreaming
about, a man who calmly, coolly, as though caring nothing, told that
story in the face of all the world? Was she never to get rid of the
spell he had cast on her before she knew what he really was? For a man
like this she had sacrificed her self-respect, bandied insults with a
vulgar upstart, and brought on her head a reproach more fitting for an
ill-mannered child. She threw the paper from her and rose to her feet.
She would think no more of him; he might be what he would; he was no fit
subject for her thoughts, and he and the place where he lived and all
this wretched country deserved nothing better than to be forgotten,
resolutely, utterly, soon.

"I am very sorry, Mary," she was saying, ten minutes later; "I deserved
all you said. I don't know what foolishness possessed me. See, I have
written and apologised to Mr. Coxon."

And Lady Eynesford kissed her and thanked heaven that they would soon
have done with Mr. Coxon and--all the rest.




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE UNCLEAN THING.


A few days later, Mr. Dick Derosne was walking in the Park at noon. He
had been down to the Club and found no one there. Everybody except
himself was at work: the politicians were scattered all over the colony,
conducting their election campaign. Medland himself had gone to his
constituency: his seat was very unsafe there, and he was determined to
keep it if he could, although, as a precaution, he was also a candidate
for the North-east ward of Kirton, where his success was beyond doubt.
His friends and his foes had followed him out of town, and the few who
were left were busy in the capital itself. Such men as these when at the
Club would talk of nothing but the crisis, and, after he had heard all
there was to hear about the Benyon affair, the crisis began to bore
Dick. After all, it mattered very little to him; he would be out of it
all in a month, and the Medlands were not, when he came to think of it,
people of great importance. Why, the Grangers had never heard of them!
Decidedly, he had had enough and to spare of the Medlands.

Nevertheless, he was to have a little more of them, for at this instant
he saw Daisy Medland approaching him. Escape was impossible, and Dick
had the grace to shrink from appearing to avoid her.

"The deuce!" he thought, "this is awkward. I hope she won't--" He raised
his hat with elaborate politeness.

Daisy stopped and greeted him with much effusion and without any
embarrassment. Dick thought that odd.

"I was afraid," she said, "we were not going to see you again before you
disappeared finally with the Governor."

their deceased god and later, after he had revived, celebrated with
exultation his birth to a new life. Or else they joined in the passion of
Mithra, condemned to create the world in suffering. This common grief and
joy were often expressed with savage violence, by bloody mutilations, long
wails of despair, and extravagant acclamations. The manifestations of the
extreme fanaticism of those barbarian races that had not been touched by
Greek skepticism and the very ardor of their faith inflamed the souls of
the multitudes attracted by the exotic gods.

The Oriental religions touched every chord of sensibility and satisfied the
thirst for religious emotion that the austere Roman creed had been unable
to quench. {31} But at the same time they satisfied the intellect more
fully, and this is my second point.

In very early times Greece--later imitated by Rome--became resolutely
rationalistic: her greatest originality lies here. Her philosophy was
purely laical; thought was unrestrained by any sacred tradition; it even
pretended to pass judgment upon these traditions and condemned or approved
of them. Being sometimes hostile, sometimes indifferent and some times
conciliatory, it always remained independent of faith. But while Greece
thus freed herself from the fetters of a superannuated mythology, and
openly and boldly constructed those systems of metaphysics by means of
which she claimed to solve the enigmas of the universe, her religion lost
its vitality and dried up because it lacked the strengthening nourishment
of reflection. It became a thing devoid of sense, whose _raison d'être_ was
no longer understood; it embodied dead ideas and an obsolete conception of
the world. In Greece as well as at Rome it was reduced to a collection of
unintelligible rites, scrupulously and mechanically reproduced without
addition or omission because they had been practised by the ancestors of
long ago, and formulas hallowed by the _mos maiorum_, that were no longer
understood or sincerely cherished. Never did a people of advanced culture
have a more infantile religion.

The Oriental civilizations on the contrary were sacerdotal in character. As
in medieval Europe, the scholars of Asia and Egypt were priests. In the
temples the nature of the gods and of man were not the only subjects of
discussion; mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philology and history were
also studied. The successors of Berosus, a priest from Babylonia, and {32}
Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, were considered deeply versed in all
intellectual disciplines as late as the time of Strabo.[13]

This state of affairs proved detrimental to the progress of science.
Researches were conducted according to preconceived ideas and were
perverted through strange prejudices. Astrology and magic were the
monstrous fruit of a hybrid union. But all this certainly gave religion a
power it had never possessed either in Greece or Rome.

All results of observation, all conquests of thought, were used by an
erudite clergy to attain the principal object of their activities, the
solution of the problem of the destiny of man and matter, and of the
relations of heaven and earth. An ever enlarging conception of the universe
kept transforming the modes of belief. Faith presumed to enslave both
physics and metaphysics. The credit of every discovery was given to the
gods. Thoth in Egypt and Bel in Chaldea were the revealers not only of
theology and the ritual, but of all human knowledge.[14] The names of the
Oriental Hipparchi and Euclids who solved the first problems of astronomy
and geometry were unknown; but a confused and grotesque literature made use
of the name and authority of Hermes Trismegistus. The doctrines of the
planetary spheres and the opposition of the four elements were made to
support systems of anthropology and of morality; the theorems of astronomy
were used to establish an alleged method of divination; formulas of
incantation, supposed to subject divine powers to the magician, were
combined with chemical experiments and medical prescriptions.

This intimate union of erudition and faith continued {33} in the Latin
world. Theology became more and more a process of deification of the
principles or agents discovered by science and a worship of time regarded
as the first cause, the stars whose course determined the events of this
world, the four elements whose innumerable combinations produced the
natural phenomena, and especially the sun which preserved heat, fertility
and life. The dogmas of the mysteries of Mithra were, to a certain extent,
the religious expression of Roman physics and astronomy. In all forms of
pantheism the knowledge of nature appears to be inseparable from that of
God.[15] Art itself complied more and more with the tendency to express
erudite ideas by subtle symbolism, and it represented in allegorical
figures the relations of divine powers and cosmic forces, like the sky, the
earth, the ocean, the planets, the constellations and the winds. The
sculptors engraved on stone everything man thought and taught. In a general
way the belief prevailed that redemption and salvation depended on the
revelation of certain truths, on a knowledge of the gods, of the world and
of our person, and piety became gnosis.[16]

But, you will say, since in the classic age philosophy also claimed to lead
to morality through instruction and to acquaint man with the supreme good,
why did it yield to Oriental religions that were in reality neither
original nor innovating? Quite right, and if a powerful rationalist school,
possessed of a good critical method, had led the minds, we may believe that
it would have checked the invasion of the barbarian mysteries or at least
limited their field of action. However, as has frequently been pointed out,
even in ancient Greece the philosophic critics had very little hold on {34}
popular religion obstinately faithful to its inherited superstitious forms.
But how many second century minds shared Lucian's skepticism in regard to
the dogmatic systems! The various sects were fighting each other for ever
so long without convincing one another of their alleged error. The satirist
of Samosata enjoyed opposing their exclusive pretensions while he himself
reclined on the "soft pillow of doubt." But only intelligent minds could
delight in doubt or surrender to it; the masses wanted certainties. There
was nothing to revive confidence in the power of a decrepit and threadbare
science. No great discovery transformed the conception of the universe.
Nature no longer betrayed her secrets, the earth remained unexplored and
the past inscrutable. Every branch of knowledge was forgotten. The world
cursed with sterility, could but repeat itself; it had the poignant
appreciation of its own decay and impotence. Tired of fruitless researches,
the mind surrendered to the necessity of believing. Since the intellect was
unable to formulate a consistent rule of life faith alone could supply it,
and the multitudes gravitated toward the temples, where the truths taught
to man in earlier days by the Oriental gods were revealed. The stanch
adherence of past generations to beliefs and rites of unlimited antiquity
seemed to guarantee their truth and efficacy. This current was so strong
that philosophy itself was swept toward mysticism and the neo-Platonist
school became a theurgy.

The Oriental mysteries, then, could stir the soul by arousing admiration
and terror, pity and enthusiasm in turn. They gave the intellect the
illusion of learned depth and absolute certainty and finally--our third
{35} point--they satisfied conscience as well as passion and reason. Among
the complex causes that guaranteed their domination, this was without doubt
the most effective.

In every period of their history the Romans, unlike the Greeks in this
respect, judged theories and institutions especially by their practical
results. They always had a soldier's and business man's contempt for
metaphysicians. It is a matter of frequent observation that the philosophy
of the Latin world neglected metaphysical speculations and concentrated its
attention on morals, just as later the Roman church left to the subtle
Hellenes the interminable controversies over the essence of the divine
logos and the double nature of Christ. Questions that could rouse and
divide her were those having a direct application to life, like the
doctrine of grace.

The old religion of the Romans had to respond to this demand of their
genius. Its poverty was honest.[17] Its mythology did not possess the
poetic charm of that of Greece, nor did its gods have the imperishable
beauty of the Olympians, but they were more moral, or at least pretended to
be. A large number were simply personified qualities, like chastity and
piety. With the aid of the censors they imposed the practice of the
national virtues, that is to say of the qualities useful to society,
temperance, courage, chastity, obedience to parents and magistrates,
reverence for the oath and the law, in fact, the practice of every form of
patriotism. During the last century of the republic the pontiff Scaevola,
one of the foremost men of his time, rejected as futile the divinities of
fable and poetry, as superfluous or obnoxious those of the philosophers and
the exegetists, {36} and reserved all his favors for those of the
statesmen, as the only ones fit for the people.[18] These were the ones
protecting the old customs, traditions and frequently even the old
privileges. But in the perpetual flux of things conservatism ever carries
with it a germ of death. Just as the law failed to maintain the integrity
of ancient principles, like the absolute power of the father of the family,
principles that were no longer in keeping with the social realities, so
religion witnessed the foundering of a system of ethics contrary to the
moral code that had slowly been established. The idea of collective
responsibility contained in a number of beliefs is one instance. If a
vestal violated her vow of chastity the divinity sent a pest that ceased
only on the day the culprit was punished. Sometimes the angry heavens
granted victory to the army only on condition that a general or soldier
dedicate himself to the infernal gods as an expiatory victim. However,
through the influence of the philosophers and the jurists the conviction
slowly gained ground that each one was responsible for his own misdeeds,
and that it was not equitable to make a whole city suffer for the crime of
an individual. People ceased to admit that the gods crushed the good as
well as the wicked in one punishment. Often, also, the divine anger was
thought to be as ridiculous in its manifestations as in its cause. The
rural superstitions of the country districts of Latium continued to live in
the pontifical code of the Roman people. If a lamb with two heads or a colt
with five legs was born, solemn supplications were prescribed to avert the
misfortunes foreboded by those terrifying prodigies.[19]

All these puerile and monstrous beliefs that burdened {37} the religion of
the Latins had thrown it into disrepute. Its morality no longer responded
to the new conception of justice beginning to prevail. As a rule Rome
remedied the poverty of her theology and ritual by taking what she needed
from the Greeks. But here this resource failed her because the poetic,
artistic and even intellectual religion of the Greeks was hardly moral. And
the fables of a mythology jeered at by the philosophers, parodied on the
stage and put to verse by libertine poets were anything but edifying.

Moreover--this was its second weakness--whatever morality it demanded of a
pious man went unrewarded. People no longer believed that the gods
continually intervened in the affairs of men to reveal hidden crimes and to
punish triumphant vice, or that Jupiter would hurl his thunderbolt to crush
the perjurer. At the time of the proscriptions and the civil wars under
Nero or Commodus it was more than plain that power and possessions were for
the strongest, the ablest or even the luckiest, and not for the wisest or
the most pious. The idea of reward or punishment beyond the grave found
little credit. The notions of future life were hazy, uncertain, doubtful
and contradictory. Everybody knows Juvenal's famous lines: "That there are
manes, a subterranean kingdom, a ferryman with a long pole, and black frogs
in the whirlpools of the Styx; that so many thousand men could cross the
waves in a single boat, to-day even children refuse to believe."[20]

After the fall of the republic indifference spread, the temples were
abandoned and threatened to tumble into ruins, the clergy found it
difficult to recruit members, the festivities, once so popular, fell into
desuetude, and {38} Varro, at the beginning of his _Antiquities_, expressed
his fear lest "the gods might perish, not from the blows of foreign
enemies, but from very neglect on the part of the citizens."[21] It is well
known that Augustus, prompted by political rather than by religious
reasons, attempted to revive the dying religion. His religious reforms
stood in close relation to his moral legislation and the establishment of
the imperial dignity. Their tendency was to bring the people back to the
pious practice of ancient virtues but also to chain them to the new
political order. The alliance of throne and altar in Europe dates from that
time.

This attempted reform failed entirely. Making religion an auxiliary to
moral policing is not a means of establishing its empire over souls. Formal
reverence for the official gods is not incompatible with absolute and
practical skepticism. The restoration attempted by Augustus is nevertheless
very characteristic because it is so consistent with the Roman spirit which
by temperament and tradition demanded that religion should support morality
and the state.

The Asiatic religions fulfilled the requirements. The change of régime,
although unwelcome, brought about a change of religion. The increasing
tendency of Cæsarism toward absolute monarchy made it lean more and more
upon the Oriental clergy. True to the traditions of the Achemenides and the
Pharaohs, those priests preached doctrines tending to elevate the sovereign
above humanity, and they supplied the emperors with dogmatic justification
for their despotism.[22]

It is a noteworthy fact that the rulers who most loudly proclaimed their
autocratic pretentions, like {39} Domitian and Commodus, were also those
that favored foreign creeds most openly.

But his selfish support merely sanctioned a power already established. The
propaganda of the Oriental religions was originally democratic and
sometimes even revolutionary like the Isis worship. Step by step they
advanced, always reaching higher social classes and appealing to popular
conscience rather than to the zeal of functionaries.

As a matter of fact all these religions, except that of Mithra, seem at
first sight to be far less austere than the Roman creed. We shall have
occasion to note that they contained coarse and immodest fables and
atrocious or vile rites. The Egyptian gods were expelled from Rome by
Augustus and Tiberius on the charge of being immoral, but they were called
immoral principally because they opposed a certain conception of the social
order. They gave little attention to the public interest but attached
considerable importance to the inner life and consequently to the value of
the individual. Two new things, in particular, were brought to Italy by the
Oriental priests: mysterious methods of purification, by which they claimed
to wash away the impurities of the soul, and the assurance that a blessed
immortality would be the reward of piety.[23]

These religions pretended to restore lost purity[24] to the soul either
through the performance of ritual ceremonies or through mortifications and
penance. They had a series of ablutions and lustrations supposed to restore
original innocence to the mystic. He had to wash himself in the sacred
water according to certain prescribed forms. This was really a magic rite,
because bodily purity acted sympathetically upon the soul, or {40} else it
was a real spiritual disinfection with the water driving out the evil
spirits that had caused pollution. The votary, again, might drink or
besprinkle himself with the blood of a slaughtered victim or of the priests
themselves, in which case the prevailing idea was that the liquid
circulating in the veins was a vivifying principle capable of imparting a
new existence.[25] These and similar rites[26] used in the mysteries were
supposed to regenerate the initiated person and to restore him to an
immaculate and incorruptible life.[27]

Purgation of the soul was not effected solely by liturgic acts but also by
self-denial and suffering.[28] The meaning of the term _expiatio_ changed.
Expiation, or atonement, was no longer accomplished by the exact
performance of certain ceremonies pleasing to the gods and required by a
sacred code like a penalty for damages, but by privation and personal
suffering. Abstinence, which prevented the introduction of deadly elements
into the system, and chastity, which preserved man from pollution and
debility, became means of getting rid of the domination of the evil powers
and of regaining heavenly favor.[29] Macerations, laborious pilgrimages,
public confessions, sometimes flagellations and mutilations, in fact all
forms of penance and mortifications uplifted the fallen man and brought him
nearer to the gods. In Phrygia a sinner would write his sin and the
punishment he suffered upon a stela for every one to see and would return
thanks to heaven that his prayer of repentance had been heard.[30] The
Syrian, who had offended his goddess by eating her sacred fish, dressed in
sordid rags, covered himself with a sack and sat in the public highway
humbly to proclaim his misdeed in order to obtain forgiveness.[31] {41}
"Three times, in the depths of winter," says Juvenal, "the devotee of Isis
will dive into the chilly waters of the Tiber, and shivering with cold,
will drag herself around the temple upon her bleeding knees; if the goddess
commands, she will go to the outskirts of Egypt to take water from the Nile
and empty it within the sanctuary."[32] This shows the introduction into
Europe of Oriental asceticism.

But there were impious acts and impure passions that contaminated and
defiled the soul. Since this infection could be destroyed only by
expiations prescribed by the gods, the extent of the sin and the character
of the necessary penance had to be estimated. It was the priest's
prerogative to judge the misdeeds and to impose the penalties. This
circumstance gave the clergy a very different character from the one it had
at Rome. The priest was no longer simply the guardian of sacred traditions,
the intermediary between man or the state and the gods, but also a
spiritual guide. He taught his flock the long series of obligations and
restrictions for shielding their weakness from the attacks of evil spirits.
He knew how to quiet remorse and scruples, and to restore the sinner to
spiritual calm. Being versed in sacred knowledge, he had the power of
reconciling the gods. Frequent sacred repasts maintained a spirit of
fellowship among the mystics of Cybele, Mithra or the Baals,[33] and a
daily service unceasingly revived the faith of the Isis worshipers. In
consequence, the clergy were entirely absorbed in their holy office and
lived only for and by their temples. Unlike the sacerdotal colleges of Rome
in which the secular and religious functions were not yet clearly
differentiated,[34] they were not an {42} administrative commission ruling
the sacred affairs of the state under the supervision of the senate; they
formed what might almost be called a caste of recluses distinguished from
ordinary men by their insignia, garb, habits and food, and constituting an
independent body with a hierarchy, formulary and even councils of their
own.[35] They did not return to every-day duties as private citizens or to
the direction of public affairs as magistrates as the ancient pontiffs had
done after the solemn festival service.

We can readily understand that these beliefs and institutions were bound to
establish the Oriental religions and their priests on a strong basis. Their
influence must have been especially powerful at the time of the Cæsars. The
laxity of morals at the beginning of our era has been exaggerated but it
was real. Many unhealthy symptoms told of a profound moral anarchy weighing
on a weakened and irresolute society. The farther we go toward the end of
the empire the more its energy seems to fail and the character of men to
weaken. The number of strong healthy minds incapable of a lasting
aberration and without need of guidance or comfort was growing ever
smaller. We note the spread of that feeling of exhaustion and debility
which follows the aberrations of passion, and the same weakness that led to
crime impelled men to seek absolution in the formal practices of
asceticism. They applied to the Oriental priests for spiritual remedies.

People flattered themselves that by performing the rites they would attain
a condition of felicity after death. All barbarian mysteries pretended to
reveal to their adherents the secret of blessed immortality. Participation
in the occult ceremonies of the sect was a {43} chief means of
salvation.[36] The vague and disheartening beliefs of ancient paganism in
regard to life after death were transformed into the firm hope of a
well-defined form of happiness.[37]

This faith in a personal survival of the soul and even of the body was
based upon a strong instinct of human nature, the instinct of
self-preservation. Social and moral conditions in the empire during its
decline gave it greater strength than it had ever possessed before.[38] The
third century saw so much suffering, anguish and violence, so much
unnecessary ruin and so many unpunished crimes, that the Roman world took
refuge in the expectation of a better existence in which all the iniquity
of this world would be retrieved. No earthly hope brightened life. The
tyranny of a corrupt bureaucracy choked all disposition for political
progress. Science stagnated and revealed no more unknown truths. Growing
poverty discouraged the spirit of enterprise. The idea gained ground that
humanity was afflicted with incurable decay, that nature was approaching
her doom and that the end of world was near.[39] We must remember all these
causes of discouragement and despondency to understand the power of the
idea, expressed so frequently, that the spirit animating man was forced by
bitter necessity to imprison itself in matter and that it was delivered
from its carnal captivity by death. In the heavy atmosphere of a period of
oppression and impotence the dejected soul longed with incredible ardor to
fly to the radiant abode of heaven.

To recapitulate, the Oriental religions acted upon the senses, the
intellect and the conscience at the same time, and therefore gained a hold
on the entire man. {44} Compared with the ancient creeds, they appear to
have offered greater beauty of ritual, greater truth of doctrine and a far
superior morality. The imposing ceremonial of their festivities and the
alternating pomp and sensuality, gloom and exaltation of their services
appealed especially to the simple and the humble, while the progressive
revelation of ancient wisdom, inherited from the old and distant Orient,
captivated the cultured mind. The emotions excited by these religions and
the consolations offered strongly attracted the women, who were the most
fervent and generous followers and most passionate propagandists[40] of the
religions of Isis and Cybele. Mithra was worshiped almost exclusively by
men, whom he subjected to a rigid moral discipline. Thus souls were gained
by the promise of spiritual purification and the prospect of eternal
happiness.

The worship of the Roman gods was a civic duty, the worship of the foreign
gods the expression of a personal belief. The latter were the objects of
the thoughts, feelings and intimate aspirations of the individual, not
merely of the traditional and, one might say, functional adoration of the
citizen. The ancient municipal devotions were connected with a number of
earthly interests that helped to support each other. They were one of
various forms of family spirit and patriotism and guaranteed the prosperity
of the community. The Oriental mysteries, directing the will toward an
ideal goal and exalting the inner spirit, were less mindful of economic
utility, but they could produce that vibration of the moral being that
caused emotions, stronger than any rational faculty, to gush forth from the
depths of the soul. Through a sudden illumination {45} they furnished the
intuition of a spiritual life whose intensity made all material happiness
appear insipid and contemptible. This stirring appeal of supernatural life
made the propaganda irresistible. The same ardent enthusiasm guaranteed at
the same time the uncontested domination of neo-Platonism among the
philosophers. Antiquity expired and a new era was born.

       *       *       *       *       *


{46}

ASIA MINOR.

The first Oriental religion adopted by the Romans was that of the goddess
of Phrygia, whom the people of Pessinus and Mount Ida worshiped, and who
received the name of _Magna Mater deum Idea_ in the Occident. Its history
in Italy covers six centuries, and we can trace each phase of the
transformation that changed it in the course of time from a collection of
very primitive nature beliefs into a system of spiritualized mysteries used
by some as a weapon against Christianity. We shall now endeavor to outline
the successive phases of that slow metamorphosis.

This religion is the only one whose success in the Latin world was caused
originally by a mere chance circumstance. In 205 B. C, when Hannibal,
vanquished but still threatening, made his last stand in the mountains of
Bruttium, repeated torrents of stones frightened the Roman people. When the
books were officially consulted in regard to this prodigy they promised
that the enemy would be driven from Italy if the Great Mother of Ida could
be brought to Rome. Nobody but the Sibyls themselves had the power of
averting the evils prophesied by them. They had come to Italy from Asia
Minor, and in this critical situation their sacred poem recommended the
practice of their native religion as a remedy. In token of his {47}
friendship, King Attalus presented the ambassadors of the senate with the
black aerolite, supposed to be the abode of the goddess, that this ruler
had shortly before transferred from Pessinus to Pergamum. According to the
mandate of the oracle the stone was received at Ostia by the best citizen
of the land, an honor accorded to Scipio Nasica--and carried by the most
esteemed matrons to the Palatine, where, hailed by the cheers of the
multitude and surrounded by fumes of incense, it was solemnly installed
(Nones of April, 204). This triumphal entry was later glorified by
marvelous legends, and the poets told of edifying miracles that had
occurred during Cybele's voyage. In the same year Scipio transferred the
seat of war to Africa, and Hannibal, compelled to meet him there, was
beaten at Zama. The prediction of the Sybils had come true and Rome was rid
of the long Punic terror. The foreign goddess was honored in recognition of
the service she had rendered. A temple was erected to her on the summit of
the Palatine, and every year a celebration enhanced by scenic plays, the
_ludi Megalenses_, commemorated the date of dedication of the sanctuary and
the arrival of the goddess (April 4th-10th).

What was this Asiatic religion that had suddenly been transferred into the
heart of Rome by an extraordinary circumstance? Even then it could look
back upon a long period of development. It combined beliefs of various
origin. It contained primitive usages of the religion of Anatolia, some of
which have survived to this day in spite of Christianity and Islam. Like
the Kizil-Bash peasants of to-day, the ancient inhabitants of the peninsula
met on the summits of mountains covered with woods no ax had desecrated,
and {48} celebrated their festal days.[1] They believed that Cybele resided
on the high summits of Ida and Berecyntus, and the perennial pines, in
conjunction with the prolific and early maturing almond tree, were the
sacred trees of Attis. Besides trees, the country people worshiped stones,
rocks or meteors that had fallen from the sky like the one taken from
Pessinus to Pergamum and thence to Rome. They also venerated certain
animals, especially the most powerful of them all, the lion, who may at one
time have been the totem of savage tribes.[2] In mythology as well as in
art the lion remained the riding or driving animal of the Great Mother.
Their conception of the divinity was indistinct and impersonal. A goddess
of the earth, called Mâ or Cybele, was revered as the fecund mother of all
things, the "mistress of the wild beasts"[3] that inhabit the woods. A god
Attis, or Papas, was regarded as her husband, but the first place in this
divine household belonged to the woman, a reminiscence of the period of
matriarchy.[4]

When the Phrygians at a very early period came from Thrace and inserted
themselves like a wedge in the old Anatolian races, they adopted the vague
deities of their new country by identifying them with their own, after the
habit of pagan nations. Thus Attis became one with the Dionysus-Sabazius of
the conquerors, or at least assumed some of his characteristics. This
Thracian Dionysus was a god of vegetation. Foucart has thus admirably
pictured his savage nature: "Wooded summits, deep oak and pine forests,
ivy-clad caverns were at all times his favorite haunts. Mortals who were
anxious to know the powerful divinity ruling these solitudes had to observe
the life of his kingdom, {49} and to guess the god's nature from the
phenomena through which he manifested his power. Seeing the creeks descend
in noisy foaming cascades, or hearing the roaring of steers in the uplands
and the strange sounds of the wind-beaten forests, the Thracians thought
they heard the voice and the calls of the lord of that empire, and imagined
a god who was fond of extravagant leaps and of wild roaming over the wooded
mountains. This conception inspired their religion, for the surest way for
mortals to ingratiate themselves with a divinity was to imitate him, and as
far as possible to make their lives resemble his. For this reason the
Thracians endeavored to attain the divine delirium that transported their
Dionysus, and hoped to realize their purpose by following their invisible
yet ever-present lord in his chase over the mountains."[5]

In the Phrygian religion we find the same beliefs and rites, scarcely
modified at all, with the one difference that Attis, the god of vegetation,
was united to the goddess of the earth instead of living "in sullen
loneliness." When the tempest was beating the forests of the Berecyntus or
Ida, it was Cybele traveling about in her car drawn by roaring lions
mourning her lover's death. A crowd of worshipers followed her through
woods and thickets, mingling their shouts with the shrill sound of flutes,
with the dull beat of tambourines, with the rattling of castanets and the
dissonance of brass cymbals. Intoxicated with shouting and with uproar of
the instruments, excited by their impetuous advance, breathless and
panting, they surrendered to the raptures of a sacred enthusiasm. Catullus
has left us a dramatic description of this divine ecstasy.[6] {50}

The religion of Phrygia was perhaps even more violent than that of Thrace.
The climate of the Anatolian uplands is one of extremes. Its winters are
rough, long and cold, the spring rains suddenly develop a vigorous
vegetation that is scorched by the hot summer sun. The abrupt contrasts of
a nature generous and sterile, radiant and bleak in turn, caused excesses
of sadness and joy that were unknown in temperate and smiling regions,
where the ground was never buried under snow nor scorched by the sun. The
Phrygians mourned the long agony and death of the vegetation, but when the
verdure reappeared in March they surrendered to the excitement of a
tumultuous joy. In Asia savage rites that had been unknown in Thrace or
practiced in milder form expressed the vehemence of those opposing
feelings. In the midst of their orgies, and after wild dances, some of the
worshipers voluntarily wounded themselves and, becoming intoxicated with
the view of the blood, with which they besprinkled their altars, they
believed they were uniting themselves with their divinity. Or else,
arriving at a paroxysm of frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to the
gods as certain Russian dissenters still do to-day. These men became
priests of Cybele and were called Galli. Violent ecstasis was always an
endemic disease in Phrygia. As late as the Antonines, montanist prophets
that arose in that country attempted to introduce it into Christianity.

All these excessive and degrading demonstrations of an extreme worship must
not cause us to slight the power of the feeling that inspired it. The
sacred ecstasy, the voluntary mutilations and the eagerly sought sufferings
manifested an ardent longing for {51} deliverance from subjection to carnal
instincts, and a fervent desire to free the soul from the bonds of matter.
The ascetic tendencies went so far as to create a kind of begging
monachism--the _métragyrtes_. They also harmonized with some of the ideas
of renunciation taught by Greek philosophy, and at an early period Hellenic
theologians took an interest in this devotion that attracted and repelled
them at the same time. Timotheus the Eumolpid, who was one of the founders
of the Alexandrian religion of Serapis, derived the inspiration for his
essays on religious reform, among other sources, from the ancient Phrygian
myths. Those thinkers undoubtedly succeeded in making the priests of
Pessinus themselves admit many speculations quite foreign to the old
Anatolian nature worship. The votaries of Cybele began at a very remote
period to practise "mysteries"[7] in which the initiates were made
acquainted, by degrees, with a wisdom that was always considered divine,
but underwent peculiar variations in the course of time.

       *       *       *       *       *

Such is the religion which the rough Romans of the Punic wars accepted and
adopted. Hidden under theological and cosmological doctrines it contained
an ancient stock of very primitive and coarse religious ideas, such as the
worship of trees, stones and animals. Besides this superstitious fetichism
it involved ceremonies that were both sensual and ribald, including all the
wild and mystic rites of the bacchanalia which the public authorities were
to prohibit a few years later.

When the senate became better acquainted with the divinity imposed upon it
by the Sibyls, it must have been quite embarrassed by the present of King
Attalus. {52} The enthusiastic transports and the somber fanaticism of the
Phrygian worship contrasted violently with the calm dignity and respectable
reserve of the official religion, and excited the minds of the people to a
dangerous degree. The emasculated Galli were the objects of contempt and
disgust and what in their own eyes was a meritorious act was made a crime
punishable by law, at least under the empire.[8] The authorities hesitated
between the respect due to the powerful goddess that had delivered Rome
from the Carthaginians and the reverence for the _mos maiorum_. They solved
the difficulty by completely isolating the new religion in order to prevent
its contagion. All citizens were forbidden to join the priesthood of the
foreign goddess or to participate in her sacred orgies. The barbarous rites
according to which the Great Mother was to be worshiped were performed by
Phrygian priests and priestesses. The holidays celebrated in her honor by
the entire nation, the _Megalensia_, contained no Oriental feature and were
organized in conformity with Roman traditions.

A characteristic anecdote told by Diodorus[9] shows what the public feeling
was towards this Asiatic worship at the end of the republic. In Pompey's
time a high priest from Pessinus came to Rome, presented himself at the
forum in his sacerdotal garb, a golden diadem and a long embroidered
robe--and pretending that the statue of his goddess had been profaned
demanded public expiation. But a tribune forbade him to wear the royal
crown, and the populace rose against him in a mob and compelled him to seek
refuge in his house. Although apologies were made later, this story shows
how little the people of that period felt {53} the veneration that attached
to Cybele and her clergy after a century had passed.

Kept closely under control, the Phrygian worship led an obscure existence
until the establishment of the empire. That closed the first period of its
history at Rome. It attracted attention only on certain holidays, when its
priests marched the streets in procession, dressed in motley costumes,
loaded with heavy jewelry, and beating tambourines. On those days the
senate granted them the right to go from house to house to collect funds
for their temples. The remainder of the year they confined themselves to
the sacred enclosure of the Palatine, celebrating foreign ceremonies in a
foreign language. They aroused so little notice during this period that
almost nothing is known of their practices or of their creed. It has even
been maintained that Attis was not worshiped together with his companion,
the Great Mother, during the times of the republic, but this is undoubtedly
wrong, because the two persons of this divine couple must have been as
inseparable in the ritual as they were in the myths.[10]

But the Phrygian religion kept alive in spite of police surveillance, in
spite of precautions and prejudices; a breach had been made in the cracked
wall of the old Roman principles, through which the entire Orient finally
gained ingress.

Directly after the fall of the republic a second divinity from Asia Minor,
closely related to the Great Mother, became established in the capital.
During the wars against Mithridates the Roman soldiers learned to revere
Mâ, the great goddess of the two Comanas, who was worshiped by a whole
people of hierodules in the ravines of the Taurus and along the banks of
the {54} Iris. Like Cybele she was an ancient Anatolian divinity and
personified fertile nature. Her worship, however, had not felt the
influence of Thrace, but rather that of the Semites and the Persians,[11]
like the entire religion of Cappadocia. It is certain that she was
identical with the Anâhita of the Mazdeans, who was of much the same
nature.

The rites of her cult were even more sanguinary and savage than those of
Pessinus, and she had assumed or preserved a warlike character that gave
her a resemblance to the Italian Bellona. The dictator Sulla, to whom this
invincible goddess of combats had appeared in a dream, was prompted by his
superstition to introduce her worship into Rome. The terrible ceremonies
connected with it produced a deep impression. Clad in black robes, her
"fanatics," as they were called, would turn round and round to the sound of
drums and trumpets, with their long, loose hair streaming, and when vertigo
seized them and a state of anesthesia was attained, they would strike their
arms and bodies great blows with swords and axes. The view of the running
blood excited them, and they besprinkled the statue of the goddess and her
votaries with it, or even drank it. Finally a prophetic delirium would
overcome them, and they foretold the future.

This ferocious worship aroused curiosity at first, but it never gained
great consideration. It appears that the Cappadocian Bellona joined the
number of divinities that were subordinated to the _Magna Mater_ and, as
the texts put it, became her follower (_pedisequa_).[12] The brief
popularity enjoyed by this exotic _Mâ_ at the beginning of our era shows,
nevertheless, the growing {55} influence of the Orient, and of the
religions of Asia Minor in particular.

After the establishment of the empire the apprehensive distrust in which
the worship of Cybele and Attis had been held gave way to marked favor and
the original restrictions were withdrawn. Thereafter Roman citizens were
chosen for _archigalli_, and the holidays of the Phrygian deities were
solemnly and officially celebrated in Italy with even more pomp than had
been displayed at Pessinus.

According to Johannes Lydus, the Emperor Claudius was the author of this
change. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of the statement
made by this second-rate compiler, and it has been claimed that the
transformation in question took place under the Antonines. This is
erroneous. The testimony of inscriptions corroborates that of the Byzantine
writer.[13] In spite of his love of archaism, it was Claudius who permitted
this innovation to be made, and we believe that we can divine the motives
of his action.

Under his predecessor, Caligula, the worship of Isis had been authorized
after a long resistance. Its stirring festivities and imposing processions
gained considerable popularity. This competition must have been disastrous
to the priests of the _Magna Mater_, who were secluded in their temple on
the Palatine, and Caligula's successor could not but grant to the Phrygian
goddess, so long established in the city, the favor accorded the Egyptian
divinity who had been admitted into Rome but very recently. In this way
Claudius prevented too great an ascendency in Italy of this second stranger
and supplied a distributary to the current of popular superstition. Isis
must have been held under great {56} suspicion by a ruler who clung to old
national institutions.[14]

The Emperor Claudius introduced a new cycle of holidays that were
celebrated from March 15th to March 27th, the beginning of spring at the
time of the revival of vegetation, personified in Attis. The various acts
of this grand mystic drama are tolerably well known. The prelude was a
procession of _cannophori_ or reed-bearers on the fifteenth; undoubtedly
they commemorated Cybele's discovery of Attis, who, according to the
legends, had been exposed while a child on the banks of the Sangarius, the
largest river of Phrygia, or else this ceremony may have been the
transformation of an ancient phallephory intended to guarantee the
fertility of the fields.[15] The ceremonies proper began with the equinox.
A pine was felled and transferred to the temple of the Palatine by a
brotherhood that owed to this function its name of "tree-bearers"
(_dendrophori_). Wrapped like a corpse in woolen bands and garlands of
violets, this pine represented Attis dead. This god was originally only the
spirit of the plants, and the honors given to the "March-tree"[16] in front
of the imperial palace perpetuated a very ancient agrarian rite of the
Phrygian peasants. The next day was a day of sadness and abstinence on
which the believers fasted and mourned the defunct god. The twenty-fourth
bore the significant name of _Sanguis_ in the calendars. We know that it
was the celebration of the funeral of Attis, whose manes were appeased by
means of libations of blood, as was done for any mortal. Mingling their
piercing cries with the shrill sound of flutes, the Galli flagellated
themselves and cut their flesh, and neophytes performed the supreme {57}
sacrifice with the aid of a sharp stone, being insensible to pain in their
frenzy.[17] Then followed a mysterious vigil during which the mystic was
supposed to be united as a new Attis with the great goddess.[18] On March
25th there was a sudden transition from the shouts of despair to a
delirious jubilation, the _Hilaria_. With springtime Attis awoke from his
sleep of death, and the joy created by his resurrection burst out in wild
merry-making, wanton masquerades, and luxurious banquets. After twenty-four
hours of an indispensable rest (_requietio_), the festivities wound up, on
the twenty-seventh, with a long and gorgeous procession through the streets
of Rome and surrounding country districts. Under a constant rain of flowers
the silver statue of Cybele was taken to the river Almo and bathed and
purified according to an ancient rite (_lavatio_).

The worship of the Mother of the Gods had penetrated into the Hellenic
countries long before it was received at Rome, but in Greece it assumed a
peculiar form and lost most of its barbarous character. The Greek mind felt
an unconquerable aversion to the dubious nature of Attis. The _Magna
Mater_, who is thoroughly different from her Hellenized sister, penetrated
into all Latin provinces and imposed herself upon them with the Roman
religion. This was the case in Spain, Brittany, the Danubian countries,
Africa and especially in Gaul.[19] As late as the fourth century the car of
the goddess drawn by steers was led in great state through the fields and
vineyards of Autun in order to stimulate their fertility.[20] In the
provinces the _dendrophori_, who carried the sacred pine in the spring
festivities, formed associations recognized by the state. These
associations had charge of the work of our {58} modern fire departments,
besides their religious mission. In case of necessity these woodcutters and
carpenters, who knew how to fell the divine tree of Attis, were also able
to cut down the timbers of burning buildings. All over the empire religion
and the brotherhoods connected with it were under the high supervision of
the quindecimvirs of the capital, who gave the priests their insignia. The
sacerdotal hierarchy and the rights granted to the priesthood and believers
were minutely defined in a series of senate decrees. These Phrygian
divinities who had achieved full naturalization and had been placed on the
official list of gods, were adopted by the populations of the Occident as
Roman gods together with the rest. This propagation was clearly different
from that of any other Oriental religion, for here the action of the
government aided the tendencies that attracted the devout masses to these
Asiatic divinities.

This popular zeal was the result of various causes. Ancient authors
describe the impression produced upon the masses by those magnificent
processions in which Cybele passed along on her car, preceded by musicians
playing captivating melodies, by priests wearing gorgeous costumes covered
with amulets, and by the long line of votaries and members of the
fraternities, all barefoot and wearing their insignia. All this, however,
created only a fleeting and exterior impression upon the neophyte, but as
soon as he entered the temple a deeper sensation took hold of him. He heard
the pathetic story of the goddess seeking the body of her lover cut down in
the prime of his life like the grass of the fields. He saw the bloody
funeral services in which the cruel death of the young man was mourned,
{59} and heard the joyful hymns of triumph, and the gay songs that greeted
his return to life. By a skilfully arranged gradation of feelings the
onlookers were uplifted to a state of rapturous ecstasy. Feminine devotion
in particular found encouragement and enjoyment in these ceremonies, and
the Great Mother, the fecund and generous goddess, was always especially
worshiped by the women.

Moreover, people founded great hopes on the pious practice of this
religion. Like the Thracians, the Phrygians began very early to believe in
the immortality of the soul. Just as Attis died and came to life again
every year, these believers were to be born to new life after their death.
One of the sacred hymns said: "Take courage, oh mystics, because the god is
saved; and for you also will come salvation from your trials."[21] Even the
funeral ceremonies were affected by the strength of that belief. In some
cities, especially at Amphipolis in Macedonia, graves have been found
adorned with earthenware statuettes representing the shepherd Attis;[22]
and even in Germany the gravestones are frequently decorated with the
figure of a young man in Oriental costume, leaning dejectedly upon a
knotted stick (_pedum_), who represented the same Attis. We are ignorant of
the conception of immortality held by the Oriental disciples of the
Phrygian priests. Maybe, like the votaries of Sabazius, they believed that
the blessed ones were permitted to participate with Hermes Psychopompos in
a great celestial feast, for which they were prepared by the sacred repasts
of the mysteries.[23] {60}

Another agent in favor of this imported religion was, as we have stated
above, the fact of its official recognition. This placed it in a privileged
position among Oriental religions, at least at the beginning of the
imperial régime. It enjoyed a toleration that was neither precarious nor
limited; it was not subjected to arbitrary police measures nor to coercion
on the part of magistrates; its fraternities were not continually
threatened with dissolution, nor its priests with expulsion. It was
publicly authorized and endowed, its holidays were marked in the calendars
of the pontiffs, its associations of dendrophori were organs of municipal
life in Italy and in the provinces, and had a corporate entity.

Therefore it is not surprising that other foreign religions, after being
transferred to Rome, sought to avert the dangers of an illicit existence by
an alliance with the Great Mother. The religion of the latter frequently
consented to agreements and compromises, from which it gained in reality as
much as it gave up. In exchange for material advantages it acquired
complete moral authority over the gods that accepted its protection. Thus
Cybele and Attis absorbed a majority of the divinities from Asia Minor that
had crossed the Ionian Sea. Their clergy undoubtedly intended to establish
a religion complex enough to enable the emigrants from every part of the
vast peninsula, slaves, merchants, soldiers, functionaries, scholars, in
short, people of all classes of society, to find their national and
favorite devotions in it. As a matter of fact no other Anatolian god could
maintain his independence side by side with the deities of Pessinus.[24]

We do not know the internal development of the {61} Phrygian mysteries
sufficiently to give details of the addition of each individual part. But
we can prove that in the course of time certain religions were added to the
one that had been practised in the temple of the Palatine ever since the
republic.

In the inscriptions of the fourth century, Attis bears the cognomen of
_menotyrannus_. At that time this name was undoubtedly understood to mean
"lord of the months," because Attis represented the sun who entered a new
sign of the zodiac every month.[25] But that was not the original meaning
of the term. "_Mèn tyrannus_" appears with quite a different meaning in
many inscriptions found in Asia Minor. _Tyrannos_ ([Greek: Turannos]),
"lord," is a word taken by the Greeks from the Lydian, and the honorable
title of "tyrant" was given to Mèn, an old barbarian divinity worshiped by
all Phrygia and surrounding regions.[26] The Anatolian tribes from Caria to
the remotest mountains of Pontus worshiped a lunar god under that name who
was supposed to rule not only the heavens but also the underworld, because
the moon was frequently brought into connection with the somber kingdom of
the dead. The growth of plants and the increase of cattle and poultry were
ascribed to his celestial influence, and the villagers invoked his
protection for their farms and their district. They also placed their rural
burial grounds under the safeguard of this king of shadows. No god enjoyed
greater popularity in the country districts.

This powerful divinity penetrated into Greece at an early period. Among the
mixed populations of the Ægean seaports, in the Piræus, at Rhodes, Delos
and Thasos, religious associations for his worship were {62} founded. In
Attica the presence of the cult can be traced back to the fourth century,
and its monuments rival those of Cybele in number and variety. In the Latin
Occident, however, no trace of it can be found, because it had been
absorbed by the worship of _Magna Mater_. In Asia itself, Attis and Mèn
were sometimes considered identical, and this involved the Roman world in a
complete confusion of those two persons, who in reality were very
different. A marble statue discovered at Ostia represents Attis holding the
lunar crescent, which was the characteristic emblem of Mèn. His
assimilation to the "tyrant" of the infernal regions transformed the
shepherd of Ida into a master of the underworld, an office that he combined
with his former one as author of resurrection.

A second title that was given to him reveals another influence. A certain
Roman inscription is dedicated to Attis the Supreme ([Greek: Attei
hupsistôi]).[27] This epithet is very significant. In Asia Minor
"Hypsistos" was the appellation used to designate the god of Israel.[28] A
number of pagan thiasi had arisen who, though not exactly submitting to the
practice of the synagogue, yet worshiped none but the Most High, the
Supreme God, the Eternal God, God the Creator, to whom every mortal owed
service. These must have been the attributes ascribed to Cybele's companion
by the author of the inscription, because the verse continues: ([Greek: kai
sunechonti to pan]) "To thee, who containest and maintainest all
things."[29] Must we then believe that Hebraic monotheism had some
influence upon the mysteries of the Great Mother? This is not at all
improbable. We know that numerous Jewish colonies were established in
Phrygia by the Seleucides, and that {63} these expatriated Jews agreed to
certain compromises in order to conciliate their hereditary faith with that
of the pagans in whose midst they lived. It is also possible that the
clergy of Pessinus suffered the ascendancy of the Biblical theology. Under
the empire Attis and Cybele became the "almighty gods" (_omnipotentes_)
_par excellence_, and it is easy to see in this new conception a leaning
upon Semitic or Christian doctrines, more probably upon Semitic ones.[30]

We shall now take up the difficult question of the influence of Judaism
upon the mysteries during the Alexandrian period and at the beginning of
the empire. Many scholars have endeavored to define the influence exercised
by the pagan beliefs on those of the Jews; it has been shown how the
Israelitic monotheism became Hellenized at Alexandria and how the Jewish
propaganda attracted proselytes who revered the one God, without, however,
observing all the prescriptions of the Mosaic law. But no successful
researches have been made to ascertain how far paganism was modified
through an infiltration of Biblical ideas. Such a modification must
necessarily have taken place to some extent. A great number of Jewish
colonies were scattered everywhere on the Mediterranean, and these were
long animated with such an ardent spirit of proselytism that they were
bound to impose some of their conceptions on the pagans that surrounded
them. The magical texts which are almost the only original literary
documents of paganism we possess, clearly reveal this mixture of Israelitic
theology with that of other peoples. In them we frequently find names like
Iao (Yahveh), Sabaoth, or the names of angels side by side with those of
Egyptian or Greek divinities. Especially in Asia {64} Minor, where the
Israelites formed a considerable and influential element of the population,
an intermingling of the old native traditions and the religion of the
strangers from the other side of the Taurus must have occurred.

This mixture certainly took place in the mysteries of Sabazius, the
Phrygian Jupiter or Dionysus.[31] They were very similar to those of Attis,
with whom he was frequently confounded. By means of an audacious etymology
that dates back to the Hellenistic period, this old Thraco-Phrygian
divinity has been identified with "Yahveh Zebaoth," the Biblical "Lord of
Hosts." The corresponding expression ([Greek: kurios Sabaôth]) in the
Septuagint has been regarded as the equivalent of the _kurios Sabazios_
([Greek: kurios Sabazios]) of the barbarians. The latter was worshiped as
the supreme, almighty and holy Lord. In the light of a new interpretation
the purifications practised in the mysteries were believed to wipe out the
hereditary impurity of a guilty ancestor who had aroused the wrath of
heaven against his posterity, much as the original sin with which Adam's
disobedience had stained the human race was to be wiped out. The custom
observed by the votaries of Sabazius of dedicating votive hands which made
the liturgic sign of benediction with the first three fingers extended (the
_benedictio latina_ of the church) was probably taken from the ritual of
the Semitic temples through the agency of the Jews. The initiates believed,
again like the Jews, that after death their good angel (_angelus bonus_)
would lead them to the banquet of the eternally happy, and the everlasting
joys of these banquets were anticipated on earth by the liturgic repasts.
This celestial feast can {65} be seen in a fresco painting on the grave of
a priest of Sabazius called Vincentius, who was buried in the Christian
catacomb of Prætextatus, a strange fact for which no satisfactory
explanation has as yet been furnished. Undoubtedly he belonged to a
Jewish-pagan sect that admitted neophytes of every race to its mystic
ceremonies. In fact, the church itself formed a kind of secret society
sprung from the synagogue but distinct from it, in which Gentiles and the
Children of Israel joined in a common adoration.

If it is a fact, then, that Judaism influenced the worship of Sabazius, it
is very probable that it influenced the cult of Cybele also, although in
this case the influence cannot be discerned with the same degree of
certainty. The religion of the Great Mother did not receive rejuvenating
germs from Palestine only, but it was greatly changed after the gods of
more distant Persia came and joined it. In the ancient religion of the
Achemenides, Mithra, the genius of light, was coupled with Anâhita, the
goddess of the fertilizing waters. In Asia Minor the latter was assimilated
with the fecund Great Mother, worshiped all over the peninsula,[32] and
when at the end of the first century of our era the mysteries of Mithra
spread over the Latin provinces, its votaries built their sacred crypts in
the shadow of the temples of the _Magna Mater_.

Everywhere in the empire the two religions lived in intimate communion. By
ingratiating themselves with the Phrygian priests, the priests of Mithra
obtained the support of an official institution and shared in the
protection granted by the state. Moreover, men alone could participate in
the secret ceremonies of the Persian liturgy, at least in the Occident.
Other {66} mysteries, to which women could be admitted, had therefore to be
added in order to complete them, and so the mysteries of Cybele received
the wives and daughters of the Mithraists.

This union had even more important consequences for the old religion of
Pessinus than the partial infusion of Judaic beliefs had had. Its theology
gained a deeper meaning and an elevation hitherto unknown, after it had
adopted some of the conceptions of Mazdaism.

The introduction of the taurobolium in the ritual of the _Magna Mater_,
where it appeared after the middle of the first century, was probably
connected with this transformation. We know the nature of this sacrifice,
of which Prudentius gives a stirring description based on personal
recollection of the proceeding. On an open platform a steer was killed, and
the blood dropped down upon the mystic, who was standing in an excavation
below. "Through the thousand crevices in the wood," says the poet, "the
bloody dew runs down into the pit. The neophyte receives the falling drops
on his head, clothes and body. He leans backward to have his cheeks, his
ears, his lips and his nostrils wetted; he pours the liquid over his eyes,
and does not even spare his palate, for he moistens his tongue with blood
and drinks it eagerly."[33] After submitting to this repulsive sprinkling
he offered himself to the veneration of the crowd. They believed that he
was purified of his faults, and had become the equal of the deity through
his red baptism.

Although the origin of this sacrifice that took place in the mysteries of
Cybele at Rome is as yet shrouded in obscurity, recent discoveries enable
us to trace back {67} very closely the various phases of its development.
In accordance with a custom prevalent in the entire Orient at the beginning
of history, the Anatolian lords were fond of pursuing and lassoing wild
buffalos, which they afterwards sacrificed to the gods. Beasts caught
during a hunt were immolated, and frequently also prisoners of war.
Gradually the savagery of this primitive rite was modified until finally
nothing but a circus play was left. During the Alexandrian period people
were satisfied with organizing a _corrida_ in the arena, in the course of
which the victim intended for immolation was seized. This is the proper
meaning of the terms taurobolium and criobolium ([Greek: taurobolion,
kriobolion.]), which had long been enigmas,[34] and which denoted the act
of catching a steer or a ram by means of a hurled weapon, probably the
thong of a lasso. Without doubt even this act was finally reduced to a mere
sham under the Roman empire, but the weapon with which the animal was slain
always remained a hunting weapon, a sacred boar spear.[35]

The ideas on which the immolation was based were originally just as
barbarous as the sacrifice itself. It is a matter of general belief among
savage peoples that one acquires the qualities of an enemy slain in battle
or of a beast killed in the chase by drinking or washing in the blood, or
by eating some of the viscera of the body. The blood especially has often
been considered as the seat of vital energy. By moistening his body with
the blood of the slaughtered steer, the neophyte believed that he was
transfusing the strength of the formidable beast into his own limbs.

This naive and purely material conception was soon {68} modified and
refined. The Thracians brought into Phrygia, and the Persian magi into
Cappadocia, the fast spreading belief in the immortality of mankind. Under
their influence, especially under that of Mazdaism, which made the mythical
steer the author of creation and of resurrection, the old savage practice
assumed a more spiritual and more elevated meaning. By complying with it,
people no longer thought they were acquiring the buffalo's strength; the
blood, as the principle of life, was no longer supposed to renew physical
energy, but to cause a temporary or even an eternal rebirth of the soul.
The descent into the pit was regarded as burial, a melancholy dirge
accompanied the burial of the old man who had died. When he emerged
purified of all his crimes by the sprinkling of blood and raised to a new
life, he was regarded as the equal of a god, and the crowd worshiped him
from a respectful distance.[36]

The vogue obtained in the Roman empire by the practice of this repugnant
rite can only be explained by the extraordinary power ascribed to it. He
who submitted to it was _in aeternum renatus_,[37] according to the
inscriptions.

We could also outline the transformation of other Phrygian ceremonies, of
which the spirit and sometimes the letter slowly changed under the
influence of more advanced moral ideas. This is true of the sacred feasts
attended by the initiates. One of the few liturgic formulas antiquity has
left us refers to these Phrygian banquets. One hymn says: "I have eaten
from the tambourine, I have drunk from the cymbal, I have become a mystic
of Attis." The banquet, which is found in several Oriental religions, was
sometimes simply the {69} external sign indicating that the votaries of the
same divinity formed one large family. Admitted to the sacred table, the
neophyte was received as the guest of the community and became a brother
among brothers. The religious bond of the thiasus or _sodalicium_ took the
place of the natural relationship of the family, the gens or the clan, just
as the foreign religion replaced the worship of the domestic hearth.

Sometimes other effects were expected of the food eaten in common. When the
flesh of some animal supposed to be of a divine nature was eaten, the
votary believed that he became identified with the god and that he shared
in his substance and qualities. In the beginning the Phrygian priests
probably attributed the first of these two meanings to their barbarous
communions.[38] Towards the end of the empire, moral ideas were
particularly connected with the assimilation of sacred liquor and meats
taken from the tambourine and cymbal of Attis. They became the staff of the
spiritual life and were to sustain the votary in his trials; at that period
he considered the gods as especially "the guardians of his soul and
thoughts."[39]

As we see, every modification of the conception of the world and of man in
the society of the empire had its reflection in the doctrine of the
mysteries. Even the conception of the old deities of Pessinus was
constantly changing. When astrology and the Semitic religions caused the
establishment of a solar henotheism as the leading religion at Rome, Attis
was considered as the sun, "the shepherd of the twinkling stars." He was
identified with Adonis, Bacchus, Pan, Osiris and Mithra; he was made a
"polymorphous"[40] being in which all celestial powers manifested {70}
themselves in turn; a _pantheos_ who wore the crown of rays and the lunar
crescent at the same time, and whose various emblems expressed an infinite
multiplicity of functions.

When neo-Platonism was triumphing, the Phrygian fable became the
traditional mould into which subtle exegetists boldly poured their
philosophic speculations on the creative and stimulating forces that were
the principles of all material forms, and on the deliverance of the divine
soul that was submerged in the corruption of this earthly world. In his
hazy oration on the Mother of the Gods, Julian lost all notion of reality
on account of his excessive use of allegory and was swept away by an
extravagant symbolism.[41]

Any religion as susceptible to outside influences as this one was bound to
yield to the ascendancy of Christianity. From the explicit testimony of
ecclesiastical writers we know that attempts were made to oppose the
Phrygian mysteries to those of the church. It was maintained that the
sanguinary purification imparted by the taurobolium was more efficacious
than baptism. The food that was taken during the mystic feasts was likened
to the bread and wine of the communion; the Mother of the Gods was
undoubtedly placed above the Mother of God, whose son also had risen again.
A Christian author, writing at Rome about the year 375, furnishes some
remarkable information on this subject. As we have seen, a mournful
ceremony was celebrated on March 24th, the _dies sanguinis_ in the course
of which the _galli_ shed their blood and sometimes mutilated themselves in
commemoration of the wound that had caused Attis's death, ascribing an
expiatory and atoning power to the blood thus shed. The pagans {71} claimed
that the church had copied their most sacred rites by placing her Holy Week
at the vernal equinox in commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross on
which the divine Lamb, according to the church, had redeemed the human
race. Indignant at these blasphemous pretensions, St. Augustine tells of
having known a priest of Cybele who kept saying: _Et ipse Pileatus
christianus est_--"and even the god with the Phrygian cap [i. e., Attis] is
a Christian."[42]

But all efforts to maintain a barbarian religion stricken with moral
decadence were in vain. On the very spot on which the last taurobolia took
place at the end of the fourth century, in the _Phrygianum_, stands to-day
the basilica of the Vatican.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is no Oriental religion whose progressive evolution we could follow
at Rome so closely as the cult of Cybele and Attis, none that shows so
plainly one of the reasons that caused their common decay and
disappearance. They all dated back to a remote period of barbarism, and
from that savage past they inherited a number of myths the odium of which
could be masked but not eradicated by philosophical symbolism, and
practices whose fundamental coarseness had survived from a period of rude
nature worship, and could never be completely disguised by means of mystic
interpretations. Never was the lack of harmony greater between the
moralizing tendencies of theologians and the cruel shamelessness of
tradition. A god held up as the august lord of the universe was the pitiful
and abject hero of an obscene love affair; the taurobolium, performed to
satisfy man's most exalted aspirations for spiritual purification and
immortality, looked like a {72} shower bath of blood and recalled
cannibalistic orgies. The men of letters and senators attending those
mysteries saw them performed by painted eunuchs, ill reputed for their
infamous morals, who went through dizzy dances similar to those of the
dancing dervishes and the Aissaouas. We can imagine the repugnance these
ceremonies caused in everybody whose judgment had not been destroyed by a
fanatical devotion. Of no other pagan superstition do the Christian
polemicists speak with such profound contempt, and there is undoubtedly a
reason for their attitude. But they were in a more fortunate position than
their pagan antagonists; their doctrine was not burdened with barbarous
traditions dating back to times of savagery; and all the ignominies that
stained the old Phrygian religion must not prejudice us against it nor
cause us to slight the long continued efforts that were made to refine it
gradually and to mould it into a form that would fulfil the new demands of
morality and enable it to follow the laborious march of Roman society on
the road of religious progress.

       *       *       *       *       *


{73}

EGYPT.

We know more about the religion of the early Egyptians than about any other
ancient religion. Its development can be traced back three or four thousand
years; we can read its sacred texts, mythical narratives, hymns, rituals,
and the Book of the Dead in the original, and we can ascertain its various
ideas as to the nature of the divine powers and of future life. A great
number of monuments have preserved for our inspection the pictures of
divinities and representations of liturgic scenes, while numerous
inscriptions and papyri enlighten us in regard to the sacerdotal
organization of the principal temples. It would seem that the enormous
quantity of documents of all kinds that have been deciphered in the course
of nearly an entire century should have dispelled every uncertainty about
the creed of ancient Egypt, and should have furnished exact information
with regard to the sources and original character of the worship which the
Greeks and the Romans borrowed from the subjects of the Ptolemies.

And yet, this is not the case. While of the four great Oriental religions
which were transplanted into the Occident, the religion of Isis and Serapis
is the one whose relation to the ancient belief of the mother country we
can establish with greatest accuracy, we {74} know very little of its first
form and of its nature before the imperial period, when it was held in high
esteem.

One fact, however, appears to be certain. The Egyptian worship that spread
over the Greco-Roman world came from the Serapeum founded at Alexandria by
Ptolemy Soter, somewhat in the manner of Judaism that emanated from the
temple of Jerusalem. But the earliest history of that famous sanctuary is
surrounded by such a thick growth of pious legends, that the most sagacious
investigators have lost their way in it. Was Serapis of native origin, or
was he imported from Sinope or Seleucia, or even from Babylon? Each of
these opinions has found supporters very recently. Is his name derived from
that of the Egyptian god Osiris-Apis, or from that of the Chaldean deity
Sar-Apsi? _Grammatici certant_.[1]

Whichever solution we may adopt, one fact remains, namely, that Serapis and
Osiris were either immediately identified or else were identical from the
beginning. The divinity whose worship was started at Alexandria by Ptolemy
was the god that ruled the dead and shared his immortality with them. He
was fundamentally an Egyptian god, and the most popular of the deities of
the Nile. Herodotus says that Isis and Osiris were revered by every
inhabitant of the country, and their traditional holidays involved secret
ceremonies whose sacred meaning the Greek writer dared not reveal.[2]

Recognizing their Osiris in Serapis, the Egyptians readily accepted the new
cult. There was a tradition that a new dynasty should introduce a new god
or give a sort of preeminence to the god of its own district. From time
immemorial politics had changed the {75} government of heaven when changing
that of earth. Under the Ptolemies the Serapis of Alexandria naturally
became one of the principal divinities of the country, just as the Ammon of
Thebes had been the chief of the celestial hierarchy under the Pharaohs of
that city, or as, under the sovereigns from Sais, the local Neith had the
primacy. At the time of the Antonines there were forty-two Serapeums in
Egypt.[3]

But the purpose of the Ptolemies was not to add one more Egyptian god to
the countless number already worshiped by their subjects. They wanted this
god to unite in one common worship the two races inhabiting the kingdom,
and thus to further a complete fusion. The Greeks were obliged to worship
him side by side with the natives. It was a clever political idea to
institute a Hellenized Egyptian religion at Alexandria. A tradition
mentioned by Plutarch[4] has it that Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, a
man of advanced ideas, together with Timotheus, a Eumolpid from Eleusis,
thought out the character that would best suit the newcomer. The result was
that the composite religion founded by the Lagides became a combination of
the old creed of the Pharaohs and the Greek mysteries.

First of all, the liturgic language was no longer the native idiom but
Greek. This was a radical change. The philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum,
who had been cured of blindness by Serapis, composed poems in honor of the
god that were still sung under the Cæsars several centuries later.[5] We
can easily imagine that the poets, who lived on the bounty of the
Ptolemies, vied with each other in their efforts to celebrate their
benefactors' god, and the old rituals that were translated from the
Egyptian were also enriched with {76} edifying bits of original
inspiration. A hymn to Isis, found on a marble monument in the island of
Andros,[6] gives us some idea of these sacred compositions, although it is
of more recent date.

In the second place, the artists replaced the old hieratic idols by more
attractive images and gave them the beauty of the immortals. It is not
known who created the figure of Isis draped in a linen gown with a fringed
cloak fastened over the breast, whose sweet meditative, graciously maternal
face is a combination of the ideals imagined for Hera and Aphrodite. But we
know the sculptor of the first statue of Serapis that stood in the great
sanctuary of Alexandria until the end of paganism. This statue, the
prototype of all the copies that have been preserved, is a colossal work of
art made of precious materials by a famous Athenian sculptor named Bryaxis,
a contemporary of Scopas. It was one of the last divine creations of
Hellenic genius. The majestic head, with its somber and yet benevolent
expression, with its abundance of hair, and with a crown in the shape of a
bushel, bespoke the double character of a god ruling at the same time both
the fertile earth and the dismal realm of the dead.[7]

As we see, the Ptolemies had given their new religion a literary and
artistic shape that was capable of attracting the most refined and cultured
minds. But the adaptation to the Hellenic feeling and thinking was not
exclusively external. Osiris, the god whose worship was thus renewed, was
more adapted than any other to lend his authority to the formation of a
syncretic faith. At a very early period, in fact before the time of
Herodotus, Osiris had been identified with Dionysus, and Isis with Demeter.
M. Foucart has {77} endeavored to prove in an ingenious essay that this
assimilation was not arbitrary, that Osiris and Isis came into Crete and
Attica during the prehistoric period, and that they were mistaken for
Dionysus and Demeter[8] by the people of those regions. Without going back
to those remote ages, we shall merely say with him that the mysteries of
Dionysus were connected with those of Osiris by far-reaching affinities,
not simply by superficial and fortuitous resemblances. Each commemorated
the history of a god governing both vegetation and the underworld at the
same time, who was put to death and torn to pieces by an enemy, and whose
scattered limbs were collected by a goddess, after which he was
miraculously revived. The Greeks must have been very willing to adopt a
worship in which they found their own divinities and their own myths again
with something more poignant and more magnificent added. It is a very
remarkable fact that of all the many deities worshiped by the Egyptian
districts those of the immediate neighborhood, or if you like, the cycle of
Osiris, his wife Isis, their son Harpocrates and their faithful servant
Anubis, were the only ones that were adopted by the Hellenic populations.
All other heavenly or infernal spirits worshiped by the Egyptians remained
strangers to Greece.[9]

In the Greco-Latin literature we notice two opposing attitudes toward the
Egyptian religion. It was regarded as the highest and the lowest of
religions at the same time, and as a matter of fact there was an abyss
between the always ardent popular beliefs and the enlightened faith of the
official priests. The Greeks and Romans gazed with admiration upon the
splendor of the temples and ceremonial, upon the fabulous {78} antiquity of
the sacred traditions and upon the erudition of a clergy possessed of a
wisdom that had been revealed by divinity. In becoming the disciples of
that clergy, they imagined they were drinking from the pure fountain whence
their own myths had sprung. They were overawed by the pretensions of a
clergy that prided itself on a past in which it kept on living, and they
strongly felt the attraction of a marvelous country where everything was
mysterious, from the Nile that had created it to the hieroglyphs engraved
upon the walls of its gigantic edifices.[10] At the same time they were
shocked by the coarseness of its fetichism and by the absurdity of its
superstitions. Above all they felt an unconquerable repulsion at the
worship of animals and plants, which had always been the most striking
feature of the vulgar Egyptian religion and which, like all other archaic
devotions, seems to have been practised with renewed fervor after the
accession of the Saite dynasty. The comic writers and the satirists never
tired of scoffing at the adorers of the cat, the crocodile, the leek and
the onion. Juvenal says ironically: "O holy people, whose very
kitchen-gardens produce gods."[11] In a general way, this strange people,
entirely separated from the remainder of the world, were regarded with
about the same kind of feeling that Europeans entertained toward the
Chinese for a long time.

A purely Egyptian worship would not have been acceptable to the Greco-Latin
world. The main merit of the mixed creation of the political genius of the
Ptolemies consisted in the rejection or modification of everything
repugnant or monstrous like the phallophories of Abydos, and in the
retention of none but {79} stirring or attractive elements. It was the most
civilized of all barbarian religions; it retained enough of the exotic
element to arouse the curiosity of the Greeks, but not enough to offend
their delicate sense of proportion, and its success was remarkable.

It was adopted wherever the authority or the prestige of the Lagides was
felt, and wherever the relations of Alexandria, the great commercial
metropolis, extended. The Lagides induced the rulers and the nations with
whom they concluded alliances to accept it. King Nicocreon introduced it
into Cyprus after having consulted the oracle of the Serapeum,[12] and
Agathocles introduced it into Sicily, at the time of his marriage with the
daughter-in-law of Ptolemy I (298).[13] At Antioch, Seleucus Callinicus
built a sanctuary for the statue of Isis sent to him from Memphis by
Ptolemy Euergetes.[14] In token of his friendship Ptolemy Soter introduced
his god Serapis into Athens, where the latter had a temple at the foot of
the Acropolis[15] ever after, and Arsinoë, his mother or wife, founded
another at Halicarnassus, about the year 307.[16] In this manner the
political activity of the Egyptian dynasty was directed toward having the
divinities, whose glory was in a certain measure connected with that of
their house, recognized everywhere. Through Apuleius we know that under the
empire the priests of Isis mentioned the ruling sovereign first of all in
their prayers.[17] And this was simply an imitation of the grateful
devotion which their predecessors had felt toward the Ptolemies.

Protected by the Egyptian squadrons, sailors and merchants propagated the
worship of Isis, the goddess of navigators, simultaneously on the coasts of
Syria, {80} Asia Minor and Greece, in the islands of the Archipelago,[18]
and as far as the Hellespont and Thrace.[19] At Delos, where the
inscriptions enable us to study this worship somewhat in detail, it was not
merely practised by strangers, but the very sacerdotal functions were
performed by members of the Athenian aristocracy. A number of funereal
bas-reliefs, in which the deified dead wears the _calathos_ of Serapis on
his head, prove the popularity of the belief in future life propagated by
these mysteries. According to the Egyptian faith he was identified with the
god of the dead.[20]

Even after the splendor of the court of Alexandria had faded and vanished;
even after the wars against Mithridates and the growth of piracy had ruined
the traffic of the Ægean Sea, the Alexandrian worship was too deeply rooted
in the soil of Greece to perish, although it became endangered in certain
seaports like Delos. Of all the gods of the Orient, Isis and Serapis were
the only ones that retained a place among the great divinities of the
Hellenic world until the end of paganism.[21]

       *       *       *       *       *

It was this syncretic religion that came to Rome after having enjoyed
popularity in the eastern Mediterranean. Sicily and the south of Italy were
more than half Hellenized, and the Ptolemies had diplomatic relations with
these countries, just as the merchants of Alexandria had commercial
relations with them. For this reason the worship of Isis spread as rapidly
in those regions as on the coasts of Ionia or in the Cyclades.[22] It was
introduced into Syracuse and Catana during the earliest years of the third
century by {81} Agathocles. The Serapeum of Pozzuoli, at that time the
busiest seaport of Campania, was mentioned in a city ordinance of the year
105 B. C.[23] About the same time an Iseum was founded at Pompeii, where
the decorative frescos attest to this day the power of expansion possessed
by the Alexandrian culture.

After its adoption by the southern part of the Italian peninsula, this
religion was bound to penetrate rapidly to Rome. Ever since the second
century before our era, it could not help but find adepts in the chequered
multitude of slaves and freedmen. Under the Antonines the college of the
_pastophori_ recalled that it had been founded in the time of Sulla.[24] In
vain did the authorities try to check the invasion of the Alexandrian gods.
Five different times, in 59, 58, 53, and 48 B. C., the senate ordered their
altars and statues torn down,[25] but these violent measures did not stop
the diffusion of the new beliefs. The Egyptian mysteries were the first
example at Rome of an essentially popular religious movement that was
triumphant over the continued resistance of the public authorities and the
official clergy.

Why was this Egyptian worship the only one of all Oriental religions to
suffer repeated persecutions? There were two motives, one religious and one
political.

In the first place, this cult was said to exercise a corrupting influence
perversive of piety. Its morals were loose, and the mystery surrounding it
excited the worst suspicions. Moreover, it appealed violently to the
emotions and senses. All these factors offended the grave decency that a
Roman was wont to {82} maintain in the presence of the gods. The innovators
had every defender of the _mos maiorum_ for an adversary.

In the second place, this religion had been founded, supported and
propagated by the Ptolemies; it came from a country that was almost hostile
to Italy during the last period of the republic;[26] it issued from
Alexandria, whose superiority Rome felt and feared. Its secret societies,
made up chiefly of people of the lower classes, might easily become clubs
of agitators and haunts of spies. All these motives for suspicion and
hatred were undoubtedly more potent in exciting persecution than the purely
theological reasons, and persecution was stopped or renewed according to
the vicissitudes of general politics.

As we have stated, the chapels consecrated to Isis were demolished in the
year 48 B. C. After Cæsar's death, the triumvirs decided in 43 B. C. to
erect a temple in her honor out of the public funds, undoubtedly to gain
the favor of the masses. This action would have implied official
recognition, but the project appears never to have been executed. If Antony
had succeeded at Actium, Isis and Serapis would have entered Rome in
triumph, but they were vanquished with Cleopatra; and when Augustus had
become the master of the empire, he professed a deep aversion for the gods
of his former enemies. Moreover, he could not have suffered the intrusion
of the Egyptian clergy into the Roman sacerdotal class, whose guardian,
restorer and chief he was. In 28 B. C. an ordinance was issued forbidding
the erecting of altars to the Alexandrian divinities inside the sacred
enclosure of the _pomerium_, and seven years later Agrippa extended this
prohibitive regulation to a radius of a thousand paces around the {83}
city. Tiberius acted on the same principle and in 19 A. D. instituted the
bloodiest persecution against the priests of Isis that they ever suffered,
in consequence of a scandalous affair in which a matron, a noble and some
priests of Isis were implicated.

All these police measures, however, were strangely ineffectual. The
Egyptian worship was excluded from Rome and her immediate neighborhood in
theory if not in fact, but the rest of the world remained open to its
propaganda.[27]

With the beginning of the empire it slowly invaded the center and the north
of Italy and spread into the provinces. Merchants, sailors, slaves,
artisans, Egyptian men of letters, even the discharged soldiers of the
three legions cantoned in the valley of the Nile contributed to its
diffusion. It entered Africa by way of Carthage, and the Danubian countries
through the great emporium of Aquileia. The new province of Gaul was
invaded through the valley of the Rhone. At that period many Oriental
emigrants went to seek their fortunes in these new countries. Intimate
relations existed between the cities of Arles and Alexandria, and we know
that a colony of Egyptian Greeks, established at Nimes by Augustus, took
the gods of their native country thither.[28] At the beginning of our era
there set in that great movement of conversion that soon established the
worship of Isis and Serapis from the outskirts of the Sahara to the vallum
of Britain, and from the mountains of Asturias to the mouths of the Danube.

The resistance still offered by the central power could not last much
longer. It was impossible to dam in this overflowing stream whose
thundering waves struck the {84} shaking walls of the _pomerium_ from every
side. The prestige of Alexandria seemed invincible. At that period the city
was more beautiful, more learned, and better policed than Rome. She was the
model capital, a standard to which the Latins strove to rise. They
translated the works of the scholars of Alexandria, imitated her authors,
invited her artists and copied her institutions. It is plain that they had
also to undergo the ascendancy of her religion. As a matter of fact, her
fervent believers maintained her sanctuaries, despite the law, on the very
Capitol. Under Cæsar, Alexandrian astronomers had reformed the calendar of
the pontiffs, and Alexandrian priests soon marked the dates of Isis
holidays upon it.

The decisive step was taken soon after the death of Tiberius. Caligula
erected the great temple of Isis Campensis on the Campus Martius probably
in the year 38.[29] In order to spare the sacerdotal susceptibilities, he
founded it outside of the sacred enclosure of the city of Servius. Later
Domitian made one of Rome's most splendid monuments of that temple. From
that time Isis and Serapis enjoyed the favor of every imperial dynasty, the
Flavians as well as the Antonines and the Severi. About the year 215
Caracalla built an Isis temple, even more magnificent than that of
Domitian, on the Quirinal, in the heart of the city, and perhaps another
one on the Coelian. As the apologist Minucius Felix states, the Egyptian
gods had become entirely Roman.[30]

The climax of their power seems to have been reached at the beginning of
the third century; later on the popular vogue and official support went to
other divinities, like the Syrian Baals and the Persian {85} Mithras. The
progress of Christianity also deprived them of their power, which was,
however, still considerable until the end of the ancient world. The Isis
processions that marched the streets of Rome were described by an eye
witness as late as the year 394,[31] but in 391 the patriarch Theophilus
had consigned the Serapeum of Alexandria to the flames, having himself
struck the first blow with an ax against the colossal statue of the god
that had so long been the object of a superstitious veneration. Thus the
prelate destroyed the "very head of idolatry," as Rufinus put it.[32]

As a matter of fact, idolatry received its death blow. The worship of the
gods of the Ptolemies died out completely between the reigns of Theodosius
and Justinian,[33] and in accordance with the sad prophecy of Hermes
Trismegistus[34] Egypt, Egypt herself, lost her divinities and became a
land of the dead. Of her religions nothing remained but fables that were no
longer believed, and the only thing that reminded the barbarians who came
to inhabit the country of its former piety, were words engraved on stone.

       *       *       *       *       *

This rapid sketch of the history of Isis and Serapis shows that these
divinities were worshiped in the Latin world for more than five centuries.
The task of pointing out the transformations of the cult during that long
period, and the local differences there may have been in the various
provinces, is reserved for future researches. These will undoubtedly find
that the Alexandrian worship did not become Latinized under the empire, but
that its Oriental character became more and more pronounced. When Domitian
restored the Iseum of the Campus Martius and that of Beneventum, he {86}
transferred from the valley of the Nile sphinxes, cynocephali and obelisks
of black or pink granite bearing borders of hieroglyphics of Amasis,
Nectanebos or even Rameses II. On other obelisks that were erected in the
propyleums even the inscriptions of the emperors were written in
hieroglyphics.[35] Half a century later that true dilettante, Hadrian,
caused the luxuries of Canopus to be reproduced, along with the vale of
Tempe, in his immense villa at Tibur, to enable him to celebrate his
voluptuous feasts under the friendly eyes of Serapis. He extolled the
merits of the deified Antinous in inscriptions couched in the ancient
language of the Pharaohs, and set the fashion of statues hewn out of black
basalt in the Egyptian style.[36] The amateurs of that period affected to
prefer the hieratic rigidity of the barbarian idols to the elegant freedom
of Alexandrian art. Those esthetic manifestations probably corresponded to
religious prejudices, and the Latin worship always endeavored to imitate
the art of temples in the Nile valley more closely than did the Greek. This
evolution was in conformity with all the tendencies of the imperial period.

By what secret virtue did the Egyptian religion exercise this irresistible
influence over the Roman world? What new elements did those priests, who
made proselytes in every province, give the Roman world? Did the success of
their preaching mean progress or retrogression from the standard of the
ancient Roman faith? These are complex and delicate questions that would
require minute analysis and cautious treatment with a constant and exact
observation of shades. I am compelled to limit myself to a rapid sketch,
which, I {87} fear, will appear rather dry and arbitrary, like every
generalization.

The particular doctrines of the mysteries of Isis and Serapis in regard to
the nature and power of the gods were not, or were but incidentally, the
reasons for the triumph of these mysteries. It has been said that the
Egyptian theology always remained in a "fluid state,"[37] or better in a
state of chaos. It consisted of an amalgamation of disparate legends, of an
aggregate of particular cults, as Egypt herself was an aggregate of a
number of districts. This religion never formulated a coherent system of
generally accepted dogmas. It permitted the coexistence of conflicting
conceptions and traditions, and all the subtlety of its clergy never
accomplished, or rather never began, the task of fusing those
irreconcilable elements into one harmonious synthesis.[38] For the
Egyptians there was no principle of contradiction. All the heterogeneous
beliefs that ever obtained in the various districts during the different
periods of a very long history, were maintained concurrently and formed an
inextricable confusion in the sacred books.

About the same state of affairs prevailed in the Occidental worship of the
Alexandrian divinities. In the Occident, just as in Egypt, there were
"prophets" in the first rank of the clergy, who learnedly discussed
religion, but never taught a theological system that found universal
acceptance. The sacred scribe Cheremon, who became Nero's tutor, recognized
the stoical theories in the sacerdotal traditions of his country.[39] When
the eclectic Plutarch speaks of the character of the Egyptian gods, he
finds it agrees surprisingly with his own philosophy,[40] and when the
neo-Platonist {88} Iamblichus examines them, their character seems to agree
with his doctrines. The hazy ideas of the Oriental priests enabled every
one to see in them the phantoms he was pursuing. The individual imagination
was given ample scope, and the dilettantic men of letters rejoiced in
molding these malleable doctrines at will. They were not outlined sharply
enough, nor were they formulated with sufficient precision to appeal to the
multitude. The gods were everything and nothing; they got lost in a
_sfumato_. A disconcerting anarchy and confusion prevailed among them. By
means of a scientific mixture of Greek, Egyptian and Semitic elements
"Hermetism"[41] endeavored to create a theological system that would be
acceptable to all minds, but it seems never to have imposed itself
generally on the Alexandrian mysteries which were older than itself, and
furthermore it could not escape the contradictions of Egyptian thought. The
religion of Isis did not gain a hold on the soul by its dogmatism.

It must be admitted, however, that, owing to its extreme flexibility, this
religion was easily adapted to the various centers to which it was
transferred, and that it enjoyed the valuable advantage of being always in
perfect harmony with the prevailing philosophy. Moreover, the syncretic
tendencies of Egypt responded admirably to those that began to obtain at
Rome. At a very early period henotheistic theories had been favorably
received in sacerdotal circles, and while crediting the god of their own
temple with supremacy, the priests admitted that he might have a number of
different personalities, under which he was worshiped simultaneously. In
this way the unity of the supreme being was affirmed for the thinkers, and
polytheism with its {89} intangible traditions maintained for the masses.
In the same manner Isis and Osiris had absorbed several local divinities
under the Pharaohs, and had assumed a complex character that was capable of
indefinite extension. The same process continued under the Ptolemies when
the religion of Egypt came into contact with Greece. Isis was identified
simultaneously with Demeter, Aphrodite, Hera, Semele, Io, Tyche, and
others. She was considered the queen of heaven and hell, of earth and sea.
She was "the past, the present and the future,"[42] "nature the mother of
things, the mistress of the elements, born at the beginning of the
centuries."[43] She had numberless names, an infinity of different aspects
and an inexhaustible treasure of virtues. In short, she became a
pantheistic power that was everything in one, _una quae est omnia_.[44]

The authority of Serapis was no less exalted, and his field no less
extensive. He also was regarded as a universal god of whom men liked to say
that he was "unique." ([Greek: Heis Zeus Sarapis]) In him all energies were
centered, although the functions of Zeus, of Pluto or of Helios were
especially ascribed to him. For many centuries Osiris had been worshiped at
Abydos both as author of fecundity and lord of the underworld,[45] and this
double character early caused him to be identified with the sun, which
fertilizes the earth during its diurnal course and travels through the
subterranean realms at night. Thus the conception of this nature divinity,
that had already prevailed along the Nile, accorded without difficulty with
the solar pantheism that was the last form of Roman paganism. This
theological system, which did not gain the upper hand in the Occident until
the {90} second century of our era, was not brought in by Egypt. It did not
have the exclusive predominance there that it had held under the empire,
and even in Plutarch's time it was only one creed among many.[46] The
deciding influence in this matter was exercised by the Syrian Baals and the
Chaldean astrology.

The theology of the Egyptian mysteries, then, followed rather than led the
general influx of ideas. The same may be said of their ethics. It did not
force itself upon the world by lofty moral precepts, nor by a sublime ideal
of holiness. Many have admired the edifying list in the Book of the Dead,
that rightfully or otherwise sets forth the virtues which the deceased
claims to have practised in order to obtain a favorable judgment from
Osiris. If one considers the period in which it appears, this ethics is
undoubtedly very elevated, but it seems rudimentary and even childish if
one compares it with the principles formulated by the Roman jurists, to say
nothing of the minute psychological analyses of the Stoic casuists. In this
range of ideas also, the maintenance of the most striking contrasts
characterizes Egyptian mentality, which was never shocked by the cruelties
and obscenities that sullied the mythology and the ritual. Like Epicurus at
Athens, some of the sacred texts actually invited the believers to enjoy
life before the sadness of death.[47]

Isis was not a very austere goddess at the time she entered Italy.
Identified with Venus, as Harpocrates was with Eros, she was honored
especially by the women with whom love was a profession. In Alexandria, the
city of pleasure, she had lost all severity, and at Rome this good goddess
remained very indulgent to human weaknesses. Juvenal harshly refers to {91}
her as a procuress,[48] and her temples had a more than doubtful
reputation, for they were frequented by young men in quest of gallant
adventures. Apuleius himself chose a lewd tale in which to display his
fervor as an initiate.

But we have said that Egypt was full of contradictions, and when a more
exacting morality demanded that the gods should make man virtuous, the
Alexandrian mysteries offered to satisfy that demand.

At all times the Egyptian ritual attributed considerable importance to
purity, or, to use a more adequate term, to cleanliness. Before every
ceremony the officiating priest had to submit to ablutions, sometimes to
fumigations or anointing, and to abstain from certain foods and from
incontinence for a certain time. Originally no moral idea was connected
with this purification. It was considered a means of exorcising malevolent
demons or of putting the priest into a state in which the sacrifice
performed by him could have the expected effect. It was similar to the
diet, shower-baths and massage prescribed by physicians for physical
health. The internal status of the officiating person was a matter of as
much indifference to the celestial spirits as the actual worth of the
deceased was to Osiris, the judge of the underworld. All that was necessary
to have him open the fields of Aalu to the soul was to pronounce the
liturgic formulas, and if the soul declared its innocence in the prescribed
terms its word was readily accepted.

But in the Egyptian religion, as in all the religions of antiquity,[49] the
original conception was gradually transformed and a new idea slowly took
its place. The sacramental acts of purification were now {92} expected to
wipe out moral stains, and people became convinced that they made man
better. The devout female votaries of Isis, whom Juvenal[50] pictures as
breaking the ice to bathe in the Tiber, and crawling around the temple on
their bleeding knees, hoped to atone for their sins and to make up for
their shortcomings by means of these sufferings.

When a new ideal grew up in the popular conscience during the second
century, when the magicians themselves became pious and serious people,
free from passions and appetites, and were honored because of the dignity
of their lives more than for their white linen robes,[51] then the virtues
of which the Egyptian priests enjoined the practice also became less
external. Purity of the heart rather than cleanliness of the body was
demanded. Renunciation of sensual pleasures was the indispensable condition
for the knowledge of divinity, which was the supreme good.[52] No longer
did Isis favor illicit love. In the novel by Xenophon of Ephesus (about 280
A. D.) she protects the heroine's chastity against all pitfalls and assures
its triumph. According to the ancient belief man's entire existence was a
preparation for the formidable judgment held by Serapis after death, but to
have him decide in favor of the mystic, it was not enough to know the rites
of the sect; the individual life had to be free from crime; and the master
of the infernal regions assigned everybody a place according to his
deserts.[53] The doctrine of future retribution was beginning to develop.

However, in this regard, as in their conception of the divinity, the
Egyptian mysteries followed the general progress of ideas more than they
directed it. {93} Philosophy transformed them, but found in them little
inspiration.

       *       *       *       *       *

How could a religion, of which neither the theology nor the ethics was
really new, stir up at the same time so much hostility and fervor among the
Romans? To many minds of to-day theology and ethics constitute religion,
but during the classical period it was different, and the priests of Isis
and Serapis conquered souls mainly by other means. They seduced them by the
powerful attraction of the ritual and retained them by the marvelous
promises of their doctrine of immortality.

To the Egyptians ritual had a value far superior to that we ascribe to it
to-day. It had an operative strength of its own that was independent of the
intentions of the officiating priest. The efficacy of prayer depended not
on the inner disposition of the believer, but on the correctness of the
words, gestures and intonation. Religion was not clearly differentiated
from magic. If a divinity was invoked according to the correct forms,
especially if one knew how to pronounce its real name, it was compelled to
act in conformity to the will of its priest. The sacred words were an
incantation that compelled the superior powers to obey the officiating
person, no matter what purpose he had in view. With the knowledge of the
liturgy men acquired an immense power over the world of spirits. Porphyry
was surprised and indignant because the Egyptians sometimes dared to
threaten the gods in their orations.[54] In the consecrations the priest's
summons compelled the gods to come and animate their {94} statues, and thus
his voice created divinities,[55] as originally the almighty voice of Thoth
had created the world.[56]

The ritual that conferred such superhuman power[57] developed in Egypt into
a state of perfection, completeness and splendor unknown in the Occident.
It possessed a unity, a precision and a permanency that stood in striking
contrast to the variety of the myths, the uncertainty of the dogmas and the
arbitrariness of the interpretations. The sacred books of the Greco-Roman
period are a faithful reproduction of the texts that were engraved upon the
walls of the pyramids at the dawn of history, notwithstanding the centuries
that had passed. Even under the Cæsars the ancient ceremonies dating back
to the first ages of Egypt, were scrupulously performed because the
smallest word and the least gesture had their importance.

This ritual and the attitude toward it found their way for the most part
into the Latin temples of Isis and Serapis. This fact has long been
ignored, but there can be no doubt about it. A first proof is that the
clergy of those temples were organized just like those of Egypt during the
period of the Ptolemies.[58] There was a hierarchy presided over by a high
priest, which consisted of _prophetes_ skilled in the sacred science,
_stolistes_, or _ornatrices_,[59] whose office it was to dress the statues
of the gods, _pastophori_ who carried the sacred temple plates in the
processions, and so on, just as in Egypt. As in their native country, the
priests were distinguished from common mortals by a tonsure, by a linen
tunic, and by their habits as well as by their garb. They devoted
themselves entirely to their ministry and had no other profession. This
{95} sacerdotal body always remained Egyptian in character, if not in
nationality, because the liturgy it had to perform remained so. In a
similar manner the priests of the Baals were Syrians,[60] because they were
the only ones that knew how to honor the gods of Syria.

In the first place a daily service had to be held just as in the Nile
valley. The Egyptian gods enjoyed a precarious immortality, for they were
liable to destruction and dependent on necessities. According to a very
primitive conception that always remained alive, they had to be fed,
clothed and refreshed every day or else perish. From this fact arose the
necessity of a liturgy that was practically the same in every district. It
was practised for thousands of years and opposed its unaltering form to the
multiplicity of legends and local beliefs.[61]

This daily liturgy was translated into Greek, perhaps later into Latin
also; it was adapted to the new requirements by the founders of the
Serapeum, and faithfully observed in the Roman temples of the Alexandrian
gods. The essential ceremony always was the opening (_apertio_)[62] of the
sanctuary. At dawn the statue of the divinity was uncovered and shown to
the community in the _naos_, that had been closed and sealed during the
night.[63] Then, again as in Egypt, the priest lit the sacred fire and
offered libations of water supposed to be from the deified Nile,[64] while
he chanted the usual hymns to the sound of flutes. Finally, "erect upon the
threshold"--I translate literally from Porphyry--"he awakens the god by
calling to him in the Egyptian language."[65] As we see, the god was
revived by the sacrifice and, as under the Pharaohs, awoke from his slumber
at the calling of {96} his name. As a matter of fact the name was
indissolubly connected with the personality; he who could pronounce the
exact name of an individual or of a divinity was obeyed as a master by his
slave.[66] This fact made it necessary to maintain the original form of
that mysterious word. There was no other motive for the introduction of a
number of barbarian appellatives into the magical incantations.

It is also probable that the toilet of the statue was made every day, that
its body and head were dressed,[67] as in the Egyptian ritual. We have seen
that the _ornatrices_ or _stolistes_ were especially entrusted with these
duties. The idol was covered with sumptuous raiment and ornamented with
jewels and gems. An inscription furnishes us with an inventory of the
jewels worn by an Isis of ancient Cadiz;[68] her ornaments were more
brilliant than those of a Spanish madonna.

During the entire forenoon, from the moment that a noisy acclamation had
greeted the rising of the sun, the images of the gods were exposed to the
silent adoration of the initiates.[69] Egypt is the country whence
contemplative devotion penetrated into Europe. Then, in the afternoon, a
second service was held to close the sanctuary.[70]

The daily liturgy must have been very absorbing. This innovation in the
Roman paganism was full of consequences. No longer were sacrifices offered
to the god on certain occasions only, but twice a day elaborate services
were held. As with the Egyptians, whom Herodotus had termed the most
religious of all peoples,[71] devotion assumed a tendency to fill out the
whole existence and to dominate private and public interests. The constant
repetition of the same prayers {97} kept up and renewed faith, and, we
might say, people lived continually under the eyes of the gods.

Besides the daily rites of the Abydos liturgy the holidays marking the
beginning of the different seasons were celebrated at the same date every
year.[72] It was the same in Italy. The calendars have preserved the names
of several of them, and of one, the _Navigium Isidis_, the rhetorician
Apuleius[73] has left us a brilliant description on which, to speak with
the ancients, he emptied all his color tubes. On March 5th, when navigation
reopened after the winter months, a gorgeous procession[74] marched to the
coast, and a ship consecrated to Isis, the protectress of sailors, was
launched. A burlesque group of masked persons opened the procession, then
came the women in white gowns strewing flowers, the _stolistes_ waving the
garments of the goddess and the _dadophori_ with lighted torches. After
these came the _hymnodes_, whose songs mingled in turn with the sharp sound
of the cross-flutes and the ringing of the brass timbrels; then the throngs
of the initiates, and finally the priests, with shaven heads and clad in
linen robes of a dazzling white, bearing the images of animal-faced gods
and strange symbols, as for instance a golden urn containing the sacred
water of the Nile. The procession stopped in front of altars[75] erected
along the road, and on these altars the sacred objects were uncovered for
the veneration of the faithful. The strange and sumptuous magnificence of
these celebrations made a deep impression on the common people who loved
public entertainments.

But of all the celebrations connected with the worship of Isis the most
stirring and the most suggestive {98} was the commemoration of the "Finding
of Osiris" (_Inventio_, [Greek: Heuresis]). Its antecedents date back to
remote antiquity. Since the time of the twelfth dynasty, and probably much
earlier, there had been held at Abydos and elsewhere a sacred performance
similar to the mysteries of our Middle Ages, in which the events of
Osiris's passion and resurrection were reproduced. We are in possession of
the ritual of those performances.[76] Issuing from the temple, the god fell
under Set's blows; around his body funeral lamentations were simulated, and
he was buried according to the rites; then Set was vanquished by Horus, and
Osiris, restored to life, reentered his temple triumphant over death.

The same myth was represented in almost the same manner at Rome at the
beginning of each November.[77] While the priests and the believers moaned
and lamented, Isis in great distress sought the divine body of Osiris,
whose limbs had been scattered by Typhon. Then, after the corpse had been
found, rehabilitated and revived, there was a long outburst of joy, an
exuberant jubilation that rang through the temples and the streets so
loudly that it annoyed the passers-by.

This mingled despair and enthusiasm acted as strongly upon the feelings of
the believers as did the spring-holiday ceremony in the Phrygian religion,
and it acted through the same means. Moreover, there was an esoteric
meaning attached to it that none but the pious elect understood. Besides
the public ceremonies there was a secret worship to which one was admitted
only after a gradual initiation. The hero of Apuleius had to submit to the
ordeal three times in order to obtain the whole revelation. In Egypt the
{99} clergy communicated certain rites and interpretations only upon a
promise not to reveal them. In fact this was the case in the worship of
Isis at Abydos and elsewhere.[78] When the Ptolemies regulated the Greek
ritual of their new religion, it assumed the form of the mysteries spread
over the Hellenic world and became very like those of Eleusis. The hand of
the Eumolpid Timotheus is noticeable in this connection.[79]

But while the ceremonial of the initiations and even the production of the
liturgic drama were thus adapted to the religious habits of the Greeks, the
doctrinal contents of the Alexandrian mysteries remained purely Egyptian.
The old belief that immortality could be secured by means of an
identification of the deceased with Osiris or Serapis never died out.

Perhaps in no other people did the epigram of Fustel de Coulanges find so
complete a verification as in the Egyptians: "Death was the first mystery;
it started man on the road to the other mysteries."[80] Nowhere else was
life so completely dominated by preoccupation with life after death;
nowhere else was such minute and complicated care taken to secure and
perpetuate another existence for the deceased. The funeral literature, of
which we have found a very great number of documents, had acquired a
development equaled by no other, and the architecture of no other nation
can exhibit tombs comparable with the pyramids or the rock-built sepulchers
of Thebes.

This constant endeavor to secure an after-existence for one's self and
relatives manifested itself in various ways, but it finally assumed a
concrete form in the worship of Osiris. The fate of Osiris, the god who
died and returned to life, became the prototype of the {100} fate of every
human being that observed the funeral rites. "As truly as Osiris lives,"
says an Egyptian text, "he also shall live; as truly as Osiris is not dead,
shall he not die; as truly as Osiris is not annihilated, shall he not be
annihilated."[81]

If, then, the deceased had piously served Osiris-Serapis, he was
assimilated to that god, and shared his immortality in the underworld,
where the judge of the dead held forth. He lived not as a tenuous shade or
as a subtle spirit, but in full possession of his body as well as of his
soul. That was the Egyptian doctrine, and that certainly was also the
doctrine of the Greco-Latin mysteries.[82]

Through the initiation the mystic was born again, but to a superhuman life,
and became the equal of the immortals.[83] In his ecstasy he imagined that
he was crossing the threshold of death and contemplating the gods of heaven
and hell face to face.[84] If he had accurately followed the prescriptions
imposed upon him by Isis and Serapis through their priests, those gods
prolonged his life after his decease beyond the duration assigned to it by
destiny, and he participated eternally in their beatitude and offered them
his homage in their realm.[85] The "unspeakable pleasure" he felt when
contemplating the sacred images in the temple[86] became perpetual rapture
when he was in the divine presence instead of in the presence of the image,
and drawn close to divinity his thirsting soul enjoyed the delights of that
ineffable beauty.[87]

When the Alexandrian mysteries spread over Italy under the republic, no
religion had ever brought to mankind so formal a promise of blest
immortality as these, and this, more than anything else, lent them an {101}
irresistible power of attraction. Instead of the vague and contradictory
opinions of the philosophers in regard to the destiny of the soul, Serapis
offered certainty founded on divine revelation corroborated by the faith of
the countless generations that had adhered to it. What the votaries of
Orpheus had confusedly discovered through the veil of the legends, and
taught to Magna Grecia,[88] namely, that this earthly life was a trial, a
preparation for a higher and purer life, that the happiness of an
after-life could be secured by means of rites and observances revealed by
the gods themselves, all this was now preached with a firmness and
precision hitherto unknown. These eschatological doctrines in particular,
helped Egypt to conquer the Latin world and especially the miserable
masses, on whom the weight of all the iniquities of Roman society rested
heavily.

       *       *       *       *       *

The power and popularity of that belief in future life has left traces even
in the French language, and in concluding this study, from which I have
been compelled to exclude every picturesque detail, I would like to point
out how a French word of to-day dimly perpetuates the memory of the old
Egyptian ideas.

During the cold nights of their long winters the Scandinavians dreamed of a
Walhalla where the deceased warriors sat in well-closed brilliantly
illuminated halls, warming themselves and drinking the strong liquor served
by the Valkyries; but under the burning sky of Egypt, near the arid sand
where thirst kills the traveler, people wished that their dead might find a
limpid spring in their future wanderings to assuage the heat that devoured
them, and that they might be {102} refreshed by the breezes of the north
wind.[89] Even at Rome the adherents of the Alexandrian gods frequently
inscribed the following wish on their tombs: "May Osiris give you fresh
water."[90] Soon this water became, in a figurative sense, the fountain of
life pouring out immortality to thirsting souls. The metaphor obtained such
popularity that in Latin _refrigerium_ became synonymous with comfort and
happiness. The term retained this meaning in the liturgy of the church,[91]
and for that reason people continue to pray for spiritual
_rafraîchissement_ of the dead although the Christian paradise has very
little resemblance to the fields of Aalu.

       *       *       *       *       *


{103}

SYRIA.

The religions of Syria never had the same solidarity in the Occident as
those from Egypt or Asia Minor. From the coasts of Phoenicia and the
valleys of Lebanon, from the borders of the Euphrates and the oases of the
desert, they came at various periods, like the successive waves of the
incoming tide, and existed side by side in the Roman world without uniting,
in spite of their similarities. The isolation in which they remained and
the persistent adherence of their believers to their particular rites were
a consequence and reflection of the disunited condition of Syria herself,
where the different tribes and districts remained more distinct than
anywhere else, even after they had been brought together under the
domination of Rome. They doggedly preserved their local gods and Semitic
dialects.

It would be impossible to outline each one of these religions in detail at
this time and to reconstruct their history, because our meager information
would not permit it, but we can indicate, in a general way, how they
penetrated into the Occidental countries at various periods, and we can try
to define their common characteristics by showing what new elements the
Syrian paganism brought to the Romans.

The first Semitic divinity to enter Italy was {104} _Atargatis_, frequently
mistaken for the Phoenician Astarte, who had a famous temple at Bambyce or
Hierapolis, not far from the Euphrates, and was worshiped with her husband,
Hadad, in a considerable part of Syria besides. The Greeks considered her
as the principal Syrian goddess ([Greek: Suria thea]), and in the Latin
countries she was commonly known as _dea Syria_, a name corrupted into
_Iasura_ by popular use.

We all remember the unedifying descriptions of her itinerant priests that
Lucian and Apuleius[1] have left. Led by an old eunuch of dubious habits, a
crowd of painted young men marched along the highways with an ass that bore
an elaborately adorned image of the goddess. Whenever they passed through a
village or by some rich villa, they went through their sacred exercises. To
the shrill accompaniment of their Syrian flutes they turned round and
round, and with their heads thrown back fluttered about and gave vent to
hoarse clamors until vertigo seized them and insensibility was complete.
Then they flagellated themselves wildly, struck themselves with swords and
shed their blood in front of a rustic crowd which pressed closely about
them, and finally they took up a profitable collection from the wondering
spectators. They received jars of milk and wine, cheeses, flour, bronze
coins of small denominations and even some silver pieces, all of which
disappeared in the folds of their capacious robes. If opportunity presented
they knew how to increase their profits by means of clever thefts or by
making commonplace predictions for a moderate consideration.

This picturesque description, based on a novel by {105} Lucius of Patras,
is undoubtedly extreme. It is difficult to believe that the sacerdotal
corps of the goddess of Hierapolis should have consisted only of charlatans
and thieves. But how can the presence in the Occident of that begging and
low nomadic clergy be explained?

It is certain that the first worshipers of the Syrian goddess in the Latin
world were slaves. During the wars against Antiochus the Great a number of
prisoners were sent to Italy to be sold at public auction, as was the
custom, and the first appearance in Italy of the _Chaldaei_[2] has been
connected with that event. The _Chaldaei_ were Oriental fortune-tellers who
asserted that their predictions were based on the Chaldean astrology. They
found credulous clients among the farm laborers, and Cato gravely exhorts
the good landlord to oust them from his estate.[3]

Beginning with the second century before Christ, merchants began to import
Syrian slaves. At that time Delos was the great trade center in this human
commodity, and in that island especially Atargatis was worshiped by
citizens of Athens and Rome.[4] Trade spread her worship in the
Occident.[5] We know that the great slave revolution that devastated Sicily
in 134 B. C. was started by a slave from Apamea, a votary of the Syrian
goddess. Simulating divine madness, he called his companions to arms,
pretending to act in accordance with orders from heaven.[6] This detail,
which we know by chance, shows how considerable a proportion of Semites
there was in the gangs working the fields, and how much authority Atargatis
enjoyed in the rural centers. Being too poor to build temples for their
national goddess, those agricultural laborers {106} waited with their
devotions until a band of itinerant _galli_ passed through the distant
hamlet where the lot of the auction had sent them. The existence of those
wandering priests depended, therefore, on the number of fellow-countrymen
they met in the rural districts, who supported them by sacrificing a part
of their poor savings.

Towards the end of the republic those diviners appear to have enjoyed
rather serious consideration at Rome. It was a pythoness from Syria that
advised Marius on the sacrifices he was to perform.[7]

Under the empire the importation of slaves increased. Depopulated Italy
needed more and more foreign hands, and Syria furnished a large quota of
the forced immigration of cultivators. But those Syrians, quick and
intelligent as they were strong and industrious, performed many other
functions. They filled the countless domestic positions in the palaces of
the aristocracy and were especially appreciated as litter-bearers.[8] The
imperial and municipal administrations, as well as the big contractors to
whom customs and the mines were farmed out, hired or bought them in large
numbers, and even in the remotest border provinces the _Syrus_ was found
serving princes, cities or private individuals. The worship of the Syrian
goddess profited considerably by the economic current that continually
brought new worshipers. We find her mentioned in the first century of our
era in a Roman inscription referring in precise terms to the slave market,
and we know that Nero took a devout fancy to the stranger that did not,
however, last very long.[9] In the popular Trastevere quarter she had a
temple until the end of paganism.[10] {107}

During the imperial period, however, the slaves were no longer the only
missionaries that came from Syria, and Atargatis was no longer the only
divinity from that country to be worshiped in the Occident. The propagation
of the Semitic worship progressed for the most part in a different manner
under the empire.

At the beginning of our era the Syrian merchants, _Syri negotiatores_,
undertook a veritable colonization of the Latin provinces.[11] During the
second century before Christ the traders of that nation had established
settlements along the coast of Asia Minor, on the Piraeus, and in the
Archipelago. At Delos, a small island but a large commercial center, they
maintained several associations that worshiped their national gods, in
particular Hadad and Atargatis. But the wars that shook the Orient at the
end of the republic, and above all the growth of piracy, ruined maritime
commerce and stopped emigration. This began again with renewed vigor when
the establishment of the empire guaranteed the safety of the seas and when
the Levantine traffic attained a development previously unknown. We can
trace the history of the Syrian establishments in the Latin provinces from
the first to the seventh century, and recently we have begun to appreciate
their economic, social and religious importance at its true value.

The Syrians' love of lucre was proverbial. Active, compliant and able,
frequently little scrupulous, they knew how to conclude first small deals,
then larger ones, everywhere. Using the special talents of their race to
advantage, they succeeded in establishing themselves on all coasts of the
Mediterranean, even in {108} Spain.[12] At Malaga an inscription mentions a
corporation formed by them. The Italian ports where business was especially
active, Pozzuoli, Ostia, later Naples, attracted them in great numbers. But
they did not confine themselves to the seashore; they penetrated far into
the interior of the countries, wherever they hoped to find profitable
trade. They followed the commercial highways and traveled up the big
rivers. By way of the Danube they went as far as Pannonia, by way of the
Rhone they reached Lyons. In Gaul they were especially numerous. In this
new country that had just been opened to commerce fortunes could be made
rapidly. A rescript discovered on the range of the Lebanon is addressed to
sailors from Arles, who had charge of the transportation of grain, and in
of his relinquished hopes—and cried aloud profane words of holy
rapture.

From the middle upper window blossomed in the dusk a waving, snowy,
fluttering, wonderful, divine emblem of forgiveness and promised joy.

By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home-hurrying, unknowing of the
delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly-lit parks.

“Will you oblige me with the time, sir?” asked the young man; and the
citizen, shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe, dragged it out and
announced:

“Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, sir.”

And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in the tower, and made
further oration.

“By George! that clock’s half an hour fast! First time in ten years
I’ve known it to be off. This watch of mine never varies a—”

But the citizen was talking to vacancy. He turned and saw his hearer, a
fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house with
three lighted upper windows.

And in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beats
they owned. The park was deserted save for one dilapidated figure that
sprawled, asleep, on a bench. They stopped and gazed upon it.

“It’s Dopy Mike,” said one. “He hits the pipe every night. Park bum for
twenty years. On his last legs, I guess.”

The other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled and crisp
in the hand of the sleeper.

“Gee!” he remarked. “He’s doped out a fifty-dollar bill, anyway. Wish I
knew the brand of hop that he smokes.”

And then “Rap, rap, rap!” went the club of realism against the shoe
soles of Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna.




SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE


The Rubberneck Auto was about ready to start. The merry top-riders had
been assigned to their seats by the gentlemanly conductor. The sidewalk
was blockaded with sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers,
justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon
by some other creature.

The megaphone man raised his instrument of torture; the inside of the
great automobile began to thump and throb like the heart of a coffee
drinker. The top-riders nervously clung to the seats; the old lady from
Valparaiso, Indiana, shrieked to be put ashore. But, before a wheel
turns, listen to a brief preamble through the cardiaphone, which shall
point out to you an object of interest on life’s sightseeing tour.

Swift and comprehensive is the recognition of white man for white man
in African wilds; instant and sure is the spiritual greeting between
mother and babe; unhesitatingly do master and dog commune across the
slight gulf between animal and man; immeasurably quick and sapient are
the brief messages between one and one’s beloved. But all these
instances set forth only slow and groping interchange of sympathy and
thought beside one other instance which the Rubberneck coach shall
disclose. You shall learn (if you have not learned already) what two
beings of all earth’s living inhabitants most quickly look into each
other’s hearts and souls when they meet face to face.

The gong whirred, and the Glaring-at-Gotham car moved majestically upon
its instructive tour.

On the highest, rear seat was James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri,
and his Bride.

Capitalise it, friend typo—that last word—word of words in the epiphany
of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the
primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of
lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the
wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride
is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in
when man is married to mortality.

The car glided up the Golden Way. On the bridge of the great cruiser
the captain stood, trumpeting the sights of the big city to his
passengers. Wide-mouthed and open-eared, they heard the sights of the
metropolis thundered forth to their eyes. Confused, delirious with
excitement and provincial longings, they tried to make ocular responses
to the megaphonic ritual. In the solemn spires of spreading cathedrals
they saw the home of the Vanderbilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand
Central depot they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell Sage.
Bidden to observe the highlands of the Hudson, they gaped,
unsuspecting, at the upturned mountains of a new-laid sewer. To many
the elevated railroad was the Rialto, on the stations of which
uniformed men sat and made chop suey of your tickets. And to this day
in the outlying districts many have it that Chuck Connors, with his
hand on his heart, leads reform; and that but for the noble municipal
efforts of one Parkhurst, a district attorney, the notorious “Bishop”
Potter gang would have destroyed law and order from the Bowery to the
Harlem River.

But I beg you to observe Mrs. James Williams—Hattie Chalmers that
was—once the belle of Cloverdale. Pale-blue is the bride’s, if she
will; and this colour she had honoured. Willingly had the moss rosebud
loaned to her cheeks of its pink—and as for the violet!—her eyes will
do very well as they are, thank you. A useless strip of white chaf—oh,
no, he was guiding the auto car—of white chiffon—or perhaps it was
grenadine or tulle—was tied beneath her chin, pretending to hold her
bonnet in place. But you know as well as I do that the hatpins did the
work.

And on Mrs. James Williams’s face was recorded a little library of the
world’s best thoughts in three volumes. Volume No. 1 contained the
belief that James Williams was about the right sort of thing. Volume
No. 2 was an essay on the world, declaring it to be a very excellent
place. Volume No. 3 disclosed the belief that in occupying the highest
seat in a Rubberneck auto they were travelling the pace that passes all
understanding.

James Williams, you would have guessed, was about twenty-four. It will
gratify you to know that your estimate was so accurate. He was exactly
twenty-three years, eleven months and twenty-nine days old. He was well
built, active, strong-jawed, good-natured and rising. He was on his
wedding trip.

Dear kind fairy, please cut out those orders for money and 40 H. P.
touring cars and fame and a new growth of hair and the presidency of
the boat club. Instead of any of them turn backward—oh, turn backward
and give us just a teeny-weeny bit of our wedding trip over again. Just
an hour, dear fairy, so we can remember how the grass and poplar trees
looked, and the bow of those bonnet strings tied beneath her chin—even
if it was the hatpins that did the work. Can’t do it? Very well; hurry
up with that touring car and the oil stock, then.

Just in front of Mrs. James Williams sat a girl in a loose tan jacket
and a straw hat adorned with grapes and roses. Only in dreams and
milliners’ shops do we, alas! gather grapes and roses at one swipe.
This girl gazed with large blue eyes, credulous, when the megaphone man
roared his doctrine that millionaires were things about which we should
be concerned. Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in
the form of pepsin chewing gum.

At this girl’s right hand sat a young man about twenty-four. He was
well-built, active, strong-jawed and good-natured. But if his
description seems to follow that of James Williams, divest it of
anything Cloverdalian. This man belonged to hard streets and sharp
corners. He looked keenly about him, seeming to begrudge the asphalt
under the feet of those upon whom he looked down from his perch.

While the megaphone barks at a famous hostelry, let me whisper you
through the low-tuned cardiaphone to sit tight; for now things are
about to happen, and the great city will close over them again as over
a scrap of ticker tape floating down from the den of a Broad street
bear.

The girl in the tan jacket twisted around to view the pilgrims on the
last seat. The other passengers she had absorbed; the seat behind her
was her Bluebeard’s chamber.

Her eyes met those of Mrs. James Williams. Between two ticks of a watch
they exchanged their life’s experiences, histories, hopes and fancies.
And all, mind you, with the eye, before two men could have decided
whether to draw steel or borrow a match.

The bride leaned forward low. She and the girl spoke rapidly together,
their tongues moving quickly like those of two serpents—a comparison
that is not meant to go further. Two smiles and a dozen nods closed the
conference.

And now in the broad, quiet avenue in front of the Rubberneck car a man
in dark clothes stood with uplifted hand. From the sidewalk another
hurried to join him.

The girl in the fruitful hat quickly seized her companion by the arm
and whispered in his ear. That young man exhibited proof of ability to
act promptly. Crouching low, he slid over the edge of the car, hung
lightly for an instant, and then disappeared. Half a dozen of the
top-riders observed his feat, wonderingly, but made no comment, deeming
it prudent not to express surprise at what might be the conventional
manner of alighting in this bewildering city. The truant passenger
dodged a hansom and then floated past, like a leaf on a stream between
a furniture van and a florist’s delivery wagon.

The girl in the tan jacket turned again, and looked in the eyes of Mrs.
James Williams. Then she faced about and sat still while the Rubberneck
auto stopped at the flash of the badge under the coat of the
plainclothes man.

“What’s eatin’ you?” demanded the megaphonist, abandoning his
professional discourse for pure English.

“Keep her at anchor for a minute,” ordered the officer. “There’s a man
on board we want—a Philadelphia burglar called ‘Pinky’ McGuire. There
he is on the back seat. Look out for the side, Donovan.”

Donovan went to the hind wheel and looked up at James Williams.

“Come down, old sport,” he said, pleasantly. “We’ve got you. Back to
Sleepytown for yours. It ain’t a bad idea, hidin’ on a Rubberneck,
though. I’ll remember that.”

Softly through the megaphone came the advice of the conductor:

“Better step off, sir, and explain. The car must proceed on its tour.”

James Williams belonged among the level heads. With necessary slowness
he picked his way through the passengers down to the steps at the front
of the car. His wife followed, but she first turned her eyes and saw
the escaped tourist glide from behind the furniture van and slip behind
a tree on the edge of the little park, not fifty feet away.

Descended to the ground, James Williams faced his captors with a smile.
He was thinking what a good story he would have to tell in Cloverdale
about having been mistaken for a burglar. The Rubberneck coach
lingered, out of respect for its patrons. What could be a more
interesting sight than this?

“My name is James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri,” he said kindly,
so that they would not be too greatly mortified. “I have letters here
that will show—”

“You’ll come with us, please,” announced the plainclothes man. “‘Pinky’
McGuire’s description fits you like flannel washed in hot suds. A
detective saw you on the Rubberneck up at Central Park and ’phoned down
to take you in. Do your explaining at the station-house.”

James Williams’s wife—his bride of two weeks—looked him in the face
with a strange, soft radiance in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks,
looked him in the face and said:

“Go with ’em quietly, ‘Pinky,’ and maybe it’ll be in your favour.”

And then as the Glaring-at-Gotham car rolled away she turned and threw
a kiss—his wife threw a kiss—at some one high up on the seats of the
Rubberneck.

“Your girl gives you good advice, McGuire,” said Donovan. “Come on,
now.”

And then madness descended upon and occupied James Williams. He pushed
his hat far upon the back of his head.

“My wife seems to think I am a burglar,” he said, recklessly. “I never
heard of her being crazy; therefore I must be. And if I’m crazy, they
can’t do anything to me for killing you two fools in my madness.”

Whereupon he resisted arrest so cheerfully and industriously that cops
had to be whistled for, and afterwards the reserves, to disperse a few
thousand delighted spectators.

At the station-house the desk sergeant asked for his name.

“McDoodle, the Pink, or Pinky the Brute, I forget which,” was James
Williams’s answer. “But you can bet I’m a burglar; don’t leave that
out. And you might add that it took five of ’em to pluck the Pink. I’d
especially like to have that in the records.”

In an hour came Mrs. James Williams, with Uncle Thomas, of Madison
Avenue, in a respect-compelling motor car and proofs of the hero’s
innocence—for all the world like the third act of a drama backed by an
automobile mfg. co.

After the police had sternly reprimanded James Williams for imitating a
copyrighted burglar and given him as honourable a discharge as the
department was capable of, Mrs. Williams rearrested him and swept him
into an angle of the station-house. James Williams regarded her with
one eye. He always said that Donovan closed the other while somebody
was holding his good right hand. Never before had he given her a word
of reproach or of reproof.

“If you can explain,” he began rather stiffly, “why you—”

“Dear,” she interrupted, “listen. It was an hour’s pain and trial to
you. I did it for her—I mean the girl who spoke to me on the coach. I
was so happy, Jim—so happy with you that I didn’t dare to refuse that
happiness to another. Jim, they were married only this morning—those
two; and I wanted him to get away. While they were struggling with you
I saw him slip from behind his tree and hurry across the park. That’s
all of it, dear—I had to do it.”

Thus does one sister of the plain gold band know another who stands in
the enchanted light that shines but once and briefly for each one. By
rice and satin bows does mere man become aware of weddings. But bride
knoweth bride at the glance of an eye. And between them swiftly passes
comfort and meaning in a language that man and widows wot not of.




THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER


Pitcher, confidential clerk in the office of Harvey Maxwell, broker,
allowed a look of mild interest and surprise to visit his usually
expressionless countenance when his employer briskly entered at half
past nine in company with his young lady stenographer. With a snappy
“Good-morning, Pitcher,” Maxwell dashed at his desk as though he were
intending to leap over it, and then plunged into the great heap of
letters and telegrams waiting there for him.

The young lady had been Maxwell’s stenographer for a year. She was
beautiful in a way that was decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the
pomp of the alluring pompadour. She wore no chains, bracelets or
lockets. She had not the air of being about to accept an invitation to
luncheon. Her dress was grey and plain, but it fitted her figure with
fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban hat was the
gold-green wing of a macaw. On this morning she was softly and shyly
radiant. Her eyes were dreamily bright, her cheeks genuine peachblow,
her expression a happy one, tinged with reminiscence.

Pitcher, still mildly curious, noticed a difference in her ways this
morning. Instead of going straight into the adjoining room, where her
desk was, she lingered, slightly irresolute, in the outer office. Once
she moved over by Maxwell’s desk, near enough for him to be aware of
her presence.

The machine sitting at that desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New
York broker, moved by buzzing wheels and uncoiling springs.

“Well—what is it? Anything?” asked Maxwell sharply. His opened mail lay
like a bank of stage snow on his crowded desk. His keen grey eye,
impersonal and brusque, flashed upon her half impatiently.

“Nothing,” answered the stenographer, moving away with a little smile.

“Mr. Pitcher,” she said to the confidential clerk, “did Mr. Maxwell say
anything yesterday about engaging another stenographer?”

“He did,” answered Pitcher. “He told me to get another one. I notified
the agency yesterday afternoon to send over a few samples this morning.
It’s 9.45 o’clock, and not a single picture hat or piece of pineapple
chewing gum has showed up yet.”

“I will do the work as usual, then,” said the young lady, “until some
one comes to fill the place.” And she went to her desk at once and hung
the black turban hat with the gold-green macaw wing in its accustomed
place.

He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during
a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology.
The poet sings of the “crowded hour of glorious life.” The broker’s
hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are hanging to
all the straps and packing both front and rear platforms.

And this day was Harvey Maxwell’s busy day. The ticker began to reel
out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the desk telephone had a chronic
attack of buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call at him
over the railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger
boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The clerks in the
office jumped about like sailors during a storm. Even Pitcher’s face
relaxed into something resembling animation.

On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and
glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were
reproduced in miniature in the broker’s offices. Maxwell shoved his
chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a
toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to ’phone, from desk to door with the
trained agility of a harlequin.

In the midst of this growing and important stress the broker became
suddenly aware of a high-rolled fringe of golden hair under a nodding
canopy of velvet and ostrich tips, an imitation sealskin sacque and a
string of beads as large as hickory nuts, ending near the floor with a
silver heart. There was a self-possessed young lady connected with
these accessories; and Pitcher was there to construe her.

“Lady from the Stenographer’s Agency to see about the position,” said
Pitcher.

Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of papers and ticker
tape.

“What position?” he asked, with a frown.

“Position of stenographer,” said Pitcher. “You told me yesterday to
call them up and have one sent over this morning.”

“You are losing your mind, Pitcher,” said Maxwell. “Why should I have
given you any such instructions? Miss Leslie has given perfect
satisfaction during the year she has been here. The place is hers as
long as she chooses to retain it. There’s no place open here, madam.
Countermand that order with the agency, Pitcher, and don’t bring any
more of ’em in here.”

The silver heart left the office, swinging and banging itself
independently against the office furniture as it indignantly departed.
Pitcher seized a moment to remark to the bookkeeper that the “old man”
seemed to get more absent-minded and forgetful every day of the world.

The rush and pace of business grew fiercer and faster. On the floor
they were pounding half a dozen stocks in which Maxwell’s customers
were heavy investors. Orders to buy and sell were coming and going as
swift as the flight of swallows. Some of his own holdings were
imperilled, and the man was working like some high-geared, delicate,
strong machine—strung to full tension, going at full speed, accurate,
never hesitating, with the proper word and decision and act ready and
prompt as clockwork. Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and
securities—here was a world of finance, and there was no room in it for
the human world or the world of nature.

When the luncheon hour drew near there came a slight lull in the
uproar.

Maxwell stood by his desk with his hands full of telegrams and
memoranda, with a fountain pen over his right ear and his hair hanging
in disorderly strings over his forehead. His window was open, for the
beloved janitress Spring had turned on a little warmth through the
waking registers of the earth.

And through the window came a wandering—perhaps a lost—odour—a
delicate, sweet odour of lilac that fixed the broker for a moment
immovable. For this odour belonged to Miss Leslie; it was her own, and
hers only.

The odour brought her vividly, almost tangibly before him. The world of
finance dwindled suddenly to a speck. And she was in the next
room—twenty steps away.

“By George, I’ll do it now,” said Maxwell, half aloud. “I’ll ask her
now. I wonder I didn’t do it long ago.”

He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a short trying to
cover. He charged upon the desk of the stenographer.

She looked up at him with a smile. A soft pink crept over her cheek,
and her eyes were kind and frank. Maxwell leaned one elbow on her desk.
He still clutched fluttering papers with both hands and the pen was
above his ear.

“Miss Leslie,” he began hurriedly, “I have but a moment to spare. I
want to say something in that moment. Will you be my wife? I haven’t
had time to make love to you in the ordinary way, but I really do love
you. Talk quick, please—those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of
Union Pacific.”

“Oh, what are you talking about?” exclaimed the young lady. She rose to
her feet and gazed upon him, round-eyed.

“Don’t you understand?” said Maxwell, restively. “I want you to marry
me. I love you, Miss Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a
minute when things had slackened up a bit. They’re calling me for the
’phone now. Tell ’em to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won’t you, Miss
Leslie?”

The stenographer acted very queerly. At first she seemed overcome with
amazement; then tears flowed from her wondering eyes; and then she
smiled sunnily through them, and one of her arms slid tenderly about
the broker’s neck.

“I know now,” she said, softly. “It’s this old business that has driven
everything else out of your head for the time. I was frightened at
first. Don’t you remember, Harvey? We were married last evening at 8
o’clock in the Little Church Around the Corner.”




AFTER TWENTY YEARS


The policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The
impressiveness was habitual and not for show, for spectators were few.
The time was barely 10 o’clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with
a taste of rain in them had well nigh de-peopled the streets.

Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and
artful movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown
the pacific thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and
slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of the peace. The
vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and then you might see the
lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the
majority of the doors belonged to business places that had long since
been closed.

When about midway of a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed his
walk. In the doorway of a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an
unlighted cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man
spoke up quickly.

“It’s all right, officer,” he said, reassuringly. “I’m just waiting for
a friend. It’s an appointment made twenty years ago. Sounds a little
funny to you, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll explain if you’d like to make
certain it’s all straight. About that long ago there used to be a
restaurant where this store stands—‘Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant.”

“Until five years ago,” said the policeman. “It was torn down then.”

The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his cigar. The light
showed a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white
scar near his right eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly
set.

“Twenty years ago to-night,” said the man, “I dined here at ‘Big Joe’
Brady’s with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the
world. He and I were raised here in New York, just like two brothers,
together. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was
to start for the West to make my fortune. You couldn’t have dragged
Jimmy out of New York; he thought it was the only place on earth. Well,
we agreed that night that we would meet here again exactly twenty years
from that date and time, no matter what our conditions might be or from
what distance we might have to come. We figured that in twenty years
each of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made,
whatever they were going to be.”

“It sounds pretty interesting,” said the policeman. “Rather a long time
between meets, though, it seems to me. Haven’t you heard from your
friend since you left?”

“Well, yes, for a time we corresponded,” said the other. “But after a
year or two we lost track of each other. You see, the West is a pretty
big proposition, and I kept hustling around over it pretty lively. But
I know Jimmy will meet me here if he’s alive, for he always was the
truest, stanchest old chap in the world. He’ll never forget. I came a
thousand miles to stand in this door to-night, and it’s worth it if my
old partner turns up.”

The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, the lids of it set with
small diamonds.

“Three minutes to ten,” he announced. “It was exactly ten o’clock when
we parted here at the restaurant door.”

“Did pretty well out West, didn’t you?” asked the policeman.

“You bet! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of plodder,
though, good fellow as he was. I’ve had to compete with some of the
sharpest wits going to get my pile. A man gets in a groove in New York.
It takes the West to put a razor-edge on him.”

The policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.

“I’ll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to
call time on him sharp?”

“I should say not!” said the other. “I’ll give him half an hour at
least. If Jimmy is alive on earth he’ll be here by that time. So long,
officer.”

“Good-night, sir,” said the policeman, passing on along his beat,
trying doors as he went.

There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from
its uncertain puffs into a steady blow. The few foot passengers astir
in that quarter hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars
turned high and pocketed hands. And in the door of the hardware store
the man who had come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain
almost to absurdity, with the friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and
waited.

About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a long overcoat,
with collar turned up to his ears, hurried across from the opposite
side of the street. He went directly to the waiting man.

“Is that you, Bob?” he asked, doubtfully.

“Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” cried the man in the door.

“Bless my heart!” exclaimed the new arrival, grasping both the other’s
hands with his own. “It’s Bob, sure as fate. I was certain I’d find you
here if you were still in existence. Well, well, well!—twenty years is
a long time. The old restaurant’s gone, Bob; I wish it had lasted, so
we could have had another dinner there. How has the West treated you,
old man?”

“Bully; it has given me everything I asked it for. You’ve changed lots,
Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall by two or three inches.”

“Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty.”

“Doing well in New York, Jimmy?”

“Moderately. I have a position in one of the city departments. Come on,
Bob; we’ll go around to a place I know of, and have a good long talk
about old times.”

The two men started up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West,
his egotism enlarged by success, was beginning to outline the history
of his career. The other, submerged in his overcoat, listened with
interest.

At the corner stood a drug store, brilliant with electric lights. When
they came into this glare each of them turned simultaneously to gaze
upon the other’s face.

The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.

“You’re not Jimmy Wells,” he snapped. “Twenty years is a long time, but
not long enough to change a man’s nose from a Roman to a pug.”

“It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man.
“You’ve been under arrest for ten minutes, ‘Silky’ Bob. Chicago thinks
you may have dropped over our way and wires us she wants to have a chat
with you. Going quietly, are you? That’s sensible. Now, before we go on
to the station here’s a note I was asked to hand you. You may read it
here at the window. It’s from Patrolman Wells.”

The man from the West unfolded the little piece of paper handed him.
His hand was steady when he began to read, but it trembled a little by
the time he had finished. The note was rather short.


_Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match
to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago.
Somehow I couldn’t do it myself, so I went around and got a plain
clothes man to do the job.

JIMMY._




LOST ON DRESS PARADE


Mr. Towers Chandler was pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom.
One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed
vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be
seen later on extending in straight lines from Mr. Chandler’s patent
leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero’s
toilet may be intrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed
by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next
view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house
immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in
appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly
bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.

Chandler’s honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office
of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered
architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed—though he
would not have dared to admit it in New York—that the Flatiron Building
was inferior in design to the great cathedral in Milan.

Out of each week’s earnings Chandler set aside $1. At the end of each
ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated, he purchased one
gentleman’s evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time.
He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he
took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and
there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars a man may, for a
few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a
well-considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label,
commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the ordinary etceteras.

This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to
Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one
début; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened;
but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as
new as the first had been. To sit among _bon vivants_ under palms in
the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the _habitués_ of such a
paradise and to be looked upon by them—what is a girl’s first dance and
short-sleeved tulle compared with this?

Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade. For this
evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine
evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious _table
d’hôtes_, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his
hall-bedroom. He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the
great city of razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight
made up for many dark ones.

Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties began to intersect the
great and glittering primrose way, for the evening was yet young, and
when one is of the _beau monde_ only one day in seventy, one loves to
protract the pleasure. Eyes bright, sinister, curious, admiring,
provocative, alluring were bent upon him, for his garb and air
proclaimed him a devotee to the hour of solace and pleasure.

At a certain corner he came to a standstill, proposing to himself the
question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in
which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. Just
then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of
icy snow and fell plump upon the sidewalk.

Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and solicitous courtesy.
The girl hobbled to the wall of the building, leaned against it, and
thanked him demurely.

“I think my ankle is strained,” she said. “It twisted when I fell.”

“Does it pain you much?” inquired Chandler.

“Only when I rest my weight upon it. I think I will be able to walk in
a minute or two.”

“If I can be of any further service,” suggested the young man, “I will
call a cab, or—”

“Thank you,” said the girl, softly but heartily. “I am sure you need
not trouble yourself any further. It was so awkward of me. And my shoe
heels are horridly common-sense; I can’t blame them at all.”

Chandler looked at the girl and found her swiftly drawing his interest.
She was pretty in a refined way; and her eye was both merry and kind.
She was inexpensively clothed in a plain black dress that suggested a
sort of uniform such as shop girls wear. Her glossy dark-brown hair
showed its coils beneath a cheap hat of black straw whose only ornament
was a velvet ribbon and bow. She could have posed as a model for the
self-respecting working girl of the best type.

A sudden idea came into the head of the young architect. He would ask
this girl to dine with him. Here was the element that his splendid but
solitary periodic feasts had lacked. His brief season of elegant luxury
would be doubly enjoyable if he could add to it a lady’s society. This
girl was a lady, he was sure—her manner and speech settled that. And in
spite of her extremely plain attire he felt that he would be pleased to
sit at table with her.

These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind, and he decided to ask
her. It was a breach of etiquette, of course, but oftentimes
wage-earning girls waived formalities in matters of this kind. They
were generally shrewd judges of men; and thought better of their own
judgment than they did of useless conventions. His ten dollars,
discreetly expended, would enable the two to dine very well indeed. The
dinner would no doubt be a wonderful experience thrown into the dull
routine of the girl’s life; and her lively appreciation of it would add
to his own triumph and pleasure.

“I think,” he said to her, with frank gravity, “that your foot needs a
longer rest than you suppose. Now, I am going to suggest a way in which
you can give it that and at the same time do me a favour. I was on my
way to dine all by my lonely self when you came tumbling around the
corner. You come with me and we’ll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant
talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home
very nicely, I am sure.”

The girl looked quickly up into Chandler’s clear, pleasant countenance.
Her eyes twinkled once very brightly, and then she smiled ingenuously.

“But we don’t know each other—it wouldn’t be right, would it?” she
said, doubtfully.

“There is nothing wrong about it,” said the young man, candidly. “I’ll
introduce myself—permit me—Mr. Towers Chandler. After our dinner, which
I will try to make as pleasant as possible, I will bid you
good-evening, or attend you safely to your door, whichever you prefer.”

“But, dear me!” said the girl, with a glance at Chandler’s faultless
attire. “In this old dress and hat!”

“Never mind that,” said Chandler, cheerfully. “I’m sure you look more
charming in them than any one we shall see in the most elaborate dinner
toilette.”

“My ankle does hurt yet,” admitted the girl, attempting a limping step.
“I think I will accept your invitation, Mr. Chandler. You may call
me—Miss Marian.”

“Come then, Miss Marian,” said the young architect, gaily, but with
perfect courtesy; “you will not have far to walk. There is a very
respectable and good restaurant in the next block. You will have to
lean on my arm—so—and walk slowly. It is lonely dining all by one’s
self. I’m just a little bit glad that you slipped on the ice.”

When the two were established at a well-appointed table, with a
promising waiter hovering in attendance, Chandler began to experience
the real joy that his regular outing always brought to him.

The restaurant was not so showy or pretentious as the one further down
Broadway, which he always preferred, but it was nearly so. The tables
were well filled with prosperous-looking diners, there was a good
orchestra, playing softly enough to make conversation a possible
pleasure, and the cuisine and service were beyond criticism. His
companion, even in her cheap hat and dress, held herself with an air
that added distinction to the natural beauty of her face and figure.
And it is certain that she looked at Chandler, with his animated but
self-possessed manner and his kindling and frank blue eyes, with
something not far from admiration in her own charming face.

Then it was that the Madness of Manhattan, the frenzy of Fuss and
Feathers, the Bacillus of Brag, the Provincial Plague of Pose seized
upon Towers Chandler. He was on Broadway, surrounded by pomp and style,
and there were eyes to look at him. On the stage of that comedy he had
assumed to play the one-night part of a butterfly of fashion and an
idler of means and taste. He was dressed for the part, and all his good
angels had not the power to prevent him from acting it.

So he began to prate to Miss Marian of clubs, of teas, of golf and
riding and kennels and cotillions and tours abroad and threw out hints
of a yacht lying at Larchmont. He could see that she was vastly
impressed by this vague talk, so he endorsed his pose by random
insinuations concerning great wealth, and mentioned familiarly a few
names that are handled reverently by the proletariat. It was Chandler’s
short little day, and he was wringing from it the best that could be
had, as he saw it. And yet once or twice he saw the pure gold of this
girl shine through the mist that his egotism had raised between him and
all objects.

“This way of living that you speak of,” she said, “sounds so futile and
purposeless. Haven’t you any work to do in the world that might
interest you more?”

“My dear Miss Marian,” he exclaimed—“work! Think of dressing every day
for dinner, of making half a dozen calls in an afternoon—with a
policeman at every corner ready to jump into your auto and take you to
the station, if you get up any greater speed than a donkey cart’s gait.
We do-nothings are the hardest workers in the land.”

The dinner was concluded, the waiter generously fed, and the two walked
out to the corner where they had met. Miss Marian walked very well now;
her limp was scarcely noticeable.

“Thank you for a nice time,” she said, frankly. “I must run home now. I
liked the dinner very much, Mr. Chandler.”

He shook hands with her, smiling cordially, and said something about a
game of bridge at his club. He watched her for a moment, walking rather
rapidly eastward, and then he found a cab to drive him slowly homeward.

In his chilly bedroom Chandler laid away his evening clothes for a
sixty-nine days’ rest. He went about it thoughtfully.

“That was a stunning girl,” he said to himself. “She’s all right, too,
I’d be sworn, even if she does have to work. Perhaps if I’d told her
the truth instead of all that razzle-dazzle we might—but, confound it!
I had to play up to my clothes.”

Thus spoke the brave who was born and reared in the wigwams of the
tribe of the Manhattans.

The girl, after leaving her entertainer, sped swiftly cross-town until
she arrived at a handsome and sedate mansion two squares to the east,
facing on that avenue which is the highway of Mammon and the auxiliary
gods. Here she entered hurriedly and ascended to a room where a
handsome young lady in an elaborate house dress was looking anxiously
out the window.

“Oh, you madcap!” exclaimed the elder girl, when the other entered.
“When will you quit frightening us this way? It is two hours since you
ran out in that rag of an old dress and Marie’s hat. Mamma has been so
alarmed. She sent Louis in the auto to try to find you. You are a bad,
thoughtless Puss.”

The elder girl touched a button, and a maid came in a moment.

“Marie, tell mamma that Miss Marian has returned.”

“Don’t scold, sister. I only ran down to Mme. Theo’s to tell her to use
mauve insertion instead of pink. My costume and Marie’s hat were just
what I needed. Every one thought I was a shopgirl, I am sure.”

“Dinner is over, dear; you stayed so late.”

“I know. I slipped on the sidewalk and turned my ankle. I could not
walk, so I hobbled into a restaurant and sat there until I was better.
That is why I was so long.”

The two girls sat in the window seat, looking out at the lights and the
stream of hurrying vehicles in the avenue. The younger one cuddled down
with her head in her sister’s lap.

“We will have to marry some day,” she said dreamily—“both of us. We
have so much money that we will not be allowed to disappoint the
public. Do you want me to tell you the kind of a man I could love,
Sis?”

“Go on, you scatterbrain,” smiled the other.

“I could love a man with dark and kind blue eyes, who is gentle and
respectful to poor girls, who is handsome and good and does not try to
flirt. But I could love him only if he had an ambition, an object, some
work to do in the world. I would not care how poor he was if I could
help him build his way up. But, sister dear, the kind of man we always
meet—the man who lives an idle life between society and his clubs—I
could not love a man like that, even if his eyes were blue and he were
ever so kind to poor girls whom he met in the street.”




BY COURIER


It was neither the season nor the hour when the Park had frequenters;
and it is likely that the young lady, who was seated on one of the
benches at the side of the walk, had merely obeyed a sudden impulse to
sit for a while and enjoy a foretaste of coming Spring.

She rested there, pensive and still. A certain melancholy that touched
her countenance must have been of recent birth, for it had not yet
altered the fine and youthful contours of her cheek, nor subdued the
arch though resolute curve of her lips.

A tall young man came striding through the park along the path near
which she sat. Behind him tagged a boy carrying a suit-case. At sight
of the young lady, the man’s face changed to red and back to pale
again. He watched her countenance as he drew nearer, with hope and
anxiety mingled on his own. He passed within a few yards of her, but he
saw no evidence that she was aware of his presence or existence.

Some fifty yards further on he suddenly stopped and sat on a bench at
one side. The boy dropped the suit-case and stared at him with
wondering, shrewd eyes. The young man took out his handkerchief and
wiped his brow. It was a good handkerchief, a good brow, and the young
man was good to look at. He said to the boy:

“I want you to take a message to that young lady on that bench. Tell
her I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I
shall join that Alaska moose-hunting expedition. Tell her that, since
she has commanded me neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this
means of making one last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake
of what has been. Tell her that to condemn and discard one who has not
deserved such treatment, without giving him her reasons or a chance to
explain is contrary to her nature as I believe it to be. Tell her that
I have thus, to a certain degree, disobeyed her injunctions, in the
hope that she may yet be inclined to see justice done. Go, and tell her
that.”

The young man dropped a half-dollar into the boy’s hand. The boy looked
at him for a moment with bright, canny eyes out of a dirty, intelligent
face, and then set off at a run. He approached the lady on the bench a
little doubtfully, but unembarrassed. He touched the brim of the old
plaid bicycle cap perched on the back of his head. The lady looked at
him coolly, without prejudice or favour.

“Lady,” he said, “dat gent on de oder bench sent yer a song and dance
by me. If yer don’t know de guy, and he’s tryin’ to do de Johnny act,
say de word, and I’ll call a cop in t’ree minutes. If yer does know
him, and he’s on de square, w’y I’ll spiel yer de bunch of hot air he
sent yer.”

The young lady betrayed a faint interest.

“A song and dance!” she said, in a deliberate sweet voice that seemed
to clothe her words in a diaphanous garment of impalpable irony. “A new
idea—in the troubadour line, I suppose. I—used to know the gentleman
who sent you, so I think it will hardly be necessary to call the
police. You may execute your song and dance, but do not sing too
loudly. It is a little early yet for open-air vaudeville, and we might
attract attention.”

“Awe,” said the boy, with a shrug down the length of him, “yer know
what I mean, lady. ’Tain’t a turn, it’s wind. He told me to tell yer
he’s got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out to
’Frisco. Den he’s goin’ to shoot snow-birds in de Klondike. He says yer
told him not to send ’round no more pink notes nor come hangin’ over de
garden gate, and he takes dis means of puttin’ yer wise. He says yer
refereed him out like a has-been, and never give him no chance to kick
at de decision. He says yer swiped him, and never said why.”

The slightly awakened interest in the young lady’s eyes did not abate.
Perhaps it was caused by either the originality or the audacity of the
snow-bird hunter, in thus circumventing her express commands against
the ordinary modes of communication. She fixed her eye on a statue
standing disconsolate in the dishevelled park, and spoke into the
transmitter:

“Tell the gentleman that I need not repeat to him a description of my
ideals. He knows what they have been and what they still are. So far as
they touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are the ones
paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as one
can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I
decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not condemn him
through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I made no charge.
But, since he persists in hearing what he already well knows, you may
convey the matter.

“Tell him that I entered the conservatory that evening from the rear,
to cut a rose for my mother. Tell him I saw him and Miss Ashburton
beneath the pink oleander. The tableau was pretty, but the pose and
juxtaposition were too eloquent and evident to require explanation. I
left the conservatory, and, at the same time, the rose and my ideal.
You may carry that song and dance to your impresario.”

“I’m shy on one word, lady. Jux—jux—put me wise on dat, will yer?”

“Juxtaposition—or you may call it propinquity—or, if you like, being
rather too near for one maintaining the position of an ideal.”

The gravel spun from beneath the boy’s feet. He stood by the other
bench. The man’s eyes interrogated him, hungrily. The boy’s were
shining with the impersonal zeal of the translator.

“De lady says dat she’s on to de fact dat gals is dead easy when a
feller comes spielin’ ghost stories and tryin’ to make up, and dat’s
why she won’t listen to no soft-soap. She says she caught yer dead to
rights, huggin’ a bunch o’ calico in de hot-house. She side-stepped in
to pull some posies and yer was squeezin’ de oder gal to beat de band.
She says it looked cute, all right all right, but it made her sick. She
says yer better git busy, and make a sneak for de train.”

The young man gave a low whistle and his eyes flashed with a sudden
thought. His hand flew to the inside pocket of his coat, and drew out a
handful of letters. Selecting one, he handed it to the boy, following
it with a silver dollar from his vest-pocket.

“Give that letter to the lady,” he said, “and ask her to read it. Tell
her that it should explain the situation. Tell her that, if she had
mingled a little trust with her conception of the ideal, much heartache
might have been avoided. Tell her that the loyalty she prizes so much
has never wavered. Tell her I am waiting for an answer.”

The messenger stood before the lady.

“De gent says he’s had de ski-bunk put on him widout no cause. He says
he’s no bum guy; and, lady, yer read dat letter, and I’ll bet yer he’s
a white sport, all right.”

The young lady unfolded the letter; somewhat doubtfully, and read it.


Dear Dr. Arnold:   I want to thank you for your most kind and opportune
aid to my daughter last Friday evening, when she was overcome by an
attack of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory at Mrs. Waldron’s
reception. Had you not been near to catch her as she fell and to render
proper attention, we might have lost her. I would be glad if you would
call and undertake the treatment of her case.

  Gratefully yours,

Robert Ashburton.


The young lady refolded the letter, and handed it to the boy.

“De gent wants an answer,” said the messenger. “Wot’s de word?”

The lady’s eyes suddenly flashed on him, bright, smiling and wet.

“Tell that guy on the other bench,” she said, with a happy, tremulous
laugh, “that his girl wants him.”




THE FURNISHED ROOM


Restless, shifting, fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of
the population of the red brick district of the lower West Side.
Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to
furnished room, transients forever—transients in abode, transients in
heart and mind. They sing “Home, Sweet Home” in ragtime; they carry
their _lares et penates_ in a bandbox; their vine is entwined about a
picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig tree.

Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers,
should have a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but
it would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two in the
wake of all these vagrant guests.

One evening after dark a young man prowled among these crumbling red
mansions, ringing their bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean
hand-baggage upon the step and wiped the dust from his hatband and
forehead. The bell sounded faint and far away in some remote, hollow
depths.

To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a
housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that
had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy
with edible lodgers.

He asked if there was a room to let.

“Come in,” said the housekeeper. Her voice came from her throat; her
throat seemed lined with fur. “I have the third floor back, vacant
since a week back. Should you wish to look at it?”

The young man followed her up the stairs. A faint light from no
particular source mitigated the shadows of the halls. They trod
noiselessly upon a stair carpet that its own loom would have forsworn.
It seemed to have become vegetable; to have degenerated in that rank,
sunless air to lush lichen or spreading moss that grew in patches to
the staircase and was viscid under the foot like organic matter. At
each turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the wall. Perhaps plants
had once been set within them. If so they had died in that foul and
tainted air. It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but
it was not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them
forth in the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished
pit below.

“This is the room,” said the housekeeper, from her furry throat. “It’s
a nice room. It ain’t often vacant. I had some most elegant people in
it last summer—no trouble at all, and paid in advance to the minute.
The water’s at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney kept it three
months. They done a vaudeville sketch. Miss B’retta Sprowls—you may
have heard of her—Oh, that was just the stage names—right there over
the dresser is where the marriage certificate hung, framed. The gas is
here, and you see there is plenty of closet room. It’s a room everybody
likes. It never stays idle long.”

“Do you have many theatrical people rooming here?” asked the young man.

“They comes and goes. A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with
the theatres. Yes, sir, this is the theatrical district. Actor people
never stays long anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes and they
goes.”

He engaged the room, paying for a week in advance. He was tired, he
said, and would take possession at once. He counted out the money. The
room had been made ready, she said, even to towels and water. As the
housekeeper moved away he put, for the thousandth time, the question
that he carried at the end of his tongue.

“A young girl—Miss Vashner—Miss Eloise Vashner—do you remember such a
one among your lodgers? She would be singing on the stage, most likely.
A fair girl, of medium height and slender, with reddish, gold hair and
a dark mole near her left eyebrow.”

“No, I don’t remember the name. Them stage people has names they change
as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes. No, I don’t call
that one to mind.”

No. Always no. Five months of ceaseless interrogation and the
inevitable negative. So much time spent by day in questioning managers,
agents, schools and choruses; by night among the audiences of theatres
from all-star casts down to music halls so low that he dreaded to find
what he most hoped for. He who had loved her best had tried to find
her. He was sure that since her disappearance from home this great,
water-girt city held her somewhere, but it was like a monstrous
quicksand, shifting its particles constantly, with no foundation, its
upper granules of to-day buried to-morrow in ooze and slime.

The furnished room received its latest guest with a first glow of
pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome like the
specious smile of a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected
gleams from the decayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a
couch and two chairs, a foot-wide cheap pier glass between the two
windows, from one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead in a
corner.

The guest reclined, inert, upon a chair, while the room, confused in
speech as though it were an apartment in Babel, tried to discourse to
him of its divers tenantry.

A polychromatic rug like some brilliant-flowered rectangular, tropical
islet lay surrounded by a billowy sea of soiled matting. Upon the
gay-papered wall were those pictures that pursue the homeless one from
house to house—The Huguenot Lovers, The First Quarrel, The Wedding
Breakfast, Psyche at the Fountain. The mantel’s chastely severe outline
was ingloriously veiled behind some pert drapery drawn rakishly askew
like the sashes of the Amazonian ballet. Upon it was some desolate
flotsam cast aside by the room’s marooned when a lucky sail had borne
them to a fresh port—a trifling vase or two, pictures of actresses, a
medicine bottle, some stray cards out of a deck.

One by one, as the characters of a cryptograph become explicit, the
little signs left by the furnished room’s procession of guests
developed a significance. The threadbare space in the rug in front of
the dresser told that lovely woman had marched in the throng. Tiny
finger prints on the wall spoke of little prisoners trying to feel
their way to sun and air. A splattered stain, raying like the shadow of
a bursting bomb, witnessed where a hurled glass or bottle had
splintered with its contents against the wall. Across the pier glass
had been scrawled with a diamond in staggering letters the name
“Marie.” It seemed that the succession of dwellers in the furnished
room had turned in fury—perhaps tempted beyond forbearance by its
garish coldness—and wreaked upon it their passions. The furniture was
chipped and bruised; the couch, distorted by bursting springs, seemed a
horrible monster that had been slain during the stress of some
grotesque convulsion. Some more potent upheaval had cloven a great
slice from the marble mantel. Each plank in the floor owned its
particular cant and shriek as from a separate and individual agony. It
seemed incredible that all this malice and injury had been wrought upon
the room by those who had called it for a time their home; and yet it
may have been the cheated home instinct surviving blindly, the
resentful rage at false household gods that had kindled their wrath. A
hut that is our own we can sweep and adorn and cherish.

The young tenant in the chair allowed these thoughts to file,
soft-shod, through his mind, while there drifted into the room
furnished sounds and furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering
and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the monologue of a scold,
the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and one crying dully; above him a
banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains
roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he
breathed the breath of the house—a dank savour rather than a smell—a
cold, musty effluvium as from underground vaults mingled with the
reeking exhalations of linoleum and mildewed and rotten woodwork.

Then, suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the
strong, sweet odour of mignonette. It came as upon a single buffet of
wind with such sureness and fragrance and emphasis that it almost
seemed a living visitant. And the man cried aloud: “What, dear?” as if
he had been called, and sprang up and faced about. The rich odour clung
to him and wrapped him around. He reached out his arms for it, all his
senses for the time confused and commingled. How could one be
peremptorily called by an odour? Surely it must have been a sound. But,
was it not the sound that had touched, that had caressed him?

“She has been in this room,” he cried, and he sprang to wrest from it a
token, for he knew he would recognize the smallest thing that had
belonged to her or that she had touched. This enveloping scent of
mignonette, the odour that she had loved and made her own—whence came
it?

The room had been but carelessly set in order. Scattered upon the
flimsy dresser scarf were half a dozen hairpins—those discreet,
indistinguishable friends of womankind, feminine of gender, infinite of
mood and uncommunicative of tense. These he ignored, conscious of their
triumphant lack of identity. Ransacking the drawers of the dresser he
came upon a discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He pressed it to his
face. It was racy and insolent with heliotrope; he hurled it to the
floor. In another drawer he found odd buttons, a theatre programme, a
pawnbroker’s card, two lost marshmallows, a book on the divination of
dreams. In the last was a woman’s black satin hair bow, which halted
him, poised between ice and fire. But the black satin hair-bow also is
femininity’s demure, impersonal, common ornament, and tells no tales.

And then he traversed the room like a hound on the scent, skimming the
walls, considering the corners of the bulging matting on his hands and
knees, rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hangings, the
drunken cabinet in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive
that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, clinging
to him, wooing him, calling him so poignantly through the finer senses
that even his grosser ones became cognisant of the call. Once again he
answered loudly: “Yes, dear!” and turned, wild-eyed, to gaze on
vacancy, for he could not yet discern form and colour and love and
outstretched arms in the odour of mignonette. Oh, God! whence that
odour, and since when have odours had a voice to call? Thus he groped.

He burrowed in crevices and corners, and found corks and cigarettes.
These he passed in passive contempt. But once he found in a fold of the
matting a half-smoked cigar, and this he ground beneath his heel with a
green and trenchant oath. He sifted the room from end to end. He found
dreary and ignoble small records of many a peripatetic tenant; but of
her whom he sought, and who may have lodged there, and whose spirit
seemed to hover there, he found no trace.

And then he thought of the housekeeper.

He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to a door that showed a
crack of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement
as best he could.

“Will you tell me, madam,” he besought her, “who occupied the room I
have before I came?”

“Yes, sir. I can tell you again. ’Twas Sprowls and Mooney, as I said.
Miss B’retta Sprowls it was in the theatres, but Missis Mooney she was.
My house is well known for respectability. The marriage certificate
hung, framed, on a nail over—”

“What kind of a lady was Miss Sprowls—in looks, I mean?”

“Why, black-haired, sir, short, and stout, with a comical face. They
left a week ago Tuesday.”

“And before they occupied it?”

“Why, there was a single gentleman connected with the draying business.
He left owing me a week. Before him was Missis Crowder and her two
children, that stayed four months; and back of them was old Mr. Doyle,
whose sons paid for him. He kept the room six months. That goes back a
year, sir, and further I do not remember.”

He thanked her and crept back to his room. The room was dead. The
essence that had vivified it was gone. The perfume of mignonette had
departed. In its place was the old, stale odour of mouldy house
furniture, of atmosphere in storage.

The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat staring at the yellow,
singing gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the
sheets into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly
into every crevice around windows and door. When all was snug and taut
he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himself
gratefully upon the bed.


It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched
it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where
house-keepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.

“I rented out my third floor, back, this evening,” said Mrs. Purdy,
across a fine circle of foam. “A young man took it. He went up to bed
two hours ago.”

“Now, did ye, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am?” said Mrs. McCool, with intense
admiration. “You do be a wonder for rentin’ rooms of that kind. And did
ye tell him, then?” she concluded in a husky whisper, laden with
mystery.

“Rooms,” said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones, “are furnished for to
rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool.”

“’Tis right ye are, ma’am; ’tis by renting rooms we kape alive. Ye have
the rale sense for business, ma’am. There be many people will rayjict
the rentin’ of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dyin’
in the bed of it.”

“As you say, we has our living to be making,” remarked Mrs. Purdy.

“Yis, ma’am; ’tis true. ’Tis just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay
out the third floor, back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be
killin’ herself wid the gas—a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy,
ma’am.”

“She’d a-been called handsome, as you say,” said Mrs. Purdy, assenting
but critical, “but for that mole she had a-growin’ by her left eyebrow.
Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool.”




THE BRIEF DÉBUT OF TILDY


If you do not know Bogle’s Chop House and Family Restaurant it is your
loss. For if you are one of the fortunate ones who dine expensively you
should be interested to know how the other half consumes provisions.
And if you belong to the half to whom waiters’ checks are things of
moment, you should know Bogle’s, for there you get your money’s
worth—in quantity, at least.

Bogle’s is situated in that highway of _bourgeoisie_, that boulevard of
Brown-Jones-and-Robinson, Eighth Avenue. There are two rows of tables
in the room, six in each row. On each table is a caster-stand,
containing cruets of condiments and seasons. From the pepper cruet you
may shake a cloud of something tasteless and melancholy, like volcanic
dust. From the salt cruet you may expect nothing. Though a man should
extract a sanguinary stream from the pallid turnip, yet will his
prowess be balked when he comes to wrest salt from Bogle’s cruets. Also
upon each table stands the counterfeit of that benign sauce made “from
the recipe of a nobleman in India.”

At the cashier’s desk sits Bogle, cold, sordid, slow, smouldering, and
takes your money. Behind a mountain of toothpicks he makes your change,
files your check, and ejects at you, like a toad, a word about the
weather. Beyond a corroboration of his meteorological statement you
would better not venture. You are not Bogle’s friend; you are a fed,
transient customer, and you and he may not meet again until the blowing
of Gabriel’s dinner horn. So take your change and go—to the devil if
you like. There you have Bogle’s sentiments.

The needs of Bogle’s customers were supplied by two waitresses and a
Voice. One of the waitresses was named Aileen. She was tall, beautiful,
lively, gracious and learned in persiflage. Her other name? There was
no more necessity for another name at Bogle’s than there was for
finger-bowls.

The name of the other waitress was Tildy. Why do you suggest Matilda?
Please listen this time—Tildy—Tildy. Tildy was dumpy, plain-faced, and
too anxious to please to please. Repeat the last clause to yourself
once or twice, and make the acquaintance of the duplicate infinite.

The Voice at Bogle’s was invisible. It came from the kitchen, and did
not shine in the way of originality. It was a heathen Voice, and
contented itself with vain repetitions of exclamations emitted by the
waitresses concerning food.

Will it tire you to be told again that Aileen was beautiful? Had she
donned a few hundred dollars’ worth of clothes and joined the Easter
parade, and had you seen her, you would have hastened to say so
yourself.

The customers at Bogle’s were her slaves. Six tables full she could
wait upon at once. They who were in a hurry restrained their impatience
for the joy of merely gazing upon her swiftly moving, graceful figure.
They who had finished eating ate more that they might continue in the
light of her smiles. Every man there—and they were mostly men—tried to
make his impression upon her.

Aileen could successfully exchange repartee against a dozen at once.
And every smile that she sent forth lodged, like pellets from a
scatter-gun, in as many hearts. And all this while she would be
performing astounding feats with orders of pork and beans, pot roasts,
ham-and, sausage-and-the-wheats, and any quantity of things on the iron
and in the pan and straight up and on the side. With all this feasting
and flirting and merry exchange of wit Bogle’s came mighty near being a
salon, with Aileen for its Madame Récamier.

If the transients were entranced by the fascinating Aileen, the
regulars were her adorers. There was much rivalry among many of the
steady customers. Aileen could have had an engagement every evening. At
least twice a week some one took her to a theatre or to a dance. One
stout gentleman whom she and Tildy had privately christened “The Hog”
presented her with a turquoise ring. Another one known as “Freshy,” who
rode on the Traction Company’s repair wagon, was going to give her a
poodle as soon as his brother got the hauling contract in the Ninth.
And the man who always ate spareribs and spinach and said he was a
stock broker asked her to go to “Parsifal” with him.

“I don’t know where this place is,” said Aileen while talking it over
with Tildy, “but the wedding-ring’s got to be on before I put a stitch
into a travelling dress—ain’t that right? Well, I guess!”

But, Tildy!

In steaming, chattering, cabbage-scented Bogle’s there was almost a
heart tragedy. Tildy with the blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the
freckled skin, the bag-o’-meal figure, had never had an admirer. Not a
man followed her with his eyes when she went to and fro in the
restaurant save now and then when they glared with the beast-hunger for
food. None of them bantered her gaily to coquettish interchanges of
wit. None of them loudly “jollied” her of mornings as they did Aileen,
accusing her, when the eggs were slow in coming, of late hours in the
company of envied swains. No one had ever given her a turquoise ring or
invited her upon a voyage to mysterious, distant “Parsifal.”

Tildy was a good waitress, and the men tolerated her. They who sat at
her tables spoke to her briefly with quotations from the bill of fare;
and then raised their voices in honeyed and otherwise-flavoured
accents, eloquently addressed to the fair Aileen. They writhed in their
chairs to gaze around and over the impending form of Tildy, that
Aileen’s pulchritude might season and make ambrosia of their bacon and
eggs.

And Tildy was content to be the unwooed drudge if Aileen could receive
the flattery and the homage. The blunt nose was loyal to the short
Grecian. She was Aileen’s friend; and she was glad to see her rule
hearts and wean the attention of men from smoking pot-pie and lemon
meringue. But deep below our freckles and hay-coloured hair the
unhandsomest of us dream of a prince or a princess, not vicarious, but
coming to us alone.

There was a morning when Aileen tripped in to work with a slightly
bruised eye; and Tildy’s solicitude was almost enough to heal any
optic.

“Fresh guy,” explained Aileen, “last night as I was going home at
Twenty-third and Sixth. Sashayed up, so he did, and made a break. I
turned him down, cold, and he made a sneak; but followed me down to
Eighteenth, and tried his hot air again. Gee! but I slapped him a good
one, side of the face. Then he give me that eye. Does it look real
awful, Til? I should hate that Mr. Nicholson should see it when he
comes in for his tea and toast at ten.”

Tildy listened to the adventure with breathless admiration. No man had
ever tried to follow her. She was safe abroad at any hour of the
twenty-four. What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one
and black one’s eye for love!

Among the customers at Bogle’s was a young man named Seeders, who
worked in a laundry office. Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair,
and appeared to have been recently rough-dried and starched. He was too
diffident to aspire to Aileen’s notice; so he usually sat at one of
Tildy’s tables, where he devoted himself to silence and boiled
weakfish.

One day when Mr. Seeders came in to dinner he had been drinking beer.
There were only two or three customers in the restaurant. When Mr.
Seeders had finished his weakfish he got up, put his arm around Tildy’s
waist, kissed her loudly and impudently, walked out upon the street,
snapped his fingers in the direction of the laundry, and hied himself
to play pennies in the slot machines at the Amusement Arcade.

For a few moments Tildy stood petrified. Then she was aware of Aileen
shaking at her an arch forefinger, and saying:

“Why, Til, you naughty girl! Ain’t you getting to be awful, Miss
Slyboots! First thing I know you’ll be stealing some of my fellows. I
must keep an eye on you, my lady.”

Another thing dawned upon Tildy’s recovering wits. In a moment she had
advanced from a hopeless, lowly admirer to be an Eve-sister of the
potent Aileen. She herself was now a man-charmer, a mark for Cupid, a
Sabine who must be coy when the Romans were at their banquet boards.
Man had found her waist achievable and her lips desirable. The sudden
and amatory Seeders had, as it were, performed for her a miraculous
piece of one-day laundry work. He had taken the sackcloth of her
uncomeliness, had washed, dried, starched and ironed it, and returned
it to her sheer embroidered lawn—the robe of Venus herself.

The freckles on Tildy’s cheeks merged into a rosy flush. Now both Circe
and Psyche peeped from her brightened eyes. Not even Aileen herself had
been publicly embraced and kissed in the restaurant.

Tildy could not keep the delightful secret. When trade was slack she
went and stood at Bogle’s desk. Her eyes were shining; she tried not to
let her words sound proud and boastful.

“A gentleman insulted me to-day,” she said. “He hugged me around the
waist and kissed me.”

“That so?” said Bogle, cracking open his business armour. “After this
week you get a dollar a week more.”

At the next regular meal when Tildy set food before customers with whom
she had acquaintance she said to each of them modestly, as one whose
merit needed no bolstering:

“A gentleman insulted me to-day in the restaurant. He put his arm
around my waist and kissed me.”

The diners accepted the revelation in various ways—some incredulously,
some with congratulations; others turned upon her the stream of
badinage that had hitherto been directed at Aileen alone. And Tildy’s
heart swelled in her bosom, for she saw at last the towers of Romance
rise above the horizon of the grey plain in which she had for so long
travelled.

For two days Mr. Seeders came not again. During that time Tildy
established herself firmly as a woman to be wooed. She bought ribbons,
and arranged her hair like Aileen’s, and tightened her waist two
inches. She had a thrilling but delightful fear that Mr. Seeders would
rush in suddenly and shoot her with a pistol. He must have loved her
desperately; and impulsive lovers are always blindly jealous.

Even Aileen had not been shot at with a pistol. And then Tildy rather
hoped that he would not shoot at her, for she was always loyal to
Aileen; and she did not want to overshadow her friend.

At 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the third day Mr. Seeders came in.
There were no customers at the tables. At the back end of the
restaurant Tildy was refilling the mustard pots and Aileen was
quartering pies. Mr. Seeders walked back to where they stood.

Tildy looked up and saw him, gasped, and pressed the mustard spoon
against her heart. A red hair-bow was in her hair; she wore Venus’s
Eighth Avenue badge, the blue bead necklace with the swinging silver
symbolic heart.

Mr. Seeders was flushed and embarrassed. He plunged one hand into his
hip pocket and the other into a fresh pumpkin pie.

“Miss Tildy,” said he, “I want to apologise for what I done the other
evenin’. Tell you the truth, I was pretty well tanked up or I wouldn’t
of done it. I wouldn’t do no lady that a-way when I was sober. So I
hope, Miss Tildy, you’ll accept my ’pology, and believe that I wouldn’t
of done it if I’d known what I was doin’ and hadn’t of been drunk.”

With this handsome plea Mr. Seeders backed away, and departed, feeling
that reparation had been made.

But behind the convenient screen Tildy had thrown herself flat upon a
table among the butter chips and the coffee cups, and was sobbing her
heart out—out and back again to the grey plain wherein travel they with
blunt noses and hay-coloured hair. From her knot she had torn the red
hair-bow and cast it upon the floor. Seeders she despised utterly; she
had but taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic prince who
might have set the clocks going and the pages to running in fairyland.
But the kiss had been maudlin and unmeant; the court had not stirred at
the false alarm; she must forevermore remain the Sleeping Beauty.

Yet not all was lost. Aileen’s arm was around her; and Tildy’s red hand
groped among the butter chips till it found the warm clasp of her
friend’s.

“Don’t you fret, Til,” said Aileen, who did not understand entirely.
“That turnip-faced little clothespin of a Seeders ain’t worth it. He
ain’t anything of a gentleman or he wouldn’t ever of apologised.”



archive.org
<http://www.archive.org/details/onceontime00miln> and
edited by Padraig O hIceadha.









Transcriber's Note:

This text was typed for Project Gutenberg by K Hindall
<kkh2_AT_cornell.edu> from a PDF at archive.org
<http://www.archive.org/details/onceontime00miln> and edited by
Padraig O hIceadha.




ONCE ON A TIME

_By_

A.A. Milne



DECORATED

BY CHARLES

ROBINSON



GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers           New York

By Arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons




Copyright, 1922

by

A. A. Milne



PREFACE

This book was written in 1915, for the amusement of my wife and myself
at a time when life was not very amusing; it was published at the end
of 1917; was reviewed, if at all, as one of a parcel, by some brisk
uncle from the Tiny Tots Department; and died quietly, without
seriously detracting from the interest which was being taken in the
World War, then in progress.

It may be that the circumstances in which the book was written have
made me unduly fond of it.  When, as sometimes happens, I am
introduced to a stranger who starts the conversation on the right
lines by praising, however insincerely, my books, I always say, "But
you have not read the best one." Nine times out of ten it is so.  The
tenth takes a place in the family calendar; St. Michael or St. Agatha,
as the case may be, a red-letter or black-letter saint, according to
whether the book was bought or borrowed.  But there are few such
saints, and both my publisher and I have the feeling (so common to
publishers and authors) that there ought to be more.  So here comes
the book again, in a new dress, with new decorations, yet much, as far
as I am concerned, the same book, making the same appeal to me; but,
let us hope, a new appeal, this time, to others.

For whom, then, is the book intended?  That is the trouble.  Unless I
can say, "For those, young or old, who like the things which I like,"
I find it difficult to answer.  Is it a children's book?  Well, what
do we mean by that?  Is _The Wind in the Willows_ a children's book?
Is _Alice in Wonderland?_  Is _Treasure Island?_  These are
masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how
much more pleasure when we are grown-up.  In any case what do we mean
by "children"?  A boy of three, a girl of six, a boy of ten, a girl of
fourteen--are they all to like the same thing?  And is a book
"suitable for a boy of twelve" any more likely to please a boy of
twelve than a modern novel is likely to please a man of thirty-seven;
even if the novel be described truly as "suitable for a man of
thirty-seven"?  I confess that I cannot grapple with these difficult
problems.

But I am very sure of this: that no one can write a book which
children will like, unless he write it for himself first.  That being
so, I shall say boldly that this is a story for grown-ups.  How
grown-up I did not realise until I received a letter from an unknown
reader a few weeks after its first publication; a letter which said
that he was delighted with my clever satires of the Kaiser, Mr. Lloyd
George and Mr. Asquith, but he could not be sure which of the
characters were meant to be Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Bonar Law.
Would I tell him on the enclosed postcard?  I replied that they were
thinly disguised on the title-page as Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton.  In
fact, it is not that sort of book.

But, as you see, I am still finding it difficult to explain just what
sort of book it is.  Perhaps no explanation is necessary.  Read in it
what you like; read it to whomever you like; be of what age you like;
it can only fall into one of two classes.  Either you will enjoy it,
or you won't.

It is that sort of book.

A. A. Milne.



CONTENTS

I.--The King of Euralia has a Visitor to Breakfast

II.--The Chancellor of Barodia has a Long Walk Home

III.--The King of Euralia Draws his Sword

IV.--The Princess Hyacinth Leaves it to the Countess

V.--Belvane Indulges her Hobby

VI.--There are no Wizards in Barodia

VII.--The Princess Receives a Letter and Writes One

VIII.--Prince Udo Sleeps Badly

IX.--They are Afraid of Udo

X.--Charlotte Patacake Astonishes the Critics

XI.--Watercress Seems to go with the Ears

XII.--We Decide to Write to Udo's Father

XIII.--"Pink" Rhymes with "Think"

XIV.--"Why Can't you be like Wiggs?"

XV.--There is a Lover Waiting for Hyacinth

XVI.--Belvane Enjoys Herself

XVII.--The King of Barodia Drops the Whisker Habit

XVIII.--The Veteran of the Forest Entertains Two Very Young People

XIX.--Udo Behaves Like a Gentleman

XX.--Coronel Knows a Good Story when he Hears it

XXI.--A Serpent Coming after Udo

XXII.--The Seventeen Volumes go back Again



ILLUSTRATIONS

A Map of Euralia showing the Adjacent Country of Barodia and the
far-distant Araby

He was a Man of Simple Tastes

"Most extraordinary," said the King

He found the King nursing a Bent Whisker and in the very Vilest of
Tempers

"Try it on me," cried the Countess

Five Times he had come back to give her his Last Instructions

Armed to the Teeth, Amazon after Amazon marched by

When the Respective Armies returned to Camp they found Their Majesties
asleep

The Rabbit was gone, and there was a Fairy in front of her

As Evening fell they came to a Woodman's Cottage at the Foot of a High
Hill

"Coronel, here I am," said Udo pathetically, and he stepped out

Twenty-one Minutes later Henrietta Crossbuns was acknowledging a Bag
of Gold

Princess Hyacinth gave a Shriek and faltered slowly backwards

"Now we can talk," said Hyacinth

He forgot his Manners, and made a Jump towards her

She glided gracefully behind the Sundial in a Pretty Affectation of
Alarm

When anybody of Superior Station or Age came into the Room she rose
and curtsied

And then she danced

"Good Morning," said Belvane

The Tent seemed to swim before his Eyes, and he knew no more

She turned round and went off daintily down the Hill

Let me present to you my friend the Duke Coronel

As the Towers of the Castle came in sight, Merriwig drew a Deep Breath
of Happiness

Belvane leading the Way with her Finger to her Lips

Merriwig following with an Exaggerated Caution

He was a Pleasant-looking Person, with a Round Clean-shaven Face

Roger Scurvilegs



[Frontispiece: A Map of Euralia showing the Adjacent Country of
Barodia and the far-distant Araby]



CHAPTER I

THE KING OF EURALIA HAS A VISITOR TO BREAKFAST

[Illustration: _He was a Man of Simple Tastes_]

King Merriwig of Euralia sat at breakfast on his castle walls.  He
lifted the gold cover from the gold dish in front of him, selected a
trout and conveyed it carefully to his gold plate.  He was a man of
simple tastes, but when you have an aunt with the newly acquired gift
of turning anything she touches to gold, you must let her practise
sometimes.  In another age it might have been fretwork.

"Ah," said the King, "here you are, my dear."  He searched for his
napkin, but the Princess had already kissed him lightly on the top of
the head, and was sitting in her place opposite to him.

"Good morning, Father," she said; "I'm a little late, aren't I?  I've
been riding in the forest."

"Any adventures?" asked the King casually.

"Nothing, except it's a beautiful morning."

"Ah, well, perhaps the country isn't what it was.  Now when I was a
young man, you simply couldn't go into the forest without an adventure
of some sort.  The extraordinary things one encountered!  Witches,
giants, dwarfs----.  It was there that I first met your mother," he
added thoughtfully.

"I wish I remembered my mother," said Hyacinth.

The King coughed and looked at her a little nervously.

"Seventeen years ago she died, Hyacinth, when you were only six months
old.  I have been wondering lately whether I haven't been a little
remiss in leaving you motherless so long."

The Princess looked puzzled.  "But it wasn't your fault, dear, that
mother died."

"Oh, no, no, I'm not saying that.  As you know, a dragon carried her
off and--well, there it was.  But supposing"--he looked at her
shyly--"I had married again."

The Princess was startled.

"Who?" she asked.

The King peered into his flagon.  "Well," he said, "there _are_
people."

"If it had been somebody _very_ nice," said the Princess wistfully,
"it might have been rather lovely."

The King gazed earnestly at the outside of his flagon.

"Why 'might have been?'" he said.

The Princess was still puzzled.  "But I'm grown up," she said; "I
don't want a mother so much now."

The King turned his flagon round and studied the other side of it.

"A mother's--er--tender hand," he said, "is--er--never----" and then
the outrageous thing happened.

It was all because of a birthday present to the King of Barodia, and
the present was nothing less than a pair of seven-league boots.  The
King being a busy man, it was a week or more before he had an
opportunity of trying those boots. Meanwhile he used to talk about
them at meals, and he would polish them up every night before he went
to bed.  When the great day came for the first trial of them to be
made, he took a patronising farewell of his wife and family, ignored
the many eager noses pressed against the upper windows of the Palace,
and sailed off.  The motion, as perhaps you know, is a little
disquieting at first, but one soon gets used to it.  After that it is
fascinating. He had gone some two thousand miles before he realised
that there might be a difficulty about finding his way back.  The
difficulty proved at least as great as he had anticipated. For the
rest of that day he toured backwards and forwards across the country;
and it was by the merest accident that a very angry King shot in
through an open pantry window in the early hours of the morning.  He
removed his boots and went softly to bed. . . .

It was, of course, a lesson to him.  He decided that in the future he
must proceed by a recognised route, sailing lightly from landmark to
landmark.  Such a route his Geographers prepared for him--an early
morning constitutional, of three hundred miles or so, to be taken ten
times before breakfast.  He gave himself a week in which to recover
his nerve and then started out on the first of them.

[Illustration: _"Most extraordinary," said the King_]

Now the Kingdom of Euralia adjoined that of Barodia, but whereas
Barodia was a flat country, Euralia was a land of hills.  It was
natural then that the Court Geographers, in search of landmarks,
should have looked towards Euralia; and over Euralia accordingly,
about the time when cottage and castle alike were breakfasting, the
King of Barodia soared and dipped and soared and dipped again.

     * * * * *

"A mother's tender hand," said the King of Euralia,
"is--er--never--good gracious!  What's that?"

There was a sudden rush of air; something came for a moment between
his Majesty and the sun; and then all was quiet again.

"What was it?" asked Hyacinth, slightly alarmed.

"Most extraordinary," said the King.  "It left in my mind an
impression of ginger whiskers and large boots.  Do we know anybody
like that?"

"The King of Barodia," said Hyacinth, "has red whiskers, but I don't
know about his boots."

"But what could he have been doing up there?  Unless----"

There was another rush of wind in the opposite direction; once more
the sun was obscured, and this time, plain for a moment for all to
see, appeared the rapidly dwindling back view of the King of Barodia
on his way home to breakfast.

Merriwig rose with dignity.

"You're quite right, Hyacinth," he said sternly; "it _was_ the King of
Barodia."

Hyacinth looked troubled.

"He oughtn't to come over anybody's breakfast table quite so quickly
as that.  Ought he, Father?"

"A lamentable display of manners, my dear.  I shall withdraw now and
compose a stiff note to him.  The amenities must be observed."

Looking as severe as a naturally jovial face would permit him, and
wondering a little if he had pronounced "amenities" right, he strode
to the library.

The library was his Majesty's favourite apartment.  Here in the
mornings he would discuss affairs of state with his Chancellor, or
receive any distinguished visitors who were to come to his kingdom in
search of adventure.  Here in the afternoon, with a copy of _What to
say to a Wizard_ or some such book taken at random from the shelves,
he would give himself up to meditation.

And it was the distinguished visitors of the morning who gave him most
to think about in the afternoon.  There were at this moment no fewer
than seven different Princes engaged upon seven different enterprises,
to whom, in the event of a successful conclusion, he had promised the
hand of Hyacinth and half his kingdom.  No wonder he felt that she
needed the guiding hand of a mother.

The stiff note to Barodia was not destined to be written.  He was
still hesitating between two different kinds of nib, when the door was
flung open and the fateful name of the Countess Belvane was announced.

The Countess Belvane!  What can I say which will bring home to you
that wonderful, terrible, fascinating woman? Mastered as she was by
overweening ambition, utterly unscrupulous in her methods of achieving
her purpose, none the less her adorable humanity betrayed itself in a
passion for diary-keeping and a devotion to the simpler forms of
lyrical verse.  That she is the villain of the piece I know well; in
his _Euralia Past and Present_ the eminent historian, Roger
Scurvilegs, does not spare her; but that she had her great qualities I
should be the last to deny.

She had been writing poetry that morning, and she wore green.  She
always wore green when the Muse was upon her: a pleasing habit which,
whether as a warning or an inspiration, modern poets might do well to
imitate.  She carried an enormous diary under her arm; and in her mind
several alternative ways of putting down her reflections on her way to
the Palace.

"Good morning, dear Countess," said the King, rising only too gladly
from his nibs; "an early visit."

"You don't mind, your Majesty?" said the Countess anxiously.  "There
was a point in our conversation yesterday about which I was not quite
certain----"

"What _were_ we talking about yesterday?"

"Oh, your Majesty," said the Countess, "affairs of state," and she
gave him that wicked, innocent, impudent, and entirely scandalous look
which he never could resist, and you couldn't either for that matter.

"Affairs of state, of course," smiled the King.

"Why, I made a special note of it in my diary."

She laid down the enormous volume and turned lightly over the pages.

"Here we are! '_Thursday._  His Majesty did me the honour to consult
me about the future of his daughter, the Princess Hyacinth.  Remained
to tea and was very----'  I can't quite make this word out."

"Let _me_ look," said the King, his rubicund face becoming yet more
rubicund.  "It looks like 'charming,'" he said casually.

"Fancy!" said Belvane.  "Fancy my writing that!  I put down just what
comes into my head at the time, you know."  She made a gesture with
her hand indicative of some one who puts down just what comes into her
head at the time, and returned to her diary.  "'Remained to tea, and
was very charming.  Mused afterwards on the mutability of life!'" She
looked up at him with wide-open eyes.  "I often muse when I'm alone,"
she said.

The King still hovered over the diary.

"Have you any more entries like--like that last one?  May I look?"

"Oh, your Majesty!  I'm afraid it's _quite_ private."  She closed the
book quickly.

"I just thought I saw some poetry," said the King.

"Just a little ode to a favourite linnet.  It wouldn't interest your
Majesty."

"I adore poetry," said the King, who had himself written a rhymed
couplet which could be said either forwards or backwards, and in the
latter position was useful for removing enchantments.  According to
the eminent historian, Roger Scurvilegs, it had some vogue in Euralia
and went like this:

          "_Bo, boll, bill, bole._

But fortunately for women, Infidels are more numerous than they ever
were before, and the power of the Church is dying of dry rot, or as Col.
Ingersoll wittily says, of the combined influence of softening of the
brain and ossification of the heart.




Appendix O.

"St. Gregory the Great describes the virtue of a priest, _who through
motives of piety had discarded his wife_... Their wives, in _immense
numbers_, were driven forth with hatred and with scorn... Pope Urban II.
_gave license_ to the nobles _to reduce to slavery the wives_ of priests
who refused to abandon them."--Lecky.




Appendix P.

1. "Hallam denies that respect for women is due to Christianity.
"--Buckle.

2. "In England, wives are still occasionally led to the market by
a halter around the neck to be sold by the husband to the highest
bidder."--Ibid.

"The sale of a wife with a halter around her neck is still a legal
transaction in England. The sale must be made in the cattle market, as
if she were a mare, all women being considered as mares by old English
law, and indeed _called_ 'mares' in certain counties where genuine old
English law is still preserved."--Borrow.

3. "Contempt for woman, _the result of clerical teaching_, is shown in
myriad forms."--Gage.

4. "The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself,
_and is now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement_."--John
Stuart Mill.

5. "I have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine,
that what is mine is yours, but what is yours is not mine; and I should
prefer to decline entering into such a compact with anyone, _though I
were myself_ the person to profit by it."--Ibid.

It will take a long time for that sort of morality to filter into the
skull of the Church, and when it does the skull will burst.

6. "Certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes invented, in
order to intimidate the masses. Hence the Church made free thought the
worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of blasphemies.... As
late as the time of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit
was obedience to the temporal power.... All these influences fell with
crushing weight on woman."--_Matilda Joslyn Gage_ in "Hist. Woman
Suffrage."

7. "Taught that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she
has been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition,
and to glory in her own degradation... Such was the prejudice against a
liberal education for woman, that the first public examination of a girl
in geometry (1829) created as bitter a storm of ridicule as has since
assailed women who have entered the law, the pulpit, or the medical
profession."--Ibid.




Appendix Q.

1. "The five writers to whose genius we owe the first attempt at
comprehensive views of history were Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Hume, and Gibbon. Of these the second was but a cold believer in
Christianity, if, indeed, he believed in it at all; and the other four
were avowed and notorious infidels."--Buckle.

2 "Here, then, we have the starting-point of progress--_scepticism_....
All, therefore, that men want is _no hindrance_ from their political and
religious rulers.... Until common minds doubt respecting religion they
can never receive any new scientific conclusion at variance with it--as
Joshua and Copernicus."--Ibid.

3. "The immortal work of Gibbon, of which the sagacity is, if possible,
equal to the learning, did find readers, but the illustrious author
was so cruelly reviled by men who called themselves Christians, that
it seemed doubtful if, after such an example, subsequent writers would
hazard their comfort and happiness by attempting to write philosophic
history. Middleton wrote in 1750.... As long as the theological spirit
was alive nothing could be effected."--Ibid.

4. "The questions which presented themselves to the acuter minds of a
hundred years ago were present to the acuter minds who lived hundreds
of years before that.... But the Church had known how to deal with
intellectual insurgents, from Abelard in the twelfth century down to
Bruno and Vanini in the seventeenth. They were isolated, and for the
most part submissive; and _if they were not_, the arm of the Church was
very long and her grasp mortal.... They [the thinkers] could have taught
Europe _earlier than the Church allowed it to learn_, that the sun does
not go round the earth, and that it is the earth which goes round the
sun.... After the middle of the last century the insurrection against
the pretensions of the Church and against the doctrines of Christianity
was marked in one of its most important phases by a new, and most
significant, feature.... It was an advance both in knowledge and
in moral motive.... The philosophical movement was represented by
"Diderot" [leading the Encyclopaedist circle.]... Broadly stated the
great central moral of it was this: that human nature is good, that the
world is capable of being made a desirable abiding-place, and that the
evil of the world _is the fruit of bad education and bad institutions_.
This cheerful doctrine now strikes on the ear as a commonplace and a
truism. A hundred years ago in France it was a wonderful gospel, _and
the beginning of a new dispensation.... Into what fresh and unwelcome
sunlight it brought the articles of the old theology... Every social
improvement since has been the outcome of that new doctrine in one form
or another_.... The teaching of the Church paints men as fallen and
depraved. The deadly chagrin with which churchmen saw the new fabric
rising was very natural.... The new secular knowledge clashed at
a thousand points, alike in letter and spirit, with the old sacred
lore.... A hundred years ago this perception was vague and indefinite,
but there was an unmistakable apprehension that _the Catholic ideal
of womanhood_ was no more adequate to the facts of life, than Catholic
views about science, or popery, or labor, or political order and
authority."--Morley.

And it took the rising infidels to discover the fact. See Morley,
"Diderot," p. 76.

"The greatest fact in the intellectual history of the eighteenth century
is the decisive revolution that overtook the sustaining conviction of
the Church. The central conception, that the universe was called into
existence only to further its Creator's purpose toward man, became
incredible (by the light of the new thought). What seems to careless
observers a mere metaphysical dispute was in truth, _and still is, the
decisive quarter of the great battle between theology and a philosophy
reconcilable with science_."--Morley.

"The man _who ventured to use his mind_ [Diderot] was thrown into the
dungeon at Vincennes."--Ibid.

5. "Those thinkers [Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot] taught men to
reason; reasoning well leads to acting well; justness in the mind
becomes justice in the heart. Those toilers for progress labored
usefully.... The French Revolution was their soul. It was their radiant
manifestation. It came from them; we find them everywhere in that blest
and superb catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past and the
opening of the future.... The new society, the desire for equality
and concession, and that beginning of fraternity which called itself
tolerance, reciprocal good-will, the just accord of men and rights,
reason recognized as the supreme law, the annihilation of prejudices and
fixed opinions, the serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of
pardon, harmony, peace--behold what has come from them!"--Victor Hugo,
"Oration on Voltaire."




Appendix R.

"He [Mohammed] promulgated a mass of fables, which he pretended to
have received from heaven.... After enjoying for _twenty years_ a
power without bounds, and _of which there exists no other example_, he
announced publicly, that, if he had committed any act of injustice,
he was ready to make reparation. All were silent.... He died; and the
enthusiasm which he communicated to his people will be seen to change
the face of three-quarters of the globe.... I shall add that the
religion of Mohammed is the most simple in its dogmas, the least
absurd in its practices, above all others tolerant in its
principles."--_Condorcet_.




Appendix S.

The claim is so often and so boldly made that Infidelity produces crime,
and that Christianity, or belief, or faith, makes people good, that the
following statistics usually produce a rather chilly sensation in the
believer when presented in the midst of an argument based upon the above
mentioned claim. I have used it with effect. The person upon whom it
is used will never offer that argument to you again. The following
statistics were taken from the British Parliamentary reports, made on
the instance of Sir John Trelawney, in 1873:

ENGLAND AND WALES.

Criminals in England and Wales in 1873.................... 146,146


SECTARIAN AND INFIDEL POPULATION OF THE SAME.

Church of England...............................................
6,933,935

Dissenters............................................................
7,235,158

Catholics..............................................................
1,500,000


Jews....................................................................
57,000


Infidels................................................................
7,000,000


RELIGIOUS PERSUASIONS OF CRIMINALS OF THE SAME.

Church of England.............................................. 96,097

Catholics..............................................................
35,581

Dissenters............................................................
10,648

Jews...................................................................
256


Infidels................................................................
296


CRIMINALS TO 100,000 POPULATION.

Catholics..............................................................
2,500

Church of England............................................... 1,400

Dissenters............................................................
150


Infidels................................................................
5


These statistics are taken from the report of the British Parliament,
which, for learning and intelligence, as a deliberative body, has not
its superior, if it has its equal, in the world, and it is surely a
sufficiently Christian body to be accepted as authority in this matter,
since a large number of its members are clergymen. These statistics
hardly sustain the allegation that "Infidelity is coupled with
impurity."

We are willing to stand upon our record. But, lest it be claimed that
this is a British peculiarity, allow me to defer to the patriotic
sentiment of my readers by one other little set of tables which, while
not complete, is equally as suggestive.

"In sixty-six different prisons, jails, reformatories, refuges,
penitentiaries, and lock-ups there were, for the years given in reports,
41,335 men and boys, women and girls, of the following religious sects:


Catholics..................................................................
16,431

Church of England....................................................
9,975

Eighteen other Protestant denominations.................... 14,811


Universalists.............................................................
5

Jews, Chinese, and Mormons..................................... 110

Infidels (two so-called, one avowed)............................ 3


"These included the prisons of Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee, New York,
Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and Canada."

Present these two tables to those who assure you that crime follows in
the wake of Infidelity, and you will have time to take a comfortable nap
before your Christian friend returns to the attack or braces up after
the shock sustained by his sentiments and inflicted by these two small
but truly suggestive tables.

One cold fact like this will inoculate one of the faithful with more
modesty than an hour of usual argument based upon the assumptions of the
clergy and the ignorance of his hearers.

Infidels are not perfect. Many of them need reconstruction sadly, but
the above data seem to indicate that they compare rather favorably with
their fellow-men in the matter of good citizenship.




Appendix T.

"Moreover, as Goethe has already shown, the celebrated Mosaic moral
precepts, the so-called Ten Commandments, were _not_ upon the tables
upon which Moses wrote the laws of the covenant which God made with his
people.

"Even the extraordinary diversity of the many religions diffused over
the surface of the earth suffices to show that they can stand in no
necessary connection with morals, as it is well known that wherever
tolerably well-ordered political and social conditions exist, the moral
precepts in their essential principles are the same, whilst when such
conditions are wanting, a wild and irregular confusion, or even an
entire deficiency of moral notions is met with.* History also shows
incontrovertibly that religion and morality have by no means gone hand
in hand in strength and development, but that even contrariwise the
most religious times and countries have produced the greatest number
of crimes and sins against the laws of morality, and indeed, as daily
experience teaches, still produce them. The history of nearly all
religions is filled with such horrible abominations, massacres, and
boundless wickednesses of every kind that at the mere recollection of
them the heart of a philanthropist seems to stand still, and we turn
with disgust and horror from a mental aberration which could produce
such deeds. If it is urged in vindication of religion that it has
advanced and elevated human civilization, even this merit appears very
doubtful in presence of the facts of history, and at least as very
rarely or isolatedly the case. In general, however, it cannot be denied
that most systems of religion have proved rather inimical than friendly
to civilization. For religion, as already stated, tolerates no doubt, no
discussion, no contradiction, no investigations, those eternal pioneers
of the future of science and intellect! Even the simple circumstance
that our present state of culture has already long since left far
behind it all and even the highest intellectual ideals established and
elaborated by former religions may show how little intellectual progress
is influenced by religion. Mankind is perpetually being thrown to and
fro between science, and religion, but it advances moro intellectually,
morally and physically in proportion as it turns away from religion and
to science.

     * "In China, where people are, as is well-known, very
     indifferent or tolerant in religious matters, this fine
     proverb is current: Religions are various, but reason is
     one, and we are all brothers.'"

"It is therefore clear that for our present age and for the future a
foundation must be sought and found for culture and morality, different
from that which can be furnished to us by religion. It is not the fear
of God that acts amelioratingly or ennoblingly upon manners, of which
the middle ages furnish us with a striking proof; but the ennobling of
the conception of the world in general which goes hand in hand with
the advance of civilization. Let us then give up making a show of the
profession of hypocritical words of faith, the only purpose of which
seems to be that they may be continually shown to be lies by the actions
and deeds of their professors! The man of the future will feel far more
happy and contented when he has not to contend at every step of his
intellectual forward development with those tormenting contradictions
between knowledge and faith which plague his youth, and occupy his
mature age unnecessarily with the slow renunciation of the notions which
he imbibed in his youth. What we sacrifice to God, we take away from
mankind, and absorb a great part of his best intellectual powers in
the pursuit of an unattainable goal. At any rate, the least that we can
expect in this respect from the state and society of the future is a
complete separation between ecclesiastical and worldly affairs, or
an absolute emancipation of the state and the school from every
ecclesiastical influence.

"Education must be founded upon _knowledge_, not upon _faith_; and
religion itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious
history and as an objective or scientific exposition of the different
religious systems prevailing among mankind. Any one who, after such an
education, still experiences the need of a definite law or rule of faith
may then attach himself to any religious sect that may seem good to him,
but cannot claim that the community should bear the cost of this special
fancy!

"As regards Christianity, or the _Paulinism_ which is falsely called
Christianity, it stands, by its dogmatic portion or contents, in such
striking and irreconcilable, nay absolutely absurd contradiction with
all the acquisitions and principles of modern science that its future
tragical fate can only be a question of time. But even its ethical
contents or its moral principles are in no way essentially distinguished
above those of other peoples, and were equally well and in part better
known to mankind even _before_ its appearance. Not only in this respect,
but also in its supposed character as the _world-religion_, it is
excelled by the much older and probably most widely diffused religious
system in the world, the celebrated _Buddhism_, which recognizes
neither the idea of a personal God, nor that of a personal duration,
and nevertheless teaches an extremely pure, amiable, and even ascetic
morality. The doctrine of Zoroaster or Zarathrustra also, 1800 years
B. C, taught the principles of humanity and toleration for those of
different modes of thinking in a manner and purity which were unknown
to the Semitic religions and especially to Christianity. Christianity
originated and spread, as is well-known, at a time of general decline
of manners, and of very great moral and national corruption; and its
extraordinary success must be partly explained by the prevalence of a
sort of intellectual and moral disease which had overpowered the
spirits of men after the fall of the ancient civilization and under
the demoralizing influence of the gradual collapse of the great Roman
empire. But even at that time those who stood intellectually high and
looked deeply into things recognized the whole danger of this new turn
of mind, and it is very remarkable that the best and most benevolent of
the Roman emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius, Julian, etc., were the most
zealous persecutors of Christianity, whilst it was tolerated by the
bad ones, such as Commodus, Heliogabalus, etc. When it had gradually
attained the superiority, one of its first sins against intellectual
progress consisted in the destruction by Christian fanaticism of the
celebrated Library of Alexandria, which contained all the intellectual
treasures of antiquity--an incalculable loss to science, which can never
be replaced. It is usually asserted in praise of Christianity that in
the middle ages the Christian monasteries were the preservers of science
and literature, but even this is correct only in a very limited sense,
since boundless ignorance and rudeness generally prevailed in the
monasteries, and innumerable ecclesiastics could not even read. Valuable
literary treasures on parchment contained in the libraries of the
monasteries were destroyed, the monks when they wanted money selling the
books as parchment, or tearing out the leaves and writing psalms upon
them. Frequently they entirely effaced the ancient classics, to make
room for their foolish legends and homilies; nay, the reading of the
classics, such as Aristotle for example, was directly forbidden by papal
decrees.

"In New Spain Christian fanaticism immediately destroyed whatever of
arts and civilization existed among the natives, and that this was not
inconsiderable is shown by the numerous monuments now in ruins which
place beyond a doubt the former existence of a tolerably high degree of
culture. But in the place of this not a trace of Christian civilization
is now to be observed among the existing Indians, and the resident
Catholic clergy keep the Indians purposely in a state of the greatest
ignorance and stupidity (see Richthofen, Die Zustande der Republic
Mexico, Berlin, 1854).

"Thus Christianity has always acted consistently in accordance with the
principles of one of the fathers of the Church, Tertullian, who says:
'_Desire of knowledge is no longer necessary since Jesus Christ, nor is
investigation necessary since the Gospel._' If the civilization of the
European and especially of Christian Nations has notwithstanding made
such enormous progress in the course of centuries, an unprejudiced
consideration of history can only tell us that this has taken place not
by means of Christianity, but in spite of it. And this is a sufficient
indication to what an extent this civilization must still be capable
of development when once it shall be completely freed from the narrow
bounds of old superstitious and religious embarrassments!"

"We must therefore endeavor to form convictions which are not to stand
once and for all, as philosophers and theologians usually do, but such
as may change and become improved with the advance of knowledge. Whoever
does not recognize this and gives himself up once for all to a belief
which he regards as final truth, whether it be of a theological or
philosophical kind, is of course incapable of accepting a conviction
supported upon scientific grounds. Unfortunately our whole education is
founded upon an early systematic curbing and fettering of the intellect
in the direction of dogmatic (philosophical or theological) doctrines of
faith, and only a comparatively small number of strong minds succeed
in after years in freeing themselves by their own powers from these
fetters, whilst the majority remain captive in the accustomed bonds and
form their judgment in accordance with the celebrated saying of Bishop
Berkeley: 'Few men think; but all will have opinions.'"--Buchner, "Man
in the Past, Present, and Future."




Appendix U.

"And here it may be remarked, once for all, that no man who has
subscribed to creeds and formulas, whether in theology or philosophy,
can be an unbiased investigator of the truth or an unprejudiced judge
of the opinions of others. His sworn preconceptions warping his
discernment, adherence to his sect or party engenders intolerance to the
honest convictions of other inquirer? Beliefs we may and must have,
but a belief to be changed with new and advancing knowledge impedes no
progress, while a creed subscribed to as _ultimate truth, and sworn
to be defended_, not only puts a bar to further research, but as a
consequence throws the odium of distrust on all that may seem to oppose
it.

"Even when such odium cannot deter, it annoys and irritates; hence the
frequent unwillingness of men of science to come prominently forward
with the avowal of their beliefs.

"It is time this delicacy were thrown aside, and such theologians
plainly told that the skepticism and Infidelity--if skepticism and
Infidelity there be--lies all on their own side.

"There is no skepticism so offensive as that which doubts the facts of
honest and careful observation; no Infidelity so gross as that which
disbelieves the deductions of competent and unbiased judgments."--David
Page, "Man," etc., Edinburgh, 1867.




Appendix V.

Since I have recorded this incident of my lecture in Chicago, it is
peculiarly fitting and pleasant to be able to give the following
extract from the review of the first edition of this book printed in the
_Chicago Times_. No great daily paper would have dared to print such a
comment a few years ago. To-day it is stated as a matter quite beyond
controversy:

"She takes considerable pains to show _what one would think
need scarcely be insisted upon in our day_, that the morals of
civilization--morals in general, indeed--are not at all based in or
dependent upon religion, certainly not on Christianity, since the
so-called 'golden rule' the highest principle of morality, antedates
Christianity a thousand years."




ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY AND OTHERS.

Up to the present time I have tried to reply personally to each one
who has favored me with a letter of thanks, criticism, or praise of the
little book, "Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures," just published,
but I find that if I continue to do this I shall have but little time
for anything else.

The very unexpected welcome which the book has received prompts me to
take this plan and means of replying to many who have honored me by
writing me personal letters. First, permit me to thank those who have
written letters of praise and gratitude, and to say that, although I may
be unable to reply in a private letter, I am not indifferent to these
evidences of your interest, and am greatly helped in my work by your
sympathy and encouragement. I have also received most courteous letters
from various clergymen who, disagreeing with me, desire to convert me
either by mail or personal (private) interviews.

It is wholly impossible for me to grant these requests, since my time
and strength are demanded in other work, but I wish to say here what I
have written to several of my clerical correspondents, and desire to say
to them all.

Although I cannot enter into private correspondence with, nor grant
personal interviews to, such a number of your body, I am entirely
willing to respond in a public way to any replies to my arguments which
come under the following conditions:

1. On page fourteen of the introduction to my book Col. Ingersoll says:
"No human being can answer her arguments. There is no answer. All the
priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. There is no
explanation. They should remain dumb unless they can show that the
impossible is the probable, that slavery is better than freedom, that
polygamy is the friend of woman, that the innocent can justly suffer for
the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love
and worship."

Now, whenever any one of these gentlemen who wish to convert me will
show that the Colonel is wrong in this brief paragraph; whenever they
will, in print or in public, refute the arguments to which he refers,
and to which they object, I shall not be slow to respond.

2. It must be argument, not personal abuse, and it must be conducted in
a courteous manner and tone.

3. It must proceed upon the basis that I am as honest, as earnest, and
as virtuous in my motives and intentions as they are in theirs.

Now, surely these gentlemen cannot object to these simple requirements;
and since some of them are men whose names are preceded by a title
and followed by several capital letters (ranging from D.D. to
O.S.F.----which last I, in my ignorance, guess at as meaning Order of
St. Francis, but shall like to be corrected if I am wrong) they must
believe that to answer the arguments themselves is both simple and easy.

If they do not so believe they surely have no right to occupy the
positions which they do occupy. If they do so believe it will do much
more good to answer them publicly, since they have been made publicly,
and are already in the hands of several thousand people, who could not
be reached by any amount of eloquence poured out on ray devoted head in
the privacy of my own parlor (or writing-desk).

Therefore, gentlemen, permit me to say to you all that which I have
already written to several of you personally--that Col. Ingersoll's
paragraph, quoted above, expresses my own views and those of a great
many other people, and will continue so to do so long as your efforts to
show that he is wrong are only whispered to me behind a fan, or in the
strict seclusion of a letter marked "private and personal."

The arguments I have given against the prevailing Christian dogmas and
usages, which you uphold, are neither private nor personal, nor shall I
allow them to take that phase. Life is too short for me to spend hours
day after day in sustaining, in private, a public argument which has
never been (and, in my opinion, never will be), refuted. And it would
do no good to the thousands whom you are pleased to say you fear will
be led astray by my position. You have a magnificent opportunity to lead
them back again by honest public letters, or lectures, or sermons, not
by an afternoon's chat with me.

And, while I recognize the courtesy of your pressing requests (made,
without exception, in the most gentlemanly terms) to permit you to meet
me personally and refute my arguments, I feel compelled to say that,
unless you are willing to show the courage of your convictions, _and
the quality of your defense_, to the public, I fear they would have no
weight with me, and I should have wasted your precious time as well as
my own, which I should feel I had no right to do, nor to allow you to
do, without this frank statement of the case.

Now, do not suppose that I have the slightest objection to meeting the
clergy personally and socially. Upon the contrary, many of my friends
are clergymen--even bishops--but candor compels me to state that up to
the present time not one of them has (either privately or otherwise)
been able to answer either of the first two lectures in that little
book, and as to the third one, no one of them, in my opinion, will ever
try to answer it.

Time will show whether I am right in this.

In the mean time accept my thanks for your interest, and believe me,

Sincerely,

Helen H. Gardener.




LETTER TO THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS OF FREETHINKERS, OCTOBER, 1885.

I send my greetings to the Congress of Freethinkers assembled at
Cleveland, and regret, more than I can express, that I am unable to
be there and hear all the good things you will hear, and see all the
earnest workers you will see.

The Freethinkers of America ought to be a very proud and enthusiastic
body, when they have in their presidential chair the ablest orator
of modern times, and the broadest, bravest, and most comprehensive
intellect that has ever been called "Mr. President" in this land of
bravery and presidents. Washington was a patriot of whom we are all
justly proud. He was liberal in his religion and progressive in his
views of personal rights. And yet he had his limitations. To him liberty
and personal rights were modified by the words, "free, white, adult,
males." He got no farther. He who fought for freedom upheld slavery! And
yet we are all proud and glad to pay honor and respect to the memory of
Washington.

Abraham Lincoln we place still higher on the roll of honor; for, added
to his still more liberal religious views, in his conceptions of freedom
and justice he had at least two fewer limitations than had the patriot
of 1776. He struck both "free" and "white" from his mental black list,
and gave once more an impulse to liberty that thrilled a nation and gave
fresh dignity to the human race.

But what shall we say of our president--Ingersoll? A man who in
ten short years has carried mental liberty into every household in
America--who is without limitations in religion, and modifies justice by
no prefix. A man who, with unequaled oratory, champions Freedom--not the
"free, white, adult, male" freedom of Washington. A man who has breasted
a whirlwind of detraction and abuse for Justice--not the "male, adult"
justice of Lincoln, but the freedom and justice, without limitation, for
"man, woman, and child."

With such a leader, what should not be achieved? With such a champion,
what cause could fail? If the people ever place such a man in the White
House, the nations of this earth will know, for the first time, the real
meaning of a free government under secular administration.

"A government of the people, for the people, by the people," will be
more than simply a high-sounding phrase, which, read by the light of the
past, was only a bitter mockery to a race in chains; and, read by the
light of the present, is a choice bit of grim humor to half of a nation
in petticoats. But so long as the taste of the voter is such that he
prefers to place in the executive chair a type of man so eminently
fitted for private life that when you want to find him you have to
_shake the chair_ to see if he is in it, just so long will there be no
danger that the lightning will strike so as to deprive the Freethinkers
of one man in America who could fill the national executive chair
_full_, and strain the back and sides a little getting in.

Once more I send greetings to the Convention, with the hope that you may
have as grand a time as you ought to have, and that Free thought will
receive a new impulse from the harmony and enthusiasm of this meeting.
Sincerely,

Helen H. Gardener.











                         Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from Astounding Stories October 1931.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed.


        [Illustration: At this the titanic thing went wholly,
                       colossally mad.]


                       The Red Hell of Jupiter

                        _A Complete Novelette_




                            By Paul Ernst

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER I

_The Red Spot_

[Sidenote: What is the mystery centered in Jupiter's famous "Red
Spot"? Two fighting Earthmen, caught by the "Pipe-men" like their
vanished comrades, soon find out.]


Commander Stone, grizzled chief of the Planetary Exploration Forces,
acknowledged Captain Brand Bowen's salute and beckoned him to take a
seat.

Brand, youngest officer of the division to wear the triple-V for
distinguished service, sat down and stared curiously at his superior.
He hadn't the remotest idea why he had been recalled from leave: but
that it was on a matter of some importance he was sure. He hunched his
big shoulders and awaited orders.

"Captain Bowen," said Stone. "I want you to go to Jupiter as soon as
you can arrange to do so, fly low over the red area in the southern
hemisphere, and come back here with some sort of report as to what's
wrong with that infernal death spot."

He tapped his radio stylus thoughtfully against the edge of his desk.

"As you perhaps know, I detailed a ship to explore the red spot about
a year ago. It never came back. I sent another ship, with two good men
in it, to check up on the disappearance of the first. That ship, too,
never came back. Almost with the second of its arrival at the edge of
the red area all radio communication with it was cut off. It was never
heard from again. Two weeks ago I sent Journeyman there. Now _he_ has
been swallowed up in a mysterious silence."

An exclamation burst from Brand's lips. Sub-Commander Journeyman!
Senior officer under Stone, ablest man in the expeditionary forces,
and Brand's oldest friend!

Stone nodded comprehension of the stricken look on Brand's face. "I
know how friendly you two were," he said soberly. "That's why I chose
you to go and find out, if you can, what happened to him and the other
two ships."

Brand's chin sank to rest on the stiff high collar of his uniform.

"Journeyman!" he mused. "Why, he was like an older brother to me. And
now ... he's gone."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was silence in Commander Stone's sanctum for a time. Then Brand
raised his head.

"Did you have any radio reports at all from any of the three ships
concerning the nature of the red spot?" he inquired.

"None that gave definite information," replied Stone. "From each of
the three ships we received reports right up to the instant when the
red area was approached. From each of the three came a vague
description of the peculiarity of the ground ahead of them: it seems
to glitter with a queer metallic sheen. Then, from each of the three,
as they passed over the boundary--nothing! All radio communication
ceased as abruptly as though they'd been stricken dead."

He stared at Brand. "That's all I can tell you, little enough, God
knows. Something ominous and strange is contained in that red spot:
but what its nature may be, we cannot even guess. I want you to go
there and find out."

Brand's determined jaw jutted out, and his lips thinned to a
purposeful line. He stood to attention.

"I'll be leaving to-night, sir. Or sooner if you like. I could go this
afternoon: in an hour--"

"To-night is soon enough," said Stone with a smile. "Now, who do you
want to accompany you?"

Brand thought a moment. On so long a journey as a trip to Jupiter
there was only room in a space ship--what with supplies and all--for
one other man. It behooved him to pick his companion carefully.

"I'd like Dex Harlow," he said at last. "He's been to Jupiter before,
working with me in plotting the northern hemisphere. He's a good man."

"He is," agreed Stone, nodding approval of Brand's choice. "I'll have
him report to you at once."

He rose and held out his hand. "I'm relying on you, Captain Bowen," he
said. "I won't give any direct orders: use your own discretion. But I
would advise you not to try to land in the red area. Simply fly low
over it, and see what you can discern from the air. Good-by, and good
luck."

Brand saluted, and went out, to go to his own quarters and make the
few preparations necessary for his sudden emergency flight.

       *       *       *       *       *

The work of exploring the planets that swung with Earth around the sun
was still a new branch of the service. Less than ten years ago, it had
been, when Ansen devised his first crude atomic motor.

At once, with the introduction of this tremendous new motive power,
men had begun to build space ships and explore the sky. And, as so
often happens with a new invention, the thing had grown rather beyond
itself.

Everywhere amateur space flyers launched forth into the heavens to try
their new celestial wings. Everywhere young and old enthusiasts set
Ansen motors into clumsily insulated shells and started for Mars or
the moon or Venus.

The resultant loss of life, as might have been foreseen, was
appalling. Eager but inexperienced explorers edged over onto the wrong
side of Mercury and were burned to cinders. They set forth in ships
that were badly insulated, and froze in the absolute zero of space.
They learned the atomic motor controls too hastily, ran out of
supplies or lost their courses, and wandered far out into space--stiff
corpses in coffins that were to be buried only in time's infinity.

To stop the foolish waste of life, the Earth Government stepped in. It
was decreed that no space ship might be owned or built privately. It
was further decreed that those who felt an urge to explore must join
the regular service and do so under efficient supervision. And there
was created the Government bureau designated as the Planetary
Exploration Control Board, which was headed by Commander Stone.

       *       *       *       *       *

Under this Board the exploration of the planets was undertaken
methodically and efficiently, with a minimum of lives sacrificed.

Mercury was charted, tested for essential minerals, and found to be a
valueless rock heap too near the sun to support life.

Venus was visited and explored segment by segment; and friendly
relations were established with the rather stupid but peaceable people
found there.

Mars was mapped. Here the explorers had lingered a long time: and all
over this planet's surface were found remnants of a vast and intricate
civilization--from the canals that laced its surface, to great cities
with mighty buildings still standing. But of life there was none. The
atmosphere was too rare to support it; and the theory was that it had
constantly thinned through thousands of years till the last Martian
had gasped and died in air too attenuated to support life even in
creatures that must have grown greater and greater chested in eons of
adaptation.

Then Jupiter had been reached: and here the methodical planet by
planet work promised to be checked for a long time to come. Jupiter,
with its mighty surface area, was going to take some exploring! It
would be years before it could be plotted even superficially.

       *       *       *       *       *

Brand had been to Jupiter on four different trips; and, as he walked
toward his quarters from Stone's office, he reviewed what he had
learned on those trips.

Jupiter, as he knew it, was a vast globe of vague horror and sharp
contrasts.

Distant from the sun as it was, it received little solar heat. But,
with so great a mass, it had cooled off much more slowly than any of
the other planets known, and had immense internal heat. This meant
that the air--which closely approximated Earth's air in density--was
cool a few hundred yards up from the surface of the planet, and dankly
hot close to the ground. The result, as the cold air constantly sank
into the warm, was a thick steamy blanket of fog that covered
everything perpetually.

Because of the recent cooling, life was not far advanced on Jupiter.
Too short a time ago the sphere had been but a blazing mass. Tropical
marshes prevailed, crisscrossed by mighty rivers at warmer than blood
heat. Giant, hideous fernlike growths crowded one another in an
everlasting jungle. And among the distorted trees, from the blanket of
soft white fog that hid all from sight, could be heard constantly an
ear-splitting chorus of screams and bellows and whistling snarls. It
made the blood run cold just to listen--and to speculate on what
gigantic but tiny-brained monsters made them.

Now and then, when Brand had been flying dangerously low over the
surface, a wind had risen strong enough to dispel the fog banks for an
instant; and he had caught a flash of Jovian life. Just a flash, for
example, of a monstrous lizard-like thing too great to support its own
bulk: or a creature all neck and tail, with ridges of scale on its
armored hide and a small serpentine head weaving back and forth among
the jungle growths.

       *       *       *       *       *

Occasionally he had landed--always staying close to the space ship,
for Jupiter's gravity made movement a slow and laborious process, and
he didn't want to be caught too far from security. At such times he
might hear a crashing and splashing and see a reptilian head loom
gigantically at him through the fog. Then he would discharge the
deadly explosive gun which was Earth's latest weapon, and the creature
would crash to the ground. The chorus of hissings and bellowings would
increase as he hastened slowly and laboriously back to the ship,
indicating that other unseen monsters of the steamy jungle had flocked
to tear the dead giant to pieces and bolt it down.

Oh, Jupiter was a nice planet! mused Brand. A sweet place--if one
happened to be a two-hundred-foot snake or something!

He had always thought the entire globe was in that new, raw, marshy
state. But he had worked only in one comparatively small area of the
northern hemisphere; had never been within thirty thousand miles of
the red spot. What might lie in that ominous crimson patch, he could
not even guess. However, he reflected, he was soon to find out, though
he might never live to tell about it.

Shrugging his shoulders, he turned into the fifty story building in
which was his modest apartment. There he found, written by the
automatic stylus on his radio pad, the message: "Be with you at seven
o'clock. Best regards, and I hope you strangle. Dex Harlow."

       *       *       *       *       *

Dex Harlow was a six-foot Senior Lieutenant who had been on many an
out-of-the-way exploratory trip. Like Brand he was just under thirty
and perpetually thirsting for the bizarre in life. He was a walking
document of planetary activity. He was still baked a brick red from a
trip to Mercury a year before: he had a scar on his forehead, the
result of jumping forty feet one day on the moon when he'd meant to
jump only twenty; he was minus a finger which had been irreparably
frost-bitten on Mars; and he had a crumpled nose that was the outcome
of a brush with a ten-foot bandit on Venus who'd tried to kill him for
his explosive gun and supply of glass, dyite-containing cartridges.

He clutched Brand's fingers in a bone-mangling grip, and threw his hat
into a far corner.

"You're a fine friend!" he growled cheerfully. "Here I'm having a
first rate time for myself, swimming and planing along the Riviera,
with two more weeks leave ahead of me--and I get a call from the Old
Man to report to you. What excuse have you for your crime?"

"A junket to Jupiter," said Brand. "Would you call that a good
excuse?"

"Jupiter!" exclaimed Dex. "Wouldn't you know it? Of course you'd have
to pick a spot four hundred million miles away from all that grand
swimming I was having!"

"Would you like to go back on leave, and have me choose someone else?"
inquired Brand solemnly.

"Well, no," said Dex hastily. "Now that I'm here, I suppose I might as
well go through with it."

Brand laughed. "Try and get you out of it! I know your attitude toward
a real jaunt. And it's a real jaunt we've got ahead of us, too, old
boy. We're going to the red spot. Immediately."

       *       *       *       *       *

Dex's sandy eyebrows shot up. "The red spot! That's where Coblenz and
Heiroy were lost!"

"And Journeyman," added Brand. "He's the latest victim of whatever's
in the hell-hole."

Dex whistled. "Journeyman too! Well, all I've got to say is that
whatever's there must be strong medicine. Journeyman was a damn fine
man, and as brave as they come. Have you any idea what it's all
about?"

"Not an idea. Nobody has. We're to go and find out--if we can. Are you
all ready?"

"All ready," said Dex.

"So am I. We'll start at eleven o'clock in one of the Old Man's best
cruisers. Meanwhile, we might as well go and hunt up a dinner
somewhere, to fortify us against the synthetic pork chops and bread
we'll be swallowing for the next fortnight."

They went out; and at ten minutes of eleven reported at the great
space ship hangars north of New York, with their luggage, a
conspicuous item of which was a chess board to help while away the
long, long days of spacial travel. Brand then paused a little while
for a final check-up on directions.

They clambered into the tiny control room and shut the hermetically
sealed trap-door. Brand threw the control switch and precisely at
eleven o'clock the conical shell of metal shot heavenward, gathering
such speed that it was soon invisible to human eyes. He set their
course toward the blazing speck that was Jupiter, four hundred million
miles away; and then reported their start by radio to Commander
Stone's night operator.

The investigatory expedition to the ominous red spot of the giant of
the solar system was on.




CHAPTER II

_The Pipe-like Men_


Brand began to slacken speed on the morning of the thirteenth day
(morning, of course, being a technical term: there are no horizons in
space for the sun to rise over). Jupiter was still an immense distance
off; but it took a great while to slow the momentum of the space ship,
which, in the frictionless emptiness of space, had been traveling
faster and faster for nearly three hundred hours.

Behind them was the distant ball of sun, so far off that it looked no
larger than a red-hot penny. Before them was the gigantic disk of
Jupiter, given a white tinge by the perpetual fog blankets, its
outlines softened by its thick layer of atmosphere and cloud banks.
Two of its nine satellites were in sight at the moment, with a third
edging over the western rim.

"Makes you think you're drunk and seeing triple, doesn't it?"
commented Dex, who was staring out the thick glass panel beside Brand.
"Nine moons! Almost enough for one planet!"

Brand nodded abstractly, and concentrated on the control board.
Rapidly the ship rocketed down toward the surface. The disk became a
whirling, gigantic plate; and then an endless plain, with cloud
formations beginning to take on definite outline.

"About to enter Jupiter's atmosphere." Brand spoke into the radio
transmitter. Over the invisible thread of radio connection between the
space ship and Earth, four hundred million miles behind, flashed the
message.

"All right. For God's sake, be careful," came the answer, minutes
later. "Say something at least every half hour, to let us know
communication is unbroken. We will sound at ten second intervals."

The sounding began: _peep_, a shrill little piping noise like the
fiddle of a cricket. Ten seconds later it came again: _peep_.
Thereafter, intermittently, it keened through the control room--a
homely, comforting sound to let them know that there was a distant
thread between them and Earth.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lower the shell rocketed. The endless plain slowly ceased its rushing
underneath them as they entered the planet's atmosphere and began to
be pulled around with it in its revolution. Far to the west a faint
red glow illumined the sky.

The two men looked at each other, grimly, soberly.

"We're here," said Dex, flexing the muscles of his powerful arms.

"We are," said Brand, patting the gun in his holster.

The rapid dusk of the giant planet began to close in on them. The thin
sunlight darkened; and with its lowering, the red spot of Jupiter
glared more luridly ahead of them. Silently the two men gazed at it,
and wondered what it held.

They shot the space ship toward it, and halted a few hundred miles
away. Watery white light from the satellites, "that jitter around in
the sky like a bunch of damned waterbugs," as Dex put it, was now the
sole illumination.

They hung motionless in their space shell, to wait through the
five-hour Jovian night for the succeeding five hours of daylight to
illumine a slow cruise over the red area that, in less than a year,
had swallowed up three of Earth's space ships. And ever as they
waited, dozing a little, speculating as to the nature of the danger
they faced, the peep, peep of the radio shrilled in their ears to tell
them that there was still a connection--though a very tenuous
one--with their mother planet.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Red spot ten miles away," said Brand in the transmitter. "We're
approaching it slowly."

The tiny sun had leaped up over Jupiter's horizon; and with its
appearance they had sent the ship planing toward their mysterious
destination. Beneath them the fog banks were thinning, and ahead of
them were no clouds. For some reason there was a clarity unusual to
Jupiter's atmosphere in the air above the red section.

"Red spot one mile ahead, altitude forty thousand feet," reported
Brand.

He and Dex peered intently through the port glass panel. Ahead and far
below, their eyes caught an odd metallic sheen. It was as though the
ground there were carpeted with polished steel that reflected red
firelight.

Tense, filled with an excitement that set their pulses pounding
wildly, they angled slowly down, nearer to the edge of the vast
crimson area, closer to the ground. The radio keened its monotonous
signal.

Brand crawled to the transmitter, laboriously, for his body tipped the
scales here at nearly four hundred pounds.

"We can see the metallic glitter that Journeyman spoke of," he said.
"No sign of life of any kind, though. The red glow seems to flicker a
little."

Closer the ship floated. Closer. To right and left of them for vast
distances stretched the red area. Ahead of them for hundreds of miles
they knew it extended.

"We're right on it now," called Brand. "Right on it--we're going over
the edge--we're--"

Next instant he was sprawling on the floor, with Dex rolling
helplessly on top of him, while the space ship bounced up twenty
thousand feet as though propelled by a giant sling.

       *       *       *       *       *

The peep, peep of the radio signalling stopped. The space ship rolled
helplessly for a moment, then resumed an even keel. Brand and Dex
gazed at each other.

"What the hell?" said Dex.

He started to get to his feet, put all his strength into the task of
moving his Jupiter-weighted body, and crashed against the top of the
control room.

"Say!" he sputtered, rubbing his head. "Say, what _is_ this?"

Brand, profiting by his mistake, rose more cautiously, shut off the
atomic motor, and approached a glass panel again. "God knows what it
is," he said with a shrug. "Somehow, with our passing into the red
area, the pull of gravity has been reduced by about ten, that's all."

"Oh, so that's all, is it? Well, what's happened to old Jupe's
gravity?"

Again Brand shrugged. "I haven't any idea. Your guess is as good as
mine."

He peered down through the panel, and stiffened in surprise.

"Dex!" he cried. "We're moving! And the motor is shut off!"

"We're drawing down closer to the ground, too," announced Dex,
pointing to their altimeter. "Our altitude has been reduced five
thousand feet in the last two minutes."

Quickly Brand turned on the motor in reverse. The space ship, as the
rushing, reddish ground beneath indicated, continued to glide forward
as though pulled by an invisible rope. He turned on full power. The
ship's progress was checked a little. A very little! And the metallic
red surface under them grew nearer as they steadily lost altitude.

"Something seems to have got us by the nose," said Dex. "We're on our
way to the center of the red spot, I guess--to find whatever it was
that Journeyman found. And the radio communication his been broken
somehow...."

Wordlessly, they stared out the panel, while the shell, quivering with
the strain of the atomic motor's fight against whatever unseen force
it was that relentlessly drew them forward, bore them swiftly toward
the heart of the vast crimson area.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Look!" cried Brand.

For over an hour the ship had been propelled swiftly, irresistibly
toward the center of the red spot. It had been up about forty thousand
feet. Now, with a jerk that sent both men reeling, it had been drawn
down to within fifteen thousand feet of the surface; and the sight
that was now becoming more and more visible was incredible.

Beneath was a vast, orderly checkerboard. Every alternate square was
covered by what seemed a jointless metal plate. The open squares,
plainly land under cultivation, were surrounded by gleaming fences
that hooked each metal square with every other one of its kind as
batteries are wired in series. Over these open squares progressed
tiny, two legged figures, for the most part following gigantic
shapeless animals like figures out of a dream. Ahead suddenly appeared
the spires and towers of an enormous city!

Metropolis and cultivated land! It was as unbelievable, on that raw
new planet, as such a sight would have been could a traveler in time
have observed it in the midst of a dim Pleistocene panorama of young
Earth.

It was instantly apparent that the city was their destination. Rapidly
the little ship was rushed toward it; and, realizing at last the
futility of its laboring, Brand cut off the atomic motor and let the
shell drift.

Over a group of squat square buildings their ship passed, decreasing
speed and drifting lower with every moment. The lofty structures that
were the nucleus of the strange city loomed closer. Now they were
soaring slowly down a wide thoroughfare; and now, at last, they
hovered above a great open square that was thronged with figures.

Lower they dropped. Lower. And then they settled with a slight jar on
a surface made of reddish metal; and the figures rushed to surround
them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Looking out the glass panel at these figures, both Brand and Dex
exclaimed aloud and covered their eyes for a moment to shut out the
hideous sight of them. Now they examined them closely.

Manlike they were: and yet like no human being conceivable to an Earth
mind. They were tremendously tall--twelve feet at least--but as thin
as so many animated poles. Their two legs were scarce four inches
through, taper-less, boneless, like lengths of pipe; and like two
flexible pipes they were joined to a slightly larger pipe of a torso
that could not have been more than a foot in diameter. There were four
arms, a pair on each side of the cylindrical body, that weaved feebly
about like lengths of rubber hose.

Set directly on the pipe-like body, as a pumpkin might be balanced on
a pole, was a perfectly round cranium in which were glassy, staring
eyes, with dull pupils like those of a sick dog. The nose was but a
tab of flesh. The mouth was a minute, circular thing, soft and flabby
looking, which opened and shut regularly with the creature's
breathing. It resembled the snout-like mouth of a fish, of the sucker
variety; and fish-like, too, was the smooth and slimy skin that
covered the beanpole body.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hundreds of the repulsive things, there were. And all of them shoved
and crowded, as a disorderly mob on Earth might do, to get close to
the Earthmen's ship. Their big dull eyes peered in through the glass
panels, and their hands--mere round blobs of gristle in the palms of
which were set single sucker disks--pattered against the metal hull of
the shell.

"God!" said Brand with a shudder. "Fancy these things feeling over
your body...."

"They're hostile, whatever they are," said Dex. "Look out: that one's
pointing something at you!"

One of the slender, tottering creatures had raised an arm and leveled
at Brand something that looked rather like an elongated, old-fashioned
flashlight. Brand involuntarily ducked. The clear glass panel between
them and the mob outside gave him a queasy feeling of being exposed to
whatever missile might lurk in the thing's tube.

"What do we do now?" demanded Dex with a shaky laugh. "You're chief of
this expedition. I'm waiting for orders."

"We wait right here," replied Brand. "We're safe in the shell till
we're starved out. At least they can't get in to attack us."

But it developed that, while the slimy looking things might not be
able to get in, they had ways of reaching the Earthmen just the same!

       *       *       *       *       *

The creature with the gun-like tube extended it somewhat further
toward Brand.

Brand felt a sharp, unpleasant tingle shoot through his body, as
though he had received an electric shock. He winced, and cried out at
the sudden pain of it.

"What's the matter--" Dex began. But hardly had the words left his
mouth when he, too, felt the shock. A couple of good, hearty Earth
oaths exploded from his lips.

The repulsive creature outside made an authoritative gesture. He
seemed to be beckoning to them, his huge dull eyes glaring
threateningly at the same moment.

"Our beanpole friend is suggesting that we get out of the shell and
stay awhile," said Dex with grim humor. "They seem anxious to
entertain us--_ouch!_"

As the two men made no move to obey the beckoning gesture, the
creature had raised the tube again; and again the sharp, unpleasant
shock shot through them.

"What the devil are we going to do?" exclaimed Brand. "If we go out in
that mob of nightmare things--it's going to be messy. As long as we
stay in the shell we have some measure of protection."

"Not much protection when they can sting us through metal and glass at
will," growled Dex. "Do you suppose they can turn the juice on harder?
Or is that bee-sting their best effort?"

As though in direct answer to his words, the blob-like face of the
being who seemed in authority convulsed with anger and he raised the
tube again. This time the shock that came from it was sufficient to
throw the two men to the floor.

"Well, we can't stay in the ship, that's certain," said Brand. "I
guess there's only one thing to do."

Dex nodded. "Climb out of here and take as many of these skinny
horrors with us into hell as we can," he agreed.

Once more the shock stung them, as a reminder not to keep their
captors waiting. With their shoulders bunched for abrupt action, and
their guns in hand, the two men walked to the trap-door of the ship.
They threw the heavy bolts, drew a deep breath--and flung open the
door to charge unexpectedly toward the thickest mass of creatures that
surrounded the ship!

       *       *       *       *       *

In a measure their charge was successful. Its very suddenness caught
some of the tall monstrosities off guard. Half a dozen of them stopped
the fragile glass bullets to writhe in horrible death on the red metal
paving of the square. But that didn't last long.

In less than a minute, thin, clammy arms were winding around the
Earthmen's wrists, and their guns were wrenched from them. And then
started a hand-to-hand encounter that was all the more hideous for
being so unlike any fighting that might have occurred on Earth.

With a furious growl Dex charged the nearest creature, whose huge
round head swayed on its stalk of a body fully six feet above his own
head. He gathered the long thin legs in a football grip, and sent the
thing crashing full length on its back. The great head thumped
resoundingly against the metal paving, and the creature lay
motionless.

For an instant Dex could only stare at the thing. It had been so easy,
like overcoming a child. But even as that thought crossed his mind,
two of the tall thin figures closed in behind him. Four pairs of arms
wound around him, feebly but tenaciously, like wet seaweed.

They began to constrict and wind tighter around him. He tore at them,
dislodged all but two. His sturdy Earth leg went back to sweep the
stalk-like legs of his attackers from under them. One of the things
went down, to twist weakly in a laborious attempt to rise again. But
the other, by sheer force of height and reach, began to bear Dex down.

Savagely he laced out with his fists, battering the pulpy face that
was pressing down close to his. The big eyes blinked shut, but the
four hose-like arms did not relax their clasp. Dex's hands sought
fiercely for the thing's throat. But it had no throat: the head, set
directly on the thin shoulders, defied all throttling attempts.

       *       *       *       *       *

Then, just as Dex was feeling that the end had come, he felt the
creature wrench from him, and saw it slide in a tangle of arms and
legs over the smooth metal pavement. He got shakily to his feet, to
see Brand standing over him and flailing out with his fists at an ever
tightening circle of towering figures.

"Thanks," panted Dex. And he began again, tripping the twelve-foot
things in order to get them down within reach, battering at the great
pulpy heads, fighting blindly in that expressed craving to take as
many of the creatures into hell with him as he could manage. Beside
him fought Brand, steadily, coolly, grim of jaw and unblinking of eye.

Already the struggle had gone on far longer than they had dreamed it
might. For some reason the grotesque creatures delayed killing them.
That they could do so any time they pleased, was certain: if the
monsters could reach them with their shock-tubes through the double
insulated hull of the space ship, they could certainly kill them out
in the open.

Yet they made no move to do so. The deadly tubes were not used. The
screeching gargoyles, instead, devoted all their efforts to merely
hurling their attenuated bodies on the two men as though they wished
to capture them alive.

Finally, however, the nature of the battle changed. The tallest of the
attackers opened his tiny mouth and piped a signal. The ring of
weaving tall bodies surrounding the two opened and became a U. The
creatures in the curve of the U raised their shock-tubes and, with
none of their own kind behind the victims to share in its discharge,
released whatever power it was that lurked in them.

The shock was terrific. Without the glass and metal of the ship to
protect them, out in the open and defenceless, Brand and Dex got some
indication of its real power.

Writhing and twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red
hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered
them, and the fight was over.




CHAPTER III

_The Coming of Greca_


The numbing shock from the tubes left the Earthmen's bodies almost
paralyzed for a time; but their brains were unfogged enough for them
to observe only too clearly all that went on from the point of their
capture.

They were bound hand and foot. At a piping cry from the leader,
several of the gangling figures picked them up in reedy arms and began
to walk across the square, away from the ship. Brand noticed that his
bearers' arms trembled with his weight: and sensed the flabbiness of
the substance that took the place in them of good solid muscle.
Physically these things were soft and ineffectual indeed. They had
only the ominous tubes with which to fight.

The eery procession, with the bound Earthmen carried in the lead,
wound toward a great building fringing the square. In through the high
arched entrance of this building they went, and up a sloping incline
to its tower-top. Here, in a huge bare room, the two were
unceremoniously dumped to the floor.

While three of the things stood guard with the mysterious tubes,
another unbound them. A whole shower of high pitched, piping syllables
was hurled at them, speech which sounded threatening and contemptuous
but was otherwise, of course, entirely unintelligible, and then the
creatures withdrew. The heavy metal door was slammed shut, and they
were alone.

Brand drew a long breath, and began to feel himself all over for
broken bones. He found none; he was still nerve-wracked from that last
terrific shock, but otherwise whole and well.

"Are you hurt, Dex?" he asked solicitously.

"I guess not," replied Dex, getting uncertainly to his feet. "And I'm
wondering why. It seems to me the brutes were uncommonly considerate
of us--and I'm betting the reason is one we won't like!"

Brand shrugged. "I guess we'll find out their intentions soon enough.
Let's see what our surroundings look like."

They walked to the nearest window-aperture, and gazed out on a
startling and marvelous scene.

       *       *       *       *       *

Beneath their high tower window, extending as far as the eye could
reach, lay the city, lit by the reddish glare of the peculiar metal
with which its streets were paved. For the most part the metropolis
consisted of perfectly square buildings pierced by many windows to
indicate that each housed a large number of inmates. But here and
there grotesque turrets lanced the sky, and symbolic domes arched
above the surrounding flat metal roofs.

One building in particular they noticed. This was an enormous
structure in the shape of a half-globe that reared its spherical
height less than an eighth of a mile from the building they were in.
It was situated off to their right at the foot of a vast, high-walled
enclosure whose near end seemed to be formed by the right wall of
their prison. They could only see it by leaning far out of the
window; and it would not have come to their attention at all had they
not heard it first--or, rather, heard the sound of something within
it: for from it came a curious whining hum that never varied in
intensity, something like the hum of a gigantic dynamo, only greater
and of a more penetrating pitch.

"Sounds as though it might be some sort of central power station,"
said Brand. "But what could it supply power for?"

"Give it up," said Dex. "For their damned shock-tubes, perhaps, among
other things--"

He broke off abruptly as a sound of sliding bolts came from the
doorway. The two men whirled around to face the door, their fists
doubling instinctively against whatever new danger might threaten
them.

       *       *       *       *       *

The door was opened and two of their ugly, towering enemies came in,
their tubes held conspicuously before them. Behind came another
figure; and at sight of this one, so plainly not of the race of
Jupiter, the Earthmen gasped with wonder.

They saw a girl who might have come from Earth, save that she was
taller than most Earth women--of a regal height that reached only an
inch or two below Brand's own six foot one. She was beautifully
formed, and had wavy dark hair and clear light blue eyes. A sort of
sandal covered each small bare foot; and a gauzy tunic, reaching from
above the knee to the shoulder, only half shielded her lovely figure.

She was bearing a metal container in which was a mess of stuff
evidently intended as food. The guards halted and stepped aside to let
her pass into the room. Then they backed out, constantly keeping Dex
and Brand covered with the tubes, and closed and barred the door.

The girl smiled graciously at the admiration in the eyes of both the
men--a message needing no inter-planetary interpretation. She
advanced, and held the metal container toward them.

"Eat," she said softly. "It is good food, and life giving."

       *       *       *       *       *

For an instant Brand was dumbfounded. For here was language he could
understand--which was incredible on this far-flung globe. Then he
suddenly comprehended why her sentences were so intelligible.

She was versed in mental telepathy. And versed to a high degree! He'd
had some experience with telepathy on Venus; but theirs was a crude
thought-speech compared to the fluency possessed by the beautiful girl
before him.

"Who are you?" he asked wonderingly.

"I am Greca"--it was very hard to grasp names or abstract terms--"of
the fourth satellite."

"Then you are not of these monsters of Jupiter?"

"Oh, no! I am their captive, as are all my people. We are but slaves
of the tall ones."

Brand glanced at Dex. "Here's a chance to get some information,
perhaps," he murmured.

Dex nodded; but meanwhile the girl had caught his thought. She
smiled--a tragic, wistful smile.

"I shall be happy to tell you anything in my power to tell," she
informed him. "But you must be quick. I can only remain with you a
little while."

She sat down on the floor with them--the few bench-like things
obviously used by the tall creatures as chairs were too high for
them--and with the informality of adversity the three captives began
to talk. Swiftly Brand got a little knowledge of Greca's position on
Jupiter, and of the racial history that led up to it.

       *       *       *       *       *

Four of the nine satellites of Jupiter were now the home of living
beings. But two only, at the dawn of history as Greca knew it, had
been originally inhabited. These were the fourth and the second.

On the fourth there dwelt a race, "like me," as Greca put it--a
kindly, gentle people content to live and let live.

On the second had been a race of immensely tall, but attenuated and
physically feeble things with great heads and huge dull eyes and
characters distinguished mainly for cold-blooded savagery.

The inhabitants of the fourth satellite had remained in ignorance of
the monsters on the second till one day "many, many ages ago," a fleet
of clumsy ships appeared on the fourth satellite. From the ships had
poured thousands of pipe-like creatures, armed with horrible rods of
metal that killed instantly and without a sound. The things, it
seemed, had crowded over the limits of their own globe, and had been
forced to find more territory.

They had made captive the entire population of the satellite.
Then--for like all dangerous vermin they multiplied rapidly--they had
overflowed to the first and fifth satellites--the others were
uninhabitable--and finally to the dangerous surface of Jupiter itself.
Everywhere they had gone, they had taken droves of Greca's people to
be their slaves, "and the source of their food," added Greca, with a
shudder; a statement that was at the moment unintelligible to the two
men.

       *       *       *       *       *

Brand stared sympathetically at her. "They treat them very badly?" he
asked gently.

"Terribly! Terribly!" said Greca, shuddering again.

"But you seem quite privileged," he could not help saying.

She shook her dainty head pathetically. "I am of high rank among my
people. I am a priestess of our religion, which is the religion of The
Great White One who rules all the sky everywhere. The Rogans" (it was
the best translation Brand could make of her mental term for the slimy
tall things that held them captive) "--the Rogans hold my fate over
the heads of my race. Should they rebel, I would be thrown to the
monster in the pen. Of course the Rogans could crush any revolt with
their terrible tubes, but they do not want to kill their slaves if
they can help it. They find it more effective to hold their
priestesses in hostage."

Brand turned from personal history to more vital subjects.

"Why," he asked Greca, "are the shining red squares of metal laid
everywhere over this empire of the Rogans?"

"To make things light," was the reply. "When the Rogans first came to
this mighty sphere, they could hardly move. Things are so heavy here,
somehow. So their first thought was to drive my enslaved people to the
casting and laying of the metal squares and the metal beams that
connect them, in order to make things weigh less."

"But how do the plates function?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Greca did not know this, save vaguely. She tried to express her little
knowledge of the scientific achievements of the savage Rogans. After
some moments Brand turned to Dex and said:

"As near as I can get it, the Rogans, by this peculiar red metal
alloy, manage to trap and divert the permanent lines of force, the
magnetic field, of Jupiter itself. So the whole red spot is highly
magnetized, which somehow upsets natural gravitational attraction. I
suppose it is responsible for the discoloration of the ground, too."

He turned to question the girl further about this, but she had got
nervously to her feet already.

"I'll be taken away soon," she said. "I was brought in here only to
urge you to eat the food. I must be interpreter, since the Rogans
speak not with the mind, and I know their hateful tongue."

"Why are they so anxious for us to eat?" demanded Dex with an uneasy
frown.

"So you will be strong, and endure for a long time the--the ordeal
they have in store for you," faltered the girl at last. "They intend
to force from you the secret of the power that drove your ship here,
so they too may have command of space."

"But I don't understand," frowned Brand. "They must already have a
means of space navigation. They came here to Jupiter from the
satellites."

"Their vessels are crude, clumsy things. The journey from the nearest
satellite is the limit of their flying range. They have nothing like
your wonderful little ships, and they want to know how to build and
power them."

       *       *       *       *       *

She gazed sorrowfully at them and went on: "You see, yours is the
fourth space ship to visit their kingdom; and that makes them fearful
because it shows they are vulnerable to invasion. They want to stop
that by invading your planet first. Besides their fear, there is their
greed. Their looking-tubes reveal that yours is a fruitful and lovely
sphere, and they are insatiable in their lust for new territories.
Thus they plan to go to your planet as soon as they are able, and kill
or enslave all the people there as they have killed and enslaved my
race."

"They'll have a job on their hands trying to do that!" declared Dex
stoutly.

But Brand paled. "They can do it!" he snapped. "Look at those
death-tubes of theirs. We have no arms to compete with that." He
turned to Greca. "So the Rogans plan to force the secret of our motors
from us by torture?"

She nodded, and caught his hand in hers.

"Yes. They will do with you as they did with the six who came before
you--and who died before surrendering the secret."

"So! We know now what happened to Journeyman and the others!" burst
out Dex. "I'll see 'em in hell before I'll talk!"

"And me," nodded Brand. "But that doesn't cure the situation. As long
as ships disappear in this red inferno, so long will the Old Man keep
sending others to find out what's wrong. The Rogans will capture them
as easily as they captured us. And eventually someone will happen
along who'll weaken under torture. Then--"

       *       *       *       *       *

He stopped. A dread vision filled his mind of Earth depopulated by the
feebly ferocious Rogans, of rank on rank of Earth's vast armies
falling in stricken rows at the shock of the Rogans' tubes.

Greca caught the vision. She nodded. "Yes, that is what would happen
if they found ways of reaching your globe."

"But, God, Brand, we can't allow that!" cried Dex. "We've got to find
a way to spike the guns of these walking gas-pipes, somehow!"

Brand sighed heavily. "We are two against hundreds of thousands. We
are bare-handed, and the Rogans have those damned tubes. Anyway, we
are on the verge of death at this very moment. What under heaven can
we do to spike their guns?"

He was silent a moment: and in the silence the steady hum from the
domed building outside came to his ears.

"What's in that big, round topped building, Greca?" he asked quietly.

"I do not know, exactly," replied the girl. "There is some sort of
machinery in it, and to it go connecting beams from all the square
metal plates everywhere. That is all I know."

Brand started to question her further, but her time was up. The two
guards poked their loathsome pumpkin heads in the doorway and
contemptuously beckoned her out. She answered resignedly, in the
piping Rogan tongue, and went with them. But she turned to wave shyly,
commiseratingly at the two men; and the expression in her clear blue
eyes as they rested on Brand made his heart contract and then leap on
with a mighty bound.

"We have in ally in her," murmured Brand. "Though God only knows if
that will mean anything to us...."




CHAPTER IV

_In the Tower_


"What I can't figure out," said Dex, striding up and down the big bare
room, "is why we're needed to tell them about the atomic motor.
They've got our ship, and three others besides. I should think they
could learn about the motor just by taking it apart and studying it."

Brand grinned mirthlessly, recalling the three years of intensive
study it had taken him to learn the refinements of atomic motive
power. "If you'd ever qualified as a space navigator, Dex, you'd know
better. The Rogans are an advanced race; their control of polar
magnetism and the marvelously high-powered telescopes Greca mentions
prove that; but I doubt if they could ever analyze that atomic motor
with no hint as to how it works."

Silence descended on them again, in which each was lost in his own
thoughts.

How many hours had passed, the Earthmen did not know. They had spent
the time in fruitless planning to escape from their tower room and go
back to the ship again. Though how they could get away in the ship
when the Rogans seemed able to propel it where-ever they wished
against the utmost power of their motor, they did not attempt to
consider.

One of Jupiter's short nights had passed, however--a night weirdly
made as light as day by red glares from the plates, which seemed to
store up sunlight, among their other functions--and the tiny sun had
risen to slant into their window at a sharp angle.

Suddenly they heard the familiar drawing of the great bolts outside
their door. It was opened, and a dozen or more of the Rogans came in,
with Greca cowering piteously in their midst and attempting to
communicate her distress to Brand.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the head of the little band of Rogans was one the prisoners had not
seen before. He was of great height, fully two feet taller than the
others; and he carried himself with an air that proclaimed his
importance.

The tall one turned to Greca and addressed a few high-pitched, squeaky
words to her. She shook her head; whereupon, at a hissed command, two
of the Rogans caught her by the wrists and dragged her forward.

"They have come to question you," Greca lamented to Brand. "And they
want to do it through me. But I will not! I will not!"

Brand smiled at her though his lips were pale.

"You are powerless to struggle," he said. "Do as they ask. You cannot
help us by refusing, and, in any case, I can promise that they won't
learn anything from us."

The tall Rogan teetered up to the prisoners on his gangling legs, and
stared icily at them. Crouched beside him, her lovely body all one
mute appeal to the Earthmen to forgive her for the part she was forced
to play, was Greca.

At length the Rogan leader spoke. He addressed his sibilant words to
Greca, though his stony eyes were kept intently on the Earthmen.

"He says," exclaimed Greca telepathically, "to inform you first that
he is head of all the Rogan race on this globe, and that all on this
globe must do as he commands."

Brand nodded to show he understood the message.

"He says he is going to ask you a few questions, and that you are to
answer truthfully if you value your lives:"

"First, he wants to know what the people of your world are like. Are
they all the same as you?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Dex started to reply to that; but Brand flung him a warning look.
"Tell him we are the least of the Earth people," he answered steadily.
"Tell him we are of an inferior race. Most of those on Earth are
giants five times as large as we are, and many times more powerful."

Greca relayed the message in the whistling, piping Rogan tongue. The
tall one stared, then hissed another sentence to the beautiful
interpreter.

"He wants to know," said Greca, "if there are cities on your globe as
large and complete as this one."

"There are cities on Earth that make this look like a--a--" Brand cast
about for understandable similes--"like a collection of animal
burrows."

"He says to describe your planet's war weapons," was the next
interpretation. And here Brand let himself go.

With flights of fancy he hadn't known he was capable of, he described
great airships, steered automatically and bristling with guns that
discharged explosives powerful enough to kill everything within a
range of a thousand miles. He told of billions of thirty-foot giants
sheathed in an alloy that would make them invulnerable to any feeble
rays the Rogans might have developed. He touched on the certain
wholesale death that must overtake any hostile force that tried to
invade the planet.

"The Rogan shock-tubes are toys compared with the ray-weapons of
Earth," he concluded. "We have arms that can nullify the effects of
yours and kill at the same instant. We have--"

But here the Rogan leader turned impatiently away. Greca had been
translating sentence by sentence. Now the tall one barked out a few
syllables in a squeaky voice.

"He says he knows you are lying," sighed Greca. "For if you on Earth
have tubes more effective than theirs why weren't you equipped with
them on your expedition here to the red kingdom?"

Brand bit his lips. "Check," he muttered. "The brute has a brain in
that ugly head."

       *       *       *       *       *

The Rogan leader spoke for a long time then; and at each singsong
word, Greca quivered as though lashed by a whip. At length she turned
to Brand.

"He has been telling what his hordes can do, answering your boasts
with boasts of his own. His words are awful! I won't tell you all he
said. I will only say that he is convinced his shock-tubes are
superior to any Earth arms, and that he states he will now illustrate
their power to you to quell your insolence. I don't know what he means
by that...."

But she and the Earthmen were soon to find out.

The Rogan leader stepped to the window and arrogantly beckoned Brand
and Dex to join him there. They did; and the leader gazed out and down
as though searching for something.

He pointed. The two Earthmen followed his leveled arm with their eyes
and saw, a hundred yards or so away, a bent and dreary figure trudging
down the metal paving of the street. It was a figure like those to be
seen on Earth, which placed it as belonging to Greca's race.

The tall leader drew forth one of the shock-tubes. Seen near at hand,
it was observed to be bafflingly simple in appearance. It seemed
devoid of all mechanism--simply a tube of reddish metal with a sort of
handle formed of a coil of heavy wire.

The Rogan pointed the tube at the distant figure.

Greca screamed, and screamed again. Coincident with her cry, as though
the sound of it had felled him, the distant slave dropped to the
pavement.

       *       *       *       *       *

That was all. The tube had merely been pointed: as far as Brand could
see, the Rogan's "hand" had not moved on the barrel of the tube, nor
even constricted about the coil of wire that formed its handle. Yet
that distant figure had dropped. Furthermore, fumes of greasy black
smoke now began to arise from the huddled body; and in less than
thirty seconds there was left no trace of it on the gleaming metal
pavement.

"So that's what those things are like at full power!" breathed Dex.
"My God!"

The Rogan leader spoke a few words. Greca, huddled despairingly on the
floor, crushed by this brutal annihilation of one of her country-men
before her very eyes, did not translate. But translation was
unnecessary. The Rogan's icy, triumphant eyes, the very posture of
his grotesque body, spoke for him.

"That," he was certainly saying, "is what will happen to any on your
helpless planet who dare oppose the Rogan will!"

He whipped out a command to the terror-stricken girl. She rose from
her crouching position on the floor; and at length formulated the
Rogan's last order:

"You will explain the working of the engine that drove your space ship
here."

Dex laughed. It was a short bark of sound, totally devoid of humor,
but very full of defiance. Brand thrust his hands into the pockets of
his tunic, spread his legs apart, and began to whistle.

       *       *       *       *       *

A quiver that might have been of anger touched the Rogan leader's
repulsive little mouth. He glared balefully at the uncowed Earthmen
and spoke again, evidently repeating his command. The two turned their
backs to him to indicate their refusal to obey.

At that, the tall leader pointed to Dex. In an instant three of the
guards had wound their double pairs of arms around his struggling
body. Brand sprang to help him, but a touch of the mysterious
discharge from the leader's tube sent him writhing to the floor.

"It's no use, Brand," said Dex steadily. He too had stopped
struggling, and now stood quietly in the slimy coils of his captors'
arms. "I might as well go along with them and get it over with. I
probably won't see you again. Good luck!"

He was borne out of the room. The Rogan leader turned to Brand and
spoke.

"He says that if your comrade does not tell him what he wants to know,
your turn will come next," sobbed Greca. "Oh! Why does not The Great
White One strike these monsters to the dust!"

She ran to Brand and pressed her satiny cheek to his. Then she was
dragged roughly away.

The great door clanged shut. The heavy outer fastenings clicked into
place. Dex had gone to experience whatever it was that Journeyman and
the rest had experienced in this red hell. And Brand was left behind
to reflect on what dread torments this might comprise; and to pray
desperately that no matter what might be done to his shrinking body he
would be strong enough to refuse to betray his planet.




CHAPTER V

_The Torture Chamber_


Swiftly Dex was carried down the long ramp to the ground floor, the
arms of his captors gripping him with painful tightness. Heading the
procession was the immensely tall, gangling Rogan leader, clutching
Greca by the wrist and dragging her indifferently along to be his
mouthpiece.

They did not stop at the street level; they continued on down another
ramp, around a bend, descending an even steeper incline toward the
bowels of Jupiter. Their descent ended at last before a huge metal
barrier which, at a signal from the leader, drew smoothly up into the
ceiling to disclose a gigantic, red-lit chamber underlying the
foundations of the building.

In fear and awe, Dex gazed around that huge room.

It resembled in part a nightmare rearrangement of such a laboratory as
might be found on Earth; and in part a torture chamber such as the
most ferocious of savages might have devised had they been
scientifically equipped to add contrivances of supercivilization to
the furthering of their primitive lust for cruelty.

There were great benches--head-high to the Earthman--to accommodate
the height of the Rogan workmen. There were numberless metal
instruments, and glass coils, and enormous retorts; and in one corner
an orange colored flame burnt steadily on a naked metal plate, seeming
to have no fuel or other source of being.

There was a long rack of cruelly pointed and twisted instruments.
Under this was a row of long, delicate pincers, with coils on the
handles to indicate that they might be heated to fiendish precision of
temperatures. There were gleaming metal racks with calibrated
slide-rods and spring dials to denote just what pull was being exerted
on whatever unhappy creature might be stretched taut on them. There
were tiny cones of metal whose warped, baked appearance testified that
they were little portable furnaces that could be placed on any desired
portion of the anatomy, to slowly bake the selected disk of flesh
beneath them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dex shuddered; and a low moan came from Greca, whose clear blue eyes
had rested on the contents of this vast room before in her capacity as
hostage and interpreter for the inhuman Rogans.

And now another sense of Dex's began to register perception on his
brain.

A peculiar odor came to his nostrils. It was a musky, fetid odor, like
that to be smelled in an animal cage; but it was sharper, more acrid
than anything he had ever smelled on Earth. It smelled--ah, he had
it!--_reptilian_. As though somewhere nearby a dozen titanic serpents
were coiled ready to spring!

Looking about, Dex saw a six-foot square door of bars in one wall of

They travelled next day, reaching London at half-past two.  Betty had
gone up in the early morning to prepare the way.  The dogs had been with
Aunt Rosamund all this time.  Gyp missed their greeting; but the
installation of Betty and the baby in the spare room that was now to be
the nursery, absorbed all her first energies.  Light was just beginning
to fail when, still in her fur, she took a key of the music-room and
crossed the garden, to see how all had fared during her ten weeks'
absence.  What a wintry garden!  How different from that languorous,
warm, moonlit night when Daphne Wing had come dancing out of the shadow
of the dark trees.  How bare and sharp the boughs against the grey,
darkening sky--and not a song of any bird, not a flower!  She glanced
back at the house. Cold and white it looked, but there were lights in her
room and in the nursery, and someone just drawing the curtains.  Now that
the leaves were off, one could see the other houses of the road, each
different in shape and colour, as is the habit of London houses. It was
cold, frosty; Gyp hurried down the path.  Four little icicles had formed
beneath the window of the music-room.  They caught her eye, and, passing
round to the side, she broke one off. There must be a fire in there, for
she could see the flicker through the curtains not quite drawn.
Thoughtful Ellen had been airing it!  But, suddenly, she stood still.
There was more than a fire in there!  Through the chink in the drawn
curtains she had seen two figures seated on the divan.  Something seemed
to spin round in her head.  She turned to rush away.  Then a kind of
superhuman coolness came to her, and she deliberately looked in. He and
Daphne Wing!  His arm was round her neck.  The girl's face riveted her
eyes.  It was turned a little back and up, gazing at him, the lips
parted, the eyes hypnotized, adoring; and her arm round him seemed to
shiver--with cold, with ecstasy?

Again that something went spinning through Gyp's head.  She raised her
hand.  For a second it hovered close to the glass.  Then, with a sick
feeling, she dropped it and turned away.

Never!  Never would she show him or that girl that they could hurt her!
Never!  They were safe from any scene she would make--safe in their nest!
And blindly, across the frosty grass, through the unlighted drawing-room,
she went upstairs to her room, locked the door, and sat down before the
fire.  Pride raged within her.  She stuffed her handkerchief between her
teeth and lips; she did it unconsciously.  Her eyes felt scorched from
the fire-flames, but she did not trouble to hold her hand before them.

Suddenly she thought: 'Suppose I HAD loved him?' and laughed.  The
handkerchief dropped to her lap, and she looked at it with wonder--it was
blood-stained.  She drew back in the chair, away from the scorching of
the fire, and sat quite still, a smile on her lips. That girl's eyes,
like a little adoring dog's--that girl, who had fawned on her so!  She
had got her "distinguished man"!  She sprang up and looked at herself in
the glass; shuddered, turned her back on herself, and sat down again.  In
her own house!  Why not here--in this room?  Why not before her eyes?
Not yet a year married! It was almost funny--almost funny!  And she had
her first calm thought: 'I am free.'

But it did not seem to mean anything, had no value to a spirit so
bitterly stricken in its pride.  She moved her chair closer to the fire
again.  Why had she not tapped on the window?  To have seen that girl's
face ashy with fright!  To have seen him--caught--caught in the room she
had made beautiful for him, the room where she had played for him so many
hours, the room that was part of the house that she paid for!  How long
had they used it for their meetings--sneaking in by that door from the
back lane?  Perhaps even before she went away--to bear his child!  And
there began in her a struggle between mother instinct and her sense of
outrage--a spiritual tug-of-war so deep that it was dumb, unconscious--to
decide whether her baby would be all hers, or would have slipped away
from her heart, and be a thing almost abhorrent.

She huddled nearer the fire, feeling cold and physically sick.  And
suddenly the thought came to her: 'If I don't let the servants know I'm
here, they might go out and see what I saw!'  Had she shut the
drawing-room window when she returned so blindly?  Perhaps already--! In
a fever, she rang the bell, and unlocked the door.  The maid came up.

"Please shut the drawing-room, window, Ellen; and tell Betty I'm afraid I
got a little chill travelling.  I'm going to bed.  Ask her if she can
manage with baby."  And she looked straight into the girl's face.  It
wore an expression of concern, even of commiseration, but not that
fluttered look which must have been there if she had known.

"Yes, m'm; I'll get you a hot-water bottle, m'm.  Would you like a hot
bath and a cup of hot tea at once?"

Gyp nodded.  Anything--anything!  And when the maid was gone, she thought
mechanically: 'A cup of hot tea!  How quaint!  What should it be but
hot?'

The maid came back with the tea; she was an affectionate girl, full of
that admiring love servants and dogs always felt for Gyp, imbued, too,
with the instinctive partisanship which stores itself one way or the
other in the hearts of those who live in houses where the atmosphere
lacks unity.  To her mind, the mistress was much too good for him--a
foreigner--and such 'abits!  Manners--he hadn't any!  And no good would
come of it.  Not if you took her opinion!

"And I've turned the water in, m'm.  Will you have a little mustard in
it?"

Again Gyp nodded.  And the girl, going downstairs for the mustard, told
cook there was "that about the mistress that makes you quite pathetic."
The cook, who was fingering her concertina, for which she had a passion,
answered:

"She 'ides up her feelin's, same as they all does.  Thank 'eaven she
haven't got that drawl, though, that 'er old aunt 'as--always makes me
feel to want to say, 'Buck up, old dear, you ain't 'alf so precious as
all that!'"

And when the maid Ellen had taken the mustard and gone, she drew out her
concertina to its full length and, with cautionary softness, began to
practise "Home, Sweet Home!"

To Gyp, lying in her hot bath, those muffled strains just mounted, not
quite as a tune, rather as some far-away humming of large flies.  The
heat of the water, the pungent smell of the mustard, and that droning hum
slowly soothed and drowsed away the vehemence of feeling.  She looked at
her body, silver-white in the yellowish water, with a dreamy sensation.
Some day she, too, would love! Strange feeling she had never had before!
Strange, indeed, that it should come at such a moment, breaking through
the old instinctive shrinking.  Yes; some day love would come to her.
There floated before her brain the adoring look on Daphne Wing's face,
the shiver that had passed along her arm, and pitifulness crept into her
heart--a half-bitter, half-admiring pitifulness.  Why should she
grudge--she who did not love?  The sounds, like the humming of large
flies, grew deeper, more vibrating.  It was the cook, in her passion
swelling out her music on the phrase,

     "Be it ne-e-ver so humble,
      There's no-o place like home!"




XIII

That night, Gyp slept peacefully, as though nothing had happened, as
though there were no future at all before her.  She woke into misery.
Her pride would never let her show the world what she had discovered,
would force her to keep an unmoved face and live an unmoved life.  But
the struggle between mother-instinct and revolt was still going on within
her.  She was really afraid to see her baby, and she sent word to Betty
that she thought it would be safer if she kept quite quiet till the
afternoon.

She got up at noon and stole downstairs.  She had not realized how
violent was her struggle over HIS child till she was passing the door of
the room where it was lying.  If she had not been ordered to give up
nursing, that struggle would never have come.  Her heart ached, but a
demon pressed her on and past the door.  Downstairs she just pottered
round, dusting her china, putting in order the books which, after
house-cleaning, the maid had arranged almost too carefully, so that the
first volumes of Dickens and Thackeray followed each other on the top
shell, and the second volumes followed each other on the bottom shelf.
And all the time she thought dully: 'Why am I doing this?  What do I care
how the place looks?  It is not my home.  It can never be my home!'

For lunch she drank some beef tea, keeping up the fiction of her
indisposition.  After that, she sat down at her bureau to write.
Something must be decided!  There she sat, her forehead on her hand, and
nothing came--not one word--not even the way to address him; just the
date, and that was all.  At a ring of the bell she started up.  She could
not see anybody!  But the maid only brought a note from Aunt Rosamund,
and the dogs, who fell frantically on their mistress and instantly began
to fight for her possession. She went on her knees to separate them, and
enjoin peace and good-will, and their little avid tongues furiously
licked her cheeks. Under the eager touch of those wet tongues the band
round her brain and heart gave way; she was overwhelmed with longing for
her baby. Nearly a day since she had seen her--was it possible?  Nearly a
day without sight of those solemn eyes and crinkled toes and fingers! And
followed by the dogs, she went upstairs.

The house was invisible from the music-room; and, spurred on by thought
that, until Fiorsen knew she was back, those two might be there in each
other's arms any moment of the day or night, Gyp wrote that evening:

"DEAR GUSTAV,--We are back.--GYP."

What else in the world could she say?  He would not get it till he woke
about eleven.  With the instinct to take all the respite she could, and
knowing no more than before how she would receive his return, she went
out in the forenoon and wandered about all day shopping and trying not to
think.  Returning at tea-time, she went straight up to her baby, and
there heard from Betty that he had come, and gone out with his violin to
the music-room.

Bent over the child, Gyp needed all her self-control--but her
self-control was becoming great.  Soon, the girl would come fluttering
down that dark, narrow lane; perhaps at this very minute her fingers were
tapping at the door, and he was opening it to murmur, "No; she's back!"
Ah, then the girl would shrink!  The rapid whispering--some other
meeting-place!  Lips to lips, and that look on the girl's face; till she
hurried away from the shut door, in the darkness, disappointed!  And he,
on that silver-and-gold divan, gnawing his moustache, his
eyes--catlike---staring at the fire! And then, perhaps, from his violin
would come one of those swaying bursts of sound, with tears in them, and
the wind in them, that had of old bewitched her!  She said:

"Open the window just a little, Betty dear--it's hot."

There it was, rising, falling!  Music!  Why did it so move one even when,
as now, it was the voice of insult!  And suddenly she thought: "He will
expect me to go out there again and play for him. But I will not, never!"

She put her baby down, went into her bedroom, and changed hastily into a
teagown for the evening, ready to go downstairs.  A little shepherdess in
china on the mantel-shelf attracted her attention, and she took it in her
hand.  She had bought it three and more years ago, when she first came to
London, at the beginning of that time of girl-gaiety when all life seemed
a long cotillion, and she its leader.  Its cool daintiness made it seem
the symbol of another world, a world without depths or shadows, a world
that did not feel--a happy world!

She had not long to wait before he tapped on the drawing-room window.
She got up from the tea-table to let him in.  Why do faces gazing in
through glass from darkness always look hungry--searching, appealing for
what you have and they have not?  And while she was undoing the latch she
thought: 'What am I going to say?  I feel nothing!'  The ardour of his
gaze, voice, hands seemed to her so false as to be almost comic; even
more comically false his look of disappointment when she said:

"Please take care; I'm still brittle!"  Then she sat down again and
asked:

"Will you have some tea?"

"Tea!  I have you back, and you ask me if I will have tea Gyp!  Do you
know what I have felt like all this time?  No; you don't know. You know
nothing of me--do you?"

A smile of sheer irony formed on her lips--without her knowing it was
there.  She said:

"Have you had a good time at Count Rosek's?"  And, without her will,
against her will, the words slipped out: "I'm afraid you've missed the
music-room!"

His stare wavered; he began to walk up and down.

"Missed!  Missed everything!  I have been very miserable, Gyp. You've no
idea how miserable.  Yes, miserable, miserable, miserable!"  With each
repetition of that word, his voice grew gayer.  And kneeling down in
front of her, he stretched his long arms round her till they met behind
her waist: "Ah, my Gyp!  I shall be a different being, now."

And Gyp went on smiling.  Between that, and stabbing these false raptures
to the heart, there seemed to be nothing she could do. The moment his
hands relaxed, she got up and said:

"You know there's a baby in the house?"

He laughed.

"Ah, the baby!  I'd forgotten.  Let's go up and see it."

Gyp answered:

"You go."

She could feel him thinking: 'Perhaps it will make her nice to me!' He
turned suddenly and went.

She stood with her eyes shut, seeing the divan in the music-room and the
girl's arm shivering.  Then, going to the piano, she began with all her
might to play a Chopin polonaise.

That evening they dined out, and went to "The Tales of Hoffmann." By such
devices it was possible to put off a little longer what she was going to
do.  During the drive home in the dark cab, she shrank away into her
corner, pretending that his arm would hurt her dress; her exasperated
nerves were already overstrung.  Twice she was on the very point of
crying out: "I am not Daphne Wing!"  But each time pride strangled the
words in her throat.  And yet they would have to come.  What other reason
could she find to keep him from her room?

But when in her mirror she saw him standing behind her--he had crept into
the bedroom like a cat--fierceness came into her.  She could see the
blood rush up in her own white face, and, turning round she said:

"No, Gustav, go out to the music-room if you want a companion."

He recoiled against the foot of the bed and stared at her haggardly, and
Gyp, turning back to her mirror, went on quietly taking the pins out of
her hair.  For fully a minute she could see him leaning there, moving his
head and hands as though in pain. Then, to her surprise, he went.  And a
vague feeling of compunction mingled with her sense of deliverance.  She
lay awake a long time, watching the fire-glow brighten and darken on the
ceiling, tunes from "The Tales of Hoffmann" running in her head; thoughts
and fancies crisscrossing in her excited brain.  Falling asleep at last,
she dreamed she was feeding doves out of her hand, and one of them was
Daphne Wing.  She woke with a start.  The fire still burned, and by its
light she saw him crouching at the foot of the bed, just as he had on
their wedding-night--the same hungry yearning in his face, and an arm
outstretched.  Before she could speak, he began:

"Oh, Gyp, you don't understand!  All that is nothing--it is only you I
want--always.  I am a fool who cannot control himself. Think!  It's a
long time since you went away from me."

Gyp said, in a hard voice:

"I didn't want to have a child."

He said quickly:

"No; but now you have it you are glad.  Don't be unmerciful, my Gyp!  It
is like you to be merciful.  That girl--it is all over--I swear--I
promise."

His hand touched her foot through the soft eiderdown.  Gyp thought: 'Why
does he come and whine to me like this?  He has no dignity--none!'  And
she said:

"How can you promise?  You have made the girl love you.  I saw her face."

He drew his hand back.

"You saw her?"

"Yes."

He was silent, staring at her.  Presently he began again:

"She is a little fool.  I do not care for the whole of her as much as I
care for your one finger.  What does it matter what one does in that way
if one does not care?  The soul, not the body, is faithful.  A man
satisfies appetite--it is nothing."

Gyp said:

"Perhaps not; but it is something when it makes others miserable."

"Has it made you miserable, my Gyp?"

His voice had a ring of hope.  She answered, startled:

"I?  No--her."

"Her?  Ho!  It is an experience for her--it is life.  It will do her no
harm."

"No; nothing will do anybody harm if it gives you pleasure."

At that bitter retort, he kept silence a long time, now and then heaving
a long sigh.  His words kept sounding in her heart: "The soul, not the
body, is faithful."  Was he, after all, more faithful to her than she had
ever been, could ever be--who did not love, had never loved him?  What
right had she to talk, who had married him out of vanity, out of--what?

And suddenly he said:

"Gyp!  Forgive!"

She uttered a sigh, and turned away her face.

He bent down against the eider-down.  She could hear him drawing long,
sobbing breaths, and, in the midst of her lassitude and hopelessness, a
sort of pity stirred her.  What did it matter?  She said, in a choked
voice:

"Very well, I forgive."




XIV

The human creature has wonderful power of putting up with things. Gyp
never really believed that Daphne Wing was of the past.  Her sceptical
instinct told her that what Fiorsen might honestly mean to do was very
different from what he would do under stress of opportunity carefully put
within his reach.

Since her return, Rosek had begun to come again, very careful not to
repeat his mistake, but not deceiving her at all.  Though his
self-control was as great as Fiorsen's was small, she felt he had not
given up his pursuit of her, and would take very good care that Daphne
Wing was afforded every chance of being with her husband. But pride never
let her allude to the girl.  Besides, what good to speak of her?  They
would both lie--Rosek, because he obviously saw the mistaken line of his
first attack; Fiorsen, because his temperament did not permit him to
suffer by speaking the truth.

Having set herself to endure, she found she must live in the moment,
never think of the future, never think much of anything. Fortunately,
nothing so conduces to vacuity as a baby.  She gave herself up to it with
desperation.  It was a good baby, silent, somewhat understanding.  In
watching its face, and feeling it warm against her, Gyp succeeded daily
in getting away into the hypnotic state of mothers, and cows that chew
the cud.  But the baby slept a great deal, and much of its time was
claimed by Betty.  Those hours, and they were many, Gyp found difficult.
She had lost interest in dress and household elegance, keeping just
enough to satisfy her fastidiousness; money, too, was scarce, under the
drain of Fiorsen's irregular requirements.  If she read, she began almost
at once to brood.  She was cut off from the music-room, had not crossed
its threshold since her discovery.  Aunt Rosamund's efforts to take her
into society were fruitless--all the effervescence was out of that, and,
though her father came, he never stayed long for fear of meeting Fiorsen.
In this condition of affairs, she turned more and more to her own music,
and one morning, after she had come across some compositions of her
girlhood, she made a resolution. That afternoon she dressed herself with
pleasure, for the first time for months, and sallied forth into the
February frost.

Monsieur Edouard Harmost inhabited the ground floor of a house in the
Marylebone Road.  He received his pupils in a large back room overlooking
a little sooty garden.  A Walloon by extraction, and of great vitality,
he grew old with difficulty, having a soft corner in his heart for women,
and a passion for novelty, even for new music, that was unappeasable.
Any fresh discovery would bring a tear rolling down his mahogany cheeks
into his clipped grey beard, the while he played, singing wheezily to
elucidate the wondrous novelty; or moved his head up and down, as if
pumping.

When Gyp was shown into this well-remembered room he was seated, his
yellow fingers buried in his stiff grey hair, grieving over a pupil who
had just gone out.  He did not immediately rise, but stared hard at Gyp.

"Ah," he said, at last, "my little old friend!  She has come back! Now
that is good!"  And, patting her hand he looked into her face, which had
a warmth and brilliance rare to her in these days.  Then, making for the
mantelpiece, he took therefrom a bunch of Parma violets, evidently
brought by his last pupil, and thrust them under her nose.  "Take them,
take them--they were meant for me.  Now--how much have you forgotten?
Come!"  And, seizing her by the elbow, he almost forced her to the piano.
"Take off your furs.  Sit down!"

And while Gyp was taking off her coat, he fixed on her his prominent
brown eyes that rolled easily in their slightly blood-shot whites, under
squared eyelids and cliffs of brow.  She had on what Fiorsen called her
"humming-bird" blouse--dark blue, shot with peacock and old rose, and
looked very warm and soft under her fur cap.  Monsieur Harmost's stare
seemed to drink her in; yet that stare was not unpleasant, having in it
only the rather sad yearning of old men who love beauty and know that
their time for seeing it is getting short.

"Play me the 'Carnival,'" he said.  "We shall soon see!"

Gyp played.  Twice he nodded; once he tapped his fingers on his teeth,
and showed her the whites of his eyes--which meant: "That will have to be
very different!"  And once he grunted.  When she had finished, he sat
down beside her, took her hand in his, and, examining the fingers, began:

"Yes, yes, soon again!  Spoiling yourself, playing for that fiddler!
Trop sympathique!  The back-bone, the back-bone--we shall improve that.
Now, four hours a day for six weeks--and we shall have something again."

Gyp said softly:

"I have a baby, Monsieur Harmost."

Monsieur Harmost bounded.

"What!  That is a tragedy!"  Gyp shook her head.  "You like it?  A baby!
Does it not squall?"

"Very little."

"Mon Dieu!  Well, well, you are still as beautiful as ever.  That is
something.  Now, what can you do with this baby?  Could you get rid of it
a little?  This is serious.  This is a talent in danger. A fiddler, and a
baby!  C'est beaucoup!  C'est trop!"

Gyp smiled.  And Monsieur Harmost, whose exterior covered much
sensibility, stroked her hand.

"You have grown up, my little friend," he said gravely.  "Never mind;
nothing is wasted.  But a baby!"  And he chirruped his lips. "Well;
courage!  We shall do things yet!"

Gyp turned her head away to hide the quiver of her lips.  The scent of
latakia tobacco that had soaked into things, and of old books and music,
a dark smell, like Monsieur Harmost's complexion; the old brown curtains,
the sooty little back garden beyond, with its cat-runs, and its one
stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost's rolling
eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to come week
after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away, basking in
his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous feeling that
she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to play very
finely some day.

The voice of Monsieur Harmost, softly gruff, as if he knew what she was
feeling, increased her emotion; her breast heaved under the humming-bird
blouse, water came into her eyes, and more than ever her lips quivered.
He was saying:

"Come, come!  The only thing we cannot cure is age.  You were right to
come, my child.  Music is your proper air.  If things are not all what
they ought to be, you shall soon forget.  In music--in music, we can get
away.  After all, my little friend, they cannot take our dreams from
us--not even a wife, not even a husband can do that.  Come, we shall have
good times yet!"

And Gyp, with a violent effort, threw off that sudden weakness. From
those who serve art devotedly there radiates a kind of glamour.  She left
Monsieur Harmost that afternoon, infected by his passion for music.
Poetic justice--on which all homeopathy is founded--was at work to try
and cure her life by a dose of what had spoiled it.  To music, she now
gave all the hours she could spare. She went to him twice a week,
determining to get on, but uneasy at the expense, for monetary conditions
were ever more embarrassed. At home, she practised steadily and worked
hard at composition. She finished several songs and studies during the
spring and summer, and left still more unfinished.  Monsieur Harmost was
tolerant of these efforts, seeming to know that harsh criticism or
disapproval would cut her impulse down, as frost cuts the life of
flowers.  Besides, there was always something fresh and individual in her
things.  He asked her one day:

"What does your husband think of these?"

Gyp was silent a moment.

"I don't show them to him."

She never had; she instinctively kept back the knowledge that she
composed, dreading his ruthlessness when anything grated on his nerves,
and knowing that a breath of mockery would wither her belief in herself,
frail enough plant already.  The only person, besides her master, to whom
she confided her efforts was--strangely enough--Rosek.  But he had
surprised her one day copying out some music, and said at once: "I knew.
I was certain you composed.  Ah, do play it to me!  I am sure you have
talent."  The warmth with which he praised that little "caprice" was
surely genuine; and she felt so grateful that she even played him others,
and then a song for him to sing.  From that day, he no longer seemed to
her odious; she even began to have for him a certain friendliness, to be
a little sorry, watching him, pale, trim, and sphinx-like, in her
drawing-room or garden, getting no nearer to the fulfilment of his
desire.  He had never again made love to her, but she knew that at the
least sign he would.  His face and his invincible patience made him
pathetic to her.  Women such as Gyp cannot actively dislike those who
admire them greatly.  She consulted him about Fiorsen's debts.  There
were hundreds of pounds owing, it seemed, and, in addition, much to Rosek
himself.  The thought of these debts weighed unbearably on her.  Why did
he, HOW did he get into debt like this?  What became of the money he
earned?  His fees, this summer, were good enough.  There was such a
feeling of degradation about debt.  It was, somehow, so underbred to owe
money to all sorts of people.  Was it on that girl, on other women, that
he spent it all?  Or was it simply that his nature had holes in every
pocket?

Watching Fiorsen closely, that spring and early summer, she was conscious
of a change, a sort of loosening, something in him had given way--as
when, in winding a watch, the key turns on and on, the ratchet being
broken.  Yet he was certainly working hard--perhaps harder than ever.
She would hear him, across the garden, going over and over a passage, as
if he never would be satisfied. But his playing seemed to her to have
lost its fire and sweep; to be stale, and as if disillusioned.  It was
all as though he had said to himself: "What's the use?"  In his face,
too, there was a change.  She knew--she was certain that he was drinking
secretly. Was it his failure with her?  Was it the girl?  Was it simply
heredity from a hard-drinking ancestry?

Gyp never faced these questions.  To face them would mean useless
discussion, useless admission that she could not love him, useless
asseveration from him about the girl, which she would not believe,
useless denials of all sorts.  Hopeless!

He was very irritable, and seemed especially to resent her music lessons,
alluding to them with a sort of sneering impatience.  She felt that he
despised them as amateurish, and secretly resented it. He was often
impatient, too, of the time she gave to the baby.  His own conduct with
the little creature was like all the rest of him. He would go to the
nursery, much to Betty's alarm, and take up the baby; be charming with it
for about ten minutes, then suddenly dump it back into its cradle, stare
at it gloomily or utter a laugh, and go out.  Sometimes, he would come up
when Gyp was there, and after watching her a little in silence, almost
drag her away.

Suffering always from the guilty consciousness of having no love for him,
and ever more and more from her sense that, instead of saving him she
was, as it were, pushing him down-hill--ironical nemesis for vanity!--Gyp
was ever more and more compliant to his whims, trying to make up.  But
this compliance, when all the time she felt further and further away, was
straining her to breaking-point.  Hers was a nature that goes on
passively enduring till something snaps; after that--no more.

Those months of spring and summer were like a long spell of drought, when
moisture gathers far away, coming nearer, nearer, till, at last, the
deluge bursts and sweeps the garden.




XV

The tenth of July that year was as the first day of summer.  There had
been much fine weather, but always easterly or northerly; now, after a
broken, rainy fortnight, the sun had come in full summer warmth with a
gentle breeze, drifting here and there scent of the opening lime blossom.
In the garden, under the trees at the far end, Betty sewed at a garment,
and the baby in her perambulator had her seventh morning sleep.  Gyp
stood before a bed of pansies and sweet peas.  How monkeyish the pansies'
faces!  The sweet peas, too, were like tiny bright birds fastened to
green perches swaying with the wind.  And their little green tridents,
growing out from the queer, flat stems, resembled the antennae of
insects.  Each of these bright frail, growing things had life and
individuality like herself!

The sound of footsteps on the gravel made her turn.  Rosek was coming
from the drawing-room window.  Rather startled, Gyp looked at him over
her shoulder.  What had brought him at eleven o'clock in the morning?  He
came up to her, bowed, and said:

"I came to see Gustav.  He's not up yet, it seems.  I thought I would
speak to you first.  Can we talk?"

Hesitating just a second, Gyp drew off her gardening-gloves:

"Of course!  Here?  Or in the drawing-room?"

Rosek answered:

"In the drawing-room, please."

A faint tremor passed through her, but she led the way, and seated
herself where she could see Betty and the baby.  Rosek stood looking down
at her; his stillness, the sweetish gravity of his well-cut lips, his
spotless dandyism stirred in Gyp a kind of unwilling admiration.

"What is it?" she said.

"Bad business, I'm afraid.  Something must be done at once.  I have been
trying to arrange things, but they will not wait.  They are even
threatening to sell up this house."

With a sense of outrage, Gyp cried:

"Nearly everything here is mine."

Rosek shook his head.

"The lease is in his name--you are his wife.  They can do it, I assure
you."  A sort of shadow passed over his face, and he added: "I cannot
help him any more--just now."

Gyp shook her head quickly.

"No--of course!  You ought not to have helped him at all.  I can't
bear--"  He bowed, and she stopped, ashamed.  "How much does he owe
altogether?"

"About thirteen hundred pounds.  It isn't much, of course.  But there is
something else--"

"Worse?"

Rosek nodded.

"I am afraid to tell you; you will think again perhaps that I am trying
to make capital out of it.  I can read your thoughts, you see.  I cannot
afford that you should think that, this time."

Gyp made a little movement as though putting away his words.

"No; tell me, please."

Rosek shrugged his shoulders.

"There is a man called Wagge, an undertaker--the father of someone you
know--"

"Daphne Wing?"

"Yes.  A child is coming.  They have made her tell.  It means the
cancelling of her engagements, of course--and other things."

Gyp uttered a little laugh; then she said slowly:

"Can you tell me, please, what this Mr.--Wagge can do?"

Again Rosek shrugged his shoulders.

"He is rabid--a rabid man of his class is dangerous.  A lot of money will
be wanted, I should think--some blood, perhaps."

He moved swiftly to her, and said very low:

"Gyp, it is a year since I told you of this.  You did not believe me
then.  I told you, too, that I loved you.  I love you more, now, a
hundred times!  Don't move!  I am going up to Gustav."

He turned, and Gyp thought he was really going; but he stopped and came
back past the line of the window.  The expression of his face was quite
changed, so hungry that, for a moment, she felt sorry for him.  And that
must have shown in her face, for he suddenly caught at her, and tried to
kiss her lips; she wrenched back, and he could only reach her throat, but
that he kissed furiously.  Letting her go as suddenly, he bent his head
and went out without a look.

Gyp stood wiping his kisses off her throat with the back of her hand,
dumbly, mechanically thinking: "What have I done to be treated like this?
What HAVE I done?"  No answer came.  And such rage against men flared up
that she just stood there, twisting her garden-gloves in her hands, and
biting the lips he would have kissed.  Then, going to her bureau, she
took up her address book and looked for the name: Wing, 88, Frankland
Street, Fulham. Unhooking her little bag from off the back of the chair,
she put her cheque-book into it.  Then, taking care to make no sound, she
passed into the hall, caught up her sunshade, and went out, closing the
door without noise.

She walked quickly toward Baker Street.  Her gardening-hat was right
enough, but she had come out without gloves, and must go into the first
shop and buy a pair.  In the choosing of them, she forgot her emotions
for a minute.  Out in the street again, they came back as bitterly as
ever.  And the day was so beautiful--the sun bright, the sky blue, the
clouds dazzling white; from the top of her 'bus she could see all its
brilliance.  There rose up before her the memory of the man who had
kissed her arm at the first ball.  And now--this!  But, mixed with her
rage, a sort of unwilling compassion and fellow feeling kept rising for
that girl, that silly, sugar-plum girl, brought to such a pass by--her
husband. These feelings sustained her through that voyage to Fulham.  She
got down at the nearest corner, walked up a widish street of narrow grey
houses till she came to number eighty-eight.  On that newly scrubbed
step, waiting for the door to open, she very nearly turned and fled.
What exactly had she come to do?

The door was opened by a servant in an untidy frock.  Mutton!  The smell
of mutton--there it was, just as the girl had said!

"Is Miss--Miss Daphne Wing at home?"

In that peculiar "I've given it up" voice of domestics in small
households, the servant answered:

"Yes; Miss Disey's in.  D'you want to see 'er?  What nyme?"

Gyp produced her card.  The maid looked at it, at Gyp, and at two
brown-painted doors, as much as to say, "Where will you have it?" Then,
opening the first of them, she said:

"Tyke a seat, please; I'll fetch her."

Gyp went in.  In the middle of what was clearly the dining-room, she
tried to subdue the tremor of her limbs and a sense of nausea. The table
against which her hand rested was covered with red baize, no doubt to
keep the stains of mutton from penetrating to the wood. On the mahogany
sideboard reposed a cruet-stand and a green dish of very red apples.  A
bamboo-framed talc screen painted with white and yellow marguerites stood
before a fireplace filled with pampas-grass dyed red.  The chairs were of
red morocco, the curtains a brownish-red, the walls green, and on them
hung a set of Landseer prints.  The peculiar sensation which red and
green in juxtaposition produce on the sensitive was added to Gyp's
distress. And, suddenly, her eyes lighted on a little deep-blue china
bowl. It stood on a black stand on the mantel-piece, with nothing in it.
To Gyp, in this room of red and green, with the smell of mutton creeping
in, that bowl was like the crystallized whiff of another world.  Daphne
Wing--not Daisy Wagge--had surely put it there! And, somehow, it touched
her--emblem of stifled beauty, emblem of all that the girl had tried to
pour out to her that August afternoon in her garden nearly a year ago.
Thin Eastern china, good and really beautiful!  A wonder they allowed it
to pollute this room!

A sigh made her turn round.  With her back against the door and a white,
scared face, the girl was standing.  Gyp thought: 'She has suffered
horribly.'  And, going impulsively up to her, she held out her hand.

Daphne Wing sighed out: "Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen!" and, bending over that hand,
kissed it.  Gyp saw that her new glove was wet.  Then the girl relapsed,
her feet a little forward, her head a little forward, her back against
the door.  Gyp, who knew why she stood thus, was swept again by those two
emotions--rage against men, and fellow feeling for one about to go
through what she herself had just endured.

"It's all right," she said, gently; "only, what's to be done?"

Daphne Wing put her hands up over her white face and sobbed.  She sobbed
so quietly but so terribly deeply that Gyp herself had the utmost
difficulty not to cry.  It was the sobbing of real despair by a creature
bereft of hope and strength, above all, of love--the sort of weeping
which is drawn from desolate, suffering souls only by the touch of fellow
feeling.  And, instead of making Gyp glad or satisfying her sense of
justice, it filled her with more rage against her husband--that he had
taken this girl's infatuation for his pleasure and then thrown her away.
She seemed to see him discarding that clinging, dove-fair girl, for
cloying his senses and getting on his nerves, discarding her with caustic
words, to abide alone the consequences of her infatuation.  She put her
hand timidly on that shaking shoulder, and stroked it.  For a moment the
sobbing stopped, and the girl said brokenly:

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I do love him so!"  At those naive words, a painful
wish to laugh seized on Gyp, making her shiver from head to foot.  Daphne
Wing saw it, and went on: "I know--I know--it's awful; but I do--and now
he--he--"  Her quiet but really dreadful sobbing broke out again.  And
again Gyp began stroking and stroking her shoulder.  "And I have been so
awful to you!  Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, do forgive me, please!"

All Gyp could find to answer, was:

"Yes, yes; that's nothing!  Don't cry--don't cry!"

Very slowly the sobbing died away, till it was just a long shivering, but
still the girl held her hands over her face and her face down.  Gyp felt
paralyzed.  The unhappy girl, the red and green room, the smell of
mutton--creeping!

At last, a little of that white face showed; the lips, no longer craving
for sugar-plums, murmured:

"It's you he--he--really loves all the time.  And you don't love
him--that's what's so funny--and--and--I can't understand it.  Oh, Mrs.
Fiorsen, if I could see him--just see him!  He told me never to come
again; and I haven't dared.  I haven't seen him for three weeks--not
since I told him about IT.  What shall I do?  What shall I do?"

His being her own husband seemed as nothing to Gyp at that moment. She
felt such pity and yet such violent revolt that any girl should want to
crawl back to a man who had spurned her.  Unconsciously, she had drawn
herself up and pressed her lips together.  The girl, who followed every
movement, said piteously:

"I don't seem to have any pride.  I don't mind what he does to me, or
what he says, if only I can see him."

Gyp's revolt yielded to her pity.  She said:

"How long before?"

"Three months."

Three months--and in this state of misery!

"I think I shall do something desperate.  Now that I can't dance, and
THEY know, it's too awful!  If I could see him, I wouldn't mind anything.
But I know--I know he'll never want me again.  Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I wish I
was dead!  I do!"

A heavy sigh escaped Gyp, and, bending suddenly, she kissed the girl's
forehead.  Still that scent of orange blossom about her skin or hair, as
when she asked whether she ought to love or not; as when she came,
moth-like, from the tree-shade into the moonlight, spun, and fluttered,
with her shadow spinning and fluttering before her.  Gyp turned away,
feeling that she must relieve the strain and pointing to the bowl, said:

"YOU put that there, I'm sure.  It's beautiful."

The girl answered, with piteous eagerness:

"Oh, would you like it?  Do take it.  Count Rosek gave it me."  She
started away from the door.  "Oh, that's papa.  He'll be coming in!"

Gyp heard a man clear his throat, and the rattle of an umbrella falling
into a stand; the sight of the girl wilting and shrinking against the
sideboard steadied her.  Then the door opened, and Mr. Wagge entered.
Short and thick, in black frock coat and trousers, and a greyish beard,
he stared from one to the other.  He looked what he was, an Englishman
and a chapelgoer, nourished on sherry and mutton, who could and did make
his own way in the world.  His features, coloured, as from a deep
liverishness, were thick, like his body, and not ill-natured, except for
a sort of anger in his small, rather piggy grey eyes.  He said in a voice
permanently gruff, but impregnated with a species of professional
ingratiation:

"Ye-es?  Whom 'ave I--?"

"Mrs. Fiorsen."

"Ow!"  The sound of his breathing could be heard distinctly; he twisted a
chair round and said:

"Take a seat, won't you?"

Gyp shook her head.

In Mr. Wagge's face a kind of deference seemed to struggle with some more
primitive emotion.  Taking out a large, black-edged handkerchief, he blew
his nose, passed it freely over his visage, and turning to his daughter,
muttered:

"Go upstairs."

The girl turned quickly, and the last glimpse of her white face whipped
up Gyp's rage against men.  When the door was shut, Mr. Wagge cleared his
throat; the grating sound carried with it the suggestion of enormously
thick linings.

He said more gruffly than ever:

"May I ask what 'as given us the honour?"

"I came to see your daughter."

His little piggy eyes travelled from her face to her feet, to the walls
of the room, to his own watch-chain, to his hands that had begun to rub
themselves together, back to her breast, higher than which they dared not
mount.  Their infinite embarrassment struck Gyp.  She could almost hear
him thinking: 'Now, how can I discuss it with this attractive young
female, wife of the scoundrel who's ruined my daughter?  Delicate-that's
what it is!'  Then the words burst hoarsely from him.

"This is an unpleasant business, ma'am.  I don't know what to say. Reelly
I don't.  It's awkward; it's very awkward."

Gyp said quietly:

"Your daughter is desperately unhappy; and that can't be good for her
just now."

Mr. Wagge's thick figure seemed to writhe.  "Pardon me, ma'am," he
spluttered, "but I must call your husband a scoundrel.  I'm sorry to be
impolite, but I must do it.  If I had 'im 'ere, I don't know that I
should be able to control myself--I don't indeed."  Gyp made a movement
of her gloved hands, which he seemed to interpret as sympathy, for he
went on in a stream of husky utterance: "It's a delicate thing before a
lady, and she the injured party; but one has feelings.  From the first I
said this dancin' was in the face of Providence; but women have no more
sense than an egg.  Her mother she would have it; and now she's got it!
Career, indeed! Pretty career!  Daughter of mine!  I tell you, ma'am, I'm
angry; there's no other word for it--I'm angry.  If that scoundrel comes
within reach of me, I shall mark 'im--I'm not a young man, but I shall
mark 'im.  An' what to say to you, I'm sure I don't know. That my
daughter should be'ave like that!  Well, it's made a difference to me.
An' now I suppose her name'll be dragged in the mud.  I tell you frankly
I 'oped you wouldn't hear of it, because after all the girl's got her
punishment.  And this divorce-court--it's not nice--it's a horrible thing
for respectable people.  And, mind you, I won't see my girl married to
that scoundrel, not if you do divorce 'im.  No; she'll have her disgrace
for nothing."

Gyp, who had listened with her head a little bent, raised it suddenly,
and said:

"There'll be no public disgrace, Mr. Wagge, unless you make it yourself.
If you send Daphne--Daisy--quietly away somewhere till her trouble's
over, no one need know anything."

Mr. Wagge, whose mouth had opened slightly, and whose breathing could
certainly have been heard in the street, took a step forward and said:

"Do I understand you to say that you're not goin' to take proceedings,
ma'am?"

Gyp shuddered, and shook her head.

Mr. Wagge stood silent, slightly moving his face up and down.

"Well," he said, at length, "it's more than she deserves; but I don't
disguise it's a relief to me.  And I must say, in a young lady like you,
and--and handsome, it shows a Christian spirit." Again Gyp shivered, and
shook her head.  "It does.  You'll allow me to say so, as a man old
enough to be your father--and a regular attendant."

He held out his hand.  Gyp put her gloved hand into it.

"I'm very, very sorry.  Please be nice to her."

Mr. Wagge recoiled a little, and for some seconds stood ruefully rubbing
his hands together and looking from side to side.

"I'm a domestic man," he said suddenly.  "A domestic man in a serious
line of life; and I never thought to have anything like this in my
family--never!  It's been--well, I can't tell you what it's been!"

Gyp took up her sunshade.  She felt that she must get away; at any moment
he might say something she could not bear--and the smell of mutton rising
fast!

"I am sorry," she said again; "good-bye"; and moved past him to the door.
She heard him breathing hard as he followed her to open it, and thought:
'If only--oh! please let him be silent till I get outside!'  Mr. Wagge
passed her and put his hand on the latch of the front door.  His little
piggy eyes scanned her almost timidly.

"Well," he said, "I'm very glad to have the privilege of your
acquaintance; and, if I may say so, you 'ave--you 'ave my 'earty
sympathy.  Good-day."

The door once shut behind her, Gyp took a long breath and walked swiftly
away.  Her cheeks were burning; and, with a craving for protection, she
put up her sunshade.  But the girl's white face came up again before her,
and the sound of her words:

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I wish I was dead!  I DO!"




XVI

Gyp walked on beneath her sunshade, making unconsciously for the peace of
trees.  Her mind was a whirl of impressions--Daphne Wing's figure against
the door, Mr. Wagge's puggy grey-bearded countenance, the red
pampas-grass, the blue bowl, Rosek's face swooping at her, her last
glimpse of her baby asleep under the trees!

She reached Kensington Gardens, turned into that walk renowned for the
beauty of its flowers and the plainness of the people who frequent it,
and sat down on a bench.  It was near the luncheon-hour; nursemaids,
dogs, perambulators, old gentlemen--all were hurrying a little toward
their food.  They glanced with critical surprise at this pretty young
woman, leisured and lonely at such an hour, trying to find out what was
wrong with her, as one naturally does with beauty--bow legs or something,
for sure, to balance a face like that!  But Gyp noticed none of them,
except now and again a dog which sniffed her knees in passing.  For
months she had resolutely cultivated insensibility, resolutely refused to
face reality; the barrier was forced now, and the flood had swept her
away.  "Proceedings!" Mr. Wagge had said.  To those who shrink from
letting their secret affairs be known even by their nearest friends, the
notion of a public exhibition of troubles simply never comes, and it had
certainly never come to Gyp.  With a bitter smile she thought: 'I'm
better off than she is, after all!  Suppose I loved him, too?  No, I
never--never--want to love.  Women who love suffer too much.'

She sat on that bench a long time before it came into her mind that she
was due at Monsieur Harmost's for a music lesson at three o'clock.  It
was well past two already; and she set out across the grass.  The summer
day was full of murmurings of bees and flies, cooings of blissful
pigeons, the soft swish and stir of leaves, and the scent of lime blossom
under a sky so blue, with few white clouds slow, and calm, and full.  Why
be unhappy?  And one of those spotty spaniel dogs, that have broad heads,
with frizzy topknots, and are always rascals, smelt at her frock and
moved round and round her, hoping that she would throw her sunshade on
the water for him to fetch, this being in his view the only reason why
anything was carried in the hand.

She found Monsieur Harmost fidgeting up and down the room, whose opened
windows could not rid it of the smell of latakia.

"Ah," he said, "I thought you were not coming!  You look pale; are you
not well?  Is it the heat?  Or"--he looked hard into her face--"has
someone hurt you, my little friend?"  Gyp shook her head. "Ah, yes," he
went on irritably; "you tell me nothing; you tell nobody nothing!  You
close up your pretty face like a flower at night.  At your age, my child,
one should make confidences; a secret grief is to music as the east wind
to the stomach.  Put off your mask for once."  He came close to her.
"Tell me your troubles.  It is a long time since I have been meaning to
ask. Come!  We are only once young; I want to see you happy."

But Gyp stood looking down.  Would it be relief to pour her soul out?
Would it?  His brown eyes questioned her like an old dog's. She did not
want to hurt one so kind.  And yet--impossible!

Monsieur Harmost suddenly sat down at the piano.  Resting his hands on
the keys, he looked round at her, and said:

"I am in love with you, you know.  Old men can be very much in love, but
they know it is no good--that makes them endurable. Still, we like to
feel of use to youth and beauty; it gives us a little warmth.  Come; tell
me your grief!"  He waited a moment, then said irritably: "Well, well, we
go to music then!"

It was his habit to sit by her at the piano corner, but to-day he stood
as if prepared to be exceptionally severe.  And Gyp played, whether from
overexcited nerves or from not having had any lunch, better than she had
ever played.  The Chopin polonaise in A flat, that song of revolution,
which had always seemed so unattainable, went as if her fingers were
being worked for her.  When she had finished, Monsieur Harmost, bending
forward, lifted one of her hands and put his lips to it.  She felt the
scrub of his little bristly beard, and raised her face with a deep sigh
of satisfaction. A voice behind them said mockingly:

"Bravo!"

There, by the door, stood Fiorsen.

"Congratulations, madame!  I have long wanted to see you under the
inspiration of your--master!"

Gyp's heart began to beat desperately.  Monsieur Harmost had not moved.
A faint grin slowly settled in his beard, but his eyes were startled.

Fiorsen kissed the back of his own hand.

"To this old Pantaloon you come to give your heart.  Ho--what a lover!"

Gyp saw the old man quiver; she sprang up and cried:

"You brute!"

Fiorsen ran forward, stretching out his arms toward Monsieur Harmost, as
if to take him by the throat.

The old man drew himself up.  "Monsieur," he said, "you are certainly
drunk."

Gyp slipped between, right up to those outstretched hands till she could
feel their knuckles against her.  Had he gone mad?  Would he strangle
her?  But her eyes never moved from his, and his began to waver; his
hands dropped, and, with a kind of moan, he made for the door.

Monsieur Harmost's voice behind her said:

"Before you go, monsieur, give me some explanation of this imbecility!"

Fiorsen spun round, shook his fist, and went out muttering.  They heard
the front door slam.  Gyp turned abruptly to the window, and there, in
her agitation, she noticed little outside things as one does in moments
of bewildered anger.  Even into that back yard, summer had crept.  The
leaves of the sumach-tree were glistening; in a three-cornered little
patch of sunlight, a black cat with a blue ribbon round its neck was
basking.  The voice of one hawking strawberries drifted melancholy from a
side street.  She was conscious that Monsieur Harmost was standing very
still, with a hand pressed to his mouth, and she felt a perfect passion
of compunction and anger.  That kind and harmless old man--to be so
insulted!  This was indeed the culmination of all Gustav's outrages!  She
would never forgive him this!  For he had insulted her as well, beyond
what pride or meekness could put up with.  She turned, and, running up to
the old man, put both her hands into his.

"I'm so awfully sorry.  Good-bye, dear, dear Monsieur Harmost; I shall
come on Friday!"  And, before he could stop her, she was gone.

She dived into the traffic; but, just as she reached the pavement on the
other side, felt her dress plucked and saw Fiorsen just behind her.  She
shook herself free and walked swiftly on.  Was he going to make a scene
in the street?  Again he caught her arm.  She stopped dead, faced round
on him, and said, in an icy voice:

"Please don't make scenes in the street, and don't follow me like this.
If you want to talk to me, you can--at home."

Then, very calmly, she turned and walked on.  But he was still following
her, some paces off.  She did not quicken her steps, and to the first
taxicab driver that passed she made a sign, and saying:

"Bury Street--quick!" got in.  She saw Fiorsen rush forward, too late to
stop her.  He threw up his hand and stood still, his face deadly white
under his broad-brimmed hat.  She was far too angry and upset to care.

From the moment she turned to the window at Monsieur Harmost's, she had
determined to go to her father's.  She would not go back to Fiorsen; and
the one thought that filled her mind was how to get Betty and her baby.
Nearly four!  Dad was almost sure to be at his club.  And leaning out,
she said: "No; Hyde Park Corner, please."

The hall porter, who knew her, after calling to a page-boy: "Major
Winton--sharp, now!" came specially out of his box to offer her a seat
and The Times.

Gyp sat with it on her knee, vaguely taking in her surroundings--a thin
old gentleman anxiously weighing himself in a corner, a white-calved
footman crossing with a tea-tray; a number of hats on pegs; the
green-baize board with its white rows of tapelike paper, and three
members standing before it.  One of them, a tall, stout,
good-humoured-looking man in pince-nez and a white waistcoat, becoming
conscious, removed his straw hat and took up a position whence, without
staring, he could gaze at her; and Gyp knew, without ever seeming to
glance at him, that he found her to his liking.  She saw her father's
unhurried figure passing that little group, all of whom were conscious
now, and eager to get away out of this sanctum of masculinity, she met
him at the top of the low steps, and said:

"I want to talk to you, Dad."

He gave her a quick look, selected his hat, and followed to the door.  In
the cab, he put his hand on hers and said:

"Now, my dear?"

But all she could get out was:

"I want to come back to you.  I can't go on there.  It's--it's--I've come
to an end."

His hand pressed hers tightly, as if he were trying to save her the need
for saying more.  Gyp went on:

"I must get baby; I'm terrified that he'll try to keep her, to get me
back."

"Is he at home?"

"I don't know.  I haven't told him that I'm going to leave him."

Winton looked at his watch and asked:

"Does the baby ever go out as late as this?"

"Yes; after tea.  It's cooler."

"I'll take this cab on, then.  You stay and get the room ready for her.
Don't worry, and don't go out till I return."

And Gyp thought: 'How wonderful of him not to have asked a single
question.'

The cab stopped at the Bury Street door.  She took his hand, put it to
her cheek, and got out.  He said quietly:

"Do you want the dogs?"

"Yes--oh, yes!  He doesn't care for them."

"All right.  There'll be time to get you in some things for the night
after I come back.  I shan't run any risks to-day.  Make Mrs. Markey give
you tea."

Gyp watched the cab gather way again, saw him wave his hand; then, with a
deep sigh, half anxiety, half relief, she rang the bell.




XVII

When the cab debouched again into St. James' Street, Winton gave the
order: "Quick as you can!"  One could think better going fast! A little
red had come into his brown cheeks; his eyes under their half-drawn lids
had a keener light; his lips were tightly closed; he looked as he did
when a fox was breaking cover.  Gyp could do no wrong, or, if she could,
he would stand by her in it as a matter of course.  But he was going to
take no risks--make no frontal attack. Time for that later, if necessary.
He had better nerves than most people, and that kind of steely
determination and resource which makes many Englishmen of his class
formidable in small operations. He kept his cab at the door, rang, and
asked for Gyp, with a kind of pleasure in his ruse.

"She's not in yet, sir.  Mr. Fiorsen's in."

"Ah!  And baby?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll come in and see her.  In the garden?"

"Yes, sir."

"Dogs there, too?"

"Yes, sir.  And will you have tea, please, sir?"

"No, thanks."  How to effect this withdrawal without causing gossip, and
yet avoid suspicion of collusion with Gyp?  And he added: "Unless Mrs.
Fiorsen comes in."

Passing out into the garden, he became aware that Fiorsen was at the
dining-room window watching him, and decided to make no sign that he knew
this.  The baby was under the trees at the far end, and the dogs came
rushing thence with a fury which lasted till they came within scent of
him.  Winton went leisurely up to the perambulator, and, saluting Betty,
looked down at his grandchild. She lay under an awning of muslin, for
fear of flies, and was awake.  Her solemn, large brown eyes, already like
Gyp's, regarded him with gravity.  Clucking to her once or twice, as is
the custom, he moved so as to face the house.  In this position, he had
Betty with her back to it.  And he said quietly:

"I'm here with a message from your mistress, Betty.  Keep your head;
don't look round, but listen to me.  She's at Bury Street and going to
stay there; she wants you and baby and the dogs."  The stout woman's eyes
grew round and her mouth opened.  Winton put his hand on the
perambulator.  "Steady, now!  Go out as usual with this thing.  It's
about your time; and wait for me at the turning to Regent's Park.  I'll
come on in my cab and pick you all up.  Don't get flurried; don't take
anything; do exactly as you usually would. Understand?"

It is not in the nature of stout women with babies in their charge to
receive such an order without question.  Her colour, and the heaving of
that billowy bosom made Winton add quickly:

"Now, Betty, pull yourself together; Gyp wants you.  I'll tell you all
about it in the cab."

The poor woman, still heaving vaguely, could only stammer:

"Yes, sir.  Poor little thing!  What about its night-things?  And Miss
Gyp's?"

Conscious of that figure still at the window, Winton made some passes
with his fingers at the baby, and said:

"Never mind them.  As soon as you see me at the drawing-room window, get
ready and go.  Eyes front, Betty; don't look round; I'll cover your
retreat!  Don't fail Gyp now.  Pull yourself together."

With a sigh that could have been heard in Kensington, Betty murmured:
"Very well, sir; oh dear!" and began to adjust the strings of her bonnet.
With nods, as if he had been the recipient of some sage remarks about the
baby, Winton saluted, and began his march again towards the house.  He
carefully kept his eyes to this side and to that, as if examining the
flowers, but noted all the same that Fiorsen had receded from the window.
Rapid thought told him that the fellow would come back there to see if he
were gone, and he placed himself before a rose-bush, where, at that
reappearance, he could make a sign of recognition.  Sure enough, he came;
and Winton quietly raising his hand to the salute passed on through the
drawing-room window.  He went quickly into the hall, listened a second,
and opened the dining-room door.  Fiorsen was pacing up and down, pale
and restless.  He came to a standstill and stared haggardly at Winton,
who said:

"How are you?  Gyp not in?"

"No."

Something in the sound of that "No" touched Winton with a vague--a very
vague--compunction.  To be left by Gyp!  Then his heart hardened again.
The fellow was a rotter--he was sure of it, had always been sure.

"Baby looks well," he said.

Fiorsen turned and began to pace up and down again.

"Where is Gyp?  I want her to come in.  I want her."

Winton took out his watch.

"It's not late."  And suddenly he felt a great aversion for the part he
was playing.  To get the baby; to make Gyp safe--yes!  But, somehow, not
this pretence that he knew nothing about it.  He turned on his heel and
walked out.  It imperilled everything; but he couldn't help it.  He could
not stay and go on prevaricating like this.  Had that woman got clear?
He went back into the drawing-room.  There they were--just passing the
side of the house. Five minutes, and they would be down at the turning.
He stood at the window, waiting.  If only that fellow did not come in!
Through the partition wall he could hear him still tramping up and down
the dining-room.  What a long time a minute was!  Three had gone when he
heard the dining-room door opened, and Fiorsen crossing the hall to the
front door.  What was he after, standing there as if listening?  And
suddenly he heard him sigh.  It was just such a sound as many times, in
the long-past days, had escaped himself, waiting, listening for
footsteps, in parched and sickening anxiety. Did this fellow then really
love--almost as he had loved?  And in revolt at spying on him like this,
he advanced and said:

"Well, I won't wait any longer."

Fiorsen started; he had evidently supposed himself alone.  And Winton
thought: 'By Jove! he does look bad!'

"Good-bye!" he said; but the words: "Give my love to Gyp," perished on
their way up to his lips.

"Good-bye!" Fiorsen echoed.  And Winton went out under the trellis,
conscious of that forlorn figure still standing at the half-opened door.
Betty was nowhere in sight; she must have reached the turning.  His
mission had succeeded, but he felt no elation.  Round the corner, he
picked up his convoy, and, with the perambulator hoisted on to the taxi,
journeyed on at speed.  He had said he would explain in the cab, but the
only remark he made was:

"You'll all go down to Mildenham to-morrow."

And Betty, who had feared him ever since their encounter so many years
ago, eyed his profile, without daring to ask questions. Before he reached
home, Winton stopped at a post-office, and sent this telegram:

"Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.--WINTON."

It salved a conscience on which that fellow's figure in the doorway
weighed; besides, it was necessary, lest Fiorsen should go to the police.
The rest must wait till he had talked with Gyp.

There was much to do, and it was late before they dined, and not till
Markey had withdrawn could they begin their talk.

Close to the open windows where Markey had placed two hydrangea
plants--just bought on his own responsibility, in token of silent
satisfaction--Gyp began.  She kept nothing back, recounting the whole
miserable fiasco of her marriage.  When she came to Daphne Wing and her
discovery in the music-room, she could see the glowing end of her
father's cigar move convulsively.  That insult to his adored one seemed
to Winton so inconceivable that, for a moment, he stopped her recital by
getting up to pace the room.  In her own house--her own house!
And--after that, she had gone on with him! He came back to his chair and
did not interrupt again, but his stillness almost frightened her.

Coming to the incidents of the day itself, she hesitated.  Must she tell
him, too, of Rosek--was it wise, or necessary?  The all-or-nothing
candour that was part of her nature prevailed, and she went straight on,
and, save for the feverish jerking of his evening shoe, Winton made no
sign.  When she had finished, he got up and slowly extinguished the end
of his cigar against the window-sill; then looking at her lying back in
her chair as if exhausted, he said: "By God!" and turned his face away to
the window.

At that hour before the theatres rose, a lull brooded in the London
streets; in this quiet narrow one, the town's hum was only broken by the
clack of a half-drunken woman bickering at her man as they lurched along
for home, and the strains of a street musician's fiddle, trying to make
up for a blank day.  The sound vaguely irritated Winton, reminding him of
those two damnable foreigners by whom she had been so treated.  To have
them at the point of a sword or pistol--to teach them a lesson!  He heard
her say:

"Dad, I should like to pay his debts.  Then things would be as they were
when I married him."

He emitted an exasperated sound.  He did not believe in heaping coals of
fire.

"I want to make sure, too, that the girl is all right till she's over her
trouble.  Perhaps I could use some of that--that other money, if mine is
all tied up?"

It was sheer anger, not disapproval of her impulse, that made him
hesitate; money and revenge would never be associated in his mind. Gyp
went on:

"I want to feel as if I'd never let him marry me.  Perhaps his debts are
all part of that--who knows?  Please!"

Winton looked at her.  How like--when she said that "Please!"  How
like--her figure sunk back in the old chair, and the face lifted in
shadow!  A sort of exultation came to him.  He had got her back--had got
her back!




XVIII

Fiorsen's bedroom was--as the maid would remark--"a proper pigsty"--until
he was out of it and it could be renovated each day.  He had a talent for
disorder, so that the room looked as if three men instead of one had gone
to bed in it.  Clothes and shoes, brushes, water, tumblers,
breakfast-tray, newspapers, French novels, and cigarette-ends--none were
ever where they should have been; and the stale fumes from the many
cigarettes he smoked before getting up incommoded anyone whose duty it
was to take him tea and shaving-water.  When, on that first real summer
day, the maid had brought Rosek up to him, he had been lying a long time
on his back, dreamily watching the smoke from his cigarette and four
flies waltzing in the sunlight that filtered through the green
sun-blinds.  This hour, before he rose, was his creative moment, when he
could best see the form of music and feel inspiration for its rendering.
Of late, he had been stale and wretched, all that side of him dull; but
this morning he felt again the delicious stir of fancy, that vibrating,
half-dreamy state when emotion seems so easily to find shape and the mind
pierces through to new expression.  Hearing the maid's knock, and her
murmured: "Count Rosek to see you, sir," he thought: 'What the devil does
he want?' A larger nature, drifting without control, in contact with a
smaller one, who knows his own mind exactly, will instinctively be
irritable, though he may fail to grasp what his friend is after.

And pushing the cigarette-box toward Rosek, he turned away his head.  It
would be money he had come about, or--that girl!  That girl--he wished
she was dead!  Soft, clinging creature!  A baby! God!  What a fool he had
been--ah, what a fool!  Such absurdity! Unheard of!  First Gyp--then her!
He had tried to shake the girl off.  As well try to shake off a burr!
How she clung!  He had been patient--oh, yes--patient and kind, but how
go on when one was tired--tired of her--and wanting only Gyp, only his
own wife?  That was a funny thing!  And now, when, for an hour or two, he
had shaken free of worry, had been feeling happy--yes, happy--this fellow
must come, and stand there with his face of a sphinx!  And he said
pettishly:

"Well, Paul! sit down.  What troubles have you brought?"

Rosek lit a cigarette but did not sit down.  He struck even Fiorsen by
his unsmiling pallor.

"You had better look out for Mr. Wagge, Gustav; he came to me yesterday.
He has no music in his soul."

Fiorsen sat up.

"Satan take Mr. Wagge!  What can he do?"

"I am not a lawyer, but I imagine he can be unpleasant--the girl is
young."

Fiorsen glared at him, and said:

"Why did you throw me that cursed girl?"

Rosek answered, a little too steadily:

"I did not, my friend."

"What!  You did.  What was your game?  You never do anything without a
game.  You know you did.  Come; what was your game?"

"You like pleasure, I believe."

Fiorsen said violently:

"Look here: I have done with your friendship--you are no friend to me.  I
have never really known you, and I should not wish to.  It is finished.
Leave me in peace."

Rosek smiled.

"My dear, that is all very well, but friendships are not finished like
that.  Moreover, you owe me a thousand pounds."

"Well, I will pay it."  Rosek's eyebrows mounted.  "I will.  Gyp will
lend it to me."

"Oh!  Is Gyp so fond of you as that?  I thought she only loved her
music-lessons."

Crouching forward with his knees drawn up, Fiorsen hissed out:

"Don't talk of Gyp!  Get out of this!  I will pay you your thousand
pounds."

Rosek, still smiling, answered:

"Gustav, don't be a fool!  With a violin to your shoulder, you are a man.
Without--you are a child.  Lie quiet, my friend, and think of Mr. Wagge.
But you had better come and talk it over with me. Good-bye for the
moment.  Calm yourself."  And, flipping the ash off his cigarette on to
the tray by Fiorsen's elbow, he nodded and went.

Fiorsen, who had leaped out of bed, put his hand to his head.  The cursed
fellow!  Cursed be every one of them--the father and the girl, Rosek and
all the other sharks!  He went out on to the landing.  The house was
quite still below.  Rosek had gone--good riddance!  He called, "Gyp!"  No
answer.  He went into her room. Its superlative daintiness struck his
fancy.  A scent of cyclamen! He looked out into the garden.  There was
the baby at the end, and that fat woman.  No Gyp!  Never in when she was
wanted.  Wagge!  He shivered; and, going back into his bedroom, took a
brandy-bottle from a locked cupboard and drank some.  It steadied him; he
locked up the cupboard again, and dressed.

Going out to the music-room, he stopped under the trees to make passes
with his fingers at the baby.  Sometimes he felt that it was an adorable
little creature, with its big, dark eyes so like Gyp's. Sometimes it
excited his disgust--a discoloured brat.  This morning, while looking at
it, he thought suddenly of the other that was coming--and grimaced.
Catching Betty's stare of horrified amazement at the face he was making
at her darling, he burst into a laugh and turned away into the
music-room.

While he was keying up his violin, Gyp's conduct in never having come
there for so long struck him as bitterly unjust.  The girl--who cared
about the wretched girl?  As if she made any real difference!  It was all
so much deeper than that.  Gyp had never loved him, never given him what
he wanted, never quenched his thirst of her!  That was the heart of it.
No other woman he had ever had to do with had been like that--kept his
thirst unquenched. No; he had always tired of them before they tired of
him.  She gave him nothing really--nothing!  Had she no heart or did she
give it elsewhere?  What was that Paul had said about her music-lessons?
And suddenly it struck him that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing, of
where she went or what she did.  She never told him anything.
Music-lessons?  Every day, nearly, she went out, was away for hours.  The
thought that she might go to the arms of another man made him put down
his violin with a feeling of actual sickness.  Why not?  That deep and
fearful whipping of the sexual instinct which makes the ache of jealousy
so truly terrible was at its full in such a nature as Fiorsen's.  He drew
a long breath and shuddered.  The remembrance of her fastidious pride,
her candour, above all her passivity cut in across his fear.  No, not
Gyp!

He went to a little table whereon stood a tantalus, tumblers, and a
syphon, and pouring out some brandy, drank.  It steadied him.  And he
began to practise.  He took a passage from Brahms' violin concerto and
began to play it over and over.  Suddenly, he found he was repeating the
same flaws each time; he was not attending.  The fingering of that thing
was ghastly!  Music-lessons!  Why did she take them?  Waste of time and
money--she would never be anything but an amateur!  Ugh!  Unconsciously,
he had stopped playing.  Had she gone there to-day?  It was past
lunch-time.  Perhaps she had come in.

He put down his violin and went back to the house.  No sign of her! The
maid came to ask if he would lunch.  No!  Was the mistress to be in?  She
had not said.  He went into the dining-room, ate a biscuit, and drank a
brandy and soda.  It steadied him.  Lighting a cigarette, he came back to
the drawing-room and sat down at Gyp's bureau.  How tidy!  On the little
calendar, a pencil-cross was set against to-day--Wednesday, another
against Friday.  What for? Music-lessons!  He reached to a pigeon-hole,
and took out her address-book.  "H--Harmost, 305A, Marylebone Road," and
against it the words in pencil, "3 P.M."

Three o'clock.  So that was her hour!  His eyes rested idly on a little
old coloured print of a Bacchante, with flowing green scarf, shaking a
tambourine at a naked Cupid, who with a baby bow and arrow in his hands,
was gazing up at her.  He turned it over; on the back was written in a
pointed, scriggly hand, "To my little friend.--E. H."  Fiorsen drew smoke
deep down into his lungs, expelled it slowly, and went to the piano.  He
opened it and began to play, staring vacantly before him, the cigarette
burned nearly to his lips.  He went on, scarcely knowing what he played.
At last he stopped, and sat dejected.  A great artist?  Often, nowadays,
he did not care if he never touched a violin again.  Tired of standing up
before a sea of dull faces, seeing the blockheads knock their silly hands
one against the other!  Sick of the sameness of it all! Besides--besides,
were his powers beginning to fail?  What was happening to him of late?

He got up, went into the dining-room, and drank some brandy.  Gyp could
not bear his drinking.  Well, she shouldn't be out so much--taking
music-lessons.  Music-lessons!  Nearly three o'clock.  If he went for
once and saw what she really did--Went, and offered her his escort home!
An attention.  It might please her.  Better, anyway, than waiting here
until she chose to come in with her face all closed up.  He drank a
little more brandy--ever so little--took his hat and went.  Not far to
walk, but the sun was hot, and he reached the house feeling rather dizzy.
A maid-servant opened the door to him.

"I am Mr. Fiorsen.  Mrs. Fiorsen here?"

"Yes, sir; will you wait?"

Why did she look at him like that?  Ugly girl!  How hateful ugly people
were!  When she was gone, he reopened the door of the waiting-room, and
listened.

Chopin!  The polonaise in A flat.  Good!  Could that be Gyp?  Very good!
He moved out, down the passage, drawn on by her playing, and softly
turned the handle.  The music stopped.  He went in.

When Winton had left him, an hour and a half later that afternoon,
Fiorsen continued to stand at the front door, swaying his body to and
fro.  The brandy-nurtured burst of jealousy which had made him insult his
wife and old Monsieur Harmost had died suddenly when Gyp turned on him in
the street and spoke in that icy voice; since then he had felt fear,
increasing every minute.  Would she forgive?  To one who always acted on
the impulse of the moment, so that he rarely knew afterward exactly what
he had done, or whom hurt, Gyp's self-control had ever been mysterious
and a little frightening. Where had she gone?  Why did she not come in?
Anxiety is like a ball that rolls down-hill, gathering momentum.  Suppose
she did not come back!  But she must--there was the baby--their baby!

For the first time, the thought of it gave him unalloyed satisfaction.
He left the door, and, after drinking a glass to steady him, flung
himself down on the sofa in the drawing-room. And while he lay there, the
brandy warm within him, he thought: 'I will turn over a new leaf; give up
drink, give up everything, send the baby into the country, take Gyp to
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome--anywhere out of this England, anywhere, away
from that father of hers and all these stiff, dull folk!  She will like
that--she loves travelling!'  Yes, they would be happy!  Delicious
nights--delicious days--air that did not weigh you down and make you feel
that you must drink--real inspiration--real music!  The acrid wood-smoke
scent of Paris streets, the glistening cleanness of the Thiergarten, a
serenading song in a Florence back street, fireflies in the summer dusk
at Sorrento--he had intoxicating memories of them all!  Slowly the warmth
of the brandy died away, and, despite the heat, he felt chill and
shuddery.  He shut his eyes, thinking to sleep till she came in.  But
very soon he opened them, because--a thing usual with him of late--he saw
such ugly things--faces, vivid, changing as he looked, growing ugly and
uglier, becoming all holes--holes--horrible holes--Corruption--matted,
twisted, dark human-tree-roots of faces!  Horrible!  He opened his eyes,
for when he did that, they always went.  It was very silent.  No sound
from above.  No sound of the dogs.  He would go up and see the baby.

While he was crossing the hall, there came a ring.  He opened the door
himself.  A telegram!  He tore the envelope.

"Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.--WINTON."

He gave a short laugh, shut the door in the boy's face, and ran upstairs;
why--heaven knew!  There was nobody there now!  Nobody! Did it mean that
she had really left him--was not coming back?  He stopped by the side of
Gyp's bed, and flinging himself forward, lay across it, burying his face.
And he sobbed, as men will, unmanned by drink.  Had he lost her?  Never
to see her eyes closing and press his lips against them!  Never to soak
his senses in her loveliness!  He leaped up, with the tears still wet on
his face. Lost her?  Absurd!  That calm, prim, devilish Englishman, her
father--he was to blame--he had worked it all--stealing the baby!

He went down-stairs and drank some brandy.  It steadied him a little.
What should he do?  "Letter follows."  Drink, and wait? Go to Bury
Street?  No.  Drink!  Enjoy himself!

He laughed, and, catching up his hat, went out, walking furiously at
first, then slower and slower, for his head began to whirl, and, taking a
cab, was driven to a restaurant in Soho.  He had eaten nothing but a
biscuit since his breakfast, always a small matter, and ordered soup and
a flask of their best Chianti--solids he could not face.  More than two
hours he sat, white and silent, perspiration on his forehead, now and
then grinning and flourishing his fingers, to the amusement and sometimes
the alarm of those sitting near.  But for being known there, he would
have been regarded with suspicion.  About half-past nine, there being no
more wine, he got up, put a piece of gold on the table, and went out
without waiting for his change.

In the streets, the lamps were lighted, but daylight was not quite gone.
He walked unsteadily, toward Piccadilly.  A girl of the town passed and
looked up at him.  Staring hard, he hooked his arm in hers without a
word; it steadied him, and they walked on thus together.  Suddenly he
said:

"Well, girl, are you happy?"  The girl stopped and tried to disengage her
arm; a rather frightened look had come into her dark-eyed powdered face.
Fiorsen laughed, and held it firm.  "When the unhappy meet, they walk
together.  Come on!  You are just a little like my wife.  Will you have a
drink?"

The girl shook her head, and, with a sudden movement, slipped her arm out
of this madman's and dived away like a swallow through the pavement
traffic.  Fiorsen stood still and laughed with his head thrown back.  The
second time to-day.  SHE had slipped from his grasp.  Passers looked at
him, amazed.  The ugly devils!  And with a grimace, he turned out of
Piccadilly, past St. James's Church, making for Bury Street.  They
wouldn't let him in, of course--not they!  But he would look at the
windows; they had flower-boxes--flower-boxes!  And, suddenly, he groaned
aloud--he had thought of Gyp's figure busy among the flowers at home.
Missing the right turning, he came in at the bottom of the street.  A
fiddler in the gutter was scraping away on an old violin.  Fiorsen
stopped to listen.  Poor devil!  "Pagliacci!"  Going up to the man--dark,
lame, very shabby, he took out some silver, and put his other hand on the
man's shoulder.

"Brother," he said, "lend me your fiddle.  Here's money for you. Come;
lend it to me.  I am a great violinist."

"Vraiment, monsieur!"

"Ah!  Vraiment!  Voyons!  Donnez--un instant--vous verrez."

The fiddler, doubting but hypnotized, handed him the fiddle; his dark
face changed when he saw this stranger fling it up to his shoulder and
the ways of his fingers with bow and strings.  Fiorsen had begun to walk
up the street, his eyes searching for the flower-boxes.  He saw them,
stopped, and began playing "Che faro?"  He played it wonderfully on that
poor fiddle; and the fiddler, who had followed at his elbow, stood
watching him, uneasy, envious, but a little entranced.  Sapristi!  This
tall, pale monsieur with the strange face and the eyes that looked drunk
and the hollow chest, played like an angel!  Ah, but it was not so easy
as all that to make money in the streets of this sacred town!  You might
play like forty angels and not a copper!  He had begun another tune--like
little pluckings at your heart--tres joli--tout a fait ecoeurant! Ah,
there it was--a monsieur as usual closing the window, drawing the
curtains!  Always same thing!  The violin and the bow were thrust back
into his hands; and the tall strange monsieur was off as if devils were
after him--not badly drunk, that one!  And not a sou thrown down!  With
an uneasy feeling that he had been involved in something that he did not
understand, the lame, dark fiddler limped his way round the nearest
corner, and for two streets at least did not stop.  Then, counting the
silver Fiorsen had put into his hand and carefully examining his fiddle,
he used the word, "Bigre!" and started for home.




XIX

Gyp hardly slept at all.  Three times she got up, and, stealing to the
door, looked in at her sleeping baby, whose face in its new bed she could
just see by the night-light's glow.  The afternoon had shaken her nerves.
Nor was Betty's method of breathing while asleep conducive to the slumber
of anything but babies.  It was so hot, too, and the sound of the violin
still in her ears.  By that little air of Poise, she had known for
certain it was Fiorsen; and her father's abrupt drawing of the curtains
had clinched that certainty.  If she had gone to the window and seen him,
she would not have been half so deeply disturbed as she was by that echo
of an old emotion.  The link which yesterday she thought broken for good
was reforged in some mysterious way.  The sobbing of that old fiddle had
been his way of saying, "Forgive me; forgive!"  To leave him would have
been so much easier if she had really hated him; but she did not.
However difficult it may be to live with an artist, to hate him is quite
as difficult.  An artist is so flexible--only the rigid can be hated.
She hated the things he did, and him when he was doing them; but
afterward again could hate him no more than she could love him, and that
was--not at all.  Resolution and a sense of the practical began to come
back with daylight.  When things were hopeless, it was far better to
recognize it and harden one's heart.

Winton, whose night had been almost as sleepless--to play like a beggar
in the street, under his windows, had seemed to him the limit!--announced
at breakfast that he must see his lawyer, make arrangements for the
payment of Fiorsen's debts, and find out what could be done to secure Gyp
against persecution.  Some deed was probably necessary; he was vague on
all such matters.  In the meantime, neither Gyp nor the baby must go out.
Gyp spent the morning writing and rewriting to Monsieur Harmost, trying
to express her chagrin, but not saying that she had left Fiorsen.

Her father came back from Westminster quiet and angry.  He had with
difficulty been made to understand that the baby was Fiorsen's property,
so that, if the fellow claimed it, legally they would be unable to
resist.  The point opened the old wound, forced him to remember that his
own daughter had once belonged to another--father.  He had told the
lawyer in a measured voice that he would see the fellow damned first, and
had directed a deed of separation to be prepared, which should provide
for the complete payment of Fiorsen's existing debts on condition that he
left Gyp and the baby in peace.  After telling Gyp this, he took an
opportunity of going to the extempore nursery and standing by the baby's
cradle.  Until then, the little creature had only been of interest as
part of Gyp; now it had for him an existence of its own--this tiny,
dark-eyed creature, lying there, watching him so gravely, clutching his
finger.  Suddenly the baby smiled--not a beautiful smile, but it made on
Winton an indelible impression.

Wishing first to settle this matter of the deed, he put off going down to
Mildenham; but "not trusting those two scoundrels a yard"--for he never
failed to bracket Rosek and Fiorsen--he insisted that the baby should not
go out without two attendants, and that Gyp should not go out alone.  He
carried precaution to the point of accompanying her to Monsieur Harmost's
on the Friday afternoon, and expressed a wish to go in and shake hands
with the old fellow.  It was a queer meeting.  Those two had as great
difficulty in finding anything to say as though they were denizens of
different planets. And indeed, there ARE two planets on this earth!
When, after a minute or so of the friendliest embarrassment, he had
retired to wait for her, Gyp sat down to her lesson.

Monsieur Harmost said quietly:

"Your letter was very kind, my little friend--and your father is very
kind.  But, after all, it was a compliment your husband paid me."  His
smile smote Gyp; it seemed to sum up so many resignations.  "So you stay
again with your father!"  And, looking at her very hard with his
melancholy brown eyes, "When will you find your fate, I wonder?"

"Never!"

Monsieur Harmost's eyebrows rose.

"Ah," he said, "you think!  No, that is impossible!"  He walked twice
very quickly up and down the room; then spinning round on his heel, said
sharply: "Well, we must not waste your father's time. To work."

Winton's simple comment in the cab on the way home was:

"Nice old chap!"

At Bury Street, they found Gyp's agitated parlour-maid.  Going to do the
music-room that morning, she had "found the master sitting on the sofa,
holding his head, and groaning awful.  He's not been at home, ma'am,
since you--you went on your visit, so I didn't know what to do.  I ran
for cook and we got him up to bed, and not knowing where you'd be, ma'am,
I telephoned to Count Rosek, and he came--I hope I didn't do wrong--and
he sent me down to see you. The doctor says his brain's on the touch and
go, and he keeps askin' for you, ma'am.  So I didn't know what to do."

Gyp, pale to the lips, said:

"Wait here a minute, Ellen," and went into the dining-room.  Winton
followed.  She turned to him at once, and said:

"Oh, Dad, what am I to do?  His brain!  It would be too awful to feel I'd
brought that about."

Winton grunted.  Gyp went on:

"I must go and see.  If it's really that, I couldn't bear it.  I'm afraid
I must go, Dad."

Winton nodded.

"Well, I'll come too," he said.  "The girl can go back in the cab and say
we're on the way."

Taking a parting look at her baby, Gyp thought bitterly: 'My fate? THIS
is my fate, and no getting out of it!'  On the journey, she and Winton
were quite silent--but she held his hand tight.  While the cook was
taking up to Rosek the news of their arrival, Gyp stood looking out at
her garden.  Two days and six hours only since she had stood there above
her pansies; since, at this very spot, Rosek had kissed her throat!
Slipping her hand through Winton's arm, she said:

"Dad, please don't make anything of that kiss.  He couldn't help himself,
I suppose.  What does it matter, too?"

A moment later Rosek entered.  Before she could speak, Winton was saying:

"Thank you for letting us know, sir.  But now that my daughter is here,
there will be no further need for your kind services.  Good-day!"

At the cruel curtness of those words, Gyp gave the tiniest start forward.
She had seen them go through Rosek's armour as a sword through brown
paper.  He recovered himself with a sickly smile, bowed, and went out.
Winton followed--precisely as if he did not trust him with the hats in
the hall.  When the outer door was shut, he said:

"I don't think he'll trouble you again."

Gyp's gratitude was qualified by a queer compassion.  After all, his
offence had only been that of loving her.

Fiorsen had been taken to her room, which was larger and cooler than his
own; and the maid was standing by the side of the bed with a scared face.
Gyp signed to her to go.  He opened his eyes presently:

"Gyp!  Oh!  Gyp!  Is it you?  The devilish, awful things I see--don't go
away again!  Oh, Gyp!"  With a sob he raised himself and rested his
forehead against her.  And Gyp felt--as on the first night he came home
drunk--a merging of all other emotions in the desire to protect and heal.

"It's all right, all right," she murmured.  "I'm going to stay. Don't
worry about anything.  Keep quite quiet, and you'll soon be well."

In a quarter of an hour, he was asleep.  His wasted look went to her
heart, and that expression of terror which had been coming and going
until he fell asleep!  Anything to do with the brain was so horrible!
Only too clear that she must stay--that his recovery depended on her.
She was still sitting there, motionless, when the doctor came, and,
seeing him asleep, beckoned her out.  He looked a kindly man, with two
waistcoats, the top one unbuttoned; and while he talked, he winked at Gyp
involuntarily, and, with each wink, Gyp felt that he ripped the veil off
one more domestic secret.  Sleep was the ticket--the very ticket for him!
Had something on his mind--yes!  And--er--a little given to--brandy?  Ah!
all that must stop!  Stomach as well as nerves affected.  Seeing
things--nasty things--sure sign.  Perhaps not a very careful life before
marriage.  And married--how long?  His kindly appreciative eyes swept Gyp
from top to toe.  Year and a half!  Quite so!  Hard worker at his violin,
too?  No doubt!  Musicians always a little inclined to be immoderate--too
much sense of beauty--burn the candle at both ends!  She must see to
that.  She had been away, had she not--staying with her father?  Yes.
But--no one like a wife for nursing.  As to treatment?  Well!  One would
shove in a dash of what he would prescribe, night and morning.  Perfect
quiet.  No stimulant.  A little cup of strong coffee without milk, if he
seemed low.  Keep him in bed at present.  No worry; no excitement. Young
man still.  Plenty of vitality.  As to herself, no undue anxiety.
To-morrow they would see whether a night nurse would be necessary.  Above
all, no violin for a month, no alcohol--in every way the strictest
moderation!  And with a last and friendliest wink, leaning heavily on
that word "moderation," he took out a stylographic pen, scratched on a
leaf of his note-book, shook Gyp's hand, smiled whimsically, buttoned his
upper waistcoat, and departed.

Gyp went back to her seat by the bed.  Irony!  She whose only desire was
to be let go free, was mainly responsible for his breakdown!  But for
her, there would be nothing on his mind, for he would not be married!
Brooding morbidly, she asked herself--his drinking, debts, even the
girl--had she caused them, too?  And when she tried to free him and
herself--this was the result!  Was there something fatal about her that
must destroy the men she had to do with?  She had made her father
unhappy, Monsieur Harmost--Rosek, and her husband!  Even before she
married, how many had tried for her love, and gone away unhappy!  And,
getting up, she went to a mirror and looked at herself long and sadly.




XX

Three days after her abortive attempt to break away, Gyp, with much
heart-searching, wrote to Daphne Wing, telling her of Fiorsen's illness,
and mentioning a cottage near Mildenham, where--if she liked to go--she
would be quite comfortable and safe from all curiosity, and finally
begging to be allowed to make good the losses from any broken
dance-contracts.

Next morning, she found Mr. Wagge with a tall, crape-banded hat in his
black-gloved hands, standing in the very centre of her drawing-room.  He
was staring into the garden, as if he had been vouchsafed a vision of
that warm night when the moonlight shed its ghostly glamour on the
sunflowers, and his daughter had danced out there. She had a perfect view
of his thick red neck in its turndown collar, crossed by a black bow over
a shiny white shirt.  And, holding out her hand, she said:

"How do you do, Mr. Wagge?  It was kind of you to come."

Mr. Wagge turned.  His pug face wore a downcast expression.

"I hope I see you well, ma'am.  Pretty place you 'ave 'ere.  I'm fond of
flowers myself.  They've always been my 'obby."

"They're a great comfort in London, aren't they?"

"Ye-es; I should think you might grow the dahlia here."  And having thus
obeyed the obscure instincts of savoir faire, satisfied some obscurer
desire to flatter, he went on: "My girl showed me your letter.  I didn't
like to write; in such a delicate matter I'd rather be vivey vocey.  Very
kind, in your position; I'm sure I appreciate it.  I always try to do the
Christian thing myself. Flesh passes; you never know when you may have to
take your turn. I said to my girl I'd come and see you."

"I'm very glad.  I hoped perhaps you would."

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat, and went on, in a hoarser voice:

"I don't want to say anything harsh about a certain party in your
presence, especially as I read he's indisposed, but really I hardly know
how to bear the situation.  I can't bring myself to think of money in
relation to that matter; all the same, it's a serious loss to my
daughter, very serious loss.  I've got my family pride to think of.  My
daughter's name, well--it's my own; and, though I say it, I'm
respected--a regular attendant--I think I told you. Sometimes, I assure
you, I feel I can't control myself, and it's only that--and you, if I may
say so, that keeps me in check."

During this speech, his black-gloved hands were clenching and
unclenching, and he shifted his broad, shining boots.  Gyp gazed at them,
not daring to look up at his eyes thus turning and turning from
Christianity to shekels, from his honour to the world, from his anger to
herself.  And she said:

"Please let me do what I ask, Mr. Wagge.  I should be so unhappy if I
mightn't do that little something."

Mr. Wagge blew his nose.

"It's a delicate matter," he said.  "I don't know where my duty lays.  I
don't, reelly."

Gyp looked up then.

"The great thing is to save Daisy suffering, isn't it?"

Mr. Wagge's face wore for a moment an expression of affront, as if from
the thought: 'Sufferin'!  You must leave that to her father!' Then it
wavered; the curious, furtive warmth of the attracted male came for a
moment into his little eyes; he averted them, and coughed.  Gyp said
softly:

"To please me."

Mr. Wagge's readjusted glance stopped in confusion at her waist. He
answered, in a voice that he strove to make bland:

"If you put it in that way, I don't reelly know 'ow to refuse; but it
must be quite between you and me--I can't withdraw my attitude."

Gyp murmured:

"No, of course.  Thank you so much; and you'll let me know about
everything later.  I mustn't take up your time now."  And she held out
her hand.

Mr. Wagge took it in a lingering manner.

"Well, I HAVE an appointment," he said; "a gentleman at Campden Hill.  He
starts at twelve.  I'm never late.  GOOD-morning."

When she had watched his square, black figure pass through the outer
gate, busily rebuttoning those shining black gloves, she went upstairs
and washed her face and hands.

For several days, Fiorsen wavered; but his collapse had come just in
time, and with every hour the danger lessened.  At the end of a fortnight
of a perfectly white life, there remained nothing to do in the words of
the doctor but "to avoid all recurrence of the predisposing causes, and
shove in sea air!"  Gyp had locked up all brandy--and violins; she could
control him so long as he was tamed by his own weakness.  But she passed
some very bitter hours before she sent for her baby, Betty, and the dogs,
and definitely took up life in her little house again.  His debts had
also be contrary to humanity if they were to hang about, or to cause
starvation of the men on board in mid-voyage on account of the mere lack
of coal or food. Beyond this, the spirit of the law of nations is that a
neutral ought to allow nothing. Can any one boldly assert that the
theory of asylum can be applied with fairness to a case like that of the
Baltic Fleet, which is far from seeking asylum, but is deliberately
endeavouring to administer coups to its adversary and proceeding to the
very seat of war. If he can do so, where is the justice and equity of
the so-called law of nations, which the Occidentals boast of, not
without just title, and claim that it forms one of the essential parts
of Christian morality?

7. As to the talk about the three-mile limit of the territorial waters,
there is already much divergency of opinion even amongst the jurists. To
put it forth as a defence in a case like that of the Baltic Fleet
affairs seems to me too puerile. The matter, however, becomes all the
more grave when even that limit is not observed, and it has been
constantly ignored by the Baltic Fleet.

Such are the views which we Japanese have taken in the matter. Some
French journals (erroneously basing their assertions on the views I have
personally expressed) say that Japan has taken up English views of
international law in opposition to the Continental views, so that France
ought not to yield to Japan's protest. This contention is not correct.
We do not hold these views because they are English ones: we do so
because they are in our opinion the only views which are
_internationally_ just and equitable. We are now fighting against a foe
so formidable, as the whole world knows, that to us it is a matter of
life and death. We have sufficient patience and fortitude, but we cannot
run the risk of sacrificing our very existence without some protest when
we think that we are not being treated with justice and equity.

I am glad to add that the views we hold seem to have come at last to be
shared by the more responsible part of the French amongst the
governmental circle, as well as by the general public. The newspapers
which are still sticking to their old contention are very few in number,
and they seem to have some particular reasons of their own. I can never
think a nation like France could consciously and wilfully offend against
justice and equity, and the only thing we anxiously hope for is that the
declaration of the French Government may be honestly and effectually
followed up. Whatever may be one's intention, the drift of events often
creates unlooked-for incidents, and that too often against one's will,
when it is too late to avoid the consequences. Let all parties concerned
be careful in this matter of vital importance.

[1] The _Deutsche Revue_, June 1905.




X

JAPAN AND EUROPE[1]


You ask my opinion on the future of the Yellow Peril cry. From an
ethical point of view it is an unjust and unreasonable accusation. From
a practical point of view it is idle and useless talk.

I have spoken and written on these particular points so often that I do
not feel inclined to reiterate any more. I will, however, consider the
matter from a different point of view and solicit any answer which may
be advanced against my conviction. I do not do this from any thought of
vanity; I should be very sorry if it were ever taken in that sense. I
would simply ask those who agitate and cry the Yellow Peril, the means
they would suggest for the adopting of their propaganda, if their words
are not to be empty ones.

Suppose any country wanted to subjugate Japan, and should want to send
an army to fight on the soil of Japan, what number of men do they think
would suffice? No general in the whole world would, I am sure, be bold
enough to undertake the task with under one million men. I have reason
to believe even that number would not suffice, but for a moment let it
be that number. What country in the world can send that number over the
broad ocean? Germany, France, England, or America? Russia seems to have
the greatest chance, being nearer to Japan. But her experience is
already known.

Suppose the idea of a land campaign be abandoned, and only a fleet be
sent to intimidate Japan by sea battles, or by harassing her commerce.
There would certainly be a better chance for any of the Occidental
fleets than for the armies, in coping with the forces of Japan. Above
all, I frankly admit that England would be the most formidable foe in
that respect. But excepting England, is there any other country that can
say with certainty that it can easily crush the Japanese navy? Is it
Germany? is it France? or is it--America?

But supposing our navy were crushed; what next? It would, of course, be
a very ugly thing for us, but it would not mean the subjection of Japan.
Our sea-coast towns may be bombarded, our commerce may be harassed, but
Japan will still subsist within her soil, for she can live without
depending on any other country for food. And, besides, disturbance of
commerce would not be a loss only to her.

Moreover, any country which should embark on such an enterprise would
have need to think it over twice (or, indeed, three or four times)
before undertaking it, and to calculate the probable benefit it could
get therefrom, and the probable expenses it would incur; not to speak of
the result of any possible failure. It may be presumed that Japan would
not tamely be intimidated by any action undertaken by any country which
is not based on justice and equity, and which, therefore, is not open to
reason.

Further, is there any country which would willingly embark on such an
enterprise single-handed? I think not. The reason is too obvious for me
to elucidate.

Putting aside altogether any question of justice and equity, if such an
enterprise is to be embarked upon at all, it would have to be by common
action of all the Western Powers, somewhat similar to that when the
combined forces of Europe rose against France some hundred years ago.

But let me ask if such a thing is possible under the present
circumstances? The claims of Japan to the kind consideration of humanity
have already become so widely spread that she could no longer be
trampled upon easily. Man is, after all, a rational being. Do the
writers of the articles on the Yellow Peril (articles which even now
repeatedly make their appearance) not know the fact that even in France
there is a large number of people who have recently purchased Japanese
bonds, not to speak of Germany, where those bonds have been openly
floated by banks of high standing? Even if all the governments of the
West should be willing to agree to such an enterprise, I do not think
the people at large would move with them.

Japan is modest enough, Japan is honest enough. Why does she deserve a
general ostracism? She might become, it is possible, a Power of the
world. She might become, it is possible, more civilised on the lines of
occidental civilisation, after which she strives so earnestly. Are these
to be blamed as her sins?

To me the Yellow Peril cry, which is so often revived in some quarters
of the Continent, is either a sort of what we call 'guchi,' that is to
say, useless repetition of complaint of some unreasonable
disappointment, or a perpetuation of wicked instigation and selfish
intention. In either case, it is not at all a laudable action; indeed, I
may say it is wasteful calumny for no material good will come of it
inasmuch as its object can never be achieved from the very condition of
the world. The people who entertain that idea would be doing far better
service to their country, to the progress of civilisation, to the
general cause of humanity, if only they put aside such a silly notion,
and busy themselves in teaching their fellow country-folks to accustom
themselves to the changed circumstances of the time. It would be a far
more manly and noble act if they revised their old notions, which in a
measure may be called prejudice.

As to ourselves, the Japanese, we shall only be glad if we can enjoy a
peaceful and harmonious life in the happy family of the world, as we are
determined to do, in spite of all the obstacles which may be laid before
us.

[1] Written for the _Potentia Organisation_, July 1905.




XI

THE INDO-CHINA QUESTION[1]

INTERVIEW WITH THE BARON SUYEMATSU


The eminent statesman, Baron Suyematsu, kindly dictated in English to
one of our editors answers relating to certain questions with regard to
the relation between Japan and Europe, especially France and Germany.

     With the disclosure of the alleged Kodama report in view, how far
     may one give credit to the alleged Japanese plan of invasion of
     Indo-China?

I know all that has been written in France on the subject. All those
rumours appear to me to have come originally from Russia, and to have
been put into circulation in order to excite French opinion against
Japan, in other words, it is nothing else than a mere repetition of the
Yellow Peril cry.

Japan does not covet Indo-China. I have shown elsewhere that the French
colonies in the Far East have no perceptible influence upon the
situation of Japan, either from a political or an economical point of
view. Japan has sufficient to do at home, she does not want to plunge
into external adventures, such as meddling with Indo-China or picking a
quarrel with a country like France. You may be sure that it would be
more politic for France to cultivate amicable relations with Japan than
irritate her by such accusations. Even if those accusations honestly
represent the true sentiment of the French, the Japanese would only take
them for malicious manœuvres directed to aid Russia, and they could
not produce any good impression on the minds of the Japanese.

     Is there any reason to believe that the so-called Kodama report was
     forged in Russia rather than in France?

I have demonstrated elsewhere that the document which was recently made
public and attributed to Kodama containing some military indications on
the plan of an invasion of Indo-China is a perfect forgery. I have
exposed elsewhere several technical errors therein which would never
appear in an authentic official document. But whether it is authentic or
not, I do not attach any importance to the matter, from a political
point of view at least. It is the duty of all the military and naval
authorities to keep themselves ready for any emergency. For example,
France ought to keep herself always prepared for any possible
difficulties which may arise on her frontiers in the east, and in the
south, and on the western coasts; the same with Germany, with Austria,
with Italy, even with the United States.

It appears to me that, if the general staff-office of France or of
Germany, or the military or naval authorities of any country whatever,
were to remain without the least knowledge as to what measure should be
taken in case of a danger, they would be neglecting their duty to their
country. I can then say that all the Japanese officers, both in the army
and in the navy ought to study constantly the measures which Japan
should take in any emergency. I believe it is the same in every country
in Europe. This, however, does not belong to the sphere of practical
politics. It is the duty of statesmen and politicians to maintain a
friendly relationship with all other countries as far as possible; and,
consequently, to keep absolute control over their armies and navies. The
army and navy ought to serve as instruments and machines in their hands,
and not they, the civilians, become the instruments of the army and
navy. You may be quite assured that in Japan the army and navy are the
machines of the statesmen, and that the statesmen are not their
machines.

     Can the fabrication of the so-called Kodama report be demonstrated
     by a precise fact?

I shall not say whence the document emanated. I believe it was composed
by some one who does not lack a certain knowledge of Japan, but who has
drawn false deductions from his knowledge of similar matters of other
countries. Here is the best example. The document speaks of the native
contingents of Formosa. Now there exist no such forces in Formosa. The
garrisons of Formosa are sent there from Japan. On the other hand, in
the colonies belonging to other countries there are generally troops
formed of native contingents. It is notably so in French colonies. The
author of the document in question, reasoning from these facts, thought
that it ought to be the same with Formosa.

     Has Japan any fear of another alteration of the Treaty of
     Shimonoseki being imposed upon her?

The combined action of Russia, Germany and France, for imposing on
Japan an alteration of the Treaty of Shimonoseki appears to us to have
been a great error on their parts. I can positively say that there are
many eminent persons in Germany and in France who regret that action.
Even in Russia, in certain quarters, a belief seems to be entertained
that, but for the fault then committed, the present misfortunes would
not have happened. As to ourselves, we are not hypnotised by the errors
then committed by those three powers. We intend to remain friends of
France, of Germany, and even of Russia, in spite of the injustice we
have suffered, provided, of course, those powers wish to keep
friendship.

We do not overlook the possibility of another combination which those
powers may have an idea of forming against us, and it behoves us to be
watchful. Nevertheless, to tell you my candid opinion, it is scarcely
possible that a similar intervention should be renewed. I do not think
France would push her docility so far as to follow Germany a second
time. It would be necessary that Germany should set the example, aided
by Russia and France, to come out to the Far East, especially because
the Russian fleets have ceased to exist. I admit that the German fleet
is strong, but I do not believe it is powerful enough for one to say
with certainty that it can easily crush Japan. At all events, what
pretext has Germany to enter into war in the Far East? Among other
things also she would have to count on the opinion and sentiments of two
countries at least, I mean England and the United States. I do not,
therefore, consider a new combination possible. Japan cannot be
intimidated by mere barking.

If, however, Europe should choose to take such a course, we should
gravely reflect. I do not believe your country for example would ever
undertake an expedition against Japan. You have disapproved a small
expedition to Tonkin and we are a little more serious than the
Tonkinese. France might no doubt, if her honour demanded it, judge it
worth the pain to engage in a war with Japan, but under no other
circumstance do I believe her disposed to take such a part.

Japan will always continue to advance on the lines of occidental
civilisation. I do not see the reason which will prevent Japan from
acting in concert with France or Germany, provided of course these
powers do not enter upon an action which may appear to her altogether
unjust or iniquitous, in which case she may not be able to march with
them hand-in-hand.

     Would Japan be offended by France introducing civilisation into
     Indo-China?

We are not at all opposed to your introducing Western civilisation into
your colonies. On the contrary we shall be quite contented, but in
introducing your civilisation into your colonies you have to be prepared
that it signifies an amelioration of the condition of the natives. If it
were so, why should we make the least objection? But in the hypothesis
that the introduction of civilisation has in view neither amelioration
of the condition of the natives nor progress of commerce and industry,
we might then conceive a sort of suspicion. Supposing that you augment
the garrisons, the fortifications, the naval forces, one would see in it
nothing but an expansion of your military power and not an introduction
of civilisation in the sense understood in France. Even in that case we
would not raise objections, unless it were done with a view to menace
us; but here I shall offer you a suggestion. Is it really worth your
while to develop there incessantly your military and naval forces in
order to oppose Japan? Would not the enterprise be rather costly? Would
it not be infinitely better to employ your energy in cultivating a good
understanding between your country and ours instead of rivalling each
other by crossing armaments?

[1] _L'Européen_, August 5, 1905.




XII

THE AUSTRALIAN QUESTION[1]

AN INTERVIEW


Baron Suyematsu gave a _Daily News_ representative his opinion of the
'Spectre of Japan' as conceived by many Europeans. The Japanese Baron, a
burly, cheerful man, laughed heartily as he dealt with the alarmist
fears of the 'Yellow Peril.'

Our talk began over Mr. Bruce Smith's notice of motion in the Australian
Parliament.

'Yes, I have seen the proposal,' said Baron Suyematsu, 'and I am very
glad an Australian representative has taken up the question. He proposes
to amend the Immigration Restriction Act so as to permit Japanese to
enter the Commonwealth. The reason given is that Japan has placed
herself in the front rank of nations, has granted religious freedom, has
established consulates, and become the honoured ally of Great Britain. I
understand that Australian papers are saying there is no chance of the
motion being carried. I care not whether the motion is carried or not
this time. Of one thing I am certain--it will be carried eventually.

'What reason has Australia for shutting out the Japanese?'

'The dread of cheaper labour and of the "Yellow Peril," as it is called.
Whatever there be in that, it certainly does not apply to the Japanese.
This is already being realised in Australia, as Mr. Bruce Smith's motion
shows. The Japanese are making it clear that they have to be regarded by
Europeans in a different light from the rest of Asiatics. Europeans
consider themselves superior to all other races. I do not blame them for
thinking that, for of modern civilisations theirs is certainly the best.
But with the exception of the British people, Europeans have not yet
realised that modern Japan is built up on European methods. She has no
more to do with the so-called "Yellow Peril" than America has. She takes
her place by the side of the other powers, with very much the same
civilisation as theirs. England having been the first to recognise the
new Japan, I am certain her colonies will soon follow. That is why I
feel it is only a question of time before Australia excludes Japan from
its Restriction Act.'


A MISTAKEN IDEA

'Yet Australia has been talking freely enough about the Japanese
menace.'

'I know. It is quite a mistaken idea of the Australians that if Japan
triumphs in the present war she would be a menace to Australia. They say
that if we win we shall be masters of the East and the paramount power
in Eastern waters. What, they ask, is to become of Australia, if we take
it into our heads to make a descent upon their shores?'

Baron Suyematsu again laughed boisterously, as one who can afford to
make merry at an extravagant idea.

'The whole thing is so utterly preposterous,' he went on, 'that it
would not be worth considering were it not typical of what is being said
all over Europe. Our fight for national existence against Russia has
been misconstrued everywhere. We seem to have filled the Western world
with all sorts of vague fears, France is saying that we shall soon
deprive her of Indo-China. Germany declares we have designs on
Kiao-chau. The Dutch say that Java is no longer safe from our
machinations. Never was such nonsense talked of a country which, after
all, is but fighting to preserve its national existence.'

'And you say Japan has no intention of arming the Asiatics against the
Europeans?'

'The whole idea is absurd. Japan wishes to become one with the European
nations. I might even say she aspires to become a member of the European
family. It is a mistake to think that Japan is going to form a
Pan-Asiatic Association. Japan is the only country in the East that can
rise on European lines. Her example could not be followed by other
Asiatic countries. We are said to be the successors of the Tartars, at
one time the disturbers of the world's peace. Nothing of the kind.
Russia would be more fittingly the successor of the Tartars. The Tartar
races have been merged in the Russian Empire.

'I am sure,' added Baron Suyematsu, in a final word, 'that Europe will
soon find its fears about the "spectre of Japan" are all ill-founded.
England, I am glad to believe, never had those fears, and before long I
hope to see her colonies in the same frame of mind. I hope the
Commonwealth Parliament will lead the way.'

[1] _The Daily News._




XIII

THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE AND AMERICA[1]

AN INTERVIEW


'Our people,' said Baron Suyematsu, 'like the British people, favour
the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. They also favour its
extension. The nature of such extension demands careful thought, of
course. I will not go into details, but I will say that a more effectual
alliance is desirable from the standpoints of both England and Japan,
and I also think from the standpoint of America. Japan's interest is too
obvious to require mention; but England's interest, in my opinion, is
equally real. Russia and England are in contact throughout Asia and
friction is constant. England needs strengthening against Russia and
also against other powers active in the Orient.


MONROE DOCTRINE OF THE PAST

'America's relation to this problem is more difficult. Monroeism is
thought to stand in the way. I appreciate the delicacy of venturing to
discuss the policy of a nation other than my own, but I feel that
Americans are too sensible to resent an honest expression of opinion.
Monroeism is not part of the constitution, but the dictum of a
statesman. This dictum was made when our planet was very large, before
the development of steam and electricity. The nations were isolated and
insulated by distance and non-communication.

'At that time American theory and practice relative to foreign affairs
were in harmony. America was actually self-contained, but to-day the
world is a tiny ball and America's flag and America's interests are on
every sea. America is sovereign in Hawaii and the Philippines, and yet
the American people cling to the idea of leaving distant matters alone.
Nevertheless the state department is widely and intelligently active.


AMERICAN INTEREST WORLD-WIDE

'Theoretically you do not participate, actually your participation bears
upon international events everywhere. Witness Secretary Hay's initiative
respecting the Jews, as well as despatch after despatch aimed at Russian
aggression in Manchuria. The world's interests are becoming woven into a
solid fabric. Great nations cannot escape the responsibility this
involves. American theory and practice, in my judgment, will go on
diverging until the notion of non-participation will be merely an
antiquated abstraction.

'Therefore I refuse to regard as hopeless the idea of an
American-Anglo-Japanese alliance, guaranteeing the peaceful development
of the vast resources of the Far East. Such an alliance exists
essentially now--an alliance springing from cognate ideas, wishes,
purposes and principles. This is the best possible foundation for that
formal compact which the evolution of industry and commerce seems to me
unmistakably to foreshadow.'

[1] An extract from the _Chicago Daily News_.


NOTE TO DIALOGUE V.

Since the bulk of the present work went to press, I came across the
following communication printed in the _Outlook_. I take the liberty of
subjoining it herewith, without any vain intention of flaunting the
virtues of my countrymen.--K.S.


JAPANESE CHARACTER

_To the Editor of the_ OUTLOOK

SIR,--I have received during the last few weeks letters bearing such
eloquent testimony to the nobility of Japanese character that I am
sending you some extracts in the hope of your publishing them. The
letters are from a friend of mine, who with her husband has lived in
Yokohama for many years, and can therefore speak with considerable
authority. The first extract is about the soldiers themselves--

     Mine you know is a busy life, and I found work among the military
     hospitals and also among the brave wives of the soldiers so
     fascinating that from the New Year till early June I let all social
     duties slip, so much so that I had a nervous breakdown in June, and
     since then have had to go very slow.

     We had a splendid time at our seaside cottage at Negishi this
     afternoon, any amount of our dear brown soldiers round us. There
     are five hundred quartered in that fishing village just now; they
     were resting, bathing, boating, washing their clothes or cooking
     their chow, but never a rude word or an uncouth action; no
     rowdyism, but all as civil, quiet, good-tempered, and alert as
     possible; they are a marvel; and my children go in and out among
     them and love them, like I do! I could _kill_ white idiots when I
     hear them speak of those fine fellows as 'an inferior race.' Ye
     gods! 'inferior' with never a camp follower to their name, and
     rapine unknown even after the fiercest fight! What European race
     can show a record like that? I wish I could be home for six months
     and tell what the soldiers and their wives are--what miracles of
     cheerful patience and manly dignity the wounded men are as they lie
     hacked and maimed, sometimes till almost all semblance of manhood
     is gone, yet never a murmur does any one hear from their lips--no,
     not if they are armless, legless, and even _blind_. And you would
     not dare condole with them! They say and believe they 'are greatly
     honoured.' When they embrace Christianity, they shame the brightest
     Christian among us, and I come away from visiting the hospitals
     feeling so small, so humble, yet at peace with all the world. We
     have very, very much to learn from this great people.

This second extract, about a soldier's wife, may come home to your
readers even more:--

     I allow two families a small sum of money every week. One case is
     that of a young woman, under twenty years of age, who has a child
     and an aged parent to keep, and her husband went to the war a few
     weeks ago, leaving her penniless and on the verge of having another
     baby. A few days ago, when I went to take her weekly money, she
     refused to take it, saying she had got a little work to do and
     could now manage without any help, as there were so many in much
     greater need of help than herself; and she would not take the
     money, though she was earning even less than I was allowing her.
     _That_ is what I call a real heroine.

     How many at work amongst our poor last winter could give such
     evidence to character as that?--I am, sir, yours, etc.

     ENGLISHWOMAN.


NOTE TO DIALOGUE VIII.

Before the preceding pages had been printed two events worth mentioning
here took place. One is the lamented death of Sir Henry Irving. The
other is the public discussion which took place under the auspices of
the London Shakespeare League, on the best method of presenting
Shakespeare's plays on the modern stage. On the latter subject perhaps I
may add a word. While in Japan the tendency is to introduce
women-players into the company of male players, and improvement of
scenery is much sought after on European lines, both of which are due to
the occidental influence, it is curious to notice that exactly reverse
movements, namely the dispensing with the female players and the
returning back to the primitive simplicity of stage properties, are
advocated in England by competent persons with regard to the
representation of Shakespeare. I extract below among others a passage of
the speech of Mr. Bernard Shaw on the occasion of the discussion
referred to above:--

     When Mr. Gilbert said that he would like to see the women's parts
     played by boys, he was not uttering a jest. In some of the
     performances at Westminster School, he had seen boys in women's
     parts much more effective than any professional actress. If women
     players had been proposed to Shakespeare, he would not only have
     been scandalised, but he would have pointed out that it was
     impossible to get the force from women that was obtained from boy
     actors.


NOTE TO THE ARTICLE ON 'COMMERCIAL MORALITY'

In the October number of the _Anglo-Japanese Gazette_ (London) is
published a criticism by Mr. Curtis, editor and proprietor of the _Kobe
Herald_, on 'the ridiculously sweeping assertions,' as he calls it, made
by Mr. Longford in his article. I subjoin herewith a passage which
relates to Mr. Longford's assertion that a 'cordon' is drawn by the
Japanese round the trading centres of Yokohama and Kobe, and that
foreign merchants are suffering under the 'thraldom':--

     Well, let me say that no sane, fair-minded man who knows anything
     whatever of his subject would ever dream of accusing the whole
     Japanese people of a lack of commercial morality. All this talk
     about a cordon being drawn round the treaty ports is rubbish. No
     such barrier exists, save perhaps in the imagination of a few who
     cannot shake off the prejudices and disabilities of the past. The
     idea sounds absurd to me, knowing, as I do know, that all the
     go-ahead firms have been doing their utmost for some time past to
     open up connections in the principal cities. Mr. Longford seems to
     think that business is conducted in Japan to-day just as it was
     twenty years ago. He apparently does not know that some foreign
     houses have trusted clerks or travellers all over the country; that
     some foreign business men run up to Osaka and Tokio daily; and that
     business journeys to Maidzuru--the great, fortified naval base on
     the Sea of Japan--Nagoya Sasebo, Hiroshima, and other important
     centres, are matters of everyday experience now.

In the same number of the same journal is also published an important
article from the pen of Sir Tollemache Sinclair, Bart., concerning
Bishop Awdry's letter published in the _Times_. Sir Tollemache strongly
repudiates the accuracy of the bishop's charge of dishonesty and
immorality against the Japanese, which Sir Tollemache calls the bishop's
'utterly erroneous accusations,' basing his contention upon an elaborate
comparison of the statistical facts of Japan and many other nations
relating to several important subjects having bearing on the question.
Among other things, he writes:--

     This clerical censor, who endeavours to find a mote in his Japanese
     brother's eye, but does not see the beam in his English brother's
     eye, cut the ground from under his own feet on the subject of the
     imaginary dishonesty of Japanese traders, for he tells us that a
     house was built for him by Japanese tradesmen admirably without any
     contract, and at a moderate expense; and I should like to know, if
     any Englishman did the same thing in England, whether he would not
     be unmercifully fleeced. Bishop Awdry says he is a friend of the
     Japanese, but they will probably say to him, after reading his
     letter, 'Save us from our friends, as to our enemies we will take
     care of them ourselves.'

And he winds up the article with these words:--

     What excuse has he to offer for the gross and discreditable and
     unfounded insults which he has heaped on the heads of those under
     whose protection, and in the enjoyment of whose hospitality, he
     resides.... In short, it may justly be said of the letter written
     by this superfluous bishop, 'what is true is not new, and what is
     new is not true.'




INDEX


  Adoption, the custom of
  _Advance Japan_, Morris's
  Age, ways of counting
  _Aïda_, the opera
  Ainslie, Dr. Daniel, his mission to Nagasaki
  Aizu, Lord of
  America's sympathy for Japan
  American Press, views of war with Russia given to the
  Anglo-French, Russo-Japanese _entente_
  Anglo-Franco Diplomacy in Japan
  Anglo-Japanese Alliance and America, an interview
  Army, the Japanese
    -- state of, after fighting
  Army and Navy, organisation of
  Arisugawa, Prince
  Art, Japanese
  Ashikaga
  Aston, Dr.
  Australian Question, the


  Bank of Japan.
  'Black Room President,'
  Books on Japan
  Bracken, a talk about
  British East India Company
  Buddhist Sects
  Budha, Amida
  _Bukum_
  Bushido
    -- discourse on
    -- history of the term
    -- its literature
  _Bushiku_
  Bushi-Zoku


  Calendar, the Japanese
  Calumnies on Japan
  Card-playing
  Cards, description of
  Character of the Japanese
  Chastity
  Chauvinism, fear of
  Chess-playing in China
   -- in Japan
  _Chiku-ba-sho_
  China, the difficulty of reform in
    -- the future of
    -- and Russia, secret treaty between
  Chinese jurisprudence
    -- banking system
  Chivalry, Japanese
  _Chokai_, Gunboat
  Chosiu
    -- troops
  Christianity and Japan
  Chrysanthemums, the culture of
  Climate in Japan
  Code of honour, the Japanese
  Commerce and industry of Japan described
  Commercial morality of the Japanese described
  Communication, means of, in Japan
  Corea
  Currency, Japanese


  Daidoji Yiuzan
  Daimio explained
    -- and Samurai, difference between
  Danjiuro
  Deaf and dumb, the treatment of
  Death, the Japanese conception of
  _Deutsche Revue_
  Diet, the
  Difficulty of distinguishing _R_ and _L_
  Duels
  Dwellings, details of


  Earrings, remarks on
  Eating fruit without peeling
  Education in Japan
    -- the system of
    -- common and military
  _Elementary Lessons on Budo_
  England, her political attitude.
  England and America, relations between, with regard to Japan
  English Press views on Japanese character
    -- sympathy for Japan


  Feeling and sentiment in Japan
  Feudal system in Japan
  Fiction, Japanese
  Fighting, modes of
  Finance of the Imperial Government at the beginning of the
    Great Change
  _Financial and Economical Annual_
  Financial system, progress of
  Firearms, the first use of, in Japan
  Flowers, art of arrangement of
    -- sale of
  Food, Japanese
  Forecast on the issue of the war
  France and her women
   -- relations with England
  French Nationalists and Socialists with regard to Japan
  Fushimi, battle of


  Garden, a Japanese, described
  Geishas, their life
  German policy
  'Go,' the game of
  Government, the Japanese
    -- described
  'Great Change,' the
  Greek and Roman comedies
    -- customs
  Greek inspiration
  Griffis, the Rev. W.E.


  Hakodate
  Hana-karuta
  Hanawa
  Hearn, Lafcadio
    -- life of
    -- remarks on
  Hetaira
  Hideyoshi
  Hirosé, Commandant
    -- Mrs., her letter to an English Admiral
  Hizen
  _Hogen Monogatari_
  House of Representatives


  Imperial Army Department
    -- Government and military reform
  _Imperial Japan_
  Imperial succession
    -- Troops
  _Independent Review_
  Indo-China Question
  Inouyé, Count
    -- a sketch of his life
  Intermarriages, Japanese
  International Conventions and Japan
  Irving, Sir Henry, and the Japanese stage
  Ito, Marquis
    -- an old speech by
    -- a sketch of his life
  Izawa Hanrioshi


  _Jane Eyre_ and Japan
  Japan after the war
    -- Emperor of, his powers
    -- and America, relations between
    -- and Europe, relations between
    -- and foreign capital
    -- and Russia, a priest's views on
  _Japan Times_
  Japanese, the age of
    -- as correspondents
    -- love tale, a
    -- reform, how brought about
    -- tariff
    -- Vendetta
  Jiujitsu, discourse on
    -- and wrestling, a comparison of
    -- the Willow Mind style


  Kagoshima
    -- bombardment of
  Kaibara Yekken
  Kataki-uchi
  Katsura, Count
  Kawakami
  Kawasé,
  Kido
  Kikugoro
  Kiusiu
  Kioto
  Kite flying
  Kites
  Koizumi Yakumo
  _Kokkwa_, a monthly on Art
  Komura, Baron
  Kumazawa Banzan
  Kuroda
  Kuropatkin, General
  Kwanto, plain of


  Lady's opinion on Japanese women, A
  Languages, remarks on
  Languages of China and Japan
  _Lays of Ancient Rome_
  _Le Matin_, 35.
  _Lectures by Yamaga Soko_
  Legislation, evolution of
  Lines on hailstones
  Little, Archibald
  Local administration
  Loti, Pierre


  Macaulay
  _Maritana_, the opera
  Marriage ceremonies, description of
  Massage
  Matoni, Monsieur
  Matrimony, preliminary inquiries in respect to
  Matsukata, career of
  _Mikado's Empire_
  Military organisation
    -- training
    -- for boys
    -- service, hereditary, abolished
  Mongolian troops
  Moon scenes
  Morality of Japan, compared with other nations
  Mothers and wives, Japanese
  Music, Japanese


  Nagasaki
  Nakaodo, a
  Nakaye-toju
  Names, Japanese
  Napoleon
  National banks
  Nationality, abuse of Japanese
  Navigation in the Japan Sea
  Navy, the Japanese
    -- its history
  Nelson
  Neutrality question, the
  'New Commoners,' and the history of their emancipation
  Night fêtes in Japan
  Nobility, the Japanese
    -- methods of addressing
  Nogi, General, and religion's meaning
  Notions of pardon and forgiving
  Nozu, General


  Occidental Civilisation
    -- vulgarity
  Okubo
  Okuma, Count
    -- a sketch of the life of
  Osaka
  Oyama Marshal


  Paris
    -- a motor ride round
    -- by night
  Peace prospects, observations of
  Physique, the Japanese
  Political attitude of England
  Political organism of Japan
  Port Arthur
  Press, the, and the war
  Printing, the art of
  Pronunciation of Japanese
  Public baths


  _Questions and Answers on Bun and Bu_


  Raffles, Sir Stamford, his appreciation of Japan
  Railways, construction of
  Red Cross Society
  Religion in Japan
    -- discussions on
  Religion, Japanese meaning of
  Restoration, the Japanese
  Revenge, Japanese
  Revolution, discussion on the Japanese
  _Risen Sun_, the
  Rodjestvensky, Admiral
  Romance, Japanese
  'Ronin,'
  Roosevelt, President
    -- and jiujitsu
    -- his partiality towards Japan
  Russia, Emperor of
    -- and Japan, a priest's views on
  Russian defeat, the cause of
  Russian views of the Japanese
  Russo-Japanese War, outbreak of
  Russophile papers


  Sada-Yakko
  Sadanji
  Saga, prince of
  Saigo
  Saionji, a sketch of the life of
  Samurai
    -- and Daimio, difference between
    -- and fighting
    -- explained
    -- discipline of the
    -- the soul of
    -- mother illustrated by a drama
  Satcho
  Satow, Sir E.
  Satsuma
    -- formation of the
    -- war
    -- the cause of
  Scenery of Japan
  Sekigahara, battle of
  _Self-Help_, Smiles's
  Semitic sympathy
  Shido,
  Shikwan
  Shimadai
  Shimazu Saburo
  Shintoism, its sensitiveness to pollution
  Shipbuilding yards, origin of
  Shiwa Yoshimasa
  Shizoku, the title
  Shogun
  Shogunate
    -- financial system of
    -- troops
  Simonoseki, treaty of
  Singing insects
  Sino-Japanese war
  Sketches of some chief figures of actual Japan
  Snow scenes
  Social morality, discussion on
  Social condition of Japan
  Socialism and Japan, discussion on
  Sotsuibushi, or Police-master-general
  Sports, Japanese
  Stage, the Japanese
  'Standard of Living,' an essay
  Stoessel, General
  Summer resorts of foreigners
  Sumoo
  Superstition, Japanese.
  Swords


  Taira
  Takasago
  Takasugi
  Takeda Shingen
  Telegraphs in Japan
  Telephones in Japan
  _Things Japanese_ (1898)
  Togo, Admiral
  Tokio
    -- the history of
    -- the patois of
  Tokugawa
    -- régime
    -- Feudatories under
  Tolstoy, Count Leo
  Trans-Siberian Railway
  Trip to Japan, details concerning
  Tsu-shima, battle of


  Uta-Karuta
  Utamaro


  Washington, George
  Weapons, Japanese





Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive.)









  Babylonian-Assyrian
  Birth-Omens

  And
  Their Cultural Significance


  by
  Morris Jastrow, jr.
  Ph. D. (Leipzig) Professor of Semitic Languages in the University
  of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)


  Gießen 1914
  Verlag von Alfred Töpelmann (vormals J. Ricker)




  =Religionsgeschichtliche
  Versuche und Vorarbeiten=

  begründet von
  Albrecht Dieterich und Richard Wünsch
  herausgegeben von
  Richard Wünsch und Ludwig Deubner
  in Münster i. W.      in Königsberg i. Pr.

  XIV. Band. 5. Heft




  To

  SIR WILLIAM OSLER

  Regius Professor of Medicine
  Oxford University

  This volume is dedicated
  as a mark of esteem and admiration.

  "Most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd."
    (King Henry V, 2d Part, Act IV, 5, 164.)




=Analysis=


  Divination in Babylonia and Assyria                                1

  Three chief methods: hepatoscopy, astrology and birth-omens      1-6

  Spread of Hepatoscopy and Astrology to Hittites, Etruscans,
  Greeks and Romans and to China                                   3-4

  The Transition motif in religious rites and popular customs      5-6

  Omen collections in Ashurbanapal's Library                       6-7

  Birth-omen reports                                              9-12

  Animal Birth-omens                                             12-28

  Double foetus                                                  13-16

  Principles of interpretation                                   14-15

  Multiple births among ewes                                     17-18

  Malformation of ears                                           19-22

  Excess number of ears                                          20-22

  Ewe giving birth to young resembling lion                      23-26

  Ewe giving birth to young resembling other animals             27-28

  Human Birth-omens                                              28-41

  Twins                                                          29-30

  Monstrosities                                                     30

  Multiple births                                                   31

  Malformation of ears                                           32-33

  Malformation of mouth, nostrils, jaws, arms, lips, hand        33-34

  Malformation of anus, genital member, thigh, feet              35-36

  Principles of interpretation                                      36

  Misshapen embryos                                                 37

  Weaklings, cripples, deaf-mutes, still-births, dwarfs          38-39

  Talking infants, with bearded lips and teeth                      39

  Infants with animal features                    32. 33. 35-36. 40-41

  Study of Human Physiognomy among Greeks and Romans             43-44

  Resemblances between human and animal features                    45

  Porta's and Lavater's Views                                    45-48

  Study of Human Physiognomy based on birth-omens                49-50

  Birth-omens in Julius Obsequens                                50-52

  Birth-omens in Valerius Maximus                                   52

  Cicero on birth-omens                                          53-54

  Macrobius on birth-omens                                          55

  Birth-omens among Greeks and in Asia Minor                     56-58

  Birth-omens as basis of belief in fabulous and hybrid
  beings                                                         59-62

  Dragons, Hippocentaurs and hybrid creatures in
  Babylonian-Assyrian Literature and Art                         63-64

  Fabulous creatures of Greek Mythology and Birth-omens          64-66

  Egyptian sphinxes                                              67-70

  Totemism                                                          70

  Metamorphosis of human beings into animals and vice versa      70-72

  Talking animals in fairy tales                                    71

  History of monsters and persistency of belief in monsters      72-78

  Lycosthenes' work                                              73-75

  Summary                                                        78-80

  Index                                                          81-86




  "... they do observe
  unfather'd heirs and loathly births of natures"
                                        (King Henry V. 2nd part
                                           Act IV, 4, 121-122).




I


As a result of researches in the field of Babylonian-Assyrian divination,
now extending over a number of years[1], it may be definitely said that
apart from the large class of miscellaneous omens[2], the Babylonians and
Assyrians developed chiefly three methods of divination into more or less
elaborate systems--divination through the inspection of the liver of a
sacrificial animal or Hepatoscopy, through the observation of the
movements in the heavens or Astrology, (chiefly directed to the moon and
the planets but also to the sun and the prominent stars and
constellations), and through the observance of signs noted at birth in
infants and the young of animals or Birth-omens. Elsewhere[3], I have
suggested a general division of the various forms of divination methods
into two classes, voluntary and involuntary divination, meaning by the
former the case in which a sign is deliberately selected and then
observed, by the latter where the sign is not of your own choice but
forced upon your attention and calling for an interpretation. Hepatoscopy
falls within the former category[4], Astrology and Birth-omens in the
latter.

Each one of these three methods rests on an underlying well-defined theory
and is not the outcome of mere caprice or pure fancy, though of course
these two factors are also prominent. In the case of Hepatoscopy, we find
the underlying theory to have been the identification of the 'soul' or
vital centre of the sacrificial victim--always a sheep--with the deity to
whom the animal is offered,--at least to the extent that the two souls are
attuned to one another. The liver being, according to the view prevalent
among Babylonians and Assyrians as among other peoples of antiquity at a
certain stage of culture, the seat of the soul[5], the inspection of the
liver followed as the natural and obvious means of ascertaining the mind,
i. e., the will and disposition of the deity to whom an inquiry has been
put or whom one desired to consult. The signs on the liver--the size and
shape of the lobes, and of the gall bladder, the character or
peculiarities of the two appendices to the upper lobe, (the processus
pyramidalis and the processus papillaris), and the various markings on the
liver were noted, and on the basis of the two main principles conditioning
all forms of divination (1) association of ideas and (2) noting the
events that followed upon certain signs, a decision was reached as to
whether the deity was favorably or unfavorably disposed or, what amounted
to the same thing, whether the answer to the inquiry was favorable or
unfavorable.

In the case of Astrology,--a relatively more advanced method of
divination,--the underlying theory rested on the supposed complete
correspondence between movements and phenomena in the heavens and
occurrences on earth. The gods, being identified with the heavenly
bodies,--with the moon, sun, planets, and fixed stars--or as we might also
put it, the heavenly bodies being personified as gods, the movements in
the heavens were interpreted as representing the activity of the gods
preparing the events on earth. Therefore, he who could read the signs in
the heavens aright would know what was to happen here below. Astrology
corresponded in a measure to the modern Weather Bureau in that it enabled
one to ascertain a little in advance what was certain to happen,
sufficiently so in order to be prepared for it. Compared with Hepatoscopy,
Astrology not only represents a form of divination that might be
designated as semi-scientific--only relatively scientific of course--but
also occupies a higher plane, because there was no attempt involved to
induce a deity unfavorably disposed to change his mind. The signs were
there; they pointed unmistakably to certain occurrences on earth that were
certain to occur and it was the task of the diviner--the =bârû= or
'inspector' as the Babylonian called him--to indicate whether what the
gods were preparing would be beneficial or harmful. Both Hepatoscopy and
Astrology as developed by the Babylonians and Assyrians =bârû=-priests
exerted a wide influence, the former spreading to the Hittites and
Etruscans and through the one or the other medium to Greeks and Romans[6],
while Babylonian-Assyrian Astrology passing to the Greeks became the basis
for Graeco-Roman and mediaeval Astrology, profoundly influencing the
religious thought of Europe[7] and in a modified form surviving even to
our own days. The chain of evidence has recently been completed[8] to
prove the direct transfer of the cuneiform astrological literature to
Greek astrologers and astronomers. The possibility also of a spread or at
least of a secondary influence of both systems to the distant East is also
to be considered. In fact considerable evidence is now available to show
that Babylonian-Assyrian astrological notions and in part also
astronomical data spread to China[9].




II


The observation of signs observed in young animals and in infants at the
time of birth constitutes a third division of Babylonian-Assyrian
divination, quite equal in prominence to Hepatoscopy and Astrology. Here
too we are justified in seeking for some rational or quasi-rational basis
for the importance attached by Babylonians and Assyrians, and as we shall
see by other nations as well, to anything of a noteworthy or unusual
character observed at the moment that a new life was ushered into the
world. The mystery of life made as deep an impression upon primitive man
and upon ancient peoples as it does on the modern scientist, who endeavors
with his better equipment and enriched by the large experience of past
ages, to penetrate to the very source of life. A new life issuing from
another life--what could be stranger, what more puzzling, what more
awe-inspiring? If we bear in mind that there is sufficient evidence to
warrant us in saying that among peoples in a primitive state of culture,
the new life was not associated with the sexual act[10], the mystery must
have appeared still more profound. The child or the young animal was
supposed to be due to the action of some spirit or demon that had found
its way into the mother, just as death was supposed to be due to some
malicious demon that had driven the spirit of life out of the body. The
many birth customs found in all parts of the world[11], are associated
with this impression of mystery made by the new life; they centre largely
round the idea of protection to the mother and her offspring at a critical
period. The rejoicing is tempered by the fear of the demons who were
supposed to be lurking near to do mischief to the new life and to the one
who brought it forth. The thought is a natural one, for the young life
hangs in the balance, while that of the mother appears to be positively
threatened. All bodily suffering and all physical ailments being ascribed
to the influence of bad demons, or to the equally malevolent influence of
persons who could by their control of the demons or in some other way
throw a spell over the individual, Birth, Puberty, Marriage and Death as
the four periods in life which may be regarded as critical and
transitional are marked by popular customs and religious rites that follow
mankind from primitive times down to our own days. A modern scholar, Van
Gennep, who has recently gathered these customs in a volume and
interpreted them, calls his work 'Rites de Passage', i. e., customs
associated with the four periods of transition from one stage to the other
and which survive in advanced forms of faith as Baptism, Confirmation,
Marriage ceremonies and Funeral rites, just as the chief festivals in all
religions are the 'Rites de Passage' of nature--associated with the
transition periods of the year, with the vernal equinox, the summer
solstice, the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice or, expressed in
agricultural terms, with sowing time, with blossoming or early harvest
time, with the later harvest time and with the period of decay.

The significance attached to birth omens is thus merely a phase of the
ceremonies attendant upon the passage of the new-born from its mysterious
hiding place to the light. The analogy between the new life and the
processes of nature is complete, for the plant, too, after being hidden in
the earth, which is pictured in the religions of antiquity as a 'great
mother', comes to the surface.




III


The field of observation in the case of the new-born among mankind and in
the animal world is large--very large, and yet definitely bounded. Normal
conditions were naturally without special significance, but any deviation
from the normal was regarded as a sign calling for interpretation. Such
deviations covered a wide and almost boundless range from peculiar
formations of any part of the body or of the features, to actual
malformations and monstrosities. The general underlying principle was, the
greater the abnormality, the greater the significance attached to it; and
as in the case of the movements in the heaven, the unusual was regarded as
an indication of some imminent unusual occurrence. We are fortunate in
possessing among the tablets of Ashurbanapal's library, unearthed by
Layard just fifty years ago and which is still our main source for the
Babylonian-Assyrian religious literature, many hundreds of texts
furnishing lists of birth omens and their interpretation[12], just as we
have many hundreds of texts dealing with liver divination[13], and even
more dealing with Astrology[14], apart from the many hundreds of texts
dealing with miscellaneous omens of which up to the present only a small
proportion has been published[15]. From this division of the great
collection gathered by Ashurbanapal's scribes chiefly from the temple
archives of Babylonia, it appears that the =bârû=-priests made extensive
collections of all kinds of omens which served the purpose of official
hand-books to be consulted in case of questions put to the priests as to
the significance of any particular phenomenon, and which were also used as
textbooks for the training of the aspirants to the priesthood.

Confining ourselves to the birth-omens[16], the first question that arises
is whether the signs entered are based on actual occurrences or are
fanciful. In the case of many entries, as will presently be made evident,
the anomalies noted rest upon =actual= observation, but with the desire of
the priests to embrace in their collections all possible contingencies so
as to be prepared for any question that might at any time arise, a large
number of signs were entered which the diviners thought _might_ occur. In
other words, in order to be on the safe side the diviners allowed their
fancy free rein and registered many things that we can positively say
never did occur and never could occur[17]. With the help of hand-books on
human and animal pathology, we can without difficulty distinguish between
two classes. Thus, twins being regarded as significant and triplets even
more so, the priests did not stop at this point but provided for cases
when four, five six up to eight and more infants were born at one
time[18]. Again in regard to animals, inasmuch as bitches and sows may
throw a litter of ten and even more, the priests in their collections
carried the number up to thirty[19] which is, of course, out of the
question. For sheep and goats the number was extended up to ten, though it
probably never happened that more than triplets were ever born to an ewe
or to a mother-goat. Even twins are rare, and I am told that there are few
authenticated cases of triplets.

Malformations among infants and the young of animals were of course
plentiful, but here too the anomalies and monstrosities are not as
numerous and varied as were entered in the handbooks of the Babylonian and
Assyrian diviners. The factor of fancy to which I have referred enters
even more largely in the entries of many actual malformations, through the
assumption of a more or less fanciful resemblance of some feature or of
some part of an infant or of the young of an animal with the features or
parts of some animal.

An excess number of limbs--three legs or four arms in the case of an
infant, or five or six legs in the case of a lamb, puppy, pig or foal, or
two heads--is not uncommon. On this basis the priests entered cases of
excess legs and arms and heads up to nine and more[20]; and similarly in
regard to ears and eyes.

That, however, despite the largely fanciful character of the entries in
the omen texts, these collections not only rested on a firm basis of
actual observation, but served a practical purpose is shown by the
examples that we have of official reports made by the =bârû=-priests of
human and animal anomalies, with the interpretations attached that
represent quotations from the collections[21]. A report of this kind in
reference to an animal monstrosity reads in part as follows[22]:

     'If it is a double foetus, but with one head, a double spine, two
     tails and one body, the land that is now ruled by two will be ruled
     by one person.

     If it is a double foetus with one head, the land will be safe.'

We have here two quotations from a text furnishing all kinds of
peculiarities connected with a double foetus and we are fortunate in
having the text from which the quotations are made[23]. Evidently an ewe
has given birth to a monstrosity such as is here described, the case has
been reported to the diviners who furnish the king[24] with this report,
indicating that since the monstrosity has only one head, what might have
been an unfavorable omen is converted into a favorable one.

Another report[25] regarding a monstrosity born of a sow reads:

     'If a foetus has eight feet and two tails, the ruler will acquire
     universal sway. A butcher, Uddanu by name, reported as follows: A sow
     gave birth (to a young) having eight feet and two tails. I have
     preserved it in salt and kept it in the house. From
     Nergal-eṭir[26].'

Here we have the name of the =bârû=-priest who made the report expressly
indicated. The report begins with a quotation from the collections,
indicating the interpretation to be put upon the occurrence, after which
the report of the actual event that took place is given in detail; and
Nergal-eṭir is careful to add that he has preserved the specimen as a
proof of its occurrence, precisely as to-day such a monstrosity would be
bottled and kept in a pathological museum. In another report[27]
containing various quotations from the collections of birth-omens and
closing with one in regard to a mare that had given birth to two colts,
one male and one female, with smooth hair over the ears, over the feet,
mouth and hoofs, which is interpreted as a favorable sign[28], the one who
makes the report adds 'Whether this is so, I shall ascertain. It will be
investigated according to instructions'. Evidently, the facts had not been
definitely ascertained and the diviner, while furnishing the
interpretations for various possibilities, promises to inform himself
definitely and report again as to the exact nature of the unusual
occurrence. Frequently these omen reports contain interesting and
important allusions to historical events which are then embodied in the
collections[29]. In fact the event which followed upon any unusual or
striking sign, whether in the heavens or among the newly born or what not,
was carefully noted and on the principle of =post hoc propter hoc= was
regarded as the event presaged by the sign in question. The definite
indication of the interpretation to be put upon the omen itself was
supplied by the actual event that followed upon the appearance of some
sign, though it was not supposed that the sign would always be followed by
the same occurrence. The point to which attention was primarily directed
was whether the occurrence was of a favorable or an unfavorable nature. If
favorable, the conclusion was drawn that the sign was a favorable one and
hence in the event of its recurrence some favorable incident might be
expected according to existing circumstances--victory in an impending
battle, suppression of an uprising, recovery of some member of the royal
household who may be lying ill, good crops at the approaching harvest or
whatever the case may be--or in general a favorable answer to any question
put by a ruler. The same would apply to a combination of signs, one of the
fundamental principles of divination being--once favorable, always
favorable.

Among the birth-omen reports we have one containing a historical reference
of unusual interest[30].

     'If the foetus is male and female--omen of Azag-Bau who ruled the
     land. The king's country will be seized.

     If a foetus is male and female, without testicles, a son of the
     palace[31] will rule the land or will assert himself against the
     king.'

We must assume in this case that a monstrosity has been born, having
partly male and partly female organs. The priest by way of interpretation
notes a series of signs registered in the collections, all prognosticating
an abnormal state of affairs--a woman on the throne, captivity, seizure
of the throne by an usurper and revolt. We frequently find in the
collections several interpretations registered in this way,--a valuable
indication of the manner in which these collections were compiled by the
priests from a variety of documents before them. The name of this female
ruler, hitherto known only from this report and from a list of proper
names in which Azag-Bau occurred, has now turned up in an important list
of early dynasties ruling in the Euphratean Valley, discovered and
published by Scheil[32]. We may conclude, therefore, that at the time that
Azag-Bau sat on the throne or shortly before, such a monstrosity actually
came to light. As an unusual occurrence it presaged something unusual, and
was naturally associated with the extraordinary circumstance of a woman
mounting the throne. Azag-Bau according to the newly discovered list is
the founder of a dynasty ruling in Erech as a centre and whose date
appears to be somewhere between 2800 and 3000 B. C.--possibly even
earlier. As a founder of a dynasty that overthrew a previous one, Azag-Bau
must have engaged in hostilities with other centres, so that the second
interpretation that 'the king's country will be seized' may well refer to
some historical event of the same general period. Be that as it may, the
important point for us is that we have here another proof of the practical
purpose served by the observation of birth-omens.




IV


Passing now to some illustrations of birth-omens from the collections of
the =bârû=-priests, let us first take up some texts dealing with omens
from the young of animals. Naturally, the animals to which attention was
directed were the domesticated ones--sheep, goats, cows, dogs, horses and
pigs. Among these the most prominent is the sheep, corresponding to the
significance attached to the sheep in liver divination where it is, in
fact, the only animal whose liver is read as a means of forecasting the
future[33]. As a result of this particularly prominent position taken by
the sheep in birth-omens, the word =isbu=, designating the normal or
abnormal foetus--human or animal--when introduced without further
qualification generally indicates the foetus of a sheep[34].

A text[35] dealing with a double foetus, i. e., of a sheep[36], reads in
part as follows:

     'If it is a double foetus with slits (?) on the head and tail, the
     land will be secure.

     If it is a double foetus and enclosed[37], confusion in the country,
     the dynasty [will come to an end].

     If it is a double foetus, encompassed like an enclosure, the king
     will [subdue ?] the land.

     If it is a double foetus and encompassed like an enclosure, confusion
     in the land, hostilities [in the country].

     If it is a double foetus, encompassed like an enclosure, with slits
     on the body, end of the dynasty, confusion and disturbances in the
     country.

     If it is a double foetus, encompassed like an enclosure, with twisted
     necks and only one head, the land will remain under one head.

                  *       *       *       *       *

     If it is a double foetus, the heads enclosed, with eight legs and
     only one spine, the land will be visited by a destructive storm[38].

     If it is a double foetus with only one head, the land will be secure,
     the ruler will prevail against his enemy, peace and prosperity in the
     country[39].

     If it is a double foetus with one head, a double spine, eight feet,
     two necks and two tails, the king will enlarge his land.

     If it is a double foetus with one head, double spine, two tails and
     one body, then the land that is ruled by two will be ruled by one.

     If it is a double foetus with only one head and one spine, eight
     feet, two necks and two tails, the king will enlarge his land.

     If it is a double foetus with only one neck, the ruler will enlarge
     his land.

     If it is a double foetus with only one spine, the ruler will enlarge
     his land.

     If it is a double foetus with only one mouth, the land will remain
     under the command of the king.

     If it is a double foetus with only one breast, the land will be
     enlarged, rule of a legitimate king.

In order to grasp the principles underlying the interpretation of such
omens, we must take as our starting point the conceptions connected with
the various parts of the body. Bearing in mind that the omens deal
primarily with public affairs and the general welfare and only to a
limited extent with private and individual concerns[40], the head of the
foetus by a natural association stands for the ruler or occasionally for
the owner of the mother lamb. One head to the double foetus, therefore,
indicates unity--a single rule--whereas two heads point to disruption of
some kind. If the double foetus is so entwined as to be shut in within an
enclosure, a similarly natural association of ideas would lead to the
country being shut in, in a state of confusion, the land in a condition of
subjugation or the like. On the other hand, if merely the heads are
enclosed so as to give the impression of unity and the rest of the two
bodies is disentangled, the unfavorable sign is converted into a favorable
one. A second principle involved in the interpretation results in a more
favorable conclusion if the double foetus shows less complications. So, a
single neck or a single spine or a single breast or a single mouth point
again, like a single head, towards unity and therefore to flourishing
conditions in the land. In the case of legs and tails, to be sure, the
conditions seem to be reversed--the eight legs and two tails and two necks
with one head pointing to enlargement of the land, whereas a double foetus
with only six or five feet forebodes some impending misfortune[41].

Let us proceed further with this text.

     If it is a double foetus, one well formed and the second issuing from
     the mouth of the first[42], the king will be killed and his army will
     [revolt ?], his oil plantation and his dwelling will be destroyed[43].

     If it is a double foetus, the second lying at the tail [of the
     first], with two breasts and two tails, there will be no unity in the
     land[44].

     If it is a double foetus, and the second lies at the tail of the
     first and enclosed and both are living, ditto.

     If it is a double foetus, and one rides over the other, victory,
     throne will support throne.

     If it is a double foetus and one rides over the other and there is
     only one head, the power of the king will conquer the enemy's land.

     If it is a double foetus, one above and one below, with only one
     spine and eight feet, four [Variant: 'two'] ears, and two tails,
     throne will support throne.

     If it is a double foetus with the faces downward, approach of the son
     of the king, who will take the throne of his father, or a second son
     of the king will die, or a third son of the king will die.

                  *       *       *       *       *

     If it is a double foetus with five feet, serious hostility in the
     country, the house of the man will perish, his stall[45] will be
     destroyed.

     If it is a double foetus with six feet, the population will be
     diminished, confusion in the land.

     If it is a foetus within a foetus, the king will weaken his enemy,
     his possessions will be brought into the palace[46].

                  *       *       *       *       *

     If a foetus gives birth to a second foetus[47], the king will assert
     himself against his opponent.

It will be observed that in quite a number of cases two alternative
interpretations are given, one of an official character referring to the
public welfare, or to occurrences in the royal household[48], the other of
an unofficial character bearing on the welfare of the individual to whom
the mother lamb that had produced the monstrosity belonged. One foetus
issuing from the other, or one within the other, appears to have been a
favorable or an unfavorable sign, according to the position of the second.
If the one lay above the other, the association of ideas pointed to a
control of the ruler over his enemy. In some cases, the association of
ideas leading to the interpretation is not clear; and we must perhaps
assume in such instances an entry of an event that =actually= occurred
after the birth of the monstrosity in question. A certain measure of
arbitrariness in the interpretations also constitutes a factor to be taken
into consideration; and the last thing that we need to expect in any
system of divination is a =consistent= application of any principle
whatsoever.

The text passes on to an enumeration of the case of an ewe giving birth to
more than two lambs. The 'official' interpretations are throughout
unfavorable[49], and the priests were quite safe in their entries which
were purely arbitrary in these cases, since such multiple births never
occurred. It is worth while to quote these interpretations as an
illustration of the fanciful factor that, as already indicated, played a
not insignificant part in the system unfolded.

     If an ewe gives birth to three (lambs), the prosperity of the country
     will be annulled, but things will go well with the owner of the ewe,
     his stall will be enlarged.

     If an ewe gives birth to three fully developed (lambs), the dynasty
     will meet with opposition, approach of an usurper, the country will
     be destroyed.

     If an ewe gives birth to four, the land will encounter hostility, the
     produce of the land will be swept away, approach of an usurper,
     destruction in the land.

     If an ewe gives birth to four fully developed lambs, [locusts (?)]
     will come and [destroy] the country.

     If an ewe gives birth to four, approach of an usurper, the country
     will be destroyed.

     If an ewe gives birth to five, destruction will ravage the country,
     the owner of the house will die, his stall will be destroyed.

     If an ewe gives birth to five, one with the head of a bull[50], one
     with a lion-head, one with a jackal-head, one with a dog-head and one
     with the head of a lamb[51], devastation will take place in the
     country.

     If an ewe gives birth to six, confusion among the population.

     If an ewe gives birth to seven,--three male and four female--, the
     king will perish.

     If an ewe gives birth to eight, approach of an usurper, the tribute
     of the king will be withheld.

     If an ewe gives birth to nine, end of the dynasty.

     If an ewe gives birth to ten, a weakling will acquire universal
     sovereignty[52].

The general similarity of the interpretations may be taken as a further
indication that the =bârû=-priests were simply giving their fancy free
scope in making prognostications for conditions that could never arise;
nor is it of serious moment that in the case of triplets the
interpretation is favorable to the owner of the ewe, or that in the case
of ten lambs, even the official interpretation is not distinctly
unfavorable--in view of the purely 'academic' character of such entries.

An extract from a long text[53] furnishing omens derived from all kinds of
peculiarities and abnormal phenomena noted on the ears of an
animal--primarily again the sheep, though no doubt assumed to be
applicable to other domesticated animals--will throw further light on the
system of divination devised by the =bârû=-priests, and will also
illustrate the extravagant fancy of the priests in their endeavor to make
their collections provide for all possible and indeed for many impossible
contingencies.

     If a foetus[54] lacks the right ear, the rule of the king will come
     to an end, his palace will be destroyed, overthrow of the elders of
     the city, the king will be without counsellors, confusion in the
     land, diminution of the cattle in the land, the enemy will acquire
     control[55].

     If the foetus lacks a left ear, a god will harken to the prayer of
     the king, the king will take the land of his enemy, the palace of the
     enemy will be destroyed, the enemy will be without a counsellor, the
     cattle of the enemy's country will be diminished, the enemy will lose
     control.

     If the right ear of the foetus is detached, the stall[56] will be
     destroyed.

     If the left ear of the foetus is detached, the enemy's stall will be
     destroyed.

     If the right ear of the foetus is split, the herd will be destroyed
     or the leaders of the city will leave (it)[57].

     If the left ear of the foetus is split, the herd will be enlarged,
     the leaders of the enemy's country will leave (it).

     If the right ear of the foetus is split and swollen with clay, the
     country [will have a rival].

     If the left ear of the foetus is split and swollen with clay, the
     enemy's country will have a rival.

     If the right ear of the foetus is destroyed, the stall will be
     enlarged, the stall of the enemy will be diminished.

     If the outside of the right ear is destroyed, the land will yield to
     the enemy's land.

     If the right ear of the foetus lies near the cheek[58], the enemy
     will prevail against the power of the king, the king will be without
     counsellors, a ruler will not inhabit the land, or the son of the
     king of universal sway[59] will be king.

     If the left ear of the foetus lies near the cheek, an enemy will be
     installed in the royal palace.

     If the right ear of the foetus lies near the jaw, birth of a
     demon[60] in my land, or in the house of the man[61].

     If the left ear of the foetus lies near the jaw, birth of a demon in
     the enemy's land, or the land of the enemy will perish.

The guiding principle of the interpretation in these instances is the
natural association of the right as your side and the left with the
enemy's side. A defect on the right side is unfavorable to you, i. e., to
the king or to the country or to the individual in whose household the
birth occurs, while the same defect on the left side is unfavorable to the
enemy and, therefore, favorable to you. The principle is quite
consistently carried out even to the point that if the sign itself is
favorable, it is only when it is found on the right side that it is
favorable to you, while its occurrence on the left side is favorable to
the enemy.

Defects of any kind appear to be unfavorable, whereas an excess of organs
and parts are in many instances favorable, though with a considerable
measure of arbitrariness.

     If the foetus has two ears on the right side and none on the left,
     the boundary city of the enemy will become subject to you.

     If the foetus has two ears on the left side and none on the right,
     your boundary city will become subject to the enemy.

     If the foetus has two ears on the right side and one on the left, the
     land will remain under the control of the ruler.

     If the foetus has two ears on the left side and one on the right, the
     land will revolt.

     If within the right ear of the foetus a second ear[62] appears, the
     ruler will have counsellors.

     If within the left ear of the foetus there is a second ear, the
     counsellors of the ruler will advise evilly.

     If behind the right ear of the foetus there is a second ear, the
     ruler will have counsellors.

     If behind the left ear of the foetus there is a second ear, confusion
     in the land, the land will be destroyed[63].

                  *       *       *       *       *

     If a foetus has [four] ears, a king of universal sway will be in the
     land.

     [If a foetus has four ears], two lying in front (and) two in back,
     the ruler will acquire possessions in a strange country[64].

                  *       *       *       *       *

     If behind the right ear, there are two ears, visible on the
     outside[65], the inhabitants of the boundary city will become subject
     to the enemy.

     If behind the left ear there are two ears visible on the outside, the
     inhabitants of the boundary city of the enemy will become subject to
     you.

     If a foetus has three ears, one on the left side and two on the right
     side, the angry gods will return to the country.

     If a foetus has three ears, one on the left side and two on the
     right, the gods will kill within the country.

     If within the right ear of a foetus there are three ears with the
     inner sides well formed, the opponent will conclude peace with the
     king whom he fears, the army of the ruler will dwell in peace with
     him.

     If within the left ear of a foetus there are three ears with the
     inner sides well formed, thy ally will become hostile.

     If behind each of the two ears there are three ears visible on the
     outside, confusion in the land, the counsel of the land will be
     discarded, one land after the other will revolt.

     If within each of two ears there are three ears visible on the inner
     side, things will go well with the ruler's army.

     If within each of the two ears there are three ears, visible on the
     outside and the inside, the army of the ruler will forsake him and
     his land will revolt.

     If within each of the two ears there are three ears, visible on the
     outside and the inside, the army of the ruler will forsake him and
     his land will revolt.

     If the ears of a foetus are choked up[66], in place of a large king a
     small king will be in the land.

In general, therefore, an excess number of ears points to enlargement,
increased power, stability of the government and the like; and this is
probably due in part to the association of wisdom and understanding with
the ear in Babylonian[67], for as a general thing an excess of organs or
of parts of the body is an unfavorable sign, because a deviation from the
normal.

In the same way as in the case of the ears, we have birth-omen texts
dealing with the head, lips, mouth, eyes, feet, joints, tail, genital
organs, hair, horns and other parts of the body[68]. In many of these
texts dealing with all kinds of peculiar formations and abnormalities in
the case of one organ or one part of the body or the other, a comparison
is instituted between the features or parts of one animal with those of
another and the interpretation is guided by the association of ideas with
the animal compared. A moment's reflection will show the importance of
this feature in extending the field of observation almost =ad infinitum=.
A lamb born with a large head might suggest a lion, a small long head that
of a dog, or a very broad face might suggest the features of a bull. From
comparisons of this kind, the step would be a small one to calling a lamb
with lion-like features, a lion, or a lamb with features recalling those
of a dog, a dog and so on through the list, the interpretations being
chosen through the ideas associated with the animal in question. A text of
this kind[69], of which we have many, reads in part as follows.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, the abandoned weapons will make an
     attack (again), the king will be without a rival.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but with a head of a 'rain bow'
     bird[70], the son will seize the throne of his father.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are
     (also) human, the power of the king will conquer a powerful country.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are those
     of a lamb, the young cattle will not prosper.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are those
     of an ass, severe famine will occur in the country.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are those
     of a dog, Nergal[71] will cause destruction.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion but (some of) the features are those
     of a =khupipi=[72], the ruler will be without a rival and will
     destroy the land of his enemy.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but with the mouth of a wild cow,
     the rule of the king will not prosper.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion but with the mouth of a bull, famine
     will ensue.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the horny exuberance of an ibex
     on its face, prices will be lowered[73].

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the horny exuberance of an ibex
     on its face and if the eyes are open[74], prices will be high.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with fatty flesh on the nose, the
     land will be well nourished.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, and the right temple is covered with
     fatty flesh, the land will be richly blessed.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, and the left temple is covered with
     fatty flesh,--rivalry.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, and it is covered all over with
     fatty flesh, the king will be without a rival.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion but without a head[75], death of the
     ruler.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the gorge torn off[76],
     destruction of the land, the mistress[77] will die.

     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the gorge torn off and a
     mutilated tail[78], the land [will be destroyed (?)]

From texts like these it would appear that the phrase of 'an ewe giving
birth to a lion' had acquired a purely conventional force to describe a
lamb whose head or general features suggested those of a lion. It may have
come to be used indeed for a newly born lamb of unusually large
proportions. Hence one could combine with the description of a lion-lamb
such further specifications as that it also suggested human features, or
looked like an ass or a dog, or that while it came under the category of a
lion-lamb, it yet had some of the features of a normal lamb. At all events
we must not credit the Babylonians or Assyrians with so absurd a belief as
that an ewe could actually produce a lion. Such a supposition is at once
disposed of when we come to other texts where we find entries of an ewe
producing a whole series of animals--a jackal, dog, fox, panther, hyena,
gazelle, etc. and where we must perforce assume resemblances between a
young lamb and the animals in question and not any extravagant views of
possible cross-breeding[79]. To clinch the matter, we have quite a number
of passages in which the preposition 'like' is introduced[80] instead of
the direct equation, showing that when the texts speak of an ewe giving
birth to a lion, a jackal, a dog, etc., the priests had in mind merely a
resemblance as the basis of such statements.

The general idea associated with the lion in divination texts is that of
power, success, increase and the like. The sign, therefore, of an ewe
producing a lion is a favorable one; it is only through attendant
circumstances that the character of the sign is transformed into an
unfavorable or partly unfavorable omen. So in case the lion-lamb has a
head suggestive of the variegated colors of the rainbow bird, the sign
still points to power, but to a power exercised by the crown prince
against the father. If some of the features suggest those of an ass or of
a dog or of a pig, the ideas associated with these animals convert what
would otherwise have been a favorable sign into an unfavorable one. The
mouth of a wild cow or of a bull, thus interfering with the complete
identification of the young lamb as a lion-lamb, similarly, brings about
an unfavorable interpretation. Fatty flesh by a natural association points
to increased prosperity, while mutilations of the head, tail or of any
other part naturally carry with them unfavorable prognostications.

It is interesting to see from a long list of comparisons of a new-born
lamb with all kinds of animals[81] the extent to which the association of
ideas connected with the animals in question is carried.

     If an ewe gives birth to a dog ... the king's land will revolt.

     If an ewe gives birth to a beaver[82] (?), the king's land will
     experience misery.

     If an ewe gives birth to a fox, Enlil[83] will maintain the rule of
     the legitimate king for many years, or[84] the king will strengthen
     his power.

     If an ewe gives birth to a Mukh-Dul[85], the enemy will carry away
     the inhabitants of the land, the land will despite its strength go to
     ruin, the dynasty will be opposed, confusion in the land.

     If an ewe gives birth to a panther, the kingdom of the ruler will
     secure universal sway.

     If an ewe gives birth to a hyena (?), approach of Elam.

     If an ewe gives birth to a gazelle, the days of the ruler through the
     grace of the gods will be long, or the ruler will have warriors.

     If an ewe gives birth to a hind, the son of the king will seize his
     father's throne, or the approach of Subartu will overthrow the land.

     If an ewe gives birth to a roebuck, the son of the king will seize
     his father's throne, or destruction of cattle[86].

     If an ewe gives birth to a wild cow, revolt will prevail in the
     land.

     If an ewe gives birth to an ox, the weapons of the ruler will prevail
     over the weapons of the enemy.

     If an ewe gives birth to an ox that has _ganni_[87], the ruler will
     weaken the land of his enemy.

     If an ewe gives birth to an ox with two tails, omen of Ishbi-Ura[88],
     who was without a rival.

     If an ewe gives birth to a cow, the king will die, another king will
     draw nigh and divide the country.

One might have supposed that such omens represent a purely imaginative
theoretical factor, but the introduction of the historical reference
proves conclusively that the Babylonians and Assyrians attached an
was--different,' she whispered.

'How?' my lady muttered.

'He swore at me,' Marie answered in the same tone. 'And he spoke of
you--somehow differently.'

The Countess laughed, but far from joyously. 'I suppose to-night--I
must see him?' she said. She tried as she spoke to press herself more
deeply into the pillows, as if she might escape that way. Her flesh
crept, and she shivered though she was as hot as fire.

Once or twice in the hours which followed she was almost beside
herself. Sometimes she prayed. More often she walked up and down the
room like one in a fever. She did not know on what she was trusting,
and she could have struck Marie when the girl, appealed to again and
again, would explain nothing, and name no quarter from which help
might come. All the afternoon the camp lay grilling in the sunshine,
and in the shuttered room in the middle of it my lady suffered. Had
the house lain by the river she might have tried to escape; but the
camp girdled it on three sides, and on the fourth, where a swampy
inlet guarded one flank of the village, a deep ditch as well as the
morass forbade all passage.

She remained in her room until she heard the unwelcome sounds which
told of the general's return. Then she came into the outer room, her
eyes glittering, a red spot on either cheek, all pretence at an end.
Her glance withered Fraulein Max, who sat blinking in a corner with a
very evil conscience. And to Marie Wort, when the girl came near her
on the pretence of adjusting her lace sleeves, she had only one word
to say.

'You slut!' she hissed, her breath hot on the girl's cheek. 'If you
fail me I will kill you. Begone out of my sight!'

The child, excited before, broke down at that, and, bursting into a
fit of weeping, ran out. Her sobs were still in the air when General
Tzerclas entered.

The Countess's face was flushed, and her bearing, full of passion and
defiance, must have warned him what to expect, if he felt any doubt
before. The sun was just setting, the room growing dusk. He stood
awhile, after saluting her, in doubt how he should come to the point,
or in admiration; for her scorn and anger only increased her beauty
and his feeling for her. At length he pointed lightly to the women,
who kept their places by the door.

'Is it your wish, fair cousin,' he said slowly, 'that I should speak
before these, or will you see me alone?'

'Your spy, that cat there,' my lady answered, carried away by her
temper, 'may go! The women will stay.'

Fraulein Max, singled out by that merciless finger, sprang forward,
her face mottled with surprise and terror. For a second she hesitated.
Then she rushed towards her friend, as if she would embrace her.

'Countess!' she cried. 'Rotha! Surely you are mad! You cannot think
that I would----'

My lady turned, and in a flash struck her fiercely on the cheek with
her open hand. 'Liar!' she cried; 'go to your master, you whipped
hound!'

The Dutch woman recoiled with a cry of pain, and sobbing wildly went
back to her place. The general laughed harshly.

'You hold with me, sweetheart,' he said. 'Discipline before
everything. But you have not my patience.'

She looked at him--angry with him, angry with herself, her hand to her
bosom--but she did not answer.

'For you must allow,' he continued--his tone and his eyes still
bantered her--'that I have been patient. I have been like a man
athirst in the desert; but I have waited day after day, until now I
can wait no longer, sweetheart.'

'So you tamper with my--with that woman!' she said scornfully.

The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed grimly. 'Why not?' he
said. 'What are waiting-women and the like made for, if not to be
bribed--or slapped?'

She hated him for that sly hit--if never before; but she controlled
herself. She would throw the burden on him.

He read the thought, and it led him to change his tone. There was a
gloomy fire in his eyes, and smouldering passion in his voice, when he
spoke again.

'Well, Countess,' he said, 'I am here for your answer.'

'To what?'

'To the question I asked you some time ago,' he rejoined, dwelling on
her with sullen eyes. 'I asked you to be my wife. Your answer?'

'Prythee!' she said proudly, 'this is a strange way of wooing.'

'It is not of my choice that I woo in company,' he answered, shrugging
his shoulders. 'My answer; that is all I want--and you.'

'Then you shall have the first, and not the last,' she exclaimed on a
sudden impulse. 'No, no--a hundred times no! If you do not see that by
pressing me now,' she continued impetuously, 'when I am alone,
friendless, and unprotected, you insult me, you should see it, and I
do.'

For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed; but his voice,
notwithstanding his mastery over it and in spite of that laugh, shook
with rage and resentment. 'As I expected,' he said. 'I knew last night
that you hated me. You have been playing a part throughout. You loathe
me. Yes, madam, you may wince,' he continued bitterly, 'for you shall
still be my wife; and when you are my wife we will talk of that.'

'Never!' she said, with a brave face; but her heart beat wildly, and a
mist rose before her eyes.

He laughed. 'My legions are round me,' he said. 'Where are yours?'

'You are a gentleman,' she answered with an effort. 'You will let me
go.'

'If I do not?'

'There are those who will know how to avenge me.'

He laughed again. 'I do not know them, Countess,' he said
contemptuously. 'For Hesse Cassel, he has his hands full at Nuremberg,
and will be likely, when Wallenstein has done with him, to need help
himself. The King of Sweden--the brightest morning ends soonest in
rain--and he will end at Nuremberg. Bernhard of Weimar, Leuchtenstein,
all the fanatics fall with him. Only the banner of the Free Companies
stands and waves ever the wider. Be advised,' he continued grimly.
'Bend, Countess, or I have the means to break you.'

'Never!' she said.

'So you say now,' he answered slowly. 'You will not say so in five
minutes. If you care nothing for yourself, have a care for your
friends.'

'You said I had none,' she retorted hoarsely.

'None that can help you,' he replied; 'some that you can help.'

She started and looked at him wildly, her lips apart, her eyes wide
with hope, fear, expectation. What did he mean? What could he mean by
this new turn? Ha!

She had her face towards the window, and dark as the room was
growing--outside the light was failing fast--he read the thought in
her eyes, and nodded.

'The Waldgrave?' he said lightly. 'Yes, he is alive, Countess, at
present; and your steward also.'

'They are prisoners?' she whispered, her cheeks grown white.

'Prisoners; and under sentence of death.'

'Where?'

'In my camp.'

'Why?' she muttered. But alas! she knew; she knew already.

'They are hostages for your good behaviour,' he answered in his cold,
mocking tone. 'If their principal satisfies me, good; they will go
free. If not, they die--to-morrow.'

'To-morrow?' she gasped.

'To-morrow,' he answered ruthlessly. 'Now I think we understand one
another.'

She threw up her hand suddenly, as if she were about to vent on him
all the passions which consumed her--the terror, rage, and shame which
swelled in her breast. But something in his gibing tone, something in
the set lines of his figure--she could not see his face--checked her.
She let her hand fall in a gesture of despair, and shrank into
herself, shuddering. She looked at him as at a serpent--that
fascinated her. At last she murmured--

'You will not dare. What have they done to you?'

'Nothing,' he answered. 'It is not their affair; it is yours.'

For a moment after that they stood confronting one another while the
sound of the women sobbing in a corner, and the occasional jingle of a
bridle outside, alone broke the silence. Behind her the room was dark;
behind him, through the open windows, lay the road, glimmering pale
through the dusk. Suddenly the door at her back opened, and a bright
light flashed on his face. It was Marie Wort bringing in a lamp. No
one spoke, and she set the lamp on the table, and going by him began
to close the shutters. Still the Countess stood as if turned to stone,
and he stood watching her.

'Where are they?' she moaned at last, though he had already told her.

'In the camp,' he said.

'Can I--can I see them?' she panted.

'Afterwards,' he answered, with the smile of a fiend; 'when you are my
wife.'

That added the last straw. She took two steps to the table, and
sitting down blindly, covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders
began to tremble, her head sank lower and lower on the table. Her
pride was gone.

'Heaven help us!' she whispered in a passion of grief. 'Heaven help
us, for there is no help here!'

'That is better,' he said, eyeing her coldly. 'We shall soon come to
terms now.'

In his exultation he went a step nearer to her. He was about to touch
her--to lay his hand on her hair, believing his evil victory won, when
suddenly two dark figures rose like shadows behind her chair. He
recoiled, dropping his hand. In a moment a pistol barrel was thrust
into his face. He fell back another step.

'One word and you are a dead man!' a stern voice hissed in his ear.
Then he saw another barrel gleam in the lamplight, and he stood still.

'What is this?' he said, looking from one to the other, his voice
trembling with rage.

'Justice!' the same speaker answered harshly. 'But stand still and be
silent, and you shall have your life. Give the alarm, and you die,
general, though we die the next minute. Sit down in that chair.'

He hesitated. But the two shining barrels converging on his head, the
two grim faces behind them, were convincing; in a moment he obeyed.




                            CHAPTER XXIII.

                             THE FLIGHT.


One of the men--it was I--muttered something to Marie, and she snuffed
the wick, and blew up the light. In a moment it filled the room,
disclosing a strange medley of levelled weapons, startled faces, and
flashing eyes. In one corner Fraulein Max and the two women cowered
behind one another, trembling and staring. At the table sat my lady,
with dull, dazed eyes, looking on, yet scarcely understanding what was
happening. On either side of her stood Steve and I, covering the
general with our pistols, while the Waldgrave, who was still too weak
for much exertion, kept guard at the door.

Tzerclas was the first to speak. 'What is this foolery?' he said,
scowling unutterable curses at us. 'What does this mean?'

'This!' I said, producing a piece of hide rope. 'We are going to tie
you up. If you struggle, general, you die. If you submit, you live.
That is all. Go to work, Steve.'

There was a gleam in Tzerclas' eye, which warned me to stand back and
crook my finger. His face was black with fury, and for an instant I
thought that he would spring upon us and dare all. But prudence and
the pistols prevailed. With an evil look he sat still, and in a trice
Steve had a loop round his arms and was binding him to the heavy
chair.

I knew then that as far as he was concerned we were safe; and I turned
to bid the women get cloaks and food, adjuring them to be quick, since
every moment was precious.

'Bring nothing but cloaks and food and wine,' I said. 'We have to go a
league on foot and can carry little.'

The Countess heard my words, and looked at me with growing
comprehension. 'The Waldgrave?' she muttered. 'Is he here?'

He came forward from the door to speak to her; but when she saw him,
and how pale and thin he was, with great hollows in his cheeks and his
eyes grown too large for his face, she began to cry weakly, as any
other woman might have cried, being overwrought. I bade Marie, who
alone kept her wits, to bring her wine and make her take it; and in a
minute she smiled at us, and would have thanked us.

'Wait!' I said bluntly, feeling a great horror upon me whenever I
looked towards the general or caught his eye. 'You may have small
cause to thank us. If we fail, Heaven and you forgive us, my lady, for
this man will not. If we are retaken----'

'We will not be retaken!' she cried hardily. 'You have horses?'

'Five only,' I answered. 'They are all Steve could get, and they are a
league away. We must go to them on foot. There are eight of us here,
and young Jacob and Ernst are watching outside. Are all ready?'

My lady looked round; her eye fell on Fraulein Max, who with a little
bundle in her arms had just re-entered and stood shivering by the
door. The Dutch girl winced under her glance, and dropping her bundle,
stooped hurriedly to pick it up.

'That woman does not go!' the Countess said suddenly.

I answered in a low tone that I thought she must.

'No!' my lady cried harshly--she could be cruel sometimes--'not with
us. She does not belong to our party. Let her stay with her paymaster,
and to-morrow he will doubtless reward her.'

What reward she was likely to get Fraulein Max knew well. She flung
herself at my lady's feet in an agony of fear, and clutching her
skirts, cried abjectly for mercy; she would carry, she would help, she
would do anything, if she might go! Knowing that we dared not leave
her since she would be certain to release the general as soon as our
backs were turned, I was glad when Marie, whose heart was touched,
joined her prayers to the culprit's and won a reluctant consent.

It has taken long to tell these things. They passed very quickly. I
suppose not more than a quarter of an hour elapsed between our first
appearance and this juncture, which saw us all standing in the
lamplight, laden and ready to be gone; while the general glowered at
us in sullen rage, and my lady, with a new thought in her mind, looked
round in dismay.

She drew me aside. 'Martin,' she said, 'his orderly is waiting in the
road with his horse. The moment we are gone he will shout to him.'

'We have provided for that,' I answered, nodding. Then assuring myself
by a last look round that all were ready, I gave the word. 'Now,
Steve!' I said sharply.

In a twinkling he flung over the general's head a small sack doubled
inwards. We heard a stifled oath and a cry of rage. The bars of the
strong chair creaked as our prisoner struggled, and for a moment it
seemed as if the knots would barely hold. But the work had been well
done, and in less than half a minute Steve had secured the sack to the
chair-back. It was as good as a gag, and safer. Then we took up the
chair between us, and lifting it into the back room, put it down and
locked the door upon our captive.

As we turned from it Steve looked at me. 'If he catches us after this,
Master Martin,' he said, 'it won't be an easy death we shall die!'

'Heaven forbid!' I muttered. 'Let us be off!'

He gave the word and we stole out into the darkness at the back of the
house, Steve, who had surveyed the ground, going first. My lady
followed him; then came the Waldgrave; after him the two women and
Fraulein Max, with Jacob and Ernst; last of all, Marie and I. It was
no time for love-making, but as we all stood a minute in the night,
while Steve listened, I drew Marie's little figure to me and kissed
her pale face again and again; and she clung to me, trembling, her
eyes shining into mine. Then she put me away bravely; but I took her
bundle, and with full hearts we followed the others across the field
at the back and through the ditch.

That passed, we found ourselves on the edge of the village, with the
lights of the camp forming five-sixths of a circle round us. In one
direction only, where the swamp and creek fringed the place, a dark
gap broke the ring of twinkling fires. Towards this gap Steve led the
way, and we, a silent line of gliding figures, followed him. The moon
had not yet risen. The gloom was such that I could barely make out the
third figure before me; and though all manner of noises--the chorus of
a song, the voice of a scolding hag, even the rattle of dice on a
drumhead--came clearly to my ears, and we seemed to be enclosed on all
sides, the darkness proved an effectual shield. We met no one, and
five minutes after leaving the house, reached the bank of the little
creek I have mentioned.

Here we paused and waited, a group of huddled figures, while Steve
groped about for a plank he had hidden. Before us lay the stream,
behind us the camp. At any moment the alarm might be raised. I
pictured the outcry, the sudden flickering of lights, the galloping
this way and that, the discovery. And then, thank Heaven! Steve found
his plank, and in the work of passing the women over I forgot my
fears. The darkness, the peril--for the water on the nearer side was
deep--the nervous haste of some, and the terror of others, made the
task no easy one. I was hot as fire and wet to the waist before it was
over, and we all stood ankle-deep in the ooze which formed the farther
bank.

Alas! our troubles were only beginning. Through this ooze we had to
wade for a mile or more, sometimes in doubt, always in darkness; now
plashing into pools, now stumbling over a submerged log, often up to
our knees in mud and water. The frogs croaked round us, the bog moaned
and gurgled; in the depth of the marsh the bitterns boomed mournfully.
If we stood a moment we sank. It was a horrible time; and the more
horrible, as through it all we had only to turn to see the camp lights
behind us, a poor half-mile or so away.

None but desperate men could have exposed women to such a labour; nor
could any but women without hope and at their wit's end have
accomplished it. As it was, Fraulein Max, who never ceased to whimper,
twice sank down and would go no farther, and we had to pluck her up
roughly and force her on. My lady's women, who wept in their misery,
were little better. Wet to the waist, draggled, and worn out by the
clinging slime and the reek of the marsh, they were kept moving only
with difficulty; so that, but for Steve's giant strength and my lady's
courage, I think we should have stayed there till daylight, and been
caught like birds limed on a bough.

As it was, we plunged and strove for more than an hour in that place,
the dark sky above us, the quaking bog below, the women's weeping in
our ears. Then, at last, when I had almost given up hope, we struggled
out one by one upon the road, and stood panting and shaking,
astonished to find solid ground under our feet. We had still two miles
to walk, but on dry soil; and though at another time the task might
have seemed to the women full of adventure and arduous, it failed to
frighten them after what we had gone through. Steve took Fraulein
Anna, and I one of the women. My lady and the Waldgrave went hand in
hand; the one giving, I fancy, as much help as the other. For Marie,
her small, white face was a beacon of hope in the darkness. In the
marsh she had never failed or fainted. On the road the tears came into
my eyes for pity and love and admiration.

At length Steve bade us stand, and leaving us in the way, plunged into
the denser blackness of a thicket, which lay between it and the river.
I heard him parting the branches before him, and stumbling and
swearing, until presently the sounds died away in the distance, and we
remained shivering and waiting. What if the horses were gone? What if
they had strayed from the place where he had tethered them early in
the day, or some one had found and removed them? The thought threw me
into a cold sweat.

Then I heard him coming back, and I caught the ring of iron hoofs. He
had them! I breathed again. In a moment he emerged, and behind him a
string of shadows--five horses tied head and tail.

'Quick!' he muttered. He had been long enough alone to grow nervous.
'We are two hours gone, and if they have not yet discovered him they
must soon! It is a short start, and half of us on foot!'

No one answered, but in a moment we had the Waldgrave, my lady,
Fraulein, and one of the women mounted. Then we put up Marie, who was
no heavier than a feather, and the lighter of the women on the
remaining horse; and Steve hurrying beside the leader, and I, Ernst,
and Jacob bringing up the rear, we were well on the road within two
minutes of the appearance of the horses. Those who rode had only
sacking for saddles and loops of rope for stirrups; but no one
complained. Even Fraulein Max began to recover herself, and to dwell
more upon the peril of capture than on aching legs and chafed knees.

The road was good, and we made, as far as I could judge, about six
miles in the first hour. This placed us nine miles from the camp; the
time, a little after midnight. At this point the clouds, which had
aided us so far by increasing the darkness of the night, fell in a
great storm of rain, that, hissing on the road and among the trees, in
a few minutes drenched us to the skin. But no one complained. Steve
muttered that it would make it the more difficult to track us; and for
another hour we plodded on gallantly. Then our leader called a halt,
and we stood listening.

The rain had left the sky lighter. A waning moon, floating in a wrack
of watery clouds to westward, shed a faint gleam on the landscape. To
the right of us it disclosed a bare plain, rising gradually as it
receded, and offering no cover. On our left, between us and the river,
it was different. Here a wilderness of osiers--a grey willow swamp
that in the moonlight shimmered like the best Utrecht--stretched as
far as we could see. The road where we stood rose a few feet above it,
so that our eyes were on a level with the highest shoots; but a
hundred yards farther on the road sank a little. We could see the
water standing on the track in pools, and glimmering palely.

'This is the place,' Steve muttered. 'It will be dawn in another hour.
What do you think, Master Martin?'

'That we had better get off the road,' I answered. 'Take it they found
him at midnight; the orderly's patience would scarcely last longer.
Then, if they started after us a quarter of an hour later, they should
be here in another twenty minutes.'

'It is an aguey place,' he said doubtfully.

'It will suit us better than the camp,' I answered.

No one else expressed an opinion, and Steve, taking my lady's rein,
led her horse on until he came to the hollow part of the road. Here
the moonlight disclosed a kind of water-lane, running away between the
osiers, at right angles from the road. Steve turned into it, leading
my lady's horse, and in a moment was wading a foot deep in water. The
Waldgrave followed, then the women. I came last, with Marie's rein in
my hand. We kept down the lane about one hundred and fifty paces, the
horses snorting and moving unwillingly, and the water growing ever
deeper. Then Steve turned out of it, and began to advance, but more
cautiously, parallel with the road.

We had waded about as far in this direction, sidling between the
stumps and stools as well as we could, when he came again to a stand
and passed back the word for me. I waded on, and joined him. The
osiers, which were interspersed here and there with great willows,
rose above our heads and shut out the moonlight. The water gurgled
black about our knees. Each step might lead us into a hole, or we
might trip over the roots of the osiers. It was impossible to see a
foot before us, or anything above us save the still, black rods and
the grey sky.

'It should be in this direction,' Steve said, with an accent of doubt.
'But I cannot see. We shall have the horses down.'

'Let me go first,' I said.

'We must not separate,' he answered hastily.

'No, no,' I said, my teeth beginning to chatter. 'But are you sure
that there is an eyot here?'

'I did not go to it,' he answered, scratching his head. 'But I saw a
clump of willows rising well above the level, and they looked to me as
if they grew on dry land.'

He stood a moment irresolutely, first one and then another of the
horses shaking itself till the women could scarcely keep their seats.

'Why do we not go on?' my lady asked in a low voice.

'Because Steve is not sure of the place, my lady,' I said. 'And it is
almost impossible to move, it is so dark, and the osiers grow so
closely. I doubt we should have waited until daylight.'

'Then we should have run the risk of being intercepted,' she answered
feverishly. 'Are you very wet?'

'No,' I said, though my feet were growing numb, 'not very. I see what
we must do. One of us must climb into a willow and look out.'

We had passed a small one not long before. I plashed my way back to
it, along the line of shivering women, and, pulling myself heavily
into the branches, managed to scramble up a few feet. The tree swayed
under my weight, but it bore me.

The first dawn was whitening the sky and casting a faint, reflected
light on the glistening sea of osiers, that seemed to my eyes--for I
was not high enough to look beyond it--to stretch far and away on
every side. Here and there a large willow, rising in a round, dark
clump, stood out above the level; and in one place, about a hundred
paces away on the riverside of us, a group of these formed a shadowy
mound. I marked the spot, and dropped gently into the water.

'I have found it,' I said. 'I will go first, and do you bring my lady,
Steve. And mind the stumps. It will be rough work.'

It was rough work. We had to wind in and out, leading and coaxing the
frightened horses, that again and again stumbled to their knees. Every
minute I feared that we should find the way impassable or meet with a
mishap. But in time, going very patiently, we made out the willows in
front of us. Then the water grew more shallow, and this gave the
animals courage. Twenty steps farther, and we passed into the shadow
of the trees. A last struggle, and, plunging one by one up the muddy
bank, we stood panting on the eyot.

It was such a place as only despair could choose for a refuge. In
shape like the back of some large submerged beast, it lay in length
about forty paces, in breadth half as many. The highest point was a
poor foot above the water. Seven great willows took up half the space;
it was as much as our horses, sinking in the moist mud to the fetlock,
could do to find standing-room on the remainder. Coarse grass and
reeds covered it; and the flotsam of the last flood whitened the
trunks of the willows, and hung in squalid wisps from their lower
branches.

For the first time we saw one another's faces, and how pale and
woe-begone, mudstained and draggled we were! The cold, grey light,
which so mercilessly unmasked our refuge, did not spare us. It helped
even my lady to look her worst. Fraulein Anna sat a mere lifeless lump
in her saddle. The waiting-women cried softly; they had cried all
night. The Waldgrave looked dazed, as if he barely understood where he
was or why he was there.

To think over-much in such a place was to weep. Instead, I hastened to
get them all off their horses, and with Steve's help and a great
bundle of osiers and branches which we cut, I made nests for them in
the lower boughs of the willows, well out of reach of the water. When
they had all taken their places, I served out food and a dram of
Dantzic waters, which some of us needed; for a white mist, drawn up
from the swamp by the rising sun, began to enshroud us, and, hanging
among the osiers for more than an hour, prolonged the misery of the
night.

Still, even that rolled away at last--about six o'clock--and let us
see the sun shining overhead in a heaven of blue distance and golden
clouds. Larks rose up and sang, and all the birds of the marsh began
to twitter and tweet. In a trice our mud island was changed to a
bower--a place of warmth and life and refreshment--where light and
shade lay on the dappled floor, and the sunshine fell through green
leaves.

Then I took the cloaks, and the saddles, and everything that was wet,
and spread them out on branches to dry; and leaving the women to make
themselves comfortable in their own way and shift themselves as they
pleased, we two, with the Waldgrave and the two servants, went away to
the other end of the eyot.

'I shall sleep,' Steve said drowsily.

The insects were beginning to hum. The horses stood huddled together,
swishing their long tails.

'You think they won't track us?' I asked.

'Certain,' he said. 'There are six hundred yards of mud and water,
eel-holes, and willow shoots between us and the road.'

The Waldgrave assented mechanically; it seemed so to me too. And
by-and-by, worn out with the night's work, I fell asleep, and slept, I
suppose, for a good many hours, with the sun and shade passing slowly
across my face, and the bees droning in my ears, and the mellow warmth
of the summer day soaking into my bones. When I awoke I lay for a time
revelling in lazy enjoyment. The oily plop of a water-rat, as it dived
from a stump, or the scream of a distant jay, alone broke the laden
silence. I looked at the sun. It lay south-west. It was three o'clock
then.


[Illustration: We were alone.... I whispered in her ear ...]


A light touch fell on my knee. I started, looked down, and for a
moment stared in sleepy wonder. A tiny bunch of blue flowers, such as
I could see growing in a dozen places on the edge of the island, lay
on it, tied up with a thread of purple silk. I started up on my elbow,
and--there, close beside me, with her cheeks full of colour, and the
sunshine finding golden threads in her dark hair, sat Marie, toying
with more flowers.

'Ha!' I said foolishly. 'What is it?'

'My lady sent me to you,' she answered.

'Yes,' I asked eagerly. 'Does she want me?'

But Marie hung her head, and played with the flowers. 'I don't think
so,' she whispered. 'She only sent me to you.'

Then I understood. The Waldgrave had gone to the farther end. Steve
and the men were tending the horses half a dozen paces beyond the
screen of willow-leaves. We were alone. A rat plashed into the water,
and drove Marie nearer to me; and she laid her head on my shoulder,
and I whispered in her ear, till the lashes sank down over her eyes
and her lips trembled. If I had loved her from the first, what was the
length and height and breadth of my love now, when I had seen her in
darkness and peril, sunshine and storm, strong when others failed,
brave when others flinched, always helpful, ready, tireless! And she
so small! So frail, I almost feared to press her to me; so pale, the
blood that leapt to her cheeks at my touch seemed a mere reflection of
the sunlight.

I told her how Steve had made the guards at the prison drunk with wine
bought with her dowry; how the horses he had purchased and taken out
of the camp by twos and threes had been paid for from the same source;
and how many ducats had gone for meats and messes to keep the life,
that still ran sluggishly, in the Waldgrave's veins. She listened and
lay still.

'So you have no dowry now, little one,' I said, when I had told her
all. 'And your gold chain is gone. I believe you have nothing but the
frock you stand up in. Why, then, should I marry you?'

I felt her heart give a great leap under my hand, and a shiver ran
through her. But she did not raise her head, and I, who had thought to
tease her into looking at me, had to put back her little face till it
gazed into mine.

'Why?' I said; 'why?'--drawing her closer and closer to me.

Then the colour came into her face like the sunlight itself. 'Because
you love me,' she whispered, shutting her eyes.

And I did not gainsay her.




                            CHAPTER XXIV.

                               MISSING!


We lay in the osier bed two whole days and a night, during which time
two at least of us were not unhappy, in spite of peril and hardship.
We left it at last, only because our meagre provision gave out, and we
must move or starve. We felt far from sure that the danger was over,
for Steve, who spent the second day in a thick bush near the road, saw
two troops of horse go by; and others, we believed, passed in the
night. But we had no choice. The neighbourhood was bleak and bare.
Such small homesteads as existed had been eaten up, and lay abandoned.
If we had felt inclined to venture out for food, none was to be had.
And, in fine, though we trembled at the thought of the open road, and
my heart for one grew sick as I looked from Marie to my lady, and
reckoned the long tale of leagues which lay between us and Cassel, the
risk had to be run.

Steve had discovered a more easy though longer way out of the
willow-bed, and two hours before midnight on the second night, he and
I mounted the women and prepared to set out. He arranged that we
should go in the same order in which we had come: that he should lead
the march, and I bring up the rear, while the Waldgrave, who was still
far from well, and whose continued lack of vigour troubled us the more
as we said little about it, should ride with my lady.

The night seemed likely to be fine, but the darkness, the sough of the
wind as it swept over the plain, and the melancholy plashing of the
water as our horses plodded through it, were not things of a kind to
allay our fears. When we at last left our covert, and reaching the
road stood to listen, the fall of a leaf made us start. Though no
sounds but those of the night came to our ears--and some of these were
of a kind to reassure us--we said 'Hush!' again and again, and only
moved on after a hundred alarums and assurances.

I walked by Marie, with my hand on the withers of her horse, but we
did not talk. The two waiting-women riding double were before us, and
their muttered fears alone broke the silence which prevailed at the
end of the train. We went at the rate of about two leagues an hour,
Steve and I and the men running where the roads were good, and
everywhere and at all times urging the horses to do their best. The
haste of our movements, the darkness, our constant alarm, and the
occasional confusion when the rear pressed on the van at an awkward
place, had the effect of upsetting the balance of our minds; so
that the most common impulse of flight--to press forward with
ever-increasing recklessness--began presently to possess us. Once or
twice I had to check the foremost, or they would have outrun the rear;
and this kind of race brought us gradually into such a state of alarm,
that by-and-by, when the line came to a sudden stop on the brow of a
gentle descent, I could hardly restrain my impatience.

'What is it?' I asked eagerly. 'Why are we stopping?' Surely the road
is good enough here.'

No one answered, but it was significant that on the instant one of the
women began to cry.

'Stop that folly!' I said. 'What is in front there? Cannot some one
speak?'

'The Waldgrave thinks that he hears horsemen before us,' Fraulein Max
answered.

In another moment the Waldgrave's figure loomed out of the darkness.
'Martin,' he said--I noticed that his voice shook--'go forward. They
are in front. Man alive, be quick!' he continued fiercely. 'Do you
want to have them into us?'

I left my girl's rein, and pushing past the women and Fraulein, joined
Steve, who was standing by my lady's rein. 'What is it?' I said.

'Nothing, I think,' he answered in an uncertain tone.

I stood a moment listening, but I too could hear nothing. I began to
argue with him. 'Who heard it?' I asked impatiently.

'The Waldgrave,' he answered.

I did not like to say before my lady what I thought--that the
Waldgrave was not quite himself, nor to be depended upon; and instead
I proposed to go forward on foot and learn if anything was amiss. The
road ran straight down the hill, and the party could scarcely pass me,
even in the gloom. If I found all well, I would whistle, and they
could come on.

My lady agreed, and, leaving them halted, I started cautiously down
the hill. The darkness was not extreme; the cloud drift was broken
here and there, and showed light patches of sky between; I could make
out the shapes of things, and more than once took a clump of bushes
for a lurking ambush. But halfway down, a line of poplars began to
shadow the road on our side, and from that point I might have walked
into a regiment and never seen a man. This, the being suddenly alone,
and the constant rustling of the leaves overhead, which moved with the
slightest air, shook my nerves, and I went very warily, with my heart
in my mouth and a cry trembling on my lips.

Still I had reached the hillfoot before anything happened. Then I
stopped abruptly, hearing quite distinctly in front of me the sound of
footsteps. It was impossible that this could be the sound that the
Waldgrave had heard, for only one man seemed to be stirring, and he
moved stealthily; but I crouched down and listened, and in a moment I
was rewarded. A dark figure came out of the densest of the shadow and
stood in the middle of the road. I sank lower, noiselessly. The man
seemed to be listening.

It flashed into my head that he was a sentry; and I thought how
fortunate it was that I had come on alone.

Presently he moved again. He stole along the track towards me,
stooping, as I fancied, and more than once standing to listen, as if
he were not satisfied. I sank down still lower, and he passed me
without notice, and went on, and I heard his footsteps slowly
retreating until they quite died away.

But in a moment, before I had risen to my full height, I heard them
again. He came back, and passed me, breathing quickly and loudly. I
wondered if he had detected our party and was going to give the alarm;
and I stood up, anxious and uncertain, at a loss whether I should
follow him or run back.

At that instant a fierce yell broke the silence, and rent the darkness
as a flash of lightning might rend it. It came from behind me, from
the brow of the hill; and I started as if I had been struck. Hard on
it a volley of shouts and screams flared up in the same direction, and
while my heart stood still with terror and fear of what had happened,
I heard the thunder of hoofs come down the road, with a clatter of
blows and whips. They were coming headlong--my lady and the rest. The
danger was behind them, then. I had just time to turn and get to the
side of the road before they were on me at a gallop.

I could not see who was who in the darkness, but I caught at the
nearest stirrup, and, narrowly escaping being ridden down, ran on
beside the rider. The horses, spurred down the slope, had gained such
an impetus that it was all I could do to keep up. I had no breath to
ask questions, nor state my fear that there was danger ahead also. I
had to stride like a giant to keep my legs and run.

Some one else was less lucky. We had not swept fifty yards from where
I joined them, when a dark figure showed for a moment in the road
before us. I saw it; it seemed to hang and hesitate. The next instant
it was among us. I heard a shrill scream, a heavy fall, and we were
over it, and charging on and on and on through the darkness.

To the foot of the hill and across the bottom, and up the opposite
slope. I do not know how far we had sped, when Steve's voice was
heard, calling on us to halt.

'Pull up! pull up!' he cried, with an angry oath. 'It is a false
alarm! What fool set it going? There is no one behind us. Donner und
Blitzen! where is Martin?'

The horses were beginning to flag, and gladly came to a trot, and then
to a walk.

'Here! I panted.

'Himmel! I thought we had ridden you down!' he said, leaving my lady's
side. His voice shook with passion and loss of breath. 'Who was it? We
might all have broken our necks, and for nothing!'

The Waldgrave--it was his stirrup I had caught--turned his horse
round. 'I heard them--close behind us!' he panted. There was a note of
wildness in his voice. My elbow was against his knee, and I felt him
tremble.

'A bird in the hedge,' Steve said rudely. 'It has cost some one dear.
Whose horse was it struck him?'

No one answered. I left the Waldgrave's side and went back a few
paces. The women were sobbing. Ernst and Jacob stood by them,
breathing hard after their run. I thought the men's silence strange. I
looked again. There was a figure missing; a horse missing.

'Where is Marie?' I cried.

She did not answer. No one answered; and I knew. Steve swore again. I
think he had known from the beginning. I began to tremble. On a sudden
my lady lifted up her voice and cried shrilly--

'Marie! Marie!'

Again no answer. But this time I did not wait to listen. I ran from
them into the darkness the way we had come, my legs quivering under
me, and my mouth full of broken prayers. I remembered a certain
solitary tree fronting the poplars, on the other side of the way,
which I had marked mechanically at the moment of the fall--an ash,
whose light upper boughs had come for an instant between my eyes and
the sky. It stood on a little mound, where the moorland began to rise
on that side. I came to it now, and stopped and looked. At first I
could see nothing, and I trod forward fearfully. Then, a couple of
paces on, I made out a dark figure, lying head and feet across the
road. I sprang to it, and kneeling, passed my hands over it. Alas! it
was a woman's.

I raised the light form in my arms, crying passionately on her name,
while the wind swayed the boughs overhead, and, besides that and my
voice, all the countryside was still. She did not answer. She hung
limp in my arms. Kneeling in the dust beside her, I felt blindly for a
pulse, a heart-beat. I found neither--neither; the woman was dead.

And yet it was not that which made me lay the body down so quickly and
stand up peering round me. No; something else. The blood drummed in my
ears, my heart beat wildly. The woman was dead; but she was not Marie.

She was an old woman, sixty years old. When I stooped again, after
assuring myself that there was no other body near, and peered into her
face, I saw that it was seamed and wrinkled. She was barefoot, and her
clothes were foul and mean. She had the reek of one who slept in
ditches and washed seldom. Her toothless gums grinned at me. She was a
horrible mockery of all that men love in women.

When I had marked so much, I stood up again, my head reeling. Where
was the man I had seen scouting up and down? Where was Marie? For a
moment the wild idea that she had become this thing, that death or
magic had transformed the fair young girl into this toothless hag, was
not too wild for me. An owl hooted in the distance, and I started and
shivered and stood looking round me fearfully. Such things were; and
Marie was gone. In her place this woman, grim and dead and unsightly,
lay at my feet. What was I to think?

I got no answer. I raised my voice and called, trembling, on Marie. I
ran to one side of the road and the other and called, and still got no
answer. I climbed the mound on which the ash-tree stood, and sent my
voice thrilling through the darkness of the bottom. But only the owl
answered. Then, knowing nothing else I could do, I went down wringing
my hands, and found my lady standing over the body in the road. She
had come back with Steve and the others.

I had to listen to their amazement, and a hundred guesses and fancies,
which, God help me! had nothing certain in them, and gave me no help.
The men searched both sides of the road, and beat the moor for a
distance, and tried to track the horse--for that was missing too, and
there lay my only hope--but to no purpose. At last my lady came to me
and said sorrowfully that nothing more could be done.

'In the morning!' I cried jealously.

No one spoke, and I looked from one to another. The men had returned
from the search, and stood in a dark group round the body, which they
had drawn to the side of the road. It wanted an hour of daylight yet,
and I could not see their faces, but I read in their silence the
answer that no one liked to put into words.

'Be a man!' Steve muttered, after a long pause. 'God help the girl.
But God help us too if we are found here!'

Still my lady did not speak, and I knew her brave heart too well to
doubt her, though she had been the first to talk of going. 'Get to
horse,' I said roughly.

'No, no,' my lady cried at last. 'We will all stay, Martin.'

'Ay, all stay or all go!' Steve muttered.

'Then all go!' I said, choking down the sobs that would rise. And I
turned first from the place.

I will not try to state what that cost me. I saw my girl's face
everywhere--everywhere in the darkness, and the eyes reproached me.
That she of all should suffer, who had never fainted, never faltered,
whose patience and courage had been the women's stay from the
first--that she should suffer! I thought of the tender, weak body, and
of all the things that might happen to her, and I seemed, as I went
away from her, the vilest thing that lived.

But reason was against me. If I stayed there and waited on the road
by the old crone's body until morning, what could I do? Whither could
I turn? Marie was gone and already might be half a dozen miles away.
So the bonds of custom and duty held me. Dazed and bewildered, I
lacked the strength that was needed to run counter to all. I was no
knight-errant, but a plain man, and I reeled on through the last hour
of the night and the first grey streaks of dawn, with my head on my
breast and sobs of despair in my throat.




                             CHAPTER XXV.

                              NUREMBERG.


If it had been our fate after that to continue our flight in the same
weary fashion we had before devised, lying in woods by day, and all
night riding jaded horses, until we passed the gates of some free
city, I do not think that I could have gone through with it. Doubtless
it was my duty to go with my lady. But the long hours of daylight
inaction, the slow brooding tramp, must have proved intolerable. And
at some time or other, in some way or other, I must have snapped the
ties that bound me.

But, as if the loss of my heart had rid us of some spell cast over us,
by noon of that day we stood safe. For, an hour before noon, while we
lay in a fir-wood not far from Weimar, and Jacob kept watch on the
road below, and the rest slept as we pleased, a party of horse came
along the way, and made as if to pass below us. They numbered more
than a hundred, and Jacob's heart failed him, lest some ring or buckle
of our accoutrements should sparkle and catch their eyes. To shift the
burden he called us, and we went to watch them.

'Do they go north or south?' I asked him as I rose.

'North,' he whispered.

After that they were nothing to me, but I went with the rest. Our lair
was in some rocks overhanging the road. By the time we looked over,
the horsemen were below us, and we could see nothing of them; though
the sullen tramp of their horses, and the jingle of bit and spur,
reached us clearly. Presently they came into sight again on the road
beyond, riding steadily away with their backs to us.

'That is not General Tzerclas?' my lady muttered anxiously.

'Nor any of his people!' Steve said with an oath.

That led me to look more closely, and I saw in a moment something that
lifted me out of my moodiness. I sprang on the rock against which I
was leaning and shouted long and loudly.

'Himmel!' Steve cried, seizing me by the ankle. 'Are you mad, man?'

But I only shouted again, and waved my cap frantically. Then I slipped
down, sobered. 'They see us,' I cried. 'They are Leuchtenstein's
riders. And Count Hugo is with them. You are safe, my lady.'

She turned white and red, and I saw her clutch at the rock to keep
herself on her feet. 'Are you sure?' she said. The troop had halted
and were wheeling slowly and in perfect order.

'Quite sure, my lady,' I answered, with a touch of bitterness in my
tone. Why had not this happened yesterday or the day before? Then my
girl would have been saved. Now it came too late! Too late! No wonder
I felt bitterly about it.

We went down into the road on foot, a little party of nine--four women
and five men. The horsemen, as they came up, looked at us in wonder.
Our clothes, even my lady's, were dyed with mud and torn in a score of
places. We had not washed for days, and our faces were lean with
famine. Some of the women were shoeless and had their hair about their
ears, while Steve was bare-headed and bare-armed, and looked so huge a
ruffian the stocks must have yawned for him anywhere. They drew up and
gazed at us, and then Count Hugo came riding down the column and saw
us.

My lady went forward a step. 'Count Leuchtenstein,' she said, her
voice breaking; she had only seen him once, and then under the mask of
a plain name. But he was safety, honour, life now, and I think that
she could have kissed him. I think for a little she could have fallen
into his arms.

'Countess!' he said, as he sprang from his horse in wonder. 'Is it
really you? Gott im Himmel! These are strange times. Waldgrave! Your
pardon. Ach! Have you come on foot?'

'Not I. But these brave men have,' my lady answered, tears in her
voice.

He looked at Steve and grunted. Then he looked at me and his eyes
lightened. 'Are these all your party?' he said hurriedly.

'All,' my lady answered in a low voice. He did not ask farther, but he
sighed, and I knew that he had looked for his child. 'I came north
upon a reconnaissance, and was about to turn,' he said. 'I am thankful
that I did not turn before. Is Tzerclas in pursuit of you?'

'I do not know,' my lady answered, and told him shortly of our flight,
and how we had lain two days and a night in the osier-bed.

'It was a good thought,' he said. 'But I fear that you are half
famished.' And he called for food and wine, and served my lady with
his own hands, while he saw that we did not go without. 'Campaigner's
fare,' he said. 'But you come of a fighting stock, Countess, and can
put up with it.'

'Shame on me if I could not,' she answered.

There was a quaver in her voice, which showed how the rencontre moved
her, how full her heart was of unspoken gratitude.

'When you have finished, we will get to horse,' he said. 'I must take
you with me to Nuremberg, for I am not strong enough to detach a
party. But this evening we will make a long halt at Hesel, and secure
you a good night's rest.'

'I am sorry to be so burdensome,' my lady said timidly.

He shrugged his shoulders without compliment, but I did not hear what
he answered. For I could bear no more. Marie seemed so forgotten in
this crowd, so much a thing of the past, that my gorge rose. No word
of her, no thought of her, no talk of a search party! I pictured her
forlorn, helpless little figure, her pale, uncomplaining face--I and
no one else; and I had to go away into the bushes to hide myself. She
was forgotten already. She had done all for them, I said to myself,
and they forgot her.

Then, in the thicket screened from the party, I had a thought--to go
back and look for her, myself. Now my lady was safe, there was nothing
to prevent me. I had only to lie close among the rocks until Count
Hugo left, and then I might plod back on foot and search as I pleased.
In a flash I saw the poplars, and the road running beneath the
ash-tree, and the woman's body lying stiff and stark on the sward. And
I burned to be there.

Left to myself I should have gone too. But the plan was no sooner
formed than shattered. While I stood, hotfoot to be about it, and
pausing only to consider which way I could steal off most safely, a
rustling warned me that some one was coming, and before I could stir,
a burly trooper broke through the bushes and confronted me. He saluted
me stolidly.

'Sergeant,' he said, 'the general is waiting for you.'

'The general?' I said.

'The Count, if you like it better,' he answered. 'Come, if you
please.'

I followed him, full of vexation. It was but a step into the road. The
moment I appeared, some one gave the word 'Mount!' A horse was thrust
in front of me, two or three troopers who still remained afoot swung
themselves into the saddle; and I followed their example. In a trice
we were moving down the valley at a dull, steady pace--southwards,
southwards. I looked back, and saw the fir trees and rocks where we
had lain hidden, and then we turned a corner, and they were gone.
Gone, and all round me I heard the measured tramp of the troop-horses,
the swinging tones of the men, and the clink and jingle of sword and
spur. I called myself a cur, but I went on, swept away by the force of
numbers, as the straw by the current. Once I caught Count Hugo's eye
fixed on me, and I fancied he had a message for me, but I failed to
interpret it.

Steve rode by me, and his face too was moody. I suppose that we should
all of us have thanked God the peril was past. But my lady rode in
another part with Count Leuchtenstein and the Waldgrave; and Steve
yearned, I fancy, for the old days of trouble and equality, when there
was no one to come between us.

I saw Count Hugo that night. He sent for me to his quarters at Hesel,
and told me frankly that he would have let me go back had he thought
good could come of it.

'But it would have been looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, my
friend,' he continued. 'Tzerclas' men would have picked you up, or the
peasants killed you for a soldier, and in a month perhaps the girl
would have returned safe and sound, to find you dead.'

'My lord!' I cried passionately, 'she saved your child. It was to her
as her own!'

'I know it,' he answered with gravity, which of itself rebuked me.
'And where is my child?'

I shook my head.

'Yet I do not give up my work and the task God and the times have
given me, and go out looking for it!' he answered severely. 'Leaving
Scot, and Swede, and Pole, and Switzer to divide my country. For
shame! You have your work too, and it lies by your lady's side. See to
it that you do it. For the rest I have scouts out, who know the
country; if I learn anything through them you shall hear it. And now
of another matter. How long has the Waldgrave been like this, my
friend?'

'Like this, my lord?' I muttered stupidly.

He nodded. 'Yes, like this,' he repeated. 'I have heard him called a
brave man. Coming of his stock, he should be; and when I saw him in
Tzerclas' camp he had the air of one. Now he starts at a shadow, is in
a trance half his time, and a tremor the other half. What ails him?'

I told him how he had been wounded, fighting bravely, and that since
that he had not been himself.

Count Hugo rubbed his chin gravely. 'It is a pity,' he said. 'We want
all--every German arm and every German head. We want you. Man alive!'
he continued, roused to anger, I suppose, by my dull face, 'do you
know what is in front of you?'

'No, my lord,' I said in apathy.

He opened his mouth as if to hurl a volley of words at me. But he
thought better of it and shut his lips tight. 'Very well,' he said
grimly. 'Wait three days and you will see.'

But in truth, I had not to wait three days. Before sunset of the next
I began to see, and, downcast as I was, to prick up my ears in wonder.
Beyond Romhild and between that town and Bamberg, the great road which
runs through the valley of the Pegnitz, was such a sight as I had
never seen. For many miles together a column of dust marked its
course, and under this went on endless marching. We were but a link in
a long chain, dragging slowly southwards. Now it was a herd of
oxen that passed along, moving tediously and painfully, driven by
half-naked cattle-men and guarded by a troop of grimy horse. Now it
was a reinforcement of foot from Fulda, rank upon rank of shambling
men trailing long pikes, and footsore, and parched as they were,
getting over the ground in a wonderful fashion. After them would come
a long string of waggons, bearing corn, and hay, and malt, and wines;
all lurching slowly forward, slowly southward; often delayed, for
every quarter of a mile a horse fell or an axle broke, yet getting
forward.

And then the most wonderful sight of all, a regiment of Swedish horse
passed us, marching from Erfurt. All their horses were grey, and all
their head-pieces, backs and breasts of black metal, matched one
another. As they came on through the dust with a tramp which shook the
ground, they sang, company by company, to the music of drums and
trumpets, a hymn, 'Versage nicht, du Häuflein klein!' Behind them a
line of light waggons carried their wives and children, also singing.
And so they went by us, eight hundred swords, and I thought it a
marvel I should never see beaten.

When they were gone out of sight, there were still droves of horses
and mighty flocks of sheep to come, and cargoes of pork, and more foot
and horse and guns. Some companies wore buff coats and small steel
caps, and carried arquebuses; and some marched smothered in huge
headpieces with backs and breasts to match. And besides all the
things I have mentioned and the crowds of sutlers and horse-boys that
went with them, there were munition waggons closely guarded, and
pack-horses laden with powder, and always and always waggons of corn
and hay.

And all hurrying, jostling, crawling southwards. It seemed to me that
the world was marching southwards; that if we went on we must fall in
at the end of this with every one we knew. And the thought comforted
me.

Steve put it into words after his fashion. 'It must be a big place we
are going to,' he said, about noon of the second day, 'or who is to
eat all this? And do you mark, Master Martin? We meet no one coming
back. All go south. This place Nuremberg that they talk of must be
worth seeing.'

'It should be,' I said.

And after that the excitement of the march began to take hold of me. I
began to think and wonder, and look forward, with an eagerness I did
not understand, to the issues of this.

We lay a night at Bamberg, where the crowd and confusion and the
stress of people were so great that Steve would have it we had come to
Nuremberg. And certainly I had never known such a hurly-burly, nor
heard of it except at the great fair at Dantzic. The night after we
lay at Erlangen, which we found fortified, trenched, and guarded, with
troops lying in the square, and the streets turned into stables. From
that place to Nuremberg was a matter of ten miles only; but the press
was so great on the road that it took us a good part of the day to
ride from one to the other. In the open country on either side of the
way strong bodies of horse and foot were disposed. It seemed to me
that here was already an army and a camp.

But when late in the afternoon we entered Nuremberg itself, and viewed
the traffic in the streets, and the endless lines of gabled houses,
the splendid mansions and bridges, the climbing roofs and turrets and
spires of this, the greatest city in Germany, then we thought little
of all we had seen before. Here thousands upon thousands rubbed
shoulders in the streets; here continuous boats turned the river into
solid land. Here we were told were baked every day a hundred thousand
loaves of bread; and I saw with my own eyes a list of a hundred and
thirty-eight bakehouses. The roar of the ways, choked with soldiers
and citizens, the babel of strange tongues, the clamour of bells and
trumpets, deafened us. The constant crowding and pushing and halting
turned our heads. I forgot my grief and my hope too. Who but a madman
would look to find a single face where thousands gazed from the
windows? or could deem himself important with this swarming, teeming
hive before him? Steve stared stupidly about him; I rode dazed and
perplexed. The troopers laughed at us, or promised us greater things
when we should see the Swedish Lager outside the town, and
Wallenstein's great camp arrayed against it. But I noticed that even
they, as we drew nearer to the heart of the city, fell silent at
times, and looked at one another, surprised at the great influx of
people and the shifting scenes which the streets presented.

For myself and Steve and the men, we were as good as nought. A house
in the Ritter-Strasse was assigned to my lady for her quarters--no one
could lodge in the city without the leave of the magistrates; and we
were glad to get into it and cool our dizzy heads, and look at one
another. Count Hugo stayed awhile, standing with my lady and the
Waldgrave in one of the great oriels that overlooked the street. But a
mounted messenger, sent on from the Town House, summoned him, and he
took horse again for the camp. I do not know what we should have done
without him at entering. The soldiers, who crowded the streets, showed
scant respect for names, and would as soon have jostled my lady as a
citizen's wife; but wherever he came hats were doffed and voices
lowered, and in the greatest press a way was made for him as by magic.

For that night we had seen enough. I thought we had seen all, or that
nothing in my life would ever surprise me again. But next day my lady
went up to the Burg on the hill in the middle of the city to look
abroad, and took Steve and myself with her. And then I found that I
had not seen the half. The city, all roofs and spires and bridges,
girt with a wall of seventy towers, roared beneath us; and that I had
expected. But outside the wall I now saw a second city of huts and
tents, with a great earthwork about it, and bastions and demilunes and
picquets posted.

This was the Swedish Lager. It lay principally to the south of the
city proper, though on all sides it encircled it more or less. They
told me that there lay in it about forty thousand soldiers and twenty
thousand horses, and twenty thousand camp followers; but the number
was constantly increasing, death and disease notwithstanding, so that
it presently stood as high as sixty thousand fighting men and half as
many followers, to say nothing of the garrison that lay in the city,
or the troops posted to guard the approaches. It seemed to me, gazing
over that mighty multitude from the top of the hill, that nothing
could resist such a force; and I looked abroad with curiosity for the
enemy.

I expected to view his army cheek by jowl with us; and I was
disappointed when I saw beyond our camp to southward, where I was told
he lay, only a clear plain with the little river Rednitz flowing
through it. This plain was a league and more in width, and it was
empty of men. Beyond it rose a black wooded ridge, very steep and
hairy.

My lady explained that Wallenstein's army lay along this
ridge--seventy thousand men, and forty thousand horses, and
Wallenstein himself. His camp we heard was eight miles round, the
front guarded by a line of cannon, and taking in whole villages and
castles. And now I looked again I saw the smoke hang among the trees.
They whispered in Nuremberg that no man in that army took pay; that
all served for booty; and that the troopers that sacked Magdeburg and
followed Tilly were, beside these, gentle and kindly men.

'God help us!' my lady cried fervently. 'God help this great city! God
help the North! Never was such a battle fought as must be fought
here!'

We went down very much sobered, filled with awe and wonder and
great thoughts, the dullest of us feeling the air heavy with portents,
the more clerkly considering of Armageddon and the Last Fight.
Briefly--for thirteen years the Emperor and the Papists had hustled
and harried the Protestants; had dragooned Donauwörth, and held down
Bohemia, and plundered the Palatinate, and crushed the King of
Denmark, and wherever there was a weak Protestant state had pressed
sorely on it. Then one short year before I stood on the Burg above the
Pegnitz, the Protestant king had come out of the North like a
thunderbolt, had shattered in a month the Papist armies, had run like
a devouring fire down the Priests' Lane, rushed over Bohemia, shaken
the Emperor on his throne!

But could he maintain himself? That was now to be seen. To the
Emperor's help had come all who loved the old system, and would have
it that the south was Germany; all who wished to chain men's minds and
saw their profit in the shadow of the imperial throne; all who lived
by license and plunder, and reckoned a mass to-day against a murder
to-morrow. All these had come, from the great Duke of Friedland
grasping at empire, to the meanest freebooter with peasant's blood on
his hands and in his veins; and there they lay opposite us,
impregnably placed on the Burgstall, waiting patiently until famine
and the sword should weaken the fair city, and enable them to plunge
their vulture's talons into its vitals.

No wonder that in Nuremberg the citizens could be distinguished from
the soldiers by their careworn faces; or that many a man stood morning
and evening to gaze at the carved and lofty front of his house--by St.
Sebald's or behind the new Cathedral--and wondered how long the fire
would spare it. The magistrates who had staked all--their own and the
city's--on this cast, went about with stern, grave faces and feared
almost to meet the public eye. With a doubled population, with a huge
army to feed, with order to keep, with houses and wives and daughters
of their own to protect, with sack and storm looming luridly in the
future, who had cares like theirs?

One man only, and him I saw as we went home from the Burg. It was near
the foot of the Burg hill, where the strasse meets three other ways.
At that time Count Tilly's crooked, dwarfish figure and pale horse's
face, and the great hat and boots which seemed to swallow him up, were
fresh in my mind; and sometimes I had wondered whether this other
great commander were like him. Well, I was to know; for through the
crowd at the junction of these four roads, while we stood waiting to
pass, there came a man on a white horse, followed by half a score of
others on horseback; and in a moment I knew from the shouting and the
way women thrust papers into his hands that we saw the King of Sweden.

He wore a plain buff coat and a grey flapped hat with a feather; a
tall man and rather bulky, his face massive and fleshy, with a close
moustache trimmed to a point and a small tuft on his chin. His aspect
was grave; he looked about him with a calm eye, and the shouting did
not seem to move him. They told me that it was Ba[=n]er, the Swedish
General, who rode with him, and our Bernard of Weimar who followed.
But my eye fell more quickly on Count Leuchtenstein, who rode after,
with the great Chancellor Oxenstierna; in him, in his steady gaze and
serene brow and wholesome strength, I traced the nearest likeness to
the king.

And so I first saw the great Gustavus Adolphus. It was said that he
would at times fall into fits of Berserk rage, and that in the field
he was another man, keen as his sword, swift as fire, pitiless to
those who flinched, among the foremost in the charge, a very
thunderbolt of war. But as I saw him taking papers from women's hands
at the end of the Burg Strasse, he had rather the air of a quiet,
worthy prince--of Coburg or Darmstadt, it might be,--no dresser and no
brawler; nor would any one, to see him then, have thought that this
was the lion of the north who had dashed the pride of Pappenheim and
flung aside the firebrands of the south. Or that even now he had on
his shoulders the burden of two great nations and the fate of a
million of men.




                             CHAPTER XXVI.

                       THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.


After this it fared with us as it fares at last with the driftwood
that chance or the woodman's axe has given to a forest stream in
Heritzburg. After rippling over the shallows and shooting giddily down
slopes--or perchance lying cooped for days in some dark bend, until
the splash of the otter or the spring freshet has sent it dancing on
in sunshine and shadow--it reaches at last the Werra. It floats out on
the bosom of the great stream, and no longer tossed and chafed by each
tiny pebble, feels the force of wind and stream--the great forces of
the world. The banks recede from sight, and one of a million atoms, it
is borne on gently and irresistibly, whither it does not know. So it
was with us. From the day we fell in with Count Leuchtenstein and set
our faces towards Nuremberg, and in a greater degree after we reached
that city, we embarked on a wider current of adventure, a fuller and
less selfish life. If we had still our own cares and griefs, hopes and
perils--as must be the case, I suppose, until we die--we had other
common ones which we shared with tens of thousands, rich and poor,
gentle and simple. We had to dread sack and storm; we prayed for
relief and safety in company with all who rose and lay down within the
walls. When a hundred waggons of corn slipped through the Croats and
came in, or Duke Bernard of Weimar beat up a corner of the Burgstall
and gave Wallenstein a bad night, we ran out into the streets to tell
and hear the news. Similarly, when tidings came that Tzerclas with his
two thousand ruffians had burned the King of Sweden's colours, put on
green sashes, and marched into the enemy's camp, we were not alone in
our gloomy anticipations. We still had our private adventures, and I
am going to tell them. But besides these, it should be remembered that
we ran the risks, and rose every morning fresh to the fears, of
Nuremberg. When bread rose to ten, to fifteen, to twenty times its
normal price; when the city, where many died every day of famine,
plague, and wounds, began to groan and heave in its misery; when
through all the country round the peasants crawled and died among the
dead; when Wallenstein, that dark man, heedless of the fearful
mortality in his own camp, still sat implacable on the heights and
refused all the king's invitations to battle, we grew pale and gloomy,
stern-eyed and thin-cheeked with the rest. We dreamed of Magdeburg as
they did; and as the hot August days passed slowly over the starving
city and still no end appeared, but only with each day some addition
of misery, we felt our hearts sink in unison with theirs.

And we had to share, not their lot only, but their labours. We had not
been in the town twenty-four hours before Steve, Jacob, and Ernst were
enrolled in the town militia; to me, either out of respect to my lady,
or on account of my stature, a commission as lieutenant was granted.
We drilled every morning from six o'clock until eight in the fields
outside the New Gate; the others went again at sunset to practise
their weapons, but I was exempt from this drill, that the women might
not be left alone. At all times we had our appointed rendezvous in
case of alarm or assault. The Swedish veterans strolled out of the
camp and stood to laugh at our clumsiness. But the excellent order
which prevailed among them made them favourites, and we let them
laugh, and laughed again.

The Waldgrave, who had long had Duke Bernard's promise, received a
regiment of horse, so that he lay in the camp and should have been a
contented man, since his strength had come back to him. But to my
surprise he showed signs of lukewarmness. He seemed little interested
in the service, and was often at my lady's house in the Ritter
Strasse, when he would have been better at his post. At first I set
this down to his passion for my lady, and it seemed excusable; but
within a week I stood convinced that this no longer troubled him. He
paid scant attention to her, but would sit for hours looking moodily
into the street. And I--and not I alone--began to watch him closely.

I soon found that Count Hugo was right. The once gallant and splendid
young fellow was a changed man. He was still comely and a brave
figure, but the spirit in him was quenched. He was nervous, absent,
irritable. His eyes had a wild look; on strangers he made an
unfavourable impression. Doubtless, though his wounds had healed,
there remained some subtle injury that spoiled the man; and often I
caught my lady looking at him sadly, and knew that I was not the only
one with cause for mourning.

But how strange he was we did not know until a certain day, when my
lady and I were engaged together over some accounts. It was evening,
and the three men were away drilling. The house was very quiet.
Suddenly he flung in upon us with a great noise, his colour high, his
eyes glittering. His first action was to throw his feathered hat on
one chair, and himself into another.

'I've seen him!' he said. 'Himmel! he is a clever fellow. He will
worst you, cousin, yet--see if he does not. Oh, he is a clever one!'

'Who?' my lady said, looking at him in some displeasure.

'Who? Tzerclas, to be sure!' he answered, chuckling.

'You have seen him!' she exclaimed, rising.

'Of course I have!' he answered. 'And you will see him too, one of
these days.'

My lady looked at me, frowning. But I shook my head. He was not drunk.

'Where?' she asked, after a pause. 'Where did you see him, Rupert?'

'In the street--where you see other men,' he answered, chuckling
again. 'He should not be there, but who is to keep him out? He is too
clever. He will get his way in the end, see if he does not!'

'Rupert!' my lady cried in wrathful amazement, 'to hear you, one would
suppose you admired him.'

'So I do,' he replied coolly. 'Why not? He has all the wits of the
family. He is as cunning as the devil. Take a hint, cousin; put
yourself on the right side. He will win in the end!' And the Waldgrave
rose restlessly from his chair, and, going to the window, began to
whistle.

My lady came swiftly to me, and it grieved me to see the pain and woe
in her face.

'Is he mad?' she muttered.

I shook my head.

'Do you think he has really seen him?' she whispered. We both stood
with our eyes on him.

'I fear so, my lady,' I said with reluctance.

'But it would cost _him_ his life,' she muttered eagerly, 'if he were
found here!'

'He is a bold man,' I answered.

'Ah! so was he--once,' she replied in a peculiar tone, and she pointed
stealthily to the unconscious man in the window. 'A month ago he would
have taken him by the throat anywhere. What has come to him?'

'God knows,' I answered reverently. 'Grant only he may do us no harm!'

He turned round at that, humming gaily, and went out, seeming almost
unconscious of our presence; and I made as light of the matter to my
lady as I could. But Tzerclas in the city, the Waldgrave mad, or at
any rate not sane, and last, but not least, the strange light in which
the latter chose to regard the former, were circumstances I could not
easily digest. They filled me with uneasy fears and surmises. I began
to perambulate the crowd, seeking furtively for a face; and was
entirely determined what I would do if I found it. The town was full,
as all besieged cities are, of rumours of spies and treachery, and of
reported overtures made now to the city behind the back of the army,
and now to the army to betray the city. A single word of denunciation,
and Tzerclas' life would not be worth three minutes' purchase--a rope
and the nearest butcher's hook would end it. My mind was made up to
say the word.

I suppose I had been going about in this state of vigilance three days
or more, when something, but not the thing I sought, rewarded it. At
the time I was on my way back from morning drill. It was a little
after eight, and the streets and the people wore an air bright, yet
haggard. Night, with its perils, was over; day, with its privations,
lay before us. My mind was on the common fortunes, but I suppose my
eyes were mechanically doing their work, for on a sudden I saw
something at a window, took perhaps half a step, and stopped as if I
had been shot.

I had seen Marie's face! Nay, I still saw it, while a man might count
two. Then it was gone. And I stood gasping.

I suppose I stood so for half a minute, waiting, with the blood racing
from my heart to my head, and every pulse in my body beating. But she
did not reappear. The door of the house did not open. Nothing
happened.

Yet I had certainly seen her; for I remembered particulars--the
expression of her face, the surprise that had leapt into her eyes as
they met mine, the opening of the lips in an exclamation.

And still I stood gazing at the window and nothing happened.

At last I came to myself, and I scanned the house. It was a large
house of four stories, three gables in width. The upper stories jutted
out; the beams on which they rested were finely carved, the gables
were finished off with rich, wooden pinnacles. In each story, the
lowest excepted, were three long, low windows of the common Nuremberg
type, and the whole had a substantial and reputable air.

The window at which I had seen Marie was farthest from the door, on
the first floor. To go to the door I had to lose sight of it, and
perhaps for that reason I stood the longer. At last I went and
knocked, and waited in a fever for some one to come. The street was a
thoroughfare. There were a number of people passing. I thought that
all the town would go by before a dragging foot at last sounded
inside, and the great nail-studded door was opened on the chain. A
stout, red-faced woman showed herself in the aperture.

'What is it?' she asked.

'You have a girl in this house, named Marie Wort,' I answered
breathlessly. 'I saw her a moment ago at the window. I know her, and I
wish to speak to her.'

The woman's little eyes dwelt on me stolidly for a space. Then she
made as if she would shut the door. 'For shame!' she said spitefully.
'We have no girls here. Begone with you!'

But I put my foot against the door. 'Whose house is this?' I said.

'Herr Krapp's,' she answered crustily.

'Is he at home?'

'No, he is not,' she retorted; 'and if he were, we have no baggages
here.' And again she tried to shut the door, but I prevented her.

'Where is he?' I asked sternly.

'He is at morning drill, if you must know,' she snapped; 'and his two
sons. Now, will you let me shut my door? Or must I cry out?'

'Nonsense, mother!' I said. 'Who is in the house besides yourself?'

'What is that to you?' she replied, breathing short.

'I have told you,' I said, trying to control my anger. 'I----'

But, quick as lightning, the door slammed to and cut me short. I had
thoughtlessly moved my foot. I heard the woman chuckle and go slipshod
down the passage, and though I knocked again in a rage, the door
remained closed.

I fell back and looked at the house. An elderly man in a grave, sober
dress was passing, among others, and I caught his eye.

'Whose house is that?' I asked him.

'Herr Krapp's,' he answered.

'I am a stranger,' I said. 'Is he a man of substance?'

The person I addressed smiled. 'He is a member of the Council of
Safety,' he said dryly. 'His brother is prefect of this ward. But here
is Herr Krapp. Doubtless he has been at St. Sebald's drilling.'

I thanked him, and made but two steps to Herr Krapp's side. He was the
other's twin--elderly, soberly dressed, his only distinction a sword
and pistol in his girdle and a white shoulder sash.

'Herr Krapp?' I said.

'The same,' he answered, eying me gravely.

'I am the Countess of Heritzburg's steward,' I said. I began to see
the need of explanation. 'Doubtless you have heard that she is in the
city?'

'Certainly,' he answered. 'In the Ritter Strasse.'

'Yes,' I replied. 'A fortnight ago she missed a young woman, one of
her attendants. She was lost in a night adventure,' I continued, my
throat dry and husky. 'A few minutes ago I saw her looking from one of
your windows.'

'From one of my windows?' he exclaimed in a tone of surprise.

'Yes,' I said stiffly.

He opened his eyes wide. 'Here?' he said. He pointed to his house.

I nodded.

'Impossible!' he replied, shutting his lips suddenly. 'Quite
impossible, my friend. My household consists of my two sons and
myself. We have a housekeeper only, and two lads. I have no young
women in the house.'

'Yet I saw her face, Herr Krapp, at your window,' I answered
obstinately.

'Wait,' he said; 'I will ask.'

But when the old housekeeper came she had only the same tale to tell.
She was alone. No young woman had crossed the threshold for a week
past. There was no other woman there, young or old.

'You will have it that I have a young man in the house next!' she
grumbled, shooting scorn at me.

'I can assure you that there is no one here,' Herr Krapp said civilly.
'Dorcas has been with me many years, and I can trust her. Still if you
like you can walk through the rooms.'

But I hesitated to do that. The man's manner evidenced his sincerity,
and in face of it my belief wavered. Fancy, I began to think, had
played me a trick. It was no great wonder if the features which were
often before me in my dreams, and sometimes painted themselves on the
darkness while I lay wakeful, had for once taken shape in the
daylight, and so vividly as to deceive me. I apologised. I said what
was proper, and, with a heavy sigh, went from the door.

Ay, and with bent head. The passing crowd and the sunshine and the
distant music of drum and trumpet grated on me. For there was yet
another explanation. And I feared that Marie was dead.

I was still brooding sadly over the matter when I reached home. Steve
met me at the door, but, feeling in no mood for small talk just then,
I would have passed him by and gone in, if he had not stopped me.

'I have a message for you, lieutenant,' he said.

'What is it?' I asked without curiosity.

'A little boy gave it to me at the door,' he answered. 'I was to ask
you to be in the street opposite Herr Krapp's half an hour after
sunset this evening.'

I gasped. 'Herr Krapp's!' I exclaimed.

Steve nodded, looking at me queerly. 'Yes; do you know him?' he said.

'I do now,' I muttered, gulping down my amazement. But my face was as
red as fire, the blood drummed in my ears. I had to turn away to hide
my emotion. 'What was the boy like?' I asked.

But it seemed that the lad had made off the moment he had done his
errand, and Steve had not noticed him particularly. 'I called after
him to know who sent him,' he added, 'but he had gone too far.'

I nodded and mumbled something, and went on into the house. Perhaps I
was still a little sore on my girl's account, and resented the easy
way in which she had dropped out of others' lives. At any rate, my
instinct was to keep the thing to myself. The face at the window, and
then this strange assignation, could have only one meaning; but, good
or bad, it was for me. And I hugged myself on it, and said nothing
even to my lady.

The day seemed long, but at length the evening came, and when the
men had gone to drill and the house was quiet, I slipped out. The
streets were full at this hour of men passing to and fro to their
drill-stations, and of women who had been out to see the camp, and
were returning before the gates closed. The bells of many of the
churches were ringing; some had services. I had to push my way to
reach Herr Krapp's house in time; but once there the crowd of passers
served my purpose by screening me, as I loitered, from farther remark;
while I took care, by posting myself in a doorway opposite the window,
to make it easy for any one who expected me to find me.

And then I waited with my heart beating. The clocks were striking a
half after seven when I took my place, and for a time I stood in a
ferment of excitement, now staring with bated breath at the casement,
where I had seen Marie, now scanning all the neighbouring doorways,
and then again letting my eyes rove from window to window both of
Krapp's house and the next one on either side. As the latter were
built with many quaint oriels, and tiny dormers, and had lattices in
side-nooks, where one least looked to find them, I was kept expecting
and employed. I was never quite sure, look where I would, what eyes
were upon me.

But little by little, as time passed and nothing happened, and the
strollers all went by without accosting me, and no faces save strange
ones showed at the windows, the heat of expectation left me. The chill
of disappointment took its place. I began to doubt and fear. The
clocks struck eight. The sun had been down an hour. Half that time I
had been waiting.

To remain passive was no longer bearable, and sick of caution, I
stepped out and began to walk up and down the street, courting rather
than avoiding notice. The traffic was beginning to slacken. I could
see farther and mark people at a distance; but still no one spoke to
me, no one came to me. Here and there lights began to shine in the
houses, on gleaming oak ceilings and carved mantels. The roofs were
growing black against the paling sky. In nooks and corners it was
dark. The half-hour sounded, and still I walked, fighting down doubt,
clinging to hope.

But when another quarter had gone by, doubt became conviction. I had
been fooled! Either some one who had seen me loitering at Krapp's in
the morning and heard my tale had gone straight off, and played me
this trick; or--Gott im Himmel!--or I had been lured here that I might
be out of the way at home.

That thought, which should have entered my thick head an hour before,
sped me from the street, as if it had been a very catapult. Before I
reached the corner I was running; and I ran through street after
street, sweating with fear. But quickly as I went, my thoughts
outpaced me. My lady was alone save for her women. The men were
drilling, the Waldgrave was in the camp. The crowded state of the
streets at sunset, and the number of strangers who thronged the city
favoured certain kinds of crime; in a great crowd, as in a great
solitude, everything is possible.

I had this in my mind. Judge, then, of my horror, when, as I
approached the Ritter Strasse, I became aware of a dull, roaring
sound; and hastening to turn the corner, saw a large mob gathered in
front of our house, and filling the street from wall to wall. The
glare of torches shone on a thousand upturned faces, and flamed from a
hundred casements. At the windows, on the roofs, peering over
balconies and coping-stones and gables, and looking out of doorways
were more faces, all red in the torchlight. And all the time as the
smoking light rose and fell, the yelling, as it seemed to me, rose and
fell with it--now swelling into a stern roar of exultation, now
sinking into an ugly, snarling noise, above which a man might hear his
neighbour speak.

I seized the first I came to--a man standing on the skirts of the mob,
and rather looking on than taking part. 'What is it?' I said, shaking
him roughly by the arm. 'What is the matter here?'

'Hallo!' he answered, starting as he turned to me. 'Is it you again,
my friend?'

I had hit on Herr Krapp!' Yes!' I cried breathlessly. 'What is it?
what is amiss?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'They are hanging a spy,' he answered.
'Nothing more. Irregular, but wholesome.'

I drew a deep breath. 'Is that all?' I said.

He eyed me curiously. 'To be sure,' he said. 'What did you think it
was?'

'I feared that there might be something wrong at my lady's,' I said,
beginning to get my breath again. 'I left her alone at sunset. And
when I saw this crowd before the house I--I could almost have cut off
my hand. Thank God, I was mistaken!'

He looked at me again and seemed to reflect a moment. Then he said,
'You have not found the young woman you were seeking?'

I shook my head.

'Well, it occurred to me afterwards--but at which window did you see
her?'

'At a window on the first floor; the farthest from the door,' I
answered.

'The second from the door end of the house?' he asked.

'No, the third.'

He nodded with an air of quiet triumph. 'Just so!' he said. 'I thought
so afterwards. But the fact is, my friend, my house ends with the
second gable. The third gable-end does not belong to it, though
doubtless it once did.'

'No?' I exclaimed. And for a moment I stood taken aback, cursing my
carelessness. Then I stammered, 'But this third gable--I saw no door
in it, Herr Krapp.'

'No, the door is in another street,' he answered. 'Or rather it opens
on the churchyard at the back of St. Austin's. So you may have seen
her after all. Well, I wish you well,' he continued. 'I must be
going.'

The crowd was beginning to separate, moving away by twos and threes,
talking loudly. The lights were dying down. He nodded and was gone;
while I still stood gaping. For how did the matter stand? If I had
really seen Marie at the window--as seemed possible now--and if
nothing turned out to be amiss at home, then I had not been tricked
after all, and the message was genuine. True she had not kept her
appointment. But she might be in durance, or one of a hundred things
might have frustrated her intention.

Still I could do nothing now except go home, and cutting short my
speculations, I forced myself through the press, and with some labour
managed to reach the door. As I did so I turned to look back, and the
sight, though the people were moving away fast, was sufficiently
striking. Almost opposite us in a beetling archway, the bowed head and
shoulders of a man stood up above the common level. There was a little
space round him, whence men held back; and the red glow of the
smouldering links which the executioners had cast on the ground at his
feet, shone upwards on his swollen lips and starting eyeballs. As I
looked, the body seemed to writhe in its bonds; but it was only the
wind swayed it. I went in shuddering.

On the stairs I met Count Hugo coming down, and knew the moment I saw
him that there was something wrong. He stopped me, his eyes full of
wrath.

'My man,' he said sternly, 'I thought that you were to be trusted!
Where have you been? What have you been doing? _Donner!_ Is your lady
to be left at dark with no one to man this door?'

Conscience-stricken, I muttered that I hoped nothing had gone amiss.

'No, but something easily might!' he answered grimly. 'When I came
here I found three as ugly looking rogues whispering and peering in
your doorway as man could wish to see! Yes, Master Martin, and if I
had not ridden up at that moment I will not answer for it, that they
would not have been in! It is a pity a few more knaves are not where
that one is,' he continued sourly, pointing through the open door. 'We
could spare them. But do you see and have more care for the future.
Or, mein Gott, I will take other measures, my friend!'

So it had been a ruse after all! I went up sick at heart.




                            CHAPTER XXVII.

                     THE HOUSE IN THE CHURCHYARD.


The heat which Count Leuchtenstein had thrown into the matter
surprised me somewhat when I came to think of it, but I was soon to be
more surprised. I did not go to my lady at once on coming in, for on
the landing the sound of voices and laughter met me, and I learned
that there were still two or three young officers sitting with her who
had outstayed Count Hugo. I waited until they were gone--clanking and
jingling down the stairs; and then, about the hour at which I usually
went to take orders before retiring, I knocked at the door.

Commonly one of the women opened to me. To-night the door remained
closed. I waited, knocked again, and then went in. I could see no one,
but the lamps were flickering, and I saw that the window was open.

At that moment, while I stood uncertain, she came in through it; and
blinded, I suppose, by the lights, did not see me. For at the first
chair she reached just within the window, she sat down suddenly and
burst into tears!

'Mein Gott!' I cried clumsily. I should have known better; but the
laughter of the young fellows as they trooped down the stairs was
still in my ears, and I was dumfounded.

She sprang up on the instant, and glared at me through her tears. 'Who
are--how dare you? How dare you come into the room without knocking?'
she cried violently.

'I did knock, my lady,' I stammered, 'asking your pardon.'

'Then now go! Go out, do you hear?' she cried, stamping her foot with
passion. 'I want nothing. Go!'

I turned and crept towards the door like a beaten hound. But I was not
to go; when my hand was on the latch, her mood changed.

'No, stay,' she said in a different tone. 'You may come back. After
all, Martin, I had rather it was you than any one else.'

She dried her tears as she spoke, standing up very straight and proud,
and hiding nothing. I felt a pang as I looked at her. I had neglected
her of late. I had been thinking more of others.

'It is nothing, Martin,' she said after a pause, and when she had
quite composed her face. 'You need not be frightened. All women cry a
little sometimes, as men swear,' she added, smiling.

'You have been looking at that thing outside,' I said, grumbling.

'Perhaps it did upset me,' she replied. 'But I think it was that I
felt--a little lonely.'

That sounded so strange a complaint on her lips, seeing that the echo
of the young sparks' laughter was barely dead in the room, that I
stared. But I took it, on second thoughts, to refer to Fraulein Max,
whom she had kept at a distance since our escape, never sitting down
with her, or speaking to her except on formal occasions; and I said
bluntly--

'You need a woman friend, my lady.'

She looked at me keenly, and I fancied her colour rose. But she only
answered, 'Yes, Martin. But you see I have not one. I am alone.'

'And lonely, my lady?'

'Sometimes,' she answered, smiling sadly.

'But this evening?' I replied, feeling that there was still something
I did not understand. 'I should not have thought you would be feeling
that way. I have not been here, but when I came in, my lady----'

'Pshaw!' she answered with a laugh of disdain. 'Those boys, Martin?
They can laugh, fight, and ride; but for the rest, pouf! They are not
company. However, it is bedtime, and you must go. I think you have
done me good. Good night. I wish--I wish I could do you good,' she
added kindly, almost timidly.

To some extent she had. I went away feeling that mine was not the only
trouble in the world, nor my loneliness the only loneliness. She was a
stranger in a besieged city, a woman among men, exposed, despite her
rank, to many of a woman's perils; and doubtless she had felt Fraulein
Max's defection and the Waldgrave's strange conduct more deeply than
any one watching her daily bearing would have supposed. So much the
greater reason was there that I should do my duty loyally, and putting
her first to whom I owed so much, let no sorrow of my own taint my
service.

But God knows there is one passion that defies argument. The house
next Herr Krapp's had a fascination for me which I could not resist;
and though I did not again leave my lady unguarded, but arranged that
Steve should stop at home and watch the door, four o'clock the next
afternoon saw me sneaking away in search of St. Austin's. Of course I
soon found it; but there I came to a check. Round the churchyard stood
a number of quiet family houses, many-gabled and shaded by limes, and
doubtless once occupied by reverend canons and prebendaries. But no
one of these held such a position that it could shoulder Herr Krapp's,
or be by any possibility the house I wanted. The churchyard lay too
far from the street for that.

I walked up the row twice before I would admit this; but at last I
made it certain. Still Herr Krapp must know his own premises, and not
much cast down, I was going to knock at a chance door and put the
question, when my eyes fell on a man who sat at work in the
churchyard. He wore a mason's apron, and was busily deepening the
inscription on a tablet let into the church wall. He seemed to be the
very man to know, and I went to him.

'I want a house which looks into the Neu Strasse,' I said. 'It is the
next house to Herr Krapp's. Can you direct me to the door?'

He looked at me for a moment, his hammer suspended. Then he pointed to
the farther end of the row. 'There is an alley,' he said in a hoarse,
croaking voice. 'The door is at the end.'

I thought his occupation an odd one, considering the state of the
city; but I had other things to dwell on, and hastened off to the
place he indicated. Here, sure enough, I found the mouth of a very
narrow passage which, starting between the last house and a blind
wall, ran in the required direction. It was a queer place, scarcely
wider than my shoulders, and with two turns so sharp that I remember
wondering how they brought their dead out. In one part it wound under
the timbers of a house; it was dark and somewhat foul, and altogether
so ill-favoured a path that I was glad I had brought my arms.

     their independence (Crichton and Wheaton, i, 375, 376; Geijer, pp.
     50, 81, 89, 97, 103), so that they ultimately enabled Gustavus Vasa
     to throw off the Danish yoke. Yet they had at first refused to
     recognise him, being satisfied with their own liberties; and
     afterwards they gave him much serious trouble (Otté, _Scandinavian
     History_, 1874, pp. 228, 235; Geijer, pp. 109, 112, 115, 116, 118,
     120-24). Slavery, too, was definitely abolished in Sweden as early
     as 1335 (Geijer, pp. 57, 86; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 316, 333). As
     regards the regal power, the once dominant theory that the Swedish
     kings in the thirteenth century obtained a grant of all the mines,
     and of the province of the four great lakes (Crichton and Wheaton,
     i, 332), appears to be an entire delusion (Geijer, pp. 51, 52).
     Such claims were first enforced by Gustavus Vasa (_id._ p. 129). As
     regards the clergy, they appear from the first, _quâ_ churchmen, to
     have been kept in check by the nobles, who kept the great Church
     offices largely in the hands of their own order (Geijer, p. 109),
     though Magnus Ladulas strove to strengthen the Church in his own
     interest (_id._ pp. 52-53). Thus the nobles became specially
     powerful (_id._ pp. 50, 56, 108); and when in the fifteenth century
     Sweden was subject to Denmark, they specially resented the
     sacerdotal tyranny (Crichton and Wheaton, i, 356).

In Sweden, as in the other Scandinavian States, however, physical strife
and mental stagnation were the ruling conditions. Down till the
sixteenth century her history is pronounced "a wretched detail of civil
wars, insurrections, and revolutions, arising principally from the
jealousies subsisting between the kings and the people, the one striving
to augment their power, the other to maintain their independence."[670]
The same may be said of the sister kingdoms, all alike being torn and
drained by innumerable strifes of faction and wars with each other. The
occasional forcible and dynastic unions of crowns came to nothing; and
the Union of Calmar (1397), an attempt to confederate the three kingdoms
under one crown, repeatedly collapsed. The marvel is that in such an age
even the attempt was made. The remarkable woman who planned and first
effected it, Queen Margaret of Norway, appealed in the first instance
with heavy bribes for the co-operation of the clergy,[671] who,
especially in Sweden, where they preferred the Danish rule to the
domination of the nobles,[672] were always in favour of it for
ecclesiastical reasons.

Had such a union permanently succeeded, it would have eliminated a
serious source of positive political evil; but to carry forward
Scandinavian civilisation under the drawbacks of the medieval difficulty
of inter-communication (involving lack of necessary culture-contacts),
the natural poverty of the soil, and the restrictive pressure of the
Catholic Church, would have been a task beyond the power of a monarchy
comprising three mutually jealous sections. As it was, the old strifes
recurred almost as frequently as before, and moral union was never
developed. If historical evidence is to count for anything, the
experience of the Scandinavian stocks should suffice to discredit once
for all the persistent pretence that the "Teutonic races" have a faculty
for union denied to the Celtic, inasmuch as they, apparently the most
purely Teutonic of all, were even more irreconcilable, less fusible,
than the Anglo-Saxons before the Norman Conquest and the Germans down
till our own day, and much more mutually jealous than the quasi-Teutonic
provinces of the Netherlands, which, after the severance of Belgium,
have latterly lost their extreme repulsions, while those of Scandinavia
are not yet dead.[673] The explanation, of course, is not racial in any
case; but it is for those who affirm that capacity for union is a
Teutonic gift to find a racial excuse.

With the Reformation, though that was nowhere more clearly than in
Scandinavia a revolution of plunder, there began a new progress, in
respect not of any friendliness of the Lutheran system to thought and
culture, but of the sheer break-up of the intellectual ice of the old
regimen. In Denmark the process is curiously instructive. Christian II,
personally a capable and reformative but cruel tyrant, aimed throughout
his life at reducing the power alike of the clergy and the nobles, and
to that end sought on the one hand to abolish serfdom and educate the
poor and the burghers,[674] and on the other to introduce Lutheranism
(1520). From the latter attempt he was induced to desist, doubtless
surmising that the remedy might for him be a new disease: but on his
enforcing the reform of slavery he was rebelled against and forced to
fly by the nobility, who thereupon oppressed the people more than
ever.[675] His uncle and successor, Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein,
accepted the mandate of the nobles to the extent of causing to be
publicly burned in his presence all the laws of the last reign in favour
of the peasants, closing the poor schools throughout the kingdom,
burning the new books,[676] and pledging himself to expel Lutheranism.
He seems, however, to have been secretly a Protestant, and to have
evaded his pledge; and the rapid spread of the new heresy, especially in
the cities, brought about a new birth of popular literature in the
vernacular, despite the suppression of the schools.[677] In a few years'
time, Frederick, recognising the obvious interest of the crown, and
finding the greater nobles in alliance with the clergy, made common
cause with the smaller nobility, and so was able (1527) to force on the
prelates, who could hope for no better terms from the exiled king, the
toleration of Protestantism, the permission of marriage to the clergy,
and a surrender of a moiety of the tithes.[678] A few years later (1530)
the monasteries were either stormed by the populace or abandoned by the
monks, their houses and lands being divided among the municipalities,
the king and his courtiers, and the secular clergy.[679] After a stormy
interregnum, in which the Catholic party made a strenuous reaction, the
next king, Christian III, taking the nobles and commons-deputies into
partnership, made with their help an end of the Catholic system; the
remaining lands, castles, and manors of the prelates going to the crown,
and the tithes being parcelled among the landowners, the king, and the
clergy. Naturally a large part of the lands, as before, was divided
among the nobles,[680] who were in this way converted to Protestantism.
Thus whereas heathen kings had originally embraced Christianity to
enable them to consolidate their power, Christian kings embraced
Protestantism to enable them to recover wealth and power from the
Catholic Church. Creed all along followed interest;[681] and the people
had small concern in the change.[682]

Norway, being under the same crown, followed the course of Denmark. In
Sweden the powerful Gustavus Vasa saw himself forced at the outset of
his reign to take power and wealth from the Church if he would have any
of his own; and after the dramatic scene in the Diet of Westeras (1527),
in which he broke out with a passionate vow to renounce the crown if he
were not better supported,[683] he carried his point. The nobles, being
"squared"[684] by permission to resume such of their ancestral lands as
had been given to churches and convents since 1454, and by promise of
further grants, forced the bishops to consent to surrender to the king
their castles and strongholds, and to let him fix their revenues; all
which was duly done. The monasteries were soon despoiled of nearly all
their lands, many of which were seized by or granted in fief to the
barons;[685] and the king became head of the Church in as full a degree
as Henry VIII in England;[686] sagaciously, and in part unscrupulously,
creating for the first time in Scandinavia a strong yet not wholly
despotic monarchy, with such revenues from many sources[687] as made
possible the military power and activity of Gustavus Adolphus, and
later the effort of Charles XII to create an "empire"--an effort which,
necessarily failing, reduced Sweden permanently to her true economic
basis.

Apart from those remarkable episodes, the development of the
Scandinavian States since the sixteenth century has been, on their
relatively small scale, that of the normal monarchic community with a
variously vigorous democratic element; shaken frequently by civil
strife; wasting much strength in insensate wars; losing much through bad
kings and gaining somewhat from the good; passing painfully from bigotry
to tolerance; getting rid of their old aristocracies and developing new;
exhibiting in the mass the northern vice of alcoholism, yet maintaining
racial vigour; disproportionately taxing their producers as compared
with their non-producers; aiming, nevertheless, at industry and
commerce, and suffering from the divisive social influences they entail;
meddling in international strifes, till latterly the surrounding powers
preponderated too heavily; disunited and normally jealous of each other,
even when dynastically united, through stress of crude patriotic
prejudice and lack of political science; frequently retrograding, yet in
the end steadily progressing in such science as well as in general
culture and well-being. Losses of territory--as Finland and
Schleswig-Holstein--at the hands of stronger rivals, and the violent
experiences and transitions of the Napoleonic period, have left them on
a relatively stable and safe basis, albeit still mutually jealous and
unable to pass beyond the normal monarchic stage. To-day their culture
is that of all the higher civilisations, as are their social problems.


§ 4

In the history of Scandinavian culture, however, lie some special
illustrations of sociological law. The remarkable fact that the first
great development of old Norse literature occurred in the poor and
remote colonial settlement of Iceland is significant of much. To the
retrospective yearning of an exiled people, the desire to preserve every
memory of the old life in the fatherland, is to be attributed the
grounding of the saga-cult in Iceland; and the natural conditions,
enforcing long spells of winter leisure, greatly furthered the movement.
But the finest growth of the new literature, it turns out, is due to
culture-contacts--an unexpected confirmation, in a most unlikely
quarter, of a general principle arrived at on other data. The vigilant
study of our own day has detected, standing out from the early
Icelandic literature, "a group of poems which possess the very qualities
of high imagination, deep pathos, fresh love of nature, passionate
dramatic power, and noble simplicity of language, which [other] Icelandic
poetry lacks. The solution is that these poems do not belong to Iceland at
all. They are the poetry of the 'Western Islands'"[688]--that is, the
poetry of the meeting and mixing of the "Celtic" and Scandinavian stocks
in Ireland and the Hebrides--the former already much mixed, and
proportionally rich in intellectual variations. It was in this area that
"a magnificent school of poetry arose, to which we owe works that for
power and beauty can be paralleled in no Teutonic language till centuries
after their date.... This school, which is totally distinct from the
Icelandic, ran its own course apart and perished before the thirteenth
century."[689]

     Compare Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell's _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_,
     1883, vol. i, Introd. pp. lxii, lxiii; and, as regards the old
     Irish civilisation, the author's _Saxon and Celt_, pp. 127, 128,
     131-33.

     The theory of Celtic influence, though established in its
     essentials, is not perfectly consistent as set forth in the
     _Britannica_ article. Thus, while the Celticised literature is
     remarked for "noble simplicity of language," the true Icelandic,
     primarily like the Old English, is said to develop a "complexity of
     structure and ornament, an elaborate mythological and enigmatical
     phraseology, and a regularity of rhyme, assonance, luxuriance,
     quantity, and syllabification which it caught up from the Latin and
     _Celtic_ poets." Further, while the Celticised school is described
     as "totally distinct from the Icelandic," Celtic influence is also
     specified as affecting Norse literature in general. The first
     generations of Icelandic poets were men of good birth, "nearly
     always, too, of Celtic blood on one side at least"; and they went
     to Norway or Denmark, where they lived as kings' or chiefs'
     henchmen. The immigration of Norse settlers from Ireland, too,
     affected the Iceland stock very early. "It is to the west that the
     best sagas belong: it is to the west that nearly every classic
     writer whose name we know belongs; and it is precisely in the west
     that the admixture of Irish blood is greatest" (_ib._). The facts
     seem decisive, and the statements above cited appear the more
     clearly to need modification. It is to be noted that Schweitzer's
     _Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur_ gives no hint of the
     Celtic influence.

But the Icelandic civilisation as a whole could not indefinitely
progress on its own basis any more than the Irish. Beyond a certain
point both needed new light and leading; for the primeval spirit of
strife never spontaneously weakened; the original Icelandic stock being,
to begin with, a selection of revolters from over-rule. So continual
domestic feuds checked mental evolution in Iceland as in old
Scandinavia; and the reduction of the island to Norwegian rule in the
thirteenth century could not do more for it than monarchy was doing for
Norway. Mere Christianity without progressive conditions of culture
availed less for imaginative art than free paganism had done; and when
higher culture-contacts became possible, the extreme poverty of Iceland
tended more than ever to send the enterprising people where the culture
and comfort were. It is in fact not a possible seat for a relatively
flourishing civilisation in the period of peaceful development. The
Reformation seems there to have availed for very little indeed. It was
vehemently resisted,[690] but carried by the preponderant acquisitive
forces: "nearly all who took part in it were men of low type, moved by
personal motives rather than religious zeal."[691] "The glebes and
hospital lands were a fresh power in the hands of the crown, and the
subservient Lutheran clergy became the most powerful class in the
island; while the bad system of underleasing at rack-rent and short
lease with unsecured tenant-right extended in this way over at least a
quarter of the better land, stopping any possible progress." For the
rest, "the Reformation had produced a real poet [Hallgrim Petersen], but
the material rise of Iceland"--that is, the recent improvements in the
condition of the people--"has not yet done so,"[692] though poetry is
still cultivated in Iceland very much as music is elsewhere.

Thus this one little community may be said to have reached the limits of
its evolution, as compared with others, simply because of the strait
natural conditions in which its lot was cast. But to think of it as a
tragically moribund organism is merely to proceed upon the old
hallucinations of race-consciousness. Men reared in Iceland have done
their part in making European civilisation, entering the more southerly
Scandinavian stocks as these entered the stocks of western Europe; and
the present population, who are a remnant, have no more cause to hang
their heads than any family that happens to have few members or to have
missed wealth. Failure is relative only to pretension or purpose.

The modern revival of Scandinavian culture, as must needs be, is the
outcome of all the European influences. At the close of the sixteenth
century, in more or less friendly intercourse with the other Protestant
countries of north Europe, Denmark began effectively to develop a
literature such as theirs, imaginative and scientific, in the vernacular
as well as in Latin; and so the development went on while Sweden was
gaining military glory with little enlightenment. Then a rash attack
upon Sweden ended in a loss of some of the richest Danish provinces
(1658); whereafter a sudden parliamentary revolution, wrought by a
league of king and people against the aristocracy, created not a
constitutional but an absolute and hereditary monarchy (1660),
enthroning divine right at the same instant in Denmark and Norway as in
England. Thereafter, deprived of their old posts and subjected to
ruinous taxes, the nobility fell rapidly into poverty;[693] and the
merchant class, equally overtaxed, withdrew their capital; the peasantry
all the while remaining in a state of serfdom.[694] Then came a new
series of wars with Sweden, recurring through generations, arresting, it
is said, literature, law, philosophy, and medicine,[695] but not the
natural sciences, then so much in evidence elsewhere: Tycho Brahe being
followed in astronomy by Horrebow, while chemistry, mathematics, and
even anatomy made progress. But to this period belongs the brilliant
dramatist and historian Holberg, the first great man of letters in
modern Scandinavia (d. 1754); and in the latter half of the eighteenth
century the two years of ascendency of the freethinking physician
Struensee as queen's favourite (1770-72) served partially to emancipate
the peasants, establish religious toleration, abolish torture, and
reform the administration. Nor did his speedy overthrow and execution
wholly undo his main work,[696] which outdid that of many generations of
the old régime. Still, the history of his rise and fall, his vehement
speed of reconstruction and the ruinous resistance it set up, is one of
the most dramatic of the many warnings of history against thinking
suddenly to elevate a nation by reforms imposed wholly from
without.[697]

Thenceforward, with such fluctuations as mark all culture-history, the
Scandinavian world has progressed mentally nearly step for step with
the rest of Europe, producing scholars, historians, men of science,
artists, and imaginative writers in more than due proportion. Many names
which stand for solid achievement in the little-read Scandinavian
tongues are unknown save to specialists elsewhere; but those of Holberg,
Linnæus, Malte-Brun, Rask, Niebuhr, Madvig, Oehlenschläger,
Thorwaldsen, and Swedenborg tell of a comprehensive influence on the
thought and culture of Europe during a hundred years in which Europe was
being reborn; and in our own day some of the greatest imaginative
literature of the modern world comes from Norway, long the most backward
of the group. Ibsen, one of a notable company of masters, stood at the
head of the drama of the nineteenth century; and the society which
sustained him, however he may have satirised it, is certificated abreast
of its age.


§ 5

In one aspect the Scandinavian polities have a special lesson for the
larger nations. They have perforce been specially exercised latterly, as
of old, by the problem of population; and in Norway there was formerly
made one of the notable, if not one of the best, approaches to a
practical solution of it. Malthus long ago[698] noted the Norwegian
marriage-rate as the lowest in Europe save that of Switzerland; and he
expressed the belief that in his day Norway was "almost the only country
in Europe where a traveller will hear any apprehension expressed of a
redundant population, and where the danger to the happiness of the lower
classes of people is in some degree seen and understood."[699] This
state of things having long subsisted, there is a presumption that it
persists uninterruptedly from pagan times, when, as we have seen, there
existed a deliberate population-policy; for Christian habits of mind can
nowhere be seen to have set up such a tendency, and it would be hard to
show in the history of Norway any great political change which might
effect a rapid revolution in the domestic habits of the peasantry, such
as occurred in France after the Revolution. Broadly speaking, the mass
of the Norwegian people had till the last century continued to live
under those external or domiciliary restraints on multiplication which
were normal in rural Europe in the Middle Ages, and which elsewhere have
been removed by industrialism; yet without suffering latterly from a
continuance of the severer medieval destructive checks. They must,
therefore, have put a high degree of restraint on marriage, and probably
observed parental prudence in addition.

When it is found that in Sweden, where the conditions and usages were
once similar, there was latterly at once less prudential restraint on
marriage and population, and a lower standard of material well-being,
the two cases are seen to furnish a kind of _experimentum crucis_. The
comparatively late maintenance of a powerful military system in Sweden
having there prolonged the methods of aristocratic and bureaucratic
control while they were being modified in Denmark-Norway, Swedish
population in the eighteenth century was subject to artificial stimulus.
From about the year 1748, the Government set itself, on the ordinary
empirical principle of militarism, to encourage population.[700] Among
its measures were the variously wise ones of establishing medical
colleges and lying-in and foundling hospitals, the absolute freeing of
the internal trade in grain, and the withdrawal in 1748 of an old law
limiting the number of persons allowed to each farm. The purpose of that
law had been to stimulate population by spreading tillage; but the spare
soil being too unattractive, the young people emigrated. On the law
being abolished, population did increase considerably, rising between
1751 and 1800 from 1,785,727 to 2,347,308,[701] though some severe
famines had occurred within the period. But in the year 1799, when
Malthus visited the country, the increased population suffered from
famine very severely indeed, living mainly and miserably on bark
bread.[702] It was one of Malthus's great object-lessons in his science.
On one side a poor country was artificially over-populated; on the
other, the people of Norway, an even poorer country, directly and
indirectly[703] restrained their rate of increase, while the Government
during a long period wrought to the same end by the adjustment of its
military system and by making a certificate of earning power or income
necessary for all marriages.[704] The result was that, save in the
fishing districts, where speculative conditions encouraged early
marriages and large families, the Norwegian population were better off
than the Swedish.[705]

Already in Malthus' youth the Norwegian-Danish policy had been altered,
all legal and military restrictions on marriage having been withdrawn;
and he notes that fears were expressed as to the probable results. It is
one of his shortcomings to have entirely abstained from subsequent
investigation of the subject; and in his late addendum as to the state
of Sweden in 1826 he further fails to note that as a result of a
creation there after 1803 of 6,000 new farms from land formerly waste,
the country ceased to need to import corn and was able to export a
surplus.[706] It still held good, however, that the Norwegian
population, being from persistence of prudential habit[707] much the
slower in its rate of increase, had the higher standard of comfort,
despite much spread of education in Sweden.

Within the past half-century the general development of commerce and of
industry has tended broadly to equalise the condition of the
Scandinavian peoples. As late as 1835 a scarcity would suffice to drive
the Norwegian peasantry to the old subsistence of bark bread, a ruinous
resort, seeing that it destroyed multitudes of trees of which the value,
could the timber have found a market, would have far exceeded that of a
quantity of flour yielding much more and better food. At that period the
British market was closed by duties imposed in the interest of the
Canadian timber trade.[708] Since the establishment of British free
trade, Norwegian timber has become a new source of wealth; and through
this and other and earlier commercial developments prudential family
habits were affected. Thus, whereas the population of Sweden had all but
doubled between 1800 and 1880, the population of Norway had grown even
faster.[709] And whereas in 1834 the proportion of illegitimate to
legitimate births in Stockholm was 1 to 2.26[710] (one of the results of
foundling hospitals, apparently), in 1890 the total Swedish rate was
slightly below 1 to 10, while in Norway it was 1 to 14. The modern
facilities for emigration have further affected conjugal habits.
Latterly, however, there are evidences of a new growth of intelligent
control.

In recent years the statistics of emigration and population tell a
fairly plain story. In Norway and Sweden alike the excess of births over
deaths reached nearly its highest in 1887, the figures being 63,942 for
Sweden and 29,233 for Norway. In 1887, however, emigration was about its
maximum in both countries, 50,786 leaving Sweden and 20,706 leaving
Norway. Thereafter the birth-rate rapidly fell, and the emigration,
though fluctuating, has never again risen in Sweden to the volume of
1887-88, though it has in Norway. But when, after falling to 43,728 in
1892, the excess of Swedish births over deaths rises to 60,231 in 1895,
while the emigration falls from 45,000 in 1892 to 13,000 in 1894, it is
clear that the lesson of regulation is still very imperfectly learned.
Norway shows the same fluctuations, the excess of births rising from
23,600 in 1892 to nearly 32,000 in 1896, and again from 27,685 in 1908
to 29,804 in 1909, doubtless because of ups and downs in the harvests,
as shown in the increase of marriages from 12,742 in 1892 to 13,962 in
1896.

In Denmark the progression has been similar. There the excess of births
over deaths was so far at its maximum in 1886, the figures being 29,986
in a population of a little over 2,000,000; whereafter they slowly
decreased, till in 1893 the excess was only 26,235. All the while
emigration was active, gradually rising from 4,346 in 1885 to 10,382 in
1891; then again falling to 2,876 in 1896, when the surplus of births
over deaths was 34,181--a development sure to force more emigration. In
1911 the population was 2,775,076--a rapid rise; and in 1910 the surplus
of births over deaths was 40,110. The Scandinavians are thus still in
the unstable progressive stage of popular well-being, though probably
suffering less from it than either Germany or England.

Here, then, is a group of kindred peoples apparently at least as capable
of reaching a solution of the social problem as any other, and visibly
prospering materially and morally in proportion as they bring reason to
bear on the vital lines of conduct, though still in the stage of curing
over-population by emigration. Given continued peaceful political
evolution in the direction first of democratic federation, and further
of socialisation of wealth, they may reach and keep the front rank in
civilisation, while the more unmanageably large communities face risks
of dire vicissitude.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 638: As in Carlyle's _Early Kings of Norway_, the _caput
mortuum_ of his historical method. Much more instructive works on
Scandinavian history are available to the English reader. The two
volumes on _Scandinavia_ by Crichton and Wheaton (1837) are not yet
superseded, though savouring strongly of the conservatism of their
period. Dunham, who rapidly produced, for Gardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia
series, histories of _Spain and Portugal_ (5 vols.), _Europe during the
Middle Ages_ (4 vols.), and the _Germanic Empire_ (3 vols.), compiled
also one of _Denmark, Sweden, and Norway_ (3 vols. 1839-40), of inferior
quality. But Geijer's _History of Sweden_, one of the standard modern
national histories of Europe, is translated into English as far as the
period of Gustavus Vasa (3 vols. of orig. in one of trans. 1845); and
the competent _History of Denmark_ by C.-F. Allen is available in a
French translation (Copenhagen, 2 tom. 1878). Otté's _Scandinavian
History_, 1874, is an unpretending and unliterary but well-informed
work, which may be used to check Crichton and Wheaton. The more recent
work of Mr. R. Nisbet Bain, _Scandinavia: a Political History of
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from 1513 to 1900_ (Camb. Univ. Press,
1905), is useful for the period covered, but has little sociological
value. For the history of ancient Scandinavian literature, the
introduction to Vigfusson and Powell's _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ (1883),
and Prof. Powell's article on Icelandic Literature in the 10th ed. of
the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, are preferable to Schweitzer's
_Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur_ (1886, 2 Bde.), which,
however, is useful for the modern period.]

[Footnote 639: See Geijer's _History of the Swedes_, Eng. tr. of pt. i,
1-vol. ed. p. 30, as to the special persistence in Scandinavia of the
early religious conception of kingship. Cp. Crichton and Wheaton's
_Scandinavia_, 1837, i, 157.]

[Footnote 640: Such New Testament passages as _Rom._ xiii, 1-7, and
_Titus_ iii, 1, seem to have been penned or interpolated expressly to
propitiate the Roman government.]

[Footnote 641: It was by entirely overlooking this historic fact that M.
Fustel de Coulanges, in the last chapter of his _Cité antique_, was able
to propound a theory of historic Christianity as something
extra-political. He there renounced the inductive method for a pure
ecclesiastical apriorism, and the result is a very comprehensive
sociological misconception.]

[Footnote 642: Geijer, pp. 31, 33; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 102, 104,
183, 184.]

[Footnote 643: Tacitus, _Germania_, cc. 7, 11.]

[Footnote 644: Cp. Zschokke, _Des Schweizerlands Geschichte_, c. 7, as
to the psychological effect of an organised worship in a great building
on heathens without any such centre. And see the frank admission of J.R.
Green, _Short History_, p. 54, that among the Anglo-Saxons "religion had
told against political independence."]

[Footnote 645: Cp. C.F. Allen, _History of Denmark_, French tr.,
Copenhagen, 1878, i, 55, 56.]

[Footnote 646: Crichton and Wheaton, _Scandinavia_, i, 129-32; Hardwick,
_Church History: Middle Age_, 1853, p. 115. Knut was a great supporter
of missionaries. Hardwick attributes to Gorm a "bitter hatred" of the
Church, and also "violence," but gives no details.]

[Footnote 647: Even Svend is said to have laboured for Christianity in
his latter years--another suggestion that it was found to answer
monarchic purposes. See Hardwick, p. 115, _note 9_.]

[Footnote 648: Cp. Dasent, Introd. to _The Burnt Njal_, p. ix.]

[Footnote 649: Hardwick, as cited, p. 117.]

[Footnote 650: Hardwick, as cited.]

[Footnote 651: A warlike priest of Bremen is said to have converted him
in Germany; and he was baptised in the Scilly Islands, which he had
visited on a piratical expedition. Finally he was confirmed in England,
which he promised to treat in future as a friendly State. (_Id._ _ib._)]

[Footnote 652: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 151.]

[Footnote 653: Cp. Hardwick. p. 118, _note 3_.]

[Footnote 654: Though this was often of the most brutal description,
there were some comparatively "mild-mannered" pirates, who rarely "cut a
throat or scuttled ship." See C.-F. Allen, _Histoire de Danemark_, i,
21.]

[Footnote 655: Geijer, _History of Sweden_, Eng. tr. p. 31.]

[Footnote 656: It is actually on record that the practice long subsisted
in Iceland, despite the efforts of St. Olaf to suppress it. Hardwick,
_Church History: Middle Age_, p. 119, _note_, citing Torfaens, _Hist.
Norveg._ ii, 2, and Neander. Among the Slavonic Pomeranians in the
twelfth century it was still common to destroy female children at birth.
_Id._ p. 224, _note_.]

[Footnote 657: Cp. C.-F. Allen, _Histoire de Danemark_, Fr. tr. 1878, i,
20.]

[Footnote 658: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que l'Angleterre? Une colonie
français mal tournée."]

[Footnote 659: Thus Rolf the Ganger fared forth to France because Harold
Fairhair would not suffer piracy on any territory acquired by him.]

[Footnote 660: _Essay on the Principle of Population_, 7th ed. p. 139.]

[Footnote 661: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 254. Dr. Ph. Schweitzer
(_Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur_, § 19), makes the surprising
statement that the quantity of old coins found in Scandinavia (over
100,000 within the last century) proves that the ancient Scandinavian
commerce was very great (_ein ganz grossartiger_). His own account of
the occasional barter of the Vikings shows that there was nothing
"grossartig" about it, and the coins prove nothing beyond piracy.]

[Footnote 662: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 263, 287.]

[Footnote 663: _Id._ pp. 251, 252, 277, 377.]

[Footnote 664: _Id._ pp. 304, 305, 311.]

[Footnote 665: _Id._ ii, 350. Cp. Laing, _Journal of a Residence in
Norway_ (1834-36), ed. 1851, p. 135. Bain, however, pronounces that in
Norway in the latter part of the fifteenth century "the peasantry were
mostly thralls" (_Scandinavia_, 1905, p. 10).]

[Footnote 666: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 305, 310.]

[Footnote 667: _Id._ p. 332; Geijer, p. 135.]

[Footnote 668: Geijer, pp. 88, 91; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.]

[Footnote 669: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 324.]

[Footnote 670: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.]

[Footnote 671: _Id._ p. 336.]

[Footnote 672: Geijer, pp. 100, 109; Otté, _Scandinavian History_, 1874,
p. 252.]

[Footnote 673: Cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, 4th ed. ii, 225, on
Anglo-Saxon separatism. Since this was written there has taken place the
decisive separation between Norway and Sweden.]

[Footnote 674: Otté, _Scandinavian History_, 1874, pp. 214-18. Himself
an excellent Latinist, he sought to raise the learned professions, and
compelled the burghers to give their children schooling under penalty of
heavy fines. He further caused new and better books to be prepared for
the public schools, and stopped witch-burning. Cp. Allen, _Histoire de
Danemark_, i, 281.]

[Footnote 675: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 377-79, 383; Allen, as cited, i,
286, 310.]

[Footnote 676: Otté, p. 222; Allen, i, 287, 290.]

[Footnote 677: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 384-86; Allen, pp. 287-90.]

[Footnote 678: Allen, i, 299, 300.]

[Footnote 679: Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 386, 387. These writers
suppress the details as to Frederick's anti-popular action; and Otté's
history, giving these, omits all mention of his act of toleration.
Allen's is the best account, i, 293, 299, 301, 305.]

[Footnote 680: Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 394-96; Otté, pp. 222-24.
According to some accounts, the great bulk of the spoils went to the
nobility. Villers, _Essay on the Reformation_, Eng. tr. 1836, p. 105.]

[Footnote 681: It is notable that even in the thirteenth century there
was a Norwegian king (Erik) called the Priest-hater, because of his
efforts to make the clergy pay taxes.]

[Footnote 682: "The bulk of the people, at least in the first instance,
and especially in Sweden and Norway, were by no means disposed to look
to Wittenberg rather than to Rome for spiritual guidance" (Bain,
_Scandinavia_, p. 86; cp. pp. 60, 64).]

[Footnote 683: Geijer, p. 177; Otté, p. 234.]

[Footnote 684: As the king wrote later to an acquisitive noble: "To
strip churches, convents, and prebends of estates, manors, and chattels,
thereto are all full willing and ready; and after such a fashion is
every man a Christian and evangelical"--_i.e._ Lutheran. Geijer, p. 126.
Cp. p. 129 as to the practice of spoliation.]

[Footnote 685: Geijer, pp. 119, 129.]

[Footnote 686: _Id._ p. 125; Otté, p. 236. The prelates were no longer
admitted to any political offices, though the bishops and pastors sat
together in the Diet.]

[Footnote 687: See Geijer, pp. 129-36.]

[Footnote 688: Prof. York Powell, article on Icelandic Literature, in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 10th ed. xii, 621; 11th ed. xiv, 233.]

[Footnote 689: _Id._ (11th ed. xiv, 234).]

[Footnote 690: Bain, _Scandinavia_, pp. 100-1.]

[Footnote 691: Powell, article on Icelandic Literature, _Ency. Brit._
10th ed. xii, 621.]

[Footnote 692: _Id._ p. 623.]

[Footnote 693: Shaftesbury (_Characteristics_, ed. 1900, ii, 262) writes
in 1713 of "that forlorn troop of begging gentry extant in Denmark or
Sweden, since the time that those nations lost their liberties."]

[Footnote 694: Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 104.]

[Footnote 695: _Id._ ii, 321-22.]

[Footnote 696: Laing in 1839 (_Tour in Sweden_, p. 13) thought the Danes
as backward as they had been in 1660, quoting the ambassador Molesworth
as to the effect of Lutheran Protestantism in destroying Danish
liberties (pp. 10, 11). But it is hard to see that there were any
popular liberties to destroy, save in so far as the party which set up
the Reformation undid the popular laws of Christian II. The greatest
social reforms in Denmark are certainly the work of the last
half-century.]

[Footnote 697: It will be remembered that the Marquis of Pombal, in
Portugal, at the same period, was similarly overthrown after a much
longer and non-scandalous reformatory rule, the queen being his enemy.]

[Footnote 698: His particulars were gathered during a tour he made in
1799. Thus the Norse practice he notes had been independent of any
effect produced by his own essay.]

[Footnote 699: _Essay on the Principle of Population_, 7th ed. pp. 126,
133.]

[Footnote 700: This was doubtless owing to the loss of Finland (1742), a
circumstance not considered by Malthus.]

[Footnote 701: Malthus (p. 141) gives higher and clearly erroneous
figures for both periods, and contradicts them later (p. 143) with
figures which he erroneously applies to Sweden _and Finland_. He seems
to have introduced the latter words in the wrong passage.]

[Footnote 702: _Id._ p. 141.]

[Footnote 703: See p. 131 as to the restrictions on subdivision of farms
by way of safeguarding the forests.]

[Footnote 704: _Id._ p. 126. A priest would often refuse to marry a
couple who had no good prospect of a livelihood: so far could rational
custom affect even ecclesiastical practice.]

[Footnote 705: Cp. Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 339-50; Laing, _Journal of
a Residence in Norway_ (1834-36), ed. 1851, pp. 22, 23, 34, 35, 191,
214.]

[Footnote 706: Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 345. Laing (_Tour in Sweden_,
pp. 277-82) thought the Swedish peasants better off than the Scotch,
though morally inferior to the Norwegian.]

[Footnote 707: Laing, _Norway_, p. 213.]

[Footnote 708: Laing, as cited, p. 220; Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 368.]

[Footnote 709: Sweden in 1800 stood at 2,347,303; in 1880, at 4,565,668;
in 1900, at 5,136,441. Estimate for 1910, 5,521,943. Norway in 1815
stood at 886,656; in 1910 at 2,391,782.]

[Footnote 710: Laing, as cited, p. 103, _note_.]




CHAPTER III

THE HANSA


Systematic commerce in the north of Europe, broadly speaking, begins
with the traffic of the Hansa towns, whose rise may be traced to the
sudden development of civic life forced on Germany in the tenth century
by the emperor Henry I, as a means of withstanding the otherwise
irresistible raids of the Hungarians.[711] Once founded, such cities for
their own existence' sake gave freedom to all fugitive serfs who joined
them, defending such against former masters, and giving them the chance
of earning a living.[712] That is by common consent the outstanding
origin of German civic industry, and the original conditions were such
that the cities, once formed, were gradually forced[713] to special
self-reliance. _Faustrecht_, or private war, was universal, even under
emperors who suppressed feudal brigandage; and the cities had to fight
their own battle, like those of Italy, from the beginning. As compared
with the robber baronage and separate princes, they stood for
intelligence and co-operation, and supplied a basis for organisation
without which the long German chaos of the Middle Ages would have been
immeasurably worse. Taking their commercial cue from the cities of
Italy, they reached, as against feudal enemies, a measure of peaceful
union which the less differentiated Italian cities could not attain save
momentarily. The decisive conditions were that whereas in Italy the
enemies were manifold--sometimes feudal nobles, sometimes the Emperor,
sometimes the Pope--the German cities had substantially one objective,
the protection of trade from the robber-knights. Thus, as early as the
year 1284, seventy cities of South Germany formed the Rhenish League, on
which followed that of the Swabian towns. The league of the Hansa
cities, like the other early "Hansa of London," which united cities of
Flanders and France with mercantile London, was a growth on all fours
with these.[714] Starting, however, in maritime towns which grew to
commerce from beginnings in fishing, as the earlier Scandinavians had
grown to piracy, the northern League gave its main strength to trade by
sea.

Its special interest for us to-day lies in the fact that it was
ultra-racial, beginning in 1241 in a pact between the free cities of
Lübeck and Hamburg,[715] and finally including Wendish, German, Dutch,
French, and even Spanish cities, in fluctuating numbers. The motive to
union, as it had need be, was one of mercantile gain. Beginning,
apparently, by having each its separate authorised _hansa_ or
trading-group in foreign cities, the earlier trading-towns of the group,
perhaps from the measure of co-operation and fraternity thus forced on
them abroad,[716] saw their advantage in a special league for the common
good as a monopoly maintained against outsiders; and this being
extended, the whole League came to bear the generic name.

     See Kohlrausch for the theory that contact in foreign cities is the
     probable cause of the policy of union (_History of Germany_, Eng.
     tr., p. 260; cp. Ashley, _Introd. to Economic History_, i, 104,
     110). As to the origin of the word, see Stubbs, i, 447, _note_. The
     _hans_ or _hansa_ first appears historically in England as a name
     apparently identical with _gild_; and, starting with a _hansa_ or
     hanse-house of their own, English cities in some cases are found
     trading through subordinate _hansas_ in other cities, not only of
     Normandy but of England itself. Thus arose the Flemish Hansa or
     "Hansa of London," ignored in so many notices of the better-known
     Hanseatic League. Early in the thirteenth century it included a
     number of the towns of Flanders engaged in the English wool-trade;
     and later it numbered at one time seventeen towns, including
     Chalons, Rheims, St. Quentin, Cambray, and Amiens (Ashley, _Introd.
     to Economic History_, i, 109; cp. Prof. Schanz, _Englische
     Handelspolitik_, 1889, i, 6, citing Varenbergh, _Hist. des
     relations diplomatiques entre le comte de Flandre et l'Angleterre
     au moyen âge_, Bruxelles, 1874, p. 146 _sq._). There is some
     obscurity as to when the foreign Hansards were first permitted to
     have warehouses and residences of their own in London. Cp.
     Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i, §
     68; and Ashley, i, 105, following Schanz, who dates this privilege
     in the reign of Henry III, though the merchants of Cologne (_id._
     p. 110) had a _hansa_ or gildhall in London in the reign of Richard
     I. Under whatever conditions, it is clear that London was one of
     the first foreign cities in which the German Hansard traders came
     in friendly contact.

A reciprocal and normal egoism furthered as well as thwarted the Hansard
enterprise. Trade in the feudal period being a ground of privilege like
any other, the monopolied merchants of every city strove to force
foreign traders to deal with them only. On the other hand, the English
nobility sought to deal rather with the foreigner directly than with the
English middlemen; and thus in each feudal country, but notably in
England,[717] the interest of the landed class tended to throw foreign
trade substantially in foreign hands, which did their best to hold it.
In the reigns of the Edwards privileges of free trade with natives were
gradually conferred on the foreign traders[718] in the interests of the
landed class--the only "general consumers" who could then make their
claims felt--in despite of the angry resistance of the native merchant
class. For the rest, in a period when some maritime English cities, like
those of France and Germany, could still carry on private wars with each
other as well as with foreign cities,[719] a trader of one English town
was in any other English town on all fours with a foreigner.[720] When,
therefore, the foreigners combined, their advantage over the native
trade was twofold.

Naturally the cities least liable to regal interference carried on a
cosmopolitan co-operation to the best advantage. The Hansa of London,
being made up of Flemish and French cities, was hampered by the divided
allegiance of its members and by their national jealousies;[721] while
the German cities, sharing in the free German scramble under a nominal
emperor much occupied in Italy, could combine with ease. Cologne, having
early Hansa rights in London, sought to exclude the other cities, but
had to yield and join their union;[722] and the Hansa of London dwindled
and broke up before their competition. As the number of leagued cities
increased, it might be thought, something in the nature of an ideal of
free trade must have partly arisen, for the number of "privileged"
towns was thus apparently greater than that of the outside towns traded
with. To the last, however, the faith seems to have been that without
monopoly the league must perish; and in the closing Protestant period
the command of the Baltic, as against the Dutch and the Scandinavians,
was desperately and vainly battled for. But just as the cities could not
escape the play of the other political forces of the time, and were
severally clutched by this or that potentate, or biassed to their own
stock, so they could not hinder that the principle of self-seeking on
which they founded should divide themselves. As soon as the Dutch
affiliated cities saw their opening for trade in the Baltic on their own
account, they broke away.

While the league lasted, it was as remarkable a polity as any in
history. With its four great foreign factories of Bruges, London,
Bergen, and Novgorod, and its many minor stations, all conducted by
celibate servitors living together like so many bodies of friars;[723]
with its four great circles of affiliated towns, and its triennial and
other congresses, the most cosmopolitan of European parliaments; with
its military and naval system, by which, turning its trading into
fighting fleets, it made war on Scandinavian kings and put down piracy
on every hand--it was in its self-seeking and often brutal way one of
the popular civilising influences of northern Europe for some two
hundred and fifty years; and the very forces of separate national
commerce, which finally undermined it, were set up or stimulated by its
own example. With less rapacity, indeed, it might have conciliated
populations that it alienated. A lack of any higher ideals than those of
zealous commerce marks its entire career; it is associated with no such
growth of learning and the fine arts as took place in commercial
Holland; and its members seem to have been among the most unrefined of
the northern city populations.[724] But it made for progress on the
ordinary levels. In a world wholly bent on privilege in all directions,
it at least tempered its own spirit of monopoly in some measure by its
principle of inclusion; and it passed away as a great power before it
could dream of renewing the ideal of monopoly in the more sinister form
of Oriental empire taken up by the Dutch. And, while its historians have
not been careful to make a comparative study of the internal civic life
which flourished under the commercial union, it does not at all appear
that the divisions of classes were more steep, or the lot of the lower
worse, than in any northern European State of the period.

The "downfall" of such a polity, then, is conceptual only. All the
realities of life evolved by the league were passed on to its
constituent elements throughout northern Europe; and there survived from
it what the separate States had not yet been able to offer--the
adumbration, however dim, of a union reaching beyond the bounds of
nationality and the jealousies of race. In an age of private war,
without transcending the normal ethic, it practically limited private
war as regarded its German members; and while joining battle at need
with half-barbarian northern kings, or grudging foreigners, it of
necessity made peace its ideal. Its dissolution, therefore, marked at
once the advance of national organisation up to its level, and the
persistence of the more primitive over the more rational instincts of
coalition.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 711: Menzel, _Geschichte der Deutschen_, bk. ix, cap. 147;
Kohlrausch, _History of Germany_, Eng. tr., pp. 157, 162, 257; Dunham,
_History of the Germanic Empire_, 1835, i, 108; Sharon Turner, _History
of Europe during the Middle Ages_, 2nd ed. i, 13. The main authority is
the old annalist Wittikind.]

[Footnote 712: Heeren, _Essai sur l'influence des Croisades_, 1808, pp.
269-72; Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, bk. iii, ch. 3.]

[Footnote 713: As to the process of evolution, see a good summary in
Robertson's _View of the Progress of Society in Europe_ (prefixed to his
_Charles V_), Note xvii to Sect. I.]

[Footnote 714: The Spanish _Hermandad_ was originally an organisation of
cities set up in similar fashion. E. Armstrong, _Introduction_ to Major
Martin Hume's _Spain_, 1898, p. 12.]

[Footnote 715: Lübeck was founded in 1140 by a count of Holstein, and
won its freedom in the common medieval fashion by purchase. Hamburg
bought its freedom of its bishop in 1225. Hallam, _Middle Ages_, 11th
ed. iii, 324. Many Dutch, supposed to have been driven from their own
land by an inundation, settled on the Baltic coast between Bremen and
Dantzic in the twelfth century. Heeren, _Essai sur les Croisades_, 1808,
pp. 266-69, citing Leibnitz and Hoche. Cp. G.H. Schmidt, _Zur
Agrargeschichte Lübecks_, 1887, p. 30 _sq._]

[Footnote 716: "The league ... would scarcely have held long together or
displayed any real federal unity but for the pressure of external
dangers" (Art. "Hanseatic League" in _Ency. Brit._, 10th ed. xi, 450).]

[Footnote 717: Cp. Ashley, as cited, i, 104-112; Schanz, as cited, i,
331.]

[Footnote 718: Cp. W. von Ochenkowski, _Englands wirtschaftliche
Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters_, 1879. pp. 177-82, 221-31.
Cp. the author's _Trade and Tariffs_, pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1.]

[Footnote 719: Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii, 335. On private war in
general see Robertson's _View_, note 21 to § i.]

[Footnote 720: Ashley, i, 108, 109.]

[Footnote 721: Whereas in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
England and Flanders had freely exchanged trading privileges, in the
fifteenth century they begin to withdraw them, treating each other as
trading rivals (Schanz, i, 7, 8).]

[Footnote 722: Ashley, i, 110.]

[Footnote 723: This principle may have been copied from the practice of
the Lombard _Umiliati_. The common account of that order is that when in
1014 the Emperor banished a number of Lombards, chiefly Milanese, into
Germany, they formed themselves into a religious society, called "The
Humbled," and in that corporate capacity devoted themselves to various
trades, in particular to wool-working. Returning to Milan in 1019, they
developed their organisation there. Down to 1140 all the members were
laymen; but thereafter priests were placed in control. For long the
organisation was in high repute both for commercial skill and for
culture. Ultimately, like all other corporate orders, they grew corrupt;
and in 1571 they were suppressed by Pius V. (Pignotti, _Hist. of
Tuscany_, Eng. trans. 1823, pp. 266-67, _note_, following Tiraboschi.)]

[Footnote 724: In such accounts as M'Culloch's (_Treatises and Essays_)
and those of the German patriotic historians the Hansa is seen in a
rather delusive abstract. The useful monograph of Miss Zimmern (_The
Hansa Towns_: Story of the Nations Series) gives a good idea of the
reality. See in particular pp. 82-147. It should be noted, however, that
Lübeck is credited with being the first northern town to adopt the
Oriental usage of water-pipes (Macpherson, _Annals of Commerce_, 1802,
i, 381).]




Chapter IV

HOLLAND

NOTE ON LITERATURE


The special interest of Dutch history for English and other readers led
in past generations to a more general sociological study of it than was
given to almost any other. L. Guicciardini's _Description of the Low
Countries_ (_Descrizione ... di tutti Paesi Bassi_, etc., Anversa,
folio, 1567, 1581, etc.; trans. in French, 1568, etc.; in English, 1593;
in Dutch, 1582; in Latin, 1613, etc.) is one of the fullest surveys of
the kind made till recent times. Sir William Temple's _Observations upon
the United Provinces of the Netherlands_ (1672) laid for English readers
further foundations of an intelligent knowledge of the vital conditions
of the State which had been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
the great commercial rival of England; and in the eighteenth century
many English writers discussed the fortunes of Dutch commerce. An
English translation was made of the remarkably sagacious work variously
known as the _Memoirs of John de Witt_, the _True Interest of Holland_,
and _Political Maxims of the State of Holland_ (really written by De
Witt's friend, Pierre Delacourt; De Witt, however, contributing two
chapters), and much attention was given to it here and on the Continent.
In addition to the many and copious histories written in the eighteenth
century in Dutch, three or four voluminous and competent histories of
the Low Countries were written in French--_e.g._, those of Dujardin
(1757, etc., 8 vols. 4to), Cerisier (1777, etc., 10 vols. 12mo), Le
Clerc (1723-28, 3 vols. folio), Wicquefort (1719, folio, proceeding from
Peace of Münster). Of late years, though the lesson is as important as
ever, it appears to be less generally attended to. In our own country,
however, have appeared Davies' _History of Holland_ (1841, 3 vols.), a
careful but not often an illuminating work, which oddly begins with the
statement that "there is scarcely any nation whose history has been so
little understood or so generally neglected as that of Holland"; T.
Colley Grattan's earlier and shorter book (_The Netherlands_, 1830),
which is still worth reading for a general view based on adequate
learning; and the much better known works of Motley, _The Rise of the
Dutch Republic_ (1856) and the _History of the United Netherlands_
(1861-68), which deal minutely with only a period of fifty-five years of
Dutch history, and of which, as of the work of Davies, the sociological
value is much below the annalistic. All three are impaired as literature
by their stale rhetoric. The same malady infects the second volume of
the _Industrial History of the Free Nations_ (1846), by W. Torrens
M'Cullagh (afterwards M'Cullagh Torrens); but this, which deals with
Holland, is the better section of that treatise, and it gives distinct
help to a scientific conception of the process of Dutch history, as does
J.R. M'Culloch's _Essay on the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Commerce
in Holland_, which is one of the best of his _Essays and Treatises_ (2nd
ed. 1859). The _Holland_ of the late Professor Thorold Rogers has merit
as a vivacious conspectus, but hardly rises to the opportunity.

Of the many French, Belgian, and German works on special periods of the
history of the Low Countries, some have a special and general scientific
interest. Among these is the research of M. Alphonse Wauters on _Les
libertés communales_ (Bruxelles, 1878). Barante's _Histoire des Ducs de
Bourgogne_ (4th ed. 1838-40) contains much interesting matter on the
Burgundian period. The assiduous research of M. Lefèvre Pontalis, _Jean
de Witt, Grand Pensionnaire de Hollande_ (2 tom. 1884; Eng. trans. 2
vols.), throws a full light on one of the most critical periods of Dutch
history.

Dutch works on the history of the Low Countries in general, and the
United Provinces in particular, are many and voluminous; indeed, no
history has been more amply written. The good general history of the
Netherlands by N.G. van Kampen, which appeared in German in the series
of Heeren and Uckert (1831-33), is only partially superseded by the
_Geschichte der Niederlande_ of Wenzelburger (Bd. i, 1879; ii, 1886),
which is not completed. But the most readable general history of the
Netherlands yet produced is that of P.J. Blok, _Geschiedenis van het
Nederlandsche Volk_ (1892, etc.), of which there is a competent but
unfortunately abridged English translation (Putnams, vol. i, 1898).
Standard modern Dutch works are those of J.A. Vijnne, _Geschiedenis van
het Vaderland_, and J. van Lennep, _De Geschiedenis van Nederland_. For
Belgian history in particular the authorities are similarly numerous.
The _Manuel de l'histoire de Belgique_, by J. David (Louvain, 1847),
will be found a good handbook of authorities, episodes, and chronology,
though without any sociological element. The _Histoire de Belgique_ of
Th. Juste (Bruxelles, 1895, 3 tom. 4to) is comprehensive, but disfigured
by insupportable illustrations.


§ 1. _The Rise of the Netherlands_

The case of Holland is one of those which at first sight seem to flout
the sociological maxim that civilisations flourish in virtue partly of
natural advantages and partly of psychological pressures. On the face of
things, it would seem that the original negation of natural advantage
could hardly be carried farther than here. A land pieced together out of
drained marshes certainly tells more of man's effort than of Nature's
bounty. Yet even here the process of natural law is perfectly sequent
and intelligible.

One of the least-noted influences of the sea on civilisation is the
economic basis it yields in the way of food-supply. Already in Cæsar's
time the Batavians were partly fishermen; and it may be taken as certain
that through all the troubled ages down to the period of industry and
commerce it was the resource of fishing that mainly maintained and
retained population in the sea-board swamps of the Low Countries. Here
was a harvest that enemies could not destroy, that demanded no ploughing
and sowing, and that could not well be reaped by the labour of slaves.
When war and devastation could absolutely depopulate the cultivated
land, forcing all men to flee from famine, the sea for ever yielded some
return to him who could but get afloat with net or line; and he who
could sail the sea had a double chance of life and freedom as against
land enemies. Thus a sea marsh could be humanly advantaged as against a
fruitful plain, and could be a surer dwelling-place. The tables were
first effectually turned when the Norse pirates attacked from the
sea--an irresistible inroad which seems to have driven the sea-board
Frisians (as it did the coast inhabitants of France) in crowds into
slavery for protection, thus laying a broad foundation of popular
serfdom.[725] When, however, the Norse empire began to fail, the sea as
a source of sustenance again counted for civilisation; and when to this
natural basis of population and subsistence there was added the peculiar
stimulus set up by a religious inculcation or encouragement of a fish
diet, the fishing-grounds of the continent became relatively richer
estates than mines and vineyards. Venice and Holland alike owed much to
the superstition which made Christians akreophagous on Fridays and
fast-days and all through the forty days of Lent. When the plan of
salting herrings was hit upon,[726] all Christian Europe helped to make
the fortunes of the fisheries.

Net-making may have led to weaving; in any case weaving is the first
important industry developed in the Low Countries. It depended mainly on
the wool of England; and on the basis of the ancient seafaring there
thus arose a sea-going commerce.[727] Further, the position of
Flanders,[728] as a trade-centre for northern and southern Europe,
served to make it a market for all manner of produce; and round such a
market population and manufactures grew together. It belonged to the
conditions that, though the territory came under feudal rule like every
other in the medieval military period, the cities were relatively
energetic all along,[729] theirs being (after the Dark Ages, when the
work was largely done by the Church) the task of maintaining the
sea-dykes[730] and water-ways, and theirs the wealth on which alone the
feudal over-lords could hope to flourish in an unfruitful land. The
over-lords, on their part, saw the expediency of encouraging foreigners
to settle and add to their taxable population,[731] thus establishing
the tradition of political tolerance long before the Protestant period.
Hence arose in the Netherlands, after the Renaissance, the phenomenon of
a dense industrial population flourishing on a soil which finally could
not be made to feed them,[732] and carrying on a vast shipping trade
without owning a single good harbour and without possessing home-grown
timber wherewith to build their ships, or home-products to freight
them.[733]

One of the determinants of this growth on a partially democratic footing
was clearly the primary and peculiar necessity for combination by the
inhabitants to maintain the great sea-dykes, the canals, and the
embankments of the low-lying river-lands in the interior.[734] It was a
public bond in peace, over and above the normal tie of common enmities.
The result was a development of civic life still more rapid and more
marked in inland Flanders,[735] where the territorial feudal power was
naturally greater than in the maritime Dutch provinces. Self-ruling
cities, such as Ghent and Antwerp, at their meridian, were too powerful
to be effectively menaced by their immediate feudal lords. But on the
side of their relations with neighbouring cities or States they all
exhibited the normal foible; and it was owing only to the murderous
compulsion put upon them by Spain in the sixteenth century that any of
the provinces of the Netherlands became a federal republic. For five
centuries after Charlemagne, who subdued them to his system, the Low
Countries had undergone the ordinary slow evolution from pure feudalism
to the polity of municipalities. In the richer inland districts the
feudal system, lay and clerical, was at its height, the baronial castles
being "here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom";[736]
and when the growing cities began to feel their power to buy charters,
the feudal formula was unchallenged,[737] while the mass of the outside
population were in the usual "Teutonic" state of partial or complete
serfdom. It was only by burning their suburbs and taking to the walled
fortress that the people of Utrecht escaped the yoke of the
Norsemen.[738]

     Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh is responsible for the statement that "it
     seems doubtful whether any portion of the inhabitants of Holland
     were ever in a state of actual servitude or bondage," and that the
     northern provinces were more generally free from slavery than the
     others (_Industrial History of the Free Nations_, 1846, ii, 39).
     Motley (_Rise of the Dutch Republic_, as cited, pp. 17, 18)
     pronounces, on the contrary, that "in the northern Netherlands the
     degraded condition of the mass continued longest," and that "the
     number of slaves throughout the Netherlands was very large; the
     number belonging to the bishopric of Utrecht enormous." This is
     substantially borne out by Grattan, _Netherlands_, pp. 18, 34;
     Blok, _Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk_, i, 159, 160,
     305-11, Eng. tr. i, 203-8; Wauters, _Les libertés communales_,
     1878, pp. 222-30. As is noted by Blok, the status of the peasantry
     fluctuated, the thirteenth century being one of partial
     retrogression. Cp. pp. 318, 319, as to the general depression of
     the peasant class. The great impulse to slavery, as above noted,
     seems to have been given by the Norse pirates in general and the
     later Norman invaders, who, under Godfrey, forced every "free"
     Frisian to wear a halter. The comparative protection accruing to
     slaves of the Church was embraced by multitudes. In the time of the
     Crusades, again, many serfs were sold or mortgaged to the Church by
     the nobles in order to obtain funds for their expedition.

The cities were thus the liberating and civilising forces;[739] and the
application of townsmen's capital to the land was an early influence in
improving rural conditions.[740] But there was no escape from the
fatality of strife in the Teutonic any more than in the ancient Greek or
in the contemporary Italian world. Flanders, having the large markets of
France at hand, developed its clothmaking and other industries more
rapidly than the Frisian districts, where weaving was probably earlier
carried on;[741] and here serfdom disappeared comparatively early,[742]
the nobility dwindling through their wars; but the new industrial
strifes of classes, which grew up everywhere in the familiar fashion,
naturally matured the sooner in the more advanced civilisation; and
already at the beginning of the fourteenth century we find a resulting
disintegration. The monopoly methods of the trade gilds drove much of
the weaving industry into the villages; then the Franco-Flemish wars,
wherein the townspeople, by expelling the French in despite of the
nobility, greatly strengthened their position,[743] nevertheless tended,
as did the subsequent civil wars, to drive trade into South Brabant.

In Flemish Ghent and Bruges the clashing interests of weavers and
woollen-traders, complicated by the strife of the French (aristocratic)
and anti-French (popular) factions, led to riots in which citizens and
magistrates were killed (1301). At times these enmities reached the
magnitude of civil war. At Ypres (1303) a combination of workmen
demanded the suppression of rival industries in neighbouring villages,
and in an ensuing riot the mayor and all the magistrates were slain; at
Bruges (1302) a trade riot led to the loss of fifteen hundred
lives.[744] When later the weaving trade had flourished in Brabant, the
same fatality came about: plebeians rebelled against patrician
magistrates--themselves traders or employers of labour--in the principal
cities; and Brussels (1312) was for a time given up to pillage and
massacre, put down only by the troops of the reigning duke. A great
legislative effort was made in the "Laws of Cortenberg," framed by an
assembly of nobles and city deputies, to regulate fiscal and industrial
affairs in a stable fashion;[745] but after fifty years the trouble
broke out afresh, and was ill-healed.[746] At length, in a riot in the
rich city of Louvain (1379), sixteen of its patrician magistrates were
slain, whereupon many took flight to England, but many more to Haarlem,
Amsterdam, Leyden, and other Dutch cities.[747] Louvain never again
recovered its trade and wealth;[748] and since the renewed
Franco-Flemish wars of this period had nearly destroyed the commerce of
Flanders,[749] there was a general gravitation of both merchandise and
manufacture to Holland.[750] Thus arose Dutch manufactures in an organic
connection with maritime commerce, the Dutch municipal organisation
securing a balance of trade interests where that of the Flemish
industrial cities had partially failed.

The commercial lead given by the Hanseatic League was followed in the
Netherlands with a peculiar energy, and till the Spanish period the main
part of Dutch maritime commerce was with northern Europe and the Hansa
cities. So far as the language test goes, the original Hansards and the
Dutch were of the same "Low Dutch" stock, which was also that of the
Anglo-Saxons.[751] Thus there was seen the phenomenon of a vigorous
maritime and commercial development among the continental branches of
the race; while the English, having lost its early seafaring habits on
its new settlement, lagged far behind in both developments. Kinship, of
course, counted for nothing towards goodwill between the nations when it
could not keep peace within or between the towns; and in the fifteenth
century the Dutch cities are found at war with the Hansa, as they had
been in the thirteenth with England, and were to be again. But the
spirit of strife did its worst work at home. On the one hand, a physical
schism had been set up in Friesland in the thirteenth century by the
immense disaster of the inundation which enlarged the Zuyder Zee.[752]
Of that tremendous catastrophe there are singularly few historic traces;
but it had the effect of making two small countries where there had been
one large one, what was left of West Friesland being absorbed in the
specific province of Holland, while East Friesland, across the Zuyder
Zee, remained a separate confederation of maritime districts.[753] To
the south-west, again, the great Flemish cities were incurably jealous
of each other's prosperity, as well as inwardly distracted by their
class disputes; and within the cities of Holland, in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, while intelligible lines of cleavage between trades
or classes are hard to find, the factions of Hoek and Kabbeljauw, the
"Hooks" and the "Codfish," appear to have carried on a chronic strife,
as irrational as any to be noted in the cities of Italy. Thus in the
north as in the south, among Teutons as among "Latins" and among ancient
Greeks, the primary instincts of separation checked democratic growth
and coalition; though after the period of local feudal sovereignties the
powerful monarchic and feudal forces in the Netherlands withheld the
cities from internecine wars.

     The most sympathetic historians are forced from the first to note
     the stress of mutual jealousy among the cities and districts of the
     Netherlands. "The engrained habit of municipal isolation," says
     one, "was the cause why the general liberties of the Netherlands
     were imperilled, why the larger part of the country was ultimately
     ruined, and why the war of independence was conducted with so much
     risk and difficulty, even in the face of the most serious perils"
     (Thorold Rogers, _Holland_, p. 26. Cp. pp. 35, 43; Motley, pp. 29,
     30, 43; Grattan, pp. 39, 50, 51). Van Kampen avows (_Geschichte der
     Niederlande_, i, 131) that throughout the Middle Ages Friesland was
     unprogressive owing to constant feuds. Even as late as 1670 Leyden
     refused to let the Harle Maer be drained, because it would
     advantage other cities; and Amsterdam in turn opposed the reopening
     of the old Rhine channel because it would make Leyden maritime
     (Temple, _Observations_, i, 130, ch. iii).

     As regards the early factions of the "Hooks" and the "Codfish" in
     the Dutch towns, the historic obscurity is so great that historians
     are found ascribing the names in contrary ways. Grattan (p. 49)
     represents the Hooks as the town party, and the Codfish as the
     party of the nobles; Motley (p. 21) reverses the explanation,
     noting, however, that there was no consistent cleavage of class or
     of principle (cp. M'Cullagh, pp. 99, 100). This account is
     supported by Van Kampen, i, 170, 171. The fullest survey of the
     Hook and Cod feud is given by Wenzelburger, _Geschichte der
     Niederlande_, i, 210-42. As to feuds of other parties in some of
     the cities see Van Kampen, i, 172. They included, for example, a
     class feud between the rich _Vetkooper_ (fat-dealers) and the poor
     _Schieringer_ (eel-fishers). See Davies, i, 180.

Thus dissident, and with feudal wars breaking out in every generation,
the cities and provinces could win concessions from their feudal chiefs
when the latter were in straits, as in the famous case of the "Great
Privilege" extorted from the Duchess Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold
of Burgundy, after her father's overthrow by the Swiss; again in the
case of her husband Maximilian after her death; and previously in the
reaffirmation of the ill-observed Laws of Cortenberg, secured from the
Duke of Brabant by the Louvainers in 1372; but they could never deliver
themselves from the feudal superstition, never evolve the republican
ideal. When the rich citizens exploited the poor, it was the local
sovereign's cue, as of old, to win the populace; whereupon the
patricians leant to the over-lord, were he even the King of France; or
it might be that the local lord himself sought the intervention of his
suzerain, who again was at times the first to meddle, and against whom,
as against rival potentates, the cities would at times fight desperately
for their recognised head, when he was not overtaxing or thwarting them,
or endangering their commerce.[754] It was a medley of clashing
interests, always in unstable equilibrium. And so when sovereign powers
on a great scale, as the Dukes of Burgundy, followed by the Archduke
Maximilian, and later by the Emperor Charles, came into the inheritance
of feudal prestige, the Dutch and Flemish cities became by degrees
nearly as subordinate as those of France and Germany, losing one by one
their municipal privileges.[755] The monarchic superstition overbore the
passions of independence and primary interest; and a strong feudal ruler
could count on a more general and durable loyalty than was ever given to
any citizen-statesman. James van Arteveldt, who guided Ghent in the
fourteenth century, and whose policy was one of alliance with the
English king against the French, the feudal over-lord, was "the greatest
personality Flanders ever produced."[756] But though Arteveldt's policy
was maintained even by his murderers, murdered he was by his
fellow-citizens, as the great De Witt was to be murdered in Holland
three hundred years later. The monarchised Netherlanders were
republicans only in the last resort, as against insupportable tyranny.
Philip of Burgundy, who heavily oppressed them, they called "The Good."
At the end of the fifteenth century Maximilian was able, even before he
became Emperor, not only to crush the "bread-and-cheese" rebellion of
the exasperated peasantry in Friesland and Guelderland,[757] but to put
down all the oligarchs who had rebelled against him, and finally to
behead them by the dozen,[758] leaving the land to his son as a
virtually subject State.

In the sixteenth century, under Charles V, the men of Ghent, grown once
again a great commercial community,[759] exhibited again the fatal
instability of the undeveloped democracy of all ages. Called upon to pay
their third of a huge subsidy of 1,200,000 _caroli_ voted by the Flemish
States to the Emperor, they rang their bell of revolt and defied him,
offering their allegiance to the King of France. That monarch, by way of
a bargain, promptly betrayed the intrigue to his "brother," who
thereupon marched in force through France to the rebel city, now
paralysed by terror; and without meeting a shadow of resistance,
penalised it to the uttermost, beheading a score of leading citizens,
banishing many more, annulling its remaining municipal rights, and
exacting an increased tribute.[760] It needed an extremity of grievance
to drive such communities to an enduring rebellion. When Charles V
abdicated at Brussels in favour of his son Philip in 1555, he had
already caused to be put to death Netherlanders to the number at least
of thousands for religious heresy;[761] and still the provinces were
absolutely submissive, and the people capable of weeping collectively
out of sympathy with the despot's infirmities.[762] He, on his part,
born and educated among them, and knowing them well, was wont to say of
them that there was not a nation under the sun which more detested the
_name_ of slavery, or that bore the reality more patiently when managed
with discretion.[763] He spoke whereof he knew.


§ 2. _The Revolt against Spain_

That the people who endured so much at the hands of a despot should have
revolted unsubduably against his son is to be explained in terms of
certain circumstances little stressed in popular historiography. In the
narratives of the rhetorical historians, no real explanation arises. The
revolt figures as a stand for personal and religious freedom. But when
Charles abdicated, after slaying his thousands, the Reformation had been
in full tide for over thirty years; Calvin had built up Protestant
Geneva to the point of burning Servetus; England had been for twenty
years depapalised; France, with many scholars and nobles converted to
Calvinism, was on the verge of a civil war of Huguenots and Catholics;
the Netherlands themselves had been drenched in the blood of heretics;
and still no leading man had thought of repudiating either Spain or
Rome. Yet within thirteen years they were in full revolt, led by William
of Orange, now turned Protestant. Seeing that mere popular Protestantism
had spread far and gone fast, religious opinion was clearly not the
determining force.

In reality, the _conditio sine qua non_ was the psychological reversal
effected by Philip when he elected to rule as a Spaniard, where his
father had in effect ruled as a Fleming. Charles had always figured as a
native of the Netherlands, at home among his people, friendly to their
great men, ready to employ them in his affairs, even to the extent of
partly ruling Spain through them. After his punishment of Ghent they
were his boon subjects; and in his youth it was the Spaniards who were
jealous of the Flemish and Dutch. This state of things had begun under
his Flemish-German father, Philip I, who became King of Spain by
marriage, and under whom the Netherland nobles showed in Spain a
rapacity that infuriated the Spaniards against them. It was a question
simply of racial predominance; and had the dynasty chosen to fix its
capital in the north rather than in the south, it would have been the
lot of the Netherlanders to exploit Spain--a task for which they were
perfectly ready.

     The gross rapacity of the Flemings in Spain under Philip I is
     admitted by Motley (_Rise_, as cited, pp. 31, 75); but on the same
     score feeling was passionately strong in Spain in the earlier years
     of the reign of Charles. Cp. Robertson, _Charles V_, bk. i (Works,
     ed. 1821, iv, 37, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 55, 77 78); and van
     Kampen, _Geschichte der Niederlande_, i, 277, 278. It took more
     than ten years to bring Charles in good relations with the
     Spaniards. See Mr. E. Armstrong's _Introduction_ to Major Martin
     Hume's _Spain_, 1898, pp. 31-37, 57, 76. Even in his latter years
     they are found protesting against his customary absence from Spain,
     and his perpetual wars. Robertson, bk. vi, p. 494. Cp. bk. xii,
     vol. v, p. 417, as to the disregard shown him after his abdication.

     While it lasted, the Flemish exploitation of Spain was as shameless
     as the Spanish exploitation of Italy. The Italian Peter Martyr
     Angleria, residing at the court of Spain, reckoned that in ten
     months the Flemings there remitted home over a million ducats
     (Robertson, bk. i, p. 53). A lad, nephew of Charles's Flemish
     minister Chievres, was appointed to the archbishopric of Toledo, in
     defiance of general indignation. The result was a clerico-popular
     insurrection. Everything goes to show that but for the Emperor's
     prudence his Flemings would have ruined him in Spain, by getting
     him to tyrannise for their gain, as Philip II later did for the
     Church's sake in the Netherlands.

It is not unwarrantable to say that had not Charles had the sagacity to
adapt himself to the Spanish situation, learning to speak the language
and even to tolerate the pride of the nobles[764] to a degree to which
he never yielded before the claims of the burghers of the Netherlands,
and had he not in the end identified himself chiefly with his Spanish
interests, the history of Spain and the Netherlands might have been
entirely reversed. Had he, that is, kept his seat of rule in the
Netherlands, drawing thither the unearned revenues of the Americas, and
still contrived to keep Spain subject to his rule, the latter country
would have been thrown back on her great natural resources, her
industry, and her commerce, which, as it was, developed markedly during
his reign,[765] despite the heavy burdens of his wars. And in that case
Spain might conceivably have become the Protestant and rebellious
territory, and the Netherlands on the contrary have remained Catholic
and grown commercially decrepit, having in reality the weaker potential
economic basis.

     The theorem that the two races were vitally opposed in "religious
     sentiment," and that "it was as certain that the Netherlanders
     would be fierce reformers as that the Spaniards would be
     uncompromising persecutors" (Motley, p. 31), is part of the common
     pre-scientific conception of national development, and proceeds
     upon flat disregard of the historical evidence. It is well
     established that there was as much heresy of the more rational
     Protestant and Unitarian sort in Spain, to begin with, as in
     Holland. Under Ferdinand and Isabella the Inquisition seems to
     have struck mainly at Judaic and Moorish monotheistic heresy, which
     was not uncommon among the upper classes, while the lower were for
     the most part orthodox (Armstrong, _Introd._ to Major Hume's
     _Spain_, pp. 14, 18). Thus there is good ground for the surmise
     that Ferdinand's object was primarily the confiscation of the
     wealth of Jews and other rich heretics. (See U.R. Burke, _History
     of Spain_, 1895, ii, 101; Hume's ed. 1900, ii, 74.) In Aragon,
     Valencia, and Catalonia there was general resistance to the
     Inquisition; in Cordova there was a riot against it; in Saragossa
     the Inquisitor was murdered before the altar (Armstrong, p. 18;
     Llorente, _Hist. crit. de l'Inquisition d'Espagne_, éd. 1818, i,
     185-213; M'Crie, _Reformation in Spain_, ed. 1856, pp. 52-53. Cp.
     U.R. Burke, as cited, ii, 97, 98, 101, 103, 111; Hume's ed. ii, 66,
     70-71, 74-77, 82; as to the general and prolonged resistance of the
     people). During that reign Torquemada is credited with burning ten
     thousand persons in eighteen years (Prescott, _History of Ferdinand
     and Isabella_, Kirk's ed. 1889, p. 178, citing Llorente. But see p.
     746, _note_, as to possible exaggeration. Cp. Burke, ii, 113;
     Hume's ed. ii, 84). In the early Lutheran period the spread of
     scholarly Protestantism in Spain was extremely rapid (La
     Rigaudière, _Histoire des persécutions religieuses en Espagne_,
     1860, p. 245 sq.), and in the early years of Philip II it needed
     furious persecution to crush it, thousands leaving the kingdom
     (Prescott, _Philip II_, bk. ii, ch. iii; M'Crie, _Reformation in
     Spain_, ch. viii; De Castro, _History of the Spanish Protestants_,
     Eng. tr. 1851, _passim_). At the outset, 800 persons were arrested
     in Seville alone in one day; and the Venetian ambassador in 1562
     testifies to the large number of Huguenots in Spain (Ranke, _Hist.
     of the Popes_, bk. v, Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. p. 136).

     Had Philip II had Flemish sympathies and chosen to make Brussels
     his capital, the stress of the Inquisition could have fallen on the
     Netherlands as successfully as it actually did on Spain. His
     father's reign had proved as much. According to Motley, not only
     multitudes of Anabaptists but "thousands and tens of thousands of
     virtuous and well-disposed men and women" had then been "butchered
     in cold blood" (_Rise_, p. 43), without any sign of rebellion on
     the part of the provinces, whose leading men remained Catholic. In
     1600 most of the inhabitants of Groningen were Catholics (Davies,
     ii, 347). A Protestant historian (Grattan, p. 93) admits that the
     Protestants "never, and least of all in these days, formed the
     mass." Another has admitted, as regards those of Germany, that
     "nothing had contributed more to the undisturbed progress of their
     opinions than the interregnum after Maximilian's death, the long
     absence of Charles, and the slackness of the reins of government
     which these occasioned" (Robertson, _Charles V_, bk. v, ed. cited
     of _Works_, vol. iv, p. 387). "It was only tanners, dyers, and
     apostate priests who were Protestants at that day in the
     Netherlands" (Motley, p. 124). The same conditions would have had
     similar results in Spain, where many Catholics thought Philip much
     too religious for his age and station (Motley, p. 76).

     It seems necessary to insist on the elementary fact that it was
     Netherlanders who put Protestants to death in the Netherlands; and
     that it was Spaniards who were burnt in Spain. In the Middle Ages
     "nowhere was the persecution of heretics more relentless than in
     the Netherlands" (Motley, p. 36; cp. p. 132). Grenvelle, most
     zealous of heresy-hunters, was a Burgundian; Viglius, an even
     bitterer persecutor, was a Frisian. The statement of Prescott
     (_Philip II_, Kirk's ed. 1894, p. 149) that the Netherlanders
     "claimed freedom of thought as their birthright" is a gratuitous
     absurdity. As regards, further, the old hallucination of "race
     types," it has to be noted that Charles, a devout Catholic and
     persecutor, was emphatically _Teutonic_, according to the
     established canons. His stock was Burgundo-Austrian on the father's
     side; his Spanish mother was of Teutonic descent; he had the fair
     hair, blue eyes, and hanging jaw and lip of the Teutonic Hapsburgs
     (see Menzel, _Geschichte der Deutschen_, cap. 341), and so had his
     descendants after him. On the other hand, William the Silent was
     markedly "Spanish" in his physiognomy (Motley, p. 56), and his
     reticence would in all ages pass for a Spanish rather than a
     "Teutonic" characteristic. Motley is reduced to such shifts of
     rhetoric concerning Philip II as the proposition (p. 75) that "the
     Burgundian and Austrian elements of his blood seemed to have
     evaporated." But his descendant, Philip IV, as seen in the great
     portraits of Velasquez, is, like him, a "typical" Teuton; and the
     stock preserved the Teutonic physiological tendency to gluttony, a
     most "un-Spanish" characteristic.

     It is true that, as Buckle argues, the many earthquakes in Spain
     tended to promote superstitious fear; but then on his principles
     the Dutch seafaring habits, and the constant risks and frequent
     disasters of inundation, had the same primary tendency. For the
     rest, the one serious oversight in Buckle's theory of Spanish
     civilisation is his assumption (cp. 3-vol. ed. ii, 455-61; 1-vol.
     ed. p. 550) that Spanish "loyalty" was abnormal and continuous from
     the period of the first struggles with the Moors. As to this see
     the present writer's notes in the 1-vol. ed. of Buckle, as cited.
     Even Ferdinand, as an Aragonese, was disrespectfully treated by the
     Castilians (cp. Armstrong as cited, pp. 5, 31, etc.; De Castro,
     _History of Religious Intolerance in Spain_, Eng. tr. 1853, pp. 40,
     41); and Philip I and Charles V set up a new resistance. An alien
     dynasty could set up disaffection in Spain as elsewhere.

     It should be noted, finally, that the stiff ceremonialism which is
     held to be the special characteristic of Spanish royalty was a
     Burgundo-Teutonic innovation, dating from Philip I, and that even
     in the early days of Philip the Cortes petitioned "that the
     household of the Prince Don Carlos should be arranged on the old
     Spanish lines, and not in the pompous new-fangled way of the House
     of Burgundy" (Major Hume's _Spain_, p. 127). Prescott (_Philip II_,
     ed. cited, pp. 655, 659) makes the petition refer to the king's own
     household, and shows it to have condemned the king's excessive
     expenditure in very strong terms, saying the expense of his
     household was "as great as would be required for the conquest of a
     kingdom." At the same time the Cortes petitioned against
     bull-fights, which appear to have originated with the Moors, were
     strongly opposed by Isabella the Catholic, and were much encouraged
     by the Teutonic Charles V (U.R. Burke, _History of Spain_, 1895,
     ii, 2-4; Hume's ed. i, 328 _sq._). In fine, the conventional Spain
     is a manufactured system, developed under a Teutonic dynasty. "To a
     German race of sovereigns Spain finally owed the subversion of her
     national system and ancient freedom" (Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ 4th
     ed. i, 5).

No doubt the Dutch disaffection to Philip, which began to reveal itself
immediately after his accession, may be conceived as having economic
grounds. Indeed, his creation of fresh bishoprics, and his manipulation
of the abbey revenues, created instant and general resentment among
churchmen and nobles,[766] as compared with his mere continuation of
religious persecution; and despite his pledges to the contrary, certain
posts in the Low Countries were conferred on Spaniards.[767] But had he
shown his father's adaptability, all this could have been adjusted. Had
he either lived at Brussels or made the Flemings feel that he held them
an integral part of his empire, he would have had the zealous support of
the upper classes in suppressing the popular heresy, which repelled
them. Heresy in the Netherlands, indeed, seems thus far to have been on
the whole rather licentious and anarchic than austere or "spiritual."
The pre-Protestant movements of the Béguines, Beghards, and Lollards,
beginning well, had turned out worse than the orders of friars in the
south; and the decorous "Brethren of the Common Lot" were in the main
"good churchmen," only a minority accepting Protestantism.[768] In face
of the established formulas concerning the innate spirituality of the
Teuton, and of the play of his "conscience" in his course at the
Reformation, there stand the historic facts that in the Teutonic world
alone was the Reformation accompanied by widespread antinomianism,
debauchery, and destructive violence. In France, Spain, and Italy there
were no such movements as the Anabaptist, which so far as it could go
was almost a dissolution of sane society.[769] From Holland that
movement drew much of its strength and leadership, even as, in a
previous age, the antinomian movement of Tanquelin had there had its
main success.[770] Such was the standing of Dutch Protestantism in 1555;
and no edict against heresy could be more searching and merciless than
that drawn up by Charles in 1550[771] without losing any upper-class
loyalty. Philip did but strive to carry it out.[772]

Had Philip, further, maintained a prospect of chronic war for the
nobility of the Netherlands, the accruing chances of wealth[773] would
in all likelihood have sufficed to keep them loyal. In the early wars of
his reign with France immense gains had been made by them in the way of
ransoms and booty. When these ceased, luxury continuing, embarrassment
became general.[774] But when Philip's energies were seen to be mainly
bent on killing out heresy, the discontented nobles began to lean to the
side of the persecuted commonalty. At the first formation of the
Confederacy of the "Beggars" in 1566, almost the only zealous Protestant
among the leaders was William's impetuous brother Louis of Nassau, a
Calvinist by training, who had for comrade the bibulous Brederode. The
name of "Gueux," given to the malcontents in contempt by the councillor
Berlaimont, had direct application to the known poverty or embarrassment
of the great majority.[775] There was thus undisguisedly at work in the
Netherlands the great economic force which had brought about "the
Reformation" in all the Teutonic countries; and the needy nobles
insensibly grew Protestant as it became more and more clear that only
the lands of the Church could restore their fortunes.[776] This holds
despite the fact that the more intelligent Protestantism which latterly
spread among the people was the comparatively democratic form set up by
Calvin, which reached the Low Countries through France, finding the
readier reception among the serious because of the prestige accruing to
its austerity as against the moral disrepute which now covered the
German forms.

[As to the proportional success of Lutheranism and Calvinism, see
Motley, pp. 132, 133; and Grattan, pp. 110, 111. (On p. 110 of Grattan
there is a transposition of "second" and "third" groups, which the
context corrects.) Motley, an inveterate Celtophobe, is at pains to make
out that the Walloons rebelled first and were first reconciled to Rome,
"exactly like their Celtic ancestors, fifteen centuries earlier." He
omits to comment on the fact that it was only the French form of
Protestantism, that of Calvin, that became viable in the Netherlands at
all, or on the fact that indecent Anabaptism flourished mainly in
Friesland; though he admits that the Lutheran movement left all
religious rights in the hands of the princes, the people having to
follow the creed of their rulers. The "racial" explanation is mere
obscurantism, here as always. The Walloons of South Flanders were first
affected simply because they were first in touch with Huguenotism. That
they were never converted in large numbers to Protestantism is later
admitted by Motley himself (p. 797), who thereupon speaks of the
"intense attachment to the Roman ceremonial which distinguished the
Walloon population." Thus his earlier statement that they had rebelled
against "papal Rome" is admittedly false. They had rebelled simply
against the Spanish tyranny. Yet the false statement is left
standing--one more illustration of the havoc that may be worked in a
historian's intelligence by a prejudice. (For other instances see, in
the author's volume _The Saxon and the Celt_, the chapters dealing with
Mommsen and Burton.)

It was the Teutonic-speaking city populations of North Flanders and
Brabant who became Protestants in mass after the troubles had begun
(Motley, p. 798). When the Walloon provinces withdrew from the
combination against Spain, the cities of Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, and
Ypres joined the Dutch Union of Utrecht. They were one and all reduced
by the skill and power of Alexander of Parma, who thereupon abolished
the freedom of Protestant worship. The Protestants fled in thousands to
England and the Dutch provinces, the remaining population, albeit mostly
Teutonic, becoming Catholic. At this moment one-and-a-half of the
four-and-a-half millions of Dutch are Catholics; while in Belgium, where
there are hardly any Protestants, the Flemish-speaking and
French-speaking populations are nearly equal in numbers.

Van Kampen, who anticipated Motley in disparaging the Walloons as being
Frenchly fickle (_Geschichte_, i, 366), proceeds to contend that even
the Flemings are more excitable than the Dutch and other Teutons; but he
notes later that as the Dutch poet Cats was much read and imitated in
Belgium, he was thus proved to have expressed the spirit of the whole
Netherlands (ii, 109). Once more, then, the racial theory collapses.]

Thus the systematic savagery of the Inquisition under Philip, for which
the people at first blamed not at all the king but his Flemish minister,
Cardinal Granvelle, served rather to make a basis and pretext for
organised revolt than directly to kindle it. In so far as the people
spontaneously resorted to violence, in the image-breaking riots, they
compromised and imperilled the nationalist movement in the act of
precipitating it. The king's personal equation, finally, served to make
an enemy of the masterly William of Orange, who, financially embarrassed
like the lesser nobility,[777] could have been retained as an
administrator by a wise monarch. A matter so overlaid with historical
declamation is hard to set in a clear light; but it may serve to say of
William that he was made a "patriot," as was Robert the Bruce, by stress
of circumstances;[778] and that in the one case as in the other it was
exceptional character and capacity that made patriotism a success;[779]
William in particular having to maintain himself against continual
domestic enmity, patrician as well as popular. Nothing short of the
ferocity and rapacity of the Spanish attack, indeed, could have long
united the Netherlands. The first confederacy dissolved at the approach
of Alva, who, strong in soldiership but incapable of a statesmanlike
settlement, drove the Dutch provinces to extremities by his cruelty,
caused a hundred thousand artisans and traders to fly with their
industry and capital, exasperated even the Catholic ministers in
Flanders by his proposed taxes, and finally by imposing them enraged
into fresh revolt the people he had crushed and terrorised, till they
were eager to offer the sovereignty to the queen of England. When
Requesens came with pacificatory intentions, it was too late; and the
Pacification of Ghent (1576) was but a breathing-space between grapples.

What finally determined the separation and independence of the Dutch
Provinces was their maritime strength. Antwerp, trading largely on
foreign bottoms, represented wealth without the then indispensable
weapons. Dutch success begins significantly with the taking of Brill
(1572) by the gang of William van der Marck, mostly pirates and
ruffians, whose methods William of Orange could not endure.[780] But
they had shown the military basis for the maritime States. It was the
Dutch fleet that prevented Parma's from joining "the" Armada under
Medina-Sidonia,[781] thereby perhaps saving England. Such military
genius and energy as Parma's might have made things go hard with the
Dutch States had he lived, or had he not been called off against his
judgment to fight in France; but his death well balanced the
assassination of William of Orange, who had thus far been the great
sustainer and welder of the movement of independence. Plotted against
and vilified by the demagogues of Ghent, betrayed by worthless fellow
nobles, Teutonic and French alike; chronically insulted in his own
person and humiliated in that of his brother John, whom the States
treated with unexampled meanness; stupidly resisted in his own
leadership by the same States, whose egoism left Maestricht to its fate
when he bade them help, and who cast on him the blame when it fell;
thwarted and crippled by the fanaticism and intolerant violence of the
Protestant mobs of the towns; bereaved again and again in the
vicissitude of the struggle, William turned to irrelevance all
imputations of self-seeking; and in his unfailing sagacity and fortitude
he finally matches any aristocrat statesman in history. Doubtless he
would have served Philip well had Philip chosen him and trusted him. But
as it lay in one thoroughly able man, well placed for prestige in a
crisis, to knit and establish a new nation, so it lay in one fanatical
dullard[782] to wreck half of his own empire, with the greatest captains
of his age serving him; and to bring his fabled treasury to ruin while
his despised rebels grew rich.

     As to the vice of the Dutch constitution, the principle of the
     supremacy of "State rights," see M'Cullagh, p. 215; Motley, _Rise_,
     pp. 794, 795 (Pt. vi, ch. ii, _end_), and _United Netherlands_, ed.
     1867, iv, 564. Wicquefort (_L'histoire des Provinces-Unies_, La
     Haye, 1719, pp. 5, 16), following Grotius, laid stress long ago on
     the fact that the Estates of each province recognised no superior,
     not even the entire body of the Republic. It was only the measure
     of central government set up in the Burgundo-Austrian and Spanish
     periods that made the Seven Provinces capable of enough united
     action to repel Spanish rule during a chronic struggle of eighty
     years. Cp. Van Kampen (i, 304), who points out (p. 306) that the
     word "State" first appears in Holland in the fifteenth century. It
     arose in Flanders in the thirteenth, and in Brabant in the
     fourteenth. Only in 1581, after some years of war, did the United
     Provinces set up a General Executive Council. In the same year the
     Prince of Orange was chosen sovereign (Motley, pp. 838, 841).


§ 3. _The Supremacy of Dutch Commerce_

The conquest of Flanders by Alexander of Parma, reducing its plains to
wolf-haunted wildernesses, and driving the great mass of the remaining
artisans from its ruined towns,[783] helped to consummate the prosperity
of the United Provinces, who took over the industry of Ghent with the
commerce of Antwerp.[784] Getting the start of all northern Europe in
trade, they had become at the date of their assured independence the
chief trading State in the world. Whatever commercial common sense the
world had yet acquired was there in force. And inasmuch as the wealth
and strength of these almost landless States, with their mostly poor
soil and unavoidably heavy imposts, depended so visibly on quantity of
trade turnover, they not only continued to offer a special welcome to
all immigrants, but gradually learned to forego the congenial Protestant
strife of sects. It was indeed a reluctantly-learned lesson. Even as
local patriotisms constantly tended to hamper unity during the very
period of struggle, so the primary spirit of self-assertion set the
ruling Calvinistic party upon persecuting not only Catholics and
Lutherans, but the new heresy of Arminianism:[785] so little does
"patriotic" warfare make for fraternity in peace. The judicial murder of
the statesman John van Olden Barneveldt (1619) at the hands of Maurice
of Orange, whom he had guarded in childhood and trained to
statesmanship, was accomplished as a sequel to the formal proscription
of the Arminian heresy in the Synod of Dort; and Barneveldt was formally
condemned for "troubling God's Church" as well as on the charge of
treason.[786] On the same pretexts Grotius was thrown into prison; and
the freedom of the press was suspended.[787] It was doubtless the shame
of the memory of the execution of Barneveldt (the true founder of the
Republic as such),[788] on an absolutely false charge of treason, and
the observation of how, as elsewhere, persecution drove away population,
that mainly wrought for the erection of tolerance (at least as between
Protestant sects) into a State principle.

The best side of the Dutch polity was its finance, which was a lesson to
all Europe. Already in the early stages of the struggle with Spain, the
States were able on credit to make war, in virtue of their character for
commercial honour. Where the king of Spain, with all his revenues
mortgaged past hope,[789] got from the Pope an absolution from the
payment of interest on the sums borrowed from Spanish and Genoese
merchants, and so ruined his credit,[790] the Dutch issued tin money and
paper money, and found it readily pass current with friends and
foes.[791]

Of all the Protestant countries, excepting Switzerland, the Dutch States
alone disposed of their confiscated church lands in the public
interest.[792] There was indeed comparatively little to sell,[793] and
the money was sorely needed to carry on the war; but the transaction
seems to have been carried through without any corruption. It was the
suggestion of what might be accomplished in statecraft by the new
_expertise_ of trade, forced into the paths of public spirit and checked
by a stress of public opinion such as had never come into play in
Venice. Against such a power as Spain, energy ruled by unteachable
unintelligence, a world-empire financed by the expedients of provincial
feudalism, the Dutch needed only an enduring resentment to sustain them,
and this Philip amply elicited. Had he spent on light cruisers for the
destruction of Dutch commerce the treasure he wasted on the Armadas
against England and on his enormous operations by land, typified in the
monstrous siege of Antwerp, he might have struck swiftly and surely at
the very arteries of Dutch life; but in yielding to them the command of
their primary source and channel of wealth, the sea, he insured their
ultimate success. In the Franco-Spanish war of 1521-25 the French
cruisers nearly ruined the herring fishery of Holland and Zealand;[794]
and it was doubtless the memory of that plight that set the States on
maintaining predominant power at sea.[795]

Throughout the war, which from first to last spread over eighty years,
the Dutch commerce grew while that of Spain dwindled. Under Charles V,
Flanders and Brabant alone had paid nearly two-thirds of the whole
imperial taxation of the Netherlands;[796] but after a generation or
two the United Provinces must have been on an equality of financial
resources with those left under Spanish rule, even in a state of peace.
Yet in this posture of things there had grown up a burden which
represented, in the warring commercial State, the persistent principle
of class parasitism; for at the Peace of Münster (1648) the funded
public debt of the province of Holland alone amounted to nearly
150,000,000 florins, bearing interest at five per cent.[797] Of this
annual charge, the bulk must have gone into the pockets of the wealthier
citizens, who had thus secured a mortgage on the entire industry of the
nation. All the while, Holland was nominally rich in "possessions"
beyond sea. When, in 1580, Philip annexed Portugal, with which the Dutch
had hitherto carried on a profitable trade for the eastern products
brought as tribute to Lisbon, they began to cast about for an Asiatic
trade of their own, first seeking vainly for a north-east passage. The
need was heightened when in 1586 Philip, who as a rule ignored the
presence of Dutch traders in his ports under friendly flags, arrested
all the Dutch shipping he could lay hands on;[798] and when in 1594 he
closed to them the port of Lisbon, he forced them to a course which his
successors bitterly rued. In 1595 they commenced trading by the Cape
passage to the Indies, and a fleet sent out by Spain to put down their
enterprise was as usual defeated.[799] Then arose a multitude of
companies for the East Indian trade, which in 1602 were formed by the
government into a great semi-official joint-stock concern, at once
commercial and military, reminiscent of the Hanseatic League. The result
was a long series of settlements and conquests. Amboyna and the Moluccas
were seized from the Portuguese, now subordinate to Spain; Java, where a
factory was founded in 1597, was in the next generation annexed; Henry
Hudson, an English pilot in the Dutch Company's service, discovered the
Hudson River and Bay in 1609, and founded New Amsterdam about 1624. In
1621 was formed the Dutch West India Company, which in fifteen years
fitted out 800 ships of trade and war, captured 545 from the Spanish and
Portuguese, with cargoes valued at 90,000,000 florins, and conquered the
greater part of what had been the Portuguese empire in Brazil.

No such commercial development had before been seen in Europe. About
1560, according to Guicciardini,[800] 500 ships had been known to come
and go in a day from Antwerp harbour in the island of Walcheren; but in
the spring of 1599, it is recorded, 640 ships engaged solely in the
Baltic trade discharged cargoes at Amsterdam;[801] and in 1610,
according to Delacourt, there sailed from the ports of Holland in three
days, on the eastward trade alone, 800 or 900 ships and 1,500 herring
boats.[802] At the date of the Peace of Münster these figures were left
far behind, whence had arisen a reluctance to end the war, under which
commerce so notably flourished. Many Hollanders, further, had been
averse to peace in the belief that it would restore Antwerp and injure
their commerce, even as Prince Maurice of Orange, the republic's general
and stadthouder, had been averse to it as likely to lessen his power and
revenue.[803] But between 1648 and 1669 the trade increased by fifty per
cent.,[804] Holland taking most of the Spanish trade from the shipping
of England and the Hansa, and even carrying much of the trade between
Spain and her colonies. When the Dutch had thus a mercantile marine of
10,000 sail and 168,000 men, the English carried only 27,196 men; and
the Dutch shipping was probably greater than that of all the rest of
Europe together.[805]

This body of trade, as has been seen, was built up by a State which,
broadly speaking, had a surplus wealth-producing power in only one
direction, that of fishing; and even of its fishing, much was done on
the coasts of other nations. In that industry, about 1610, it employed
over 200,000 men; and the Greenland whale fishery, which was a monopoly
from 1614 to 1645, began to expand rapidly when set free,[806] till in
1670 it employed 120 ships.[807] For the rest, though the country
exported dairy produce, its total food product was not equal to its
consumption; and as it had no minerals and no vineyards, its surplus
wealth came from the four sources of fishing, freightage, extorted
colonial produce, and profits on the handling of goods bought and sold.
_Par excellence_, it was, in the phrase of Louis XIV, the nation of
shopkeepers, of middlemen; and its long supremacy in the business of
buying cheap and selling dear was due firstly to economy of means and
consumption, and secondarily to command of accumulated money capital at
low rates of interest. The sinking of interest was the first sign that
the limits to its commercial expansion were being reached; but it
belonged to the conditions that, with or without "empire," its advantage
must begin to fall away as soon as rival States were able to compete
with it in the economies of "production" in the sense of transport and
transfer.

In such economies the Dutch superiority grew out of the specially
practical basis of their marine--habitual fishing and the constant use
of canals. There is no better way than the former of building up
seamanship; and just as the Portuguese grew from hardy fishers to daring
navigators, so the Dutch grew from thrifty fishers and bargemen to
thrifty handlers of sea-freight, surpassing in economy the shippers of
England as they did in seamanship the marine of Spain. Broadly speaking,
the navies which owed most to royal fostering--as those of Spain,
France, and in part England--were the later to reach efficiency in the
degree of their artificiality; and the loss of one great Spanish navy
after another in storms must be held to imply a lack of due experience
on the part of their officers.

     One of the worst military mistakes of Spain was the creation of
     great galleons in preference to small cruisers. The sight of the
     big ships terrorised the Dutch once, in 1606; but as all existing
     seacraft had been built up in small vessels, there was no
     sufficient science for the navigation of the great ones in stress
     of weather, or even for the building of them on sound lines. The
     English and Dutch, on the other hand, fought in vessels of the kind
     they had always been wont to handle, increasing their size only by
     slow degrees. In the reign of Henry VIII, again, nothing came of
     the English expeditions of discovery fitted out by him (Schanz,
     _Englische Handelspolitik_, i, 321), but private voyages were
     successfully made by traders (_id._ pp. 321, 327).

     In the seventeenth century, however, and until far on in the
     eighteenth, all Dutch shipping was more economically managed than
     the English. In all likelihood the Dutch traders knew and improved
     upon the systematic control of ship-construction which the
     Venetians and Genoese had first copied from the Byzantines, and in
     turn developed. (Above, p. 197.) Raleigh was one of the first to
     point out that the broad Dutch boats carried more cargo with fewer
     hands than those of any other nation (_Observations touching
     Trade_, in _Works_, ed. 1829, viii, 356). Later in the century
     Petty noted that the Dutch practised freight-economies and
     adaptations of every kind, having different sorts of vessels for
     different kinds of traffic (_Essays in Political Arithmetic_
     [1690], ed. 1699, pp. 179, 180, 182, 183). This again gave them the
     primacy in shipbuilding for the whole of Europe (_Mémoires de Jean
     De Witt_, ptie. i, ch. vi), though they imported all the materials
     for the purpose. When Colbert began navy-building, his first care
     was to bring in Dutch shipwrights (Dussieux, _Étude biographique
     sur Colbert_, 1886, p. 101). Compare, as to the quick sailing of
     the Dutch, Motley, _United Netherlands_, ed. 1867, iv, 556. In the
     next century the English marine had similar economic advantages
     over the French, which was burdened by royal schemes for
     multiplying seamen (see Tucker, _Essay on Trade_, 4th ed. p. 37).

     The frugality which pervaded the whole of Dutch life may, however,
     have had one directly disastrous effect. Sir William Temple noted
     that the common people were poorly fed (_Observations upon the
     United Provinces_, ch. iv: Works, ed. 1814, i, 133, 147); and
     though their fighting ships were manned by men of all nations, the
     tendency was to feed them in the native fashion. Such a practice
     would tell fatally in the sea-fights with the English. Cp.
     Gardiner, _Commonwealth and Protectorate_, ii, 123.

In addition to this expertness in handling, the Dutch traders seem to
have bettered the lesson taught them by the practice of the Hansa, as to
the importance of keeping up a high character for probity. At a time
when British goods were open to more or less general suspicion as being
of short measure or bad quality,[808] the Dutch practice was to insure
by inspection the right quality and quantity of all packed goods,
especially the salted herrings, which were still the largest source of
Dutch income.[809] And that nothing might be left undone to secure the
concourse of commerce to their ports, they maintained under almost every
stress[810] of financial hardship the principle of minimum duties on
imports of every description. The one notable exception to this policy
of practically free trade--apart from the monopoly of the trade in the
Indies--was the quite supererogatory veto on the importation of fish
from other countries at a time when most of the fishing of Northern
Europe was in Dutch hands.[811] Where imports were desirable they were
encouraged. Thus it came about that landless Amsterdam was the chief
European storehouse for grain, and treeless Holland the greatest centre
of the timber trade. Before such a spectacle the average man held up his
hands and confessed the incomparable ingenuity of the Hollanders. But
others saw and stated the causation clearly enough. "Many writing on
this subject," remarks Sir William Petty, "do magnifie the Hollanders
as if they were more, and all other nations less, than men, as to the
matters of trade and policy; making them angels, and all others fools,
brutes, and sots, as to those particulars; whereas," he continues,
giving a sound lesson in social science to his generation, "I take the
foundation of their achievements to be originally in the situation of
the country, whereby they do things inimitable by others, and have
advantages whereof others are incapable."[812] And Sir Josiah Child, of
the same generation, declared similarly against transcendentalism in
such matters. "If any," he roundly declares, "shall tell me it is the
nature of those people to be thrifty, I answer, _all men by nature are
alike_; it is only laws, custom, and education that differ men; their
nature and disposition, and the disposition of all people in the world,
proceed from their laws."[813] For "laws" read "circumstances and
institutions," adding reservations as to climate and temperament and
variation of _individual_ capacity and bias, and the proposition is the
essence of all sociology. Economic lessons which Petty and Child could
not master have since been learned; but their higher wisdom has hardly
yet been assimilated.

The sufficient proof that Holland had no abnormal enlightenment even in
commerce was that, like her rivals, she continued to maintain the system
of monopoly companies. Her "empire" in the East, to which was falsely
ascribed so much of her wealth, in reality stood for very little sound
commerce. The East India Company being conducted on high monopoly lines,
the profits were made rather through the smallness than the greatness of
the trade done. Thus, while the Company paid enormous dividends,[814]
the imports of spice were kept at a minimum, in order to maintain the
price, large quantities being actually destroyed for the purpose. For a
time they contrived to raise pepper to double the old Portuguese
price.[815] Such methods brought it about that when the republic had in
all 10,000 sail, the East India trade employed only ten or twelve
ships.[816] All the while the small class of capitalists who owned the
shares were able to satisfy the people that the merely monetary and
factitious riches thus secured to the Company's shareholders was a form
of public wealth.[817]

     It is a complete error to say, as did Professor Seeley (_Expansion
     of England_, p. 112), that Holland "made her fortune in the world"
     because the war with Spain "threw open to her attack the whole
     boundless possessions of her antagonist in the New World, which
     would have been closed to her in peace. By conquest she made for
     herself an empire, and this empire made her rich." In the first
     place it was not in the New World that she mainly sought her
     empire, but in the East Indies, in the sphere of the Portuguese
     conquests. Her hold of Brazil lasted only from 1621 to 1654, and
     was not a great source of wealth, though she captured much Spanish
     and Portuguese shipping. But even her eastern trade was, as we have
     seen, small in quantity, and as a source of wealth was not to be
     compared with the herring fishery. In 1601 John Keymor declared
     that more wealth was produced by the northern fisheries "in one
     year than the King of Spain hath in four years out of the Indies"
     (_Observations made upon the Dutch Fishing about the Year
     1601_--reprint in _Phoenix_, 1707, i, 225). The Dutch takings in
     six months' fishing were then reckoned at 3,600,000 barrels, valued
     at as many pounds sterling (_id._ p. 224); the fishing fleet
     numbered 4,100 sail of all kinds, with over 3,000 tenders, out of a
     roughly estimated total of 20,000; while the whole Indian fleet is
     stated at only 40 or 50, employing 5,000 or 6,000 men (_id._ p.
     223), as against a total of some 200,000 of Dutch seafaring
     population. Howell, writing in 1622 (ed. Bennett, 1891, vol. i,
     205), also puts the Amsterdam ships in the Indian trade at 40.
     Professor Seeley's statement cannot have proceeded on any
     comparison of the European Dutch trade with the revenue from the
     conquered "empire." It stands for an endorsement of the vulgar
     delusion that "possessions" are the great sources of a nation's
     wealth, though Seeley elsewhere (p. 294) protests against the
     "bombastic language of this school," and notes that "England is
     not, directly at least, any the richer" for her connection with her
     "dependencies."

Against the class-interest behind the East India Company the republican
party, as led and represented by De Witt, were strongly arrayed. They
could point to the expansion of the Greenland whaling trade that had
followed on the abolition of the original monopoly in that adventure--an
increase of from ten to fifteen times the old quantity of
product[818]--and the treatise expounding their policy strongly
condemned the remaining monopolies of all kinds. But there was no
sufficient body of enlightened public opinion to support the attack; and
the menaced interests spontaneously turned to the factor which could
best maintain them against such pressure--the military power of the
House of Orange. The capitalist monopolists and "imperialists" of the
republic were thus the means first of artificially limiting its economic
basis, and later of subverting its republican constitution--a disservice
which somewhat outweighs the credit earned by them, as by the merchant
oligarchies of Venice, for an admirable management of their army.[819]


"And you have no further thought of her?" she asked.

"As far as marriage is concerned, no," I responded.  "Nevertheless, I
still regard her as an intimate friend.  I was here only two or three
hours ago chatting with her."

"You!" she cried, glaring at me strangely.  "You were here--to-day?"

"Yes," I replied.  "I thought she would certainly tell you of my visit."

"She told me nothing.  I was quite unaware of it.  I was out, and the
servants told me that a gentlemen had called in my absence."

"I gave a card," I replied.  "It is no doubt in the hall."

"No, it is not.  It has been destroyed."

"Why?"  I asked.

"For some mysterious reason known to Yolande."  Then, turning quickly
again to me, she placed her hand upon my arm in deep earnestness,
saying: "Tell me, is your love for her absolutely and entirely dead--so
dead that you would not care to perform her a service?"

Anderson's strange and startling story flashed through my mind.  I made
no reply.

"Remember the affection you once bore her," she urged.  "I am a woman,
m'sieur, and I presume to remind you of it."

I needed no reminder.  The recollection of those sweet idyllic days was
still fresh as ever in my memory.  Ah! in those brief sunny hours I had
fondly believed that our love would last always.  It is ever the same.
Youth is ever foolish.

"I should have loved her now," I answered at last, "were it not for one
fact."

There was a mystery which had ended our love, and I saw now an
opportunity of clearing it up.  "To what fact do you refer?"

"To the reason of our parting."

"The reason!" echoed the Countess.  "I have no idea whatever of the
reason.  What was it?"

I held my breath.  Would it be just to tell her the truth?  I wondered.
I reflected for a moment, then in a calm voice answered:

"Because I discovered that her heart was not wholly mine."

She regarded me with undisguised amazement.

"Do you mean that Yolande had another lover?"

"No!"  I cried with sudden resolve.  "This conversation is not fair to
her.  It is all finished.  She has forgotten, and we are both happy."

"Happy!" cried the Countess hoarsely.  "You are, alas! mistaken.  Poor
Yolande has been the most unhappy girl in all the world.  She has never
ceased to think of you."

"Then I regret, madame," I responded.

"If you really regret," she answered, "then your love for her is not
altogether dead."

She spoke the truth.  At this point I may as well confide to you, my
reader, the fact that I still regarded my charming little friend of
those careless days of buoyant youth with a feeling very nearly akin to
love.  I recollected the painful circumstances which led to our parting.
My memory drifted back to that well-remembered, breathless summer's
evening when, while walking with her along the white highway near her
home, I charged her with friendliness towards a man whose reputation in
Brussels was none of the best; of her tearful protests, of my
all-consuming jealousy, of her subsequent dignity, and of our parting.
After that I had applied to the Foreign Office to be transferred, and a
month later found myself in Rome.

Perhaps, after all, my jealousy might have been utterly unfounded.
Sometimes I had thought I had treated her harshly, for, truth to tell, I
had never obtained absolute proof that this man was more than a mere
acquaintance.  Indeed, I think it was this fact, or just a slight twinge
of conscience, that caused a suspicion of the old love I once bore her
to remain within me.  It was not just to Edith--that I knew; yet
notwithstanding the denunciations of both Kaye and Anderson, I could not
altogether crush her from my heart.  To wholly forget the woman for whom
one has entertained the grand passion is often most difficult,
sometimes, indeed, impossible of accomplishment.  Visions of some sweet
face with its pouting and ready lips will arise, constantly keeping the
past ever present, and recalling a day one would fain forget.  Thus it
was with me--just as it has been with thousands of others.

"No," I admitted truthfully and honestly at last, "my love for Yolande
is perhaps not altogether dead."

"Then you will render me a service?" she cried quickly.  "Say that you
will--for her sake!--for the sake of the great love you once bore her!"

"Of what nature is this service you desire?"  I asked, determined to act
with caution, for the startling stories I had heard had aroused within
me considerable suspicion.

"I desire your silence regarding an absolute secret," she answered in a
hoarse half-whisper.

"What secret?"

"A secret concerning Yolande," she responded.  "Will you, for her sake,
render us assistance, and at the same time preserve absolute secrecy as
to what you may see or learn here to-day?"

"I will promise if you wish, madame, that no word shall pass my lips," I
said.  "But as to assistance, I cannot promise until I am aware of the
nature of the service demanded of me."

"Of course," she exclaimed, with a faint attempt at a smile.  My words
had apparently reassured her, for she instantly became calmer, as though
relying upon me for help.  "Then as you give me your promise upon your
honour to say nothing, you shall know the truth.  Come with me."

She led the way down the long corridor, and turning to the left suddenly
opened the door of a large and handsome bed-chamber, the wooden
sun-blinds of which were closed to keep out the crimson glow of the
sunset.  The room was a fine one with big crystal mirrors and a shining
toilette-service in silver, but upon the bed with its yellow silk
hangings lay a female form fully dressed, but white-faced and
motionless.  In the dim half-light I could just distinguish the features
as those of Yolande.

"What has occurred?"  I cried in a hoarse whisper, dashing towards the
bedside and bending down to look upon the face that had once held me in
fascination.

"We do not know," answered the trembling woman at my side.  "It is all a
mystery."

I stretched forth my hand and touched her cheek.  It was icy cold.

In those few moments my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light of
the darkened room, and I detected the change that had taken place in the
girl's countenance.  Her eyes were closed, her lips blanched, her fair
hair, escaped from its pins, fell in a sheen of gold upon the lace-edged
pillow.

I held my breath.  The awful truth was distinctly apparent.  I placed my
hand upon her heart, the bodice of her dress being already unloosened.
Then a few seconds later I drew back, standing rigid and aghast.

"Why, she's dead!"  I gasped.

"Yes," the Countess said, covering her face with her hands and bursting
into tears.  "My poor Yolande! she is dead--_dead_!"

The discovery appalled me.  Only a couple of hours before we had chatted
together, and she seemed in the best of health and spirits, just as in
the old days, until I had made the announcement of Wolf's presence in
Paris.  The effect of that statement upon her had apparently been
electrical.  Why, I knew not.  Had she not implored me to save her?
This in itself was sufficient to show that she held him in deadly fear.

Again I bent in order to make further examination, but saw the
unmistakable mark of death upon her countenance.  The lower jaw had
dropped, the checks were cold, and the silver hand-mirror which I had
snatched from the table and held at her mouth was unclouded.  There was
no movement--no life.  Yolande, my well-beloved of those long-past days,
was dead.

I stood there at the bedside like a man in a dream.  So swiftly had she
been struck down that the terrible truth seemed impossible of
realisation.

The Countess, standing beside me, sobbed bitterly.  Truly the scene in
that darkened chamber was a strange and impressive one.  Never before in
my whole life had I been in the presence of the dead.

"Yolande--Yolande!"  I called, touching her cheek in an effort to awaken
her, for I could not believe that she was actually dead.

But there was no response.  Those blanched lips and the coldness of
those cheeks told their own tale.  She had passed to that land which
lies beyond the range of human vision.

How long I stood there I cannot tell.  My thoughts were inexpressibly
sad ones, and the discovery had utterly upset me, so that I scarcely
knew what I said or did.  The blow of thus finding her lifeless crushed
me.  The affair was mysterious, to say the least of it.  Of a sudden,
however, the sobs of the grief-stricken Countess aroused me to a sense
of my responsibility, and taking her hand I led her from the bedside
into an adjoining room.

"How has this terrible catastrophe occurred?"  I demanded of her
breathlessly.  "Only two hours ago she was well and happy."

"You mean when you saw her?" she said.  "What was the object of your
call?"

"To see her," I responded.

"And yet you parted ill friends in Brussels?" she observed in a tone of
distinct suspicion.  "You had some motive in calling.  What was it?"

I hesitated.  I could not tell her that I suspected her daughter to be a
spy.

"In order to assure her of my continued good friendship."

She smiled, rather superciliously I thought.

"But how did the terrible affair occur?"

"We have no idea," answered the Countess brokenly.  "She was found lying
upon the floor of the salon within a quarter of an hour of the departure
of her visitor, who proved to be yourself.  Jean, the valet-de-chambre,
on entering, discovered her lying there, quite dead."

"Astounding!"  I gasped.  "She was in perfect health when I left her."

She shook her head sorrowfully, and her voice, choking with grief,
declared:

"My child has been killed--murdered!"

"Murdered!  Impossible!"  I cried.

"But she has," she declared.  "I am absolutely positive of it!"

CHAPTER SIX.

A PIECE OF PLAIN PAPER.

"What medical examination has been made?"  I demanded.

"None," responded the Countess.  "My poor child is dead, and no doctor
can render her assistance.  Medical aid is unavailing."

"But do you mean to say that on making this discovery you did not think
it necessary to send for a doctor?"  I cried incredulously.

"I did not send for one--I sent for you," was her response.

"But we must call a doctor at once," I urged.  "If you have suspicion of
foul play we should surely know if there is any wound, or any injury to
account for death."

"I did not consider it necessary.  No doctor can return her to me," she
wailed.  "I sent for you because I believed that you would render me
assistance in this terrible affair."

"Most certainly I will," I replied.  "But in our own interests we must
send for a medical man, and if it is found to be actually a case of foul
play, for the police.  I'll send a line to Doctor Deane, an Englishman
whom I know, who is generally called in to see anybody at the Embassy
who chances to be ill.  He is a good fellow, and his discretion may be
relied upon."

So saying, I scribbled a line on the back of a card, and told the man to
take a cab down to the Rue du Havre, where the doctor occupied rooms
over a hosier's shop a stone's throw from the bustling Gare St. Lazare.

A very curious mystery was evidently connected with this startling
discovery, and I was anxious that my friend, Dick Deane, one of my old
chums of Rugby days, should assist me in clearing it up.

The Countess de Foville, whose calmness had been so remarkable while
speaking with me before we entered the death-chamber, had now given way
to a flood of emotion.  She sank back into her chair, and, burying her
face in her hands, cried bitterly.

I tried to obtain some further information from her, but all that
escaped her was:

"My poor Yolande!  My poor daughter!"  Finding that my endeavours to
console her were futile, I went forth and made inquiries of the three
frightened maidservants regarding what had occurred.

One of them, a dark-eyed Frenchwoman in frilled cap, whom I had seen on
my previous visit, said, in answer to my questions:

"Jean discovered the poor mademoiselle in the petit salon about a
quarter of an hour after m'sieur had left.  She was lying upon her face
near the window, quite rigid.  He shouted; we all rushed in, and on
examining her found that she was already dead."

"But was there no sign of a struggle?"  I inquired, leading the way to
the room indicated.

"The room was just as m'sieur sees it now," she answered, with a wave of
her hand.

I glanced around, but as far as I could distinguish it was exactly as I
had left it.

"There was no mark of violence--nothing to show that mademoiselle had
been the victim of foul play?"

"Nothing, m'sieur."

Could it have been a case of suicide?  I wondered.  Yolande's words
before I had taken leave of her were desponding, and almost led me to
believe that she had taken her life rather than face the man Wolf who
had so suddenly arrived in Paris--the man who exercised upon her some
mysterious influence, the nature of which I could not guess.

"It was not more than fifteen minutes after I had left, you say?"  I
inquired.

"No, m'sieur, not more."

"Mademoiselle had no other visitor?"

"No, m'sieur.  Of that we are all certain."

"And the Countess, where was she during the time I was here?"

"She was out driving.  She did not return till about five minutes after
we had made the terrible discovery."

"And how did madame act?"

"She ordered us to carry poor mademoiselle to her room.  Poor madame!
She bore the blow with wonderful fortitude."


That remark caused me to prick up my ears.

"I don't quite understand," I said.  "Did she not give way to tears?"

"No, m'sieur; she shed no tears, but sat erect, motionless as a statue.
She appeared unable to realise that poor mademoiselle was actually dead.
At last she rang, and sent Jean to you."

"You are absolutely certain that mademoiselle had no visit or after I
left?"

"Absolutely."

"It would, moreover, not be possible for anyone to enter or leave
without your knowledge?"  I suggested.

"M'sieur understands me perfectly.  Mademoiselle must have fallen to the
floor lifeless immediately after I had let you out.  She made no sound,
and had Jean not entered with her letters, which the concierge had
brought, my poor young mistress might be lying there now."

The average Frenchwoman of the lower class is always dramatic wherever a
domestic calamity is concerned, and this worthy bonne was no exception.
She punctuated all her remarks with references to the sacred personages
of the Roman Catholic religion.

"You haven't searched the room, I suppose?"

"No, m'sieur.  Madame gave orders that nothing was to be touched."

This reply was eminently satisfactory.  I glanced again around the
place, now dim in the falling twilight, and ordered her to throw back
the sun-shutters.

The woman went to the window and opened them, admitting a flood of
mellow light, the last crimson of the glorious afterglow.  Up from the
boulevard came the dull roar of the traffic, mingling with the sound of
distant bells ringing the Ave Maria.  The bonne--an Alsatian, from her
accent--crossed herself from force of habit, and retreated towards the
door.

"You may go," I said.  "I will remain here until the doctor arrives."

"Bien, m'sieur," answered the woman, disappearing and closing the door
after her.

My object in dismissing her was to make a thorough search of the
apartment, in order to discover whether any of Yolande's private
possessions were there.  She had been denounced by Kaye and Anderson as
a spy, and it occurred to me that I might possibly discover the truth.
But she was dead.  The painful fact seemed absolutely incredible.

The room was not a large one, but well furnished, with considerable
taste and elegance.  There was the broad, silk-covered couch, upon which
Yolande had sat in the full possession of health and spirits only a
couple of hours before; the skin rug, upon which her tiny foot had been
stretched so coquettishly; the small table, by which she had stood
supporting herself after I had made the fatal announcement that Wolf was
in Paris.

As I stood there the whole of that strangely dramatic scene occurred to
me.  Yet she was dead--dead!  She had died with her secret in her heart.

At any moment Dick Deane might arrive, but I desired to be the first to
make an examination of the room, and with that object crossed to the
little escritoire of inlaid olive-wood, one of those rather gimcrack
pieces of furniture manufactured along the Ligurian coast for
unsuspecting winter visitors.  It was the only piece of incongruous
furniture in the room, all the rest being genuine Louis Quatorze.

One or two letters bearing conspicuous coats-of-arms were lying there,
but all were notes of a private nature from one or other of her friends.
One was an invitation to Vichy from the Baronne Deland, wife of the
great Paris financier; another, signed "Rose," spoke of the gaiety of
Cairo and the dances at Shepheard's during the past winter; while a
third, also in French, and bearing no signature, made an appointment to
meet her in the English tea-shop in the Rue Royale on the following day
at five o'clock.

That note, written upon plain paper of business appearance, had
apparently been left by hand.  Who, I wondered, was the person who had
made that appointment?  To me the writing seemed disguised, and
probably, owing to the thickness of the up-strokes, had been penned by a
male hand.  There was a mistake in the orthography, too, the word
"plaisir" being written "plasir."  This showed plainly that no Frenchman
had written it.

I placed the letter in my pocket, and, encouraged by it, continued my
investigations.

In the tiny letter-rack was a note which the unfortunate girl had
written immediately before being struck down.  It was addressed to
"Baronne Maillac, Chateau des Grands Sablons, Seine et Marne."  The
little escritoire contained four small drawers; the contents of each I
carefully scrutinised.  They were, however, mostly private letters of a
social character--some from persons whom I knew well in Society.
Suddenly, from the bottom of one of the smaller drawers, I drew forth
several sheets of plain octavo paper of a pale yellow shade.  There
were, perhaps, half-a-dozen sheets, carefully wrapped in a sheet of
plain blue foolscap.  I opened them, and, holding one up to the light,
examined the water-mark.

Next instant the truth was plain.  That paper was the official paper
used in French Government offices for written reports.  How came it in
her possession, if the accusation against her were untrue?

I held it in my hand, glaring at it in bewilderment.  Sheet by sheet I
examined it, but there was no writing upon it.  Apparently it was her
reserve store of paper, to be used as wanted.  In the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs everything is methodical, especially the preparation of
the dossiers.  A certain dossier had once fallen into Kaye's hands, and
it contained sheets of exactly similar paper to that which I held in my
hand.

Eagerly I continued my search, striving to discover some writing which
might lead me to a knowledge of the truth, but I found nothing.  I had
completed an examination of the whole of the contents of the drawers,
when it occurred to me that there might be some other drawer concealed
there.  Years ago I had been offered an escritoire of this pattern in
Genoa, and the sun-tanned fellow who endeavoured to induce me to
purchase it had shown behind the centre drawer in the table a cunningly
contrived cavity where private correspondence might be concealed.

Therefore I drew out the drawer, sounded the interior at the back, and,
finding it hollow, searched about for the spring by which it might be
opened.  At last I found it, and next moment drew forth a bundle of
letters.  They were bound with a blue ribbon that time had faded.  I
glanced at the superscription of the uppermost, and a thrill of sympathy
went through me.

Those carefully preserved letters were my own--letters full of love and
tenderness, which I had written in the days that were dead.  I stood
holding them in my hand, my heart full of the past.

In this narrative, my reader, it is my intention to conceal nothing, but
to relate to you the whole, undisguised truth, even though this chapter
of England's secret history presents a seemingly improbable combination
of strange facts and circumstances.  Therefore I will not hide from you
the truth that in those moments, as I drew forth one of the letters I
had written long ago and read it through, sweet and tender memories
crowded upon me, and in my eyes stood blinding tears.  I may be forgiven
for this, I think, when it is remembered how fondly I had once loved
Yolande, before that fatal day when jealousy had consumed me, and I had
turned my back upon her as a woman false and worthless.

Letter after letter I read, each bringing back to me sad memories of
those days, when in the calm sunset hour we had wandered by the
riverside hand in hand like children, each supremely content in each
other's love, fondly believing that our mad passion would last always.
In all the world she had been, to me, incomparable.  The centre of
admiration at those brilliant balls at the Royal Palace at Brussels, the
most admired of all the trim and comely girls who rode at morning in the
Bois, the merriest of those who picnicked in the forest round about the
ancient chateau, the sweetest, the most tender, and the most pure of all
the women I knew--Yolande in those days had been mine.  There, in my
hand, I held the letter which I had written from Scotland when on leave
for the shooting, asking if she loved me sufficiently to become my wife.
To that letter I well remembered her reply--indeed, I knew it verbatim;
a tender letter, full of honest love and straightforward admission--a
letter such as only a pure and good woman could have penned.  Yes, she
wrote that she loved me dearly, and would be my wife.

And yet it was all of the past.  All had ended.

I sighed bitterly--how bitterly, mere words cannot describe.  You,
reader, be you man or woman, can you fully realise how deeply I felt at
that moment, how utterly desolate the world then seemed to me?

Those letters I slowly replaced in the cavity and closed it.  Then, as I
turned away, my eyes fell upon the photographs standing upon a small
whatnot close by the escritoire.  They were of persons whom I did not
know--all strangers, save one.  This was a cabinet portrait in a heavy
silver frame, and as I took it up to scrutinise it more closely a cry
involuntarily escaped my lips.

The picture was a three-quarter length representation of a
black-bearded, keen-eyed man, standing with his hands thrust idly in his
pockets, and smoking a cigarette.  There was no mistaking those
features.  It was the photograph of the man the discovery of whose
presence in Paris had produced such an extraordinary effect upon her--
Rodolphe Wolf.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

BY A THREAD.

I was still standing by the window, holding the photograph in my hand,
and gazing upon it in wonder, when Dick Deane was shown in.

"What's the matter, old chap?  Are you the man in possession here?" he
asked breezily, gripping me by the hand.

He was a fair, merry-faced fellow of thirty-five, rather good-looking,
smartly dressed in black frock-coat of professional cut, and wearing a
pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.  He had been born in Paris, and had spent
the greater part of his life there, except during the years when he was
at school with me before going to Edinburgh, where he took his degree.
Then he had returned to Paris, taken his French degree, and had soon
risen to be one of the fashionable doctors in the French capital.  He
was an especial favourite in the salons, and, like every good-looking
doctor, a favourite with the ladies.

"I'm not in possession," I answered.  "A very serious affair has
happened here, and we want your assistance."

In an instant he became grave, for I suppose my tone showed him that I
was in no humour for joking.

"What's the nature of the affair?" he asked.

"Death," I replied seriously.  "A lady here--a friend of mine--has died
mysteriously."

"A mystery--eh?" he exclaimed, instantly interested.  "Tell me about
it."

"This place," I replied, "belongs to the Countess de Foville, a lady
whom I knew well when I was at the Brussels Embassy, and it is her
daughter Yolande who has been found dead in this room this evening."

"Yolande de Foville!" he repeated, with knit brows.  "She was a friend
of yours once, if I mistake not?" he added, looking me straight in the
face.

"Yes, Dick, she was," I responded.  "I told you of her long ago."

"You loved her once?"

"Yes," I answered with difficulty, "I loved her once."

"And how did the unfortunate affair occur?" he asked, folding his arms
and leaning back against a chair.  "Tell me the whole story."

"I called here this afternoon, and spent half an hour or so with her," I
said.  "Then I left and returned straight to the Embassy--"

"You left her here?" he inquired, interrupting.  "Yes, in this very
room.  But it seems that a quarter of an hour later one of the servants
entered and discovered her lying upon the door, dead."

"Curious!" he ejaculated.  "Has a medical man seen her?"

"No.  The Countess sent for me as being one of her daughter's most
intimate friends, and I, in turn, sent for you."

"Where is the poor young lady?"

"In her room at the end of the corridor," I answered hoarsely.

"Is there any suspicion of murder?"

"Apparently none whatever.  She had no visitor after I left."

"And no suspicion of suicide?" he asked, with a sharp look.  "Did you
part friends?"

"Perfectly so," I responded.  "As to suicide, she had no reason, as far
as anyone knows, to make an attempt upon her life."

He gave vent to an expression which sounded to me much like a grunt of
dissatisfaction.

"Now, be perfectly frank with me, Gerald," he said, suddenly turning to
me and placing his hand upon my shoulder.  "You loved her very dearly
once--was that not so?"

I nodded.

"I well remember it," he went on.  "I quite recollect how, on one
occasion, you came over to London, and while dining together at Jimmy's
you told me of your infatuation, and showed me her photograph.  Do you
remember the night when you told me of your engagement to her?"

"Perfectly."

"And as time went on you suddenly dropped her--for what reason I know
not.  We are pals, but I have never attempted to pry into your affairs.
If she really loved you, it must have been a hard blow for her when she
heard that you had forsaken her for Edith Austin."

"You reproach me," I said.  "But you do not know the whole truth, my
dear fellow.  I discovered that Yolande possessed a second lover."

He nodded slowly, with pursed lips.

"And that was the reason of your parting?"

"Yes."

"The sole reason?"

"The sole reason."

"And you have no suspicion that she may have committed suicide because
of her love for you?  Such things are not uncommon, remember, with girls
of a certain temperament."

"If she has committed suicide, it is not on my account," I responded in
a hard voice.

"I did not express that opinion," he hastened to protest.  "Before we
discuss the matter further it will be best for me to see her.  Death may
have been due to natural causes, for aught we know."

I stood motionless.  His suggestion that my sweetheart of the old days
had committed suicide because I had forsaken her was a startling one.
Surely that could not be so?

"Come," my friend said, "let us lose no time.  Which is the room?"

I led him along the corridor, and opened the door of the chamber in
which she was lying so cold and still.  The light of the afterglow fell
full upon her, tipping her auburn hair with crimson and illuminating her
face with a warm radiance that gave her back the appearance of life.
But it was only for a few moments.  The slanting ray was lost, and the
pallor of that beautiful countenance became marked against the gold of
her wondrous hair.

In silence I stood at the foot of the bed watching my friend, who was
now busy with his examination.  He opened her eyes and closed them
again, felt her heart, raised her arms, and examined her mouth, uttering
no word.  His serious face wore a look as though he were infinitely
puzzled.

One after the other he examined the palms of her hands long and
carefully, then, bending until his eyes were close to her face, he
examined her lips, brow, and the whole surface of her cheeks.  Upon her
neck, below the left ear, was a mark to which he returned time after
time, as though not satisfied as to its cause.  Upon her lower lip, too,
was a slight yellow discoloration, which he examined several times,
comparing it with the mark upon the neck.  He was unable to account for
either.

"Curious!" he ejaculated.  "Very curious indeed!"

"What is curious?"  I inquired eagerly.

"Those marks," he answered, indicating them with his finger.  "They are
very puzzling.  I've never seen such marks before."

"Do they point to foul play?"  I inquired, feeling suspicious that she
had by some mysterious means fallen the victim of an assassin.

"Well, no," he responded, after some hesitation; "that is not my
opinion."

"Then what is your opinion?"

"At present I have none.  I can have none until I make a thorough
examination.  There are certainly no outward marks of violence."

"We need not inform the police, I suppose?"

"Not at present," he replied, his eyes still fixed upon the blanched
face of the woman who had once been all the world to me.

I raised her dead hand, and upon it imprinted a last fervent kiss.  It
was cold and clammy to my lips.  In that hour all my old love for her
had returned, and my heart had become filled with an intense bitterness
and desolation.  I had thought that all my love for her was dead, and
that Edith Austin, the calm, sweet woman far away in an English county,
who wrote to me daily from her quiet home deep in the woodlands, had
taken her place.  But our meeting and its tragic sequel had, I admit,
aroused within me a deep sympathy, which had, within an hour, developed
into that great and tender love of old.  With men this return to the old
love is of no infrequent occurrence, but with women it seldom happens.
Perhaps this is because man is more fickle and more easily influenced by
woman's voice, woman's glances, and woman's tears.

The reader will probably accuse me of injustice and of fickleness of
heart.  Well, I cannot deny it; indeed, I seek to deny nothing in this
narrative of strange facts and diplomatic wiles, but would only ask of
those who read to withhold their verdict until they have ascertained the
truth yet to be revealed, and have read to the conclusion, this strange
chapter of the secret history of a nation.

My friend the doctor was holding one hand, while I imprinted a last kiss
upon the other.  A lump was in my throat, my eyes were filled with
tears, my thoughts were all of the past, my anguish of heart
unspeakable.  That small chill hand with the cold, glittering ring--one
that I had given her in Brussels long ago--seemed to be the only reality
in all that hideous phantasmagoria of events.

"Do not despair," murmured the kind voice of my old friend, standing
opposite me on the other side of the bed.  "You loved her once, but it
is all over--surely it is!"

"No, Dick!"  I answered brokenly.  "I thought I did not love her.  I
have held her from me these three years--until now."

"Ah!" he sighed, "I understand.  Man always longs for the unattainable."

"Yes, always," I responded.

In that moment the memory of the day when we had parted arose gaunt and
ghost-like.  I had wronged her; I felt confident that I had.  All came
back to me now--that cruel, scandalous denunciation I had uttered in the
heat of my mad jealousy--the false tale which had struck her dumb by its
circumstantial accuracy.  Ah! how bitter it all was, now that punishment
was upon me!  I remembered how, in the hour of my worldly triumph and of
her highest hope--at the very moment when she had spoken words of
greater affection to me than she had ever used before--I had made the
charge against her, and she had fallen back with her young heart crushed
within her.  My ring was there, still glittering mockingly upon her dead
hand.  By the unfounded charge I had made against her I had sinned.  My
sin at that moment arose from its grave, and barred the way for ever to
all hope--to all happiness.

The summer twilight was stealing on apace, and in the silence of the
room there sounded the roar of life from the boulevard below.  Men were
crying _Le Soir_ with strident voices, and all Paris was on its way to
dine, and afterwards to enjoy itself in idleness upon the terraces of
the cafes or at those al-fresco variety performances in the Avenue des
Champs Elysees, where the entrance fee includes a consommation.

Deane still held my old love's hand, bending in the dim light until his
eyes were close to it, watching intently.  But I took no notice, for my
eyes were fixed upon that face that had held me in such fascination, and
had been so admired at those brilliant receptions given by King Leopold
and the Countess of Flanders.  The doctor stretched forth his hand, and
of a sudden switched on the electric light.  The next instant I was
startled by his loud ejaculation of surprise.

"Thank God!" he cried.  "She's not dead, after all!"

"Not dead!"  I gasped, unable fully to realise his meaning.

"No," he answered breathlessly.  "But we must not lose a single
instant."  And I saw that with a lancet he had made an incision in her
delicate wrist, and there was blood there.  "She is in a state of
catalepsy, and we must do all in our power to bring her round."

"But do you think you can?"  I cried.

"I hope so."

"Do your best, Dick," I implored.  "Save her, for my sake."

"Rely upon me," he answered calmly, adding: "Run along to Number 18 in
the boulevard--the corner house on the right--and bring Doctor Trepard
at once.  He lives au troisieme.  Tell him that I sent you, and that the
matter is one of life or death."  He scribbled some words on a card,
and, giving it me, added: "Tell him to bring this.  Meanwhile, I will
commence artificial respiration.  Go!"

"But do you think she will really recover?"  I demanded.

"I can't tell.  We have already lost so much time.  I had no idea of the
truth.  It has surprised me just as it has surprised you.  This moment
is not one for words, but for actions.  Don't lose an instant."

Thus urged, I snatched up my hat and tore along the boulevard like a
madman.  Without difficulty I found Trepard's appartement, and on being
admitted found him a grave-faced, rather stout old Frenchman, who, on
the instant I mentioned Dick's name and gave him the card with the words
upon it, naming some drugs he required, went into an adjoining room, and
fetched a phial of tiny red pillules, which he held up to the light.
Then he put on his hat, and descended with me to the street.  A fiacre
was passing, which we took, and five minutes later we were standing
together in the room where Yolande was lying.

"This is a most curious case, my dear Trepard," began Dick, speaking in
French--"a case of coma, which I have mistaken for death;" and,
continuing, he briefly explained how the patient had been found in a
state so closely resembling death that he himself had been deceived.

The old Frenchman placed his hand upon her heart, and, withdrawing it,
said:

"She's breathing now."

"Breathing!"  I echoed.  "Then she is recovering!"

"Yes, old fellow," Dick replied, "she is recovering--at least we hope we
shall save her."  Then, turning to his colleague, he raised her hand and
pointed to the finger-nails, asking: "Do you notice anything there?"

The other, adjusting his pince-nez, bent and examined, them one by one.

"Yes," he answered at last.  "A slight purple discoloration at the base
of the nails."

"And upon the lower lip does anything strike you as peculiar?"

"A yellow mark," he answered, after carefully inspecting the spot
indicated.

"And there?"  Deane asked, touching the mark upon the neck.

"Very strange!" ejaculated the elder man.  "It is a most unusual case."

"Yes.  Have you brought the hydrated peroxide of iron?"

For answer the Frenchman produced the tiny tube, saying:

"Then you suspect poison?"

"Most certainly," he replied; and, taking a glass, he placed a single
pillule in it, dissolving it in water, which he afterwards forced
between the grey lips of my unconscious love.  Afterwards he glanced at
his watch, observing: "We must give another in fifteen minutes."

Then, drawing a chair to the bedside, he seated himself, holding her
wrist and watching her countenance for any change that might take place
there.

"Have you no idea of the nature of the poison?"  I inquired eagerly.

"None," he responded.  "Ask me no questions now.  When we have brought
her round will be time enough.  It should be sufficient for you to know
that she is not dead.  Why not leave us for the present?  Go and break
the good news to the Countess."

"You wish to be alone?"

"Yes.  This is a serious matter.  Leave us undisturbed, and on no
pretext allow her mother to enter here."

Thus urged, and feeling reassured by their statement that she still
lived and that the pulsations of her heart were already quite
perceptible, I left the room, noiselessly closing the door after me, and
sought the Countess in the small blue boudoir to which she had returned
plunged in grief and dark despair.

She was seated in a chair, motionless and statuesque, staring straight
before her.  The blow had utterly crushed her, for she was entirely
devoted to her only daughter now that her husband was dead.  I well knew
how deep was her affection for Yolande, and how tender was her maternal
love.

The room was in semi-darkness, for she had not risen to turn on the
light.  As I entered I did so with her permission, saying quietly:

"Madame, I come to you with a message."

"From whom?" she asked in a hard mechanical voice.

"From my friend Deane, the English doctor whom I have summoned.  Yolande
still lives!"

"She lives!" she cried, springing to her feet in an instant.  "You are
deceiving me!"

"I am not, madame," I reassured her, smiling.  "Your daughter is still
breathing, and is increasing in strength perceptibly.  The doctors say
that she will probably recover."

"Thank God!" she gasped, her thin white hands clasped before her.  "I
pray that He may give her back to me.  I will go to her."

But I held her back, explaining that both the medical men had expressed
a wish to remain there alone.

"But what caused that appearance so akin to death?" she asked quickly.

"At present they cannot tell," I responded.  "Some deleterious substance
is suspected, but until she has returned to consciousness and can give
us some details of her sudden attack we can determine nothing."

"But she will recover, m'sieur?" the Countess asked.  "Are you certain?"

"The chances are in her favour, the doctors say.  They have given her a
drug to counteract the effect of the poison."

"Poison!  Was she poisoned?" gasped the Countess.

"Poison is suspected," I answered quietly.  "But calm yourself, madame.
The truth will be discovered in due course."

"I care nothing so long as Yolande is given back to me!" the distressed
woman cried.  "Was it your English friend who discovered the truth?"

"Yes," I replied.  "He is one of the cleverest men in Paris."

"And to him my poor Yolande will owe her life?"

"Yes, to him."

"And to you also, m'sieur?  You have done your utmost for us, and I
thank you warmly for it all."

"Madame," I said earnestly, "I have done only what a man should do.  You
sought my assistance, and I have given it, because--"

"Because of what?" she inquired sharply the instant I paused.

"Because I once loved her," I responded with perfect frankness.

A sigh escaped her, and her hand sought my arm.

"I was young once, m'sieur," she said in that calm, refined voice which
had long ago always sounded so much to me like that of my own dead
mother.  "I understand your feeling--I understand perfectly.  It is only
my poor daughter who does not understand.  She knows that you have
forsaken her--that is all."

It was upon my tongue to lay bare to her the secret of my heart's
longings, yet I hesitated.  I remembered that calm, serious, sweet-faced
woman on the other side of the English Channel, far from the glare and
glitter of life as I knew it--the fevered life which the diplomat in
Paris is forced to lead.  I remembered my troth to Edith, and my
conscience pricked me.

"Could it be possible," I reflected, "that Yolande was really in the pay
of a Government hostile to England?"  Kaye was already nearing Berlin
with the intention of searching out her actions and exposing her as a
spy, while Anderson had already denounced her as having been a party to
an attempt to secure the secret which he had carried from Berlin to
Downing Street.

With a mother's solicitude the Countess could for some time only speak
of Yolande's mysterious attack; but at last, in order to prosecute my
inquiries further, I observed, during a lull in the conversation:

"At the Baroness de Chalencon's last night a friend of yours inquired
about you, madame."

"A friend?  Who?"

"A man named Wolf--Rodolphe Wolf."

The next instant I saw that the mention of that name affected the mother
no less markedly than it had affected the daughter.  Her face blanched;
her eyes opened wide in fear, and her glance became in a moment
suspicious.  With marvellous self-possession she, however, pretended
ignorance.

"Wolf?" she repeated.  "I do not remember the name.  Possibly he is some
person we have met while travelling."

"Yolande knew him, I believe, in Brussels," I remarked.  "He appeared to
be acquainted with you."

"My daughter's friends are not always mine," she remarked coldly, with
that cleverness which only a woman of the world can possess, and at once
returned to the discussion of Yolande and the probability of her
recovery.

This puzzled me.  I felt somehow convinced that she knew the truth.  She
had some distinct object in endeavouring to seal my lips.  What it was,
however, I could not determine.

She was expressing a fervent hope that her daughter would recover, and
pacing the room, impatient to go to her bedside, when, of a sudden, Dick
opened the door, and, putting his head inside, addressed me, saying:

"Can I speak with you a moment, Ingram?"  She dashed to the door in
eagerness, but after a word of introduction from myself, he informed her
that Yolande had not sufficiently recovered to be disturbed.

"Perfect quiet is absolutely necessary, madame," he urged.  "Your
daughter, I am pleased to tell you, will live; but she must be kept
absolutely quiet.  I cannot allow you to approach her on any pretext
whatsoever."

"She will not die, will she?" the woman implored distractedly.

"No," he replied, in a voice somewhat strained, I thought, "she will not
die.  Of that you may rest assured."

Then turning to me, he beckoned, and I followed him out of the room.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE OLD LOVE.

"I don't like that woman, old fellow," were the first words Dick uttered
when we were alone in the room in which Yolande had been found.

"Why not?"  I asked, rather surprised.  "The Countess de Foville is
always charming."

He shrugged his shoulders, saying:

"One sometimes has strange and unaccountable prejudices, you know.  This
is one of mine."

"And Yolande," I asked, "what of her?"

"She's better.  But it was fortunate I made the discovery just when I
did, or she would no doubt have passed away.  I never saw an appearance
so closely resembling death in all my experience; in fact, I'd have
staked my professional reputation that there was no spark of life."

"But what was the cause of it all?"  I demanded.  "You surely know the
reason?"

"No, we cannot yet tell," he answered.  "The marks puzzle us.  That mark
on her lower lip is the most peculiar and unaccountable.  At present we
can say nothing."

"Then why did you call me out?"

"Because I want to consult you," he replied.  "The fact is, that in this
affair there is a strong element of mystery which I don't like at all.
And, moreover, the few seconds during which I've seen the Countess have
plainly impressed upon me the belief that either she has had something
to do with it, or else that she knows the truth."

I nodded.  This was exactly my own theory.  "Do you think Yolande has
been the victim of foul play?"  I inquired a moment later.

"That's my suspicion," he responded.  "But only she herself can tell us
the truth."

"You really think, then, that a dastardly attempt has been made upon her
life?"  I cried incredulously.

"Personally, I think there can be no doubt."

"But by whom?  No one called here after my departure."

"It is that mystery which we must elucidate," he said.  "All I fear is,
however, that she may render us no assistance."

"Why?"

"Because it is a mystery, and in all probability she will endeavour to
preserve the secret.  She must not see the Countess before we question
her."

"Is she yet conscious?"  I asked in eagerness.

"Yes; but at present we must put no question to her."

"Thank Heaven!"  I gasped.  Then I added, fervently grasping my friend's
hand: "You cannot realise, Dick, what great consolation this is to me!"

"I know, my dear fellow--I know," he answered sympathetically.  "But may
I speak to you as a friend?  You won't be offended at anything I am
about to say, will you?"

"Offended?--certainly not.  Our friendship is too firm for that, Dick.
What is it you wish to say?"

I saw that he was uneasy, and was surprised at his sudden gravity.

"Well," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "you'll forgive me for
saying so, but I don't think that in this affair you've told me exactly
the truth."

"What do you mean?"  I inquired quickly.

"I mean that when you parted from her this afternoon you were not
altogether good friends."

"You are mistaken," I assured him.  "We were as good friends as ever
before."

"No high words passed between you?"

"None."

"And nothing that you told her caused her any sudden grief?  Are you
quite certain of this?" he asked, looking at me very fixedly through his
glasses.

"I made one observation which certainly caused her surprise," I
admitted.  "Nothing else."

"Was it only surprise?" he asked very calmly.

"Surprise mingled with fear."

"Ah!" he ejaculated, as though obtaining some intelligence by this
admission of mine.  "And may I not know the nature of the information
you gave her?"

"No, Dick," I responded.  "It is a secret--her secret."

He was silent.

"You refuse to tell me?" he said disappointedly.

"I am unable," I replied.

"And if I judge rightly, it is this secret which has parted you?"

"No, it is not," I answered.  "That's the most curious part of the whole
affair.  The very existence of the secret has brought us together
again."

"You mean that you have forsaken Edith and returned to her?" he
observed, raising his brows slightly in surprise.

"No; don't put it in that way," I implored.  "I have not yet forsaken
Edith."

He smiled, just a trifle superciliously, I thought.

"And the Countess is also in possession of this mysterious secret--eh?"

"Of that I am not at all certain," I replied.

He sniffed in distinct suspicion that what I had told him was not the
truth.  At the same instant, however, the Countess entered and demanded
to know the condition of her child.

"She is much better, madame," he answered.  "Perfect quiet is, however,
necessary, and constant observation of the temperature.  To-morrow, or
the day after, you may, I think, see her."

"Not till then!" she cried.  "I cannot wait so long."

"But it is necessary.  Your daughter's life hangs upon a single thread."

She was silenced, for she saw that argument was useless.

A few minutes later Jean entered with a message from Trepard asking Dick
and myself to consult with him.  We therefore left the Countess again,
and passed along the corridor to the room in which my love of long ago
was lying.  As we entered she lifted her hand slowly to me in sign of
recognition, and in an instant I was at her side.

"Yolande!"  I cried, taking her hand, so different now that death had
been defeated by life.  "Yolande! my darling," I burst forth
involuntarily, "you have come back to me!"

A sweet, glad smile spread over her beautiful face, leaving an
expression of calm and perfect contentment, as in a low, uncertain
voice, as though of one speaking afar off, she asked:

"Gerald, is it actually you?"

"Yes," I said, "of course it is.  These two gentlemen are doctors," I
added.  "This is my old friend Deane; and the other is Doctor Trepard,
of whom I daresay you have heard."

She nodded to them both in acknowledgment of their kind expressions;
then in a few low words inquired what had happened to her.  She seemed
in utter ignorance of it all.

"You were found lying on the floor of the little salon soon after I
left, and they thought you were dead," I explained.  "Cannot you tell us
how it occurred?"

A puzzled expression settled upon her face, as though she were trying to
remember.

"I recollect nothing," she declared.

"But you surely remember how you were attacked?"  I urged.

"Attacked!" she echoed in surprise.  "No one attacked me."

"I did not mean that," I answered, rather puzzled at her quick protest.
"I meant that you were probably aware of the symptoms which preceded
your unconsciousness."

"I felt a strange dizziness and a curious tightness in the throat and
chest.  That is all I remember.  All became blank until I opened my eyes
again and found myself lying here, with these two gentlemen standing at
my side.  The duration of my unconsciousness did not appear to me longer
than a few minutes."

"Then mademoiselle has no idea of the cause of her strange illness?"
inquired Deane in French.  "None whatever, m'sieur."

"Tell us one fact," he urged.  "During the time which elapsed between
your parting with M'sieur Ingram and your sudden unconsciousness, did
anyone enter the room?"

"No one; of that I am absolutely certain."

"How were you occupied during that time?"

"I was writing a letter."

"And before you rose did you feel the curious giddiness?"

"No, not until after I stood up.  I tried to shout and attract help, but
could not.  Then I reached to press the bell, but stumbled forward, and
the next instant I was lost in what seemed to be a dense fog."

"Curious!" ejaculated Trepard, who stood by with folded arms, eagerly
listening to every word--"very curious!"

"Did you feel any strange sensation on the left side of your neck
beneath the ear, or upon your lower lip?" inquired Deane earnestly.

She reflected for a moment, then said:

"Now that I remember, there was a curious numbness of my lip."

"Followed immediately by unconsciousness?"

"Yes, almost immediately."

The doctors exchanged glances, which showed that the mark upon the lip
was the chief enigma of the situation.

Trepard glanced at his watch, dissolved yet another pillule of hydrated
peroxide of iron, and handed her the draught to swallow.  The antidote
had acted almost like magic.

"You are absolutely certain that no person entered the room after Ingram
had left?" repeated Deane, as though not yet satisfied.

"Absolutely."

Dick Deane turned his eyes full upon me, and I divined his thoughts.  He
was reflecting upon the conversation held between us before we entered
that room.  He was endeavouring to worm from her some clue to her
secret.

"My mother knows that I am recovering?" she went on.  "If she does not,
please tell her.  She has been so distressed of late that this must have
been the crowning blow to her."

"I have told madame your mother everything," I said.  "Do not be uneasy
on her account."

"Ah," she sighed, "how I regret that we came to Paris!  I regret it all,
Gerald, save that you and I have met again;" and she stretched out her
hand until it came into contact with my coat-button, with which she
toyed like a child.

"And this meeting has really given you satisfaction?"  I whispered to
her, heedless of the presence of the others.

"Not only satisfaction," she answered, so softly that I alone could
catch her words, and looking into my face with that expression of
passionate affection which can never be simulated; "it has given back to
me a desire for happiness, for life, for love."

There were tears in those wonderful blue eyes, and her small hand
trembled within my grasp.  My heart at that moment was too full for mere
words.  True, I loved her with a mad fondness that I had never before
entertained for any woman; yet, nevertheless, a hideous shadow arose
between us, shutting her off from me for ever--the shadow of her
secret--the secret that she, my well-beloved, was actually a spy.

CHAPTER NINE.

AT THE ELYSEE.

Having reassured myself of Yolande's recovery, I was compelled to rush
off, slip into uniform, and attend a dinner at the Elysee.  The function
was a brilliant affair, as are all the official junketings of the French
President.  At the right of the head of the Republic, who was
distinguishable by his crimson sash, sat the Countess Tornelli, with the
wife of the United States Ambassador on his left.  The President's
wife--who wore a superb gown of corn-coloured miroir velvet, richly
embroidered and inlaid with Venetian lace, a veritable triumph of the
Rue de la Paix--had on her right the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Lerenzelli,
the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, while on her left was my Chief, Lord
Barmouth.

The seat next me was allotted to his daughter Sibyl, who looked charming
in rose chiffon.  During dinner she chatted merrily, describing a
charity bazaar which she had attended that afternoon accompanied by her
mother.  On the other side of her sat Count Berchtold, the secretary of
the Austrian Embassy, who was, I shrewdly suspected, one of her most
devoted admirers.  She was charming--a typical, smart English girl; and
I think that I was proved to be an exception among men by reason of the
fact that I did not flirt with her.  Indeed, we were excellent friends,
and my long acquaintance with her gave me a prescriptive right to a kind
of brotherly solicitude for her welfare.  Times without number I had
chaffed her about her little affairs of the heart, and as many times she
had turned my criticisms against myself by her witty repartee.  She
could be exceedingly sarcastic when occasion required; but there had
always been a perfect understanding between us, and no remark was ever
distorted into an insult.

Dinner was followed by a brilliant reception.  The great Salon des
Fetes, which only a year before was hung with funeral wreaths, owing to
the death of the previous President, resounded with that peculiar hum
made up of all the intonations of conversation and discreet laughter
rolled together against the sustained buzzing of the orchestra a short
distance away.  The scene was one of glittering magnificence.  Everyone
knew everyone else.  Through the crowd of uniforms--which always give an
official reception at the Elysee the appearance of a bal travesti--I
passed Monsieur Casimir Perrier, former President of the Republic;
Monsieur Paul Deschanel, the lion of the hour; Monsieur
Benjamin-Constant, always a prominent figure; Prince Roland Bonaparte,
smiling and bowing; the Duchess d'Auerstadt, with her magnificent
jewels; and Damat, the dapper Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour.
All diplomatic Paris was there, chattering, laughing, whispering, and
plotting.  Around me sounded a veritable babel of tongues, but no part
of the function interested me.

From time to time I saluted a man I knew, or bent over a woman's hand;
but my thoughts were of the one woman who had so suddenly and so
forcibly returned into my life.  The representatives of the Powers of
Europe were all present, and as they passed me by, each in his bright
uniform, his orders flashing on his breast and a woman on his arm, I
asked myself which of them was actually the employer of my well-beloved.

The startling events of the day had upset me.  Had it been possible I
would have left and returned to my rooms for a quiet smoke and for calm
reflection.  But my duty required my presence there; hence I remained,
strolling slowly around the great crowded salon with its myriad lights
and profuse floral decorations, until I suddenly encountered the
wizen-faced, toothless old Baronne de Chalencon, whose salon was one of
the most popular in Paris, and with whom I was on excellent terms.

"Ah! my dear M'sieur Ingram!" she cried, holding forth her thin, bony
hand laden with jewels.  "You look tired.  Why?  No one here to-night
who interests you--eh?"

"No one save yourself, Baronne," I responded, bending over her hand.

"Flatterer!" she laughed.  "If I were forty years younger I might accept
that as a compliment.  But at my age--well, it is really cruel of you."

"Intelligence is more interesting to a diplomat than a pretty face," I
responded quickly.  "And there is certainly no more intelligent woman in
all Paris than the Baronne de Chalencon."

She bowed stiffly, and her wrinkled face, which bore visible traces of
poudre orchidee and touches of the hare's-foot, puckered up into a
simpering smile.

"Well, and what else?" she asked.  "These speeches you have apparently
prepared for some pretty woman you expected to meet here to-night, but,
since she has not kept the appointment, you are practising them upon
me."

"No," I said, "I really protest against that, Baronne.  A woman is never
too old for a man to pay her compliments."

We had strolled into a cool ante-room, and were sitting together upon
one of the many seats placed beneath clumps of palms and flowers, the
only light being from a hundred tiny electric lamps hung overhead in the
trees.  The perfect arrangement of those ante-rooms of the Salle des
Fetes on the nights of the official receptions is always noteworthy, and
after the heat, music, and babel of tongues in the grand salon it was
cool, quiet, and refreshing there.

By holding her regular salon, where everybody who was anybody made it a
point to be seen, the Baronne had acquired in Paris a unique position.
Her fine house in the Avenue des Champs Elysees was the centre of a
smart and fashionable set, and she herself made a point of being versed
in all the latest gossip and scandal of the French capital.  She
scandalised nobody, nor did she seek to throw mud at her enemies.  She
merely repeated what was whispered to her; hence a chat with her was
always interesting to one who, like myself, was paid to keep his ears
open and report from time to time the direction of the political wind.

Tournier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife were her
most intimate friends; hence she was frequently aware of facts which
were of considerable importance to us.  Indeed, once or twice her
friendliness for myself had caused her to drop hints which had been of
the greatest use to Lord Barmouth in the conduct of his difficult
diplomacy at that time when the boulevard journals were screaming
against England and the filthy prints were caricaturing Her Majesty,
with intent to insult.  Even the _Figaro_--the moderate organ of the
French Foreign Office--had lost its self-control in the storm of abuse
following the Fashoda incident, and had libelled and maligned "les
English."  I therefore seized the opportunity for a chat with the
wizen-faced old lady, who seemed in a particularly good-humour, and
deftly turned the conversation into the political channel.

"Now, tell me, Baronne," I said, after we had been chatting some little
time, and I had learnt more than one important fact regarding the
intentions of Tournier, "what is your opinion regarding the occupation
of Ceuta?"

She glanced at me quickly, as though surprised that I should be aware of
what she had believed to be an entire secret.

"Of Ceuta?" she echoed.  "And what do you at your Embassy know regarding
it?"

"We've heard a good deal," I laughed.

"No doubt you've heard a good deal that is untrue," the clever old lady
replied, her powdered face again puckering into a smile.  "Do you want
to know my honest opinion?" she added.

"Yes, I do."

"Well," she went on, "I attach very little importance to the rumours of
a projected sale or lease of Ceuta to us.  I might tell you in
confidence," she went on, dropping her voice, "that from some words I
overheard at the garden-party at de Wolkenstein's I have come to a firm
conclusion that, although during the next few years important changes
will be made upon the map of the world, Ceuta will remain Spanish.  My
country will never menace yours in the Mediterranean at that point.  A
Ministry might be found in Madrid to consider the question of its
disposal, but the Spanish people would rise in revolution before they
would consent.  Spain is very poor, but very proud.  Having lost so many
of her foreign possessions, she will hold more strongly than ever to
Ceuta.  There you have the whole situation in a nutshell."

"Then the report that it is actually sold to France is untrue?"  I asked
eagerly.

"A mere report I believe it to be."

"But Spain's financial indebtedness to France might prove an element of
danger when Europe justifies Lord Beaconsfield's prediction and rushes
into war over Morocco?"

"Ah, my dear M'sieur Ingram, I do not agree with the prediction of your
great statesman," the old lady said vehemently.  "It is not in that
direction in which lies the danger of war, but at the other end of the
Mediterranean."

Somehow I suspected her of a deliberate intention to mislead me in this
matter.  She was a shrewd woman, who only disclosed her secrets when it
was to her own interests or the interests of her friends at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs to do so.  In Paris there is a vast network of French
intrigue, and it behoves the diplomatist always to be wary lest he
should fall into the pitfalls so cunningly prepared for him.  The
dividing line between truth and untruth is always so very difficult to
define in modern diplomacy.  It is when the European situation seems
most secure that the match is sufficiently near to fire the mine.
Fortunate it is that the public, quick to accept anything that appears
in the daily journals, can be placed in a sense of false security by
articles inspired by one or other of the embassies interested.  If it
were not so, European panics would certainly be of frequent occurrence.

My Chief sauntered by, chatting with his close personal friend, Prince
Olsoufieff, the Russian Ambassador, who looked a truly striking figure
in his white uniform, with the Cross of St. Andrew glittering at his
throat.  The latter, as he passed, exclaimed confidentially in Russian
to my Chief, who understood that language, having been first Secretary
of Embassy in Petersburg earlier in his career:

"Da, ya po-ni-mai-u.  Ya sam napishu."  ("Yes, I understand.  I will
write for you myself.")

Keen antagonists in diplomacy though they very often were, yet in
private life a firm friendship existed between the pair--a friendship
dating from the days when the one had been British Attache in Petersburg
and the other had occupied a position in the Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs--that large grey building facing the Winter Palace.

"The lion and the bear strolling together," laughed the toothless old
Baronne, after they had passed.  "Olsoufieff is a charming man, but he
never accepts my invitations.  I cannot tell why.  I don't fancy he
considers me his friend."

"Sibyl was at your reception the other evening," I remarked suddenly.
"She told me she met a man who was a stranger in Paris.  His name, I
think she said, was Wolf--Rodolphe Wolf.  Who is he?"

"He was introduced by de Wolkenstein, the Austrian Ambassador," she
replied quickly.  "I did not know him."

"Have you never met him before?"  I asked, looking sharply into her
eyes.

"Once, I think, but I am not certain," she said, with a palpable effort
to evade my question.

I smiled.

"Come, madame," I said good-humouredly, "you know Rodolphe Wolf quite as
well as I do.  When you last met, his name was not Wolf.  Is not that
so?"

"Well," she answered, "now that you put it in that manner I may as well
admit that your suggestion is correct."

"And what is the object of his sudden visit to Paris?"

"I cannot make out," she replied in a more confidential tone.  "As I
tell you, de Wolkenstein introduced him, but, as m'sieur knows, I am
very quick to detect a face that I have once seen, and I recognised him
in an instant."

"Sibyl told me that he had a long chat with her, and she described him
as a most charming fellow."

"Ah, no doubt!  I suspected him and watched.  It was evident that he
came to my salon in order to meet her."

"To meet Sibyl!  Why?"

"That I cannot tell."

"But I think, Baronne, we may be both agreed upon one point."

"And that is?"

"That the man who now calls himself Rodolphe Wolf is here in Paris with
some secret motive."

"I am entirely in accord, m'sieur--quite.  Some steps must at once be
taken to ascertain that man's motives."

"It seems curious that he should have been introduced for the purpose of
meeting Sibyl.  What information did he want from her?"

"How can we tell?  You know better than myself whether she ever knows
any secrets of the Embassy."

"She knows nothing,--of that I am absolutely convinced," I responded.
"Her father is devoted to her; but, nevertheless, he is one of those
strict diplomatists who do not believe in trusting women with secrets."

"Yet Wolf had a distinct object in making a good impression upon her,"
she said reflectively.

"No doubt.  As soon as she returned she began to talk of him."

And next instant I recollected the strange effect the news of his
arrival in Paris had had upon Yolande, and the curiously tragic event
which had subsequently occurred.  All was puzzling--all inscrutable.

A silence fell between us.  I was revolving in my mind whether I should
ask this wizen-faced old leader of Society a further question.  With
sudden resolve I turned to her again and asked:

"O Baronne, I had quite forgotten.  Do you chance to know the Countess
de Foville, of Brussels?  They have a chateau down in the Ardennes, and
move in the best set in Belgium?"

"De Foville?  De Foville?" she repeated.  "What, do you mean the mother
of that little witch Yolande?"

"Yes.  But why do you call her a witch?"  I demanded, with feigned
laughter.

"Why?" cried the old woman, the expression of her face growing dark with
displeasure.  "Well, I do not know whether she is a friend of yours, but
all I can tell you is that should she be, the best course for you to
pursue is to cut her acquaintance."

"What do you mean?"  I gasped.

"I mean exactly what I have said."

"But I don't understand," I cried.  "Be more frank with me," I implored.

"No," she answered in that hard voice, by which I knew that mention of
Yolande's name had displeased her.  "Remember that we are friends, and
that sometimes we have interests in common.  Therefore, take this piece
of advice from an old woman who knows."

"Knows what?"

"Knows that your friendship with the pretty Yolande is dangerous--
extremely dangerous."

CHAPTER TEN.

CONFESSION.

Next day, when the manservant asked me into the tiny boudoir in the Rue
de Courcelles, I found Yolande, in a pretty tea-gown of cream silk
adorned with lace and ribbons, seated in an armchair in an attitude of
weariness.  The sun-shutters were closed, as on the previous day, for
the heat in Paris that July was insufferable, and in the dim light her
wan figure looked very fair and fragile.  The qualities which imparted
to her a distinct individuality were the beautiful combination of the
pastoral with the elegant--of simplicity with elevation--of spirit with
sweetness.

She gave vent to a cry of gladness as I entered, rose, and stretching
out her hands in welcome, drew a seat for me close to her.  I looked at
her standing before me in her warm, breathing, human loveliness.

"You are better, Yolande?  Ah! how glad I am!"  I commenced.  "Last
night I believed that you were dead."

"And if I had died would it really have mattered so very much to you?"
she asked in a low, intense voice.  "You have forgotten me for three
whole years until now."

"I know--I know!"  I cried.  "Forgive me."

"I have already forgiven," she said, allowing her hand still to remain
in mine.  "But I have been thinking to-day--thinking ever so much."

Her voice was weak and faltering, and I saw that she was not herself.

"Thinking of what?"

"Of you.  I have been wondering whether, if I had died, you would have
sometimes remembered me?"

"Remembered you?"  I said earnestly.  "Why, of course, dearest.  Why do
you speak in such a melancholy tone?"

"Because--well, because I am unhappy, Gerald!" she cried, bursting into
sudden tears.  "Ah! you do not know how I suffer--you can never know!"

I bent and stroked her hair, that beautiful red-gold hair that I had so
often heard admired in the great salons in Brussels.  It had been bound
but lightly by her maid, and was secured by a blue ribbon.  She had
apologised for receiving me thus, but declared that her head ached, and
it was easier so.  Doctor Deane had called twice that morning, and had
pronounced her entirely out of danger.

"But why are you suffering?"  I asked, caressing her and striving to
charm away her tears.  "Cannot you confide in me?"

She shook her head in despair, and her body was shaken by a convulsive
sob.

"Surely there is confidence between us?"  I urged.  "Do you not remember
that day long ago when we walked one evening in the sunset hand-in-hand,
as was our wont, along the river-path towards La Roche?  Do you not
remember how you told me that in future you would have no single secret
from me?"

"Yes," she answered hoarsely, with an effort, "I recollect."

"Then you intend to break your promise to me?"  I whispered earnestly.
"Surely you will not do this, Yolande?  You will not hide from me the
cause of all this bitterness of yours?"  She was silent.  Her breast,
beneath its lace, rose quickly and fell again.  Her tear-filled eyes
were fixed upon the carpet.

"I would not break my promise," she said at last, clasping my hand
convulsively and lifting her eyes to mine; "but, alas! it is now
imperative."

"Why imperative?"

"I must suffer alone," she responded gloomily, shaking her head.  Her
countenance was as pale as her gown, and she shivered as though she were
cold, although the noonday heat was suffocating.

"Because you refuse to tell me anything or allow me to assist you?"  I
said.  "This is not in accordance with the promise made and sealed by
your lips on that evening long ago."

"Nor have your actions been in accordance with your own promise," she
said slowly and distinctly.

"To what do you refer?"

"You told me that you loved me, Gerald," she said in a deep voice,
suddenly grown calm.  "You swore by all you held most sacred that I was
all the world to you, and that no one should come between us.  Yet past
events have shown that you have forgotten those words of yours on the
day when we idled in the Bois beneath the trees.  You, too, remember
that day, do you not--the day when our lips met for the first time, and
we both believed our path would in future be strewn with flowers?  Ah!"
she sighed, "and what an awakening life has been to me since then!"

"We parted because of your refusal to satisfy me as to the real state of
your feelings towards the man who was my enemy," I said rather warmly.

"But was it justifiable?" she asked in a tone of deep reproach and
mingled sweetness.  Her blue eyes looked full upon me--those eyes that
had held me in such fascination in the golden days of youth.  "Has any
single fact which you have since discovered verified your suspicions?
Tell me truthfully;" and she leaned towards me in an attitude of deepest
earnestness.

"No," I answered honestly, "I cannot say that my suspicions have ever
been verified."

"And because of that you have returned to me when it is too late."

"Too late!"  I cried.  "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I have said.  You have come back to me when it is too
late."

"You speak in enigmas, Yolande.  Why not be more explicit?"

Her pale lips trembled, her eyes were brimming with tears, her chilly
hand quivered in mine.  She did not speak for some moments, but at last
said in a low, tremulous voice half choked by emotion:

"Once you loved me, Gerald,--of that I feel confident; and I
reciprocated your affection, God knows!  Our love was, perhaps, curious,
inasmuch as you were English and I was of a different creed and held
different ideas from those which you considered right.  It is always the
same with a man and woman of different nationality--there must be a
give-and-take principle between them.  Between us, however, there was
perfect confidence until, by a strange combination of circumstances--by
a stroke of the sword of Fate--that incident occurred which led to our
estrangement."

She paused, her blanched lips shut tight.  "Well?"  I asked, "I am all
attention.  Why is it too late now for me to make reparation for the
past?"

I loved her with all my soul.  I was heedless of those words of the old
Baronne, of Anderson's suspicions, and Kaye's denunciation.  Even if she
were a spy, I adored her.  The fire of that old love had swept upon me,
and I could not hold back, even though her touch might be as that of a
leper and her lips venomous.

"Reparation is impossible," she answered hoarsely.  "Is not that
sufficient?"

"No, it is not sufficient," I answered clearly.  "I will not be put off
by such an answer."

"It were better," she cried--"better that I had died yesterday than
suffer like this.  You rescued me from death only to torture me."

Her words aroused within me a distinct suspicion that her strange
illness had been brought to pass because, using some mysterious means,
she had made an attempt against her own life.  I believed that she had
suffered, and was still suffering, from the effects of some poison, the
exact nature of which neither Deane nor Trepard could as yet determine.

"I do not seek to torture you, dearest," I protested.  "Far from it.  I
merely want to know the truth, in order that I may share your
unhappiness, as your betrothed ought to do."

"But you are not my betrothed."

"I was once."

"But not now.  You taunt me with breaking that promise which I made
three years ago, yet you yourself it was who played me false--who left
me for your prim, strait-laced English miss!"

In an instant the truth was plain.  She was aware that I had transferred
my affections to Edith!  Someone had told her--no doubt with a good many
embellishments, or perhaps some scandalous story.  In the salons through
which we of the diplomatic circle are compelled to move, women's tongues
are ever at work match-making and mischief-making.  On the Continent
love and politics run always hand-in-hand.  That is the reason why the
most notorious of the demi-monde in Paris, in Vienna, and in Berlin are
the secret agents of their respective Governments; and many are the
honest men innocently denounced through jealousy and kindred causes.  A
false declaration of one or other of these unscrupulous spies has before
now caused the downfall of a Ministry or the disgrace of a noble and
patriotic politician.

"I know to whom you refer," I said, with bowed head, after a moment's
pause.  "It is currently reported that I love her.  I have loved her.  I
do not seek to deny it.  When a man sustains such a blow as I sustained
before we parted, he often rushes to another woman for consolation.  The
influence of that second woman often prevents him from going to the bad
altogether.  It has been so in my case."

"And you love her now?" she cried, the fire of fierce jealousy in her
eyes.  "You cannot deny it!"

"I do deny it," I cried.  "True, until yesterday I held her in esteem,
even in affection; but it is not so now.  All my love for you, Yolande,
has returned to me.  Our parting has rendered you dearer and sweeter to
me than ever."

"I cannot believe it," she exclaimed falteringly.

"I swear that it is so.  In all my life, although am compelled to treat
women with courtesy and sometimes to affect flirtation, because of my
profession as a diplomatist, I have loved only one woman--yourself;" and
I raised her chilly hand to my lips, kissing it fervently.

Mine was no mere caprice at that moment.  With an all-consuming passion
I loved her, and was prepared on her account to make any sacrifice she
demanded.  Let the reader remember what had already been told me, and
reflect that, like many another man, I loved madly, and was heedless of
any consequences that might follow.  In this particular I was not alone.
Thousands before me had been allured to their ruin by a woman's eyes,
just as thousands of brave women's hearts have been broken and their
lives wrecked by men's false oaths of fidelity.  I have heard wiseacres
say that the woman only suffers in such cases; the man never.  Whether
that rule proves always true will be shown in this strange story of my
own love.

She drew her hand away slowly, but forcibly, saying:

"You cannot love two women.  Already you have shown a preference for a
wife of your own people."

"It is all over between us," I protested.  "Mine was a mere passing
fancy, engendered, I think, by the loneliness I suffered when I lost
you."

"Ah," (she smiled sadly), "that is all very well!  A woman, when once
played false by the man she loves and trusts, is never the
same--_never_!"

"Then am I to understand, Yolande, that you refuse to pardon me, or to
accept my affection?"

"I have already pardoned you," she faltered; "but to accept the love you
once withdrew from me without just reason is, I regret to say,
impossible."

"You speak coldly, as though you were refusing a mere invitation to
dinner, or something of no greater importance," I protested.  "I offer
you my whole heart, my love--nay, my life;" and I held her hand again,
looking straight into those wonderful eyes, now so calm, so serious,
that my gaze wavered before them.

Slowly she shook her head, and her trembling breast rose and fell again.

"Ours was a foolish infatuation," she answered with an effort.  "It is
best that we should both of us forget."

"Forget!"  I cried.  "But I can never forget you, Yolande.  You are my
love.  You are all the world to me."

Her eyes were grave, and I saw that tears stood in them.

"No," she protested quietly; "do not say that.  I cannot be any more to
you than other women whom you meet daily.  Besides, I know well that in
the diplomatic service marriage is a serious drawback to any save an
ambassador."

"When a man is in love as I am with you, dearest, he throws all thoughts
of his career to the winds; personal interests are naught where true
love is concerned."

"You must not--nay, you shall not--wreck your future on my account," she
declared in a low, intense voice.  "It is not just either to yourself or
to the Englishwoman who loves you."

"Why do you taunt me with that, Yolande?"  I asked reproachfully.  "I do
not love her.  I have never truly loved her.  I was lonely after you had
gone out of my life, and she was amusing,--that was all."

"And now you find me equally amusing--eh?" she remarked, with just a
touch of bitter sarcasm.

"Why should you be jealous of her?"  I asked.  "You might just as well
be jealous of Sibyl, Lord Barmouth's daughter."

"With the latter you are certainly on terms of most intimate
friendship," she answered with a smile.  "I really wonder that I did not
object to her in the days long ago."

"Ah!"  I laughed, "you certainly had no cause.  It is true that we have
been good friends ever since the day when she arrived home from the
convent-school at Bruges, a prim young miss with her hair tied up with
ribbon.  Thrown constantly together, as we were, I became her male
confidant and intimate friend; hence my licence to give her counsel in
many matters and sometimes to criticise those actions of which I don't
approve."

"Then if that is so, you care a little for her--just a little?  Now
admit it."

"I don't admit anything of the kind," I answered frankly.  "For five
years we have been constantly together; and times without number, at
Lady Barmouth's request, I have acted as her escort here and there,
until she looks upon me as a kind of necessary appendage who has a right
to chaff her about her flirtations and annoy her by judicious sarcasm.
I don't entertain one single spark of love for her.  In brief, she has
developed into an essentially smart girl, in the true sense of the word,
and by reason of our constant companionship knows that to attempt a
flirtation with me would result in a most dismal failure.  I accused her
once, not long ago, of having designs upon my heart, whereupon she
replied that to accomplish such a thing would be about as easy as to win
the affection of the bronze Neptune in the garden-fountain of the
Embassy."


"You have been seen together a great deal of late?"

"Who told you so?"

"A friend who knows you both."  Then she added: "From my information I
hear that last season you danced so much with her and were so constantly
at her side that people were talking of a match between you."

"Ridiculous!"  I exclaimed.  "Of course gossips are always too ready to
jump to ill-formed conclusions.  As one of the staff of the Embassy, and
her most intimate male friend, it was only courtesy to take her beneath
my care.  When she had no other partner and wanted to dance, then she
sometimes asked me.  I think she did it to annoy me, for she knew that I
was never fond of dancing."

"Do you remember the Countess of Flanders' balls at Brussels--how we
danced together?" she remarked.

"Remember them!"  I echoed.  "They were in the golden days when
everything seemed to our eyes couleur de rose--the days when our love
was perfect."

She sighed again, but no word escaped her.  She was, I knew, reflecting
upon those blissful days and nights when we met here and there at all
hours and at all the best houses in Brussels, dining, lunching, dancing,
and gossiping--together always.

"Will you not resolve to forget the past, Yolande?"  I asked fervently,
taking her hand in mine again.  "Come, tell me that you will--that you
will not hold me aloof like this?  I cannot bear it--indeed I can't, for
I love you;" and I bent until my lips touched her finger-tips.

"I cannot!" she cried at last, with an effort rising and firmly
withdrawing her hand from my grasp.

"You cannot?  Why?"  I demanded, taken somewhat aback by her sudden
attitude of determination.

"I will not allow you to ruin yourself, Gerald, on my account," she
declared in a very low but calm voice.

"But why should my love for you prove my ruin?"  I cried madly.  "The
truth is that you do not love me.  Why not admit it at once?"

"You are in error," she hastened to protest.  "I do love you.  I love
you to-day with the same fond affection as I entertained for you until
that day--fatal to me--when you turned your back upon me and left me.
But, alas! we can never now be the same to one another as we were then."
She paused for a moment to regain breath; then, pale-faced, with eyes
filled with tears, she gripped my arm frantically, crying: "Gerald, my
love, hear me!  These are my last words, but I pronounce them--I make
confession--so that you may understand the barrier that now lies between
us."

"Well," I said, "speak--tell me!"

"Ah!" she cried hoarsely, covering her face with her hands, "you wring
this confession from me.  I am the most unhappy girl in all the world.
Would that I were dead that it was all ended!  If I did not love you,
Gerald, I should deceive you, and leave you to discover the truth after
our marriage.  But I cannot--I cannot!  Even though we shall part to-day
for ever, I have resolved to be frank with you because I still have one
single spark of honesty left within my heart!"

"I don't understand," I exclaimed.  "Tell me."

"Then listen," she said in a hard, unnatural voice, after a few moments
of hesitation.  "When we were lovers in the old days I was, as you know,
a pure, honest, upright woman, with thoughts only for my God and for
yourself.  But I am that no longer.  I am unworthy your love, Gerald.  I
am unfit to be your wife, and can never be--never!" and she threw
herself upon the couch near by and burst into a flood of tears, while I
stood there rigid as a statue.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

DEANE SPEAKS HIS MIND.

An hour later I was seated in my room at the Embassy staring blankly at
the blotting-pad before me, utterly perplexed and bewildered.  I loved
Yolande--nay, she was my idol; nevertheless she had firmly refused to
allow me to resume my place at her side.  At one moment it seemed to me
as though she had actually made a sacrifice for my sake; yet at another
I could not help regarding both her and her mother with distinct
suspicion.  My love's strange words were in themselves a sufficient
self-condemnation.  Her service as a political agent had been secured by
one or other of the Powers--France, I suspected; and, to put it plainly,
she was a spy!

This knowledge had come upon me like a thunderbolt.  Of all the women I
had known and least suspected of endeavouring to learn the secrets of
our diplomacy, Yolande was certainly the chief.  The events which had
culminated in her accepting this odious office were veiled in mystery.
Why had she done this?  Who had tempted her or forced her to it?

Those tears of hers, when she had made confession, were the tears of a
woman in the depths of despair and degradation, and I, loving her so
fondly, could not but allow my heart to go forth in sympathy.  There was
an affinity between us that I knew might some day prove fatal.

But we had parted.  She had announced her intention of leaving Paris,
accompanied by her mother, on the morrow, and had begged and implored
that I would never seek her again.

"I shall take care to evade you," she had said.  "To-day we meet for the
last time.  We must each go our own way and strive our hardest to
forget."

Ah! to forget would, I knew, be impossible.  When a man has loved as
ardently and intensely as I loved Yolande, memories cling to him and are
carried to the grave.  You, reader, have loved in those half-forgotten
days of long ago, and even now, with age creeping on, and, perchance,
with grey hairs showing, sometimes give a passing thought to that fair
one who in youth's golden days was your all in all.  The sound of a
song, the momentary perfume from a woman's chiffons as she passes, the
sight of some long-forgotten scene, stirs the memory and recalls those
hours of love and laziness when the world was so very pleasant and
seemed to have been made for you alone.  You recollect her sweet smile,
her calm, womanly influence, her full red lips, and the fervency of her
kisses.  The tender memory to-day is sweet, even though it be tinged
with bitterness, for you wonder whom she has married, and how she has
fared; you wonder, too, if you will ever meet again, or whether she is
already dead.  The most charming reflection permitted to man is the
memory of a half-forgotten love.

I had been a fool.  This bitter truth was forced upon me as I sat there
ruminating.  I had cast aside that patience and discretion which I, as a
diplomatist, had carefully cultivated, and had actually contemplated
marriage with a woman who had been denounced by Kaye as a secret agent.
My own peril had been a grave one indeed, and as I reflected I began to
wonder how it was that I should have so completely lost my self-control.
Having arrived in the vicinity of the post, he prowled out on foot with
his only friend. It was early, for he must do his deed while yet the
lights were lit. Any one moving about after "taps" would surely be
investigated by the guard. The country was not yet tranquil enough to
permit of laxity in the matter of sentry duty, and the soldiers counted
"ten" very fast after they challenged. He had laid aside his big hat,
and was wrapped in his blanket. Many Indians were about, and he was less
apt to be spoken to or noticed. He moved forward to the scout fire,
which was outside of the guard-line, and stood for a time in some
brushwood, beyond the play of the flames. He was closely enveloped in
his blanket, and although Indians passed quite near him, he was not
noticed. Suddenly he heard a detail of wagons clanking up the road, and
conjectured rightly that they would go into the post. He ran silently
toward them, and stooping low, saw against the skyline that the cavalry
guard had worked up in front, impatient to shave the time when they
should reach their quarters.

It was a wood train, and it clanked and ground and jingled to the
quartermaster's corral, bearing one log on the last wagon which was John
Ermine and his fortunes. This log slid to the ground and walked swiftly
away.

       *       *       *       *       *

The time for "taps" was drawing near, and the post buzzed in the usual
expectation of that approaching time of quiet. A rifle-shot rang loud
and clear up on the officers' row; it was near Major Searles's house,
every one said as they ran. Women screamed, and Tongue River cantonment
laid its legs to the ground as it gathered to the place. Officers came
with revolvers, and the guard with lanterns. Mrs. Searles and her
daughter were clasped in each other's arms, while Mary, the cook, put
her apron over her head. Searles ran out with his gun; the shot had been
right under the window of his sitting-room. An Indian voice greeted
him, "Don' shoot; me killi him."

"Who in h---- are you?" swore Searles, at a present.

"Don' shoot, me Ahhæta--all same Sharp-Nose--don' shoot--me killi him."

"Killi who? Who have you killed? Talk up quick!"

"Me killi him. You come--you see."

By this time the crowd drew in with questions and eager to help. A
sergeant arrived with a lantern, and the guard laid rude hands on the
Crow scout, Sharp-Nose, who was well known. He was standing over the
prostrate figure, and continued to reiterate, "Me killi him."

The lantern quickly disclosed the man on the ground to be John Ermine,
late scout and fugitive from justice, shot through the heart and dead,
with his blanket and rifle on the ground beside him. As he looked
through the window, he had been stalked and killed by the fool whom he
would not allow to shake hands with Katherine Searles, and a few moments
later, when Sharp-Nose was brought into her presence, between two
soldiers, she recognized him when he said, "Mabeso, now you shake
hands."

"Yes, I will shake hands with you, Sharp-Nose," and half to herself, as
she eyed her malevolent friend, she muttered, "and he kept you to
remember me by."




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=Roberts--Kings in Exile=

BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

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=Robins--The Convert=

BY ELIZABETH ROBINS

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=Robins--A Dark Lantern=

BY ELIZABETH ROBINS

A powerful and striking novel, English in scene, which takes an
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=Ward--David Grieve=

BY MRS. HUMPHREY WARD

"A perfect picture of life, remarkable for its humor and extraordinary
success at character analysis."

=Wells--The Wheels of Chance=

BY H. G. WELLS

"Mr. Wells is beyond question the most plausible romancer of the
time."--_The New York Tribune._




THE MACMILLAN JUVENILE LIBRARY


This collection of juvenile books contains works of standard quality, on
a variety of subjects--history, biography, fiction, science, and
poetry--carefully chosen to meet the needs and interests of both boys
and girls.

=_Each volume, cloth, 12mo, 50 cents net; postage, 10 cents extra_=


=Altsheler--The Horsemen of the Plains=

BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

"A story of the West, of Indians, of scouts, trappers, fur traders, and,
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=Bacon--While Caroline Was Growing=

BY JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON

"Only a genuine lover of children, and a keenly sympathetic observer of
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=Carroll--Alice's Adventures, and Through the Looking Glass=

BY LEWIS CARROLL

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=Dix--A Little Captive Lad=

BY MARIE BEULAH DIX

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=Greene--Pickett's Gap=

BY HOMER GREENE

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=Lucas--Slowcoach=

BY E. V. LUCAS

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=Mabie--Book of Christmas=

BY H. W. MABIE

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=Major--The Bears of Blue River=

BY CHARLES MAJOR

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=Major--Uncle Tom Andy Bill=

BY CHARLES MAJOR

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=Nesbit--The Railway Children=

BY E. NESBIT

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=Whyte--The Story Book Girls=

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=Wright--Dream Fox Story Book=

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=Wright--Aunt Jimmy's Will=

BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT

"Barbara has written no more delightful book than this."




Transcriber's Note


Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.

Page numbers cited in illustration captions refer to their original
placement in the text. Illustrations have been moved near their mention
in the text.

"_" surrounding text represents italics.

"=" surrounding text represents bold.

Punctuation, capitalization, accents and formatting markup have been
made consistent.

Page 34, "Ba-chua-hish-a" changed to "Ba-cher-hish-a" for consistency.
(Ba-cher-hish-a sobbed and wailed all night in her lodge, while the
foster-father walked outside, speculating endlessly with his friends.)

Page 94, "trial" changed to "trail". (Now we must blind our trail; their
scouts will find it in the morning.)

Page 5 of the Advertisements, "These" changed to "There". (There is
interwoven with it a play of mild philosophy and of pointed wit.)

Page 12 of the Advertisements, "JOHN" changed to "FREDERIC". (BY
FREDERIC REMINGTON)

Page 14 of the Advertisements has been left as originally published. The
accompanying comment for "Aunt Jimmy's Will" by Mabel Osgood Wright has
been left to read: "Barbara has written no more delightful book than
this."













    “I BELIEVE”

    AND OTHER ESSAYS

    BY

    GUY THORNE

    Author of “When it Was Dark,” “First it was Ordained,”
    “Made in His Image,” etc., etc.

    LONDON

    F. V. WHITE & CO., Limited
    14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.

    1907


    RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
    BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
    BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.




CONTENTS


      I. “I BELIEVE”
     II. THE FIRES OF MOLOCH
    III. THE HISTORICIDES OF OXFORD
     IV. THE BROWN AND YELLOW PERIL
      V. THE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT
     VI. VAGROM MEN
    VII. AN AUTHOR’S POST-BAG




DEDICATION

To F. V. WHITE, ESQUIRE.


MY DEAR WHITE,

The publication of this book is a business arrangement between you and
me. Its dedication however has nothing to do with the relations of
author and publisher in those capacities, but is merely an expression
of friendship and esteem. This then is to remind you of pleasant hours
we have spent together on the other side of the channel, in your house
at London, and my house in Kent.

Yours ever sincerely,

GUY THORNE.




“I BELIEVE”




I

“I BELIEVE”

“_Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision_.”


When I was a boy I made an occasional invasion of my father’s study,
and in the absence of more congenial matter tried to extract some
amusement from the shelves devoted to Christian apologetics. At any
rate the pictures of the portly divines, which sometimes prefaced
their polemics, interested me, and I was sometimes allured to read a
few pages of their scripture. I remember that I enjoyed the sub-acid
flavour of Bishop Butler’s advertisement, prefixed to the First
Edition of his _Analogy_, at an early age, and I have thought lately
that in certain circles one hundred and seventy years have not greatly
modified the mental attitude.

Hear what the Rector of Stanhope who, as Horace Walpole said, was
shortly to be “Wafted to the see of Durham in a cloud of metaphysics,”
says about his literary contemporaries--

“It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons
that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry, but that it
is now at length discovered to be fictitious, and accordingly they
treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among
all people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a
principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of
reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the
world.”

Perhaps the difference between the times of George the Second and
Edward the Seventh may be best discerned in the status and calibre of
the popular penmen who in either age have found, or furnished
amusement in a tilt against the Catholic Faith.

The man in the street, as we know him, did not exist in the eighteenth
century. He is the predominant person to-day, and he requires the
services of able authors to assure him of immunity, when he is
inclined to frolic away from chastity or integrity, much as did the
county members who pocketed the bribes of Sir Robert Walpole and
prated of patriotism.

Fortunately for society the man in the street is a very decent fellow,
and generally finds out before long that Wisdom’s ways are ways of
pleasantness. A man may enjoy posing as an agnostic when he wants an
excuse for--as the negro said--“doing what he dam please,” but when he
takes to himself a wife, and children are born to him, a certain
anxiety as to the continuity and perpetuation of these relationships
begins to show itself. A man who has lost a little child, or waited in
agonizing suspense to hear the physician’s verdict, when sickness
overshadows his home, discovers that he needs something beyond
negations, something that will bring life and immortality to light
again within his soul.

Moreover, the man in the street finds it necessary to come to some
decision on other problems of existence. He is a citizen and must
needs exercise his enfranchisement and give his vote at an election
now and again. He must help to decide whether the State shall ignore
religion and establish a system of ethical education, of which the
ultimate sanction is social convenience, or maintain the thesis that
Creed and Character are mutually inter-dependent.

As he pays his poor rate wrathfully, or with resignation, its annual
increase reminds him of the necessity of curing or eliminating the
unfit. When he reads of Belgian and Prussian colonial enterprise, or
ponders on the perplexing problem of the Black Belt which the Southern
States must solve, he is compelled to consider whether it is true
that “God has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all
the face of the earth,” or whether this shall be accounted as another
of the delusions of Saul of Tarsus whom Governor Festus found to be
mad.

Indeed, our friend, the man in the street, when he becomes a family
man, without any pretensions to be a man of family, very often finds
himself face to face with other problems. Shall he simply sing with
the Psalmist “Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are
the young children. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of
them,” or shall he be guided by the gloss of a modern interpreter who
maintains that the oriental quiver was designed to hold but two or
three arrows at most?

Even when the plain man confines his interests to his business and
seeks relaxations in “sport” alone, endeavouring to evade the puzzles
of politics and avoid all theologized inquiry, he cannot escape from
ethical consideration. Professionalism in athletics and questions of
betting and bribery contend with his conviction that there is
something which ennobles man in running and striving for mastery, and
it is futile to curse the bookmaker when his clients are so many, his
occupation so lucrative.

The average man gets little guidance from pulpit or press. It is dull
work reading sermons, even if sermons came in his way. From time to
time some eloquent bishop or canon is reported in the Monday morning
papers, but journalists know that the publication of a summary with,
in the case of a few of the preachers, some epigrams or denunciations,
is all that can be permitted or expected. These may arouse the
attention to the existence of evils, but give no guiding principle for
their cure.

The habit of attendance at some place of worship is easily abandoned
in the days of bachelor freedom, and rarely regained in maturer years.
Men for the most part find the preacher unconvincing. The usual
audience does not desire discussion of difficulties. When the honest
instinct of devotional worship is gratified by common praise and
prayer, the people who regularly go to church, elderly, and orthodox
in their own way, resent a demand upon their intellectual exertion,
and the Northern farmer of Tennyson hardly misrepresents them, “I
thought he said what he ought to ha’ said and I comed away.” The great
Nonconformist societies may, in some congregations, give a larger
latitude to the preacher, but his freedom is rather in the direction
of divinity than of ethics. Mr. Rockefeller is a prominent pillar of
Protestantism in the States, and Mr. Jabez Balfour, in another
congregation at Croydon, apparently knew no qualms of conscience
before his actual conviction, which was public, of sin.

There is an old proverb which tells us that “A man is either a fool or
a philosopher at forty”--and, though proverbs are often only venerable
prejudices in disguise, it is true that a man, who has attained his
eighth lustrum and is of average ability, generally has come to
certain definite conclusions as to the rudimentary laws of health. He
knows enough about his body to avoid fatal errors in diet, and has
learned the necessity of exercise and fresh air. But when he is called
upon, as a member of the body politic, to decide questions of ethics
on which the sanitation of society must depend, he feels himself at a
loss. To many people it will seem a hard saying that a man must be
either a fool or a philosopher at forty, but long ere he has reached
that age he will have encountered problems of philosophy which it is
impossible to shirk if he is to do his duty as a free man.

St. Paul, it is true, when writing to a Christian Community in Asia
Minor, bids them “beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy.”
And the unfortunate habit of Bible Christians, of tearing a text from
a treatise and making it into a precept, has thrown a sort of
discredit upon philosophic thinking, while the mass of mankind will
always prefer rules to principles of conduct. But in vain do we
clamour against intellectual complications which are the inevitable
endowment of these days. Life is necessarily intricate, subtle and
anxious, and Democracy has made of each man a ruler and governor in
his degree. Is it possible to point to a single principle which shall
be a motive and a standard of duty, which shall establish a synthetic
method after the ruthless analysis of the later Victorian days?

How searching that analysis has been! Fifty years ago the man in the
street might rarely read the Bible, but he had a tolerably assured
conviction that the Bible was infallible, however resolutely he might
refuse its interpretation by an infallible church.

Then

     “...the Essays and Reviews debate Begins to tell on the
     public mind, and Colenso’s views have weight.”

Plain people were taught to look on the Old Testament as a library of
Hebrew literature containing not only poetry and history, but romance.

When Colenso’s book first appeared, Matthew Arnold deprecated its
publication since it brought criticisms familiar to men of culture
before the notice of the public, without considering how the beliefs
of “the vulgar” might be upset.

The supercilious apostle of “sweetness and light,” himself contributed
largely in later years to the general confusion in men’s minds, and
the New Testament criticism has been introduced to the general public
by Mr. Arnold’s accomplished niece.

Our friend, the man in the street, was all unprepared!

What had he ever been taught of theology, the Divine word to man? In
his school-days, if his father was an income tax payer he probably had
a weekly lesson in “Divinity,” when he construed a few verses of the
Gospels in the Greek Testament, and showed up to his master, now and
then, a map of the journeying of the Apostle Paul in Asia Minor and
Eastern Europe. If his father expected him to be confirmed, in due
course, some lessons in the catechism were added for his benefit, but
prudent pedagogues took care not to endanger the popularity of a
school, whether public or private, by any definite teaching which
might be accused of being dogmatic. The head-master was probably a
person of unsuspected orthodoxy, with a possible deanery or bishopric
in view for his days of superannuation. His sermons in chapel used to
set a fine standard of conduct before the boys, and were gracefully
free from all mention of controversial questions. In due course they
were published with the title _Sermons at Yarrow_, and enterprising
parents turning over their pages would find little to criticize and
much to admire. The Cross, if presented at all in these publications,
was so bespangled with rhetorical jewellery that “Jews might kiss and
Infidels adore.” And the children of Israel as public-school boys were
never painfully conscious of any great difference between themselves
and their baptized companions. But unfortunately only a few of the
boys came under the civilizing instruction of the Chief. Bright young
athletes from Oxford and Cambridge, lured into the ranks of pedagogy
by their love of football and cricket, were the assistant-masters. A
regular salary with holiday for a fourth of the year, the prospect of
early marriage, and a remunerative boarding-house, attracted them to a
pleasant position, and they had no wish to rebel against the
time-table which made them teachers of “Divinity” for at least one
hour in the week. All educated people should be tolerably familiar
with a book so largely used in quotation as the Bible, and the
succession of the Kings of Israel and Judah could be used in
strengthening the memory, whilst the stories of “Jehu and those other
Johnnies you know” were by no means devoid of picturesque incident.
Greek Testament could also be made useful in the acquisition of a
vocabulary, or in a lesson showing the difference between classical
and vernacular Greek. “Of course we must leave the application of
these studies to conduct to _Home influence_,” the headmasters would
blandly observe, and between parent and pedagogue the teaching of the
Christian Faith fell neglected to the ground.

What chance had the boys so brought up, of forming any conception of
the essential truths of Religion? A superficial acquaintance with the
stories of Hebrew history, a perfunctory attendance at chapel, some
well-meant exhortations on the subject of temperance and chastity, as
the catechism was revived in their memories before they were brought
to be confirmed by the Bishop, and some ability “to translate and give
the context” of a few phrases from the Greek texts of the Gospels,
these were their intellectual religious equipment for a life of fierce
temptation from within and without. And when they encountered the
storm and stress of modern social life they found that the critics had
taken from them the old reverence of nursery days for “God’s Book,”
their school training had taught them only a rough code of honour, and
their chief restraint from any ignoble impulse was a feeling that to
do certain deeds was not “good form.”

A little lower down the social ladder the man in the street has fared
no better in his boyhood. In the public elementary schools he has had
a half-hour’s lesson in Scripture and catechism five days of the week,
and annually the Diocesan, or the School Board, Inspector came round
to ascertain whether the Syllabus of religious teaching had been duly
followed. But only when devout parish priests had a talent for
teaching and a love for boys and girls was any attempt made to give
children a _religion_, and even in this case not very much could be
done for those who left school for ever when they were twelve years
old.

A generation ago Lord Sherbrooke, on the extension of the franchise,
told his contemporaries that it was time to begin “to educate our
masters”--but we have not gone very far in our instruction of
Christian Sociology, though as yet we have not adopted the Utilitarian
basis of morals accepted by the French Republic, and endeavoured to
establish principles of duty towards man without any reference
whatever to a duty towards God.

Can any one be surprised if the plain man be perplexed when he is
called upon to decide questions of economy and morality without any
guiding principle? As a matter of fact he makes no such effort.
“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the
Lord is near in the valley of decisions,” but the sun and the moon are
darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The puzzled popular
vote is but as the swing of the pendulum, first to this side, then to
the other. “These fellows have been no good, let us give the others a
show.”

Yet assuredly there is a principle which is guidance and strength if
only men could discern it. There are Teachers who can tell men of its
beneficent power, but they are as yet few in number, and their voices
are not sufficiently strong. When once these can get a hearing, men
welcome their evangel and find in it a guide of life.

I am persuaded that just as Bishop Butler, when he perused the preface
of his _Analogy_, had no prescience of the young fellow of Lincoln,
who was in a few years to give the Christian faith a fresh hold in the
hearts of the common people, who gladly heard him, so in our time many
of our Bishops seem unable to perceive the dawn of another “day of the
Lord.”

Indeed, it is our misfortune in England that Bishops are almost
necessarily bad leaders. We are told when an election to the Papacy is
imminent that this or that Cardinal is in the list of “Papabili”--a
possible Pope--so in like manner we may almost select amongst the
undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge our future diocesans. These are
men clever, shrewd, and hard-working, of estimable private character,
and not without some modest patrimony. Early entered in the race for
preferment, ambitious, and yet, _mirabile dictu_, devout, they are
endowed first of all with the true qualification for episcopacy, a
capacity for compromise and a pliant political mind. _Sic itur ad
astra_ the excellent curate or tutor, the courteous and accomplished
chaplain to the Bishop, the eloquent canon and ecclesiastical courtier
is consecrated and enthroned. Henceforward for the rest of his days he
must hurry from his study table, crowded with correspondence, to his
confirmations, his diocesan society meetings, and his weary,
humiliating attendance at the House of Lords. What wonder if Bishops
discourage new ventures of faith, who have no time for thinking, no
time for reading, and perhaps, sometimes, too little opportunity for
prayer!

And so we find them not unwilling to accommodate the Catholic Faith to
the popular prejudice of the moment, acquiescing in an undogmatic,
undenominational, more or less Christian creed. Popularity becomes the
very breath of their nostrils, and they proceed to hide in an
appendix to the Prayer-book, the hymn _Quicunque vult_.

Yet the discerning can see that now is no time for keeping in the
background the great truths of religion. Already men are being
prepared in many ways to receive them.

The Christian Faith in England is no longer hampered by certain
arbitrary axioms of the Puritan Divines. In the sixteenth century men
were almost compelled by the exigencies of the situation to discover
some Infallible authority which they could set up over against the
Infallibility of the Church of Rome, and they endeavoured to treat
Holy Scripture as though the great library of Jewish and Christian
writers contained a complete code of consistent legislation. A text
was a convincing argument for the Divine right of Kings, or for
binding them in chains, for the burning of witches or the destruction
of a shrine, and although in the two following centuries the
Protestant ministers taught men to modify this conception, and to
realize the difference between the Old Testament and the New, the
popular idea of Revelation allowed small scope for theological
inquiry. The biographies of our literary men of the Victorian period
have shown us how they were tempted to separate themselves from all
public communion with the Church, by their misgiving that the Church
was committed to an impossible position. Carlyle groaned for what he
called an “exit from Houndsditch,” some deliverance from the Rabbinic
interpretation and use of the Bible. Things are very different to-day,
as Henry Sidgwick says in a letter to Alfred Lord Tennyson published
by his son in a recent memoir. “The years pass, the struggle with what
Carlyle used to call ‘Hebrew old clothes’ is over, Freedom is won.”
And in the result a scientific criticism of the Old and New Testament
is found to be compatible with, and often a compulsion to an
acceptance of the Christian creed, not the creed of Calvin, or the
Westminster Confession, but the reasoned statement of Nicæa. The
student of physical science no longer believes that if he goes to
church he must be taken to accept the cosmogony of Genesis, and on his
side he no longer stumbles at the difficulty of miraculous events. He
knows too much about the influence of mind over matter to say that it
is impossible that Jesus Christ and His Apostles should have healed
the paralytic and made the blind to see and the deaf to hear. He is no
longer “cocksure” of his capability of drawing a line of division
between the organic and the inorganic. He can conceive of the
existence of spirits which can control and modify the ordinary laws
of life. He finds it probable that evolution is not exhausted when Man
has come into being, and can look forward to a spiritual existence
without suspecting himself of superstition. Sacraments, the union of
the spiritual with the material, seem to him to be in accordance with
the laws of the Universe, and he would never now-a-days stigmatize
them as “Magic.” However he may explain the methods by which cures
were wrought upon the afflicted, the scientific man of to-day would
not accuse St. Luke of falsehood because he tells us that, “God
wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body
were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases
departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them.” Indeed the
man of science knows himself to be on the track of discoveries which
will show us secrets of personality and spiritual possession which
will banish for ever the absurd incredulity of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.

Who now-a-days would assert that “miracles do not happen,” when men
like Sir Oliver Lodge are laboriously discovering some few of these
laws of the Universe which give us these portents and signs? Who dares
to sneer at Parthenogenesis or repeat the slander of Celsus about the
Mother of God? Men only who have grown rusty in reposing on their past
reputations and cannot see that materialism as a philosophy is dead.
Day by day fresh evidence of the power of the spirit over matter
bursts upon us. A plea for “philosophic doubt” of Professor Huxley’s
infallibility is no longer necessary. The very distinction between
matter and spirit grows more and more difficult as science develops
analytical power. The minds of men are being prepared again to receive
that Supreme revelation which told of the wedding of the earth and
heaven, the taking of the Manhood into God.

In truth, this is the one principle which can give men guidance in the
tangled intricacy of modern life. It is necessary to salvation, _now_,
not hereafter only, to believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

For, first of all, men need to be saved from the apathy of despair.
They need some hope that there is an answer to the riddle of the
Universe. Let them once begin to feel that it _may_ be true that the
very God cares for His creatures and has made His love for them
manifest by taking to Himself the body, mind and spirit of man, and
joining for ever human nature to the Godhead, then through the
darkness comes a human voice saying--

    “O heart I made, a heart beats here!
    Face, my hands fashioned, see it in Myself.
    Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,
    But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,
    And thou must love Me who have died for thee.”

A man regains his self-respect when once he has escaped from the
paralyzing sense that his is only

    “a life of nothings nothing worth
    From that first nothing ere our birth
    To that last nothing under earth.”

And there is only one starting-point for those who journey on this
quest of an answer to the enigma of life. They must resolutely abandon
the long travelled “_a priori_ road.” They must understand that the
science of to-day is not tied to any materialistic axioms, that
metaphysic cannot be ignored by the physician, and that no competent
scientist to-day would say of the Resurrection of Jesus on which
ultimately depends His claims to our adoration, “_That could not
happen_.” We know enough now of the laws of the Universe to know that
we do not know them all.

So some of us perceive that what is needed to-day is to arrest the
attention of the man in the street, to get him to perceive that
Christianity has much more to say for itself than he suspected, and
that Christian Philosophy will place in his hand a clue which will
guide him in the labyrinth of life.

    “I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ
    Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
    All questions in the earth and out of it.”

We must set men free from phrases and get them to think. It suits the
game of the party politician to pretend that ethics are easily
self-evident, and that there is a simple fundamental religion on which
all men are agreed; but there is a question which must be insistently
urged, and upon the answer to which all things depend, “What think ye
of Christ?”

Probably nothing has done more to alienate the man in the street from
religious observance than the hypocritical pretence that all men are
agreed about “simple Bible teaching.” He knows well enough that what
really matters is whether a man believes or not that God became man.
If ever the Labour Party should definitely declare for elementary
education without religious teaching it will be because the men whose
children attend the elementary schools know that they cannot read the
New Testament without asking, “Is it true?”

“Did Jesus Christ really die and rise again the third day according to
the Scriptures?” “Did Jesus Christ go up into heaven in the sight of
the apostles till a cloud received Him?” “Did Mary’s Son come to her
as other babies come?” “Was Joseph Jesus Christ’s real father?” Our
members of Parliament who have no leisure to know their own children,
who keep them in the nursery till it is time for them to go to the
Preparatory School, who leave their training to the governess and the
head-master, may talk about “the cruelty of the religious differences
which hinder the establishment of an efficient system of education for
the children of the State.” But the men and the mothers who live with
their children and talk to them about their lessons, know that a child
will insist upon an answer to its questions. A father of a family in
the artisan and labouring classes, if he be at all intelligent, loses
all respect for ministers of the Gospel who pretend that there is no
difficulty about the simple Gospel story, and losing his self-respect
for the men who have appointed themselves his teachers, he is tempted
to throw all theology aside. And if he ventures on this despairing
expedient he finds himself in mental confusion again over ethics
instead of theology, and there arises a prospect of anarchy and
disorder. Capital is timid, so enterprise is checked. Poverty
increases and riot follows, and it all ends, not now-a-days in the
Napoleonic “whiff of grape-shot,” but in the rattle of the maxim in
the streets and the desolation of a thousand homes.

The experience of all civilization is that you cannot separate
morality from religion. When the Romans lost their faith in the old
gods and became “undenominational,” civic virtue decayed. When the
genius of the Empire was set up for a universal Deity and men were
bidden as good citizens to burn their few grains of incense before the
statue of the reigning Emperor--the representative of an ordered and
moral state--we know what happened. You cannot make an abstraction
alive and deify Government. Laws, which have the sanction only of
expediency, do but furnish mankind with exercise in evasion.
Indefinite belief in the existence of “something not ourselves which
makes for righteousness” has no motive force, and though men may rub
on in some fashion or other by following ancient custom, and the law
of use and wont, this can only be done in quiet times. And ours are
not quiet times; indeed, the air is thick with principles which are
forcing themselves into expression. The principles of Nationality or
Cosmopolitanism, the comity of nations and the limits of destruction,
international trades unionism, and the laws of marriage are recurring
items upon the programme of every social science congress. All these
dark questions are forced upon the attentions of men, and never was
there greater need of some synthetic philosophy which may help us in
their exploration. Are we going to put Christianity aside and rule out
theology from our calculations?

I may quote the testimony of the late Sir Leslie Stephen here. Every
one knows that he held no brief to defend orthodoxy--

     “To proclaim unsectarian Christianity is, in circuitous
     language, to proclaim that Christianity is dead. The love of
     Christ, as representing the ideal perfection of human nature,
     may indeed be still a powerful motive, and powerful whatever
     the view which we take of Christ’s character. The advocates of
     the doctrine in its more intellectual form represent this
     passion as the true essence of Christianity. They assert with
     obvious sincerity of conviction that it is the leverage by
     which alone the world can be moved. But, as they would
     themselves admit, this conception would be preposterous if,
     with Strauss, we regarded Christ as a mere human being. Our
     regard for Him might differ in degree, but would not differ in
     kind, from our regard for Socrates or for Pascal. It would be
     impossible to consider it as an overmastering and all-powerful
     influence. The old dilemma would be inevitable; he that loves
     not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love Christ whom
     he hath not seen? A mind untouched by the agonies and wrongs
     which invest London hospitals and lanes with horror, could not
     be moved by the sufferings of a single individual, however
     holy, who died eighteen centuries ago.

     “No; the essence of the belief is the belief in the Divinity of
     Christ. But accept that belief; think for a moment of all that
     implies, and you must admit that your Christianity becomes
     dogmatic in the highest degree. Our conceptions of the world
     and its meaning are more radically changed than our conceptions
     of the material universe, when the sun instead of the earth
     becomes its centre. _Every view of history, every theory of our
     duty, must be radically transformed by contact with that
     Stupendous Mystery._ Whether you accept or reject the special
     tenets of the Athanasian Creed is an infinitesimal trifle. You
     are bound to assume that every religion which does not take
     this dogma into account is without true vital force. Infidels,
     heathens, and Unitarians reject the single influence which
     alone can mould our lives in conformity with the everlasting
     laws of the universe. Of course, there are tricks of sleight of
     hand by which the conclusion is evaded. It would be too long
     and too trifling to attempt to expose them. Unsectarian
     Christianity consists in shirking the difficulty without
     meeting it, and trying hard to believe that the passion can
     survive without its essential basis. It proclaims the love of
     Christ as our motive, whilst it declines to make up its mind
     whether Christ was God or man; or endeavours to escape a
     categorical answer under a cloud of unsubstantial rhetoric. But
     the difference between man and God is infinite, and no effusion
     of superlatives will disguise the plain fact from honest
     minds. To be a Christian in any real sense you must start from
     a dogma of the most tremendous kind, and an undogmatic Creed is
     as senseless as a statue without shape or a picture without
     colour. Unsectarian means un-Christian.“--From _Freethinking
     and Plainspeaking_ (pp. 122-4), by Leslie Stephen. (Longmans,
     London.)

The considerations which seemed to compel the clearheaded author of
this extract to his own well-known intellectual position no longer
apply. In England, at any rate, the Church is not bound down to any
mechanical theory of the inspiration of the Bible, and accepts all the
discoveries of Modern Physical Science without misgiving. Such books
as the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Temple) gave us in his
Bampton Lectures have long ago shown the futility of attempting to map
out the exact terms of a reconciliation between the claims of science
and religion, but they have shown that religion and science are _not_
destructive and contradictory of each other.

“The same principles are found in each. The principle of evolution,
for instance, is as evident in the gradual development of religion as
in the age-long process by which the natural world was created; the
order and beauty and regular succession manifest in Nature can be
traced also in the spiritual universe. The revelation which was
formerly held to be violation of law is seen to be a revelation of
higher law. The great postulate of science, the uniformity of Nature,
is not infringed.”

We know now that there are laws of the Universe which, if we knew more
about them, would tell us how it was that a Virgin could conceive and
bear a Son. It is not to us an inconceivable superstition that “The
Son of Man” should have in His own person powers of which the
rudimentary signs can be traced in all humanity, manifesting
themselves from time to time. The day is long past when the
resurrection of Jesus Christ can be set aside as a “cunningly devised
fable.” No scientific man, who has not deliberately shut himself in an
hermetically sealed materialism would say to-day that “Miracles” do
not happen. It is a question of evidence.

And educated men know that there is a science of metaphysics, that
there is a science of psychology, that literary criticism is
scientific, that the age of a document can be decided, that cumulative
evidence cannot be ignored, and that simply to put aside the claims of
Christianity without examination is absurd.

But, as Sir Leslie Stephen shows, it is the Christianity of the
Catholic creed that matters, and it is this Christianity of which the
man in the street has need. It gives him a solution of those social
and ethical problems which he must solve, which he can only neglect at
the peril of natural degradation. For example, the position of women
depends upon our belief or disbelief that Christ was born of the
Virgin Mary. To say that monogamy is the natural evolution of
humanity, that chastity in the young unmarried man is a product of
civilization, that a high conception of a man’s duty to posterity will
keep him from harlotry, is simply to show ignorance of history, of
human nature, and of the world as it is. A man who talks now-a-days
about the respect of marriage being a Teutonic contribution to the
evolution of civilized society, is behind the times. We _know_ that
respect for women, and marriage held in honour, are the creations of
the Holy Catholic Church, which insists on the Incarnation of the Lord
Jesus Christ.

But the man in the street does not know these things. The discoveries
in science, whether physical or psychical, do not reach him. Technical
treatises are too strong meat for his intellectual digestion. The
pulpit does not appeal to him. At every baptism in the Church of
England the priest solemnly instructs the god-parents of the child,
“Ye shall call upon him to hear sermons,” but for the most part the
admonition is in vain. As a matter of fact, he picks up his religious
notions from the newspaper press. And the newspaper press is not now
controlled by men who have a distinct and definite belief in
Christianity. It depends upon Finance, and financiers have other
interests. The assertion of the Psalter, “Notus in Judæa” has been
changed now-a-days into an interrogation, and we ask, “In Jewry _is_
God known?” Let any man who has an intimate acquaintance with the
newspaper world run over in his mind the names of the great newspaper
proprietors, the editors of our journalistic press, the writers of
leading articles, the rising young journalists; and when he has
excepted a few Irishmen, who may happen to remain faithful to the
Roman Catholic Church, to which they owe their education, how many men
will he find who honestly believe the Nicene Creed, and are habitually
present on the first day of the week at the Breaking of the Bread?

The tone of the daily paper is tolerant. There is no rude hostility
displayed towards definite Christian doctrines, but the toleration is
politely contemptuous. “All wise men are of the same religion, and
what that religion is wise men do not say.”

It is true that in political matters the press has less power than it
used to have. A magnate of finance cannot now seriously affect public
opinion, though he may buy newspaper after newspaper, and sweep out
the editorial staff to supply their places with men of his own choice.
One wealthy wirepuller has other plutocrats to reckon with in
questions of party politics, and a newspaper man who is dismissed by
the proprietor of the _Tariff Reformer_ may find another editorial
chair placed at his disposal by the owner of _The Standard of Free
Trade_.

The man in the street looks out for a newspaper which may strengthen
his own party proclivities. He expects to find political questions
discussed, but so far as religion is concerned he accepts without
knowing it the current convention of the pressman, and imbibes a
semi-sceptical atmosphere without misgiving or suspicion.

And yet, as Sir Leslie Stephen saw, every theory of duty depends upon
Belief or Disbelief in the Divinity of Christ. We may talk of duty to
Society, duty to the Race, duty to Posterity, duty to Civilization;
but the plain man will recall the question of Sir Boyle Roche: “I do
not understand, Mr. Speaker, all this talk about our duty to
Posterity! What has Posterity ever done for us?”

You cannot control conduct by asserting that a man owes a debt to an
abstraction which you vivify by printing it with a capital letter,
and there remains always the question of the dying Lucretius--

    “Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well.”

The problem, then, which we have to solve is--how to arrest the
attention of the average man to those Christian principles, of which
the acceptance or definite refusal will determine the course of
civilization during the next twenty years.

The mere assertion of authority will not suffice, and men are not
impressed in favour of Catholic doctrine simply by dignified ceremony
and Ritual. We have only to look across the English Channel to be
assured of this. Frenchmen have not been encouraged to study the
evidences of Christianity. Bishops and priests have only advertised
sceptical books by forbidding their perusal to the faithful; and as
the devout have been instructed to live by faith, but not how to give
a reason for the faith which is in them, in the result M. Viviani’s
atheistic rhetoric has been placarded at the cost of the State in
every commune throughout France.

We may consider, then, if there be any method by which the man who
does not read theological or scientific or philosophical books, the
man who has left off going to church, or gets no help from the
average sermon, the man who has no reverence for mere authority, may
be induced to consider the Christian Revelation as offering him a key
to those riddles of life which his civic responsibilities are
perpetually propounding.

Remember that his present condition may be roughly described as
consisting of religious haziness and moral laziness. The moral
laziness is being subjected to a series of rough shocks. He _must_
make up his mind about some questions of morality. The relation of the
sexes, the duties of property, the treatment of the subject savage,
the survival of the unfit, the ethics of commerce, the control of the
sale of alcohol, the education of children, these things he has to
decide and he will ultimately decide. But he is at present perplexed,
and his religious haziness is the reason of his perplexity. He perhaps
has not reached the conclusion of his contemporary in France, but he
is on the way to it. Those heavenly lights which M. Viviani declares
that his Government has extinguished still shine faintly for men in
England, though the mists obscure them.

Can we get men to look upwards for light, and instead of cursing the
ancient creed in a confused commination, to take Arthur Clough’s
advice--

    “Ah! yet consider it again.”

I believe that there is a method, and as I mention it I am prepared
for derision from all the “chorus of irresponsible reviewers, the
irresponsible indolent reviewers.”

I believe that Fiction will find those that can be reached by no other
means. Fiction sometimes sets a man seeking for Fact.

Very diffidently and very reverently I may remind my contemporaries
that one, who has, at any rate, profoundly influenced the course of
history, whatever view we may take of His person, did not disdain this
method, “He taught them by parables.”

“Let me tell you a story.” Is there any age of mankind which does not
respond to the invitation and give audience? A story stilled the
tumult of the nursery in our earliest days, when heavy storms shook
the windows and the tedium of a long, wet afternoon had turned play
into fretfulness. A story beguiled us into interest when our History
lesson had seemed an arid futility in Fourth Form days, and our
magisterial enemies began to show themselves human after all when they
bade us read _The Last of the Barons_ as we were painfully plodding in
the Plantagenet period, and found the War of the Roses a very thorny
waste.

It is strange to turn over the pages of eminent evangelical sermons
of the early Victorian days and to notice how “Novel reading” is
denounced. Probably the worthy divines who fulminated against fiction
were thinking of their own boyhood, and the mischief which came to
them from Fielding and Richardson and Smollett surreptitiously
perused. Sir Anthony Absolute’s detestation of the circulating library
survived in some provincial circles even when Sir Walter Scott had
come to his own. The last forty years have altered things
considerably, and though some men may pretend to despise novels,
now-a-days they must take them into account. Wise and learned persons
began to prescribe them, not only as a vehicle for the exhibition of
wholesome but unattractive information, but as having a remedial value
of their own. “The intellectual anodyne of the nineteenth century,” I
remember that somebody called them--perhaps it was Sir Arthur Helps.
It came about that those who had a secret and timid predilection for
the story-book, but blushed a little if at Mudie’s counter they
ventured to ask for a novel, found that their ordinary reading of
Biography and Memoirs revealed some unsuspected sympathies of the
illustrious and wise. Who would have thought that Darwin devoured
novels and Dean Church did not disdain them, and that Mr. Gladstone
sat up all night to finish _John Inglesant_? The respectable
pater-familias has long ceased to proscribe novel reading, and the
most austere biographer no longer hides as a revelation of weakness
his hero’s literary divertisements. Finally, in this year of Grace
1906 we are boldly told that Archbishop Temple could stand an
examination in Miss Yonge’s novels, and on one occasion was heard
keenly discussing with Lord Rosebery the careers of the May family in
the _Daisy Chain_ as though they were living acquaintances. From being
recognized as a recreation the novel has developed into a power, and
Charles Dickens was a pioneer in its progress. It is the custom
amongst certain “superior persons” to sneer at the novel with a
purpose, and to suggest that authors attained remunerative results by
taking some subject which was already ripe for discussion and weaving
round it a web of fiction.

Undoubtedly there is danger to-day of such artifice, but I maintain
that the great reforms of the past century owed much to writers whose
purpose was perfectly innocent. Cardinal Newman has told us of the
literary influence of Sir Walter Scott, who turned men’s minds in the
direction of the Middle Ages.

“The general need,” he said, “of something deeper and more attractive
than what had offered itself elsewhere, may be said to have led to
his popularity; and by means of his popularity he reacted on his
readers, stimulating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting
before them visions, which when once seen are not easily forgotten,
and silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might
afterwards be appealed to as first principles.”

If Cardinal Newman could thus maintain the value of Fiction in the
great ecclesiastical movement which has regenerated the Church of
England, I may claim without apology that the reform in Poor Law
Administration gained the attention of the public when Dickens made
“Bumbledom” ridiculous, and that the Court of Chancery was swept
cleaner by the breezes which were blowing from _Bleak House_. Let any
man run over in his mind the undoubted improvements in social matters
during the last fifty years, and it will be seen how Fiction has
assisted in their promotion. Did Charles Reade’s _Hard Cash_ do
nothing to arouse the attention of the public to the condition of the
insane? Did Sir Walter Besant’s novels turn no light on the sins of
the sweater, or Charles Kingsley’s _Alton Locke_ show no reason for
legalizing the Trade Union and the reform of the Law of Conspiracy?
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe may to-day be forgotten, but the southern
states of North America would not dispute the influence of Fiction
upon the public mind.

The fact is that men, who generally read nothing else but newspapers,
will read a good novel, and if the book brings before them principles
which they have hitherto neglected, they will very often consider
those principles again. It is necessary, however, that the novel shall
appeal to them as being a fair record of the present or the past. They
may as they read it be unable to pronounce on the thesis which is at
the back of the book, but they will be led to consider and discuss it
if the story, as a story, holds them. And it is here that the story
which has a genuine religious motive often fails. Most of the great
artists in fiction, when they have taken in hand a subject which is of
religious interest, have written in a spirit of detachment. George
Eliot’s _Romola_ is an example, and the result is that men are more
interested in Tito Melema than in Savonarola. Novels in which religion
is necessarily much in evidence have been written either by literary
artists who have studiously endeavoured to lay aside their own
personal convictions, or if the books have been written with a
distinctly religious purpose the hero and heroine have been
unconvincing, the people in the story have not been alive.

When Cardinal Newman had abandoned prematurely his hope of maintaining
the Catholic character of the Church of England, he did not disdain to
employ his pen in the production of a novel with a religious purpose;
but we are amazed to find that the exquisite grace of style which is
one of the charms of the _Apologia_ could not render Charles Riding
interesting, or the novel _Loss and Gain_, of which he is the hero,
readable.

It is perhaps dangerous to give another example from contemporary
fiction, but those who justly admire Mrs. Humphry Ward’s subtle
discernment of character and great and increasing mastery of form and
style, will not be inclined to dispute the opinion that when, in
_Robert Elsmere_, she undertook the defence of the modern Unitarian
position, her hero was hardly a “Man’s man.”

The reason is not far to seek. The average man knows too much of the
darker side of life; and the necessary effort made by the author of
religious novels to depict that of which they, fortunately for their
own souls, have had no experience, is not successful. Charles
Kingsley’s undergraduate days were perhaps not without knowledge of
the shadows, but he is happier in the Schools of Alexandria, or in the
spacious days of Great Elizabeth, than in a tale of modern life such
as _Two Years Ago_. His Broad Church Catholic teaching does not always
find its way to the man in the street, and Henry Kingsley, whose life
was so different from that of his illustrious clerical brother, has
more of human interest in his stories.

The novel with a purpose, and especially with a religious purpose,
fails only, when it does fail, because the author’s knowledge of the
average man in his sins and his temptations to sin, is altogether
incommensurate with his familiarity with the great religious and
social problems of which his story would suggest a solution.

It is often supposed that the men do not care to find the subject of
religion introduced in fiction, that they resent religion in a novel,
as children resent the administration of a medicinal powder in a
spoonful of jam; but the expert witness of publishers demolishes this
opinion. After all, the religious claim is insistent, and life is
untruly depicted when men and women are described in a story as
uninfluenced by it. There is something unreal in a book which has no
Sundays in it. Critical opinion as expressed in the notices of books
in the daily papers, and in more weighty reviews, is very misleading,
simply because the reviewers are generally very young men or women
who know more or less of literature but very little of life. The wrath
of the young man fresh from the University at the success of those
books which do not ignore the spiritual needs of men and women amuses
the experienced author.

“Faugh!” cries Mr. Jones of Balliol; “another batch of sin and
sentiment!” “The Christian creed and the conjugal copula! Religion and
Patchouli!” Yet the critic forgets that those who would reach the
minds and hearts of men must deal with the problems of creed and
character which men have to solve, each one for himself.

Our censors, dilettante, delicate-handed, with their canons of
criticism might do worse than reckon up the number of English novels
which have lived on into the twentieth century. They will be surprised
to find that they are nearly all novels with a purpose and a religious
purpose for their “motif.” Charles Reade when he wrote _Never too late
to mend_, not only helped forward the humane and intelligent treatment
of criminals, he showed how the Divine Image was stamped indelibly on
human nature, and where it seemed to be obliterated could be restored.
But Charles Reade drew real men and women. His characters are not
puppets of the play-house but are alive. And Thackeray--_Clarum et
venerabile nomen_--making hypocrites his quarry, and raining his
quiver full of satiric shafts upon the hateful crew, never scoffed for
a moment at reverent things, but with bowed head and hushed footsteps
passed by the sanctuary. Therefore, these men are still living forces.
Men will read other novels of the past as women look at old-fashion
plates, and amuse themselves with the differences and contrasts of
succeeding generations, but the novels which men buy in their hundreds
of thousands, the novels which are reprinted again and again, the
novels for which the publishers wait as their copyright is expiring,
like heirs expecting a rich man’s death, that each may endeavour to be
first in the field with an edition which pays no royalty to the
author; these novels are those which truly represented life as it
seemed in other days, life seeking ever to be reassured that One has
come who offers to those who walk in darkness the light of life.

It is exasperating to some minds to discover that the man of the world
is not altogether worldly, and that he finds in books which recognize
religion as a considerable part of man’s life, something which gives
to them reality and truth. Immature minds and inexperienced penmen are
not impressed by the things which really matter, and in the interval
between the University and man’s settlement in life much nonsense is
written and spoken.

I speak from personal experience; and when I look back upon the
reviews I wrote ten years ago, it is with invariable consternation,
and sometimes a real sense of shame.

Nevertheless, there is some criticism of the religious novel which
must be taken seriously. I have maintained that men generally in
England are in a state of theological confusion, but that they are
interested in religion if they can be induced to consider it. There
is, as the great African Presbyter wrote seventeen hundred years ago,
a natural response in the hearts of men to the chief articles of the
Christian Faith. There is a _Testimonium animæ naturaliter
christianæ_. But there are some who can only be described by a
quotation: “They are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” They are
determined that the Catholic creed shall have no place in the counsels
and considerations of social legislation. Of Jesus Christ they have
said, “We will not have this man to reign over us;” and if there be
any chance that a man’s books may catch the eye of the public and
rouse people to think whether opportunism is really statesmanship, and
empiricism in politics really prudent, if, in a word, the principles
of Christianity are offered as a solution of social problems, then
the author is attacked on every side. It is suggested that his
intention is insincere, that his knowledge is inadequate. The things
which have been part of his painful discipline and development are
described as his accepted environment. If a Bishop happens to find an
illustration for a sermon in his pages, or a prominent Nonconformist
divine recognizes that the laity like to read them, and says so; if
any of those true hearts who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity
have been ready to see that men who have been rescued _de profundis_,
men who have had experience of [Greek: ta bathea tou satana] are not
thereby disqualified for duty in the field of Faith; if, in a word,
books which claim for Christianity the first place in the thought of
the time are successful, a very malignant hostility is aroused.

It is most probable that this hatred of Christianity will grow and
increase. The world has never before been as it is to-day. The system
of party politics has placed power in the hands of the democracy. The
“working man” has at last discovered what he can do. He must make his
choice between the secular and the religious principle. Hitherto the
Christian pastors of the people have appealed to his emotions, and not
without success. The emotions will always be the chief guides in
conduct for many; but the leaders of the working men are hard-headed,
well read in social science and politics; and, owing to the
insufficient training of the clergy in these subjects, the politicians
of the _proletariat_ have conceived a sort of contempt for the parson
and the minister and the priest. The small body of Unitarians, wealthy
from their constant intermarriage with the great Jewish families, and
opposed to an aristocracy which has only in the last forty years been
willing to receive them, has been quick to see that the working man
must be alienated from the Catholic creed, and his vote secured at any
cost. On the railway bookstalls we may note the activity of the
Unitarian propaganda committee. Fifty years ago it was not necessary
to consider the opinions of the man in the street: the Unitarian
minister and his congregation were comfortable in the assurance of
their own intellectual culture and their kindly interest for the
poorer classes. In politics they were Liberals, for an Established
Church interfered with their sense of superiority, and the landed
proprietors and the hereditary aristocracy socially ignored them. But
they had no notion of calling into existence an electorate which
should endanger the supremacy of the capitalist, and, like
Frankenstein, they are afraid of their own creations, now that the
working man has become the dispenser of Parliamentary power. It is
vital to their interests that he should be diverted from further
attacks upon capital, and encouraged to believe that it is the priest
who is his true foe. “_Le cléricalisme voilà l’ennemi_” is a
convenient cry. A vague Deism is not dangerous to wealthy
manufacturers; but if the clergy are going to take up Christian
Socialism it is time to be up and doing. So every weapon against the
creed of Christendom is being taken down and examined, and many an old
fallacy is refurbished and employed once more. Celsus is disinterred
from the tomb in which Origen had buried him, and his filthy slander
of the Blessed Virgin is printed as though it were a new discovery of
historical research. Collins is called into court again as though
Bentley had never exposed his ignorance, and Hume’s _a priori_ method
is revived as though it had never been discredited; whilst Strauss and
Renan are quoted as authorities, as if Westcott and Lightfoot had
never been known. Shunt the working classes on a new line of rails.
Set them shrieking against sacramentalists, and swearing at
sacerdotalists, and we may quietly arrange our commercial combinations
and protect our manufacturing interests!

I want to see the seats under the dome of St. Paul’s filled not by
only the middle-aged middle classes, who for the most part are
Christian in creed, but by the young artisans and craftsmen, and the
strong politicians who fill the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and
crowd the great Assembly Rooms of Birmingham and Liverpool when an
election is drawing near. The timid members of the Episcopate who may
be reminded that “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he
that regardeth the clouds shall not reap,” are not our only Bishops.
Occasionally a Prime Minister offers for election and consecration a
man who can reach the minds and consciences of men. Is it too great an
ambition for a storyteller to try to arouse in people’s minds a
suspicion that after all something may be said for the Catholic Faith,
and so to bring them to listen to those who know and can teach it?
Each man must do his work with such tools as have come in his way. The
Mission preacher will use his magnetic power, the artist whose skill
it is to build or to paint, will make his appeal to the love of order
and beauty, the musicians will meet the heart through the ear. May not
the writer of fiction use his psychological training and his knowledge
of many sides of human life to create a story which shall set men
thinking about the old doctrines which he believes to have lost none
of their regenerating power?

There is danger lest men with good intentions should go blindly to
work to redress and diminish social grievances. Individualism with its
hateful cry, “Each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,”
is now at a discount, but it may be replaced by a despotism of State
regulation which will destroy the family and the home. There is, I
believe, only one creed which can make the capitalist unselfish and
the sons of labour satisfied, which will tell men that wealth means
responsibility and that there is dignity in toil, which will teach the
rich man to order himself lowly and reverently to those who are _his_
betters and to hurt nobody by word or deed, which will teach the
labourer that his chief need is not other men’s wealth, but the
“carrière ouverte aux talents” and the determination to do his duty in
that state of life, whatever it may be, unto which God _shall_ call
him.

It is the Holy Catholic Faith which makes equality of opportunity for
all men its earthly ambition, and offers refreshment and hope to those
who are not strong enough to strive with the rest. The old men saw
visions and we have found that they were prophecies, a young man may
dream dreams. My dream is that the men who are doing the work of the
world to-day may be taught that Christ is their best teacher and the
Incarnate God their refuge and strength.

There is a tale of an acrobat and juggler who knew well that his
tricks were the outcome of years of concentrated effort and constant
exercise, and being moved by the Grace of God, he desired to offer the
best thing he had to give to the Lord of Life. His best was his skill.
He lived by it. Shown in the streets and the play places, it won for
him his daily bread. His work was to give men amusement in their hours
of recreation by an exhibition of his feats of strength and
nimbleness. Could this, his one talent, be consecrated and devoted to
God? So he considered, and humbly sought the sanctuary, and there
before the Presence he performed his fantastic tricks which had cost
him years of endeavour. The story is a parable which men have not been
slow to read, and it has become the theme of the musician and artist.

Shall I offend my fellow-writers if I repeat it here in this
connection?




THE FIRES OF MOLOCH




II

THE FIRES OF MOLOCH

“_There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets._”


Every three months with unfailing regularity small paragraphs appear
in the daily papers headed “RECORD LOW BIRTH-RATE.” Some figures
follow, and then occurs the sentence--unhappily a stereotyped one in
our day--“_This is the lowest rate recorded in any quarter since civil
registration began._”

Now and again a blue-book upon the subject of the birth-rate is
dissected by a journalist and the result appears in his newspaper as a
series of startling figures. The story of England’s decadence is set
out in the plainest language for every one to read.

At rarer intervals still, some prominent clergyman or sociologist
writes or lectures in order to call attention to what is going on, and
thus to bring home the spiritual and economic dangers of our racial
suicide.

A few people read or listen and are convinced. A good many other
people are too utterly ignorant of either the Philosophy of
Christianity or the Science of Sociology to understand in the least
what the point of view of the protesters is. According to their
temperament, they smile quietly and dismiss the subject, or bellow
their disgust at such a subject being mentioned at all.

    “He who far off beholds another dancing,
          And all the time
    Hears not the music that he dances to,
          Thinks him a madman.”

A party which has the fools at its back is always in the majority, and
discussion is stifled, alarm is lulled by the anodyne of indifference
and the great number of honest folk who call themselves both Patriots
and Christians have no time to spare from fighting and squabbling for
money--in order that the dishonest men may not get it all.

Half-a-dozen problems of extreme national importance confront every
thinking English man and woman in 1907. The air is thick with their
stir and movement, and so great is the noise and reverberation of them
that true “royalty” of “_inward_ happiness” seems a thing impossible
and past by in these troubled times. Be that as it may, it is quite
certain that one of the most real and pressing of these problems is
that summed up in the stock phrase “Record Low Birth-rate.”

We hear a great deal about the doings of a class of people who are
referred to as “The Smart Set,” and it is actually said that its
influence is having a serious effect upon the national character. I do
not believe it for a moment. It seems a folly to suppose that a
handful of champagne corks floating on a cess-pool has any
far-reaching influence upon the English home. I mention that small
section of society constituted by the idle and luxurious rich,
because, whatever their vices are, they are being used as whipping-boy
for enormous numbers of people whose lives are equally guilty with
theirs in at least one regard--in the matter of which I am writing
now.

I propose in this essay to discuss the question of the decline in the
birth-rate from the Christian and Catholic standpoint. There is only
one perfect philosophy, and all other half-true philosophies in the
light of which we might consider such a momentous matter as this, lead
only to the conclusion that expediency is the highest good. Without
the incentive of the Christian Faith and without the light of the
Incarnation one may sit in a corner and think till “all’s blue in
cloud cuckoo land.” Christianity can alone be reconciled with
Economics, theory and practice celebrating always the marriage of the
King’s son, the wedding of Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and the
material. Plato knew that it was impossible to raise the Greek state
to the level of his philosophic principles, and Aristotle frankly
abandons the attempt to connect ethics and politics with the highest
conclusions of his creed. We are in the same position to-day if we
ignore the supreme truth which is our possession and which was not
vouchsafed to the great Greek thinkers.

       *       *       *       *       *

There is one cause and one cause only of the decline in the birth-rate
and the beginning of the country’s spiritual and material suicide.

The way of Nature is for every species to increase nearly to its
possible maximum of numbers. This is a proved law, and nothing but the
limitation of families by artificial means, or infanticide, can check
its operation.

The truth is exactly as Dr. Barry put it nearly two years ago, “It

GNEISS is the general name under which are comprised coarsely
foliated rocks banded with irregular layers of feldspar and other
minerals. The gneisses appear to be due in many cases to the
crushing and shearing of deep-seated igneous rocks, such as
granite and gabbro.

THE CRYSTALLINE SCHISTS, representing the finer types of
foliation, consist of thin, parallel, crystalline leaves, which
are often remarkably crumpled. These folia can be distinguished
from the laminae of sedimentary rocks by their lenticular form and
lack of continuity, and especially by the fact that they consist
of platy, crystalline grains, and not of particles rounded by
wear.

MICA SCHIST, the most common of schists, and in fact of all
metamorphic rocks, is composed of mica and quartz in alternating
wavy folia. All gradations between it and phyllite may be traced,
and in many cases we may prove it due to the metamorphism of
slates and shales. It is widespread in New England and along the
eastern side of the Appalachians. TALC SCHIST consists of quartz
and TALC, a light-colored magnesian mineral of greasy feel, and so
soft that it can be scratched with the thumb nail.

HORNBLENDE SCHIST, resulting in many cases from the foliation of
basic igneous rocks, is made of folia of hornblende alternating
with bands of quartz and feldspar. Hornblende schist is common
over large areas in the Lake Superior region.

QUARTZ SCHIST is produced from quartzite by the development of
fine folia of mica along planes of shear. All gradations may be
found between it and unfoliated quartzite on the one hand and mica
schist on the other.

Under the resistless pressure of crustal movements almost any
rocks, sandstones, shales, lavas of all kinds, granites, diorites,
and gabbros may be metamorphosed into schists by crushing and
shearing. Limestones, however, are metamorphosed by pressure into
marble, the grains of carbonate of lime recrystallizing freely to
interlocking crystals of calcite.

These few examples must suffice of the great class of metamorphic
rocks. As we have seen, they owe their origin to the alteration of
both of the other classes of rocks--the sedimentary and the
igneous--by heat and pressure, assisted usually by the presence of
water. The fact of change is seen in their hardness arid
cementation, their more or less complete recrystallization, and
their foliation; but the change is often so complete that no trace
of their original structure and mineral composition remains to
tell whether the rocks from which they were derived were
sedimentary or igneous, or to what variety of either of these
classes they belonged.

In many cases, however, the early history of a metamorphic rock
can be deciphered. Fossils not wholly obliterated may prove it
originally water-laid. Schists may contain rolled-out pebbles,
showing their derivation from a conglomerate. Dikes of igneous
rocks may be followed into a region where they have been foliated
by pressure. The most thoroughly metamorphosed rocks may sometimes
be traced out into unaltered sedimentary or igneous rocks, or
among them may be found patches of little change where their
history maybe read.

Metamorphism is most common among rocks of the earlier geological
ages, and most rare among rocks of recent formation. No doubt it
is now in progress where deep-buried sediments are invaded
by heat either from intrusive igneous masses or from the earth's
interior, or are suffering slow deformation under the thrust of
mountain-making forces.

Suggest how rocks now in process of metamorphism may sometimes be
exposed to view. Why do metamorphic rocks appear on the surface
to-day?

MINERAL VEINS

In regions of folded and broken rocks fissures are frequently
found to be filled with sheets of crystalline minerals deposited
from solution by underground water, and fissures thus filled are
known as mineral veins. Much of the importance of mineral veins is
due to the fact that they are often metalliferous, carrying
valuable native metals and metallic ores disseminated in fine
particles, in strings, and sometimes in large masses in the midst
of the valueless nonmetallic minerals which make up what is known
as the VEIN STONE.

The most common vein stones are QUARTZ and CALCITE. FLUORITE
(calcium fluoride), a mineral harder than calcite and
crystallizing in cubes of various colors, and BARITE (barium
sulphate), a heavy white mineral, are abundant in many veins.

The gold-bearing quartz veins of California traverse the
metamorphic slates of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Below the zone
of solution (p. 45) these veins consist of a vein stone of quartz
mingled with pyrite (p. 13), the latter containing threads and
grains of native gold. But to the depth of about fifty feet from
the surface the pyrite of the vein has been dissolved, leaving a
rusty, cellular quartz with grains of the insoluble gold scattered
through it.

The PLACER DEPOSITS of California and other regions are gold-
bearing deposits of gravel and sand in river beds. The heavy gold
is apt to be found mostly near or upon the solid rock, and its
grains, like those of the sand, are always rounded. How the gold
came in the placers we may leave the pupil to suggest.

Copper is found in a number of ores, and also in the native metal.
Below the zone of surface changes the ore of a copper vein is
often a double sulphide of iron and copper called CHALCOPYRITE, a
mineral softer than pyrite--it can easily be scratched with a
knife--and deeper yellow in color. For several score of feet below
the ground the vein may consist of rusty quartz from which the
metallic ores have been dissolved; but at the base of the zone of
solution we may find exceedingly rich deposits of copper ores,--
copper sulphides, red and black copper oxides, and green and blue
copper carbonates, which have clearly been brought down in
solution from the leached upper portion of the vein.

ORIGIN OF MINERAL VEINS. Both vein stones and ores have been
deposited slowly from solution in water, much as crystals of salt
are deposited on the sides of a jar of saturated brine. In our
study of underground water we learned that it is everywhere
circulating through the permeable rocks of the crust, descending
to profound depths under the action of gravity and again driven to
the surface by hydrostatic pressure. Now fissures, wherever they
occur, form the trunk channels of the underground circulation.
Water descends from the surface along these rifts; it moves
laterally from either side to the fissure plane, just as ground
water seeps through the surrounding rocks from every direction to
a well; and it ascends through these natural water ways as in an
artesian well, whenever they intersect an aquifer in which water
is under hydrostatic pressure.

The waters which deposit vein stones and ores are commonly hot,
and in many cases they have derived their heat from intrusions of
igneous rock still uncooled within the crust. The solvent power of
the water is thus greatly increased, and it takes up into solution
various substances from the igneous and sedimentary rocks which it
traverses. For various reasons these substances stances are
deposited in the vein as ores and vein stones. On rising through
the fissure the water cools and loses pressure, and its capacity
to hold minerals in solution is therefore lessened. Besides, as
different currents meet in the fissure, some ascending, some
descending, and some coming in from the sides, the chemical
reaction of these various weak solutions upon one another and upon
the walls of the vein precipitates the minerals of vein stuffs and
ores.

As an illustration of the method of vein deposits we may cite the
case of a wooden box pipe used in the Comstock mines, Nevada, to
carry the hot water of the mine from one level to another, which
in ten years was lined with calcium carbonate more than half an
inch thick.

The Steamboat Springs, Nevada, furnish examples of mineral veins
in process of formation. The steaming water rises through fissures
in volcanic rocks and is now depositing in the rifts a vein stone
of quartz, with metallic ores of iron, mercury, lead, and other
metals.

RECONCENTRATION. Near the base of the zone of solution veins are
often stored with exceptionally large and valuable ore deposits.
This local enrichment of the vein is due to the reconcentration of
its metalliferous ores. As the surface of the land is slowly
lowered by weathering and running water, the zone of solution is
lowered at an equal rate and encroaches constantly on the zone of
cementation. The minerals of veins are therefore constantly being
dissolved along their upper portions and carried down the fissures
by ground water to lower levels, where they are redeposited.

Many of the richest ore deposits are thus due to successive
concentrations: the ores were leached originally from the rocks to
a large extent by laterally seeping waters; they were concentrated
in the ore deposits of the vein chiefly by ascending currents;
they have been reconcentrated by descending waters in the way just
mentioned.

THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF THE METALS. It is to the igneous rocks that
we may look for the original source of the metals of veins. Lavas
contain minute percentages of various metallic compounds, and no
doubt this was the case also with the igneous rocks which formed
the original earth crust. By the erosion of the igneous rocks the
metals have been distributed among sedimentary strata, and even
the sea has taken into solution an appreciable amount of gold and
other metals, but in this widely diffused condition they are
wholly useless to man. The concentration which has made them
available is due to the interaction of many agencies. Earth
movements fracturing deeply the rocks of the crust, the intrusion
of heated masses, the circulation of underground waters, have all
cooperated in the concentration of the metals of mineral veins.

While fissure veins are the most important of mineral veins, the
latter term is applied also to any water way which has been filled
by similar deposits from solution. Thus in soluble rocks, such as
limestones, joints enlarged by percolating water are sometimes
filled with metalliferous deposits, as, for example, the lead and
zinc deposits of the upper Mississippi valley. Even a porous
aquifer may be made the seat of mineral deposits, as in the case
of some copper-bearing and silver-bearing sandstones of New
Mexico.





PART III

HISTORICAL GEOLOGY

CHAPTER XIV

THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD


WHAT A FORMATION RECORDS. We have already learned that each
individual body of stratified rock, or formation, constitutes a
record of the time when it was laid. The structure and the
character of the sediments of each formation tell whether the area
was land or sea at the time when they were spread; and if the
former, whether the land was river plain, or lake bed, or was
covered with wind-blown sands, or by the deposits of an ice sheet.
If the sediments are marine, we may know also whether they were
laid in shoal water near the shore or in deeper water out at sea,
and whether during a period of emergence, or during a period of
subsidence when the sea transgressed the land. By the same means
each formation records the stage in the cycle of erosion of the
land mass from which its sediments were derived. An unconformity
between two marine formations records the fact that between the
periods when they were deposited in the sea the area emerged as
land and suffered erosion. The attitude and structure of the
strata tell also of the foldings and fractures, the deformation
and the metamorphism, which they have suffered; and the igneous
rocks associated with them as lava flows and igneous intrusions
add other details to the story. Each formation is thus a separate
local chapter in the geological history of the earth, and its
strata are its leaves. It contains an authentic record of the
physical conditions--the geography--of the time and place when and
where its sediments were laid.

PAST CYCLES OF EROSION. These chapters in the history of the
planet are very numerous, although much of the record has been
destroyed in various ways. A succession of different formations is
usually seen in any considerable section of the crust, such as a
deep canyon or where the edges of upturned strata are exposed to
view on the flanks of mountain ranges; and in any extensive area,
such as a state of the Union or a province of Canada, the number
of formations outcropping on the surface is large.

It is thus learned that our present continent is made up for. the
most part of old continental deltas. Some, recently emerged as the
strata of young coastal plains, are the records of recent cycles
of erosion; while others were deposited in the early history of
the earth, and in many instances have been crumpled into
mountains, which afterwards were leveled to their bases and
lowered beneath the sea to receive a cover of later sediments
before they were again uplifted to form land.

The cycle of erosion now in progress and recorded in the layers of
stratified rock being spread beneath the sea in continental deltas
has therefore been preceded by many similar cycles. Again and
again movements of the crust have brought to an end one cycle--
sometimes when only well under way, and sometimes when drawing
toward its close--and have begun another. Again and again they
have added to the land areas which before were sea, with all their
deposition records of earlier cycles, or have lowered areas of
land beneath the sea to receive new sediments.

THE AGE OF THE EARTH. The thickness of the stratified rocks now
exposed upon the eroded surface of the continents is very great.
In the Appalachian region the strata are seven or eight miles
thick, and still greater thicknesses have been measured in several
other mountain ranges. The aggregate thickness of all the
formations of the stratified rocks of the earth's crust, giving to
each formation its maximum thickness wherever found, amounts to
not less than forty miles. Knowing how slowly sediments accumulate
upon the sea floor, we must believe that the successive cycles
which the earth has seen stretch back into a past almost
inconceivably remote, and measure tens of millions and perhaps
even hundreds of millions of years.

HOW THE FORMATIONS ARE CORRELATED AND THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD MADE
UP. Arranged in the order of their succession, the formations of
the earth's crust would constitute a connected record in which the
geological history of the planet may be read, and therefore known
as the GEOLOGICAL RECORD. But to arrange the formations in their
natural order is not an easy task. A complete set of the volumes
of the record is to be found in no single region. Their leaves and
chapters are scattered over the land surface of the globe. In one
area certain chapters may be found, though perhaps with many
missing leaves, and with intervening chapters wanting, and these
absent parts perhaps can be supplied only after long search
through many other regions.

Adjacent strata in any region are arranged according to the LAW OF
SUPERPOSITION, i.e. any stratum is younger than that on which it
was deposited, just as in a pile of paper, any sheet was laid
later than that on which it rests. Where rocks have been
disturbed, their original attitude must be determined before the
law can be applied. Nor can the law of superposition be used in
identifying and comparing the strata of different regions where
the formations cannot be traced continuously from one region to
the other.

The formations of different regions are arranged in their true
order by the LAW OF INCLUDED ORGANISMS; i.e. formations, however
widely separated, which contain a similar assemblage of fossils
are equivalent and belong to the same division of geological time.

The correlation of formations by means of fossils may be explained
by the formations now being deposited about the north Atlantic.
Lithologically they are extremely various. On the continental
shelf of North America limestones of different kinds are forming
off Florida, and sandstones and shales from Georgia northward.
Separated from them by the deep Atlantic oozes are other
sedimentary deposits now accumulating along the west coast of
Europe. If now all these offshore formations were raised to open
air, how could they be correlated? Surely not by lithological
likeness, for in this respect they would be quite diverse. All
would be similar, however, in the fossils which they contain. Some
fossil species would be identical in all these formations and
others would be closely allied. Making all due allowance for
differences in species due to local differences in climate and
other physical causes, it would still be plain that plants and
animals so similar lived at the same period of time, and that the
formations in which their remains were imbedded were
contemporaneous in a broad way. The presence of the bones of
whales and other marine mammals would prove that the strata were
laid after the appearance of mammals upon earth, and imbedded
relics of man would give a still closer approximation to their
age. In the same way we correlate the earlier geological
formations.

For example, in 1902 there were collected the first fossils ever
found on the antarctic continent. Among the dozen specimens
obtained were some fossil ammonites (a family of chambered shells)
of genera which are found on other continents in certain
formations classified as the Cretaceous system, and which occur
neither above these formations nor below them. On the basis of
these few fossils we may be confident that the strata in which
they were found in the antarctic region were laid in the same
period of geologic time as were the Cretaceous rocks of the United
States and Canada.

THE RECORD AS A TIME SCALE. By means of the law of included
organisms and the law of superposition the formations of different
countries and continents are correlated and arranged in their
natural order. When the geological record is thus obtained it may
be used as a universal time scale for geological history.
Geological time is separated into divisions corresponding to the
times during which the successive formations were laid. The
largest assemblages of formations are known as groups, while the
corresponding divisions of time are known as eras. Groups are
subdivided into systems, and systems into series. Series are
divided into stages and substages,--subdivisions which do not
concern us in this brief treatise. The corresponding divisions of
time are given in the following table.

STRATA     TIME
Group      Era
System     Period
Series     Epoch

The geologist is now prepared to read the physical history--the
geographical development--of any country or of any continent by
means of its formations, when he has given each formation its true
place in the geological record as a time scale.

The following chart exhibits the main divisions of the record, the
name given to each being given also to the corresponding time
division. Thus we speak of the CAMBRIAN SYSTEM, meaning a certain
succession of formations which are classified together because of
broad resemblances in their included organisms; and of the
CAMBRIAN PERIOD, meaning the time during which these rocks were
deposited.

Group and Era System and Period Series and Epoch

               |Quaternary-----|Recent
Cenozoic------|                |Pleistocene
               |
               |Tertiary-------|Pliocene
                                |Miocene
                                |Eocene
               |Cretaceous
Mesozoic------|Jurassic
               |Triassic


                                |Permian
               |Carboniferous--|Pennsylvanian
               |                |Mississippian
Paleozoic-----|Devonian
               |Silurian
               |Ordovician
               |Cambrian

Algonkian
Archean

FOSSILS AND WHAT THEY TEACH

The geological formations contain a record still more important
than that of the geographical development of the continents; the
fossils imbedded in the rocks of each formation tell of the kinds
of animals and plants which inhabited the earth at that time, and
from these fossils we are therefore able to construct the history
of life upon the earth.

FOSSILS. These remains of organisms are found in the strata in all
degrees of perfection, from trails and tracks and fragmentary
impressions, to perfectly preserved shells, wood, bones, and
complete skeletons. As a rule, it is only the hard parts of
animals and plants which have left any traces in the rocks.
Sometimes the original hard substance is preserved, but more often
it has been replaced by some less soluble material. Petrifaction,
as this process of slow replacement is called, is often carried on
in the most exquisite detail. When wood, for example, is
undergoing petrifaction, the woody tissue may be replaced,
particle by particle, by silica in solution through the action of
underground waters, even the microscopic structures of the wood
being perfectly reproduced. In shells originally made of
ARAGONITE, a crystalline form of carbonate of lime, that mineral
is usually replaced by CALCITE, a more stable form of the same
substance. The most common petrifying materials are calcite,
silica, and pyrite.

Often the organic substance has neither been preserved nor
replaced, but the FORM has been retained by means of molds and
casts. Permanent impressions, or molds, may be made in sediments
not only by the hard parts of organisms, but also by such soft and
perishable parts as the leaves of plants, and, in the rarest
instances, by the skin of animals and the feathers of birds. In
fine-grained limestones even the imprints of jellyfish have been
retained.

The different kinds of molds and casts may be illustrated by means
of a clam shell and some moist clay, the latter representing the
sediments in which the remains of animals and plants are entombed.
Imbedding the shell in the clay and allowing the clay to harden,
we have a MOLD OF THE EXTERIOR of the shell, as is seen on cutting
the clay matrix in two and removing the shell from it. Filling
this mold with clay of different color, we obtain a CAST OF THE
EXTERIOR, which represents accurately the original form and
surface markings of the shell. In nature, shells and other relics
of animals or plants are often removed by being dissolved by
percolating waters, and the molds are either filled with sediments
or with minerals deposited from solution.

Where the fossil is hollow, a CAST OF THE INTERIOR is made in the
same way. Interior casts of shells reproduce any markings on the
inside of the valves, and casts of the interior of the skulls of
ancient vertebrates show the form and size of their brains.

IMPERFECTION OF THE LIFE RECORD. At the present time only the
smallest fraction of the life on earth ever gets entombed in rocks
now forming. In the forest great fallen tree trunks, as well as
dead leaves, decay, and only add a little to the layer of dark
vegetable mold from which they grew. The bones of land animals
are, for the most part, left unburied on the surface and are soon
destroyed by chemical agencies. Even where, as in the swamps of
river, flood plains and in other bogs, there are preserved the
remains of plants, and sometimes insects, together with the bones
of some animal drowned or mired, in most cases these swamp and bog
deposits are sooner or later destroyed by the shifting channels of
the stream or by the general erosion of the land.

In the sea the conditions for preservation are more favorable than
on land; yet even here the proportion of animals and plants whose
hard parts are fossilized is very small compared with those which
either totally decay before they are buried in slowly accumulating
sediments or are ground to powder by waves and currents.

We may infer that during each period of the past, as at the
present, only a very insignificant fraction of the innumerable
organisms of sea and land escaped destruction and left in
continental and oceanic deposits permanent records of their
existence. Scanty as these original life records must have been,
they have been largely destroyed by metamorphism of the rocks in
which they were imbedded, by solution in underground waters, and
by the vast denudation under which the sediments of earlier
periods have been eroded to furnish materials for the sedimentary
records of later times. Moreover, very much of what has escaped
destruction still remains undiscovered. The immense bulk of the
stratified rocks is buried and inaccessible, and the records of
the past which it contains can never be known. Comparatively few
outcrops have been thoroughly searched for fossils. Although new
species are constantly being discovered, each discovery may be
considered as the outcome of a series of happy accidents,--that
the remains of individuals of this particular species happened to
be imbedded and fossilized, that they happened to escape
destruction during long ages, and that they happened to be exposed
and found.

SOME INFERENCES FROM THE RECORDS OF THE HISTORY OF LIFE UPON THE
PLANET. Meager as are these records, they set forth plainly some
important truths which we will now briefly mention.

1. Each series of the stratified rocks, except the very deepest,
contains vestiges of life. Hence THE EARTH WAS TENANTED BY LIVING
CREATURES FOR AN UNCALCULATED LENGTH OF TIME BEFORE HUMAN HISTORY
BEGAN.

2. LIFE ON THE EARTH HAS BEEN EVERCHANGING. The youngest strata
hold the remains of existing species of animals and plants and
those of species and varieties closely allied to them. Strata
somewhat older contain fewer existing species, and in strata of a
still earlier, but by no means an ancient epoch, no existing
species are to be found; the species of that epoch and of previous
epochs have vanished from the living world. During all geological
time since life began on earth old species have constantly become
extinct and with them the genera and families to which they
belong, and other species, genera, and families have replaced
them. The fossils of each formation differ on the whole from those
of every other. The assemblage of animals and plants (the FAUNA-
FLORA) of each epoch differs from that of every other epoch.

In many cases the extinction of a type has been gradual; in other
instances apparently abrupt. There is no evidence that any
organism once become extinct has ever reappeared. The duration of
a species in time, or its "vertical range" through the strata,
varies greatly. Some species are limited to a stratum a few feet
in thickness; some may range through an entire formation and be
found but little modified in still higher beds. A formation may
thus often be divided into zones, each characterized by its own
peculiar species. As a rule, the simpler organisms have a longer
duration as species, though not as individuals, than the more
complex.

3. THE LARGER ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL GROUPINGS SURVIVE LONGER
THAN THE SMALLER. Species are so short-lived that a single
geological epoch may be marked by several more or less complete
extinctions of the species of its fauna-flora and their
replacement by other species. A genus continues with new species
after all the species with which it began have become extinct.
Families survive genera, and orders families. Classes are so long-
lived that most of those which are known from the earliest
formations are represented by living forms, and no sub-kingdom has
ever become extinct.

Thus, to take an example from the stony corals,--the ZOANTHARIA,--
the particular characters--which constituted a certain SPECIES--
Facosites niagarensis--of the order are confined to the Niagara
series. Its GENERIC characters appeared in other species earlier
in the Silurian and continued through the Devonian. Its FAMILY
characters, represented in different genera and species, range
from the Ordovician to the close of the Paleozoic; while the
characters which it shares with all its order, the Zoantharia,
began in the Cambrian and are found in living species.

4. THE CHANGE IN ORGANISMS HAS BEEN GRADUAL. The fossils of each
life zone and of each formation of a conformable series closely
resemble, with some explainable exceptions, those of the beds
immediately above and below. The animals and plants which tenanted
the earth during any geological epoch are so closely related to
those of the preceding and the succeeding epochs that we may
consider them to be the descendants of the one and the ancestors
of the other, thus accounting for the resemblance by heredity. It
is therefore believed that the species of animals and plants now
living on the earth are the descendants of the species whose
remains we find entombed in the rocks, and that the chain of life
has been unbroken since its beginning.

5. THE CHANGE IN SPECIES HAS BEEN A GRADUAL DIFFERENTIATION.
Tracing the lines of descent of various animals and plants of the
present backward through the divisions of geologic time, we find
that these lines of descent converge and unite in simpler and
still simpler types. The development of life may be represented by
a tree whose trunk is found in the earliest ages and whose
branches spread and subdivide to the growing twigs of present
species.

6. THE CHANGE IN ORGANISMS THROUGHOUT GEOLOGIC TIME HAS BEEN A
PROGRESSIVE CHANGE. In the earliest ages the only animals and
plants on the earth were lowly forms, simple and generalized in
structure; while succeeding ages have been characterized by the
introduction of types more and more specialized and complex, and
therefore of higher rank in the scale of being. Thus the Algonkian
contains the remains of only the humblest forms of the
invertebrates. In the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian the
invertebrates were represented in all their subkingdoms by a
varied fauna. In the Devonian, fishes--the lowest of the
vertebrates--became abundant. Amphibians made their entry on the
stage in the Carboniferous, and reptiles came to rule the world in
the Mesozoic. Mammals culminated in the Tertiary in strange forms
which became more and more like those of the present as the long
ages of that era rolled on; and latest of all appeared the noblest
product of the creative process, man.

Just as growth is characteristic of the individual life, so
gradual, progressive change, or evolution, has characterized the
history of life upon the planet. The evolution of the organic
kingdom from its primitive germinal forms to the complex and
highly organized fauna-flora of to-day may be compared to the
growth of some noble oak as it rises from the acorn, spreading
loftier and more widely extended branches as it grows.

7. While higher and still higher types have continually been
evolved, until man, the highest of all, appeared, THE LOWER AND
EARLIER TYPES HAVE GENERALLY PERSISTED. Some which reached their
culmination early in the history of the earth have since changed
only in slight adjustments to a changing environment. Thus the
brachiopods, a type of shellfish, have made no progress since the
Paleozoic, and some of their earliest known genera are represented
by living forms hardly to be distinguished from their ancient
ancestors. The lowest and earliest branches of the tree of life
have risen to no higher levels since they reached their climax of
development long ago.

8. A strange parallel has been found to exist between the
evolution of organisms and the development of the individual. In
the embryonic stages of its growth the individual passes swiftly
through the successive stages through which its ancestors evolved
during the millions of years of geologic time. THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE INDIVIDUAL RECAPITULATES THE EVOLUTION OF THE RACE.

The frog is a typical amphibian. As a tadpole it passes through a
stage identical in several well-known features with the maturity
of fishes; as, for example, its aquatic life, the tail by which it
swims, and the gills through which it breathes. It is a fair
inference that the tadpole stage in the life history of the frog
represents a stage in the evolution of its kind,--that the
Amphibia are derived from fishlike ancestral forms. This inference
is amply confirmed in the geological record; fishes appeared
before Amphibia and were connected with them by transitional
forms.

THE GREAT LENGTH OF GEOLOGIC TIME INFERRED FROM THE SLOW CHANGE OF
SPECIES. Life forms, like land forms, are thus subject to change
under the influence of their changing environment and of forces
acting from within. How slowly they change may be seen in the
apparent stability of existing species. In the lifetime of the
observer and even in the recorded history of man, species seem as
stable as the mountain and the river. But life forms and land
forms are alike variable, both in nature and still more under the
shaping hand of man. As man has modified the face of the earth
with his great engineering works, so he has produced widely
different varieties of many kinds of domesticated plants and
animals, such as the varieties of the dog and the horse, the apple
and the rose, which may be regarded in some respects as new
species in the making. We have assumed that land forms have
changed in the past under the influence of forces now in
operation. Assuming also that life forms have always changed as
they are changing at present, we come to realize something of the
immensity of geologic time required for the evolution of life from
its earliest lowly forms up to man.

It is because the onward march of life has taken the same general
course the world over that we are able to use it as a UNIVERSAL
TIME SCALE and divide geologic time into ages and minor
subdivisions according to the ruling or characteristic organisms
then living on the earth. Thus, since vertebrates appeared, we
have in succession the Age of Fishes, the Age of Amphibians, the
Age of Reptiles, and the Age of Mammals.

The chart given on page 295 is thus based on the law of
superposition and the law of the evolution of organisms. The first
law gives the succession of the formations in local areas. The
fossils which they contain demonstrate the law of the progressive
appearance of organisms, and by means of this law the formations
of different countries are correlated and set each in its place in
a universal time scale and grouped together according to the
affinities of their imbedded organic remains.

GEOLOGIC TIME DIVISIONS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF HUMAN HISTORY. We
may compare the division of geologic time into eras, periods, and
other divisions according to the dominant life of the time, to the
ill-defined ages into which human history is divided according to
the dominance of some nation, ruler, or other characteristic
feature. Thus we speak of the DARK AGES, the AGE OF ELIZABETH, and
the AGE OF ELECTRICITY. These crude divisions would be of much
value if, as in the case of geologic time, we had no exact
reckoning of human history by years.

And as the course of human history has flowed in an unbroken
stream along quiet reaches of slow change and through periods of
rapid change and revolution, so with the course of geologic
history. Periods of quiescence, in which revolutionary forces are
perhaps gathering head, alternate with periods of comparatively
rapid change in physical geography and in organisms, when new and
higher forms appear which serve to draw the boundary line of new
epochs. Nevertheless, geological history is a continuous progress;
its periods and epochs shade into one another by imperceptible
gradations, and all our subdivisions must needs be vague and more
or less arbitrary.

HOW FOSSILS TELL OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE PAST. Fossils are used
not only as a record of the development of life upon the earth,
but also in testimony to the physical geography of past epochs.
They indicate whether in any region the climate was tropical,
temperate, or arctic. Since species spread slowly from some center
of dispersion where they originate until some barrier limits their
migration farther, the occurrence of the same species in rocks of
the same system in different countries implies the absence of such
barriers at the period. Thus in the collection of antarctic
fossils referred to on page 294 there were shallow-water marine
shells identical in species with Mesozoic shells found in India
and in the southern extremity of South America. Since such
organisms are not distributed by the currents of the deep sea and
cannot migrate along its bottom, we infer a shallow-water
connection in Mesozoic times between India, South America, and the
antarctic region. Such a shallow-water connection would be offered
along the marginal shelf of a continent uniting these now widely
separated countries.





CHAPTER XV

THE PRE-CAMBRIAN SYSTEMS


THE EARTH'S BEGINNINGS. The geological record does not tell us of
the beginnings of the earth. The history of the planet, as we have
every reason to believe, stretches far back beyond the period of
the oldest stratified rocks, and is involved in the history of the
solar system and of the nebula,--the cloud of glowing gases or of
cosmic dust,--from which the sun and planets are believed to have
been derived.

THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. It is possible that the earth began as a
vaporous, shining sphere, formed by the gathering together of the
material of a gaseous ring which had been detached from a cooling
and shrinking nebula. Such a vaporous sphere would condense to a
liquid, fiery globe, whose surface would become cold and solid,
while the interior would long remain intensely hot because of the
slow conductivity of the crust. Under these conditions the
primeval atmosphere of the earth must have contained in vapor the
water now belonging to the earth's crust and surface. It held also
all the oxygen since locked up in rocks by their oxidation, and
all the carbon dioxide which has since been laid away in
limestones, besides that corresponding to the carbon of
carbonaceous deposits, such as peat, coal, and petroleum. On this
hypothesis the original atmosphere was dense, dark, and noxious,
and enormously heavier than the atmosphere at present.

THE ACCRETION HYPOTHESIS. On the other hand, it has been recently
suggested that the earth may have grown to its present size by the
gradual accretion of meteoritic masses. Such cold, stony bodies
might have come together at so slow a rate that the heat caused by
their impact would not raise sensibly the temperature of the
growing planet. Thus the surface of the earth may never have been
hot and luminous; but as the loose aggregation of stony masses
grew larger and was more and more compressed by its own
gravitation, the heat thus generated raised the interior to high
temperatures, while from time to time molten rock was intruded
among the loose, cold meteoritic masses of the crust and outpoured
upon the surface.

It is supposed that the meteorites of which the earth was built
brought to it, as meteorites do now, various gases shut up within
their pores. As the heat of the interior increased, these gases
transpired to the surface and formed the primitive atmosphere and
hydrosphere. The atmosphere has therefore grown slowly from the
smallest beginnings. Gases emitted from the interior in volcanic
eruptions and in other ways have ever added to it, and are adding
to it now. On the other hand, the atmosphere has constantly
suffered loss, as it has been robbed of oxygen by the oxidation of
rocks in weathering, and of carbon dioxide in the making of
limestones and carbonaceous deposits.

While all hypotheses of the earth's beginnings are as yet unproved
speculations, they serve to bring to mind one of the chief lessons
which geology has to teach,--that the duration of the earth in
time, like the extension of the universe in space, is vastly
beyond the power of the human mind to realize. Behind the history
recorded in the rocks, which stretches back for many million
years, lies the long unrecorded history of the beginnings of the
planet; and still farther in the abysses of the past are dimly
seen the cycles of the evolution of the solar system and of the
nebula which gave it birth.

We pass now from the dim realm of speculation to the earliest era
of the recorded history of the earth, where some certain facts may
be observed and some sure inferences from them may be drawn.

THE ARCHEAN.

The oldest known sedimentary strata, wherever they are exposed by
uplift and erosion, are found to be involved with a mass of
crystalline rocks which possesses the same characteristics in all
parts of the world. It consists of foliated rocks, gneisses, and
schists of various kinds, which have been cut with dikes and other
intrusions of molten rock, and have been broken, crumpled, and
crushed, and left in interlocking masses so confused that their
true arrangement can usually be made out only with the greatest
difficulty if at all. The condition of this body of crystalline
rocks is due to the fact that they have suffered not only from the
faultings, foldings, and igneous intrusions of their time, but
necessarily, also, from those of all later geological ages.

At present three leading theories are held as to the origin of
these basal crystalline rocks.

1. They are considered by perhaps the majority of the geologists
who have studied them most carefully to be igneous rocks intruded
in a molten state among the sedimentary rocks involved with them.
In many localities this relation is proved by the phenomena of
contact; but for the most part the deformations which the rocks
have since suffered again and again have been sufficient to
destroy such evidence if it ever existed.

2. An older view regards them as profoundly altered sedimentary
strata, the most ancient of the earth.

3. According to a third theory they represent portions of the
earth's original crust; not, indeed, its original surface, but
deeper portions uncovered by erosion and afterwards mantled with
sedimentary deposits. All these theories agree that the present
foliated condition of these rocks is due to the intense
metamorphism which they have suffered.

It is to this body of crystalline rocks and the stratified rocks
involved with it, which form a very small proportion of its mass,
that the term ARCHEAN (Greek, ARCHE, beginning) is applied by many
geologists.

THE ALGONKIAN

In some regions there rests unconformably on the Archean an
immense body of stratified rocks, thousands and in places even
scores of thousands of feet thick, known as the ALGONKIAN. Great
unconformities divide it into well-defined systems, but as only
the scantiest traces of fossils appear here and there among its
strata, it is as yet impossible to correlate the formations of
different regions and to give them names of more than local
application. We will describe the Algonkian rocks of two typical
areas.

THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO. We have already studied a very
ancient peneplain whose edge is exposed to view deep on the walls
of the Colorado Canyon. The formation of flat-lying sandstone
which covers this buried land surface is proved by its fossils to
belong to the Cambrian,--the earliest period of the Paleozoic era.
The tilted rocks on whose upturned edges the Cambrian sandstone
rests are far older, for the physical break which separates them
from it records a time interval during which they were upheaved to
mountainous ridges and worn down to a low plain. They are
therefore classified as Algonkian. They comprise two immense
series. The upper is more than five thousand feet thick and
consists of shales and sandstones with some limestones. Separated
from it by an unconformity which does not appear in Figure 207,
the lower division, seven thousand feet thick, consists chiefly of
massive reddish sandstones with seven or more sheets of lava
interbedded. The lowest member is a basal conglomerate composed of
pebbles derived from the erosion of the dark crumpled schists
beneath,--schists which are supposed to be Archean. As shown in
Figure 207, a strong unconformity parts the schists and the
Algonkian. The floor on which the Algonkian rests is remarkably
even, and here again is proved an interval of incalculable length,
during which an ancient land mass of Archean rocks was baseleveled
before it received the cover of the sediments of the later age.

THE LAKE SUPERIOR REGION. In eastern Canada an area of pre-
Cambrian rocks, Archean and Algonkian, estimated at two million
square miles, stretches from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence
River northward to the confines of the continent, inclosing Hudson
Bay in the arms of a gigantic U. This immense area, which we have
already studied as the Laurentian peneplain, extends southward
across the Canadian border into northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
Michigan. The rocks of this area are known to be pre-Cambrian; for
the Cambrian strata, wherever found, lie unconformably upon them.

The general relations of the formations of that portion of the
area which lies about Lake Superior are shown in Figure 262. Great
unconformities, UU' separate the Algonkian both from the Archean
and from the Cambrian, and divide it into three distinct systems,
--the LOWER HURONIAN, the UPPER HURONIAN, and the KEWEENAWAN. The
Lower and the Upper Huronian consist in the main of old sea muds
and sands and limy oozes now changed to gneisses, schists,
marbles, quartzites, slates, and other metamorphic rocks. The
Keweenawan is composed of immense piles of lava, such as those of
Iceland, overlain by bedded sandstones. What remains of these rock
systems after the denudation of all later geologic ages is
enormous. The Lower Huronian is more than a mile thick, the Upper
Huronian more than two miles thick, while the Keweenawan exceeds
nine miles in thickness. The vast length of Algonkian time is
shown by the thickness of its marine deposits and by the cycles of
erosion which it includes. In Figure 262 the student may read an
outline of the history of the Lake Superior region, the
deformations which it suffered, their relative severity, the times
when they occurred, and the erosion cycles marked by the
successive unconformities.

OTHER PRE-CAMBRIAN AREAS IN NORTH AMERICA. Pre-Cambrian rocks are
exposed in various parts of the continent, usually by the erosion
of mountain ranges in which their strata were infolded. Large
areas occur in the maritime provinces of Canada. The core of the
Green Mountains of Vermont is pre-Cambrian, and rocks of these
systems occur in scattered patches in western Massachusetts. Here
belong also the oldest rocks of the Highlands of the Hudson and of
New Jersey. The Adirondack region, an outlier of the Laurentian
region, exposes pre-Cambrian rocks, which have been metamorphosed
and tilted by the intrusion of a great boss of igneous rock out of
which the central peaks are carved. The core of the Blue Ridge and
probably much of the Piedmont Belt are of this age. In the Black
Hills the irruption of an immense mass of granite has caused or
accompanied the upheaval of pre-Cambrian strata and metamorphosed
them by heat and pressure into gneisses, schists, quartzites, and
slates. In most of these mountainous regions the lowest strata are
profoundly changed by metamorphism, and they can be assigned to
the pre-Cambrian only where they are clearly overlain
unconformably by formations proved to be Cambrian by their
fossils. In the Belt Mountains of Montana, however, the Cambrian
is underlain by Algonkian sediments twelve thousand feet thick,
and but little altered.

MINERAL WEALTH OF THE PRE-CAMBRIAN ROCKS. The pre-Cambrian rocks
are of very great economic importance, because of their extensive
metamorphism and the enormous masses of igneous rock which they
involve. In many parts of the country they are the source of
supply of granite, gneiss, marble, slate, and other such building
materials. Still more valuable are the stores of iron and copper
and other metals which they contain.

At the present time the pre-Cambrian region about Lake Superior
leads the world in the production of iron ore, its output for 1903
being more than five sevenths of the entire output of the whole
United States, and exceeding that of any foreign country. The ore
bodies consist chiefly of the red oxide of iron (hematite) and
occur in troughs of the strata, underlain by some impervious rock.
A theory held by many refers the ultimate source of the iron to
the igneous rocks of the Archean. When these rocks were upheaved
and subjected to weathering, their iron compounds were decomposed.
Their iron was leached out and carried away to be laid in the
Algonkian water bodies in beds of iron carbonate and other iron
compounds. During the later ages, after the Algonkian strata had
been uplifted to form part of the continent, a second
concentration has taken place. Descending underground waters
charged with oxygen have decomposed the iron carbonate and
deposited the iron, in the form of iron oxide, in troughs of the
strata where their downward progress was arrested by impervious
floors.

The pre-Cambrian rocks of the eastern United States also are rich
in iron. In certain districts, as in the Highlands of New Jersey,
the black oxide of iron (magnetite) is so abundant in beds and
disseminated grains that the ordinary surveyor's compass is
useless.

The pre-Cambrian copper mines of the Lake Superior region are
among the richest on the globe. In the igneous rocks copper, next
to iron, is the most common of all the useful metals, and it was
especially abundant in the Keweenawan lavas. After the Keweenawan
was uplifted to form land, percolating waters leached out much of
the copper diffused in the lava sheets and deposited it within
steam blebs as amygdules of native copper, in cracks and fissures,
and especially as a cement, or matrix, in the interbedded gravels
which formed the chief aquifers of the region. The famous Calumet
and Hecla mine follows down the dip of the strata to the depth of
nearly a mile and works such an ancient conglomerate whose matrix
is pure copper.

THE APPEARANCE OF LIFE. Sometime during the dim ages preceding the
Cambrian, whether in the Archean or in the Algonkian we know not,
occurred one of the most important events in the history of the
earth. Life appeared for the first time upon the planet. Geology
has no evidence whatever to offer as to whence or how life came.
All analogies lead us to believe that its appearance must have
been sudden. Its earliest forms are unknown, but analogy suggests
that as every living creature has developed from a single cell, so
the earliest organisms upon the globe--the germs from which all
later life is supposed to have been evolved--were tiny,
unicellular masses of protoplasm, resembling the amoeba of to-day
in the simplicity of their structure.

Such lowly forms were destitute of any hard parts and could leave
no evidence of their existence in the record of the rocks. And of
their supposed descendants we find so few traces in the pre-
Cambrian strata that the first steps in organic evolution must be
supplied from such analogies in embryology as the following. The
fertilized ovum, the cell with which each animal begins its life,
grows and multiplies by cell division, and develops into a hollow
globe of cells called the BLASTOSPHERE. This stage is succeeded by
the stage of the GASTRULA,--an ovoid or cup-shaped body with a
double wall of cells inclosing a body cavity, and with an opening,
the primitive mouth. Each of these early embryological stages is
represented by living animals,--the undivided cell by the
PROTOZOA, the blastosphere by some rare forms, and the gastrula in
the essential structure of the COELENTERATES,--the subkingdom to
which the fresh-water hydra and the corals belong. All forms of
animal life, from the coelenterates to the mammals, follow the
same path in their embryological development as far as the
gastrula stage, but here their paths widely diverge, those of each
subkingdom going their own separate ways.

We may infer, therefore, that during the pre-Cambrian periods
organic evolution followed the lines thus dimly traced. The
earliest one-celled protozoa were probably succeeded by many-
celled animals of the type of the blastosphere, and these by
gastrula-like organisms. From the gastrula type the higher sub-
divisions of animal life probably diverged, as separate branches
from a common trunk. Much or all of this vast differentiation was
accomplished before the opening of the next era; for all the
subkingdoms are represented in the Cambrian except the
vertebrates.

EVIDENCES OF PRE-CAMBRIAN LIFE. An indirect evidence of life
during the pre-Cambrian periods is found in the abundant and
varied fauna of the next period; for, if the theory of evolution
is correct, the differentiation of the Cambrian fauna was a long
process which might well have required for its accomplishment a
large part of pre-Cambrian time.

Other indirect evidences are the pre-Cambrian limestones, iron
ores, and graphite deposits, since such minerals and rocks have
been formed in later times by the help of organisms. If the
carbonate of lime of the Algonkian limestones and marbles was
extracted from sea water by organisms, as is done at present by
corals, mollusks, and other humble animals and plants, the life of
those ancient seas must have been abundant. Graphite, a soft black
mineral composed of carbon and used in the manufacture of lead
pencils and as a lubricant, occurs widely in the metamorphic pre-
Cambrian rocks. It is known to be produced in some cases by the
metamorphism of coal, which itself is formed of decomposed vegetal
tissues. Seams of graphite may therefore represent accumulations
of vegetal matter such as seaweed. But limestone, iron ores, and
graphite can be produced by chemical processes, and their presence
in the pre-Cambrian makes it only probable, and not certain, that
life existed at that time.

PRE-CAMBRIAN FOSSILS. Very rarely has any clear trace of an
organism been found in the most ancient chapters of the geological
record, so many of their leaves have been destroyed and so far
have their pages been defaced. Omitting structures whose organic
nature has been questioned, there are left to mention a tiny
seashell of one of the most lowly types,--a DISCINA from the pre-
Cambrian rocks of the Colorado Canyon,--and from the pre-Cambrian
rocks of Montana trails of annelid worms and casts of their
burrows in ancient beaches, and fragments of the tests of
crustaceans. These diverse forms indicate that before the
Algonkian had closed, life was abundant and had widely
differentiated. We may expect that other forms will be discovered
as the rocks are closely searched.

PRE-CAMBRIAN GEOGRAPHY. Our knowledge is far too meager to warrant
an attempt to draw the varying outlines of sea and land during the
Archean and Algonkian eras. Pre-Cambrian time probably was longer
than all later geological time down to the present, as we may
infer from the vast thicknesses of its rocks and the
unconformities which part them. We know that during its long
periods land masses again and again rose from the sea, were worn
low, and were submerged and covered with the waste of other lands.
But the formations of separated regions cannot be correlated
because of the absence of fossils, and nothing more can be made
out than the detached chapters of local histories, such as the
outline given of the district about Lake Superior.

The pre-Cambrian rocks show no evidence of any forces then at work
upon the earth except the forces which are at work upon it now.
The most ancient sediments known are so like the sediments now
being laid that we may infer that they were formed under
conditions essentially similar to those of the present time. There
is no proof that the sands of the pre-Cambrian sandstones were
swept by any more powerful waves and currents than are offshore
sands to-day, or that the muds of the pre-Cambrian shales settled
to the sea floor in less quiet water than such muds settle in at
present. The pre-Cambrian lands were, no doubt, worn by wind and
weather, beaten by rain, and furrowed by streams as now, and, as
now, they fronted the ocean with beaches on which waves dashed and
along which tidal currents ran.

Perhaps the chief difference between the pre-Cambrian and the
present was the absence of life upon the land. So far as we have
any knowledge, no forests covered the mountain sides, no verdure
carpeted the plains, and no animals lived on the ground or in the
air. It is permitted to think of the most ancient lands as deserts
of barren rock and rock waste swept by rains and trenched by
powerful streams. We may therefore suppose that the processes of
their destruction went on more rapidly than at present.





CHAPTER XVI

THE CAMBRIAN


THE PALEOZOIC ERA. The second volume of the geological record,
called the Paleozoic (Greek, PALAIOS, ancient; ZOE, life), has
come down to us far less mutilated and defaced than has the first
volume, which contains the traces of the most ancient life of the
globe. Fossils are far more abundant in the Paleozoic than in the
earlier strata, while the sediments in which they were entombed
have suffered far less from metamorphism and other causes, and
have been less widely buried from view, than the strata of the
pre-Cambrian groups. By means of their fossils we can correlate
the formations of widely separated regions from the beginning of
the Paleozoic on, and can therefore trace some outline of the
history of the continents.

Paleozoic time, although shorter than the pre-Cambrian as measured
by the thickness of the strata, must still be reckoned in millions
of years. During this vast reach of time the changes in organisms
were very great. It is according to the successive stages in the
advance of life that the Paleozoic formations are arranged in five
systems,--the CAMBRIAN, the ORDOVICIAN, the SILURIAN, the
DEVONIAN, and the CARBONIFEROUS. On the same basis the first three
systems are grouped together as the older Paleozoic, because they
alike are characterized by the dominance of the invertebrates;
while the last two systems are united in the later Paleozoic, and
are characterized, the one by the dominance of fishes, and the
other by the appearance of amphibians and reptiles.

Each of these systems is world-wide in its distribution, and may
be recognized on any continent by its own peculiar fauna. The
names first given them in Great Britain have therefore come into
general use, while their subdivisions, which often cannot be
correlated in different countries and different regions, are
usually given local names.

The first three systems were named from the fact that their strata
are well displayed in Wales. The Cambrian carries the Roman name
of Wales, and the Ordovician and Silurian the names of tribes of
ancient Britons which inhabited the same country. The Devonian is
named from the English county Devon, where its rocks were early
studied. The Carboniferous was so called from the large amount of
coal which it was found to contain in Great Britain and
continental Europe.

THE CAMBRIAN

DISTRIBUTION OF STRATA. The Cambrian rocks outcrop in narrow belts
about the pre-Cambrian areas of eastern Canada and the Lake
Superior region, the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. Strips
of Cambrian formations occupy troughs in the pre-Cambrian rocks of
New England and the maritime provinces of Canada; a long belt
borders on the west the crystalline rocks of the Blue Ridge; and
on the opposite side of the continent the Cambrian reappears in
the mountains of the Great Basin and the Canadian Rockies. In the
Mississippi valley it is exposed in small districts where uplift
has permitted the stripping off of younger rocks. Although the
areas of outcrop are small, we may infer that Cambrian rocks were
widely deposited over the continent of North America.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. The Cambrian system of North America comprises
three distinct series, the LOWER CAMBRIAN, the MIDDLE CAMBRIAN,
and the UPPER CAMBRIAN, each of which is characterized by its own
peculiar fauna. In sketching the outlines of the continent as it
was at the beginning of the Paleozoic, it must be remembered that
wherever the Lower Cambrian formations now are found was certainly
then sea bottom, and wherever the Lower Cambrian are wanting, and
the next formations rest directly on pre-Cambrian rocks, was
probably then land.

EARLY CAMBRIAN GEOGRAPHY. In this way we know that at the opening
of the Cambrian two long, narrow mediterranean seas stretched from
north to south across the continent. The eastern sea extended from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence down the Champlain-Hudson valley and
thence along the western base of the Blue Ridge south at least to
Alabama. The western sea stretched from the Canadian Rockies over
the Great Basin and at least as far south as the Grand Canyon of
the Colorado in Arizona.

Between these mediterraneans lay a great central land which
included the pre-Cambrian U-shaped area of the Laurentian
peneplain, and probably extended southward to the latitude of New
Orleans. To the east lay a land which we may designate as
APPALACHIA, whose western shore line was drawn along the site of
the present Blue Ridge, but whose other limits are quite unknown.
The land of Appalachia must have been large, for it furnished a
great amount of waste during the entire Paleozoic era, and its
eastern coast may possibly have lain even beyond the edge of the
present continental shelf. On the western side of the continent a
narrow land occupied the site of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Thus, even at the beginning of the Paleozoic, the continental
plateau of North America had already been left by crustal
movements in relief above the abysses of the great oceans on
either side. The mediterraneans which lay upon it were shallow, as
their sediments prove. They were EPICONTINENTAL SEAS; that is,
they rested UPON (Greek, EPI) the submerged portion of the
continental plateau. We have no proof that the deep ocean ever
occupied any part of where North America now is.

The Middle and Upper Cambrian strata are found together with the
Lower Cambrian over the area of both the eastern and the western
mediterraneans, so that here the sea continued during the entire
period. The sediments throughout are those of shoal water. Coarse
cross-bedded sandstones record the action of strong shifting
currents which spread coarse waste near shore and winnowed it of
finer stuff. Frequent ripple marks on the bedding planes of the
strata prove that the loose sands of the sea floor were near
enough to the surface to be agitated by waves and tidal currents.
Sun cracks show that often the outgoing tide exposed large muddy
flats to the drying action of the sun. The fossils, also, of the
strata are of kinds related to those which now live in shallow
waters near the shore.

The sediments which gathered in the mediterranean seas were very
thick, reaching in places the enormous depth of ten thousand feet.
Hence the bottoms of these seas were sinking troughs, ever filling
with waste from the adjacent land as fast as they subsided.

LATE CAMBRIAN GEOGRAPHY. The formations of the Middle and Upper
Cambrian are found resting unconformably on the pre-Cambrian rocks
from New York westward into Minnesota and at various points in the
interior, as in Missouri and in Texas. Hence after earlier
Cambrian time the central land subsided, with much the same effect
as if the Mississippi valley were now to lower gradually, and the
Gulf of Mexico to spread northward until it entered Lake Superior.
The Cambrian seas transgressed the central land and strewed far
and wide behind their advancing beaches the sediments of the later
Cambrian upon an eroded surface of pre-Cambrian rocks.

The succession of the Cambrian formations in North America records
many minor oscillations and varying conditions of physical
geography; yet on the whole it tells of widening seas and lowering
lands. Basal conglomerates and coarse sandstones which must have
been laid near shore are succeeded by shaly sandstones, sandy
shales, and shales. Toward the top of the series heavy beds of
limestone, extending from the Blue Ridge to Missouri, speak of
clear water, and either of more distant shores or of neighboring
lands which were worn or sunk so low that for the most part their
waste was carried to the sea in solution.

In brief, the Cambrian was a period of submergence. It began with
the larger part of North America emerged as great land masses. It
closed with most of the interior of the continental plateau
covered with a shallow sea.

THE LIFE OF THE CAMBRIAN PERIOD

It is now for the first time that we find preserved in the
offshore deposits of the Cambrian seas enough remains of animal
life to be properly called a fauna. Doubtless these remains are
only the most fragmentary representation of the life of the time,
for the Cambrian rocks are very old and have been widely
metamorphosed. Yet the five hundred and more species already
discovered embrace all the leading types of invertebrate life, and
are so varied that we must believe that their lines of descent
stretch far back into the pre-Cambrian past.

PLANTS. No remains of plants have been found in Cambrian strata,
except some doubtful markings, as of seaweed.

SPONGES. The sponges, the lowest of the multicellular animals,
were represented by several orders. Their fossils are recognized
by the siliceous spicules, which, as in modern sponges, either
were scattered through a mass of horny fibers or were connected in
a flinty framework.

COELENTERATES. This subkingdom includes two classes of interest to
the geologist,--the HYDROZOA, such as the fresh-water hydra and
the jellyfish, and the CORALS. Both classes existed in the
Cambrian.

The Hydrozoa were represented not only by jellyfish but also by
the GRAPTOLITE, which takes its name from a fancied resemblance of
some of its forms to a quill pen. It was a composite animal with a
horny framework, the individuals of the colony living in cells
strung on one or both sides along a hollow stem, and communicating
by means of a common flesh in this central tube. Some graptolites
were straight, and some curved or spiral; some were single
stemmed, and others consisted of several radial stems united.
Graptolites occur but rarely in the Upper Cambrian. In the
Ordovician and Silurian they are very plentiful, and at the close
of the Silurian they pass out of existence, never to return.

CORALS are very rarely found in the Cambrian, and the description
of their primitive types is postponed to later chapters treating
of periods when they became more numerous.

ECHINODERMS. This subkingdom comprises at present such familiar
forms as the crinoid, the starfish, and the sea urchin. The
structure of echinoderms is radiate. Their integument is hardened
with plates or particles of carbonate of lime.

Of the free echinoderms, such as the starfish and the sea urchin,
the former has been found in the Cambrian rocks of Europe, but
neither have so far been discovered in the strata of this period
in North America. The stemmed and lower division of the
echinoderms was represented by a primitive type, the CYSTOID, so
called from its saclike form, A small globular or ovate "calyx" of
calcareous plates, with an aperture at the top for the mouth,
inclosed the body of the animal, and was attached to the sea
bottom by a short flexible stalk consisting of disks of carbonate
of lime held together by a central ligament.

ARTHOPODS. These segmented animals with "jointed feet," as their
name suggests, may be divided in a general way into water
breathers and air breathers. The first-named and lower division
comprises the class of the CRUSTACEA,--arthropods protected by a
hard exterior skeleton, or "crust,"--of which crabs, crayfish, and
lobsters are familiar examples. The higher division, that of the
air breathers, includes the following classes: spiders, scorpions,
centipedes, and insects.

THE TRILOBITE. The aquatic arthropods, the Crustacea, culminated
before the air breathers; and while none of the latter are found
in the Cambrian, the former were the dominant life of the time in
numbers, in size, and in the variety of their forms. The leading
crustacean type is the TRILOBITE, which takes its name from the
three lobes into which its shell is divided longitudinally. There
are also three cross divisions,--the head shield, the tail shield,
and between the two the thorax, consisting of a number of distinct
and unconsolidated segments. The head shield carries a pair of
large, crescentic, compound eyes, like those of the insect. The
eye varies greatly in the number of its lenses, ranging from
fourteen in some species to fifteen thousand in others. Figure
268, C, is a restoration of the trilobite, and shows the
appendages, which are found preserved only in the rarest cases.

During the long ages of the Cambrian the trilobite varied greatly.
Again and again new species and genera appeared, while the older
types became extinct. For this reason and because of their
abundance, trilobites are used in the classification of the
Cambrian system. The Lower Cambrian is characterized by the
presence of a trilobitic fauna in which the genus Olenellus is
predominant. This, the OLENELLUS ZONE, is one of the most
important platforms in the entire geological series; for, the
world over, it marks the beginning of Paleozoic time, while all
underlying strata are classified as pre-Cambrian. The Middle
Cambrian is marked by the genus Paradoxides, and the Upper
Cambrian by the genus Olenus. Some of the Cambrian trilobites were
giants, measuring as much as two feet long, while others were the
smallest of their kind, a fraction of an inch in length.

Another type of crustacean which lived in the Cambrian and whose
order is still living is illustrated in Figure 269.

WORMS. Trails and burrows of worms have been left on the sea
beaches and mud flats of all geological times from the Algonkian
to the present.

BRACHIOPODS. These soft-bodied animals, with bivalve shells and
two interior armlike processes which served for breathing,
appeared in the Algonkian, and had now become very abundant. The
two valves of the brachiopod shell are unequal in size, and in
each valve a line drawn from the beak to the base divides the
valve into two equal parts. It may thus be told from the pelecypod
mollusk, such as the clam, whose two valves are not far from equal
in size, each being divided into unequal parts by a line dropped
from the beak.

Brachiopods include two orders. In the most primitive order--that
of the INARTICULATE brachiopods--the two valves are held together
only by muscles of the animal, and the shell is horny or is
composed of phosphate of lime. The DISCINA, which began in the
Algonkian, is of this type, as is also the LINGULELLA of the
Cambrian. Both of these genera have lived on during the millions
of years of geological time since their introduction, handing down
from generation to generation with hardly any change to their
descendants now living off our shores the characters impressed
upon them at the beginning.

The more highly organized ARTICULATE brachiopods have valves of
carbonate of lime more securely joined by a hinge with teeth and
sockets (Fig. 270). In the Cambrian the inarticulates predominate,
though the articulates grow common toward the end of the period.

MOLLUSKS. The three chief classes of mollusks--the PELECYPODS
(represented by the oyster and clam of to-day), the GASTROPODS
(represented now by snails, conches, and periwinkles), and the
CEPHALOPODS (such as the nautilus, cuttlefish, and squids)--were
all represented in the Cambrian, although very sparingly.

Pteropods, a suborder of the gastropods, appeared in this age.
Their papery shells of carbonate of lime are found in great
numbers from this time on.

Cephalopods, the most highly organized of the mollusks, started
into existence, so far as the record shows, toward, the end of the
Cambrian, with the long extinct ORTHOCERAS (STRAIGHTHORN) and the
allied genera of its family. The Orthoceras had a long, straight,
and tapering shell, divided by cross partitions into chambers. The
animal lived in the "body chamber" at the larger end, and walled
off the other chambers from it in succession during the growth of
the shell. A central tube, the SIPHUNCLE, passed through from the
body chamber to the closed tip of the cone.

The seashells, both brachiopods and mollusks, are in some respects
the most important to the geologist of all fossils. They have been
so numerous, so widely distributed, and so well preserved because
of their durable shells and their station in growing sediments,
that better than any other group of organisms they can be used to
correlate the strata of different regions and to mark by their
slow changes the advance of geological time.

CLIMATE. The life of Cambrian times in different countries
contains no suggestion of any marked climatic zones, and as in
later periods a warm climate probably reached to the polar
regions.





CHAPTER XVII

THE ORDOVICIAN AND SILURIAN
[Footnote: Often known as the Lower Silurian.]

THE ORDOVICIAN


In North America the Ordovician rocks lie conformably on the
Cambrian. The two periods, therefore, were not parted by any
deformation, either of mountain making or of continental uplift.
The general submergence which marked the Cambrian continued into
the succeeding period with little interruption.

SUBDIVISIONS AND DISTRIBUTION OF STRATA. The Ordovician series, as
they have been made out in New York, are given for reference in
the following table, with the rocks of which they are chiefly
composed:

    5 Hudson . . . . . . . . shales
    4 Utica  . . . . . . . . shales
    3 Trenton  . . . . . . . limestones
    2 Chazy  . . . . . . . . limestones
    1 Calciferous  . . . . . sandy limestones

These marine formations of the Ordovician outcrop about the
Cambrian and pre-Cambrian areas, and, as borings show, extend far
and wide over the interior of the continent beneath more recent
strata. The Ordovician sea stretched from Appalachia across the
Mississippi valley. It seems to have extended to California,
although broken probably by several mountainous islands in the
west.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. The physical history of the period is recorded
in the succession of its formations. The sandstones of the Upper
Cambrian, as we have learned, tell of a transgressing sea which
gradually came to occupy the Mississippi valley and the interior
of North America. The limestones of the early and middle
Ordovician show that now the shore had become remote and the lands
had become more low. The waters now had cleared. Colonies of
brachiopods and other lime-secreting animals occupied the sea
bottom, and their debris mantled it with sheets of limy ooze. The
sandy limestones of the Calciferous record the transition stage
from the Cambrian when some sand was still brought in from shore.
The highly fossiliferous limestones of the Trenton tell of clear
water and abundant life. We need not regard this epicontinental
sea as deep. No abysmal deposits have been found, and the
limestones of the period are those which would be laid in clear,
warm water of moderate depth like that of modern coral seas.

The shales of the Utica and Hudson show that the waters of the sea
now became clouded with mud washed in from land. Either the land
was gradually uplifted, or perhaps there had arrived one of those
periodic crises which, as we may imagine, have taken place
whenever the crust of the shrinking earth has slowly given way
over its great depressions, and the ocean has withdrawn its waters
into deepening abysses. The land was thus left relatively higher
and bordered with new coastal plains. The epicontinental sea was
shoaled and narrowed, and muds were washed in from the adjacent
lands.

THE TACONIC DEFORMATION. The Ordovician was closed by a
deformation whose extent and severity are not yet known. From the
St. Lawrence River to New York Bay, along the northwestern and
western border of New England, lies a belt of Cambrian-Ordovician
rocks more than a mile in total thickness, which accumulated
during the long ages of those periods in a gradually subsiding
trough between the Adirondacks and a pre-Cambrian range lying west
of the Connecticut River. But since their deposition these ancient
sediments have been crumpled and crushed, broken with great
faults, and extensively metamorphosed. The limestones have
recrystallized into marbles, among them the famous marbles of
Vermont; the Cambrian sandstones have become quartzites, and the
Hudson shale has been changed to a schist exposed on Manhattan
Island and northward.

In part these changes occurred at the close of the Ordovician, for
in several places beds of Silurian age rest unconformably on the
upturned Ordovician strata; but recent investigations have made it
probable that the crustal movements recurred at later times, and
it was perhaps in the Devonian and at the close of the
Carboniferous that the greater part of the deformation and
metamorphism was accomplished. As a result of these movements,--
perhaps several times repeated,--a great mountain range was
upridged, which has been long since leveled by erosion, but whose
roots are now visible in the Taconic Mountains of western New
England.

THE CINCINNATI ANTICLINE. Over an oval area in Ohio, Indiana, and
Kentucky, whose longer axis extends from north to south through
Cincinnati, the Ordovician strata rise in a very low, broad swell,
called the Cincinnati anticline. The Silurian and Devonian strata
thin out as they approach this area and seem never to have
deposited upon it. We may regard it, therefore, as an island
upwarped from the sea at the close of the Ordovician or shortly
after.

PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS. These valuable illuminants and fuels
are considered here because, although they are found in traces in
older strata, it is in the Ordovician that they occur for the
first time in large quantities. They range throughout later
formations down to the most recent.

The oil horizons of California and Texas are Tertiary; those of
Colorado, Cretaceous; those of West Virginia, Carboniferous; those
of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Canada, Devonian; and the large
field of Ohio and Indiana belongs to the Ordovician and higher
systems.

Petroleum and natural gas, wherever found, have probably
originated from the decay of organic matter when buried in
sedimentary deposits, just as at present in swampy places the
hydrogen and carbon of decaying vegetation combine to form marsh
gas. The light and heat of these hydrocarbons we may think of,
therefore, as a gift to the civilized life of our race from the
humble organisms, both animal and vegetable, of the remote past,
whose remains were entombed in the sediments of the Ordovician and
later geological ages.

Petroleum is very widely disseminated throughout the stratified
rocks. Certain limestones are visibly greasy with it, and others
give off its characteristic fetid odor when struck with a hammer.
Many shales are bituminous, and some are so highly charged that
small flakes may be lighted like tapers, and several gallons of
oil to the ton may be obtained by distillation.

But oil and gas are found in paying quantities only when certain
conditions meet:

1. A SOURCE below, usually a bituminous shale, from whose organic
matter they have been derived by slow change.

2. A RESERVOIR above, in which they have gathered. This is either
a porous sandstone or a porous or creviced limestone.

3. Oil and gas are lighter than water, and are usually under
pressure owing to artesian water. Hence, in order to hold them
from escaping to the surface, the reservoir must have the shape of
an ANTICLINE, DOME, or LENS.

4. It must also have an IMPERVIOUS COVER, usually a shale. In
these reservoirs gas is under a pressure which is often enormous,
reaching in extreme cases as high as a thousand five hundred
pounds to the square inch. When tapped it rushes out with a
deafening roar, sometimes flinging the heavy drill high in air. In
accounting for this pressure we must remember that the gas has
been compressed within the pores of the reservoir rock by artesian
water, and in some cases also by its own expansive force. It is
not uncommon for artesian water to rise in wells after the
exhaustion of gas and oil.

LIFE OF THE ORDOVICIAN

During the ages of the Ordovician, life made great advances. Types
already present branched widely into new genera and species, and
new and higher types appeared.

Sponges continued from the Cambrian. Graptolites now reached their
climax.

STROMATOPORA--colonies of minute hydrozoans allied to corals--grew
in places on the sea floor, secreting stony masses composed of
thin, close, concentric layers, connected by vertical rods. The
Stromatopora are among the chief limestone builders of the
Silurian and Devonian periods.

CORALS developed along several distinct lines, like modern corals
they secreted a calcareous framework, in whose outer portions the
polyps lived. In the Ordovician, corals were represented chiefly
by the family of the CHOETETES, all species of which are long
since extinct. The description of other types of corals will be
given under the Silurian, where they first became abundant.

ECHINODERMS. The cystoid reaches its climax, but there appear now
two higher types of echinoderms,--the crinoid and the starfish.
The CRINOID, named from its resemblance to the lily, is like the
cystoid in many respects, but has a longer stem and supports a
crown of plumose arms. Stirring the water with these arms, it
creates currents by which particles of food are wafted to its
mouth. Crinoids are rare at the present time, but they grew in the
greatest profusion in the warm Ordovician seas and for long ages
thereafter. In many places the sea floor was beautiful with these
graceful, flowerlike forms, as with fields of long-stemmed lilies.
Of the higher, free-moving classes of the echinoderms, starfish
are more numerous than in the Cambrian, and sea urchins make their
appearance in rare archaic forms.

CRUSTACEANS. Trilobites now reach their greatest development and
more than eleven hundred species have been described from the
rocks of this period. It is interesting to note that in many
species the segments of the thorax have now come to be so shaped
that they move freely on one another. Unlike their Cambrian
ancestors, many of the Ordovician trilobites could roll themselves
into balls at the approach of danger. It is in this attitude,
taken at the approach of death, that trilobites are often found in
the Ordovician and later rocks. The gigantic crustaceans called
the EURYPTERIDS were also present in this period.

The arthropods had now seized upon the land. Centipedes and
insects of a low type, the earliest known land animals, have been
discovered in strata of this system.

BRYOZOANS. No fossils are more common in the limestones of the
time than the small branching stems and lacelike mats of the
bryozoans,--the skeletons of colonies of a minute animal allied in
structure to the brachiopod.

BRACHIOPODS. These multiplied greatly, and in places their shells
formed thick beds of coquina. They still greatly surpassed the
mollusks in numbers.

CEPHALOPODS. Among the mollusks we must note the evolution of the
cephalopods. The primitive straight Orthoceras has now become
abundant. But in addition to this ancestral type there appears a
succession of forms more and more curved and closely coiled, as
illustrated in Figure 285. The nautilus, which began its course in
this period, crawls on the bottom of our present seas.

VERTEBRATES. The most important record of the Ordovician is that
of the appearance of a new and higher type, with possibilities of
development lying hidden in its structure that the mollusk and the
insect could never hope to reach. Scales and plates of minute
fishes found in the Ordovician rocks near Canon City, Colorado,
show that the humblest of the vertebrates had already made its
appearance. But it is probable that vertebrates had been on the
earth for ages before this in lowly types, which, being destitute
of hard parts, would leave no record.

THE SILURIAN

The narrowing of the seas and the emergence of the lands which
characterized the closing epoch of the Ordovician in eastern North
America continue into the succeeding period of the Silurian. New
species appear and many old species now become extinct.

THE APPALACHIAN REGION. Where the Silurian system is most fully
developed, from New York southward along the Appalachian
Mountains, it comprises four series:

    4 Salina  . . . shales, impure limestones, gypsum, salt
    3 Niagara . . . chiefly limestones
    2 Clinton . . . sandstones, shales, with some limestones
    1 Medina  . . . conglomerates, sandstones

The rocks of these series are shallow-water deposits and reach the
total thickness of some five thousand feet. Evidently they were
laid over an area which was on the whole gradually subsiding,
although with various gentle oscillations which are recorded in
the different formations. The coarse sands of the heavy Medina
formations record a period of uplift of the oldland of Appalachia,
when erosion went on rapidly and coarse waste in abundance was
brought down from the hills by swift streams and spread by the
waves in wide, sandy flats. As the lands were worn lower the waste
became finer, and during an epoch of transition--the Clinton--
there were deposited various formations of sandstones, shales, and
limestones. The Niagara limestones testify to a long epoch of
repose, when low-lying lands sent little waste down to the sea.

The gypsum and salt deposits of the Salina show that toward the
close of the Silurian period a slight oscillation brought the sea
floor nearer to the surface, and at the north cut off extensive
tracts from the interior sea. In these wide lagoons, which now and
then regained access to the open sea and obtained new supplies of
salt water, beds of salt and gypsum were deposited as the briny
waters became concentrated by evaporation under a desert climate.
Along with these beds there were also laid shales and impure
limestones.

In New York the "salt pans" of the Salina extended over an area
one hundred and fifty miles long from east to west and sixty miles
wide, and similar salt marshes occurred as far west as Cleveland,
Ohio, and Goderich on Lake Huron. At Ithaca, New York, the series
is fifteen hundred feet thick, and is buried beneath an equal
thickness of later strata. It includes two hundred and fifty feet
of solid salt, in several distinct beds, each sealed within the
shales of the series.

Would you expect to find ancient beds of rock salt inclosed in
beds of pervious sandstone?

The salt beds of the Salina are of great value. They are reached
by well borings, and their brines are evaporated by solar heat and
by boiling. The rock salt is also mined from deep shafts.

Similar deposits of salt, formed under like conditions, occur in
the rocks of later systems down to the present. The salt beds of
Texas are Permian, those of Kansas are Permian, and those of
Louisiana are Tertiary.

THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. The heavy near-shore formations of the
Silurian in the Appalachian region thin out toward the west. The
Medina and the Clinton sandstones are not found west of Ohio,
where the first passes into a shale and the second into a
limestone. The Niagara limestone, however, spreads from the Hudson
River to beyond the Mississippi, a distance of more than a
thousand miles. During the Silurian period the Mississippi valley
region was covered with a quiet, shallow, limestone-making sea,
which received little waste from the low lands which bordered it.

The probable distribution of land and sea in eastern North America
and western Europe is shown in Figure 287. The fauna of the
interior region and of eastern Canada are closely allied with that
of western Europe, and several species are identical. We can
hardly account for this except by a shallow-water connection
between the two ancient epicontinental seas. It was perhaps along
the coastal shelves of a northern land connecting America and
Europe by way of Greenland and Iceland that the migration took
place, so that the same species came to live in Iowa and in
Sweden.

THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. So little is found of the rocks of the
system west of the Missouri River that it is quite probable that
the western part of the United States had for the most part
emerged from the sea at the close of the Ordovician and remained
land during the Silurian. At the same time the western land was
perhaps connected with the eastern land of Appalachia across
Arkansas and Mississippi; for toward the south the Silurian
sediments indicate an approach to shore.

LIFE OF THE SILURIAN

In this brief sketch it is quite impossible to relate the many
changes of species and genera during the Silurian.

CORALS. Some of the more common types are familiarly known as cup
corals, honeycomb corals, and chain corals. In the CUP CORALS the
most important feature is the development of radiating vertical
partitions, or SEPTA, in the cell of the polyp. Some of the cup
corals grew in hemispherical colonies (Fig. 288), while many were
separate individuals (Fig. 289), building a single conical, or
horn-shaped cell, which sometimes reached the extreme size of a
foot in length and two or three inches in diameter.

HONEYCOMB CORALS consist of masses of small, close-set prismatic
cells, each crossed by horizontal partitions, or TABULAE, while
the septa are rudimentary, being represented by faintly projecting
ridges or rows of spines.

CHAIN CORALS are also marked by tabulae. Their cells form
elliptical tubes, touching each other at the edges, and appearing
in cross section like the links of a chain. They became extinct at
the end of the Silurian.

The corals of the SYRINGOPORA family are similar in structure to
chain corals, but the tubular columns are connected only in
places.

To the echinoderms there is now added the BLASTOID (bud-shaped).
The blastoid is stemmed and armless, and its globular "head" or
"calyx," with its five petal-like divisions, resembles a flower
bud. The blastoids became more abundant in the Devonian,
culminated in the Carboniferous, and disappeared at the end of the
Paleozoic.

The great eurypterids--some of which were five or six feet in
length--and the cephalopods were still masters of the seas. Fishes
were as yet few and small; trilobites and graptolites had now
passed their prime and had diminished greatly in numbers.
Scorpions are found in this period both in Europe and in America.
The limestone-making seas of the Silurian swarmed with corals,
crinoids, and brachiopods.

With the end of the Silurian period the AGE OF INVERTEBRATES comes
to a close, giving place to the Devonian, the AGE OF FISHES.





CHAPTER XVIII

THE DEVONIAN


In America the Silurian is not separated from the Devonian by any
mountain-making deformation or continental uplift. The one period
passed quietly into the other. Their conformable systems are so
closely related, and the change in their faunas is so gradual,
that geologists are not agreed as to the precise horizon which
divides them.

SUBDIVISIONS AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. The Devonian is represented
in New York and southward by the following five series. We add the
rocks of which they are chiefly composed.

    5 Chemung     . . . . . . sandstones and sandy shales
    4 Hamilton    . . . . . . shales and sandstones
    3 Corniferous . . . . . . limestones
    2 Oriskany    . . . . . . sandstones
    1 Helderberg  . . . . . . limestones

The Helderberg is a transition epoch referred by some geologists
to the Silurian. The thin sandstones of the Oriskany mark an epoch
when waves worked over the deposits of former coastal plains. The
limestones of the Corniferous testify to a warm and clear wide sea
which extended from the Hudson to beyond the Mississippi. Corals
throve luxuriantly, and their remains, with those of mollusks and
other lime-secreting animals, built up great beds of limestone.
The bordering continents, as during the later Silurian, must now
have been monotonous lowlands which sent down little of even the
finest waste to the sea.

In the Hamilton the clear seas of the previous epoch became
clouded with mud. The immense deposits of coarse sandstones and
sandy shales of the Chemung, which are found off what was at the
time the west coast of Appalachia, prove an uplift of that ancient
continent.

The Chemung series extends from the Catskill Mountains to
northeastern Ohio and south to northeastern Tennessee, covering an
area of not less than a hundred thousand square miles. In eastern
New York it attains three thousand feet in thickness; in
Pennsylvania it reaches the enormous thickness of two miles; but
it rapidly thins to the west. Everywhere the Chemung is made of
thin beds of rapidly alternating coarse and fine sands and clays,
with an occasional pebble layer, and hence is a shallow-water
deposit. The fine material has not been thoroughly winnowed from
the coarse by the long action of strong waves and tides. The sands
and clays have undergone little more sorting than is done by
rivers. We must regard the Chemung sandstones as deposits made at
the mouths of swift, turbid rivers in such great amount that they
could be little sorted and distributed by waves.

Over considerable areas the Chemung sandstones bear little or no
trace of the action of the sea. The Catskill Mountains, for
example, have as their summit layers some three thousand feet of
coarse red sandstones of this series, whose structure is that of
river deposits, and whose few fossils are chiefly of fresh-water
types. The Chemung is therefore composed of delta deposits, more
or less worked over by the sea. The bulk of the Chemung equals
that of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. To furnish this immense
volume of sediment a great mountain range, or highland, must have
been upheaved where the Appalachian lowland long had been. To what
height the Devonian mountains of Appalachia attained cannot be
told from the volume of the sediments wasted from them, for they
may have risen but little faster than they were worn down by
denudation. We may infer from the character of the waste which
they furnished to the Chemung shores that they did not reach an
Alpine height. The grains of the Chemung sandstones are not those
which would result from mechanical disintegration, as by frost on
high mountain peaks, but are rather those which would be left from
the long chemical decay of siliceous crystalline rocks; for the
more soluble minerals are largely wanting. The red color of much
of the deposits points to the same conclusion. Red residual clays
accumulated on the mountain sides and upland summits, and were
washed as ocherous silt to mingle with the delta sands. The iron-
bearing igneous rocks of the oldland also contributed by their
decay iron in solution to the rivers, to be deposited in films of
iron oxide about the quartz grains of the Chemung sandstones,
giving them their reddish tints.

LIFE OF THE DEVONIAN

PLANTS. The lands were probably clad with verdure during Silurian
times, if not still earlier; for some rare remains of ferns and
other lowly types of vegetation have been found in the strata of
that system. But it is in the Devonian that we discover for the
first time the remains of extensive and luxuriant forests. This
rich flora reached its climax in the Carboniferous, and it will be
more convenient to describe its varied types in the next chapter.

RHIZOCARPS. In the shales of the Devonian are found microscopic
spores of rhizocarps in such countless numbers that their weight
must be reckoned in hundreds of millions of tons. It would seem
that these aquatic plants culminated in this period, and in widely
distant portions of the earth swampy flats and shallow lagoons
were filled with vegetation of this humble type, either growing
from the bottom or floating free upon the surface. It is to the
resinous spores of the rhizocarps that the petroleum and natural
gas from Devonian rocks are largely due. The decomposition of the
spores has made the shales highly bituminous, and the oil and gas
have accumulated in the reservoirs of overlying porous sandstones.

INVERTEBRATES. We must pass over the ever-changing groups of the
invertebrates with the briefest notice. Chain corals became
extinct at the close of the Silurian, but other corals were
extremely common in the Devonian seas. At many places corals
formed thin reefs, as at Louisville, Kentucky, where the hardness
of the reef rock is one of the causes of the Falls of the Ohio.

Sponges, echinoderms, brachiopods, and mollusks were abundant. The
cephalopods take a new departure. So far in all their various
forms, whether straight, as the Orthoceras, or curved, or close-
coiled as in the nautilus, the septum, or partition dividing the
chambers, met the inner shell along a simple line, like that of
the rim of a saucer. There now begins a growth of the septum by
which its edges become sharply corrugated, and the suture, or line
of juncture of the septum and the shell, is thus angled. The group
in which this growth of the septum takes place is called the
GONIATITE (Greek GONIA, angle).

VERTEBRATES. It is with the greatest interest that we turn now to
study the backboned animals of the Devonian; for they are believed
to be the ancestors of the hosts of vertebrates which have since
dominated the earth. Their rudimentary structures foreshadowed
what their descendants were to be, and give some clue to the
earliest vertebrates from which they sprang. Like those whose
remains are found in the lower Paleozoic systems, all of these
Devonian vertebrates were aquatic and go under the general
designation of fishes.

The lowest in grade and nearest, perhaps, to the ancestral type of
vertebrates, was the problematic creature, an inch or so long, of
Figure 297. Note the circular mouth not supplied with jaws, the
lack of paired fins, and the symmetric tail fin, with the column
of cartilaginous, ringlike vertebrae running through it to the
end. The animal is probably to be placed with the jawless lampreys
and hags,--a group too low to be included among true fishes.

OSTRACODERMS. This archaic group, long since extinct, is also too
lowly to rank among the true fishes, for its members have neither
jaws nor paired fins. These small, fishlike forms were cased in
front with bony plates developed in the skin and covered in the
rear with scales. The vertebrae were not ossified, for no trace of
them has been found.

DEVONIAN FISHES. The TRUE FISHES of the Devonian can best be
understood by reference to their descendants now living. Modern
fishes are divided into several groups: SHARKS and their allies;
DIPNOANS; GANOIDS, such as the sturgeon and gar; and TELEOSTS,--
most common fishes, such as the perch and cod.

SHARKS. Of all groups of living fishes the sharks are the oldest
and still retain most fully the embryonic characters of their
Paleozoic ancestors. Such characters are the cartilaginous
skeleton, and the separate gill slits with which the throat wall
is pierced and which are arranged in line like the gill openings
of the lamprey. The sharks of the Silurian and Devonian are known
to us chiefly by their teeth and fin spines, for they were
unprotected by scales or plates, and were devoid of a bony
skeleton. Figure 299 is a restoration of an archaic shark from a
somewhat higher horizon. Note the seven gill slits and the
lappetlike paired fins. These fins seem to be remnants of the
continuous fold of skin which, as embryology teaches, passed from
fore to aft down each side of the primitive vertebrate.

Devonian sharks were comparatively small. They had not evolved
into the ferocious monsters which were later to be masters of the
seas.

DIPNOANS, OR LUNG FISHES. These are represented to-day by a
few peculiar fishes and are distinguished by some high structures
which ally them with amphibians. An air sac with cellular spaces
is connected with the gullet and serves as a rudimentary lung. It
corresponds with the swim bladder of most modern fishes, and
appears to have had a common origin with it. We may conceive that
the primordial fishes not only had gills used in breathing air
dissolved in water, but also developed a saclike pouch off the
gullet. This sac evolved along two distinct lines. On the line of
the ancestry of most modern fishes its duct was closed and it
became the swim bladder used in flotation and balancing. On
another line of descent it was left open, air was swallowed into
it, and it developed into the rudimentary lung of the dipnoans and
into the more perfect lungs of the amphibians and other air-
breathing vertebrates.

One of the ancient dipnoans is illustrated in Figure 300. Some of
the members of this order were, like the ostracoderms, cased in
armor, but their higher rank is shown by their powerful jaws and
by other structures. Some of these armored fishes reached twenty-
five feet in length and six feet across the head. They were the
tyrants of the Devonian seas.

GANOIDS. These take their name from their enameled plates or
scales of bone. The few genera now surviving are the descendants
of the tribes which swarmed in the Devonian seas. A restoration of
one of a leading order, the FRINGE-FINNED ganoids, is given in
Figure 301. The side fins, which correspond to the limbs of the
higher vertebrates, are quite unlike those of most modern fishes.
Their rays, instead of radiating from a common base, fringe a
central lobe which contains a cartilaginous axis. The teeth of the
Devonian ganoids show a complicated folded structure.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF DEVONIAN FISHES. THE NOTOCHORD IS
PERSISTENT. The notochord is a continuous rod of cartilage, or
gristle, which in the embryological growth of vertebrate animals
supports the spinal nerve cord before the formation of the
vertebrae. In most modern fishes and in all higher vertebrates the
notochord is gradually removed as the bodies of the vertebrae are
formed about it; but in the Devonian fishes it persists through
maturity and the vertebrae remain incomplete.

THE SKELETON IS CARTILAGINOUS. This also is an embryological
characteristic. In the Devonian fishes the vertebrae, as well as
the other parts of the skeleton, have not ossified, or changed to
bone, but remain in their primitive cartilaginous condition.

THE TAIL FIN IS VERTEBRATED. The backbone runs through the fin and
is fringed above and below with its vertical rays. In some fishes
with vertebrated tail fins the fin is symmetric, and this seems to
be the primitive type. In others the tail fin is unsymmetric: the
backbone runs into the upper lobe, leaving the two lobes of
unequal size. In most modern fishes (the teleosts) the tail fin is
not vertebrated: the spinal column ends in a broad plate, to which
the diverging fin rays are attached.

But along with these embryonic characters, which were common to
all Devonian fishes, there were other structures in certain groups
which foreshadowed the higher structures of the land vertebrates
which were yet to come: air sacs which were to develop into lungs,
and cartilaginous axes in the side fins which were a prophecy of
limbs. The vertebrates had already advanced far enough to prove
the superiority of their type of structure to all others. Their
internal skeleton afforded the best attachment for muscles and
enabled them to become the largest and most powerful creatures of
the time. The central nervous system, with the predominance given
to the ganglia at the fore end of the nerve cord,--the brain,--
already endowed them with greater energy than the invertebrates;
and, still more important, these structures contained the
would have made it illegal, during the War, to teach the doctrine that
the Kaiser’s Government should be overthrown by force; and, since then,
the support of Kolchak or Denikin against the Soviet Government would
have been illegal. Such consequences, of course, were not intended, and
result only from bad draughtsmanship. What was intended appears from
another law passed at the same time, applying to teachers in State
schools. This law provides that certificates permitting persons to teach
in such schools shall be issued only to those who have “shown
satisfactorily” that they are “loyal and obedient to the Government of
this State and of the United States,” and shall be refused to those who
have advocated, no matter where or when, “a form of government other
than the Government of this State or of the United States.” The
committee which framed these laws, as quoted by the _New Republic_, laid
it down that the teacher who “does not approve of the present social
system......must surrender his office,” and that “no person who is not
eager to combat the theories of social change should be entrusted with
the task of fitting the young and old for the responsibilities of
citizenship.” Thus, according to the law of the State of New York,
Christ and George Washington were too degraded morally to be fit for the
education of the young. If Christ were to go to New York and say,
“Suffer the little children to come unto me,” the President of the New
York School Board would reply: “Sir, I see no evidence that you are
eager to combat theories of social change. Indeed, I have heard it said
that you advocate what you call the _kingdom_ of heaven, whereas this
country, thank God, is a republic. It is clear that the Government of
your kingdom of heaven would differ materially from that of New York
State, therefore no children will be allowed access to you.” If he
failed to make this reply, he would not be doing his duty as a
functionary entrusted with the administration of the law.

The effect of such laws is very serious. Let it be granted, for the sake
of argument, that the government and the social system in the State of
New York are the best that have ever existed on this planet; yet even
then both would presumably be capable of improvement. Any person who
admits this obvious proposition is by law incapable of teaching in a
State school. Thus the law decrees that the teachers shall all be either
hypocrites or fools.

The growing danger exemplified by the New York law is that resulting
from the monopoly of power in the hands of a single organization,
whether the State or a Trust or federation of Trusts. In the case of
education, the power is in the hands of the State, which can prevent the
young from hearing of any doctrine which it dislikes. I believe there
are still some people who think that a democratic State is scarcely
distinguishable from the people. This, however, is a delusion. The State
is a collection of officials, different for different purposes, drawing
comfortable incomes so long as the _status quo_ is preserved. The only
alteration they are likely to desire in the _status quo_ is an increase
of bureaucracy and of the power of bureaucrats. It is, therefore,
natural that they should take advantage of such opportunities as war
excitement to acquire inquisitorial powers over their employees,
involving the right to inflict starvation upon any subordinate who
opposes them. In matters of the mind, such as education, this state of
affairs is fatal. It puts an end to all possibility of progress or
freedom or intellectual initiative. Yet it is the natural result of
allowing the whole of elementary education to fall under the sway of a
single organization.

Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won because people
have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to
be. But in politics and economics, which have taken the place formerly
occupied by religion, there is a growing tendency to persecution, which
is not by any means confined to one party. The persecution of opinion in
Russia is more severe than in any capitalist country. I met in Petrograd
an eminent Russian poet, Alexander Block, who has since died as the
result of privations. The Bolsheviks allowed him to teach æsthetics, but
he complained that they insisted on his teaching the subject “from a
Marxian point of view.” He had been at a loss to discover how the theory
of rhythmics was connected with Marxism, although, to avoid starvation,
he had done his best to find out. Of course, it has been impossible in
Russia ever since the Bolsheviks came into power to print anything
critical of the dogmas upon which their regime is founded.

The examples of America and Russia illustrate the conclusion to which we
seem to be driven—namely, that so long as men continue to have the
present fanatical belief in the importance of politics free thought on
political matters will be impossible, and there is only too much danger
that the lack of freedom will spread to all other matters, as it has
done in Russia. Only some degree of political scepticism can save us
from this misfortune.

It must not be supposed that the officials in charge of education desire
the young to become educated. On the contrary, their problem is to
impart information without imparting intelligence. Education should have
two objects: first, to give definite knowledge—reading and writing,
languages and mathematics, and so on; secondly, to create those mental
habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound
judgments for themselves. The first of these we may call information,
the second intelligence. The utility of information is admitted
practically as well as theoretically; without a literate population a
modern State is impossible. But the utility of intelligence is admitted
only theoretically, not practically; it is not desired that ordinary
people should think for themselves, because it is felt that people who
think for themselves are awkward to manage and cause administrative
difficulties. Only the guardians, in Plato’s language, are to think; the
rest are to obey, or to follow leaders like a herd of sheep. This
doctrine, often unconsciously, has survived the introduction of
political democracy, and has radically vitiated all national systems of
education.

The country which has succeeded best in giving information without
intelligence is the latest addition to modern civilization, Japan.
Elementary education in Japan is said to be admirable from the point of
view of instruction. But, in addition to instruction, it has another
purpose, which is to teach worship of the Mikado—a far stronger creed
now than before Japan became modernized.[3] Thus the schools have been
used simultaneously to confer knowledge and to promote superstition.
Since we are not tempted to Mikado-worship, we see clearly what is
absurd in Japanese teaching. Our own national superstitions strike us as
natural and sensible, so that we do not take such a true view of them as
we do of the superstitions of Nippon. But if a travelled Japanese were
to maintain the thesis that our schools teach superstitions just as
inimical to intelligence as belief in the divinity of the Mikado, I
suspect that he would be able to make out a very good case.

For the present I am not in search of remedies, but am only concerned
with diagnosis. We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education
has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of
thought. This is due primarily to the fact that the State claims a
monopoly; but that is by no means the sole cause.

(2) _Propaganda._—Our system of education turns young people out of the
schools able to read, but for the most part unable to weigh evidence or
to form an independent opinion. They are then assailed, throughout the
rest of their lives, by statements designed to make them believe all
sorts of absurd propositions, such as that Blank’s pills cure all ills,
that Spitzbergen is warm and fertile, and that Germans eat corpses. The
art of propaganda, as practised by modern politicians and governments,
is derived from the art of advertisement. The science of psychology owes
a great deal to advertisers. In former days most psychologists would
probably have thought that a man could not convince many people of the
excellence of his own wares by merely stating emphatically that they
were excellent. Experience shows, however, that they were mistaken in
this. If I were to stand up once in a public place and state that I am
the most modest man alive, I should be laughed at; but if I could raise
enough money to make the same statement on all the busses and on
hoardings along all the principal railway lines, people would presently
become convinced that I had an abnormal shrinking from publicity. If I
were to go to a small shopkeeper and say: “Look at your competitor over
the way, he is getting your business; don’t you think it would be a good
plan to leave your business and stand up in the middle of the road and
try to shoot him before he shoots you?”—if I were to say this, any
small shopkeeper would think me mad. But when the Government says it
with emphasis and a brass band, the small shopkeepers become
enthusiastic, and are quite surprised when they find afterwards that
business has suffered. Propaganda, conducted by the means which
advertisers have found successful, is now one of the recognized methods
of government in all advanced countries, and is especially the method by
which democratic opinion is created.

There are two quite different evils about propaganda as now practised.
On the one hand, its appeal is generally to irrational causes of belief
rather than to serious argument; on the other hand, it gives an unfair
advantage to those who can obtain most publicity, whether through wealth
or through power. For my part, I am inclined to think that too much fuss
is sometimes made about the fact that propaganda appeals to emotion
rather than reason. The line between emotion and reason is not so sharp
as some people think. Moreover, a clever man could frame a sufficiently
rational argument in favour of any position which has any chance of
being adopted. There are always good arguments on both sides of any real
issue. Definite mis-statements of fact can be legitimately objected to,
but they are by no means necessary. The mere words “Pear’s Soap,” which
affirm nothing, cause people to buy that article. If, wherever these
words appear, they were replaced by the words “The Labour Party,”
millions of people would be led to vote for the Labour Party, although
the advertisements had claimed no merit for it whatever. But if both
sides in a controversy were confined by law to statements which a
committee of eminent logicians considered relevant and valid, the main
evil of propaganda, as at present conducted, would remain. Suppose,
under such a law, two parties with an equally good case, one of whom had
a million pounds to spend on propaganda, while the other had only a
hundred thousand. It is obvious that the arguments in favour of the
richer party would become more widely known than those in favour of the
poorer party, and therefore the richer party would win. This situation
is, of course, intensified when one party is the Government. In Russia
the Government has an almost complete monopoly of propaganda, but that
is not necessary. The advantages which it possesses over its opponents
will generally be sufficient to give it the victory, unless it has an
exceptionally bad case.

The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but
still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful.
Equality of opportunity among opinions is essential if there is to be
real freedom of thought; and equality of opportunity among opinions can
only be secured by elaborate laws directed to that end, which there is
no reason to expect to see enacted. The cure is not to be sought
primarily in such laws, but in better education and a more sceptical
public opinion. For the moment, however, I am not concerned to discuss
cures.

(3) _Economic pressure._—I have already dealt with some aspects of this
obstacle to freedom of thought, but I wish now to deal with it on more
general lines, as a danger which is bound to increase unless very
definite steps are taken to counteract it. The supreme example of
economic pressure applied against freedom of thought is Soviet Russia,
where, until the trade agreement, the Government could and did inflict
starvation upon people whose opinions it disliked—for example,
Kropotkin. But in this respect Russia is only somewhat ahead of other
countries. In France, during the Dreyfus affair, any teacher would have
lost his position if he had been in favour of Dreyfus at the start or
against him at the end. In America at the present day I doubt if a
university professor, however eminent, could get employment if he were
to criticize the Standard Oil Company, because all college presidents
have received or hope to receive benefactions from Mr. Rockefeller.
Throughout America Socialists are marked men, and find it extremely
difficult to obtain work unless they have great gifts. The tendency,
which exists wherever industrialism is well developed, for trusts and
monopolies to control all industry, leads to a diminution of the number
of possible employers, so that it becomes easier and easier to keep
secret black books by means of which any one not subservient to the
great corporations can be starved. The growth of monopolies is
introducing in America many of the evils associated with State Socialism
as it has existed in Russia. From the standpoint of liberty, it makes no
difference to a man whether his only possible employer is the State or a
Trust.

In America, which is the most advanced country industrially, and to a
lesser extent in other countries which are approximating to the American
condition, it is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make
a living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these
big men have an outlook—religious, moral, and political—with which
they expect their employees to agree, at least outwardly. A man who
openly dissents from Christianity, or believes in a relaxation of the
marriage laws, or objects to the power of the great corporations, finds
America a very uncomfortable country, unless he happens to be an eminent
writer. Exactly the same kind of restraints upon freedom of thought are
bound to occur in every country where economic organization has been
carried to the point of practical monopoly. Therefore the safeguarding
of liberty in the world which is growing up is far more difficult than
it was in the nineteenth century, when free competition was still a
reality. Whoever cares about the freedom of the mind must face this
situation fully and frankly, realizing the inapplicability of methods
which answered well enough while industrialism was in its infancy.

There are two simple principles which, if they were adopted, would solve
almost all social problems. The first is that education should have for
one of its aims to teach people only to believe propositions when there
is some reason to think that they are true. The second is that jobs
should be given solely for fitness to do the work.

To take the second point first. The habit of considering a man’s
religious, moral, and political opinions before appointing him to a post
or giving him a job is the modern form of persecution, and it is likely
to become quite as efficient as the Inquisition ever was. The old
liberties can be legally retained without being of the slightest use.
If, in practice, certain opinions lead a man to starve, it is poor
comfort to him to know that his opinions are not punishable by law.
There is a certain public feeling against starving men for not belonging
to the Church of England, or for holding slightly unorthodox opinions in
politics. But there is hardly any feeling against the rejection of
Atheists or Mormons, extreme communists, or men who advocate free love.
Such men are thought to be wicked, and it is considered only natural to
refuse to employ them. People have hardly yet waked up to the fact that
this refusal, in a highly industrial State, amounts to a very rigorous
form of persecution.

If this danger were adequately realized, it would be possible to rouse
public opinion, and to secure that a man’s beliefs should not be
considered in appointing him to a post. The protection of minorities is
vitally important; and even the most orthodox of us may find himself in
a minority some day, so that we all have an interest in restraining the
tyranny of majorities. Nothing except public opinion can solve this
problem. Socialism would make it somewhat more acute, since it would
eliminate the opportunities that now arise through exceptional
employers. Every increase in the size of industrial undertakings makes
it worse, since it diminishes the number of independent employers. The
battle must be fought exactly as the battle of religious toleration was
fought. And as in that case, so in this, a decay in the intensity of
belief is likely to prove the decisive factor. While men were convinced
of the absolute truth of Catholicism or Protestantism, as the case might
be, they were willing to persecute on account of them. While men are
quite certain of their modern creeds, they will persecute on their
behalf. Some element of doubt is essential to the practice, though not
to the theory, of toleration. And this brings me to my other point,
which concerns the aims of education.

If there is to be toleration in the world, one of the things taught in
schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not
giving full assent to propositions which there is no reason to believe
true. For example, the art of reading the newspapers should be taught.
The schoolmaster should select some incident which happened a good many
years ago, and roused political passions in its day. He should then read
to the school children what was said by the newspapers on one side, what
was said by those on the other, and some impartial account of what
really happened. He should show how, from the biased account of either
side, a practised reader could infer what really happened, and he should
make them understand that everything in newspapers is more or less
untrue. The cynical scepticism which would result from this teaching
would make the children in later life immune from those appeals to
idealism by which decent people are induced to further the schemes of
scoundrels.

History should be taught in the same way. Napoleon’s campaigns of 1813
and 1814, for instance, might be studied in the _Moniteur_, leading up
to the surprise which Parisians felt when they saw the Allies arriving
under the walls of Paris after they had (according to the official
bulletins) been beaten by Napoleon in every battle. In the more advanced
classes, students should be encouraged to count the number of times that
Lenin has been assassinated by Trotsky, in order to learn contempt for
death. Finally, they should be given a school history approved by the
Government, and asked to infer what a French school history would say
about our wars with France. All this would be a far better training in
citizenship than the trite moral maxims by which some people believe
that civic duty can be inculcated.

It must, I think, be admitted that the evils of the world are due to
moral defects quite as much as to lack of intelligence. But the human
race has not hitherto discovered any method of eradicating moral
defects; preaching and exhortation only add hypocrisy to the previous
list of vices. Intelligence, on the contrary, is easily improved by
methods known to every competent educator. Therefore, until some method
of teaching virtue has been discovered, progress will have to be sought
by improvement of intelligence rather than of morals. One of the chief
obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be
enormously diminished by instruction as to the prevalent forms of
mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever
was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much easier
than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy,
the spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to
the holders of power. Hence the increase in the circulation of
newspapers.

If I am asked how the world is to be induced to adopt these two
maxims—namely (1) that jobs should be given to people on account of
their fitness to perform them; (2) that one aim of education should be
to cure people of the habit of believing propositions for which there is
no evidence—I can only say that it must be done by generating an
enlightened public opinion. And an enlightened public opinion can only
be generated by the efforts of those who desire that it should exist. I
do not believe that the economic changes advocated by Socialists will,
of themselves, do anything towards curing the evils we have been
considering. I think that, whatever happens in politics, the trend of
economic development will make the preservation of mental freedom
increasingly difficult, unless public opinion insists that the employer
shall control nothing in the life of the employee except his work.
Freedom in education could easily be secured, if it were desired, by
limiting the function of the State to inspection and payment, and
confining inspection rigidly to the definite instruction. But that, as
things stand, would leave education in the hands of the Churches,
because, unfortunately, they are more anxious to teach their beliefs
than Freethinkers are to teach their doubts. It would, however, give a
free field, and would make it possible for a liberal education to be
given if it were really desired. More than that ought not to be asked of
the law.

My plea throughout this address has been for the spread of the
scientific temper, which is an altogether different thing from the
knowledge of scientific results. The scientific temper is capable of
regenerating mankind and providing an issue for all our troubles. The
results of science, in the form of mechanism, poison gas, and the yellow
press, bid fair to lead to the total downfall of our civilization. It is
a curious antithesis, which a Martian might contemplate with amused
detachment. But for us it is a matter of life and death. Upon its issue
depends the question whether our grandchildren are to live in a happier
world, or are to exterminate each other by scientific methods, leaving
perhaps to negroes and Papuans the future destinies of mankind.




  APPENDIX

  THE CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURESHIP


At a general meeting of the South Place Ethical Society, held on October
22, 1908, it was resolved, after full discussion, that an effort should
be made to establish a series of lectures, to be printed and widely
circulated, as a permanent Memorial to Dr. Conway.

Moncure Conway’s untiring zeal for the emancipation of the human mind
from the thraldom of obsolete or waning beliefs, his pleadings for
sympathy with the oppressed and for a wider and profounder conception of
human fraternity than the world has yet reached, claim, it is urged, an
offering of gratitude more permanent than the eloquent obituary or
reverential service of mourning.

The range of the lectures (of which the thirteenth is published
herewith) must be regulated by the financial support accorded to the
scheme; but it is hoped that sufficient funds will be eventually
forthcoming for the endowment of periodical lectures by distinguished
public men, to further the cause of social, political, and religious
freedom, with which Dr. Conway’s name must ever be associated.

The Conway Memorial Lecture Committee, although not yet in possession of
the necessary capital for the permanent endowment of the Lectureship,
have inaugurated and maintained the work while inviting further
contributions. The funds in hand, together with those which may
reasonably be expected from supporters of the Movement, will ensure the
delivery of an annual lecture for some years at least.

The Committee earnestly appeal for either donations or subscriptions
from year to year until the Memorial is permanently established.
Contributions may be forwarded to the Hon. Treasurer.

On behalf of the Executive Committee:—

(Mrs.) C. Fletcher Smith and Ernest Carr, _Hon. Secretaries_.

(Mrs.) F. M. Cockburn, _Hon. Treasurer_, “Peradeniya,” Northampton Road,
Croydon.


  PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4.




  [Footnotes]


[1] I should add that they re-appointed me later, when war passions had
begun to cool.

[2] See _The New Republic_, Feb. 1, 1922, p. 259 _ff._

[3] See _The Invention of a New Religion_. By Professor Chamberlain, of
Tokio. Published by the Rationalist Press Association. (Now out of
print.)




Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)






Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
underscores: _italics_.




JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER


FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES


_The following Volumes are now ready_--

    THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON
    ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
    HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK
    JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES
    ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN
    THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE
    RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS
    SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON
    THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE
    JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK
    TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND
    THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS
    NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD
    SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY
    KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ
    ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART
    JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE
    MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN
    DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD
    WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
    SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON
    ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES BLACK
    THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER
    POLLOK and AYTOUN. By ROSALINE MASSON
    ADAM SMITH. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON
    ANDREW MELVILLE. By WILLIAM MORRISON
    JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. By E. S. HALDANE




JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER


BY

E. S. HALDANE


FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES

PUBLISHED BY OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER
EDINBURGH AND LONDON


The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and
the printing from the press of Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh.

1899.




CONTENTS


                                                                 PAGE

INTRODUCTION                                                        7


CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE                                                         11


CHAPTER II

WANDERJAHRE--SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND--BEGINNING OF
HIS LITERARY WORK                                                  27


CHAPTER III

PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY                                    41


CHAPTER IV

'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES'                                 56


CHAPTER V

DEVELOPMENT OF 'SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND THE
NEW'--FERRIER AS A CORRESPONDENT                                   72


CHAPTER VI

FERRIER'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY--HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS            88


CHAPTER VII

THE COLERIDGE PLAGIARISM--MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY WORK             106


CHAPTER VIII

PROFESSORIAL LIFE                                                 122


CHAPTER IX

LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS                                               138


CHAPTER X

LAST DAYS                                                         152




JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER




INTRODUCTION


Mr. Oliphant Smeaton has asked me to write a few words of preface to
this little book. If I try, it is only because I am old enough to have
had the privilege of knowing some of those who were most closely
associated with Ferrier.

When I sat at the feet of Professor Campbell Fraser in the Metaphysics
classroom at Edinburgh in 1875, Ferrier's writings were being much read
by us students. The influence of Sir William Hamilton was fast
crumbling in the minds of young men who felt rather than saw that much
lay beyond it. We were still engrossed with the controversy, waged in
books which now, alas! sell for a tenth of their former price, about
the Conditioned and the Unconditioned. We still worked at Reid,
Hamilton, and Mansel. But the attacks of Mill on the one side, and of
Ferrier and Dr. Stirling on the other, were slowly but surely
withdrawing our interest. Ferrier had pointed out a path which seemed
to lead us in the direction of Germany if we would escape from Mill,
and Stirling was urging us in the same sense. It was not merely that
Ferrier had written books. He had died more than ten years earlier, but
his personality was still a living influence. Echoes of his words came
to us through Grant and Sellar. Outside the University, men like
Blackwood and Makgill made us feel what a power he had been. But that
was not all for at least some of us. Mrs. Ferrier had removed to
Edinburgh--and I endorse all that my sister says of her rare quality.
She lived in a house in Torphichen Street, which was the resort of
those attracted, not only by the memory of her husband, but by her own
great gifts. She was an old lady and an invalid. But though she could
not move from her chair, paralysis had not dimmed her mental powers.
She was a true daughter of 'Christopher North.' I doubt whether I have
seen her rival in quickness, her superior I never saw. She could talk
admirably to those sitting near her, and yet follow and join in the
conversation of another group at the end of the room. She could adapt
herself to everyone--to the shy and awkward student of eighteen, who
like myself was too much in awe of her to do more unhelped than answer,
and to the distinguished men of letters who came from every quarter
attracted by her reputation for brilliance. The words of no one could
be more incisive, the words of no one were habitually more kind than
hers. She had known everybody. She forgot nobody. In those days the
relation between Literature and the Parliament House, if less close
than it had been, was more apparent than it is to-day, and
distinguished Scottish judges and advocates mingled in the afternoon in
the drawing-room, where she sat in a great arm-chair, with such men as
Sellar and Stevenson and Grant and Shairp and Tulloch. But her
personality was the supreme bond.

Those days are over, and with them has passed away much of what
stimulated one to read in the _Institutes_ or the _Philosophical
Remains_. But for the historian of British philosophy Ferrier
continues as a prominent figure. He it was who first did, what Stirling
and Green did again at a stage later on--make a serious appeal to
thoughtful people to follow no longer the shallow rivulets down which
the teaching of the great German thinkers had trickled to them, but to
seek the sources. If as a guide to those sources we do not look on him
to-day as adequate, we are not the less under a deep obligation to him
for having been the pioneer of later guides. What Ferrier wrote about
forty years ago has now become readily accessible, and what has been
got by going there is in process of rapid and complete assimilation.
The opinions which were in 1856 regarded by the authorities of the Free
and United Presbyterian Churches as disqualifying Ferrier for the
opportunity of influencing the mind of the youth of Edinburgh, from the
Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in succession to Sir William Hamilton,
are regarded by the present generation of Presbyterians as the main
reliable bulwark against the attacks of unbelievers. If one may judge
by the essays in the recent volume called _Lux Mundi_, the same
phenomenon displays itself among the young High Church party in
England. The Time-Spirit is fond of revenges.

But even for others than the historians of the movement of Thought the
books of Ferrier remain attractive. There is about them a certain
atmosphere in which everything seems alive and fresh. Their author was
no Dryasdust. He was a living human being, troubled as we are troubled,
and interested in the things which interest us. He spoke to us, not
from the skies, but from among a crowd of his fellow human beings, and
we feel that he was one of ourselves. As such it is good that a
memorial of him should be placed where it may easily be seen.

R. B. HALDANE.




CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE


It may be a truism, but it is none the less a fact, that it is not
always he of whom the world hears most who influences most deeply the
thought of the age in which he lives. The name of James Frederick
Ferrier is little heard of beyond the comparatively small circle of
philosophic thinkers who reverence his memory and do their best to keep
it green: to others it is a name of little import--one among a
multitude at a time when Scotland had many sons rising up to call her
blessed, and not perhaps one of the most notable of these. And yet,
could we but estimate the value of work accomplished in the higher
sphere of thought as we estimate it in the other regions of practical
work--an impossibility, of course--we might be disposed to modify our
views, and accord our praises in very different quarters from those in
which they are usually bestowed.

James Ferrier wrote no popular books; he came before the public
comparatively little; he made no effort to reconcile religion with
philosophy on the one hand, or to propound theories startling in their
unorthodoxy on the other. And still we may claim for him a place--and
an honourable place--amongst the other Famous Scots, for the simple
reason that after a long century of wearisome reiteration of tiresome
platitudes--platitudes which had lost their original meaning even to
the utterers of them, and which had become misleading to those who
heard and thought they understood--Ferrier had the courage to strike
out new lines for himself, to look abroad for new inspiration, and to
hand on these inspirations to those who could work them into a truly
national philosophy.

In Scotland, where, in spite of politics, traditions are honoured to a
degree unknown to most other countries, family and family associations
count for much; and in these James Ferrier was rich. His father was a
Writer to the Signet, John Ferrier by name, whose sister was the famous
Scottish novelist, Susan Ferrier, authoress of _The Inheritance_,
_Destiny_, and _Marriage_. Susan Ferrier did for high life in Scotland
what Gait achieved for the humbler ranks of society, and attained to
considerable eminence in the line of fiction which she adopted. Her
works are still largely read, have recently been republished, and in
their day were greatly admired by no less an authority than Sir Walter
Scott, himself a personal friend of the authoress.[1] Ferrier's
grandfather, James Ferrier, also a Writer to the Signet, was a man of
great energy of character. He acted in a business capacity for many
years both to the Duke of Argyle of the time and to various branches of
the Clan Campbell: it was, indeed, through the influence of the Duke
that he obtained the appointment which he held of Principal Clerk of
Session. James Ferrier, like his daughter, was on terms of intimate
friendship with Sir Walter Scott, with whom he likewise was a colleague
in office. Scott alludes to him in his Journal as 'Uncle Adam,' the
name of a character in Miss Ferrier's _Inheritance_, drawn, as she
herself acknowledges, from her father. He died in 1829, at which time
Scott writes of him: 'Honest old Mr. Ferrier is dead, at extreme old
age. I confess I should not like to live so long. He was a man with
strong passions and strong prejudices, but with generous and manly
sentiments at the same time.' James Ferrier's wife, Miss Coutts, was
remarkable for her beauty: a large family was born to her, the eldest
son of whom was James Frederick Ferrier's father. Young Ferrier, the
subject of this sketch, used frequently to dine with his grandfather at
his house in Morningside, where Susan Ferrier acted in the capacity of
hostess; and it is easy to imagine the bright talk which would take
place on these occasions, and the impression which must have been made
upon the lad, both then and after he attained to manhood; for Miss
Ferrier survived until 1854. In later life, indeed, her wit was said to
be somewhat caustic, and she was possibly dreaded by her younger
friends and relatives as much as she was respected; but this, to do her
justice, was partly owing to infirmities. She was at anyrate keenly
interested in the fortunes of her nephew, to whom she was in the habit
of alluding as 'the last of the metaphysicians'--scarcely, perhaps, a
very happy title for one who was somewhat of an iconoclast, and began a
new era rather than concluded an old.

          [1] In a _Life of Susan Ferrier_, lately published, an
          account of the family is given which was written by Miss
          Ferrier, for her nephew, the subject of our memoir.

James Frederick Ferrier's mother, Margaret Wilson, was a sister of
Professor John Wilson--the 'Christopher North' of immortal memory,
whose daughter he was afterwards to marry. Margaret Ferrier was a woman
of striking personal beauty. Her features were perfect in their
symmetry, as is shown in a lovely miniature, painted by Saunders, a
well-known miniature painter of the day, now in the possession of
Professor Ferrier's son, her grandson. Many of these personal charms
descended to James Ferrier, whose well-cut features bore considerable
resemblance to his mother's. And his close connection with the Wilson
family had the result of bringing the young man into association with
whatever was best in literature and art. While yet a boy, we are told,
he sat upon Sir Walter's knee; the Ettrick Shepherd had told him tales
and recited Border ballads; while Lockhart took the trouble to draw
pictures, as he only could, to amuse the child.

In surroundings such as these James Frederick Ferrier was born on the
16th day of June 1808, his birthplace being Heriot Row, in the new town
of Edinburgh--a street which has been made historic to us by the
recollections of another child who lived there long years afterwards,
and who left the grey city of his birth to die far off in an island in
the Pacific. But of Ferrier's child-life we know nothing: whether he
played at 'tig' or 'shinty' with the children in the adjoining gardens,
or climbed Arthur's Seat, or tried to scale the 'Cats' Nick' in the
Salisbury Crags close by; or whether he was a grave boy, 'holding at'
his lessons, or reading other books that interested him, in preference
to his play. Ferrier did not dwell on these things or talk much of his
youth; or if he did so, his words have been forgotten. What we do
know are the barest facts: that his second name was given him in
consideration of his father's friendship with Lord Frederick Campbell,
Lord Clerk Register of Scotland; that his first name, as is usual in
Scotland for an elder son, was his paternal grandfather's; and that he
was sent to live with the Rev. Dr. Duncan, the parish minister of
Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, to receive his early education. Dr. Duncan
of Ruthwell was a man of considerable ability and energy of character,
though not famous in any special sphere of learning. He is well known,
however, in the south of Scotland as the originator of Savings Banks
there, and his works on the Seasons bear evidence of an interest in the
natural world. At anyrate the time passed in Dumfriesshire would appear
to have left pleasant recollections; for when Ferrier in later life
alluded to it, it was with every indication of gratitude for the
instruction which he received. He kept up his friendship with the sons
of his instructor as years went on, and always expressed himself as
deeply attached to the place where a happy childhood had been passed.
Nor was learning apparently neglected, for Ferrier began his Latin
studies at Ruthwell, and there first learned--an unusual lesson for so
young a boy--to delight in the reading of the Latin poets, and of
Virgil and Ovid in particular. After leaving Ruthwell, he attended the
High School of Edinburgh, the great Grammar School of the metropolis,
which was, however, soon to have a rival in another day school set up
in the western part of the rapidly growing town; and then he was sent
to school at Greenwich, where he was placed under the care of Dr.
Burney, a nephew of the famous Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame
d'Arblay. From school, as the manner of the time was, the boy passed to
the University of Edinburgh at the age of seventeen,--older really than
was customary in his day,--and here he remained for the two sessions
1825-26 and 1826-27, or until he was old enough to matriculate at
Oxford. At Edinburgh, Ferrier distinguished himself in the class of
Moral Philosophy, and carried off the prize of the year for a poem
which was looked upon as giving promise of literary power afterwards
fulfilled. His knowledge of Latin and Greek were considered good (the
standard might not have been very high), but in mathematics he was
nowhere. At Oxford he was entered in 1828 as a 'gentleman-commoner' at
Magdalen College, the College of his future father-in-law, John Wilson.
A gentleman-commoner of Magdalen in the earlier half of the century is
not suggestive of severe mental exercise,[2] and from the very little
one can gather from tradition--for contemporaries and friends have
naturally passed away--James Ferrier was no exception to the common
rule. That he rode is very clear; the College was an expensive one,
and he was probably inclined to be extravagant. Tradition speaks of
his pelting the deer in Magdalen Park with eggs; but as to further
distinction in more intellectual lines, record does not tell. In this
respect he presents a contrast to his predecessor at Oxford, and friend
of later days, Sir William Hamilton, whose monumental learning created
him a reputation while still an undergraduate. Sir Roundell Palmer,
afterwards Lord Selborne, was a contemporary of Ferrier's at Oxford;
Sheriff Campbell Smith was at the bar of the House of Lords acting as
Palmer's junior the day after Ferrier's death, and Sir Roundell told
him that he remembered Ferrier well at College; he described him as
'careless about University work,' but as writing clever verses, several
of which he repeated with considerable gusto. Of other friends the
names alone are preserved, William Edward Collins, afterwards
Collins-Wood of Keithick, Perthshire, who died in 1877, and J. P.
Shirley of Ettington Park, in Warwickshire;[3] but what influences were
brought to bear upon him by his University life, or whether his
interest in philosophical pursuits were in any way aroused during his
time at College, we have no means of telling. A later friend, Henry
Inglis, wrote of these early days: 'My friendship with Ferrier began
about the time he was leaving Oxford, or immediately after he had left
it--I should say about 1830 or thereabout. At that University I don't
think he did anything more remarkable than contracting a large tailor's
bill; which annoyed him for many years afterwards. At that time he was
a wonderfully handsome, intellectual-looking young man,--a tremendous
"swell" from top to toe, and with his hair hanging down over his
shoulders.' Though later on in life this last characteristic was not so
marked, Ferrier's photographs show his hair still fairly long and
brushed off a finely-modelled square forehead, such as is usually
associated with strongly developed intellectual faculties.

          [2] The gentlemen-commoners at Magdalen, as elsewhere, paid
          higher fees and wore a distinctive costume; at Magdalen they
          had a common room of their own, distinct from that of the
          Fellows, or the Demies or Scholars, and seldom read for
          honours. In Ferrier's days Magdalen College admitted no
          ordinary commoners, and there were but few resident
          undergraduates, many of the thirty demies being graduates
          and non-resident. In the year of his matriculation there
          were only ten gentlemen-commoners; thus, as far as
          undergraduates went, the College was a small one.

          [3] Mr. Shirley was Member of Parliament for South
          Warwickshire, a well-known genealogist, and the author of
          _The Noble and Gentle Men of England_.

It is known that Ferrier took his Bachelor's degree in 1832, and that
he had by that time managed to acquire a very tolerable knowledge of
the classics and begun to study philosophy, so that his time could not
have been entirely idle. For the rest, he probably passed happily
through his years at College, as many others have done before and after
him, without allowing more weighty cares to dwell upon his mind.
Another friend of after days, the late Principal Tulloch, after noting
the fact that Oxford had not then developed the philosophic spirit
which in recent years has marked her schools, and which had not then
taken root any more than the High Church movement which preceded it,
goes on: 'It may be doubted, indeed, whether Oxford exercised any
definite intellectual influence on Professor Ferrier. He had imbibed
his love for the Latin poets before he went there, and his devotion to
Greek philosophy was an after-growth with which he never associated his
Magdalen studies. To one who visited the College with him many years
afterwards, and to whom he pointed out with admiration its noble walks
and trees, his associations with the place seemed to be mainly those of
amusement. There is reason to think that few of those who knew him at
Magdalen would have afterwards recognised him in the laborious student
at St. Andrews, who for weeks together would scarcely cross the
threshold of his study; and yet to all who knew him well, there was
nevertheless a clear connection between the gay gownsman and the
hard-working Professor.'

In 1832, Ferrier became an advocate at Edinburgh, but it does not
appear that he had any serious idea of practising at the Bar. This is
the period at which we know that the passion for metaphysical
speculation laid hold of him,--a passion which is unintelligible and
inexplicable to those who do not share in it,--and as Ferrier could not
clearly say in what direction this was leading him, as far as practical
life was concerned, he probably deemed it best to attach himself to a
profession which left much scope to the adopter of it, to strike out
lines of his own. What led Ferrier to determine to spend some months of
the year 1834 at Heidelberg it would be extremely interesting to know.
The friend first quoted writes: 'I cannot tell of the influences under
which he devoted himself to metaphysics. My opinion is that there were
none, but that he was a philosopher born. He attached himself at once
to the fellowship of Sir William Hamilton, to whom he was introduced by
a common friend--I think the late Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. I know that he
looked on Sir William at that time as his master.'

Probably the friendship with Hamilton simply arose from the natural
attraction which two sympathetic spirits feel to one another. It is
clear that at this time Ferrier's bent was towards metaphysics, and
that, as Mr. Inglis says, this bent was born with him and was only
beginning to find its natural outlet; therefore it would be very
natural to suppose that acquaintance would be sought with one who was
at this time in the zenith of his powers, and whose writings in the
_Edinburgh Review_ were exciting liveliest interest. A casual
acquaintanceship between the young man of three-and-twenty and the
matured philosopher twenty years his senior soon ripened into a
friendship, not perhaps common between two men so different in age. It
is perhaps more remarkable considering the differences in opinion on
philosophical questions which soon arose between the two; for it is
just as difficult for those whose point of view is fundamentally
opposed on speculative questions to carry on an intercourse concerning
their pursuits which shall be both friendly and unconstrained, as for
two political opponents to discuss vital questions of policy without
any undercurrent of self-restraint, when they start from entirely
opposite principles. Most likely had the two been actually
contemporaries it might not have been so easy, but as it was, the
younger man started with, and preserved, the warmest feelings to his
senior; and even in his criticisms he expresses himself in the
strongest terms of gratitude: 'He (Hamilton) has taught those who study
him to _think_, and he must take the consequences, whether they think
in unison with himself or not. We conceive, however, that even those
who differ from him most, would readily own that to his instructive
disquisitions they were indebted for at least half of all they know of
philosophy.' And in the appendix to the _Institutes_, written soon
after Sir William's death, Ferrier says: 'Morally and intellectually,
Sir William Hamilton was among the greatest of the great. A simpler and
a grander nature never arose out of darkness into human life; a truer
and a manlier character God never made. For years together scarcely a
day passed in which I was not in his company for hours, and never on
this earth may I expect to live such happy hours again. I have learned
more from him than from all other philosophers put together; more, both
as regards what I assented to and what I dissented from.' It was this
open and free discussion of all questions that came before
them--discussion in which there must have been much difference of
opinion freely expressed on both sides, that made these evenings spent
in Manor Place, where the Hamiltons, then a recently married couple,
had lately settled, so delightful to young Ferrier. He had
individuality and originality enough not to be carried away by the
arguments used by so great an authority and so learned a man as his
friend was reckoned, and then as later he constantly expressed his
regret that powers so great had been devoted to the service of a
philosophic system--that of Reid--of which Ferrier so thoroughly
disapproved. But at the same time he hardly dared to expect that the
labours of a lifetime could be set aside at the bidding of a man so
much his junior, and to say the truth it is doubtful whether Hamilton
ever fully grasped his opponent's point of view. Still, Ferrier tells
us that from first to last his whole intercourse with Sir William
Hamilton was marked with more pleasure and less pain than ever attended
his intercourse with any human being, and after Hamilton was gone he
cherished that memory with affectionate esteem. A touching account is
given in Sir William's life of how during that terrible illness which
so sadly impaired his powers and nearly took his life, Ferrier might be
seen pacing to and fro on the street opposite his bedroom window during
the whole anxious night, watching for indications of his condition, yet
unwilling to intrude on the attendants, and unable to tear himself from
the spot where his friend was possibly passing through the last agony.
Such friendship is honourable to both men concerned.

Perhaps, then, it was this intercourse with kindred spirits (for many
such were in the habit of gathering at the Professor's house) that
caused Ferrier finally to determine to make philosophy the pursuit of
his life--this combined, it may be, with the interest in letters which
he could not fail to derive from his own immediate circle. He was in
constant communication with Susan Ferrier, his aunt, who encouraged his
literary bent to the utmost of her power. Then Professor Wilson, his
uncle, though of a very different character from his own, attracted him
by his brightness and wit--a brightness which he says he can hardly
bring before himself, far less communicate to others who had not known
him. Perhaps, as the same friend quoted before suggests, the attraction
was partly due to another source. He says: 'How Ferrier got on with
Wilson I never could divine; unless it were through the bright eyes of
his daughter. Wilson and Ferrier seemed to me as opposite as the poles;
the one all poetry, the other all prose. But the youth probably yielded
to the mature majesty and genius of the man. Had they met on equal
terms I don't think they could have agreed for ten minutes. As it was,
they had serious differences at times, which, however, I believe were
all ultimately and happily adjusted.'

The visits to his uncle's home, and the attractive young lady whom he
there met, must have largely contributed to Ferrier's happiness in
these years of mental fermentation. Such times come in many men's lives
when youth is turning into manhood, and powers are wakening up within
that seem as though they would lead us we know not whither. And so it
may have been with Ferrier. But he was endowed with considerable
calmness and self-command, combined with a confidence in his powers
sufficient to carry him through many difficulties that might otherwise
have got the better of him. Wilson's home, Elleray, near the Lake of
Windermere, was the centre of a circle of brilliant stars. Ferrier
recollected, while still a lad of seventeen years of age, meeting there
at one time, in the summer of 1825, Scott, Wordsworth, Lockhart, and
Canning, a conjunction difficult to beat.[4] Once more, we are told,
and on a sadder occasion, he came into association with the greatest
Scottish novelist. 'It was on that gloomy voyage when the suffering man
was conveyed to Leith from London, on his return from his ill-fated
foreign journey. Mr. Ferrier was also a passenger, and scarcely dared
to look on the almost unconscious form of one whose genius he so warmly
admired.' The end was then very near.

          [4] This meeting occurred after the Irish tour of Scott,
          Miss Anne Scott, and Lockhart, when they visited Wilson at
          Elleray. Canning was staying at Storre, in the
          neighbourhood.

Professor Ferrier's daughter tells us that long after, in the summer of
1856, the family went to visit the English Lakes, the centre of
attraction being Elleray, Mr. Ferrier's old home and birthplace. 'The
very name of Elleray breathes of poetry and romance. Our father and
mother had, of course, known it in its glorious prime, when our
grandfather, "Christopher North," wrestled with dalesmen, strolled in
his slippers with Wordsworth to Keswick (a distance of seventeen
miles), and kept his ten-oared barge in the long drawing-room of
Elleray. In these days they had "rich company," and the names of
Southey, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and Coleridge were to them familiar
household words. The cottage my mother was born in still stands,
overshadowed by a giant sycamore.'

We can easily imagine the effect which society such as this would have
on a young man's mind. But more than that, the friendship with the
attractive cousin, Margaret Wilson, developed into something warmer,
and an engagement was finally formed, which culminated in his marriage
in 1837. Not many of James Ferrier's letters to his cousin during the
long engagement have been preserved; the few that are were written from
Germany in 1834, the year in which he went to Heidelberg; they were
addressed to Thirlstane House, near Selkirk, where Miss Wilson was
residing, and they give a lively account of his adventures.

The voyage from Leith to Rotterdam, judging from the first letter
written from Heidelberg, and dated August 1834, would appear to have
begun in inauspicious fashion. Ferrier writes: 'I have just been here a
week, and would have answered your letter sooner, had it not been that
I wished to make myself tolerably well acquainted with the surrounding
scenery before writing to you, and really the heat has been so
overwhelming that I have been impelled to take matters leisurely, and
have not even yet been able to get through so much _view-hunting_ as I
should have wished. What I have seen I will endeavour to describe to
you. This place itself is most delightful, and the country about it is
magnificent. But this, as a reviewer would say, _by way of
anticipation_. Have patience, and in the meantime let me take events in
their natural order, and begin by telling you I sailed from Leith on
the morning of the second of this month, with no wind at all. We
drifted on, I know not how, and toward evening were within gunshot of
Inchkeith; on the following morning we were in sight of the Bass, and
in sight of the same we continued during the whole day. For the next
two or three days we went beating up against a head-wind, which forced
us to tack so much that whenever we made one mile we travelled ten, a
pleasant mode of progressing, is it not? However, I had the whole ship
to myself, and plenty of female society in the person of the captain's
lady, who, being fond of pleasure, had chosen to diversify her
monotonous existence at Leith by taking a delightful summer trip to
Rotterdam, which confined her to her crib during almost the whole of
our passage under the pressure of racking headaches and roaring
sickness. She had a weary time of it, poor woman, and nothing could do
her any good--neither spelding, cheese, nor finnan haddies, nor bacon,
nor broth, nor salt beef, nor ale, nor gin, nor brandy and water, nor
Epsom salts, though of one or other of these she was _aye takin'_ a wee
bit, or a little drop. We were nearly a week in clearing our own Firth,
and did no good till we got as far as Scarborough. At this place I had
serious intentions of getting ashore if possible, and making out the
rest of my journey by means that were more to be depended on. Just in
the nick of time, however, a fair wind sprang up, and from Scarborough
we had a capital run, with little or no interruption, to the end of our
voyage.' An account of a ten days' voyage which makes us thankful to be
in great measure independent of the winds at sea! Holland, our
traveller thinks an intolerable country to live in, and the first
impressions of the Rhine are distinctly unfavourable. 'The river
himself is a fine fellow, certainly, but the country through which he
flows is stale, flat, though I believe, not unprofitable. The banks on
either side are covered either with reeds or with a matting of rank
shrubbery formed apparently out of dirty green worsted, and the
continuance of it so palls upon the senses that the mind at last
becomes unconscious of everything except the constant flap-flapping of
the weary paddles as they go beating on, awakening the dull echoes of
the sedgy shores. The eye is occasionally relieved by patches of naked
sand, and now and then a stone about the size of your fist, diversifies
the monotony of the scene. Occasionally, in the distance, are to be
seen funny, forlorn-looking objects, trying evidently to look like
trees, but whether they would really turn out to be trees on a nearer
inspection is what I very much doubt.' At Cologne he had an amusing
meeting with an Englishman, 'whom I at once twigged to be an Oxford
man, and more, even, an Oxford tutor. There is a stiff twitch in the
right shoulder of the tribe, answering to a similar one in the hip-bone
on the same side, which there is no mistaking.' The tutor appears to
have done valiant service in making known the traveller's wants in
French to waiters, etc., though 'he spent rather too much of his time
in scheming how to abridge the sixpence which, "time out of mind," has
been the perquisite of Boots, doorkeepers, etc.' 'But,' he adds in
excuse, 'his name was Bull, and therefore, as the authentic epitome of
his countrymen, he would not fail to possess this along with the other
peculiarities of Englishmen.' From Cologne, Ferrier went to Bonn, where
he had an introduction to Dr. Welsh, and then proceeded up the Rhine to
Mayence. He does not form a very high estimate of the beauty of the
scenery. He feels 'a want of something; in fact, to my mind, there is a
want of everything which makes earth, wood, and water something more
than mere water, wood, and earth. We have here a constant and endless
variety of imposing objects (imposing is just the word for them), but
there is no variety in them, nothing but one round-backed hill after
another, generally carrying their woods, when they have any, very
stiffly, and when they have none presenting to the eye a surface of
tawdry and squalid patchwork,' thus suggesting, in his view, a series
of children's gardens--an impression often left on travellers when
visiting this same country. His next letters find him settled in the
University town of Heidelberg.




CHAPTER II

WANDERJAHRE--SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND--BEGINNING OF HIS LITERARY LIFE


In the present century in Germany we have seen a period of almost
unparalleled literary glory succeeded by a time of great commercial
prosperity and national enthusiasm. But when Ferrier visited that
country in 1834 the era of its intellectual greatness had hardly passed
away; some, at least, of its stars remained, and others had very
recently ceased to be. Goethe had died just two years before, but Heine
lived till many years afterwards; amongst the philosophers, though Kant
and Fichte, of course, were long since gone, Schelling was still at
work at Munich, and Hegel lived at Berlin till November of 1831, when
he was cut off during an epidemic of cholera. Most of the great men had
disappeared, and yet the memory of their achievements still survived,
and the impetus they gave to thought could not have been lost. The
traditional lines of speculation consistently carried out since
Reformation days had survived war and national calamity, and it
remained to be seen whether the greater tests of prosperity and success
would be as triumphantly undergone.

We can imagine Ferrier's feelings when this new world opened up before
him, a Scottish youth, to whom it was a new, untrodden country. It may
be true that it was his literary rather than his speculative affinities
that first attracted him to Germany. To form in literature he always
attached the greatest value, and to the end his interest in letters was
only second to his attachment to philosophy. German poetry was to him
what it was to so many of the youth of the country from which it
came--the expression of their deepest, and likewise of their freshest
aspiration. The poetry of other countries and other tongues--English
and Latin, for example--meant much to him, but that of Germany was
nearest to his heart. French learning did not attract him; neither its
literature nor its metaphysics and psychological method appealed to his
thoughtful, analytic mind; but in Germany he found a nation which had
not as yet resigned its interest in things of transcendental import in
favour of what pertained to mere material welfare.

Such was the Germany into which Ferrier came in 1834. He did not, so
far as we can hear, enter deeply into its social life; he visited it as
a traveller, rather than as a student, and his stay in it was brief.
Considering the shortness of his time there, and the circumstances of
his visit, the impression that it made upon him is all the more
remarkable, for it was an impression that lasted and was evident
throughout all his after life. Since his day, indeed, it would be
difficult to say how many young Scotsmen have been impressed in a
similar way by a few months' residence at a University town in Germany.
For partly owing to Ferrier's own efforts, and perhaps even more owing
to the 'boom'--to use a vulgarism--brought about by Carlyle's writings,
and by his first making known the marvels of German literature to the
ordinary English-speaking public, who had never learned the language or
tried to understand its recent history, the old traditional literary
alliance between Scotland and France appeared for the time being to
have broken down in favour of a similar association with its rival
country, Germany. The work of Goethe was at last appreciated, nothing
was now too favourable to say about its merits; philosophy was suddenly
discovered to have its home in Germany, and there alone; our insularity
in keeping to our antiquated methods--dryasdust, we were told, as the
old ones of the schools, and perhaps as edifying--was vigorously
denounced. Theology, which had hitherto found complete support from the
philosophic system which acted as her handmaid, and was only tolerated
as such, was naturally affected in like manner by the change; and to
her credit be it said, that instead of with averted eyes looking
elsewhere, as might easily have been done, she determined to face the
worst, and wisely asked the question whether in her department too she
had not something she could learn from a sister country across the sea.
Hence a great change was brought about in the mental attitude of
Scotland; but we anticipate.

Ferrier, after leaving Heidelberg, paid a short visit to Leipzig, and
then for a few weeks took up his abode at Berlin. From Leipzig he
writes to Miss Wilson again: 'How do you like an _epistola_ dated from
this great emporium of taste and letters, this culminating point of
Germanism, where waggons jostle philosophy, and tobacco-impregnated air
is articulated into divinest music? It is fair-time, and I did not
arrive, as one usually does, a day _behind_ it, but on the very day it
commenced. It will last, I believe, some weeks, and during that time
all business is done on the open streets, which are lined on each side
with large wooden booths, and are swarming with men and merchandise of
every description and from every quarter of the world. It very much
resembles a _Ladies' Sale_ in the Assembly Rooms (what I never saw),
only the ladies here are frequently Jews with fierce beards, and have
always a pipe in their mouths when not eating or drinking. As you walk
along you will find the order of the day to be somewhat as follows. You
first come to pipes, then shawls, then nails, then pipes, pipes again,
pipes, gingerbread, dolls, then pipes, bridles, spurs, pipes, books,
warming-pans, pipes, china, writing-desks, pipes again, pipes, pipes,
pipes, nothing but pipes--the very pen will write nothing but pipes.
Pipes, you see, decidedly carry it. I wonder they don't erect public
tobacco-smoke works, lay _pipes_ for it along the streets, and smoke
away--a city at a time. Private families might take it in as we do
gas!'

Ferrier appears to have spent a week at Frankfort before reaching his
destination at Leipzig. He describes his journey there: 'At Frankfort I
saw nothing worthy of note except a divine statue of Ariadne riding on
a leopard. After lumbering along for two nights and two days in a
clumsy diligence, I reached Leipzig two days ago. I thought that by the
way I might perhaps see something worthy of mention, and accordingly
sometimes put my head out of the window to look. But no--the trees, for
instance, had all to a man planted their heads in the earth, and were
growing with their legs upwards, just as they do with us; and as for
the natives, they, on the contrary, had each of them filled a
flower-pot, called a skull, full of earth, put their heads in it, and
were growing _downwards_, just as the same animal does in our country;
and on coming to one's recollection in the morning in a German
diligence you find yourself surrounded by the same drowsy, idiotical,
glazed, stained, and gummy complement of faces which might have
accompanied you into Carlisle on an autumn morning after a night of
travel in His Majesty's mail coach.'

Berlin impressed Ferrier by its imposing public buildings and general
aspect of prosperity. It had, of course, long before reached a position
of importance under the great Frederick's government, though not the
importance or the size that it afterwards attained. Still, it was the
centre of attraction for all classes throughout Prussia, and possessed
a cultivated society in which the middle-class element was to all
appearances predominant. Ferrier writes of the town: 'Of the inside of
the buildings and what is to be seen there I have nothing yet to say,
but their external aspect is most magnificent. Palaces, churches,
mosque-like structures, spires and domes and towers all standing
together, but with large spaces and fine open drives between, so that
all are seen to the greatest possible advantage, conspire to form a
most glorious city. At this moment a fountain which I can see from my
window is playing in the middle of the square. A _jet d'eau_ indeed!!
It may do very well for a Frenchman to call it that, but we must call
it a perfect volcano of water. A huge column goes hissing up as high as
a steeple, with the speed and force of a rocket, and comes down in
thunder, and little rainbows are flitting about in the showery spray.
It being Sunday, every thing and person is gayer than usual. Bands are
playing and soldiers are parading all through the town; everything,
indeed, is military, and yet little is foppish--a statement which to
English ears will sound like a direct contradiction.'

Our traveller had been given letters to certain Berlin Professors from
young Blackie, afterwards Professor of Greek in Edinburgh University,
who had just translated Goethe's _Faust_ into the English tongue. 'I
went about half an hour ago to call upon a sort of Professor here to
whom I had a letter and a _Faust_ to present from Blackie--found him
ill and confined to bed--was admitted, however, very well received, and
shall call again when I think there is a chance of his being better. I
have still another Professor to call on with a letter and book from
Blackie, and there my acquaintance with the society of Berlin is likely
to terminate.' One other introduction to Ferrier on this expedition to
Germany is mentioned in a note from his aunt, Miss Susan Ferrier, the
only letter to her nephew that has apparently been preserved: whether
or not he availed himself of the offer, history does not record. It
runs as follows:--

    'EDINR., _1st August_.

    'I could not get a letter to Lord Corehouse's German sister
    (Countess Purgstall), as it seems she is in bad health, and not fit
    to entertain vagabonds; but I enclose a very kind one from my
    friend, Mrs. Erskine, to the ambassadress at Munich, and if you
    don't go there you may send it by post, as it will be welcome at
    any time on its own account.'

It was, as has been said, only about three years previously to this
visit that Hegel had passed away at Berlin, and one wonders whether
Ferrier first began to interest himself in his writings at this time,
and whether he visited the graveyard near the city gate where Hegel
lies, close to his great predecessor Fichte. One would almost think
this last was so from the exact description given in his short
biography of Hegel; and it is significant that on his return he brought
with him a medallion and a photograph of the great philosopher. This
would seem to indicate that his thoughts were already tending in the
direction of Hegelian metaphysics, but how far this was so we cannot
tell. Certainly the knowledge of the German language acquired by
Ferrier during this visit to the country proved most valuable to him,
and enabled him to study its philosophy at a time when translations
were practically non-existent, and few had learned to read it. That
knowledge must indeed have been tolerably complete, for in 1851, when
Sir Edward Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton) was about to republish his
translation of Schiller's Ballads, he corresponded with Ferrier
regarding the accuracy and exactness of his work. He afterwards, in the
preface to the volume, acknowledges the great services Ferrier had
rendered; and in dedicating the book to him, speaks of the debt of
gratitude he owes to one whose 'critical judgment and skill in
detecting the finer shades of meaning in the original' had been so
useful. Ferrier likewise has the credit, accorded him by De Quincey, of
having corrected several errors in _all_ the English translations of
_Faust_ then extant--errors which were not merely literary
inaccuracies, but which also detracted from the vital sense of the
original. As to Lord Lytton, Ferrier must at this time have been
interested in his writings; for in a letter to Miss Wilson, he advises
her to read Bulwer's _Pilgrims of the Rhine_ if she wishes for a
description of the scenery, and speaks of the high esteem with which he
was regarded by the Germans.

It was in 1837 that Ferrier married the young lady with whom he had so
long corresponded. The marriage was in all respects a happy one. Mrs.
Ferrier's gifts and graces, inherited from her father, will not soon be
forgotten, either in St. Andrews where she lived so long, or in
Edinburgh, the later home of her widowhood. One whose spirits were less
gay might have found a husband whose interests were so completely in
his work--and that a work in which she could not share--difficult to
deal with; but she possessed understanding to appreciate that work, as
well as humour, and could accommodate herself to the circumstances in
which she found herself; while he, on his part, entered into the gaiety
on occasion with the best. A friend and student of the St. Andrews'
days writes of Ferrier: 'He married his cousin Margaret, Professor's
Wilson's daughter, and I don't doubt that a shorthand report of their
courtship would have been better worth reading than nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of every thousand courtships, for she had wit as well
as beauty, and he was capable of appreciating both. No more charming
woman have I ever seen or heard making game of mankind in general, and
in particular of pedants and hypocrites. She would even laugh at her
husband on occasion, but it was dangerous for any volunteer to try to
help her in that sport. A finer-looking couple I have never seen.[5]

          [5] Another sister married William Edmondstoune Aytoun, the
          poet. It was regarding Professor Aytoun's proposal for Miss
          Wilson's hand that the following story is told. When the
          engagement was being formed, Aytoun somewhat demurred to
          interviewing the father of the lady, and she herself
          undertook the mission. Presently she returned with a card
          pinned upon her breast bearing the satisfactory inscription,
          'With the author's compliments'! Aytoun, as is well known,
          was extremely plain, and it was of his bust in the
          Blackwoods' saloon, a recognisable but idealistic likeness,
          that Ferrier remarked, 'I should call that the pursuit of
          beauty under difficulties.'

During her infancy Edinburgh had become Mrs. Ferrier's home, though she
made frequent visits to Westmorland, of whose dialect she had a
complete command. The courtship, however, had been for the most part
carried on at the picturesque old house of Gorton, where 'Christopher
North' was temporarily residing, and which, situated as it is
overlooking the lovely glen made immortal by the name of Hawthornden,
in view of Roslin Chapel, and surrounded by old-fashioned walks and
gardens, must have been an ideal spot for a romantic couple like the
Ferriers to roam in. Another friend writes of Wilson's later home at
Elleray: 'In his hospitable house, where the wits of _Blackwood_
gathered at intervals and visited individually in season and out of
season, his daughter saw strange men of genius, such as few young
ladies had the fortune to see, and heard talk such as hardly another
has the fortune to hear. Lockhart, with his caricatures and his
incisive sarcasm, was an intimate of the house. The Ettrick Shepherd,
with his plaid and homely Doric, broke in occasionally, as did also De
Quincey, generally towards midnight, when he used to sit pouring forth
his finely-balanced, graceful sentences far on among the small hours of
the morning. There were students, too, year after year, many of them
not undistinguished, and some of whom had, we doubt not, ideas of their
own regarding the flashing hazel eyes of their eloquent Professor's
eldest daughter.' But her cousin was her choice, though wealth offered
no attraction, and neither side had reason to regret the marriage of
affection.

At the time of his marriage Ferrier had been practising at the Bar,
probably with no great measure of success, seeing that his heart was
not really set upon his work. It was at this period that he first began
to write, and his first contribution to literature took the form of
certain papers contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_, the subject being
the 'Philosophy of Consciousness.' From that time onwards Ferrier
continued to write on philosophic or literary topics until his death,
and many of these writings were first published in the famous magazine.

Before entering, however, on any consideration of Ferrier's writings
and of the philosophy of the day, it might be worth while to try to
picture to ourselves the social conditions and feelings of the time, in
order that we may get some idea of the influences which surrounded him,
and be assisted in our efforts to understand his outlook.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century Scotland had been ground
down by a strange tyranny--the tyranny of one man as it seemed, which
man was Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who for many long years
ruled our country as few countries have been ruled before. What this
despotism meant it is difficult for us, a century later, to figure to
ourselves. All offices were dependent on his patronage; it was to him
that everyone had to look for whatever post, advancement, or concession
was required. And Dundas, with consummate power and administrative
ability, moulded Scotland to his will, and by his own acts made her
what she was before the world. But all the while, though unperceived, a
new spirit was really dawning; the principles of the Revolution, in
spite of everything, had spread, and all unobserved the time-spirit
made its influence felt below a surface of apparent calm. It laid hold
first of all of the common people--weavers and the like: it roused
these rough, uneducated men to a sense of wrong and the resolution to
seek a remedy. Not much, however, was accomplished. Some futile risings
took place--risings pitiable in their inadequacy--of hard-working
weavers armed with pikes and antiquated muskets. Of course, such rebels
were easily suppressed; the leaders were sentenced to execution or
transportation, as the case might be; but though peace apparently was
restored and public meetings to oppose the Government were rigorously
suppressed, trade and manufactures were arising: Scotland was not
really dead, as she appeared. A new life was dawning: reform was in the
air, and in due time made its presence felt. But the memory of these
times of political oppression, when the franchise was the privilege of
the few, and of the few who were entirely out of sympathy with the most
part of their countrymen or their country's wants, remained with the
people just as did the 'Killing-time' of Covenanting days two centuries
before. Time heals the wounds of a country as of an individual, but the
operation is slow, and it is doubtful whether either period of history
will ever be forgotten. At anyrate, if they are so as this century
closes, they were not in the Scotland known to Ferrier; they were still
a very present memory and one whose influence was keenly felt.

And along with this political struggle yet another struggle was taking
place, no less real though not so evident. The religion of the country
had been as dead as was the politics in the century that was gone--dead
in the sleep of Moderatism and indifferentism. But it, too, had
awakened; the evangelical school arose, liberty of church government
was claimed, a liberty which, when denied it, rent the Established
Church in twain.

In our country it has been characteristic that great movements have
usually begun with those most in touch with its inmost life, the
so-called lower orders of its citizens. The nobles and the kings have
rather followed than taken the lead. In the awakening of the present
century this at anyrate was the case. 'Society,' so called, remained
conservative in its view for long after the people had determined to
advance. Scott, it must be remembered, was a retrogressive influence.
The romanticism of his novels lent a charm to days gone by which might
or might not be deserved; but they also encouraged their readers to
imagine a revival of those days of chivalry as a possibility even now,
when men were crying for their rights, when they had awakened to a
sense of their possessions, and would take nothing in their place. The
real chieftains were no more; they were imitation chieftains only who
were playing at the game, and it was a game the clansmen would not join
in. Few exercises could be more strange than first to read the account
of Scottish life in one of the immortal novels by Scott dealing with
last century, and then to turn to Miss Ferrier or Galt, depicting a
period not so very different. Setting aside all questions of genius,
where comparison would be absurd, it would seem as if a beautiful
enamel had been removed, and a bare reality revealed, somewhat sordid
in comparison. The life was not really sordid,--realism as usual had
overshot its mark,--but the enamel had been somewhat thickly laid, and
might require to be removed, if truth were to be revealed.

So in the higher grades of Edinburgh society the enamel of gentility
has done its best to prejudice us against much true and genuine worth.
It was characterised by a certain conventional unconventionality, a
certain 'preciosity' which brought it near deserving a still stronger
name, and it maintained its right to formulate the canons of criticism
for the kingdom. Edinburgh, it must be recollected, was no 'mean city,'
no ordinary provincial town. It was still esteemed a metropolis. It had
its aristocracy, though mainly of the order of those unable to bear the
greater expense of London life. It had no manufactories to speak of, no
mercantile class to 'vulgarise' it; it possessed a University, and the
law courts of the nation. But above all it had a literary society. In
the beginning of the century it had such men as Henry Mackenzie, Dugald
Stewart, John Playfair, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Thomas Brown, not to speak of
Scott and Jeffrey--a society unrivalled out of London. And in later
days, when these were gone, others rose to fill their places.

Of course, in addition to the movement of the working people, there was
an educated protest against Toryism, and it was made by a party who, to
their credit be it said, risked their prospects of advancement for the
principles of freedom. In their days Toryism, we must recollect, meant
something very different from what it might be supposed to signify in
our own. It meant an attitude of obstruction as regards all change from
established standards of whatever kind; it signified a point of view
which said that grievances should be unredressed unless it was in its
interest to redress them. The new party of opposition included in its
numbers Whig lawyers like Gibson Craig and Henry Erskine, in earlier
days, and Francis Jeffrey and Lord Cockburn later on; a party of
progress was also formed within the Church, and the same within the
precincts of the University. The movement, as became a movement on the
political side largely headed by lawyers, had no tendency to violence;
it was moderate in its policy, and by no means revolutionary--indeed it
may be doubted whether there ever was much tendency to revolt even
amongst those working men who expressed themselves most strongly. The
advance party, however, carried the day, and when Ferrier began to
write, Scotland was in a very different state from that of twenty years
before. The Reform Bill had passed, and men had the moulding of their
country's destiny practically placed within their hands. In the
University, again, Sir William Hamilton, a Whig, had just been
appointed to the Chair of Logic, while Moncreiff, Chalmers, and the
rest, were prominent in the Church. The traditions of literary
Edinburgh at the beginning of the century had been kept up by a circle
amongst whom Lockhart, Wilson, and De Quincey may be mentioned; now
Carlyle, who had left Edinburgh not long before, was coming into
notice, and a new era seemed to be dawning, not so glorious as the
past, but more untrammelled and more free.

How philosophy was affected by the change, and how Ferrier assisted in
its progress, it is our business now to tell; but we must first briefly
sketch the history of Scottish speculation to this date, in order to
show the position in which he found it.




CHAPTER III

PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY


In attempting to give some idea of philosophy as it was in Scotland in
the earlier portion of the present century, we shall have to go back
two hundred years or thereabout, in order to find a satisfactory basis
from which to start. For philosophy, as no one realised more than
Ferrier, is no arbitrary succession of systems following one upon
another as their propounders might decree; it is a development in the
truest and highest significance of that word. It means the gradual
working out of the questions which reason sets to be answered; and
though it seems as if we had sometimes to turn our faces backwards, and
to revert to systems of bygone days, we always find, when we look more
closely, that in our onward course we have merely dropped some thread
in our web, the recovery of which is requisite in order that it may be
duly taken up and woven with the rest.

At the time of which we write the so-called 'Scottish School' of Reid,
Stewart, and Beattie reigned supreme in orthodox Scotland; it had
undisputed power in the Universities, and besides this obtained a very
reputable place in the estimation of Europe, and more especially of
France. As it was this school more especially that Ferrier spent much
of his time in combating, it is its history and place that we wish
shortly to describe. To do so, however, it is needful to go back to its
real founder, Locke, in order that its point of view may fairly be set
forth.

In applying his mind to the views of Locke, the ordinary man finds
himself arriving at very commonplace and well-accustomed conceptions.
Locke, indeed, may reasonably be said to represent the ideas of common,
everyday life. The ordinary man does not question the reality of
things, he accepts it without asking any questions, and bases his
theories--scientific or otherwise--upon this implied reality. Locke
worked out the theory which had been propounded by Lord Bacon, that
knowledge is obtained by the observation of facts which are implicitly
accepted as realities; and what, it was asked, could be more
self-evident and sane? It is easy to conceive a number of perceiving
minds upon the one hand, ready to take up perceptions of an outside
material substance upon the other. The mind may be considered as a
piece of white paper--a _tabula rasa_, as it was called--on which
external things may make what impression they will, and knowledge is
apparently explained at once. But though Locke certainly succeeded in
making these terms the common coin of ordinary life, difficulties crop
up when we come to examine them more closely. After all, it is evident,
the only knowledge our mind can have is a knowledge of its own
ideas--ideas which are, of course, caused by something which is
outside, or at least, as Locke would say, by its _quality_. Now, from
this it would appear that these 'ideas' after all come between the mind
and the 'thing,' whatever it is, that causes them--that is to say, we
can perhaps maintain that we only know our 'ideas,' and not things as
in themselves. Locke passes into elaborate distinctions between primary
qualities of things, of which he holds exact representations are given,
and secondary qualities, which are not in the same position; but the
whole difficulty we meet with is summed up in the question whether we
really _know_ substance, or whether it is that we can only hope to know
ideas, and 'suppose' some substratum of reality outside. Then another
difficulty is that we can hardly really know our _selves_. How can we
know that the self exists; and if, like Malebranche, we speak of God
revealing substance to us, how do we know about God? We cannot form any
'general' impressions, have any 'general' knowledge; only a sort of
conglomeration of unrelated or detached bits of knowledge can possibly
come home to us. The fact is, that modern philosophy starts with two
separate and self-existent substances; that it does not see how they
can be combined, and that the 'white-paper' theory is so abstract that
we can never arrive at self-consciousness by its means.

Berkeley followed out the logical consequences of Locke, though perhaps
he hardly knew where these would carry him. He acknowledged that we
know nothing but ideas--nothing outside of our mind. But he adds the
conception of self, and by analogy the conception of God, who acts as a
principle of causation. Whether there is necessary connection in his
sensations or not, he does not say. Hume followed with criticism,
scathing and merciless. He states that all we know of is the experience
we have; and by experience he signifies perceptions. Ideas to him are
nothing more than perceptions, and whether they are ideas simply of the
mind, or ideas of some object, is to him the same. If we begin to
imagine such conceptions as those of universality or necessity, of God
or the self, beyond a complex of successive ideas, we are going farther
than experience permits. We cannot connect our perceptions with an
object, nor can we get beyond what experience allows. Custom merely
brings about certain conclusions which are often enough misleading. It
connects effect and cause, really different events: it brings about
ideas of morality very often deceptive. We have our custom of regarding
things, another has his--who can say which is correct? All we can do
is, what seems a hopeless task enough--we can try to show how these
unrelated particulars seem by repetition to produce an illusionary
connection in our minds.

Both mind and matter appear, then, to be wanting, and experience alone
is suggested as the means of solving the difficulty in which we are
placed--a point in the argument which left an opportunity open to Kant
to suggest a new development, to ask whether things being found
inadequate in producing knowledge, we might not ask if knowledge could
not be more successful with things. But it is the Scottish lines of
attempted solution that we wish to follow out, and not the German.
Perhaps they are not so very different.

Philosophy, as Reid found it, was in a bad way enough, as far as the
orthodox mind of Scotland was concerned. All justification for belief
in God, in immortality, in all that was held sacred in a century of
much orthodoxy if little zeal, was gone. Such things might be believed
in by those who found any comfort in so believing, but to the educated
man who had seriously reflected on them, they were anachronisms. The
very desperateness of the case, however, seemed to promise a remedy.
Men could not rest in a state of permanent scepticism, in a world
utterly incapable of being rationally explained. Even the propounder of
the theories allowed this to be true; and as for others, they felt that
they were rational beings, and this signified that there was system in
the world.

A champion arose when things were at their worst in Thomas Reid, the
founder, or at least the chiefest ornament, of the so-called Scottish
School of Philosophy. He it was who set himself to add the principle of
the coherence of the Universe, and the consequent possibility of
establishing Faith once more in the world. Reid, to begin with, instead
of looking at Hume's results as serious, regarded them as necessarily
absurd. He started a new theory of his own, the theory of Immediate
Perception, which signified that we are able immediately to
apprehend--not ideas only, but the Truth. And how, we may ask, can this
be done?

It had been pointed out first of all that sensations as understood by
Locke--that is, the relations so called by Locke--might be separated
from sensation in itself; in fact, that these first pertained to mind.
Hence we have a dualistic system given us to start with, and the
question is how the two sides are to be connected? What does this
theory of Immediate Perception, which Reid puts forward as the
solution, mean? Is it just a mechanical union of two antitheses, or is
it something more?

As to this last, perhaps the real answer would be that it both is, and
is not. That is, the philosophy of Reid would seem still dualistic in
its nature; it certainly implies the mechanical contact of two
confronting substances whose independence is vigorously maintained, in
opposition to the idealistic system which it superseded; but in
reference to Reid we must recollect that his theory of Immediate
Perception was also something more. As regards sensation, for example,
he says that we do not begin with unrelated sensations, but with
judgment--that is, we refer our sensations to a permanent subject, 'I.'
Sensations 'suggest' the nature of a mind and the belief in its
existence. And this signifies that we have the power of making
inferences--how we do not exactly know, but we believe it to be, not by
any special reasoning process, but by the 'common-sense' innately born
within us. Common-sense is responsible for a good deal more--for the
conceptions of existence and of cause, for instance; for Reid
acknowledges that sensations alone must fail to account for ideas such
as those of extension, space, and motion. This standpoint seems indeed
as if it did not differ widely from the Kantian, but at the same time
Reid appears to think that it is not an essential that feelings should
be perceptively referred to an external object; the first part of the
process of perception is carried on without our consciousness--the
mental sensation merely follows--and sensation simply supposes a
sentient being and a certain manner in which that being is affected,
which leaves us much where we were, as far as the subjectivity of our
ideas is concerned. He does not hold that all sensation is a percept
involving extension and much else--involving, indeed, existence.

Following upon Reid, Dugald Stewart obtained a very considerable
reputation, and he was living and writing at the time Ferrier was a
young man. His main idea would, however, seem to have been to guard his
utterances carefully, and enter upon no keen discussions or
contentions: when a bold assertion is made, it is always under shelter
of some good authority. But his rounded phrases gained him considerable
admiration, as such writing often does. He carried--perhaps
inadvertently--Reid's views farther than he would probably have held as
justifiable. He says we are not, properly speaking, conscious of self
or the existence of self, but merely of a sensation or some other
quality, which, by a _subsequent suggestion_ of the understanding,
leads to a belief in that which exercises the quality. This is the
doctrine of Reid put very crudely, and in a manner calculated to bring
us back to unrelated sensation in earnest. Stewart adopted a new
expression for Reid's 'common-sense,' _i.e._ the 'fundamental laws of
belief,' which might be less ambiguous, but never took popular hold as
did the first.

There were many others belonging to this school besides Reid and
Stewart, whom it would be impossible to speak of here. The Scottish
Philosophy had its work to do, and no doubt understood that work--the
first essential in a criticism: it endeavoured to vindicate perception
as against sensational idealism, and it only partially succeeded in its
task. But we must be careful not to forget that it opened up the way
for a more comprehensive and satisfactory point of view. It was with
Kant that the distinction arose between sensation and the forms
necessary to its perception, the form of space and time, and so on. As
to this part of the theory of knowledge, Reid and his school were not
clear; they only made an effort to express the fact that something was
required to verify our knowledge, but they were far from satisfactorily
attaining to their goal. The very name of 'common-sense' was
misleading--making people imagine, as it did, that there was nothing in
philosophy after all that the man in the street could not know by
applying the smallest modicum of reflection to the subject. Philosophy
thus came to be considered as superfluous, and it was thought that the
sooner we got rid of it and were content to observe the mandates of our
hearts, the better for all concerned.

What, then, was the work which Ferrier placed before himself when he
commenced to write upon and teach philosophy? He was thoroughly and
entirely dissatisfied with the old point of view, the point of view of
the 'common-sense' school of metaphysicians, to begin with. Sometimes
it seems as though we could not judge a system altogether from the best
exponent of it, although theoretically we are always bound to turn to
him. In a national philosophy, at least, we want something that will
wear, that will bear to be put in ordinary language, something which
can be understood of the people, which can be assimilated with the
popular religion and politics--in fact, which can really be _lived_ as
well as thought; and it is only after many years of use that we can
really tell whether these conditions have been fulfilled. For this
reason we are in some measure justified in taking the popular estimate
of a system, and in considering its practical results as well as the
value of its theory. Now, the commonly accepted view of the
eighteenth-century philosophers in Scotland is that there is nothing
very wonderful about the subject--like the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ of
Molière, we are shown that we have been philosophising all our lives,
only we never knew it. 'Common-sense'--an attribute with which we all
believe we are in some small measure endowed--explains everything if we
simply exercise it, and that is open to us all: there has been much
talk, it would seem, about nothing; secrets hidden to wise men are
revealed to babes, and we have but to keep our minds open in order to
receive them.

We are all acquainted with this talk in speculative regions of
knowledge, but we most of us also know how disastrous it is to any true
advancement in such directions. What happens now is just what happened
in the eighteenth century. Men relapse into a self-satisfied indolence
of mind: in religion they are content with believing in a sort of
general divine Beneficence which will somehow make matters straight,
however crooked they may seem to be; and in philosophy they are guided
by their instincts, which teach them that what they wish to believe is
true.

Now, all this is what Ferrier and the modern movement, largely
influenced by German modes of thought, wish to protest against with all
their might. The scepticism of Hume and Gibbon was logical, if utterly
impossible as a working creed and necessarily ending in absurdity; but
this irrational kind of optimism was altogether repugnant to those who
demanded a reasonable explanation of themselves and of their place in
nature. The question had become summed up in one of superlative
importance, namely, the distinction that existed between the natural
and supernatural sides of our existence. The materialistic school had
practically done away with the latter in its entirety, had said that
nature is capable of being explained by mechanical means, and that
these must necessarily suffice for us. But the orthodox section adopted
other lines; it accepted all the ordinarily received ideas of God,
immortality, and the like, but it maintained the existence of an
Absolute which can only be inferred, but not presented to the mind,
and, strangest of all, declared that the 'last and highest consecration
of all true religion must be an altar "To the unknown and unknowable
God."'[6] This so-called 'pious' philosophy declares that 'To think
that God is, as we can think Him to be, is blasphemy,' and 'A God
understood would be no God at all.' The German philosophy saw that if
once we are to renounce our reason, or trust to it only within a
certain sphere, all hope for us is lost, as far as withstanding the
attack of outside enemies is concerned. We are liable to sceptical
attacks from every side, and all we can maintain against them is a
personal conviction which is not proof. How, then, was the difficulty
met?

          [6] _Philosophy of the Unconditioned_ (Sir William
          Hamilton), p. 15.

Kant, as we have said, made an important development upon the position
of Hume. Hume had arrived at the point of declaring the particular mind
and matter equally incompetent to afford an ultimate explanation of
things, and he suggested experience in their place. This is the first
note of the new philosophy: experience, not a process of the
interaction of two separate things, mind on the one hand, matter on the
other, but something comprehending both. This, however, was scarcely
realised either by Hume or Kant, though the latter came very near the
formulation of it. Kant saw, at least, that things could not produce
knowledge, and he therefore changed his front and suggested starting
with the knowledge that was before regarded as result--a change in
point of view that caused a revolution in thought similar to that
caused in our ideas of the natural world by the introduction of the
system of Copernicus. Still, while following out his Copernican theory,
Kant did not go far enough. His methods were still somewhat
psychological in nature. He still regarded thought as something which
can be separated from the thinker; he still maintained the existence of
things in themselves independent and outside of thought. He gives us a
'theory' of knowledge, when what we want to reach is knowledge itself,
and not a subjective conception of it.

Here it is that the Absolute Idealism comes in--the Idealism most
associated with the name of Hegel. Hegel takes experience, knowledge,
or thought, in another and much more comprehensive fashion than did his
predecessors. Knowledge, in fact, is all-comprehending; it embraces
both sides in itself, and explains them as 'moments,' _i.e._
complementary factors in the one Reality. To make this clearer: we have
been all along taking knowledge as a dualistic process, as having two
sides involved in it, a subject and an object. Now, Hegel says our
mistake is this: we cannot make a separation of such a kind except by a
process of abstraction: the one really implies the other, and could not
possibly exist without it. We may in our ordinary pursuits do so,
without doubt; we may concentrate our attention on one side or the
other, as the case may be; we may look at the world as if it could be
explained by mechanical means, as, indeed, to a certain point it can.
But, Hegel says, these explanations are not sufficient; they can easily
be shown to be untrue, when driven far enough: the world is something
larger; it has the ideal side as well as the real, and, as we are
placed, they are both necessarily there, and must both be recognised,
if we are to attain to true conceptions.

Without saying that Ferrier wholly assimilated the modern German
view,--for of course he did not,--he was clearly largely influenced by
it, more largely perhaps than he was even himself aware. It
particularly met the present difficulties with which he was confronted.
The negative attitude was felt to be impossible, and the other, the
Belief which then, as now, was so strongly advocated, the Belief which
meant a more or less blind acceptance of a spiritual power beyond our
own, the Belief in the God we cannot know and glory in not being able
so to know, he felt to be an equal impossibility. Ferrier, and many
others, asked the question, Are these alternatives exhaustive? Can we
not have a rational explanation of the world and of ourselves? Can we
not, that is, attain to freedom? The new point of view seemed in some
measure to meet the difficulty, and therefore it was looked to with
hope and anticipation even although its bearing was not at first
entirely comprehended. Ferrier was one of those who perceived the
momentous consequences which such a change of front would cause, and he
set himself to work it out as best he could. In an interesting paper
which he writes on 'The Philosophy of Common-Sense,' with special
reference to Sir William Hamilton's edition of the works of Dr. Reid,
we see in what way his opinions had developed.

The point which Ferrier made the real crux of the whole question of
philosophy was the distinction which exists between the ordinary
psychological doctrine of perception and the metaphysical. The former
drew a distinction between the perceiving mind and matter, and based
its reasonings on the assumed modification of our minds brought about
by matter regarded as self-existent, _i.e._ existent in itself and
without regard to any perceiving mind. Now, Ferrier points out that
this system of 'representationalism,' of representative ideas,
necessarily leads to scepticism; for who can tell us more, than that we
have certain ideas--that is, how can it be known that the real matter
supposed to cause them has any part at all in the process? Scepticism,
as we saw before, has the way opened up for it, and it doubts the
existence of matter, seeing that it has been given no reasonable
grounds for belief in it, while Idealism boldly denies its
instrumentality and existence. What then, he asks, of Dr. Reid and his
School of Common-Sense? Reid cannot say that matter is known in
consciousness, but what he does say is that something innately born
within us forces us to believe in its existence. But then, as Ferrier
pertinently points out, scepticism and idealism do not merely doubt and
deny the existence of a self-existent matter as an object of
consciousness, but also because it is no object of belief. And what has
Reid to show for his beliefs? Nothing but his word. We must all,
Ferrier says, be sceptics or idealists; we are all forced on to deny
that matter in any form exists, for it is only self-existent matter
that we recognise as psychologists. Stewart tries to reinstate it by an
appeal to 'direct observation,' an appeal which, Ferrier truly says, is
manifestly absurd; reasoning is useless, and we must, it would appear,
allow any efforts we might make towards rectifying our position to be
recognised as futile.

But now, Ferrier says, the metaphysical solution of the problem comes
in. We are in an _impasse_, it would appear; the analysis of the given
fact is found impossible. But the failure of psychology opens up the
way to metaphysic. 'The turning-round of thought from psychology to
metaphysic is the true interpretation of the Platonic conversion of the
soul from ignorance to knowledge, from mere opinion to certainty and
satisfaction; in other words, from a discipline in which the thinking
is only _apparent_, to a discipline in which the thinking is _real_.'
'The difference is as great between "the science of the human mind" and
metaphysic, as it is between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican
astronomy, and it is very much of the same kind.' It is not that
metaphysic proposes to do _more_ than psychology; it aims at nothing
but what it can fully overtake, and does not propose to carry a man
farther than his tether extends, or the surroundings in which he finds
himself. Metaphysic in the hands of all true astronomers of thought,
from Plato to Hegel, if it accomplishes more, attempts less.

Metaphysic, Ferrier says, demands the whole given fact, and that fact
is summed up in this: 'We apprehend the perception of an object,' and
nothing short of this suffices--that is, not the perception of matter,
but our apprehension of that perception, or what we before called
knowledge, ultimate knowledge in its widest sense. And this given fact
is unlike the mere perception of matter, for it is capable of analysis
and is not simply subjective and egoistic. Psychology recognises
perception on the one hand (subjective), and matter on the other
(objective), but metaphysic says the distinction ought to be drawn
between 'our apprehension' and 'the perception-of-matter,' the latter
being one fact and indivisible, and on no account to be taken as two
separate facts or thoughts. The whole point is, that by no possible
means can the perception-of-matter be divided into two facts or
existences, as was done by psychology. And Ferrier goes on to point out
that this is not a subjective idealism, it is not a condition of the
human soul alone, but it 'dwells apart, a mighty and independent
system, a city fitted up and upheld by the living God.' And in
authenticating this last belief Ferrier calls in internal convictions,
'common-sense,' to assist the evidence of speculative reason, where,
had he followed more upon the lines of the great German Idealists, he
might have done without it.

Now, Ferrier continues, we are safe against the cavils of scepticism;
the metaphysical theory of perception steers clear of all the
perplexities of representationalism; for it gives us in perception one
only object, the perception of matter; the objectivity of this _datum_
keeps us clear from subjective idealism.

From the perception of matter, a fact in which man merely participates,
Ferrier infers a Divine mind, of which perceptions are the property:
they are states of the everlasting intellect. The exercise of the
senses is the condition upon which we are permitted to apprehend or
participate in the objective perception of material things. This,
shortly, is the position from which he starts.




CHAPTER IV

'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES'


'If Ferrier's life should be written hereafter,' said one, who knew and
valued him, just after his death,[7] 'let his biographer take for its
motto these five words from the _Faery Queen_ which the biographer of
the Napiers has so happily chosen.' Ferrier's life was not, what it
perhaps seems, looking back on its comparatively uneventful course,
consistently calm and placid,--a life such as is commonly supposed to
befit those who soar into lofty speculative heights, and find the
'difficult air' in which they dwell suited to their contemplative
temperaments. Ferrier was intrepid and daring in his reasoning; a sort
of free lance, Dr. Skelton says he was considered in orthodox
philosophical circles; a High Tory in politics, yet one who did not
hesitate to probe to the bottom the questions which came before him,
even though the task meant changing the whole attitude of mind from
which he started. And once sure of his point, Ferrier never hesitated
openly to declare it. What he hated most of all was 'laborious dulness
and consecrated feebleness'; commonplace orthodoxy was repugnant to him
in the extreme, and possibly few things gave him more sincere pleasure
than violently to combat it. The fighting instinct is proper to most
men who have 'stuff' in them, and Ferrier in spite of his slight and
delicately made frame was manly to the core. But, as the same writer
says, 'though combative over his books and theories, his nature was
singularly pure, affectionate, and tolerant. He loved his friends even
better than he hated his foes. His prejudices were invincible; but,
apart from his prejudices, his mind was open and receptive--prepared to
welcome truth from whatever quarter it came.' Such a keen, eager nature
was sure to be in the fray if battle had to be fought, and we think
none the worse of him for that. Battles of intellect are not less keen
than battles of physical strength, and much more daring and subtlety
may be called into play in the fighting of them; and Ferrier, refined,
sensitive, fastidious, as he was, had his battles to fight, and fought
them with an eagerness and zeal almost too great for the object he had
in view.

          [7] The late Sir John Skelton, K.C.B.

After his marriage in 1837, Ferrier devoted his attention almost
entirely to the philosophy he loved so well. He did not succeed--did
not perhaps try to succeed--at the Bar, to which he had been called.
Many qualities are required by a successful advocate besides the subtle
mind and acute reasoning powers which Ferrier undoubtedly possessed:
possibly--we might almost say probably--these could have been
cultivated had he made the effort. He had, to begin with, a fair junior
counsel's practice, owing to his family connections, and this might
have been easily developed; his ambition, however, did not soar in the
direction of the law courts, and he did not give that whole-hearted
devotion to the subject which is requisite if success is to follow the
efforts of the novice. But if he was not attracted by the work at the
Parliament House, he was attracted elsewhere; and to his first
mistress, Philosophy, none could be more faithful. In other lines, it
is true, he read much and deeply: literature in its widest sense
attracted him as it would attract any educated man. Poetry, above all,
he loved, in spite of the tale sometimes told against him, that he
gravely proposed turning _In Memoriam_ into prose in order to ascertain
logically 'whether its merits were sustained by reason as well as by
rhyme'--a proposition which is said greatly to have entertained its
author, when related to him by a mutual friend. Works of imagination he
delighted in--all spheres of literature appealed to him; he had the
sense of form which is denied to many of his craft; he wrote in a style
at once brilliant and clear, and carelessness on this score in some of
the writings of his countrymen irritated him, as those sensitive to
such things are irritated. He has often been spoken of as a living
protest against the materialism of the age, working away in the quiet,
regardless of the busy throng, without its ambitions and its cares.
Sometimes, of course, he temporarily deserted the work he loved the
best for regions less remote; sometimes he consented to lecture on
purely literary topics, and often he wrote biographies for a
dictionary, or articles or reviews for _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_. As it was to this serial that Ferrier made his most
important contributions, both philosophic and literary, for the next
fifteen years, and as it was in its pages that the development of his
system may be traced, a few words about its history may not be out of
place, although it is a history with which we have every reason to be
familiar now.

About 1816 the _Edinburgh Review_ reigned supreme in literature. What
was most strange, however, was that the Conservative party, so strong
in politics, had no literary organ of their own--and this at a time
when the line of demarcation between the rival sides in politics was so
fixed that no virtue could be recognised in an opponent or in an
opponent's views, even though they were held regarding matters quite
remote from politics. The Whig party, though in a minority politically
and socially, represented a minority of tremendous power, and possessed
latent capabilities which soon broke forth into action. At this time,
for instance, they had literary ability of a singularly marked
description; they were not bound down by traditions as were their
opponents, and were consequently much more free to strike out lines of
their own, always of course under the guidance of that past-master in
criticism, Francis Jeffrey. Although his words were received as
oracular by his friends, this dictatorship in matters of literary taste
was naturally extremely distasteful to those who differed from him,
especially as the influence it exerted was not a local or national
influence alone, but one which affected the opinion of the whole United
Kingdom. For a time, no doubt, the party was so strong that the matter
was not taken as serious, but it soon became evident that a strenuous
effort must be made if affairs were to be placed on a better footing,
and if a protest were to be raised against the cynical criticism in
which the Reviewers indulged. Consequently, in April 1817, a literary
periodical called the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ was started by two
gentlemen of some experience in literary matters, with the assistance
of Mr. William Blackwood, an enterprising Edinburgh publisher, whose
reputation had grown of recent years to considerable dimensions. This
magazine was not a great success: the editors and publisher did not
agree, and finally Mr. Blackwood purchased the formers' share in it,
took over the magazine himself, and, to make matters clear, gave it his
name; thus in October of the same year the first number of _Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine_ appeared. From a quiet and unobtrusive 'Miscellany'
the magazine developed into a strongly partisan periodical, with a
brilliant array of young contributors, determined to oppose the
_Edinburgh Review_ régime with all its might, and not afraid to speak
its mind respecting the literary gods of the day. Every month some one
came to their ears as Miss Higgins, who had charge of the little
group, posed them against an old, overturned dory. "A perfect
type--native--girls----freedom----wild beauty----" She resented the
rotting dory. Vick had leaned against a crimson velvet chair. Why,
her hair had not been combed since the morning before, her skirt
was in tatters where she had torn it climbing into Top Notch; she
was horribly conscious of her long legs, bare, brown, and bruised.

Sidney found that posing in the morning sun on a beach at Provincetown
was not the lark Vick had declared posing for the great Stuart Gelding
had been. But then Vick had flirted a little with Stuart Gelding and
had always had a cup of tea with him and his wife afterward; these art
students appeared to have forgotten that their models were human with
legs that ached from holding a position and arms that trembled with
very eagerness to move. It was not one bit of fun.

Then, after an interminable time, Miss Craig called out cheerily;
"There, that's enough for this morning," and came down to the dory,
opening a little crocheted bag. From it she took two crisp one dollar
bills. "Take this, girls, and divide it. And we are ever so
grateful--you were splendid types. We'll have you again some day."

Sidney's hand had barely closed over her dollar bill when she spied a
woman and a girl slowly walking along the wharf, watching with interest
the artists who were still at work. The girl looked startlingly
familiar to Sidney. She gave a little gasp and ran forward.

"_Pola!_" she called loudly.

The girl turned in astonishment at the sound of her name, stared for a
moment, then quickly advanced laughing.

"Why, you're the Romley girl, aren't you? Of _all_ the things! What are
you doing here?"

"I'm visiting my aunt," explained Sidney, suddenly conscious of her
appearance and in consequence painfully ill-at-ease.

"Oh, and do they hire you to pose? What fun! I suppose that's a sort of
costume they make you wear, isn't it?"

"Y--yes," Sidney faltered, miserably. Pola's manner was prettily
condescending and she made no move to join Sidney on the beach.

"I'm a wreck myself," Pola went on, airily surveying her trim and
elegant person. "Mother and I are motoring. And I made her bring me
down here to see my cousin. He's an artist and lives here summers.
He'll just despise seeing us because he comes here to get rid of
everything home. And the car's broken down and goodness knows how long
we'll have to stay."

"Pola!" Her mother called sharply.

Pola waved her hand toward her mother. "Yes, mamma!" Then, to Sidney,
"Isn't it simply rare our meeting like this? It shows how small the
world is. I must run now! By-by!" She gave the slightest flip of her
hand in sign of leave-taking and, turning, ran lightly up the wharf
toward her mother.

Sidney's eyes followed her, devouring her dainty clothes, the
tight-fitting motoring hat, the buckled pumps. Pola--the Pola she had
carried enshrined in her heart! That heart hurt now, to the core. She
had dreamed of a meeting sometime, somewhere, had planned just what it
would be like and what she'd say and what Pola would say. And now Pola
had turned a shoulder upon it.

Mart's laugh behind her roused her.

"Who's Guinevere, anyway? Her ma called her just in time--we might a
hurt the doll-baby!"

Sidney turned on Mart fiercely. "She's a friend of mine," she cried, in
a voice she made rough to keep the tears from it. "And she's _not_ a
doll-baby."

"All right--go and play with her then--she's crazy about you, I guess."
And with that Mart swung on her heel and stalked away, her head in the
air.

Poor Sidney hurried back to Sunset Lane to hide her humiliation and her
dismay. For some reason she could not understand she had offended Mart.
And Pola had snubbed her. It had indeed been a cruel fate that had
brought Pola out on the wharf at that precise moment!

She spent a lonely afternoon in Top Notch, too miserable to even pour
out her heart to "Dorothea." Then she helped Aunt Achsa prepare supper
and after supper, which was lonely, too, for neither Lavender nor Mr.
Dugald were there, she insisted upon clearing up the dishes while Aunt
Achsa went down to Tillie Higgins'.

Swishing her hands in the soapy water Sidney pondered sadly the things
she had longed to learn of Pola. Her name--why she hadn't even found
out her name! What had her teacher said of that theme she had written
on her visit to the Romley house? Where did Pola live? Of course she
might see her again--Pola had said that they'd be in Provincetown for a
few days, but she did not _want_ to see her; she did not want Pola to
see Sunset Lane and the little gray cottage and Aunt Achsa and
Lavender. Pola would laugh at them and she would hate her!

At that moment footsteps crunched the gravel of the path and a shadow
fell across the kitchen door. Sidney turned from the table. There stood
Mr. Dugald and with him--Pola.

"I've brought my cousin, Sidney. She blew out to the Cape with that
ill-wind we felt this morning. If you know what we can do with her I'll
be your slave for life."

Playfully pushing Dugald Allan aside Pola walked into the kitchen.

"Isn't he horrid? You wouldn't dream that he's really crazy about me,
would you? I told him how we'd met, even before this morning. He'd
written home that Miss Green's cousin was here but I never dreamed it
was you. I'm so sorry I didn't have a chance to introduce you to mother
this morning. But mother wants me to take you back to the hotel. You
can have a room right next to mine and we'll have scads of fun--You'll
come, won't you?" For Sidney's face was unyielding.

Like one cornered, Sidney stood straight against the table, her hands,
red from the hot dish water, clasped tightly behind her back. Though
she knew that Pola was trying to make amends for her rudeness of the
morning, something within her heart turned hard. The dusty idol was
crumbling to bits of clay.

"She's only inviting me because Mr. Dugald has told her to," she
reasoned inwardly. And aloud she answered in a steady voice:

"I'm sorry, but I simply can't leave Aunt Achsa. You must come here and
we'll find lots of jolly things to do--"

"Here?" laughed Pola, glancing around the old kitchen.

"Why not here?" roared Mr. Dugald. "As long as you've broken into our
Secret Garden we'll introduce you to some things you've never done
before in your life. Only Sid will have to find some suitable clothes
for you, and you'd better leave your complexion on the dressing table."

Pola accepted his banter good-naturedly. "I shall be deeply grateful,
old dear, if you _will_ introduce me to any sensations I have not
experienced before. There, now, will that hold you for awhile?" She
turned to Sidney. "We quarrel like this all the time, but it's fun and
I always have the last word. I make him so mad he can't think of
anything withering enough to say and I seize that strategic moment to
cease firing. You see, I practice on Dug. I _will_ come tomorrow if I
may. Now, Duggie dear, lead me out of this funny lane or else I'll
_never_ find my way back to mamma. Goodby, Miss Romley."

Behind Pola's back Mr. Dugald cast such a despairing, apologetic and
altogether furious look toward Sidney as to make Sidney suddenly laugh.
And with her laugh all her sense of dismay and humiliation vanished.
She forgot her red hands and the big gingham apron and the dishes
spread about her in her amusement over Pola's pathetic attempt to be
very grown-up and sophisticated. And _so_ ill-bred! How ashamed Mr.
Dugald had been of her!

Then a thought struck Sidney with such force that she sat down in the
nearest chair. Why, if Mr. Dugald was Pola's own cousin, belonged to
the grandeur that was Pola's, he would _never_ be attracted by poor,
plain Trude. Her beautiful hopes were shattered! She felt distinctly
aggrieved.

However, there was Vick. Sidney hated to give Mr. Dugald to Vick, who
always got everything, yet it seemed the only thing to do if any of the
sisters were to have him. Almost sadly she went to her room, opened her
satchel and took from it a small framed photograph of Victoria, a
photograph which, while it did not flatter Victoria, paid full justice
to her enticing beauty. Considering it, Sidney reflected on how lucky
it was that at the last moment she had put the pictures of her sisters
into her baggage. Then she carried it to the kitchen and stood it on
the narrow mantel next to the clock where Mr. Dugald's eyes must surely
find it. Unlike the snapshot of Trude the picture remained there
undisturbed.




                              CHAPTER XVII

                                PEACOCKS


Early the next day Pola appeared with Mr. Dugald in Sunset Lane in a
simple garb that must have satisfied even her exacting cousin. Her mood
was in accord with her attire as though she had left her sophistication
behind with her silks and her rouge. She declared she felt as "peppy as
they make them" and ready to do anything anyone suggested. And Mr.
Dugald, resigned to wasting two weeks to entertaining his young cousin,
of whom he was really very fond, promptly offered an astonishing
assortment of suggestions from which he commanded the girls to choose.

"Why, you wouldn't believe there were so many things to do!" cried Pola
with real enthusiasm. "Sidney, you'll have to decide." And Sidney at
once decided upon a tramp to Peaked Hill on the ocean side with an
early picnic supper.

In the days that followed, Sidney's first admiration for Pola returned.
Though Pola would never again be the idol she was much more enjoyable
as a chum. Her spirits, though an affectation, were infectious and gay;
in her pretty clothes and with her pretty face she made Sidney think of
a butterfly, a fragile, golden-winged, dainty flitting butterfly. She
professed to enjoy everything they did--even to the picnics. She
tramped endlessly in her unsuitable shoes without a murmur of fatigue
and Sidney suspected that she really _did_ care a great deal for her
cousin Dugald's approval.

With Mr. Dugald they motored to Highland Light and to Chatham. They
toured the shops at Hyannis. They sailed with Captain Hawkes on the
_Mabel T_. They rose very early one morning and went to the Coast Guard
Station to watch the drill and then ate ham and eggs with Commander
Nelson. More than once Sidney donned the cherry crêpe de chine and
dined with Mrs. Allan and Pola and Dugald at the hotel, feeling very
grand and traveled.

But to Sidney's deep regret Pola professed an abhorrence of swimming.

"Just please don't _ask_ me," she had begged, shuddering. "I loathe it!
It's one of my complexes. Of course I've gone swimming in almost every
body of water on the globe, but I hate it. You'll spoil my fun
_utterly_ if you even try to make me!" After that Sidney could not
urge. She did not know what complexes were, but Pola had made them
sound real and convincing and a little delicate. Though Sidney missed
the jolly swims with Lavender and Mart she refrained from even a hint
of her feelings.

Often when they were together Pola waxed confidential over her cousin.
"He's a thorn in Aunt Lucy's side," she explained one day as the girls
lounged in Pola's room at the hotel, a huge box of candy on a stool
between them. "She always wants him to go in for society and to go
abroad with her and do all the fashionable resorts on the Continent,
but couldn't you _see_ him? Not for Duggie boy, ever! When she starts
planning something like that he bolts off somewhere and the next thing
you hear is that he's painted a wonderful picture and sold it or had
first mention or a gold medal. Of course that makes him terribly
interesting and there are dozens of single ladies from forty to
fourteen itching to catch him. And Dug's such a simple old dear that he
doesn't know it. But his mother does and she has them all sorted over
and the eligible ones ticketed. You see Dug will be dreadfully rich
some day and goodness knows what he'll do with the money for he hasn't
the brains of a child where business is concerned. His father's even
richer than Dad."

Sidney literally blinked before the picture Pola drew--blinked and
blushed that she had dared angle for Mr. Dugald herself like the
forty-to-fourteen single ladies. Mr. Dugald belonged to a world that
was foreign to the Romley girls, Pola's dazzling, peacock-world.

Sidney felt immensely flattered that Pola had taken her in among her
peacocks. (Secretly, too, she considered that she carried herself well
among them. She was most careful of her dress, now!) She did not know
that Pola's sort instinctively seeks out someone to dazzle, that Pola's
generosity was a part of the dazzling process. She thought Pola
wonderful to accept so casually her gilded privileges. Why, if Pola
didn't like a dress or a hat or a pair of shoes she simply didn't wear
it; she could buy anything she wanted from any one of the priceless
bits of jewelry in the shops at Hyannis to the delectable sweets in the
tea-rooms on Commercial Street. She could do just as she pleased--even
more than Mart, for _she_ never had to darn or mend or wipe dishes or
dust or hang up her clothes or brush them. Realizing all this Sidney
came to forgive that first condescension that had stung; she thought
Pola little short of an angel to be so prettily friendly with them all.

So engrossed was Sidney in basking in Pola's favor that for a time she
felt no compunctions at deserting Mart and Lavender; in fact she did
not even think of them. Both Mart and Lavender had become suddenly very
busy with affairs that kept them out of sight. If, once in awhile,
Sidney wondered what they were doing something of Pola's or something
Pola said quickly crowded the thought from her head. But one afternoon
they encountered Mart as they strolled toward the Green Lantern to sit
under its gay awnings and drink tea. Sidney introduced Mart to Pola and
to cover Pola's rude stare she added quickly: "We're going down to the
Green Lantern, Mart. Won't you come with us?" conscious as she said it
that her voice sounded stilted.

"No, thanks. I'm going to do something lots more exciting than sitting
_there_! And I'm in a hurry, too." And with that Mart swung on past
them, her head high.

Sidney had a moment's longing to run after her and coax her to come,
but Pola's light giggle checked her. "Isn't she a riot? I'd have _died_
if she'd come with us!"

"Oh, Pola--she'll hear you!" pleaded Sidney.

She hated herself because she did not tell Pola at once how bravely
Mart shouldered her responsibilities, about gran'ma, who looked to Mart
for everything. Instead she simply walked along with Pola and let Pola
giggle. Pola, sensing Sidney's feelings, slipped her arm through hers
and gave it an affectionate little squeeze.

"You're such a funny child," she said softly. "You'd be nice to
anything. I can't, of course, for I go around to so many places and
mother's warned me often about strangers. Anyway, it's lots nicer for
just us two to be together, isn't it?"

But in spite of Pola's soft flattery and countless lumps of sugar the
tea tasted bitter to Sidney and the Green Lantern, with its futurist
awnings, its bizarre hangings and cushions, had no allure. The thought
came suddenly to Sidney that it had been a whole week since she had
even seen Mart; in that time she had scarcely exchanged more than a
half dozen words with Lavender.

To the tune of Pola's ceaseless chatter Sidney's thoughts kept darting
back to that uncomfortable fact. Pola always talked of things she had
done at home, abroad, at school, of her boy friends whom she called
"men." She liked to hint of countless "affairs" which simply must not
come to her mother's attention, assuring Sidney that she was absolutely
the only one to whom she confided these deep intrigues. She had worn
Guy Townsend's fraternity pin the whole winter before and not a soul
had known whose pin it was for Guy was tabooed by mothers in general
and Mrs. Allan in particular. Now Pola was simply crazy over a Jack
Sicard who was playing the lead in "Hearts Aquiver." But not even
Jack's manly beauty, as described by Pola, failed to draw from Sidney
more than a mild: "He must be cute." Pola gave way to vexation.

"You're scarcely listening to me, Sidney Romley, when I'm telling you
things I haven't told a _soul_! I believe you're still thinking of that
ridiculous girl we met."

"She isn't ridiculous!" Sidney was prompt enough now in Mart's defense.
"She looks funny, but you see I've gotten well acquainted with her and
she's awfully nice."

"Oh, _nice_, of course! But _anyone_ can be nice! You know perfectly
well, Sidney, that there's as much class in this country as there is in
Europe and being _nice_ does not break down social barriers."

Sidney had no answer ready for this. Curiously into her mind flashed
what Mr. Dugald had said about the solid aristocracy. But somehow she
knew Pola would not understand this. Pola went on:

"I'm a dreadful little snob, anyway. But I suppose that is the result
of my education. It would be funny to go to the most expensive schools
and have all the culture that Europe can offer and _not_ be a snob."

Still Sidney stared into her teacup. She thought Pola was all wrong,
but she did not know how to say it. Pola herself had told her that she
had gone to Grace Hall because it had no examinations and graduated a
girl anyway--so much for Pola's education. And culture--what benefited
all the culture of Europe if Pola found enjoyment only in the company
of youths her mother would not permit in the house?

Pola mistook Sidney's silence for hurt. "You goose, I'm not saying I
think I'm any better than _you_ are! But you must see that neither of
us are a bit like that native girl!" Which admission Pola considered
most generous.

"I wasn't thinking about whether you are any better than I am or not.
I've been brought up, you see," with a rueful laugh, "to believe that
my father being a poet set _me_ a little apart from everyone else. And
I've hated it. What I was thinking was that there really isn't any
class difference in people--except what we make ourselves, like the
League building a barrier around me and you thinking you're in another
class from Mart because you're rich. Maybe it isn't really the outside
things that count, maybe it's the big things we have got or haven't got
inside us--"

"Like what?" demanded Pola.

Sidney was thinking of Lav's self-effacing ambition to serve the world
from the seclusion of a laboratory, of Mart's cheerfulness in the face
of her lot and her loyal affection for her exacting and rheumatic
grandmother; of the courage of Mart's grandfather, Ambrose Calkins, who
had lost his own life in going back to his sinking schooner for the
cook who could not swim; of her own ancestor, Priscilla Ellis. _Those_
were the things which set people apart from their fellows, Sidney
thought, but the understanding was too new in her own heart for her to
find words in which she could tell Pola of it. "Like what?" Pola
demanded again and this time her voice was a little haughty.

"Oh, I don't know," Sidney laughed. "I'm all mixed up. I guess I was
trying to say something Mr. Dugald said once to me."

"Oh, _Dug_!" laughed Pola. "He's nutty about all that! Look at the way
he lives here on the Cape. But mother says he'll get over it when he
marries. Now I have no intention of getting serious this grand day so
let's have another piece of that chocolate fudge cake--it's on me, too,
remember!" Which was Pola's pretty way of pretending she did not know
that Sidney did not have any money with her. The dollar Sidney had
earned for posing had long since been spent.

Sidney was relieved that Pola had rescued her from the "deep water." At
the same time she suffered from the sense that she had not made Pola
see Mart in another light. She had failed in loyalty. The sparkling
blue of the bay that stretched before them only reminded her that this
was the hour she usually went swimming. Due to Pola's "complex" she had
not gone swimming for a whole week.

Even with her mouth full of the fudge cake, she vowed to herself that
the very next day she would hunt out her chums and her old pastimes.
Pola and Mr. Dugald must plan without her!

She had promised to dine again at the hotel with Pola and her mother
but as soon as she could after dinner she returned to Sunset Lane.
Because of her determination her heart was lighter. And her way was
made easier, too, for Mrs. Allan had told Pola at dinner that the
"Truxtons were at Chatham Bars." Pola had been as excited over the
Truxtons as her mother.

"Can we go and see them right away?"

"Not tonight. But I have arranged for a car and Shields will drive us
over tomorrow. We can stay there for a few days. I shall welcome the
change for this place has been very stupid for me, my dear."

"Poor mamma! I've been selfish. It'll be a lark seeing Cora Truxton
again!" Pola had explained to Sidney: "We met the Truxtons at Nice.
Cora and Millicent are both older, but they're the _cutest_ girls. Will
we go in the morning, mamma?"

Pola's manner had indicated that the coming of the Truxtons into their
plans raised a barrier that now excluded Sidney. Throughout the dinner
she had talked exclusively of the trip on the morrow and the renewing
of that acquaintance that had begun in Nice. But Sidney felt nothing
but a sense of escape.

She found Aunt Achsa alone in the cottage on Sunset Lane. She was
sitting on the doorstep, "coolin' off." Sidney sat down beside her.

"Where's Lavender?" she asked, wishing Lavender was at home that she
might begin her "making up" at once.

"Don't know. And I wish I did. Don't know what's gotten into that boy.
I'm as worried as can be."

"About Lav? Oh, what's the matter?" For Aunt Achsa was close to tears.
Something must have happened to break her habitual optimism.

"He's acted so queer like lately. Cal'late you'd of noticed it if you
hadn't been off so much with Mr. Dugald's folks. I thought it might a'
been his stomach and I put a powder into his coffee, but he ain't been
a mite different--"

"But what does he do, Aunt Achsa? He looks all right--"

Now Aunt Achsa hesitated. One tear separated itself from its fellows
and rolled down her withered cheek and dropped upon her withered hand.
She looked at it, startled, then lifted her hand and dashed it across
her eyes.

"I swum, I'm cryin'. Don't know as I know when I've cried before. And
cryin' before I have anything as I can see to cry for. But Sidney, I
set such a lot on that boy--it's like I was his mother and his father
and his brothers and his sisters all mixed up in one--gran'ma, too. He
was such a little mite when I took him, y'see and then he's not like
other boys and I've had to do a heap of lovin' to make up to him. I've
prayed every day of my life for the Lord to keep him happy in spite of
things and that was a pretty big prayer for I don't suppose the Lord
wants us all to be happy all the time, that ain't His way of bringing
us up. But I thought He might make an exception for Lav. Land sakes,
how I go on--and you nigh to cryin' yourself." For she had caught
Sidney blinking back something glistening from her own eyes.

"Aunt Achsa, Lavender is wonderful. He's talked to me a lot and he's
going to be a great man some day, I know. He has the grandest plans
shut away in his heart and he _is_ happy--"

Aunt Achsa looked at her, startled. "Plans--how _can_ he when he's--"
She bit off the words. Her lips trembled.

"Aunt Achsa, it doesn't matter what one's like on the outside!" Now
Sidney floundered for the second time in one day under the pressure of
her own thoughts. "I mean--Lav can do anything he wants to do, anyway.
And he's working hard reading and studying and some day, after awhile,
he'll go away somewhere and study more--"

"Sidney Romley, you're _crazy_!" cried Aunt Achsa, in a quavering
voice. "Go away! How _can_ he go away when we ain't even the money to
go 'sfar as Orleans. And he ain't plannin' to go on anyone's _charity_!"

"Oh, I don't mean he's going away _soon_! I shouldn't have told anyway
for Lav told me as a secret. But I thought maybe it would make you
happier knowing he had great ambitions. And he'll tell you sometime
himself."

When Aunt Achsa spoke it was in a thin, grieved voice.

"It's what I didn't want him to ever take into his head. Goin' off
somewhere--alone. For I'm too old to go with him and he'll need me!"

"Oh I wouldn't have told you if I'd thought it would make you unhappy.
He won't go for a long time, Aunt Achsa. And when he does he'll come
back real often."

Now Aunt Achsa sat so still that Sidney thought she had consoled her.
But Aunt Achsa was facing in her own way this at which Sidney had
hinted, drawing for it from that courage of hers that had not yet been
exhausted. Well, if it was best for Lavender some day to go away she'd
send him away with a smile even though the heart that had taken him, a
wee baby, from the dying mother did burst with loneliness. Besides,
even if Lavender went away she could go on praying to the Lord to keep
him "happy"--no distance could keep her from doing that!

"It's like as not his plans in his head that's makin' him act so quiet
like and short-spoken. And last night he didn't sleep in his bed at
all!"

"Why, Aunt Achsa, where _was_ he?" gasped Sidney, really startled.

"I don't know, dearie. He used to take to spells like that when he was
little. But lately he's got over them. I followed him once and I found
him out in the sand dunes lying flat on his face cryin' awful--out loud
and beatin' his arms. I let him be. I stole home and I never let on I
knew. When he came back all white lookin' I had a nice cake ready--roll
jell, his favorite."

"Do--do you think he was out in the sand dunes--last night?"

"I don't know. He come in about nine o'clock, awful quiet and I didn't
ask him anything, but I just set his breakfast before him as though the
morning wa'n't half over. And then he went off again and I ain't seen
him sense. I thought mebbe it was these folks of Mr. Dugald's--"

"What do you mean, Aunt Achsa?" But Sidney knew what she meant.

"Like as not Lav's plain jealous. Mr. Dugald hasn't had any time for
anything but toting this Pola round everywhere and Lav notices it. He
hasn't any right to be jealous as I can see for Miss Pola is Mr.
Dugald's own cousin, but Lav thinks the sun rises and sets in Mr.
Dugald. And like as not he misses you--"

"I've missed Lav dreadfully. I didn't know how much I missed him and
Mart until today when it came over me suddenly that the things I was
doing with Pola weren't really much fun--just at first they were
because they were different. I'm afraid, Aunt Achsa, that I love
different things! But tomorrow I am going to play all day long with Lav
and Mart, see if I don't. I can't wait for tomorrow to come!"




                             CHAPTER XVIII

                                "HOOK!"


Sidney found it a little difficult to take up the fun with her
erstwhile chums where she had left off. When she stopped at the
Calkins' house directly after breakfast, Mart coolly declined to go
anywhere with her, and smiled scornfully at her bare legs.

"I s'pose your million-dollar friend is otherwise engaged today!"

Sidney truthfully admitted that she was. "She's gone to Chatham with
her mother to see some people they know. And I'm glad. I've been just
dying for a good swim. Let's go out to the _Arabella_ this morning."

But Mart declared she was tired of all that. In fact she was tired of
doing lots of the silly things they'd been doing. She'd promised Gert
Bartow to go there right after lunch.

Sidney had no choice but to go on alone in search of Lav. She was
discouraged to the point of tears. Yet she knew in her heart that she
deserved Mart's coldness. She remembered how she had felt once when
Nancy had deserted her for a new girl at Miss Downs'. And it had
seriously threatened their friendship.

As she wandered slowly toward the town Sidney wondered what Mart and
Gert Bartow were going to do. Gert Bartow was a girl of nineteen at
least, and much more grown up than even that. Mart had pointed her out
to Sidney. Sidney wished Mart had asked her to go with her to Gert's.
She felt very lonely.

Perhaps she had spoiled everything. Pola would come back, of course,
but, somehow, Pola's glamour had faded. After all, what, besides tons
of candy and quarts of sweet mixtures and much glitter, had there been
to it? The sweets and the glitter and Pola's endless confidences of
"men" had left Sidney jaded and bored, though she did not know it; she
did know that she was suddenly lonely for Mart and Lav and the
stimulating pastimes they seemed to find always right at hand.

As she approached Rockman's, wandering there from force of habit, she
saw Lav pushing off in a dory. She ran down the wharf, hailing him.

"Oh, Lav, take me with you!" she pleaded, breathlessly.

He hesitated a moment before he swung the dory back to the wharf.
Something of the look Mart had given her flashed into his eyes.

Then: "Come on if y'want to," he answered ungraciously.

As she sat down in the bow of the boat Sidney wanted to cry more than
anything else, but Lav's dark face suddenly reminded her of what Aunt
Achsa had told her. Perhaps he had been out in the sand dunes last
night, lying on his face, sobbing aloud! She began chattering with
resolute cheerfulness.

"Isn't it hot this morning, Lav? Where are you going?" Lav answered
shortly that he was going out to the _Arabella_. Sidney noticed a book
in his pocket, but said nothing. She ventured other remarks concerning
the activities in the bay to which Lavender answered in monosyllables,
if at all.

"Oh, look, the _Puritan's_ in, Lav!" And even to this Lavender only
grunted: "It's been in two days!"

By the time they reached the _Arabella_ Sidney's remorse was yielding
to a spark of indignation. Lav needn't be _quite_ so mad for, after
all, it had been his own precious Mr. Dugald who had thrown her and
Pola so constantly together! And if Lav had not hidden himself away he
most certainly would have been included in all the plans. It was not
fair in Lav to act so cross.

"I know you came out to read, Lav, and I've some thinking to do, so I'm
going up in the bow and leave you quite to yourself," Sidney said as
they boarded the _Arabella_, and if in her tone there was something of
Mart's tartness, it may be forgiven for Sidney had been punished enough.

"I don't care if you hang 'round," Lav conceded. "It's too hot to read,
anyways. I thought maybe there'd be a breeze out here. What's that?"
For he had suddenly spied an object lying on the deck close to the rail
as though it had dropped there from someone's pocket.

At almost the same moment Sidney spied it, too. Both darted for it.
Lavender reached it first and picked it up and examined it with
frowning eyes.

"It's a knife!" cried Sidney, at his elbow.

"Sure it's a knife. Anybody can see that. What I want to know--"

"Let me look at it. Isn't it Mr. Dugald's?"

"No, it isn't Mr. Dugald's. He hasn't been out here for a week. And
that knife wasn't here yesterday for I'd a' seen it."

"Let me look at it, Lav," pleaded Sidney, for Lav, a curious expression
on his face, had covered the knife with his hand.

"It's funny, that's all I got to say. I mean--how it come here."

"Lavender Green, show me that knife this minute! You act so mysterious
and I have a right to know why."

Slowly Lavender placed the knife in Sidney's eager hands. It was an
ordinary case knife such as the fishermen carried, but Lavender pointed
to two initials that had been carved on the case.

"J.S."

"J.S." repeated Sidney; then she cried: "Why--J.S.! That's Jed Starrow!"

"Sure it's Jed Starrow!"

"But how did it get on the _Arabella_?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

"He's _been_ on the _Arabella_, Lav!"

"Or someone of his gang."

"Isn't that _funny_? What would he come here for?"

Lavender was silent. And Sidney, staring at him as though to read from
his face some explanation, suddenly fell silent, too. The secret that
Cap'n Davies had laid upon her weighed heavily. She _wished_ she could
tell.

"Sid, I haven't played square," Lavender suddenly blurted out,
flushing. "We promised to tell one another if any one of us found out
anything and _I did_--and I didn't tell!"

Lavender's admission faded beside the fact that he knew something.

"Oh, what?" Sidney cried.

"I wasn't going to tell you. I thought you didn't care anything about
the pirates any more. And the laugh's sort o' on me, anyway, because I
thought we were all crazy to suspect Jed Starrow."

"Tell me quick, Lav," commanded Sidney, quivering with excitement.

Lav leaned against the rail. To tell his story meant confessing his
state of mind.

"I guess I've been sore because you and Mr. Dugald fooled 'round with
those new folks. Jealous. I get that way lots of times--all hot inside
because I'm different. And I go off somewhere alone and stay there
until I fight it down."

"I know, Lav. Aunt Achsa told me. Did you go to the dunes?"

"One night I did. Stayed there all night. But one evening I went out on
the breakwall. There's a place out there where the rocks are piled so's
to make a cave. I used to play there a lot when I was a little kid. I
crawled into it. And I hadn't been there very long when I heard
somebody talking--two men. They were up close so's I heard everything
they said."

"And what did they say, Lav? Oh, tell me quick!"

"I could only get scraps of it. I didn't dare look, I didn't dare move.
But one fellow called the other Jed. I heard 'em say something about
'risk' and a 'stranger from Boston asking too many questions 'round
Rockman's to be healthy,' and Jed Starrow--I'm dead sure it was his
voice--said, sort of blustering like, 'Let them search the _Puritan_!
They won't find anything on her _now_!' And the other fellow answered
him: 'There's too much in this, Jed, to take any chances.' That's what
they said, Sid, and then they went on."

"Oh, Lav, they're pirates!"

"Well, not exactly pirates, but they're up to _something_ that's sure.
Maybe they're rum-runners. There's a lot of that going on. I thought
you were crazy, but I guess you weren't."

Sidney's lips trembled with eagerness. As long as Lavender knew what he
knew she felt that she would be justified in telling him what Cap'n
Davies had told her.

"It isn't rum--Lav," she whispered, "It's _diamonds_!"

"Diamonds! Oh, go on, where did you get that stuff?"

"It's diamonds, Lav." Then Sidney solemnly repeated what the old
Captain had told her concerning the letter and the reward. "He asked me
not to tell a soul, but you're different because you know. And he said
that the reward would be posted everywhere in two weeks at least and
it's that long now. Everyone will know soon."

"Sid, five thousand dollars!" Lavender whistled.

"If someone 'round here's doing it Cap'n Davies wants to catch him
himself. He says he doesn't want the reward but he wants to punish the
man who's hurting the honest name of this part of Cape Cod. I think
that's a grand spirit."

Lavender's shoulders lifted. Why couldn't someone else save the fair
name of Cape Cod--someone like a crippled boy whom most of the
towns-people looked upon as a loafer?

"I'd like to catch 'em, myself," he said slowly in such a low voice
that Sidney barely caught the words.

"Oh, Lav, why not? We have as good a chance as anyone, knowing as much
as we do. What'll we do first?" For Sidney was ready for adventure.

Suddenly Lavender realized that he was gripping the knife in his hand.
He looked down at it.

"What we ought to do first is to find out how this knife got here.
Let's put it where we found it and go back around the other side of
that schooner so's no one on the _Puritan_'ll see us. Then we can come
out late this afternoon and if it's gone--well, we'll know someone came
to look for it!"

"And then we'd know for sure that someone had been on the _Arabella_."

"That's the idea. You get on quickly for a girl, Sid. Come on, now,
we'll pull the dory round to the starboard side."

Sidney caught herself tiptoeing across the deck of the_ Arabella_. In
her excitement she scarcely breathed. Every move, every act, was
fraught with significance. Lavender took the precaution to beach the
dory at an abandoned wharf near Sunset Lane.

"Just as well not to show ourselves 'round Rockman's."

"When can we go out to the _Arabella_?"

"Not 'till four o'clock. We can go out to swim just like we always do.
Even if they see us they won't think it's funny for us to do that.
They'd think it funnier if we didn't."

Sidney admitted the truth of this, but wondered how she could live
until four o'clock!

As they walked up Sunset Lane Sidney reminded Lavender that, because of
their promise, they ought to tell Mart. But when they stopped at the
Calkins' house they found that Mart had already gone to Gert Bartow's.

"Oh, dear," sighed Sidney, with an added pang of remorse.

At four o'clock Sidney and Lavender went out to the _Arabella_ to swim
as they had done always before Pola's coming. Except for a brightness
in Sidney's eyes, an alertness about her whole body, and the occasional
significant glances that passed between them they both appeared quite
normal. Lav talked casually of the heat of the day.

"Gee, the water'll feel great. This is the hottest day we've had yet."

"I can't wait to get in." Most certainly Jed Starrow, had he been
listening, could not have guessed how closely Nemesis pressed upon his
heels!

Lavender pulled up alongside of the _Arabella_ and deliberately made
the boat fast.

"We got to act as though we haven't found the knife, y'see," he warned.
"As though we were going just swimming."

In her eagerness to board the _Arabella_ Sidney stumbled. Lavender had
to clutch her to keep her from tumbling into the water.

"Oh!" They both cried in one sound as they clambered to the deck--for
the knife was gone!

"Well, _that_ means they'd been on the _Arabella_. Jed Starrow dropped
that knife and he missed it and came back to look for it!"

"Lav, I believe they've hidden their treasure on the _Arabella_!"
Sidney still reverted to the more romantic terms of buccaneering.
"Let's look for it now!"

"With 'em watching maybe from the _Puritan_? I guess not. We got to go
ahead and swim the way we always do, Sid. Don't let's even appear to be
talking about anything. Come on, I'll beat you in!"

For the space of the few minutes while the water closed about her with
delicious coolness Sidney forgot everything in an intoxication of
delight. Presently she came back to the _Arabella_ and climbed aboard
with a sigh of utter content. "Thank goodness _I_ haven't any
complexes," she laughed, shaking the salt drops from her bobbed head.
"And now what?"

Lavender pulled on the light sweater he had worn over his bathing suit.

"When it gets dark I'm coming out to the _Arabella_ and stay all night.
Maybe they'll come back and I'll find out why. That fellow said
something 'bout Rockman's not being safe. They'll learn the _Arabella_
isn't safe either!"

"But Lav, I'm coming with you!"

"You can't. And this isn't any work for a girl to get mixed up in."

Sidney drew herself to her full height.

"Lavender Green, if you think you're going to lose me _now_ you're
mistaken. I guess we went into this in a sort of partnership and it's
going to hold. I found out just as much as you did! And if you come out
to the _Arabella_, _I'm_ coming, and Mart, too, if she's home."

Lav still hesitated.

"Aunt Achsa won't let you. How'd you get away?"

This staggered Sidney for a moment, then she thought of a "way." This
was Wednesday night and Miss Letty had said that on Wednesday night she
was going to drive to Truro and that Sidney might go with her. From
Truro Miss Letty was going on to Wellfleet. Aunt Achsa would think
Sidney wanted to see Cap'n Davies again. She explained all this
breathlessly to Lavender. "This is important enough to warrant a fib.
And when it's all over Aunt Achsa will understand. Let's go home now
and find Mart."

Unwillingly Lavender conceded Sidney's right to share with him his
night's vigil at any cost. Again they beached the dory near Sunset Lane.

Now they found Mart at home. Sidney put her head in the door, made
certain that gran'ma was not in hearing, and cried "Hook!"

Mart had only to look once at Sidney's face to know that something had
happened. Sidney dragged her out to the Lane and there she and
Lavender, in words as quick as pistol shots, told the story.

"Meet us down on the beach near Milligan's at eight o'clock," Lav
whispered, as they parted.




                              CHAPTER XIX

                               THE GLEAM


Exactly at the appointed hour Sidney met Lavender on the beach. She was
breathless and a little worried for it had been neither easy nor to her
liking to deceive Aunt Achsa. Aunt Achsa had declared that a storm was
"comin'" for she could smell it in the air and Tillie Higgins had seen
Sam Doolittle start for the backside with his pike pole and that meant
a blow for Sam didn't waste steps. "'Tisn't likely Letty Vine'll _go_
to Truro tonight."

"But I'll _see_ if she's going, anyway," Sidney had cried and had raced
off, a sweater over her arm.

"I wish I could tell her how very important it is and then she'd
understand, but I can't for maybe she wouldn't understand," Sidney
thought as she hurried to the rendezvous.

"Gee, how'd you ever get away?" asked Lav, admiringly, but Sidney had
no opportunity to explain for at that moment Mart joined them, eager
and excited.

"I put some cookies in my pocket," she exclaimed. "You can't tell
what'll happen."

"Good. And I've got matches."

Sidney wished she had thought of something to bring. Lav went on:

"It isn't dark enough to go out yet. We got to be awful careful. You
girls sort o' walk up the beach as though we weren't all together."

Lavender was actually pale and his eyes burned fiercely. Sidney looked
at him admiringly. She knew he was not thinking of the reward but of
the fair name of the Cape.

Obediently the girls strolled up the beach. And, as they turned, a
voice hailed them. To their consternation Pola came flying toward them.

At sight of her Sidney bit her lips with vexation. She gave a sidewise
glance at Mart and saw Mart's chin set stubbornly.

"Sidney--wait a minute!" Pola called and Sidney could do nothing but
wait until Pola came up to them.

"I thought you were going to stay in Chatham tonight."

"I should say _not_!" Pola had enough breath to make her answer
expressive. "I was never so bored in my life. Those Truxton girls are
_stupid_. And I kept wondering what you were doing. I coaxed mother to
let Shields bring me back and she said she would provided I came and
stayed with you tonight. Can you squeeze me in? Dug will give me his
room, I know."

Sidney cast a wild glance toward Mart. She started to answer, then
stopped. Pola looked from her to Mart and back again to Sidney.

"What's the mystery? If you don't want me I'll go to the hotel."

"Oh, Pola, it isn't that. It's--it's--"

"Sidney Romley I'll bet you're up to something! And if you are, you
simply have got to let me in on it! I'm just pepped up to some
excitement. Tell me what's up."

The girls turned slowly and walked toward Lav and the dory, Pola
between them.

"It isn't any fun," Sidney explained slowly. "It's something
serious--and--and dangerous. And you'll have to ask Mart and Lav if you
can come with us."

"You'll let me go, won't you, Mart?" Pola begged with friendly
entreaty, forgetting she had ever thought Mart a riot.

Sidney introduced Pola to Lavender and turned away that she might not
see the pain that flashed across Lavender's face.

"Pola came back to stay all night with me. She wants to go with us and
if she doesn't I guess I'll have to go back home."

"I'll do anything you say," promised Pola. "I'm so curious that I'm
fairly bursting."

"I don't care, but you'll have to take off your shoes and stockings,"
muttered Lav, scarcely looking at Pola.

"Oh, I'll do that! I'll do _anything_!" Pola flopped upon the beach and
commenced removing her sport shoes. "And I won't even ask any questions
until you're ready to tell me." Rising, her small feet pink against the
sand, she saluted Lav with mock solemnity.

"There, Captain Lavender Green, I'm at your command."

Her pretty acquiescence won the girls at once. If any doubt assailed
them as to the prudence of letting Pola go, their admiration for Pola's
gameness stilled it. Sidney rolled Pola's shoes and stockings and her
own in her sweater and hid them behind some logs. Then the little party
waded out to the dory and embarked.

"We're going to the _Arabella_," Sidney whispered to Pola. She felt
Pola shiver, but the girl made no protest. "We have to go 'round this
way so's no one can see us from the harbor. Sh--h!"

Silently they boarded the old hull, Lavender last. With the line from
the dory in his hand the boy considered.

"If anyone comes up and sees the dory they'll know someone's aboard."

"That's true. What'll we do?" whispered Sidney, anxiously.

"We can set her adrift. It's an old tub anyway."

"But how'll we get ashore?"

"The tide'll be out towards morning."

"You mean _swim_?" cried Pola. "But I _can't_ swim! I--I--"

True, Pola's complex! Sidney hastened to reassure her.

"When the tide's out it won't be over your head. And I'll help you."

Lavender had already let the line of the dory slip out of his hand.
They saw the old boat become a shadowy outline as the tide carried it
slowly away, then--nothing. Pola caught Sidney's hand and held it.

"I'm not frightened--but it's so--_spooky_!"

It had been decided that they should conceal themselves in the
fo'castle cabin. They groped their way forward, Sidney guiding Pola in
the dark, for Lavender dared not light any of his matches. Stumbling,
scarcely breathing, they slipped down the companion ladder and crawled
into the small, ill-ventilated cabin. Sidney sat down upon some
tarpaulins. Pola crouched close to Sidney's side. Lav and Mart stowed
themselves upon one of the bunks.

"There--now we'll wait!"

"I--I wish I knew what _for_!" whispered Pola. The smell of rank bilge
water, the lift and drop of the boat sickened her. The wind was whining
and that and the swish of the water against the sides of the boat
terrified the girl.

In a few short words Lav vouchsafed Pola a little information. Like
Sidney he admired the girl's gameness though he was beginning to wish
they had not let her come.

"How long do you think we'll have to wait? And what if no one comes?"

"We'll have to wait until most morning anyway before the tide is out.
And if no one comes tonight we'll have to come out again, that's all.
We're not in this business for any fun!"

"Oh--h!" sighed Pola, clinging closer to Sidney.

The wind howled over their heads with increasing velocity and Sidney
thought involuntarily of the snugness of Miss Letty's buggy. Miss Letty
was probably almost to Truro now. And Aunt Achsa thought she was with
her!

"Is--is the boat tied tight?" asked Pola; and Lav assured her that it
was. "The wind could get a lot worse and you'd be as safe out here as
in your bed at home."

After a long while Mart muttered, "What's that?" The others leaned
forward in the blackness of the cabin. They had all felt rather than
heard a soft thud as though something had touched the side of the boat.
And in a few moments heavy footsteps came straight toward the fo'castle.

"Oh, will they come _here_?" breathed Pola, shaking. And for answer
Sidney caught Pola's arm with a warning clutch.

For an instant it seemed that the footsteps must descend to the cabin.
But at the companionway they halted. A voice came, heavy and thick.

"I tell you it ain't safe to take it off now. They got a man on
Rockman's and another on Teal's and no knowin' how many in the bay!
Every constable on the Cape's here, damn them! And old Davies's been
'round all day and he ain't rigged up for any picnic!"

"If we don't take it off tonight Lav Green may find it--or that girl--"

At that someone laughed, horribly. "Huh--_him_! Why we could twist
every crooked bone in his body until he wouldn't know 'em. Him--ha,
that's a joke! Why, a look 'ud scare him to a pulp. The girl, too."

Sidney, reaching her hand out instinctively, caught Lavender's and held
it tight. She felt the writhing of his body.

A new voice broke in above them. "I got a better scheme. Listen.
We'll--" But the voices suddenly died to silence; the footsteps moved
away.

The four, huddled in the darkness of the cabin, drew long trembling
breaths.

"Lav, those diamonds are on this boat!"

"Sh--h. I know it. But we got to be careful. They haven't gone yet. We
got to wait. And we'll wait until we find 'em. Damn them _I'll_ show
them who's crooked!"

"Hush," implored Sidney. "Of course you will"

"Isn't it most morning? I--I wish I was home," quavered Pola; but no
one paid any heed to her.

With the howling of the wind, the slap-slap of the water, it was
difficult to make out whether the men had left the boat or not. Once
Lav crawled to the top of the companion ladder but a muttering like a
human voice drove him back. Queer sounds struck upon their sensitized
ears. And the boat seemed to lift to a new motion.

They waited for an interminable time. Then Mart spoke quickly.

"Lav, we're moving!"

Lav needed no warning. He, too, had missed the pull of the boat on the
anchor rope. He shot up the ladder.

"Oh, what's the matter?" cried Sidney and Pola, forgetting all caution.

Mart had no time to explain her fears. In an instant Lav was back,
fairly throwing himself into the cabin.

"We're drifting! They cut the anchor rope! We're drifting out! Fast!
Way out! To sea!"

That had been the "better scheme." To cut the _Arabella_ free from its
mooring and let the wind and tide carry it out into the bay. At first
Starrow had not favored the plan; he had declared that it was too much
risk, that the wind was shifting and freshening fast and that the old
tub might open a seam, but Joe Josephs had convinced him with: "the
_Arabella_ would be good for a week out in a nastier sea than this.
It's safer than riskin' runnin' afoul one of Phin Davies' men ashore.
Guthrie's _Sally_'ll stand this squall and pick up the _Arabella_ easy
and we can reckon sure on the course the old tub'll take, even 'lowin'
for the wind to shift."

As she comprehended what had happened Pola screamed. Mart and Sidney
dragged her with them up the ladder. Lav was at the side of the boat
tearing off his blouse.

"Oh, Lav, what'll we do! What are you going to do now?" cried Sidney.

"It's so black," wailed Pola. "I'm--sick!"

"I'm going to swim ashore. It's the only way. I don't know how long
this old tub'll stand a sea and the wind's rising. We got to get help."

"You shan't swim alone, Lavender Green. We'll _all_ swim. That's
nothing of a swim--"

"You can't! You forget--Pola."

Sidney wheeled in consternation. "Pola's complex!" The girl was
crouched, now, on the deck, an abject, wailing figure.

"You go with Lav, Mart," said Sidney in a quiet voice. "I'll stay with
Pola."

"What do you think I am? I guess I'll stay with her too!"

"But your grandmother--"

"Oh, gran'ma!" Mart's voice choked. "But she'd be the one to _tell_ me
to stay--"

"It's no use our all trying it," muttered Lav. "I'll get there or I
won't get anywhere."

"Maybe it's too far for you to swim!" Sidney was at Lavender's side,
her hands on his arm. The boy's form in its light underwear showed
pitifully crooked but Sidney saw him straight and she saw the gleam in
his eyes. Suddenly she remembered what Vick had said so lightly about
the Grail. Ah, she was seeing its gleam now, transcendently beautiful,
in Lav's eyes! She dropped her hold of his arm.

"You see, I've _got_ to try it, Sid." And she understood. He went on:
"I'll swim for the lighthouse. They can telephone from there to
Rockman's. You girls find a light and signal with it. Don't lose your
nerve, Sid." He poised for an instant on the rail then plunged into the
black water.

"Oh, _Lav_," cried Sidney. She leaned far over the side of the boat.
She could see nothing but a crest of foam. "Mart, he's--he's--drowned!"

Pola screamed again.




                               CHAPTER XX

                       "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG!"


In the sunny embrasure of Mrs. White's morning room Trude Romley sorted
over the mail that Pepper, the butler, had brought in. So gay and
colorful was the room itself with its cretonnes, its soft tinted walls,
its singing birds, in wicker cages, that it seemed a part of the
fragrant garden that crowded close to the French windows. A tiny
fountain splashed azure blue water over delicately sculptured nymphs; a
flowering vine trailed around the windows.

The mail arranged, Trude sat back in the cushions of a great wicker
chair and with a long breath of delight enjoyed the beauty around her.
Each day Edgeacres enraptured her anew and roused in her a wonder as to
why it should be her lot to be there. "It ought to be Vick or Issy,"
she would apologize to the nodding flowers or to Mitie, the yellow
warbler.

And as might be expected Trude had found innumerable ways of making
herself useful to Mrs. White as an expression of her gratitude. There
were telephone calls she could answer, letters she could write,
shopping she could do, ordering, she even conferred with old Pepper and
Jonathan, the gardener. She drove with Mrs. White in the afternoon and
served tea to the callers who flocked to the house from the nearby
summer hotels.

"I do not know how I ever got along without you, my dear," Mrs. White
had said more than once. "What do you do to make yourself so
invaluable? It seems as though just to look at you one leans on you!
Even Pepper is saying 'Miss Trude thinks this and Miss Trude thinks
that--'"

Her benevolent interest in her husband's wards, a certain pride in
saying to her friends: "My husband, you know, is looking after the
daughters of Joseph Romley, who was a college friend of his," had grown
into a real fondness for Trude. "I have never appreciated the dear girl
when she's been with us before," she declared to her husband. "I
suppose it was because we were in town, then, and I was too busy to get
acquainted with her. Why, she's really pretty. And she makes such a
slave of herself to her sisters! She hasn't any life of her own. I
don't believe they appreciate it, either. It's a shame she doesn't
marry some nice young man--" Mrs. White's kind always found virtue's
reward in the proverbial "nice young man."

Mr. White agreed with her on every point but this. "If she deserted
that household it would fall! She's the only one that isn't like her
father."

"Then she must find someone who'll take the family with her," Mrs.
White asserted determinedly. But having no godmother's fairy wand she
had not been able, during the summer weeks, to bring the prince to
Edgeacres; her husband's acquaintances were too bald and round to play
the part of princes.

Trude had not minded the dearth of young men. Since her unhappy
experience on a former visit she was glad of that dearth. The serenity
of the summer, the relaxation and rest from responsibilities had
brought a lovely freshness to her face, a brightness to her eyes that
was not all a reflection of the brightness about her. The sheer luxury
of loafing, of not having to think out petty problems or worry one
single minute was all her old-young heart now asked. Once in awhile, of
course, she fretted because Isolde was not enjoying Edgeacres with her,
or getting to know how really nice Aunt Edith White was. Where Vick and
Sidney were concerned she had no remorse for Vick was seeing new lands,
doubtless conquering them, and Sidney was happy at Cape Cod; but she
could not help thinking that Issy must be working too hard at the
Deerings--getting up early in the morning and typing all through the
hot day and doubtless fussing over the housework and the small babies
as well.

Trude thought of the mail. Again there had been no letter from either
Issy or Sidney! Sidney really _ought_ to write. Perhaps it _had_ not
been wise to let her go off alone with relatives of whom they knew
nothing!

Suddenly a postmark on one of the letters on the little table at her
elbow caught her eye. Provincetown. Trude caught it up apprehensively.
That letter might be from their Cousin Achsa! She turned it over and
over, wishing she might open it.

"Good morning, my dear! I get up with the birds myself and find that
you're up before me!"

Trude laughed, to cover her anxiety. "I told Jonathan I'd inspect his
new beds this morning."

"There, didn't I say you were supplanting me in Jonathan's esteem? But
he only wants you to admire them and smile at him. He knows you know
nothing about gardens, even though you are a very wise young woman! Ah,
the mail--is there anything there worth looking at before breakfast?"

"Two cards, three advertising envelopes and--and two personal letters."
Trude held out the two letters, her heart beating in her throat.

Mrs. White glanced at them indifferently. She turned one as though to
tear open the envelope, then stopped to play with Mitie. Next she gave
her attention to Pepper who appeared in the door to summon her to
breakfast. And all the time Trude's eyes were beseeching her to open
them--to open _one_ of them quickly.

Trude followed her into the breakfast room and sat down across from
her. After she had eaten her fruit Mrs. White took up the envelope that
was postmarked Provincetown and studied it while Trude waited.

"Why, that's from Laura Craig--a cousin of mine. I remember now she
said she was going to study in a summer school on Cape Cod. I hope the
girl's getting on. She's dependent upon her own labor." As she spoke
she spread out the sheet. A sketch dropped to the table.

Trude drew a long breath. She had not known how worried she was. She
wanted to laugh aloud now from sheer relief. Because she had to do
something she took up the sketch with a murmured: "May I?"

"Laura writes it's a little sketch she made in class. 'This will show
you I am improving. It's from life. It will give you an idea of the
delightful types we find around here, types that you will not find
anywhere else. These are two little vagabonds whom you see almost
anytime on the beach or around the wharves--as wild and free and
beautiful as the seagulls--'"

Mrs. White looked up from the letter to take the sketch and exclaimed
aloud at Trude's face. It had gone deathly white.

"My _dear_, what is it?"

For a moment Trude could not answer. She was staring at the sketch as
though she could not take her eyes from it.

"Read that again! These are types--you find these girls any time on the
wharves--wild--vagabonds! Oh, Aunt Edith that's--_that's_--_Sidney_!"

"Why, it _can't_ be, Trude. You said--"

Trude shook her head. "I can't help what I said. It's Sidney. I--know.
The likeness is true--there can't be anyone else who looks like Sidney!
But she's barefooted--and--and so--_slovenly_--and--_her hair_! She's
cut her beautiful hair!"

Mrs. White took the sketch forcibly from Trude. She frowned over it.
One of the girls certainly did look like Sidney as she remembered the
child from their one meeting.

"How do you explain it, Trude?"

Trude sighed heavily. "I can't explain it. There's something wrong
somewhere. And it's my fault, Aunt Edith. I--I consented--we all
consented to let Sidney go off down there just so that we could go
ahead with our own plans. But we thought--we felt _certain_ that these
cousins were very nice--I--I mean had a lovely home and were rich so
that Sidney might get something out of her visit that she couldn't get
at home. It sounds shameful to _say_ it."

"I understand, my dear. But what made you think so?"

"The--the letter this Cousin Achsa wrote. It _was_ a very nice letter!"

"Well, _I_ have always thought you could judge anyone's character and
background by a letter. There must be something wrong. This girl--"
pointing to the sketch, "is positively shocking! At least she would be
around here."

"I remember now something Sidney said--when she was begging us to let
her go away. 'I want to be different! I want to go somewhere where I
won't be Joseph Romley's daughter. I want adventure and to do exciting
things--' Those were her very words! I didn't take them seriously then,
but, oh, Aunt Edith, perhaps she meant them more than we guessed!" Poor
Trude rose quickly to her feet. "Aunt Edith, I simply _must_ go to
Provincetown at once. May I ask Pepper to find out about trains?
You'll--you'll understand, won't you? I can't be happy one minute until
I see the child. I feel that it's all my fault."

Mrs. White was all concern. She summoned Pepper and instructed him to
find out the first train; she sent her maid to Trude's room to pack her
clothes. And last she wrote a generous check.

"You may need it, my dear. It is nothing. Don't thank me. I wish I
could do more. Somehow your shoulders seem too young to carry so much
responsibility!"

So on the selfsame day that Sidney and the others set out upon their
adventure Trude was journeying to Cape Cod. She missed connections at
Boston and hired an automobile to take her to Provincetown, in her
heart thanking Mrs. White for the check that made this possible. Two
blow-outs delayed her journey so that it was midnight when she reached
her destination. She could scarcely hunt out the Greens and Sidney at
that hour. She took a room at the hotel for the night and sat for a
while at its window straining her eyes out into the darkness. The
howling of the wind intensified her apprehension; somewhere out in that
strange blackness that enwrapped her was her little sister. Perhaps
Sidney needed her that very moment!

Finally she crept into bed and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not
hear the running steps that passed under her window or the muffled
voices of excited men.




                              CHAPTER XXI

                         "WHAT THE NIGHT HELD"


"Oh--h, take me back to the cabin!" moaned Pola.

"I guess we might as well," muttered Mart. Their matches had been long
since exhausted; they had been of little avail for the one ship's light
on the boat was without oil.

One on each side of her, Mart and Sidney helped Pola down into the
cabin. The boat was rolling heavily now in the rough sea, each lift and
drop sending terror to the three young hearts. In the blackness of the
night the waves looked mountain high. Even Mart was glad to shut them
from view.

"If--if we're going to drown I'd rather drown in--a--room," gasped
Pola, clinging to Sidney and burying her face in Sidney's shoulder.

It seemed to the girls as though months had passed since Lav had
plunged to what they felt certain was his death. The _Arabella_ had
tossed about on the roughening water like some wild thing, her old
timbers creaking and groaning under their new living. Just at first
Sidney and Mart had been too concerned in quieting the panic-stricken
Pola to face their danger; not until Pola had exhausted herself did
they think of their possible fate.

Unless Lav succeeded in reaching the beach and giving an alarm, they
might toss about for days or be dashed to pieces on some reef. Or,
worse fate, Jed Starrow and his gang might find the boat and--

"Wh-at are you thinking about, Mart?" whispered Sidney after a long
time of silence, broken only by the howling of the wind and the
pounding of the water. "Let's talk--and then we can't hear--"

"Don't be afraid, Sidney," Mart spoke calmly. "You sort o' belong to
the Cape and we Cape folks don't think anything of drowning. We sort of
expect to, sometime--" But here her voice broke with a tremble. "I--I
was thinking of gran'ma. I wish I'd been better to her. I talk back to
her lots of times when I shouldn't."

"But you _are_ good to her, Mart. And--_I_ was thinking of Aunt Achsa.
I shouldn't have deceived her--about coming out here. I fooled myself
into thinking that even a lie didn't matter considering what we were
trying to do. But the honor of Cape Cod isn't worth anything happening
to Lav. And if anything does happen there won't be anyone to tell about
Jed Starrow, anyway! Oh, Mart, I can't bear to _think_ about Lav. Why
did we let him do it? Dear old Lav. I've been mean to him, too. He
adores poetry and I--I never even told him that my father was a poet
and that I know lots and lots of poems and--and--that I've written most
a book myself."

"Honest, Sid, was your father a poet? And you can write it yourself?
Gee," softly. "I wish I could do something like that. I'd rather be
like that than anything else. I just pretend that I hate school and
books and such things--it's because I had to stop going to school to
stay with gran'ma that I've put on that I didn't have any use for it.
Even when I was sort of laughing at you, Sid, down in my heart I was
feeling aw'fly proud that you'd want to fool 'round with anyone like
me--I'll _always_ be proud."

"Oh, Mart--" Sidney faltered. "I wish I could put into words what Mr.
Dugald taught me when I first came here. That it's the big inside
things that really count. He told me so's I'd see Aunt Achsa and Lav as
they really are. And, Mart, your giving up school to take care of your
grandmother is a big thing, a real thing! You don't want to forget it."

"Oh, I'm--I'm--sick!" broke in Pola.

"Sit up straight and talk and you won't think about it," commanded
Mart, so sternly that Pola straightened, her white face wan in the
darkness.

"I don't see how you _can_ talk when you're--may be--going--to die!"

"Well, talking helps you more than crying."

"But I--I don't _want_ to--die."

"Who does?" retorted Mart roughly. Nevertheless, touched by Pola's
helplessness, she found Pola's hand and held it close in hers. "But
let's face whatever happens with our heads up!"

"To the wind," breathed Sidney, shivering.

"I--I just can't be brave like you two. I--I'm an awful coward. I can't
help it. I've always been afraid to even try to swim. I'm afraid of
lots of things. Oh, I'm afraid to--to--"

Sidney caught Pola's other hand.

"Don't say it, Pola. Maybe someone will find us. And probably you can't
help feeling afraid."

Mart suddenly remembered the cookies she had brought. She found them
where she had hidden them at the back of one of the bunks.

"Here, eat a cookie and you'll forget things. I'm hungry, aren't you,
too?"

Pola ate with nervous greed. Sidney bit off a piece but found it dry in
her mouth. She was thinking of her sisters and the safety of the dear
old house; as vividly as though it hung in a picture before her eyes
she saw the little circle around the dining room table, the embroidered
square of Indian cloth, the green shaded lamp, Issy's books and Trude's
sewing, Vick's sketching things, the girls at their beloved tasks--and
her chair empty! Oh, what if she never sat again in that dear circle?
Her heart broke in an agony of longing for Trude.

A sudden thought roused Pola to a feeble show of spirit.

"If I had known how to swim we'd all be ashore now! And you two stayed
with me! I--I don't believe I'm worth that, girls." She spoke with
gloomy conviction.

But Mart answered with a promptness that settled that question forever.
"Forget it. Why, you don't think we could a' done anything else, do
you? And now I'm going up on deck and get some air. We must be most to
Halifax by this time."

"_Halifax!_" But this time Pola did not scream.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Lavender, after his first plunge, had struck out toward the lighthouse.
His Mr. Dugald had taught him the science of swimming and because it
was the one thing he could do easily and well, in spite of his
misshaped body, Lavender had taken pride in perfecting the practice.
His assurance helped him now; he had no fear, he knew how to save his
strength; he swam first with one stroke, then with another, always
keeping in sight the beacon of light.

But after a little it came to him that the yellow gleam did not seem
any closer; in fact, it grew fainter; he knew then, with a moment's
panic, that the tide and wind were too strong for him. He cursed his
frail strength, with a smarting in his eyes that did not come from the
salt water.

There was only one thing he could do. Turn his back on the friendly
light and strike out in the direction of the beach. It would be
further, but the cross currents of the tide would not impede his
progress so much.

For a long time he fought ahead stubbornly, changing his strokes, even
swimming on his back. But his breath came with increasing difficulty, a
sharp pain stabbed at his side. He labored on. The pain grew sharper
and caught at him like a horrible vise. Once he yielded to it and sank
down, down into the black water. But it passed and, as he rose, he
struck out again, blindly, now, for he had lost all sense of direction.

"Oh, God! Oh, God!" he shouted in his heart. His Aunt Achsa's God,
whose All-embracing Love he had questioned because that God had made
him crooked, must help him now! "I _got_ to get help!" God _must_ hear
him.

A great exhaustion seized him. He sank again with a quivering breath.
But now his feet touched sand. With new strength he plunged ahead.
Again he was in deep water but he swam with eager strokes. The dreadful
pain stabbed but he did not heed. Now he saw moving lights. He was near
the beach! With a heartbreaking effort he fought the strength of the
water, finally gaining the shallow depths. He heard voices nearby in
the darkness.

Knee-deep in the water he tried to shout but he had no strength. A
terrible faintness was creeping over him. His arms outstretched, he
stumbled forward toward the voices. Oh, he must _not_ yield to that
overpowering sleepiness until he had made them know!

"Help--help!" he gasped, reeling toward the shadowy forms.

"What the blazes--" A man ran forward. Two others came at his heels.

"Why, _it's Lav Green_!" one of them cried.

"The _Arabella_--adrift out there--Sidney's on it--oh--_help_! And then
Lavender slipped into the strong arms that reached out to catch him.

"Quick, the _Sally_! She's at Rockman's!" Captain Davies ran toward
Rockman's wharf. Before Jed Starrow's men, concealed behind the shed
could guess their intention, three men had jumped into the big motor
boat and had swung her free of the wharf.

"What the hell--" shouted an ugly voice after them, but the _Sally_
only chugged out into the darkness of the bay.

                  *       *       *       *       *

"Look, Sid--light! It's--it's--morning!" Mart's voice came in a thin
whisper. For a long time the girls had lain huddled against the
taff-rail of the boat, too weary and disheartened to even talk.

Sidney lifted her face to the tiny streak of light that gleamed palely
in the east.

Then she shook Pola ever so slightly. Poor Pola had fallen into a sleep
of exhaustion. She stirred now with a little cry. "What is it?"

"It's morning--daylight. See--there--"

"Oh--h!" Pola whimpered. "Is that all?" She clung to Sidney in fresh
terror. "If we're going to die--I'd rather not _see_--"

"Hark," cried Mart, suddenly leaning forward. "Don't you hear
something? Girls, that's a motor boat! I _know_! Quick. Let's signal!
Yell! Wave something! _Anything!_" She sprang to her feet, leaning her
body against the rail for support as the boat rolled in the heavy sea.
She cupped her hands to her lips and shouted lustily. "Come on, girls!"
she commanded.

"Maybe it's the pirates," wailed Pola.

"I don't care if it is! I don't care _what_ it is!" And Mart and Sidney
lifted their chorus.

Out of the mist that lay over the surging water a small, gray object
gradually shaped. The chug-chug of an engine now came distinctly to
their ears. After a little they could make out the forms of two men
standing. And then someone shouted faintly.

Pola, a solemn happiness transfiguring her face, clung to Sidney.

"Girls," she whispered, "We're going to be saved! And I'll never forget
this night--never. Or you two. Or what you've done! Or what you _are_.
And I'm never going to get over being ashamed of myself!"

Sidney had some solemn resolutions of her own shaping in her heart but
the moment gave her no time to pronounce them.

"Mart!" she cried. "It's _not_ Jed Starrow! It's--it's--Cap'n Phin
Davies! And that means that--_Lav_--_made_--_it_!" And happy tears ran
down her cheeks.

Under the skilled guidance of the man at its wheel the _Sally_ soon
came alongside of the _Arabella_. Cap'n Davies promptly boarded the
schooner and the next instant Sidney was in his arms.

"All I'll say is praise be to God!" the old mariner muttered. "And now
I cal'late you and your mates here are 'bout ready to abandon your
cruisin'--"

"Lav, is he--all right?" demanded Sidney, still clinging to Cap'n Phin.

"Well, he jest about made port and how he is now I can't say for I
didn't waste any time shippin' in the _Sally_. Lucky for us it was
lyin' there at Rockman's. Give us a hand, Saunders, while we load on
this cargo of distress!" A roughness in the old man's voice betrayed
that the big heart was not as light as he would have the girls think.
For hours they had searched the bay with only their knowledge of tides
and winds to guide them; more than once the others had been ready to
abandon the search as futile, but the Captain had held them stubbornly
to it.

Pola needed no urging but leaped into the _Sally_ and sank to its
bottom with a long gasp of relief. Sidney and Mart were about to follow
her example when a word from Cap'n Davies held Sidney.

"We'll let a government boat pick up the _Arabella_. We'll take no
chances tryin' to tow her in with the _Sally_." And then Sidney thought
of the treasure.

"But the diamonds!" she cried.

"_Diamonds_--" Cap'n Davies stared at her, his mouth open.

"Why, yes, they're on this boat. They _must_ be! We were in the forward
cabin watching and Jed Starrow came on board and they talked right
where we could hear. They were going to take them off and then they
decided it wasn't safe and they'd wait and they went away. And then
they must have cut the boat adrift. But we're _sure_ they're on this
boat."

"So that was it! Of all the low-down dastardly tricks! Well, never mind
your diamonds, now. We got to get back to shore and let a few folks
know--"

"But I won't _go_ until we've looked!" Sidney protested, almost in
tears. "Why, that was why we risked everything! And Lav wants to save
the name of the Cape--the--the way--you do! Oh, please look!"

The old Captain dropped his hold of the girl's arm. "Well, I'll be
ding-blasted!" he stormed. But he motioned to Saunders. "Climb aboard
and give us a hand. 'Taint likely they'd hide their stuff above deck.
You look round the stern and the girls and me'll give a hunt forward.
Of all the stubborn, crazy-headed female pieces you'll beat 'em all!"

While Saunders searched the stern of the schooner the Captain and
Sidney and Mart searched the fo'castle cabin. Sidney, tugging away the
heavy tarpaulins, disclosed a small wooden box.

"I'm _sure_ it wasn't there before--" she cried. "Why--why, I was
_sitting_ on it--"

Cap'n Davies lifted the box. "It's pretty big to be diamonds but it
looks suspicious like! And you're sure it wasn't there before? That it
ain't the property of that summer boarder of Miss Green's?"

Sidney's face was flaming with excitement. "Oh, I'm _sure_! The other
stuff was there but there wasn't any box under it. If I hadn't been so
excited listening I'd have realized I was sitting on something
different. Can't we look inside?"

"We won't take the time to look at anything now, mate. We'll get
ashore. I reckon by this time there are folks strainin' their eyes for
a sight o' you--"

He fairly pushed Sidney and Mart ahead of him and toward the _Sally_.
Saunders lifted the girls into the smaller boat, then took the box.

"To Rockman's. Quick as you can make it," snapped Cap'n Phin.




                              CHAPTER XXII

                        "YOU NEED A BIG BROTHER"


Aunt Achsa had not slept through the storm. Accustomed though she was
to the howl of the wind and the roar of the pounding surf, tonight it
filled her heart with dread. Lavender had not come home.

Twice during the night hours she crept to the door of his small room
and peered in, shielding her candle with a trembling hand. For a long
while she sat in the window straining her eyes into the darkness. The
cats came and rubbed her bare ankles and Nip meowed plaintively. She
picked him up and cuddled him to her.

Suddenly a moving object in the lane caught her attention. It separated
itself into the forms of men, men moving slowly as though they bore a
burden. They turned into the garden patch.

"Lavender!" Aunt Achsa cried, jumping up quickly, shaking. "Oh--my boy!"

But that was the only sound she made. She opened the door as though she
had been waiting for these men with their limp burden. She directed
them to carry the boy to his own room. She moved aside for Doctor
Blackwell who had come with the others, an old pair of flannel trousers
drawn over his night shirt. She felt Mr. Dugald put a restraining arm
over her shoulders and nodded as though to say: "I'm all right--just
look out for Lavender."

One of the men coming back from Lavender's room offered an explanation.
"Those young 'uns were on the _Arabella_ and it broke from its
moorin's. The boy swum ashore to give an alarm. Plucky, I say--don't
know how he did it."

"Those young ones--_who_?" cried Dugald Allan.

"Why, I cal'late that gal Sidney and I don't know who else--"

"Sidney went with Miss Vine!" protested Achsa.

But at that moment Miss Letty appeared in the door, as scantily clad as
the doctor had been. From her window which faced Doctor Blackwell's
house, she had heard the men summoning him. She had lost no time in
getting to Sunset Lane.

"Who went with me? Where? What's happened?"

Now Aunt Achsa let her whole weight drop against Mr. Dugald.

"Didn't Sidney go 'long to Truro with you?" she asked falteringly.

"I didn't go to Truro. Knew this storm was comin'. Where--"

"Oh--h!" Aunt Achsa moaned Mr. Dugald motioned to Miss Vine.

"Take care of things--here. I'm off--"

"Cap'n Davies and Jim Saunders and Pete Cady's gone out in the
_Sally_," cried one of the men who had brought Lavender home. But
Dugald Allan had plunged into the darkness without hearing him. The men
rushed after him.

Miss Vine pushed Aunt Achsa into a chair.

"You're not going to cross any bridges 'til you come to them, Achsy
Green. Doctor Blackwell brought Lav into this world and he isn't going
to let him quit it without putting up a pretty good fight. Jeremiah
Berry's in with him and he's as good as two women. You wrap that shawl
'round you 'til I can light a lamp and get you some clothes. You're
shivering like it was December. I'll put the kettle over, too--"

Oddly huge and gaunt in the shadowy room, Miss Vine moved and talked
briskly to keep up Aunt Achsa's nerve and her own against the black
fear that held them.

Mr. Dugald ran with all speed to Rockman's, the other men after him. As
their hurrying steps echoed through the silent street heads popped out
of windows, doors opened. Then more men, half-dressed and dressing as
they ran, rushed after them toward Rockman's. They knew, with that
intuition inbred in seacoast communities, that something was wrong. Old
Simon Tibbetts, too crippled to join the gathering crowds, rang up
Commander Nelson at the Life Guard station on the backside.

When, in the gray light of the dawn, the _Sally_ chugged up to
Rockman's wharf with its precious cargo Sidney and Mart found a weary,
anxious crowd of men and women gathered there. And as Cap'n Davies and
Saunders lifted the girls ashore a lusty shout of rejoicing went
up--eager hands reached out to touch the rescued as though to make
certain they were safe and sound.

Sidney had eyes only for Mr. Dugald who seemed to tower above them all,
his eyes dark lined with the strain of anxious watching, his mouth set
sternly. And strangely enough, at first, Dugald Allan saw only Sidney,
yet it was not strange, for the white-faced, shrinking, abject girl,
barefooted and disheveled, who was hiding behind Mart and Sidney, had
little semblance to his gay young cousin.

Mr. Dugald opened his arms and Sidney ran into them like a little
child, and clung to him. He felt her slender body shaking.

"I--I can't help crying. I wanted Trude--so much!"

"_I_ was thinking of Trude, too. Thank God!" But Sidney was too moved
at the moment to wonder at his words or that the cheek he bent to hers
was wet with tears.

Then Dugald Allan spied Pola shivering forlornly behind Mart and
Sidney. "_You_--" he cried, pushing Sidney aside. "I thought you were
at Chatham!" His mouth tightened in a straight, stern line. "What is
all this? But wait, I must get Sidney back to Aunt Achsa. You shall
explain things as we go along."

He hurried the girls through the crowd which parted, smilingly, to let
them pass. On Commercial Street he hailed old Hiram Moss, who with an
eye to business in the midst of tragedy, had harnessed his horses to
his ancient cab and had them ready for an emergency.

After he had bundled his charges in Dugald Allan turned to Sidney.

"Now give me some inkling of what started this crazy adventure. Thank
God it has not ended as it might have ended though Lavender is still
fighting for his life! Answer me, Sidney."

But before Sidney could begin her tale she had to know what had
happened to Lavender.

"Fighting for his life? But--he _got here_, didn't he?"

"Yes--he reached shore, by an effort so great as to completely
prostrate him. They took him home. I left Doctor Blackwell with him."
Dugald Allan spoke shortly and his crisp sentences had the effect of
stunning poor Sidney. She shivered and leaned close to him. Her voice,
when she spoke, came with a childish tremor.

"Oh, Lavender _can't_ die. If he does--it will be all my fault! I
started everything. I--I told him about the diamonds--"

"_Diamonds_--"

"Yes--the diamonds. That's why we went out on the _Arabella_--" In
broken sentences Sidney told the story; she wanted Mr. Dugald to know
that they had cared most for the honor of Cape Cod!

"And we found them--a big box--at least we _think_ it's the diamonds!
Cap'n Phin Davies says it's _something_ queer!"

Dugald Allan's exclamation had much the character of an explosion.
"_Diamonds!_ What nonsense! You've risked bereaving three homes for
what is probably nothing more than a case of rum. If ever a girl needed
a big brother to keep her in check, you do!"




                             CHAPTER XXIII

                                DIAMONDS


During the early morning hours of that summer day that Sidney was
destined never to forget, the girl passed through every emotion that a
fifteen-year-old heart can suffer.

First, to her dismay no one at the cottage had seemed to rejoice, as
the crowd on the wharf had rejoiced, at her rescue. When Mr. Dugald led
her in Miss Vine was making coffee at the stove and all she said was:
"Well, you're all right! Better go to bed now as quick as you can and
keep out from under foot." Then Mr. Dugald had taken Pola back to the
hotel. Aunt Achsa was with Doctor Blackwell and Lavender. Sidney had
tried to summon sufficient courage to ask Miss Vine's forbidding back
for some word of Lavender, but the words failed in her throat. Cold,
forlorn, hungry, she crept to her room, threw off her clothes and
huddled down into the bed-clothes.

They would all blame her--Miss Vine and Mr. Dugald, Aunt Achsa, Doctor
Blackwell. Probably now Pola would have more complexes to suffer;
Pola's mother would be angry and they could never be friends again. And
Mart--Aunt Achsa had said old Mrs. Calkins could be terrible when she
was "worked up!" Even if Lavender lived Aunt Achsa would never forgive
her and if he _didn't_ live--Mr. Dugald had said he was fighting. Those
boards creaking faintly meant that Doctor Blackwell and Aunt Achsa were
helping Lavender fight. Dear old Lav with his fine dreams!

The desperate longing for Trude shook her. She sobbed into her pillow.
And yet the longing brought only added remorse. Trude would scold her.
Trude would take her home. That meant stinging humiliation. How Vick
would laugh at her when everything was over. A case of rum! Sidney
writhed under the soft covers.

Somewhere boards creaked again--Lavender's fight. Sidney pictured the
doctor and Aunt Achsa bending over him. And outside everything was so
quiet and gray. That was the way death probably came, Sidney thought.

On the morrow they would send her home--in disgrace. She might not even
be allowed to see Lavender, or Mart, or Pola--or Mr. Dugald. Someone
would telegraph to Trude and Trude would meet her back at Middletown.
She would live a long, sad life of penance behind the crumbing stone
wall she had so detested.

But the thought of the wall and the shelter of the old house brought
such a surcease of torment that the girl had fallen into a heavy sleep.
When she wakened it was to a consciousness of bright sunshine--and
someone looking at her, someone different, and someone smiling.

She sat bolt upright and rubbed her eyes. Then she flung out her arms
with a low glad cry that was half sob.

"Trude--_Oh, Trude!_"

Trude held her long and close, stroking the shorn head, murmuring
soothing words. Finally Sidney wriggled from her.

"Have you come to take me home? But how could they send for you so
quickly? How long have I been asleep? Oh, Lavender--is he--is he--"

"One question at a time, Sid. Lavender is better. He'll be all right,
the doctor says, after a good rest. Yes, I think I'd better take you
home. No, they did not send for me." Briefly, as though now that
earlier concern was of little consequence, Trude told of the sketch
that had so bewildered and alarmed her.

"I couldn't understand," she finished.

"I couldn't either, at first. You see the boarder--the man who has
boarded here so long and is dreadfully fond of Aunt Achsa wrote that
letter to me and wrote it _nice_ so as to please her, and, at
first--but, oh, Trude, Aunt Achsa _is_ wonderful and so is Lavender,
really, truly, even though they are poor--"

"Hush, Sidney." Trude's eyes darkened with feeling. "You do not have to
tell me that. I have learned _that_ in only a few hours. Oh, I have
seen straight into souls--those kind men on the street, as concerned as
though you belonged to them, and here--Aunt Achsa with her great
courage and her love. And that Miss Vine--they're so _simple_--and so
fine--it made me ashamed of my silly standards, my fears."

"And Lavender is best of all--"

Now quick tears shone like stars in Trude Romley's eyes. She reached
out her hands and caught Sidney's.

"Oh, Lavender--when I think what _he_ did I--I--" She could not finish,
but Sidney understood the gratitude that was in her heart. She leaned
her face against Trude's shoulder with a long sigh.

"I'm cured of lots of things, Trude. I wanted something different but I
didn't want all _this_ to happen! You see I _made_ Lavender and Mart
believe it was diamonds Jed Starrow was hiding when it was probably
only a case of rum--"

Suddenly Trude straightened. "I almost forgot. A boy came here and said
a Captain Davies wanted you to come down to Rockman's wharf as soon as
you could. That was two hours ago. You see it is nearly noon now. You'd
better dress quickly and I'll go out and fix you some breakfast."

Sidney obeyed reluctantly. In her mingled remorse and humiliation she
shrank from facing the world. She was not even curious as to why Cap'n
Phin wanted to see her.

By the time she had dressed Trude had a poached egg and a glass of milk
ready for her. Miss Letty was with Lavender and Aunt Achsa had gone to
bed.

Sidney begged so hard that Trude accompany her to Rockman's that Trude
put on her hat and went with her. And poor Sidney needed Trude's
support for Sunset Lane was thronged with curious men and women; as
they walked along the waterfront fishermen and tourists and boys and
girls stared and nodded and Sidney's sensitive soul mistook their
obvious interest for ridicule. She walked with lowered eyes lest she
encounter Mrs. Calkins or Pola's mother.

Cap'n Phin was waiting outside the door of the shed on Rockman's wharf.
He nodded to Sidney and Trude and beckoned them inside. At any other
time, in any other state of mind, Sidney would have thrilled to his air
of mystery.

Four men sat in wooden chairs tipped at various angles and on the floor
before them stood the wooden box from the _Arabella_. The men nodded
and smiled at Sidney and brought their chairs to the floor as though to
attention.

Cap'n Davies solemnly motioned Sidney and Trude to two vacant chairs
and then cleared his throat.

"I cal'late, Miss Sidney, that you've a sort o' interest in this cargo
we brought in on the _Sally_ so we stood by 'til you hove in sight.
Now, mebbe it's what we think it is and mebbe it isn't. Si, give a hand
and unload."

One of the men knelt down by the box and proceeded to open it with a
hammer and a chisel. The others leaned forward with interest. Sidney
held her breath.

The man Si, having torn off the cover, put his hands into the paper
wrappings and drew forth yards and yards of magnificently embroidered
fabric that made Sidney and Trude gasp in admiration and astonishment.
But the others were plainly disappointed. A low murmur of disgust went
around the room.

"Give it here," one of the men asked. And as Si handed over the
contraband it slipped from his hands. He caught at it quickly to save
it from the dirt of the floor. Suddenly something small and gleaming
fell from the folds and rolled upon the floor.

"I'll be ding-blasted!" roared Cap'n Phin. Someone swore softly. The
man Si dropped to his knees. Sidney blinked.

Cap'n Phin seized the silk and unwound it. And among the countless
folds he found a cunningly contrived pocket filled with hundreds of the
priceless gems.

For a moment no one spoke. The daring of it all, the wealth of the
glistening jewels, held each man in the room. Cap'n Phin folded the
gorgeous silk and passed it to one of the men.

"I guess this belongs to you in trust for Uncle Sam," he said gravely.
"Our business is with one Jed Starrow." He turned to Sidney who was
trembling violently. "Now, matie, will you tell these men how you
happened to ship aboard the _Arabella_ last night?"

Sidney's story tumbled out in quick, eager words and in careful detail.
The men listened closely. The one who had taken the diamonds "in trust
for Uncle Sam" made notes in a small black book. When she had finished
Cap'n Phin nodded, his face serious.

"Reckon we'd better not question Lav Green just yet, he's pullin' out
of the fog. We got enough as 'tis to hold Jed Starrow. If I ain't much
mistaken he'll turn yellow when we face him and squeal on the folks
higher up what's paid him to hurt the name of the Cape. That'll do for
now, little gal."

“By the way, I think your old admirer, Severance, must be about to put
himself in silken fetters, as Boswell would say. I caught him buying an
unusually fine sapphire in Tiffany’s yesterday. Said it was for his
sister. H’m—h’m.”

“Ah! I wonder who it can be?”

“Don’t know. Hasn’t looked at a woman since you left. But I have a
strong suspicion that it is some one here in Newport.”

“Here! I wonder if it can be Edith?”

“Miss Decker? Sure enough. Never seemed to pay her much attention,
though. She’s not my style; too much like sixteen dozen other New York
girls.”

He buttoned up his coat, braced himself against it, and gave his
moustache a frantic twist.

“Mrs.—Jessica!” he ejaculated desperately, “you are engaged to
me—won’t you—won’t you—”

She drew herself up and glanced down upon him from her higher chair with
a look of sad disapproval.

“I did not think it of you, Teddy,” she said. “And it is one of the
things of which I have never approved.”

“But why not?” asked Teddy, feebly.

“I thought you knew me better than to ask such a question.”

“I know you are an angel—oh, hang it! You do make me feel as if you
_were_ my mother.”

“Now, don’t be unreasonable, or I shall believe that you are a tyrant.”

“A tyrant? I? Horri—no, I wish I was. What a model of propriety you
are! I never should have thought it—I mean—darling! you were always
such a coquette, you know. Not that I ever thought so. You know I never
did—oh, hang it all—but if I let you have your own way in this
unreasonable—I mean this perfectly natural whim—you might at least
promise to marry me in a month. And, indeed, I think that if you are an
angel, I am a saint.”

“Well, on one condition.”

“Any! Any!”

“It must be an absolute secret until the wedding is over. I hate
congratulations, and if we are going to have a sensation we might as
well have a good concentrated one.”

“I agree with you, and I’ll never find fault with you again. You—”

Miss Decker almost ran into the room.

“Jessica!” she cried. “Oh, dear Mr. Dedham, how are you? Jessica, mother
has one of her terrible attacks, and I must ask you to stay with her
while I go for the doctor myself. I cannot trust servants.”

“Let me go! let me go!” cried Teddy. “I’ll bring him back in a quarter
of an hour. Who shall—”

“Coleman. He lives—”

“I know. Au revoir!” And the girls were alone.

“There!” exclaimed Miss Decker, “we have got rid of him. Now for the
others. You slip upstairs, and I’ll dispose of them one by one. You are
taken suddenly ill. Teddy will not be back for an hour. Dr. Coleman has
moved.”

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




                                   V


A lamp burned in the sea-room, and the two girls were sitting in their
evening gowns before a bright log fire. Miss Decker was in white this
time—an elaborate French concoction of embroidered muslin which made
her look like an expensive fashion plate. Jessica wore a low-cut black
crêpe, above which she rose like carved ivory and brass. The snakes
to-night were held in place by diamond hair-pins that glittered like
baleful eyes. In her lap sparkled four rings.

“What shall I do?” she exclaimed. “If my life depended upon it, I could
not remember who gave me which.”

“Let us think. What sort of a stone would a politician be most likely to
choose?”

Mrs. Pendleton laughed. “A good idea. If couleur de rose be synonymous
with conceit, then I think the ruby must have come from Mr. Trent.”

“I am sure of it. And as your author is always in the dumps, I am
certain he takes naturally to the sapphire.”

“But the emerald—”

“Is emblematic of your deluded Teddy. The solitaire therefore falls
naturally to Mr. Severance. Well, now that you have got through the
first interviews in safety, what are you going to do next?”

“Edith, I do not know. They are all so dreadfully in earnest that I
believe I shall finally take to my heels in down-right terror. But no, I
won’t. I’ll come out of it with the upper hand and save my reputation as
an actress. I will keep it up for two or three days more, but after that
it will be impossible. They are bound to meet here sooner or later.
Thank Heaven, we are rid of them for to-night, at least!”

The manservant threw back the portière.

“Mr. Trent!”

“Heavens!” cried Edith, under her breath; “I forgot to give orders that
we were not receiv—how do you do, Mr. Trent?”

“And which is his ring?” Jessica made a frenzied dab at the jewels in
her lap. She slipped the sapphire on her finger and hid the others under
a cushion. Trent, who had been detained a moment by Miss Decker,
advanced to her.

“It is very soon to come again,” he said, “but I simply had to call and
inquire if you felt better. I am delighted to see that you apparently
do.”

“I am better, thank you.” Her voice was weak. “It was good of you to
come again.”

“Whose ring is that?”

“Why—a—to—sure—”

“Jessica!” cried Miss Decker, “have you gone off with my ring again? You
are so absent-minded! I hunted for that ring high and low!”

“You should not be so good-natured, and my memory would turn over a new
leaf. Here, take it.” She tossed the ring to Miss Decker and raised her
eyes guiltily to Trent’s. “Shall I go up and get the other?”

“No. But I thought you promised never to take it off.”

“I forgot that water ruins stones.”

“Well, it is a consolation to know that water does not ruin a certain
plain gold circlet.”

“Mr. Boswell!”

Jessica gasped and looked at the flames. A crisis had come. Would she be
clever enough? Then the situation stimulated her. She held out her hand
to Boswell.

“You have come to see me?” she cried delightedly. “Mr. Trent has just
been telling us that you came down with him, and I hoped you would call
soon.”

“Yes, to be sure—to be sure. You might have known I would call soon.”
He bowed stiffly to Trent, and, seating himself close beside Jessica,
murmured in her ear: “Cannot you get rid of that fellow? How did he find
you out so soon?”

“Why, he came to see Edith, of course. Do you not remember how devoted
he always was to her?”

“I do not—”

“May I ask what you are whispering about, Mr. Boswell?” demanded Trent,
breaking from Miss Decker. “Is he confiding to you the astounding
success of his last novel, Mrs. Pendleton? Or was it a history of the
United States? I really forget.”

“Not the last, certainly. I leave it to you to make history—an abridged
edition. My ambition is a more humble one.”

“Oh, you will both need biographers,” said Mrs. Pendleton, who was
beginning to enjoy herself. “I will give you an idea. Join the
Theosophists. Arrange for reincarnation. Come back in the next
generation and write your own biographies. Then your friends and
families cannot complain you have not had justice done you.”

“Ha! ha!” said Trent.

“You are as cruel as ever,” said Boswell, with a sigh. “Where is my
ring?” he whispered.

“It was so large that I could not keep it on. I must have a guard made.”

“Dear little fingers—”

“You may never have been taught when you were a small boy, Mr. Boswell,”
interrupted Trent, “that it is rude to whisper in company. Therefore, to
save your manners in Mrs. Pendleton’s eyes, I will do you the kindness
to prevent further lapse.” And he seated himself on the other side of
Jessica and glared defiantly at Boswell.

“Mr. Severance and Mr. Dedham!”

Severance entered hurriedly. “I am so glad to hear—ah, Boswell! Trent!”

“How odd that you should all find your way here the very first evening
of your arrival!” And Jessica held out her hand with a placid smile.
Miss Decker was more nervous, but five seasons were behind her. “Ah!”
continued Mrs. Pendleton, “and Mr. Dedham, too! This is a most charming
reunion!”

“Charming beyond expression!” said Severance.

Trent and Boswell being obliged to rise when Miss Decker went forward to
meet the newcomers, Severance took the former’s chair, Dedham that of
the future statesman.

“You are better?” whispered Severance. “I have been anxious.”

“Oh, I have been worried to death!” murmured Teddy in her other ear.
“That wretched doctor had not only moved but gone out of town; and when
I came back at last and found—”

“Mr. Severance,” exclaimed Trent, “you have my chair.”

“Is this your chair? You have good taste. A remarkably comfortable
chair.”

“You would oblige me—”

“By keeping it? Certainly. You were ever generous, but that I believe is
a characteristic of genius.”

“Mrs. Pendleton,” said Boswell, plaintively, “as Mr. Dedham has taken my
chair, I will take this stool at your feet.”

Trent was obliged to lean his elbow on the mantelpiece, for want of a
better view of Mrs. Pendleton, and Miss Decker sat on the other side of
Dedham.

“How are you, Teddy?” she said.

“Young and happy. You must let me congratulate you.”

“For what?”

“I see you wear Severance’s ring. Ah, Sev, did the ring suit your
sister?”

“To a T. Said it was her favourite stone.” He stopped abruptly. “What
the deuce—” below his breath; and Jessica whispered hurriedly:—

“Edith was looking at it when Mr. Trent came in, and forgot to return
it.”

“Ah! Boswell, I am sure you are sitting on Mrs. Pendleton’s foot. By the
way, how is your aunt?”

“Dead—better.”

“I wonder you could tear yourself away so soon,” said Trent, viciously.
“You’d better be careful. She might make a new will.”

“Don’t worry. I spent the happiest fifteen minutes of my life with her
this afternoon. She promised me all.” He turned to Severance. “You have
been breaking hearts on the beach, I suppose.”

“Which is better, at all events, than breaking one’s head against a
stone wall.”

“Politics brought you here, I suppose, Mr. Trent,” interrupted Miss
Decker. “I hear you made a stirring speech the other night.”

“I did. It was on the question of Radicalism in the Press _versus_ Civil
Service Reform. Something must be done to revolutionise this hotbed of
iniquity, American politics. Such principles need courage, but when the
hour comes the man must not be wanting—”

“That was all in the paper next morning,” drawled Boswell. “Mrs.
Pendleton, did you receive the copy of my new book I sent a fortnight
ago? Unlike many of my others, I had no difficulty in disposing of it.
It was lighter, brighter, less philosophy, less—brains. The critics
understood it, therefore they were kind. They even said—”

“Don’t quote the critics, for Heaven’s sake,” said Severance. “It is
enough to have read them.”

“Oh, Mrs. Pendleton,” exclaimed Teddy, “if you could have been at the
yacht race! Such excitement, such—”

“To change the subject,” said Trent, with determination in his eye,
“Mrs. Pendleton, did you receive all the marked papers I sent you
containing my speeches, especially the one on Jesuitism in Politics?”

“Don’t bother Mrs. Pendleton with politics!” exclaimed Boswell, whose
own egotism was kicking against its bars. “You did not think my book too
long, did you? One purblind critic said—”

“Good night, Mrs. Pendleton,” said Severance, rising abruptly. “Good
evening,” and he bowed to Miss Decker and to the men. Jessica rose
suddenly and went with him to the door.

“I am going to walk on the cliffs—‘Forty Steps’—at eleven to-morrow,”
she said, as she gave him her hand. “This may be unconventional, but _I_
choose to do it.”

He bowed over her hand. “Mrs. Pendleton will only have set one more
fashion,” he said. “I shall be there.”

As he left the room by one door, Jessica crossed the room and opened
another.

“Good night,” she said to the astounded company, and withdrew.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




                                   VI


Severance sauntered up and down the “Forty Steps,” the repose of his
bearing belying the agitation within.

“Why on earth doesn’t she come?” he thought uneasily. “Can she be ill
again? She is ten minutes behind time now. What did it mean—all those
fellows there last night? She looked like an amused spectator at a play,
and Miss Decker was nervous, actually nervous. Damn it! Here they all
come. What do they mean by keeping under my heels like this?”

Dedham, Trent, and Boswell strolled up from various directions, and,
although each had expectation in his eye, none looked overjoyed to see
the other men. There were four cold nods, a dead pause, and then Teddy
gave a little cough.

“Beautiful after—I mean morning.”

“It is indeed,” said Severance. “I wonder you are not taking your
salt-water constitutional.”

“I always take a walk in the morning;” and Teddy glanced nervously over
his shoulder.

Boswell and Trent, each with a little missive burning his pocket, turned
red, fidgeted, glared at the ocean, and made no remark. Severance darted
a glance at each of the three in succession, and then looked at the
ground with a contemplative stare. At this moment Mrs. Pendleton
appeared.

Three of the men advanced to meet her with an awkward attempt at
surprise, but she waved them back.

“I have something to say to you,” she said.

The cold languor of her face had given place to an expression of haughty
triumph. A gleam of conscious power lay deep in her scornful eyes. The
final act in the drama had come, and the dénouement should be worthy of
her talents. She looked like a judge who had smiled encouragement to a
guilty defendant only to confer the sentence of capital punishment at
last.

“Gentlemen,” she said, and even her voice was judicatorial, “I have
asked you all to meet me here this morning”—(three angry starts, but
she went on unmoved)—“because I came to the conclusion last night that
it is quite time this farce should end. I am somewhat bored myself, and
I have no doubt you are so, as well. Your joke was a clever one, worthy
of the idle days of autumn. When I received your four proposals by the
same mail, I appreciated your wit—I will say more, your genius—and
felt glad to do anything I could to contribute to your amusement,
especially as all the world is away and I knew how dull you must be. So
I accepted each of you, as you know, had four charming interviews and
one memorable one of a more composite nature; and now that we have all
agreed that the spicy and original little drama has run its length I
take pleasure in restoring your rings.”

She took from her handkerchief a beautiful little casket of blue onyx,
upon which reposed the Pendleton crest in diamonds, touched a spring,
and revealed four rings sparkling about as many velvet cushions. The
four men stood speechless; not one dared protest his sincerity and see
ridicule in the eyes of his neighbour.

Mrs. Pendleton dropped her judicial air, and taking the ruby between her
fingers, smiled like a teacher bestowing a prize.

“Mr. Boswell,” she said, “I believe this belongs to you;” and she handed
the ring to the stupefied author. He put it in his pocket with never a
word.

She raised the emerald. “Mr. Trent, this is yours?—or is it the
sapphire?”

[Illustration: “‘WELL, WHY DON’T YOU GO?’”]

“The emerald,” snorted Trent.

She dropped it in his nerveless palm with a gracious bend of the head,
and turned to Teddy.

“You gave me a solitaire, I remember,” she said sweetly. “A most
appropriate gift, for it is the ideal life.”

Teddy looked as if about to burst into tears, gave her one beseeching
glance, then took his ring and strode feebly over the cliffs. Trent and
Boswell hesitated a moment, then hurried after.

Jessica held the casket to Severance, with a little outward sweep of her
wrist. He took it and, folding his arms, looked at her steadily. A tide
of angry colour rose to her hair, then she turned her back upon him and
looking out over the water tapped her foot on the rocks.

“Why do you not go?” she asked. “I hate you more than any one on earth.”

“No. You love me.”

“I hate you! You are a brute! The coolest, the rudest, the most
exasperating man on—on earth.”

“That is the reason you love me. My dear Mrs. Pendleton,” he continued,
taking the ring from the casket and laying the latter on a rock, “a
woman of brains and headstrong will—but unegoistic—likes a brutal and
masterful man. An egoistical woman, whether she be fool or brilliant,
likes a slave. The reason is that egoism, not being a feminine quality
primarily, but borrowed from man, places its fair possessor outside of
her sex’s limitations and supplies her with the satisfying simulacrum of
those stronger characteristics which she would otherwise look for in
man. You are not an egoist.”

He took her hand and removed her glove in spite of her resistance.

“Don’t struggle. You would only look ridiculous if any one should pass.
Besides, it is useless. I am so much stronger. I do not know or care
what really possessed you to indulge in such a freak as to engage
yourself to four men at once,” he continued, slipping the ring on her
finger. “You had your joke, and I hope you enjoyed it. The dénouement
was highly dramatic. As I said, I desire no explanation, for I am never
concerned with anything but results. And now—you are going to marry
me.”

“I am not!” sobbed Jessica.

“You are.” He glanced about. No one was in sight. He put his arm about
her shoulders, forcing her own to her sides, then bent back her head and
kissed her on the mouth.

“Checkmate!” he said.

[Illustration]




    GERTRUDE ATHERTON was born in San Francisco and received her
    early education in California and Kentucky, but her best
    training was in her grandfather’s library, a collection, it is
    said, of English masterpieces only, containing no American
    fiction whatever. Yet Mrs. Atherton is as thorough an American
    as a niece, in the third generation, of Benjamin Franklin should
    be.

    It seems to have been the English critics who first recognised
    her originality, power, intensity, vividness, and vitality, but
    from her first book, “What Dreams May Come,” published in 1888,
    her writings have revealed the unusual combination of brains and
    feeling. This gives her work both keen, clever strength and
    brilliancy of colour, developed through years of hard work, many
    of which were spent abroad, and reaching their best
    manifestation in her latest fiction, the one quality in “The
    Conqueror” and the other in “The Splendid Idle Forties.” Both of
    these books go to prove the foresight of Mr. Harold Frederic,
    who, shortly before his death, declared her to be “the only
    woman in contemporary literature who knew how to write a novel,”
    and that her future work would be her best. Another eminent
    English critic, Dr. Robertson Nicholl, spoke for some of the
    best students of modern literature in saying:—

        “Gertrude Atherton is the ablest woman writer of fiction
        now living.”

    In her most notable novel, “The Conqueror,” Gertrude Atherton
    has chosen in “the true and romantic story of Alexander
    Hamilton” a subject which would have attracted few woman
    writers, and has handled those parts of it with which many men
    have busied their brains in such a way that _The New York Times
    Saturday Review_ remarked that it

        “Holds more romance than nine-tenths of the imaginative
        fiction of the day and more veracity than ninety-nine
        hundredths of the history. She is master of her
        material.”

    “Certainly this country has produced no writer who approaches
    Mrs. Atherton,” says one critic, while another adds that to have
    so “re-created a great man as Mrs. Atherton has done in this
    novel is to have written one’s own title to greatness.” All
    alike regard it as “a thing apart” (_The Critic_); “a remarkable
    production, full of force, vigour, brains, and insight” (_Boston
    Herald_); “an entrancing book . . . brilliantly written”
    (_Glasgow Herald_). “It is hardly too much to say that she has
    invented a new kind of historical novel” is the comment of the
    _Athenæum_ (London), with the addition that “the experiment is a
    remarkable success.”

    Equally strong in fascination and vigour is “The Splendid Idle
    Forties,” but as far removed from “The Conqueror” as were the
    Eastern and Western seaboards of this country in the times of
    which the stories treat, “the long, drowsy, shimmering days
    before the Gringo came,” to the California of which she writes.
    “Pointed, spirited, and Spanish” are these “rich and impressive”
    stories; “such as could hardly have been told in any other
    country since the Bagdad of the ‘Thousand and One Nights.’ The
    book is full of weird fascination, and will add to Mrs.
    Atherton’s deservedly high reputation,” says _The Athenæum_.

        “In this book even more than in her others is shown that
        imaginative brilliancy so striking as to set one
        wondering what is the secret of the effect. . . . For
        the rest, her charm lies in temperament, magnetic,
        restless, assertive, vivid.”—_Washington Times._

    In close relation to “The Conqueror” stands Mrs. Atherton’s
    still more recent selection of “A Few of Hamilton’s Letters,”
    chosen from the great bulk of his state papers and other letters
    in such a way as to bring to the average reader the means of
    estimating the personality of this remarkable man from his own
    words. Incidentally it is the surest refutation of some of the
    hasty criticisms upon the picture of him in “The Conqueror,”
    where, as Mr. Le Gallienne justly observes, “it was reserved for
    Mrs. Atherton to make him really alive to the present
    generation.”




                      The Macmillan Little Novels

                          BY FAVOURITE AUTHORS

                  Handsomely Bound in Decorated Cloth
                       16mo        50 cents each

                 *        *        *        *        *

                            PHILOSOPHY FOUR
                     A STORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
                             By Owen Wister
                    Author of “The Virginian,” etc.

                             MAN OVERBOARD
                         By F. Marion Crawford
                 Author of “Cecilia,” “Marietta,” etc.

                         MR. KEEGAN’S ELOPEMENT
                          By Winston Churchill
             Author of “The Crisis,” “Richard Carvel,” etc.

                     MRS. PENDLETON’S FOUR-IN-HAND
                          By Gertrude Atherton
                Author of “The Conqueror,” “The Splendid
                          Idle Forties,” etc.

                 *        *        *        *        *

                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                       66 Fifth Avenue, New York

                 *        *        *        *        *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in the original
publication. Punctuation errors have been corrected without note.




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RUBÁIYÁT OF A MOTOR CAR


[Illustration]


RUBÁIYÁT OF A MOTOR CAR

by

CAROLYN WELLS

Author of
Idle Idyls, Folly For The Wise,
A Nonsense Anthology, &c.


[Illustration]


With illustrations by
Frederick Strothmann







New York
Dodd, Mead Company
1906

Copyright, 1906, By The Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright, 1906, By Dodd, Mead and Company
Published, March, 1906




                          ¶To the crank that
                          makes the machine go


                       Rubáiyát of a Motor Car

        Wake! For the “Honk,” that scatters into flight
        The Hens before it in a Flapping Fright,
          Drives straight up to your Door, and bids you Come
        Out for a Morning Hour of Sheer Delight!

        Come, fill the Tank, adjust the Valve and Spring,
        Your Automobile Garments 'round you Fling;
          The Bird Of Time wants but to get away;
        (I think that name’s a rather Clever Thing!)

        And as the Corkscrew drawing out the Cork,
        I crank my Car and try to make it work.
          You know how little while we have to Ride;
        And once departed, may go to New York.

        Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
        Whether the Car shall jerk or sweetly run,
          The Wine of Life is in a Motor Trip,
        (Though all the Parts keep breaking One by One!)

[Illustration]




        Why, if the Soul can know this Glorious Game,
        All other Stunts seem dry and dull and tame;
          This is the ultimate, triumphant Joy,
        Automobile Elation is its Name!

        Would you your last remaining Thousands spend
        About the Secret? Quick about it, Friend!
          A Hair perhaps divides This Make from That—
        And on that Hair, prithee, may Life depend!

        Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
        The thoughtful Soul to Catalogues retires;
          He scorns his Last Year’s Runabout, and to
        The Newest, Biggest Touring Car aspires!

        Each Year a Hundred Models brings, you say;
        Yes, but who buys the Car of Yesterday?
          And every Mail brings in New Catalogues
        That make a Last Year’s Model fade away!

[Illustration]




        Waste not your Hour nor in the Vain pursuit
        Of Demonstrators who will loud Dispute;
          “This one is Best, because it’s painted Red!”
        “That One, because it has a Louder Toot!”

        ’Tis only a Beginner, young and green,
        Who Thinks he wants an Odorless Machine;
          What Fragrance is to Rose or Violet,
        So to the Motor-Car is Gasolene.

        Some advocate Gear-Driven Cars, and Some
        Sigh for a Jockey-pulley yet to come;
          Oh, crank your Car, and let the old thing Go!
        Nor heed the Brake upon your Sprocket Drum.

        ’Tis but a Toy on which one spends a Pile,
        And Brags about it for a Little While;
          Ambition rises—and the Foolish Man
        Sighs, and prepares to buy Another Style.

[Illustration]




        They say The Lion and The Lizard keep
        The Record for Hill-climbing, rough and steep;
          I do not know those Makes. I’ll hunt them up.
        I’d like to Buy one, if they’re not too Cheap.

        You know, my Friends, with what a Brave Carouse
        I put a Second Mortgage on my House
          So I could buy a Great Big Touring-Car,
        And run down Chickens, Dogs, and even Cows!

        For it my Future Income did I owe,
        And with mine own Hand wrought to make it go;
          And this was all the Wisdom that I reap’d—
        “We cost like Thunder and like Lightning go!”

        And those “Accessories” Advertisements
        That offer you Supplies at slight Expense;
          You read them over, and they always make
        Your own Belongings look like Thirty Cents.

        Look to the Blowing Horn before us—“Lo,”
        “Gaily,” it says, “Into the World I blow!”
          Behold its lovely Bulb, and Sweet-toned Reed,—
        (The most Expensive in the Garden Show!)

        I had to have a Snakeskin Auto-Coat,
        A Leather Foot-Muff, lined with Thibet Goat;
          A Steering-Apron, and a Sleeping-Bag;
        For these things Help a Motorer to Mote.

[Illustration]




        And then my Luncheon-Kit, and Hamper, swell,
        Robbed me of Many a Hard-Earned Dollar! Well,
          I often wonder what the Dealers buy
        One-half so Easy as the Folks they Sell.

        Myself when Young, did eagerly frequent
        Garage and Club, and heard Great Argument
          About it and about,—yet evermore
        Came out more Addled than when in I went.

        Indeed, with my big Car I’ve run so long
        It seems to me there’s Always something Wrong;
          Faulty Ignition, or a Blown Out Shoe,
        Or maybe the Compression is too Strong.

        Then to the Laughing Face that lurks behind
        The Veil, I lifted up mine Eyes to find
          Two pouting Lips, demurely murmuring,
        “I don’t see why you Ever bought This Kind!”

[Illustration]




        Indeed, I’ve learned to treat it as a Joke
        When Nuts work loose, or Carburetors choke;
          And then, and then—the Spring, and then the Belt,
        A Punctured Tire, or Change-Speed Lever broke!

        A Look of Anguish underneath the Car,
        Another Start,—a Squeak,—a Grunt,—a Jar!
          The Aspiration Pipe is working loose!
        The Vapor can’t get out! And there you are!

        For I remember Stopping by the Way
        To tinker up the old Machine one day,
          And with a Reckless and Unbridled Tongue,
        I muttered,—Well, I Wouldn’t like to say!

        Why, even Saints and Sages would have cuss’d
        If, speeding through the World, their Tires had Bust!
          Like Foolish People now, whose words of Scorn
        Are utter’d while their Mouths are Stopt with Dust.

[Illustration]




        When suddenly, an Angel Shape was seen
        Approaching in an Up-to-date Machine,
          Bearing a Vessel which he offered me,
        And bid me smell of it. ’Twas Gasolene!

        The Stuff that can with Logic Absolute
        The Two-and-Seventy Jarring Parts confute;
          The Sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
        A Drop of Oil will into Power transmute.

[Illustration]




        Whose Secret presence through the Motor’s Veins
        Running Quicksilver-like defies our pains;
          Cutting up tricks from here to Jericho,—
        We try to start the Car,—but it Remains!

        Strange, is it not, that of the Myriads who
        Have Empty Tanks and know not what to do,
          Not one will Tell of it when he Returns!
        As for Ourselves,—why, we Deny it too.

        What! Out of Oily Nothing to invoke
        A Powerful Something, born of Fire and Smoke!
          An Unremitting Pleasure, if it goes;
        An Everlasting Worriment, if broke.

        We are no other than a Moving Row
        Of Automobile Cranks that come and go.
          And what with Goggles and Tale-windowed Veils,
        In Motoring Get-up, we’re a Holy Show!

[Illustration]




        But helpless Pieces of the Game bestowed
        Upon the Checker-board of Hill and Road;
          Hither and Thither moved and sped and stopped,
        And One by One back to the Garage towed.

        The Car no Question makes of Ayes or Noes,
        But Here or There as strikes its Fancy goes.
          But the Bystander, offering Advice,
        He knows about it all—He knows—HE KNOWS!

[Illustration]




        And if in Vain down on the Stubborn Floor
        Of Earth you lie. And weary, cramped and sore,
          You gaze to-day; you may be jolly sure
        To-morrow ’twill be worse than ’twas before!

        Yesterday’s Troubles made you Mad for fair.
        To-morrow’s Trials too, will make you Swear.
          Crank! For you know not What’s the hitch nor Why!
        Crank! For you know not When you go, nor Where!

        Each Morn a Thousand Troubles cause Delay.
        Yes: but you left Some unfixed Yesterday;
          And this first Impulse that should bring the Spark—
        Confound this old Igniter, Anyway!

        You Thaw your Freezeless Circulation first;
        Then mend your Puncture Proof Tire where it Burst.
          Helpless you Skid upon your Anti-Skids,
        But Starting a Self-Starter is the Worst!

        Perhaps you get out your Repairing-Kit,
        And try to Regulate the Thing a bit;
          You test the Coil, adjust the Shifting-Gear,—
        And then it Goes? Not so you’d Notice it!

        And that Inverted Man, who seems to lie
        Upon the Ground, and Squints with Practis’d Eye.
          Lift not your Hands to him for Help. For he
        As impotently works as you or I.

[Illustration]




        Ah, Love, could You and I with him conspire
        To Fix this Sorry Scheme of Things entire,
          Would we not take it all apart, and then
        Remodel with no danger of Back-Fire?

        Ah, make the most of Time we yet may spend
        Before we too, into the Dust descend;
          Dust unto Dust. Under the Car to lie,
        Sans Coat, sans Breath, sans Temper, and—sans Friend!

        And that Reviving Herb, whose Tender Green
        Upon the Julep Cup is sometimes seen,
          Ah, interview it lightly, for you know
        You’ll need your Wits to manage your Machine.

        Ah, my Beloved, fill the Lamps that shed
        A steady Searchlight on our Path ahead;
          To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be
        Myself with Yesterday’s Seven Thousand Dead.

[Illustration]




        Why, if your Car can fling the Dust aside,
        And flying, through the Air of Heaven ride,
          Were’t not a Shame, were’t not a Shame, I say,
        Within Speed Limit, tamely to abide?

        What! Without asking, stop our Speed immense?
        And, without asking, Jailward hurried hence!
          Oh, many a Cop of this Forbidding Mien,
        Must rue the Memory of his Insolence!

[Illustration]




        And fear not lest a Smashup closing My
        Account and Yours, Machines no more shall fly;
          The Eternal Motorist has ever bought
        Millions of Bubbles like ours, and will buy.

        I sometimes think that every Shining Star
        Is but the Tail Lamp of a Motor Car;
          Which leap’d from Earth in its mad Ecstasy,
        And into Space went Speeding Fast and Far.

[Illustration]




        And this I know. Though in a Magazine
        Perfectly-running Motor Cars I’ve seen,
          It’s quite a Different Proposition when
        They’re on the Road, and filled With Gasolene!

        The Moving Motor speeds, and having Sped,
        Moves on. Nor all the Cries and Shrieks of Dread
          Shall lure it back to settle Damage Claims;
        Not even if the Victims are Half Dead!

        And when at Last you’ve mastered Belts and Bolts,
        When with no fear of Side-Slips, Jars or Jolts,
          Your Sixty H. P. Racer licks up Miles
        At Lightning Speed,—turn on a few more Volts!

        Then in your Glorious Success exult!
        When your Car plunges like a Catapult,
          Sit tight! Hold hard! Pass Everything in Sight!
        And you will be Surprised at the Result!

[Illustration]




                 *        *        *        *        *




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THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD


[Illustration: A TYPICAL GORGE IN THE SARHAD.]


THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD

Being the Account of a Campaign
of Arms and Bluff Against the
Brigands of the Persian-Baluchi
Border during the Great War

by

BRIGADIER-GENERAL R. E. H. DYER, C.B.

With Numerous Photographs and Two Maps







London
H. F. & G. Witherby
326 High Holborn, W.C.
1921




PREFACE


With the greatest diffidence I have at last made up my mind to write
the story of my small campaign with the Sarhad Raiders in 1916.

This campaign sinks into utter insignificance when compared with the
great deeds done in other theatres of war by men who said nothing
about them. But, insignificant as it was, it forms part of the mosaic
of the Great War, and for this reason may be of some general interest.

I take this opportunity of paying a tribute to all the officers who
took part in this little campaign. Their untiring devotion to duty,
and their efforts to do their utmost under conditions that were often
more than trying, accounts for its success.

I would like, in particular, to mention Major Landon of the 35th
Scinde Horse, whose great knowledge of the people and their country
was invaluable; Major Sanders of the 36th Sikhs; Colonel Claridge of
the 28th Light Cavalry; Captain Brownlow and Captain Hirst, both of
the 28th Light Cavalry; Major Lang; Captain Moore-Lane; Lieutenant
Bream of the Hazara Pioneers, and Captain English, R.A.

In addition I would mention how much, not only I, but the old country
owes to Khan Bahadur, the Sarhad-dar, and to Idu, non-commissioned
officer of the Chagai Levies.

The photographs are from snapshots taken by various officers during
the campaign.

  R.E.H.D.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I

  ORDERS FOR THE WEST
                                                             PAGE
  I receive my orders--German agents and India--Their
  routes--A deal in chauffeurs--Concerning an appetite
  and sausages--Nushliki--The last of civilisation--Further
  information--Sand-holes and digging--Petrol
  in the desert                                                15


  CHAPTER II

  THE ROAD TO ROBAT

  Mushki-chah--The native contractor--An evening
  rencontre--Idu of the Chagai Levies--The native idea of an
  airship--Idu the invaluable--Robat                           30


  CHAPTER III

  A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

  An "intelligent" officer--Matters political--Three tribes
  and a fourth--Their women and inter-tribal laws--Sarhad
  conditions--A summons to the Chiefs--A bid
  for rank--Telegraph wires and Sheitan--Two first-class
  liars--A strategic scheme--An ungazetted
  General--Lost kit--Swallows and flies--Forces available--
  Communications freed--The Kacha levy and a shock--Mirjawa    37


  CHAPTER IV

  BLUFF AND ARMS

  Ladis and its fort--A force without arms--First sight of
  the enemy--Shah Sawar and more bluff--Battle--Bluff
  succeeds--Casualties--Bad news from the North--Idu's
  proposition--Jiand's stragglers--Jiand's white flag          55


  CHAPTER V

  KHWASH AND MORE BLUFF

  Jiand's surrender--A political lecture--Jiand's
  oath--Bluff for Khwash--The army moves forward--Khwash
  and its fort--Mahommed-Hassan comes in--Beetles as
  scavengers--Halil Khan comes in--Rifle prices, a
  comparison--Idu's warning--News of Izzat--Order of
  march--Bluff for Bampur--The meteor hole                     69


  CHAPTER VI

  A FULL BAG OF PRISONERS

  The march to Kacha--The food supply--Flowers in the
  Wilderness--Galugan--Repeated strategy--Juma Khan comes
  in--The bag is full--The throne of the dancing
  maidens--Landon declines--Idu's doubts--Suspicions
  aroused--Halil Khan closes up--Kacha, oaths, and
  thumb-marks--The Chiefs depart--Bad news                     87


  CHAPTER VII

  THE RACE FOR KHWASH

  Plans and routes--Car versus legs--An equestrian
  interlude--The trap in the gorge--More digging--Rendezvous--
  Mrs Idu and gastronomy--A reinforcement--A message to
  Landon--Izzat's men--Idu's romance--A "British
  Bulldog"--The car abandoned                                 103


  CHAPTER VIII

  KHWASH AND THE SECOND SURRENDER

  Doubts dispelled--Organisation for defence--Idu's
  "Exiat"--And its result--Jiand arrives--Idu's second
  visit--The Sarhad-dar arrives--Landon at last--Jiand's
  visit of ceremony--The Gul-Bibi--Shah Sawar's
  treachery--We call on the "Rose Lady"--A carpet and the
  Sarhad-dar's advice--Another Durbar--Returned
  loot--Temporary peace                                       122


  CHAPTER IX

  TREACHERY AND ITS SEQUEL

  Further reinforcements--Entrenchments and gardens--
  Government inquiries--Food supplies--An offer to
  Jiand--Murad and straw--Shah Sawar again--Sentence--Idu's
  suggestion--Re-enter the Rose Lady--News of Jiand's
  intentions--A vital moment--A round-up--The Sarhad-dar's
  advice--A Bhusa hunt--Distrustful wives                     143


  CHAPTER X

  FAILURE AND FRESH PLANS

  Slave buying--A diet discovery--Poetic justice--Disposition
  of prisoners--Incredible news--The Sawar's story--Disposal
  of forces--The march to Kamalabad--Jiand gains his
  freedom--Retreat to Khwash                                  165


  CHAPTER XI

  SUCCESS IN MINIATURE

  The night attack--The Hazaras arrive--Jiand retires--We
  march on the Sar-i-drokan valley--Cavalry strategy--
  "Gushti's" decision and opinion--"The Hole of
  Judgment"--Attack and retirement--A lost and regained
  water-supply--The Sarhadis as humorists--The mud
  fort--Halil Khan's arrival--The fight at dawn--Exit
  Halil Khan--A prophet--The Hazaras' request                 181


  CHAPTER XII

  VICTORY AND PEACE

  News of the herds--Towards Dast-Kird--Water!--Mutton for
  all--Dast-Kird--A stampede--Back to Khwash--On the track
  of the Gamshadzais--Twice a prophet--The Sarhad-dar's
  roost--Before Jalk--Rejected terms--More strategy and a
  bloodless victory--Remain only terms and sick leave         201


  INDEX                                                       221




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                             PAGE
  A TYPICAL GORGE IN THE SARHAD                     _Frontispiece_

  IN DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN NASARATABAD AND ROBAT     _Facing_   25

  "A GOOD LIAR," LANDON'S ORDERLY AND CHIEF SPY         "      49

  QUESTIONING A SARHADI PRISONER                        "      59

  JIAND'S MEN COMING IN TO PARLEY                       "      71

  KHWASH FORT                                           "      75

  SURRENDERED RAIDERS, (CENTRE) JIAND,
  (RIGHT) SHAH SAWAR, (LEFT) HALIL KHAN                 "      89

  CAMEL CORPS SAWARS AT THE TERMINATION OF AN
  EXPEDITION                                            "      97

  THE DURBAR AT KHWASH                                  "     141

  RAIDER CHIEFS AT THE DURBAR AT KHWASH                 "     141

  RAIDED SLAVES ON THE WAY TO THEIR HOMES               "     167

  A PERSIAN GIRL CAPTURED BY JUMA KHAN                  "     167

  CAPTURED RAIDERS ON THE WAY TO KACHA                  "     173

  ON THE MARCH TOWARDS GUSHT, AND THE MORPEISH HILLS    "     185

  HAZARAS ON A PICKET POST BELOW WHICH HALIL KHAN
  WAS KILLED                                            "     197

  WATER! ON THE MARCH TO THE SAR-I-DROKAN               "     203

  HAZARA PIONEERS WIDENING A PASSAGE FOR LOADED CAMELS  "     215

  CHAHGIRD FORT IN JALK                                 "     217




MAPS

                                                              PAGE
  SKETCH MAP OF THE PERSIAN-BALUCHI-AFGHAN FRONTIERS  _Facing_  15

  SKETCH MAP OF THE FIGHT IN THE MORPEISH HILLS           "    181


[Illustration: _Sketch Map of the Persian-Baluchi-Afghan frontiers_]




THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD




CHAPTER I

ORDERS FOR THE WEST

  I receive my orders--German agents and India--Their
  routes--A deal in chauffeurs--Concerning an appetite and
  sausages--Nushliki--The last of civilisation--Further
  information--Sand-holes and digging--Petrol in the desert.


Towards the end of February, 1916, General Kirkpatrick, Chief of
Staff at Delhi, sent for me and gave me orders to take charge of the
military operations in South-East Persia.

Although Persia, as a country, was neutral during the War, there is
a certain district in the South-East, abutting on to the frontiers
of Afghanistan and of Baluchistan, and known as the Sarhad, which is
occupied by a number of nomad tribes who claim absolute independence.
At this time these tribes were causing considerable embarrassment and
difficulty to the Indian Government.

The Germans and their agents, who were past masters in the art of
propaganda, were still endeavouring, as they had done for years
before the outbreak of hostilities, to work upon the discontented
portion of the Indian population in the hope of rousing them into
open rebellion. They believed this to be quite possible, in spite of
the magnificent way in which India had offered her resources of men
and money to the British Raj, and hoped thereby to handicap us still
further in our great struggle in the West.

They were pouring their agents, with their lying propaganda, into
India via Persia and Afghanistan. Afghanistan, like Persia, was
nominally neutral, but she was breaking her neutrality by many open
acts of aggression, and was offering every facility in her power
to the German agents in their passage through her territories, and
thence into the Punjab.

To reach Afghanistan, however, the German agents had to pass through
some part of Persia. The Persian Government placed no restrictions on
the movements of either British or Germans, of which fact the latter
took full advantage.

A glance at the map will show that apparently the easiest route for
them to take across Persia was in the North, in the Russian sphere of
influence, and to approach Afghanistan through Korasan; or, failing
this, by a route rather farther South, across the Lut Desert, in the
direction of Birjand. As a matter of fact they had tried both these
routes, but without much success, owing to the inhospitable nature of
the country through which they had to pass and also to the opposition
they met with from the Hazara tribes round Herat, who, belonging
as they do to the Shiah section of the Mahommedan religion, are at
daggers drawn with the Afghans, who belong to the Sunni section.

Therefore the Germans had to try yet another road, and succeeded
farther South where they had failed in the North. By taking the
longer route through Kerman and Narmashir in the South and South-East
of Persia, they found easy ingress into Afghanistan.

To effect this, however, they had to make friends with the nomad
and war-like tribes of the Sarhad. These tribes were traditionally
friendly to the British, but the Germans had bribed them heavily
and had moreover assured them that Germany had turned Islam and
that the Kaiser William himself was a convert to their religion. As
the Sarhad tribes were always out for a good thing for themselves,
and as they believed the lie about the German conversion, they had
allowed themselves to be tricked into helping the Germans. This
they were doing not only by permitting them to pass through their
territory, but also by harassing the lines of communication between
the inadequately small British frontier posts.

The story of Germany having turned Mahommedan, farcical as it was,
was nevertheless a potential source of grave danger for us in India.
It must be remembered that Germany's ally, Turkey, was Mahommedan,
and that in helping us against Germany, the Mahommedans of India were
already being called upon, indirectly, to fight against their own
co-religionists. When, in addition, India was assured that powerful
Germany was winning, so her agents avowed, in every theatre of war,
it was inevitable that in time her loyalty to us must suffer.

It was vital to stop this lying but insidious propaganda, and the
first step was to prevent German agents from entering India at all.
To do this the nomad tribes of the Sarhad must be brought back into
line with their old policy of friendship with Britain. Hence my
orders from General Kirkpatrick.

He instructed me to proceed without a moment's unnecessary delay to
Quetta, where I was to receive more detailed instructions.

On leaving him I hurried, with car and native chauffeur, to the
railway station, and asked for a truck on which to place the car
for entrainment to Nushki. The station-master assured me I was
asking for an impossibility. A great Maharajah, then travelling, had
commandeered every available truck for his suite, luggage and cars.
I told him that the Government business on which I had been sent was
all important, and, by a little persuasion, soon had myself on the
way to Pindi and the car on the way to Nushki.

Arrived at Pindi I found I had exactly one hour left in which to
catch the train for Quetta. There was no time to pack, sort out kit,
or decide what should, or should not, be taken on a campaign which
might last only a few weeks or many months, and which might assume
a political aspect sooner than expected. My servant, Allah-dad, was
therefore directed to take everything for sorting out when time could
be spared, and I rushed off to try and "do a deal" with General Sir
Gerald Kitson, before starting.

I realised that a motor-car might play an important part in this
prospective campaign, as it would be necessary to travel for long
distances in a land of no railways and no regular roads, the best
road to be hoped for probably being a sandy track used by camel
caravans. I had already had some experience of difficult motoring
with an inefficient chauffeur, so naturally wanted to secure the best
man that could be got.

I must here explain that I possessed an English chauffeur, Allan
by name, and that General Kitson employed his brother in the same
capacity. Now, without any disparagement of _my_ Allan, I knew his
brother to be a more practical and experienced man. General Kitson
generously gave his consent to an exchange of chauffeurs.

I may as well say, at once, that it was a lucky day for me that saw
Allan of the 9th Middlesex Regiment enter my service, for, during
the months to come, he was as cheery and full of resource as he was
ready for any event, however untoward. His appetite stood forth as
the only thing that ever caused me uneasiness, and I must admit that
I have never met a man with one of such colossal proportion. As an
instance--on one occasion, when camped out in the desert, between
Nushki and Robat, and supplies were none too plentiful, we cooked
twelve sausages for breakfast.

I had one, and then was persuaded by Allan to attempt a second. I
only succeeded in disposing of half of it. I then got up and left
Allan to have his own breakfast. Allah-dad, being a Mahommedan, of
course refused to touch sausage.

At lunch-time Allah-dad asked what I would have to eat, and got the
answer, "Oh, some of the cold sausages left from breakfast."

Allah-dad replied, "But there are no sausages, Sahib. Allan has eaten
them all."

I expostulated, maintaining that it was impossible. No normal man
could have eaten ten and a half large sausages. But Allah-dad was
not to be shaken. It may be well imagined that the feeding of my
chauffeur during the months to come loomed up as one of my minor
anxieties.

From Pindi I went to Quetta by train, my car, with the native
chauffeur having gone direct to the then rail-head at Nushki, in the
North of Indo-Baluchistan.

At Quetta I laid in a store of petrol, spare tyres, a few personal
necessities, reported to General Grover for orders and information,
and then proceeded to Nushki; which place was reached, and the car
picked up, on, if I remember rightly, the 25th of February.

This day in Nushki was to prove the last in a civilised town for
many months to come. The look of the country lying before us so
intimidated my native chauffeur that he came to me, a short time
before we were due to start, with a countenance torn with grief and,
with lamentations and protestations of sorrow, told me that both his
father and mother were ill, and that it was vital for him to return
and succour them. As I had been in two minds as to the advisability
of taking the rascal with me, this sign of the white feather at the
very outset at once decided the point, and I gave him to understand
that he could go and bury as many of his relations as he pleased.
With a countenance swiftly transformed to cheerfulness he left me.

Just before starting a wire was handed in from a high political
official at Quetta informing me that the Baluch Raiders had already
cut our lines of communication, were right across my path, and he
advised, if not ordered, me not to proceed.

However, as explicit military instructions were to endeavour to reach
Robat (near the Koh-i-Maliksia), a hill at which the Baluch, Afghan
and Persian frontiers meet, as well as that of the district known as
the Sarhad, with the least possible delay, and as I knew the Raiders
were across my path even before I left Quetta, I saw no reason for
altering previously made plans or for delaying my departure.

Accordingly I started on the journey to Robat early on the morning of
the 27th. I reckoned it would take at least five days to reach that
town, as the route it would be necessary to follow would be fully
three hundred and seventy-five miles. I already knew that it would
be essential to make many long détours round freshly formed sand
dunes and other obstacles, for it must be remembered that there was
no proper road but only a rough camel-track continually blown over
and obliterated by sand, along which supplies were taken from India
to Robat, and the small garrison posts which we had established at
various points Northward.

The mention of small garrison posts may lead the reader to suppose
that this area of wild activity was fairly well policed, but, as a
fact, one battalion of Indian infantry, a regiment of Indian cavalry
and, I believe, four mountain guns, constituted the entire force
of regulars holding a front of close upon three hundred miles. It
was small wonder, then, that the Sarhad tribes, commonly known as
Raiders, from their raiding proclivities, who knew every inch of the
country, could climb like cats, and could do long marches on short
rations, had succeeded in cutting our lines of communication, and in
carrying off our supplies.

I could, therefore, look for no further help for the time in the
matter of supplies and so took with me all that I thought would be
necessary for our three hundred and seventy-five mile trek across the
sandy wastes lying between Nushki and Robat.

Petrol was, at the moment, the most important of our needs; we had,
therefore, to carry with us all we should require, making allowance
at the same time for mishaps. Moreover, we had to take enough food
and water to last Allan, Allah-dad and myself for five or six days.

As regards personal luggage we travelled absolutely light, leaving
all kit to follow at a slower pace on camels, together with my horse,
Galahad. I had some compunction in leaving the latter behind, but my
orders were concise and urgent--to reach Robat, endeavour to get into
touch with all our scattered posts, and effect a combination against
the Raiders at the earliest possible moment.

A start was made very early in the morning, but the first day's
journey proved disappointing. Instead of doing the ninety miles
planned, we only accomplished thirty. The track was even worse than I
had expected, for we constantly ran into sand-hills, and had to dig
the car out. I have never done so much digging in my life as I did on
that journey to Robat. Sand-hills were, however, only a portion of
our afflictions, for, in addition, there were many water pools and
small shallow lakes--due to recent rain--which had to be taken at a
rush, or somehow circumvented.

So serious, at last, did our rate of progress become that, as we
approached what seemed to be the hundredth of these wide, shallow
pools, I lost patience and ordered Allan to drive straight through.

He attempted to carry out the order, but about half-way we sank up
to the axle and stuck. No power on earth would induce the car to
budge another inch, and, though we all three got out into the water,
and lugged, pushed and dragged at the wretched car, no impression
could be made upon her.

So we remained till, at last, about two a.m., I caught sight of a
light on a small hill not very far away in the west, and, on going
over to it, found a sort of recluse, or holy man, quietly cooking his
food. After the usual courtesies I asked him to come and help me to
pull my car out. He replied that he was an old man and could not do
much by himself, but that a caravan of nomads, who had arrived the
evening before, were encamped close by. So off I went again, flushed
my "quarry", and, with the help of large bribes, persuaded all the
able-bodied men to come back to the car. Fortunately we carried a
good strong rope as part of our kit, so soon had the car out and
running again.

Allan was never again ordered to drive through water on that route.

[Illustration: IN DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN NASARATABAD AND ROBAT.]

On the second day our troubles recommenced, for we had barely done
a dozen miles than we stuck in another sand-hill, and the laborious
digging-out process had to be done all over again. Fortunately, the
party who had got the car out of the lake the night before were close
behind, and for an obvious reason. They had been given so many rupees
for their timely help that, knowing the difficulties lying ahead,
they had followed in the hope of further largesse. They got it.

Once safely out again I made a tour of inspection round the car, but
only to find more trouble.

"Hullo, what on earth is this, Allan? She's leaking!"

Allan smiled a superior smile. "I don't think so, sir. My cars don't
leak."

But a moment later his superiority turned to consternation, and he
was burying his head in the bowels of the car.

After a moment's inspection he showed a face of such utter dismay
that it would have been comical had not the situation been so serious.

"Great Scott, sir! I must have left the petrol tap turned on, and the
tank is nearly empty."

Here, I'm afraid, my language was violent, and it was some minutes
before Allan was able to ascertain exactly how much petrol we had
left. His calculations established the fact that we had lost some
fourteen gallons. This meant that we should have to walk the greater
part of the last two hundred miles of our journey. A pleasant
prospect in that forbidding country. But orders were to go on, and go
on we did.

That day we made good time, and before evening had done the ninety
miles set as a day's march. But, as we had lost so much ground the
previous day, I determined to go on as long as Allan could stick at
the driving wheel, and we went on--to a post called Yadgar.

I should explain that in this barren, townless, roadless district
there are occasional small rest-houses, very modest types of Dâk
bungalows, established by the Indian Government for the benefit of
travellers, or soldiers on their way to frontier duty. They are quite
bare except for a camp bed or two, a tub, a table, a few chairs and a
wash-hand basin, with a _chokidar_, or keeper, in charge.

Such a rest-house we found at Yadgar, and being not only very tired
and dusty, but filthily dirty, as the result of our struggles with
the car, we pulled up to try and get a superficial wash.

I jumped out and tried the door. It was locked, and I banged loudly
without getting any answer. It would not do to lose an unnecessary
minute, for the many miles we should have to walk later on loomed
unpleasantly ahead, but I knew there were pretty certain to be water
and washing-basin behind that door, and did not intend to leave them
unused if I could help it, _chokidar_ or no _chokidar_. So, I took a
butting run with my shoulder, the door gave, and I set out in search
of the water tub.

An open door on my right showed me a small room, absolutely empty,
except for a row of tins against the wall. Knowing that petrol was
carried in such tin drums I went and examined them. The next moment
Allan heard a shout that brought him hastily inside, wondering
whether I had gone mad, had been bitten by a wild beast, or was
being murdered.

"Look!" I cried, as he came running up to me. "Look at those tins and
tell me what's inside!"

Allan seized hold of one of the drums, read what was written on it,
gave it a shake, and we could both hear the blessed sound of lapping
inside.

"It's petrol, sir," he whispered in an awed voice.

Petrol in the desert--petrol where one would as soon have expected to
find a Bond Street jeweller!

At first we could neither of us believe it. Personally I imagined we
had both got temporary jim-jams, but Allan, with his usual stolid,
common sense, opened one of the drums, tested the contents, and
pronounced it to be first-class petrol. There were seven drums, each
containing four gallons.

"This means we'll motor, not walk into Robat after all, sir," said
Allan, with a grin and sigh of relief. The thought of those miles of
desert--nearly two hundred of them--which confronted us after the
mishap had been haunting us both like a nightmare.

At this moment the _chokidar_ returned, in great trepidation, fearing
a dressing-down for being absent from duty. But I was far too elated
at the turn of events to want to swear at anyone.

I asked him where the petrol had come from, and whose it was. He
shook his head, and said he had no idea. It had always been there. It
belonged to no one, and no one had put it there, so far as he knew.
He had never seen a car there before; in fact, he had never seen a
car anywhere before, and could not understand how it was that men
could travel on a thing which was not alive, which was not like any
horse or camel he had ever seen.

This was all very good hearing, so I proceeded to tell him that the
petrol belonged to me, and, as he quite cheerfully acquiesced, I gave
him a receipt which he could show to any Government official in case
of needed absolution in the future. As we now had means to finish our
journey by car, I decided to spend the night at the rest-house.

After a simple camp meal Allan, worn out with the strenuous work of
the past two days and night, was quickly snoring in the deep sleep of
exhaustion, so I went for a stroll.

As I paced up and down I tried to draw up some preliminary plan
for the coming campaign. But such occupation was somewhat futile,
as, until I could reach Robat, I had no knowledge at all as to the
strength and composition of the force that would be at my disposal.
But upon one thing I made up my mind--even at that early stage--I
would do my utmost to show these Raiders, who were doing us so much
harm, that they could not do this with impunity. The lesson once
driven home, an endeavour should be made to become friendly with
them, to win them back to our side, and, so to speak, appoint them as
doorkeepers of the Baluchistan frontier; but doorkeepers with their
rifles pointed at our enemies instead of at ourselves.

In the midst of these meditations I found myself stumbling with
fatigue, so, with a last look at the beauty of the night, I turned
indoors, and in a few minutes was sound asleep, and making up for the
"whiteness" of the night before.




CHAPTER II

THE ROAD TO ROBAT

  Mushki-chah--The native contractor--An evening rencontre--Idu
  of the Chagai Levies--The native idea of an airship--Idu the
  invaluable--Robat.


On the third day we made good progress, fate being kind in helping us
to avoid the sandy pitfalls which had hitherto been our undoing, and,
by nightfall, we found ourselves approaching the post of Mushki-chah.

Here we found the road blocked with a number of camel caravans
carrying Government food supplies for our scattered posts along the
frontier. These posts were already in difficulties owing to the
Raiders' interference with their commissariat.

As can be imagined there was a great deal of noise, the native
drivers gesticulating and talking in a way which proved that
something was afoot. I got out of the car and asked who was in charge
of the caravan. A huge native contractor was pointed out to me, and,
summoning him to my side I asked him what all the hubbub was about.

He was in a state of great agitation and told me that he had received
information from several reliable sources that the whole of the
countryside ahead of them was in the hands of the Raiders, and that,
therefore, it was useless to go a step further.

I expostulated with the man, pointing out that, by the terms of his
contract, he must go on, and that if he did not the soldiers for whom
he was bringing supplies would die of starvation.

But he was dogged. He knew too well the methods of the Raiders with
the men they captured.

"It's no use, Sahib," he said, respectfully but firmly. "My men will
not go on as they are unarmed, and a single armed Raider is enough to
hold up the whole caravan."

I knew the man was right, but persisted in my efforts to persuade him
to chance it, pointing out that he might be lucky enough to elude the
Raiders and to win through.

"If the Government will give me a military escort I will go, but not
without," was his final word.

I had no authority to compel him to go on, so gave up the struggle.
But I realised more than ever how imperative it was to endeavour
to reach Robat without a moment's unnecessary delay, and start
conclusions with the Raiders, whose menace was growing more dangerous
every day.

We were, therefore, on the road very early next morning, for I hoped
to make Saindak that night. I had intended to go by Borgar, but now
that I knew--for I had verified the contractor's statements, and
believed them to be correct--that that place was in the hands of
the Raiders, I elected to go by an alternative route, known as the
_Webb-Ware_ route, which is practically out of use nowadays, hoping,
thereby, to avoid the enemy.

It was still dark when we set off on the most strenuous part of our
journey; climbing, making détours, digging the car out again and
again till we were all three worn out in body and temper. We hardly
halted that day, for the necessity for speed was as fully realised by
Allan as by myself.

When night fell we had not yet sighted Saindak, but I knew we could
not be very far off, and cursed the coming of the night which made
it impossible to see where we were. I knew we had got off the camel
track somehow, for the ground was even more bumpy than it had been,
and was frequently intersected by nullahs or rocky ravines, which
made the going positively dangerous. If the car were knocked right
out of action our difficulties would reach the last stage of disaster.

At last, in despair, Allan stopped, saying it was useless going on
any further. We might overturn the car at any moment and smash it as
well as ourselves. He submitted that the only sane thing would be to
camp just where we were and wait for daylight, when we might regain
the camel track.

I knew he was right, but said I would make one final effort on foot
to find the track, and directed him to give me the hurricane lamp we
carried on the car.

Stumbling and slipping over the broken ground in the pitch darkness,
the lamp barely lighting up my immediate path, I had wandered some
distance from the car when I heard voices. Instantly I thought of the
Raiders who were over-running the district. It would be too galling,
too humiliating to be captured by them before the campaign, on which
I was building such high hopes, had even begun.

Noiselessly I put out the lamp and listened in the dense darkness.
There was absolute silence for some minutes, and I stood stock still.
Then voices sounded again, and I conjectured that there were not more
than two, or at the most three, speakers.

I thought rapidly, and finally decided that there would not be many
men in front of me. Had there been anything approaching an encampment
of the Raiders in the neighbourhood, there would have been lights,
camp fires and considerable noise. The voices I had heard probably
belonged to men who had seen the lights of the car, and had come to
find out what it was.

I turned swiftly and made my way back to the car, where I had
foolishly left my revolver. Recovering my weapon I warned Allan in a
whisper of the voices I had heard, and told him to be ready to stand
by. Then I made my way back in the darkness, and when I had regained
the spot, called out loudly, in Hindustani, "Who's there?"

Instantly a voice answered, "I am Idu of the Chagai Levies, friendly
to the British Government."

I then called out who I was, and, immediately, three fully armed men
came forward in the darkness.

I asked them what they were doing there, and the voice that had
answered me before replied that they were all three members of the
Chagai Levies, and that they, and about fifty others, had come out to
fight me.

"To fight me?" I exclaimed. "Whatever for?"

"Well, Sahib," returned the man who had said his name was Idu, "we
thought you were a German airship." And he went on to explain that
for a long time he and his companions had been watching powerful
lights floating about in the sky, and as they knew that Germans were
the only people in the world who had _hawaiijihaz_ or airships, they
were convinced the lights they had seen belonged to one of these. And
when it had alighted on the hill in front of them, the majority of
his companions had been so terrified that they had run away, and only
himself and his two comrades had had the bravery to stay where they
were and face the unknown danger.

Then it dawned on me what he was driving at. The flashing electric
lights of the car, lighting up the distant, rising slopes of the
desert, had appeared to these men to come from the sky, and my
harmless motor-car the dreaded German airship. Cars, of course, along
this route were as great a novelty as airships, and doubtless not one
of the men in front of me had ever seen one before.

I reassured them as completely as I could, adding that I was
delighted to meet such redoubtable warriors, and hoped that now they
would come with me and help me, as my business was to fight Germans,
airships and all. This was strictly true, for, but for German
influence, there would have been no need to wage war on the Raiders
who had only been induced to become our enemies by lying German
propaganda.

Idu said they would be only too glad to go with the Sahib and to help
him fight the enemies of the British Raj. He also told me that he had
already saved my life once that evening.

"How was that?" I asked, my spirits rising as I gazed through the
darkness at my first three recruits.

"Well, Sahib," returned Idu, "when the airship, which you say is
no airship, stopped, in a little while we saw the figure of a man,
carrying a lantern moving towards us, and Halil here," laying his
hand on the shoulder of one of his pals, "lifted his rifle and was
about to shoot. But I said, 'Nay. See, it is but one man. Let us wait
and see who he is.' And then the lantern went out and there was no
longer a target."

"You did well, Idu," I said solemnly. "You have most certainly saved
my life, and as you seem to be as intelligent as you are brave, I
shall appoint you to my personal staff. I am the officer who has
been sent out to take command of the forces along the Sarhad, and in
Seistan. But at the present moment my chief concern is to find the
right road to Saindak. Can you show it to me?"

Idu laughed. "I could lead you there blindfold, Sahib."

I felt the difficulties of the road were now over, and, piloted by
these three stalwarts, the car--a source of the utmost excitement
and wonderment to them--Allan, Allah-dad and my weary self were, ere
long, safe in the rest-house of the small mud fort at Saindak.

The following morning, after a good night's rest, I had a long talk
with Idu, and the very favourable impression I had formed of the man
the night before was greatly increased. I found him by daylight to be
a highly intelligent-looking, splendidly proportioned fellow of about
five feet eight, with a big black beard. I had glimpses, even then,
of the keen sense of humour which was to do so much to lighten the
difficulties of the ensuing campaign. Never once in all the months to
come did I find his wit and humour fail.

As after-events proved he was absolutely invaluable. In fact, I often
called him, and told him that I called him, my "head." Not only did
he know every yard of the country, but he knew by name practically
every one of the Raiders, knew their peculiarities and their weak
points as well as their strength. Idu was a man in a million, and I
should like to think that, some day, this public appreciation of him,
and of what he did to help in this campaign, may reach him.

After breakfast and my talk with Idu, we set out on the last march of
the first phase of my journey, and reached Robat by two o'clock in
the afternoon.




CHAPTER III

A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

  An "intelligent" officer--Matters political--Three tribes
  and a fourth--Their women and inter-tribal laws--Sarhad
  conditions--A summons to the Chiefs--A bid for rank--Telegraph
  wires and Sheitan--Two first-class liars--A strategic scheme--An
  ungazetted General--Lost kit--Swallows and flies--Forces
  available--Communications freed--The Kacha levy and a
  shock--Mirjawa.


My first visit in Robat was to the officer who had been commanding
the scattered British forces up to that date. He was a very sick man,
and had been holding out with the utmost difficulty until he could be
relieved. Here I met Major Landon of the 35th Scinde Horse, one of
the three Intelligence Officers employed by the Indian Government in
Persia.

I very quickly realised that Landon was an officer of very high
intelligence, as well as an Intelligence Officer, and that he had a
fund of information concerning the country, and the conditions and
characteristics of the inhabitants of both Persia and Baluchistan. In
fact, I judged that he would be such an asset that, then and there, I
invited him to become my Brigade-Major, although I ruefully remarked
that I had, at present, no brigade!

He was keen to accept, but did not know how the authorities at Simla
would view his acceptance of such a post, and asked me whether I
should be willing to shoulder the responsibility of annexing him for
the campaign. Considering that my shoulders were broad enough, I
promptly replied that my orders had been to take command of all the
scattered forces I could find and co-ordinate them, and that I looked
upon him as my second "find," Idu and his two companions being the
first. Further, that he was here as Intelligence Officer and would
acquire no intelligence sitting down in Robat, whereas, if he came
with me, he would get all he wanted at first hand!

I set myself to pick up all the information I could about the
conditions of British "influence" in this part of Persia, and on
the borders of Afghanistan. To make it in any way clear why we had
any influence here at all we must revert to the old fear of the
threatened advance of Russia on India, in the days before Russia
became our ally in the Great War.

Slowly and gradually Russia had been extending her influence in the
Pamirs until her outposts on the Oxus River were only eight marches
from Chitral. Evidently, as a wide counter, strategic move, the
Indian Government had sought to increase its own influence with
Persia and Afghanistan by pushing forward her outposts to Robat and
Nasaratabad.

Consequently, at the time of which I am writing, Robat, Nasaratabad
and Birjand were held lightly by chains of small posts composed
entirely of Indian troops and some local levies commanded by British
officers. Our lines of communication running from Birjand to Nushki,
a distance of about six hundred miles, were held, in widely scattered
posts, by only one battalion of Indian Infantry and one regiment of
Indian Cavalry and four mountain guns. Thus it will be seen that it
was very difficult to obtain any troops for a movable column.

A British Consulate had also been established at Nasaratabad, which
is on the borders of Afghanistan and Persia. During the War the
importance and influence of the Consul increased considerably, as he
was in a position to gather information which was of great value to
the military commanders, who constantly sought his advice.

There was also a Baluch Political Officer, known as the Sarhad-dar,
who worked under orders from the British Political Officer at Quetta.
The Sarhad-dar, to a certain degree, controlled the Sarhadi Raiders,
occasionally with the help of the Chagai Levies, which were raised by
the Indian Government for this particular work.

Supplies were brought to these scattered posts by camel caravans from
India.

Communication with India was maintained by means of the telegraph.
Later on it became necessary to send out a wireless troop from India
to establish communication between my force at Khwash and Saindak.

At the same time I did my best to learn all I could about the tribes
amongst whom I was going to operate, their ways and customs, and the
nature of the country in which they lived.

A glance at the map will show the situation and boundaries of the
Sarhad--literally meaning boundary. It will be seen that it extends
from Jalk in the East to Galugan in the West. The Eastern part, from
Jalk to Safed-koh, is held by a tribe known as the Gamshadzais, under
their notable leader, Halil Khan.

The central portion is held by the Yarmahommedzais under Jiand
Khan, an elderly man, who has been undisputed chief, and a sort of
over-lord of the whole of the Sarhad, for very many years. He has
been looked upon by his own and neighbouring tribes as well-nigh a
demi-god. As Jiand enters later, and largely, into this narrative all
further description of him will be reserved till actual contact is
established with him.

Khwash--known also as Vasht or Washt--is the capital of the Sarhad,
and is situated within Jiand's jurisdiction, although he is not the
actual owner of the town. The word Khwash literally means "sweet,"
and, I believe, owes its name to the water, which is, by the way,
quite warm when it appears at the surface of the ground in the
immediate vicinity.

The Western portion of the Sarhad, extending roughly from Khwash to
Galugan, is held by the Ismailzais under their redoubtable leader,
Juma Khan.

All three of these tribes possess approximately one thousand
families apiece, and, of course, each family has many members, as
well as large numbers of camels, and herds of sheep and goats.

Each of these tribes, at the time of which I write, could muster,
roughly, from one to two thousand riflemen, chiefly armed with Mauser
courage. As the man emerges upon the narrow platform, he is engulfed in
the swirling flakes, and often is pinned against the masonry so tightly
by the wind that he cannot move a limb; at other times he is swept
almost off his feet. While engaged in his freezing task, he also runs
the risk of being drenched by a rising comber.

[Illustration:

            _By permission of the “Syren and Shipping.”_

COMBINED KITCHEN AND LIVING-ROOM IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.]

The men on the lonely, exposed Tillamook Rock, off the Oregon coast,
have had more than one occasion to respect the storm-fiend. One night,
while a fearful gale was raging, a huge mass of rock was torn away from
the islet, snatched by the waves, and thrown high into the air. It
fell with terrific force upon the dome of the lantern, splintering the
roof and smashing the light, so that no welcome rays could be thrown
from the tower again that night. The keepers at once set to work with
the fog-signal, and during the hours of darkness worked like slaves,
blaring out a warning by sound which they were unable to give visually.

Fortunately, such an experience as befell the keepers of the American
Thimble Shoal light is very rare. This beacon marks the shoal of that
name, and is, or rather was, a screw-pile iron lighthouse, marking 11
feet of water at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, U.S.A. On
December 27, 1909, the keepers were immersed in their tasks, when there
was a terrible crash followed by a dismal rending and splitting. The
building shivered from top to bottom. The keepers were thrown off their
feet, and when they regained their wits they found that the schooner
_Malcolm Baxter Junior_, while being towed by a tug, had blundered into
them, and had carried a considerable portion of the building away. The
impact upset the light; the scattered oil burst into flame, and within
a few minutes the lighthouse was blazing like a gigantic bonfire. The
keepers stuck to their posts, and endeavoured frantically to extinguish
the outbreak, but their efforts were too puny to make any impression.
At last, when a foothold was no longer possible with safety, and under
extreme pressure, they abandoned their charge. When the flames had
completed their destructive work the lighthouse presented a sorry
sight, being a mass of broken and twisted ironwork. A wooden tower was
erected with all despatch, and a fog-signal was installed, so that the
men could carry on their duties while the reconstruction of the station
was hurried forward.

The keepers turn their hands to strange occupations. Fretwork,
wood-carving, poker-work, and similar hobbies, are practised freely.
A few devote their leisure to intellectual improvement to fit them
for other walks in life. The keeper of Windward Point, Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, devoted his energies to studying, and obtaining diplomas
in, mechano-therapy and suggestive therapeutics, as well as becoming
proficient in Esperanto. The keepers of two other American lights set
themselves to the mastery of jurisprudence, and in due course resigned
their positions and rented offices in the city, where in the course of
a few years they built up very remunerative legal practices. As a rule
the lighthouse-keeper is an expert handy-man, as he is compelled to
complete a whole list of duties in addition to maintaining the lights.
In the summer the metal and wooden lights have to be given a coat of
paint, while plumbing and other displays of skill in metal have to be
carried out, even if only temporarily.

The calling is exceedingly healthy, which accounts for the immunity
from illness which these men enjoy. Also, as a rule, the land-lights
are set amidst wild romantic surroundings. Some years ago a number of
American families, in the search for a quiet, health-restoring rest,
were in the habit of spending their vacations at lighthouses, to the
financial profit of the keepers. Eventually, however, the authorities,
fearing that the keeper might be distracted from his duties, issued a
summary order forbidding this practice, much to the disgust of the men,
and “attractive lighthouse apartments” became a thing of the past. In
Great Britain an order was issued that “no ale or other intoxicating
liquor be allowed to be sold in any lighthouse.” The precise reason for
this strange ordinance is not quite clear, but it is significant to
note that it came into force immediately after the disastrous fire at
the Leasowe lighthouse, on the Wirral shore.

The lighthouse invariably is an object of attraction among the general
public, but this interest seldom goes to the length narrated by a
keeper of one of the West Indian lights. One night two of the men at
this particular station decided to hunt for red crabs on the beach
below. They started off with a hurricane lamp, but were astonished,
when they gained the foreshore, to see a large sloop hard and fast
on the reef, although the night was beautifully clear and the light
was burning brilliantly. With much effort the keepers got out their
dory, put off to the wreck, and endeavoured to get the sloop out of
her uncomfortable position, but, finding her too well fixed, took off
the passengers. The survivors were housed in the keepers’ quarters
until next morning, when they were succoured. The head-keeper asked the
captain how he managed to get into such a position, and to his surprise
learned that, as the passengers were anxious to obtain a clear close
view of the light, the master had stood inshore, not knowing that the
reef over which vigil was mounted ran out far into the water. That
navigator paid dearly for his attempt to satisfy curiosity. His sloop
broke up, since she was impaled too firmly to be salvaged.

It is not often that the utter loneliness and monotony of the daily
round unhinges a keeper’s mind, but this awful fate overtook the warden
of a somewhat isolated American light. The man had served with Admiral
Dewey off Manila, and upon his return home the Government placed him in
charge of a station as an occupation for the evening of his life, and
as a recompense for faithful service. He settled down with his wife and
family, but the isolation soon began to affect his brain. For days he
would absent himself from the light, which would soon have failed had
it not been for the unswerving devotion of his wife and the assistance
of one of two friends living in the locality. They spared no effort
to keep the beacon burning, lest the authorities might hear about
the keeper’s strange behaviour, and deprive him of his charge, and,
incidentally, of his livelihood. In due course the incident did reach
the authorities, and, not knowing what was the matter with the man,
they took action accordingly. As the keeper entered the station after
one of his inexplicable expeditions of a fortnight’s duration, he was
arrested for desertion. He was examined promptly by two doctors, who
found him hopelessly insane, and was incarcerated in an asylum, where
in the course of a few days he became a raving lunatic.

Often the keepers, although only condemned to imprisonment for a
certain period at a time, have to tolerate a longer stay, owing to
the relief-boat being unable to approach them. In some instances the
delay may run into five weeks or more. During the winter the relief of
the Eddystone, Longships, Wolf, Fastnet, Skerryvore, and Dhu-Heartach
lights is always a matter of extreme uncertainty. Although the men
have to provide themselves with supplies, a reserve is maintained at
the station by the authorities for such emergencies. Even some of the
land stations are not approachable readily. There is the Punta Gorda
light-station on the Californian coast, the situation of which is wild
and forbidding. There is a landing about eight miles above the station,
but it is extremely precarious. Still, unless a certain element of risk
is accepted in coming ashore here, it is necessary to face a tramp or
stage journey of nearly fifty miles across country in order to gain the
lighthouse.

The lighthouses in the Red Sea are, perhaps, among the most unenviable
and trying in the world. This stretch of water, lying between two
blistered coasts of sand, is no more or less than an oven, where even
the strongest constitution finds it difficult to hold out for long.
Moreover, the absence of civilization, owing to the extreme aridity of
the country, renders the life exceptionally depressing. In the summer
the heat is wellnigh intolerable. The thermometer hovers between 95°
and 110° F. in the shade throughout the twenty-four hours, so that
night brings no relief to the oppressiveness.

At some of the stations the men seek a little diversion, and
incidentally add occasionally to their pocket-money, by shark-catching,
which is a tolerably profitable pursuit, since these waters are thickly
infested with this fish. The jawbone and backbone invariably find ready
purchasers, the former being mounted as a curiosity, while the backbone
forms a novel and serviceable walking-stick.

One method of trapping these monsters which affords keen delight was
related to me. The requirements are an electric battery, some rope, a
few feet of electric wire, a cartridge, and an empty box, with a chunk
or two of bad meat. The cartridge is fitted with an electric primer,
the wire of which stretches to the battery. This cartridge is buried
in a hunk of meat, the whole being dangled from a box--an empty cask is
better--which serves as a float, while a rope is stretched from the box
to the shore, with the electric wire spirally wound round it. A short
length of chain is preferable, if available, to attach the bait to the
float, but a short piece of rope will do. This novel line is thrown
into the water, and the man keeps his eye on the float, with one finger
on the battery. The hungry shark, espying the tempting morsel, makes a
grab and swallows it, but the chain prevents him tearing away with it.
The pull causes the float to disappear, the man’s finger presses the
button, and the trick is done. There is an explosion, and pieces of
shark and showers of water fly into the air. The incident is all over
too quickly for the fish to marvel about the strange indigestibility
of the tainted meat he grabbed so greedily. The men enjoy this sport
hugely when it can be followed, as they regard the shark with intense
detestation.

[Illustration:

            _By permission of the “Syren and Shipping.”_

KEEPER CLEANING THE LAMP AFTER IT HAS COOLED DOWN.]

Despite the vigilance of the various Powers, slave-running is still a
lucrative business on these forbidding coasts. Now and again a forced
labourer gets away from his taskmaster, and comes panting into the
lighthouse territory. This is sanctuary to the hapless wretch, and
although the keepers invariably receive a call from the runaway’s
master, he meets with scant courtesy, while his demand for the
surrender of the fugitive is answered by a point-blank refusal. The
slave-driver may storm, threaten, and abuse, to his heart’s content,
and, as he is generally a past-master in Arabian invective, the
keepers have to listen to a pretty tune. But the slave is kept in the
lighthouse until the relief-tender makes its periodical call, when he
is taken back to Suez and liberated.

Fortunately, owing to the extreme care that is manifested by the
authorities, mishaps at a lighthouse are few and far between. The
men are supplied with rules and regulations which are drawn up with
an eye for every possible emergency. Yet accidents will happen, due
in the majority of instances to familiarity bred of contempt. The
majority of these calamities occur in connection with the explosive
fog-signalling apparatus, although every device is adopted to safeguard
the men. At one of the Scottish stations a keeper was manipulating
the fog-signal, but, flying in the face of instructions, he caused
the charge to explode prematurely. The man escaped injury, but the
detonation shattered several panes of glass in the lantern.

One of the keepers of the Rathlin light, on Altacarry Head, was not so
fortunate. The White Star Canadian liner _Megantic_ was rounding the
corner of Ireland to enter the last lap of the homeward journey one
Saturday evening, when the captain’s attention was arrested by a signal
of distress flying from the lighthouse. The interpretation of the
signal revealed the fact that a doctor was wanted, so, easing up the
ship, he lowered a boat, and the doctor was sent away to the island.
Upon landing he found one of the men in dire straits. He had been
cleaning the fog-gun, when a charge, which had been left in the weapon
inadvertently upon the last occasion it was used, exploded. The man’s
arm had been wrenched off, and he was burned terribly. It was a stroke
of luck that the liner hove in sight at the moment she did. There was
no chance of extending succour to the injured man on the spot, and he
would have died before a doctor could have been summoned by boat from
Ballycastle, nine miles away. The surgeon bound up the man’s injuries,
lowered him into his boat, and, on regaining the liner, placed him
in the hospital, where he was tended until the vessel’s arrival in
Liverpool, where he was landed and placed in hospital.

[Illustration:

            _By permission of “Syren and Shipping.”_

A LIGHTHOUSE BEDROOM.

Owing to the limited space the furniture is reduced to the minimum, the
bunks being built against the wall.]

More remarkable was the accident which happened at the Flannen Islands
light-station in 1900; it remains an unsolved mystery to this day. This
is one of Scotland’s lonely lights, mounting guard over a group of
islets fifteen miles off the Hebrides. On December 26 the relief-tender
approached the station on her usual fortnightly visit, but, to the
amazement of those on board, no signs of the keepers or the usual
signals were to be seen, while the lantern was not dressed in its
daylight garb. The crew landed hurriedly, wondering what was amiss.
They found the lighthouse absolutely deserted; not a sign of any of the
three keepers was to be seen or heard. They examined the log, and found
that the light had not been burning for some days, the last entry being
made about 4 a.m. nearly a week previously. The rock was searched, but
yielded no clue to the mystery of the complete disappearance of the
men. The light had not been abandoned; it had simply burned itself out.
It was a fortunate circumstance that very little shipping frequents
these seas during the winter, or there would have been one or two
marine disasters, as the islands are often wrapped in fog.

It is surmised that one of the men ventured outside on to a rocky ledge
in the early hours of the morning. According to the log, a vicious
storm was raging at the time, and probably in the darkness the man was
swept off his feet and carried into the sea. The second keeper on duty,
marvelling at the non-return of his assistant, evidently had roused his
other companion, and the two had instituted a search in the storm, only
in turn to be caught by a wave and carried away.

In Great Britain, since 1860, men only have been employed by the
Trinity House Brethren for the maintenance of the lights, but in
the United States women still are engaged in this duty. Some of the
British lights have been controlled by one family through two or
three generations. It was only a few years ago that a Darling retired
from the vigil on the Longstones of Farne Islands, the scene of Grace
Darling’s heroism, while for a century and a half one family kept the
South Foreland light faithfully. The Casquets light off Alderney, in
the Channel Islands, was maintained by one family, some of the children
spending the whole of their lives on the rock, son succeeding father at
the post of duty.

On the American coast, however, women are more extensively employed.
Seeing that many of the lights are burned in a low tower projecting
from the dwelling-house, this circumstance may be readily understood,
as the duties beyond the maintenance of the light are not exacting.
One of the most notable instances, however, is the Point Pino light
at the entrance to Monterey Bay, on the Californian coast, the
guardianship of which has been in feminine hands for the past thirty
years. For something approaching half a century a woman maintained the
Michigan City harbour light on the Great Lake of that name. Indeed,
the associations were so deep-rooted and long that the beacon became
popularly known as “Miss Colfax’s light,” after the name of its keeper.
Even when she attained the age of eighty years she was as active and
attentive to her charge as on the day, in 1861, when she first assumed
responsibility for its safe-keeping.

In those times there was a beacon established on the end of the wooden
pier, which railed off an area of the restless lake for the purposes of
the inland port. Those were strenuous days. Her home was on shore, and
every night and morning she tramped the long arm of woodwork to light
and extinguish the lamp. Lard-oil was used, and during the winter the
food for the lamp had to be heated to bring it into a fluid condition
before she set out from home. It was no easy matter struggling along on
a blusterous, gusty evening, with a pail of hot oil in one hand and a
lamp in the other, over a narrow plank. Often, when a gale was raging,
progress was so slow that by the time the beacon was reached the oil
had cooled and congealed, rendering it a difficult matter to induce
the lamp to burn. Once set going, however, it was safe for the night,
as the heat radiated from the burner kept the lard melted. In addition
to this lamp, there was another light in the tower projecting from the
roof of her house, which had to be maintained, and this, being the main
light, was the more important of the two.

In 1886 the pier tower was taken out of her hands for ever. A furious
gale, such as is peculiar to these inland seas, and which cannot be
rivalled on the ocean for fury, was raging. At dusk she started on her
usual journey. Time after time she was wellnigh swept off her feet, so
that she staggered rather than walked, for the spray and sand flecking
her face nearly blinded her. When she gained the tower she paused, and
observed that it was trembling violently. Undismayed, she ascended, lit
the light, and tramped back to the shore. Scarcely had she gained the
mainland, when, glancing seawards, she saw the light sway from side
to side for a second or two, and then make a dive into the water. A
few moments later a crash reverberated above the noise of the storm:
the decrepit pier had succumbed at last. Hers was a lucky escape, but
she hurried home, and sat by the main light gleaming from her roof all
that night, apprehensive that some vessel might endeavour to make the
harbour and come to grief. When the pier was rebuilt, a new beacon
was placed on its extremity, but its upkeep was taken over by the
harbour authorities, leaving only the shore light in the trusty woman’s
keeping, the wicks of which for over forty years were trimmed and lit
at dusk, and extinguished with the dawn, with her own hands.

During the migratory season of the birds extraordinary sights are
witnessed around the light at night. The brilliant glare attracts
enormous flocks, which flit to and fro. As the monster flaming spoke
swings round, the birds, evidently blinded by the glare, dash with such
fury against the glass panes of the lantern as to flutter to the floor
of the gallery with broken necks and wings, while large numbers, dazed
or killed, fall into the water. The birds are of all species, and at
times may be picked up by the basketful. Then the light-keepers are
able to secure a welcome change in their dietary. Moths, too, often
hover in clouds round the light, and are of such variety that an hour
on the gallery would bring infinite delight and rich harvests to the
youthful entomologist who has to be content to hunt around electric
lamps in quiet streets at night.

While the lamp is burning, time cannot drag, owing to the multitude
of details which compel the keeper’s constant attention. The official
log has to be kept posted with a host of facts, such as temperature,
barometric readings, weather conditions as they vary from hour to
hour, behaviour of the lamps, etc.; while, when the lighthouse is
a marine signal-station as well, passing ships have to be signalled
and reported. The spell of labour varies from four to five hours or
more. Obviously, the task is more exacting and arduous in the winter
than in summer. During the former season the lamps have to be lighted
as early as 3.15 p.m., and are not extinguished until eight o’clock
the next morning. In the summer, on the other hand, the lamps may be
required for less than six hours or so. In northern latitudes where the
daylight is continuous owing to the midnight sun, the light scarcely
seems necessary. Yet it is kept burning during the scheduled hours of
darkness.

Thus, night in and night out the whole year round, a comparatively
small band of faithful toilers keeps alert vigil over the dangers of
the deep, for the benefit of those who “go down to the sea in ships,
and do their business in great waters.” The safety of thousands of
human lives and of millions sterling of merchandise is vested in
their keeping. The resources of the shipbuilder, the staunchness of
the ship, the skill and knowledge of the captain--all would count for
nothing were it not for the persistent, steady glare of the fixed,
the twinkling of the occulting, or the rhythmic, monotonous turning
spokes of the revolving light, thrown over the waste of waters from the
lighthouse and the lightship.




INDEX


  Aberbrothock, Abbot of, 96

  Acetylene: as illuminant, Daléngas, 49, 274;
    systems for floating lighthouses, 238, 278, 285-95;
    cost of lighting by, 282;
    dissolved, French system of using, 291;
    use in Sweden, 291-94

  Acetylene gun, the, 68-71

  Admiralty, the: adoption of the siren, 60-61;
    use of the Wigham light, 296

  Adriatic shoreline, 203

  “Aga” principle of lighting, 274, 277, 291, 293;
    adopted by the United States, 294-95

  Ailly, Pointe d’, 303

  Ailsa Crag, system of fog-signalling, 63-65, 66

  Alaska: trade of, 173;
    controlled by the Lighthouse Board, 206;
    unattended lighthouses, 277;
    coastline 284

  Alderney coastline, 12-13

  Alexander, Lieutenant B. S., the Minot’s ledge-light, 8, 179

  Alexandria, Pharos of, 2-3

  Allerton Point lighthouse, 6

  Altacarry Head, 313

  Ambrose Channel, 251

  American Thimble Shoal lighthouse, 308

  Amour Point light, 169

  Anderson, Lieutenant-Colonel William P., 172, 174, 217

  _Anglo-Saxon_, Allan liner, wreck, 163-64

  Anticosti, 171

  Antifer, Cap d’, lighthouse, 39

  Antipodes, the, 239

  Arbroath, 97

  Arena Point, 204

  Argand burner, the, 47, 55, 79, 219

  Argyll, Duke of, 115;
    lays foundation-stone of Skerryvore, 105

  Ar-men light, Finisterre, 20-24

  Arthur, Port, 214, 217

  _Assyrian_, the, wreck, 164

  Astoria, 13, 185, 188, 193

  Auckland coastline, 236, 237, 238
    harbour, 238
    Islands, 239

  Auer, Dr. von, the incandescent mantle, 47-48

  Australia: lighthouses of, 229-39;
    unattended lighthouses, 283

  Austria, lighthouses, 48


  Bache, General Hartmann, 63;
    Brandywine Shoal light, 200-201

  “Back lights,” 20

  Ballantyne, A., the Tillamook Rock lighthouse, 185-95

  Ballycastle, 313

  Baltic Sea, unattended lighthouses of the, 274, 278, 291

  Bar lightship, Mersey, 240

  Barnard, General, the Minot’s Ledge light, 178-82

  Barra Head, 113

  Barra Island, 113

  Barsier rock, 269

  Bauld Cape light, 169

  “Bay of the Dead,” Finisterre, 21, 22

  Beachy Head lighthouse, 24-27, 94

  Belfast, 306

  Bell Rock lighthouse, 9;
    lighting, 53;
    fog-signals, 59;
    the reef, 96-97

  Bell-buoys, 68

  Belle Ile, 51;
    the beacons, 169;
    the Northern light, 170-71;
    the Southern light, 169;
    the auxiliary light, 169-70;
    isolation of, 171

  Belle Ile, Straits of, 162, 163, 169

  Bells: on lighthouses, 58;
    submarine, 249-50

  Biscay, Bay of, gales, 3-4

  Bishop Rock lighthouse, 38, 51, 81-87

  Black Prince, the, in Gascony, 4

  Black Sea, lighthouses on the, 18-19

  Blau liquid gas, 48-49

  “Blowing-holes,” 62-63

  Bluff, the, 236

  Bois Blanc Island, 211

  Bordeaux, trade of, 3-4

  Boston Harbour: lighting, 6, 33-4, 196;
    Minot’s Ledge light, 176-82

  Bothnia, Gulf of, unattended lighthouses, 268, 274

  Bounty Islands, 239

  Bourdelles, M., investigations, 56, 219

  Brandywine Shoal light, 200-201

  Brebner, Alexander, 117

  “Breeches-buoy,” used at Tillamook Rock, 187-89

  Bréhat, Heaux de, Reynaud’s tower, 149-53

  Bréhat, Isle of, 149

  Bremerhaven, 132, 138, 139, 141

  Brett, Cape, lighthouse, 238

  Brewster, Sir David, lighting methods, 29

  Bridges and Roads, Department of, 148

  Bristol Channel: the Flat Holme light, 7;
    unattended lighthouses, 278-79

  British Columbia coastline, 284

  Brittany coastline, 148

  Brothers light, the, 234-35

  Bull Rock lighthouse, 39

  Bullivant cableways, 25-26

  Bungaree Norah. _See_ Norah Head

  Buoys: bell and whistle, 68;
    gas-buoys, 244;
    the Willson, 286-89;
    combined light and whistling, 290

  Büsun, 226

  Byron Bay, 232

  Byron Cape, 232


  Cabrillo Point light, 205

  Calf Rock light, 123

  California coastline, 204

  Campbell, General, 270

  Campbell Island, 239

  Canadian Marine Department, 8;
    systems of building, 18-19;
    fog-signalling apparatus, 66-68;
    lighting of the coastline, 161-75;
    lighting of the Great Lakes, 208-17;
    floating lighthouses, 286

  Caribou Island lighthouse, 216-17

  Carmel Head, 94

  Carolina, North, 240

  Carrington, W. H. T., 25

  Casquets lighthouse: the approach to, 12-13;
    keepers of the, 314

  Castle Point lighthouse, 238

  Casuarina Island, 55

  Catoptric system of lighting, 28

  Centre Island lighthouse, 237

  Chance Bros. and Co.: systems of lighting, 33, 36, 42, 55, 256;
    the hyperradiant method, 38-39;
    lenses, 40;
    clockwork mechanism, 43-44;
    the incandescent mantle, 48;
    works carried out by, 53, 222

  Channel Islands coastline, 269

  Charles, Cape, 200

  Chatham Island, 239

  _Chauffer_, the, 4-6

  Chesapeake Bay lights, 199, 200, 308

  Chicken Rock light, 9, 94, 238

  China, coast-lighting, 258-59

  Clear, Cape, 121

  Coffin Island, 171

  Cohasset Rocks, 177

  Colchester Reef lighthouse, 210, 216

  Colfax: “Miss Colfax’s light,” 315-16

  Collinson, Sir Richard, rocket system invented by, 58-59

  “Colossus,” the Rothersand caisson, 138-9

  Colton family, the, 170

  Columbia River, 183, 184, 185

  Colza oil as illuminant, 46, 47

  Concrete, reinforced, use of, 18, 174

  Cook’s Strait, 233, 234, 237

  Cordouan, rocks of, 4

  Cordouan, Tour de, 4-5, 30

  Cornish plunderers of the Wolf Rock, 88

  Corunna lighthouse, 3

  Couedie, Cap de, lighthouse, 55

  Courtenay, whistling device, 290

  Creach, electric light at, 156


  Daboll, C. L., invention of the trumpet fog-signal, 59, 60

  Dalén, Gustaf: the sun-valve, 49;
    system of lighting, 274, 275, 291;
    unattended lights, 269;
    honour for, 291 note;
    experiments, 292-93

  Danger Point, 230

  Darling, Grace, 95, 314

  Daudet, Alphonse, “Phares de Sanguinaires,” 93

  Delaware Bay, 143, 199, 200

  Denmark, coastline, lighting, 48

  Detroit River, Lower, 208

  “Deviline” toy whistle, 61

  Dewey, Admiral, 310

  Dhu-Heartach lighthouse, 9, 107, 113-20, 311

  Diamond Shoal, dangers of, 205-6;
    the lightship, 251-53

  “Diaphone,” the, 67, 68, 165

  Dieppe, 303-304

  Differential arc, use of, 227-28

  Dioptric system of lighting, 37, 220

  Disappointment Cape lighthouse, 186

  Distances, table of, 52

  “Divergence,” 39

  Dog Island lighthouse, 237

  Doty burner, the, 238

  “Double-shell” principle of construction, 200

  Douglass, Sir James: design for the new Eddystone, 78-80;
    preservation of the Bishop Rock, 86-87;
    system of lighting, 223

  Douglass, William, and the Fastnet, 123

  Dover Harbour lightship, 245

  Dover, the pharos at, 3

  Doyle Fort, 271-74

  _Drummond Castle_, wreck, 148

  Dues, lighthouse, 4, 7, 239

  Duluth, 214

  Duncansby Head, 108

  Dunedin, N.Z., 236

  Dungeness light, 94

  Dunkirk, 249


  Earraid, 115, 116

  East Cape, N.Z., 236

  East Indies Archipelago, 257

  Eddystone lighthouse: lighting of, 38, 41, 55;
    fog-signals, 59;
    description, 72, 82;
    the Winstanley construction, 73-4;
    John Rudyerd’s lighthouse, 74, 75, 94;
    Smeaton’s work, 75, 78, 80;
    the Douglass tower, 78-80;
    keepers of, 311

  “Eddystones,” 72

  Edinburgh, Duke of, 79

  Egmont, Cape, 233

  Electricity: as luminant, 50-51, 148, 218, 295-96;
    used in operation of derrick, 159

  _Eider_ lightship, 249

  Erie, Lake, 208, 216

  Estevan Point light, 174


  Fair Isle lighthouse, 39

  “Family of Engineers (A),” 8-9

  Faraday, Professor, 218

  Farallon Beacon, 205

  Farallon Isles, fog-signalling on, 63

  Farne Islands, 95, 314

  Faro, the, 3

  Fastnet lighthouse, 121-31;
    lighting, 41;
    keepers, 311

  Ferro-concrete, use in construction, 18-19

  _Feu-éclair_, the, 56

  Finisterre, Cape, 3;
    the Ar-men light, 20-24

  Fire Island lighthouse, 250

  Fire Island lightship, 240, 242, 250

  Fisher’s Island Sound, 203

  Flamborough Head light, 95

  Flannen Islands lighthouse, 9, 113;
    disappearance of keepers, 313-14

  Flat Holme light, the, 7

  Florida coastline, 201

  “Focal point,” 39

  Fog-signals: discharge of guns, 57-58;
    rockets, 58-59;
    explosion of gun-cotton, 59;
    the Daboll trumpet, 59-60;
    the siren, 60-62;
    blowing-holes, 62-63;
    installation on Ailsa Crag, 63-66;
    diaphone on Ailsa Crag, 66-68;
    the acetylene gun, 68-71;
    diaphone at Cape Race, 165;
    Belle Ile diaphone, 170

  Foix, Louis de, 4-5, 8

  _Forfarshire_, the, 95, 314

  Forteau Bay, 169

  Forth, Firth of, lighthouses in, 7, 218-19

  Fourteen Foot Bank, 132, 143-47

  Foveaux Strait, 237

  Fowey Rocks lights, 201-3

  French coast: lighting of, 148;
    lightships, 243, 249

  French Lighthouse Commission (1811), 29

  Fresnel, Augustin: system of lighting, 28, 33, 286;
    adopted by the United States, 36


  Gap Rock lighthouse and signal-station, 264

  Gas Accumulator Company, of Stockholm, 49, 274, 291

  Gas as illuminant, the incandescent mantle, 47-48

  Gasfeten tower, 274

  Gedney’s Channel, lighting of, 295-96

  General Superintendent of Lights, office of, 197-98

  Georgian Bay, 216

  Gerholmen light-boat, 294

  Germany: coastline of, lighting, 48, 50-51;
    the lightship service, 249-50

  Gironde lighthouse, 19

  Gironde, the, rocks of the estuary, 3-4

  Goodwin Sands, 205, 240, 244-45, 248

  Grand Banks, the, 163

  Grande Braye Rock, 296

  Grand Trunk Pacific, 173

  Granite, use of, 18

  Great Lakes of North America: lighting of the, 27, 173, 208-17;
    Lighthouse Board, control of, 206;
    floating lighthouses, 286

  Green Cape lighthouse, 232-33

  “Grouting,” 27

  Guantanamo Bay, 308

  Guernsey coast lighthouse, 9, 16;
    unattended lights, 269

  Gun-cotton, explosion of, 58, 59


  Halifax Harbour: lights, 192;
    the “Outer Automatic,” 290

  Halpin, George, the Fastnet lighthouse, 121-23, 129

  Hand Deeps, 79

  Hanois lighthouse, 16

  Hargreaves, Riley and Co., 260

  Harkort, Society of, Duisburg, 133-34:
    the Rothersand contract, 136-43

  Hatteras, Cape: coastline, 147, 251-53;
    sandbanks, 205-6, 240

  Hauraki Gulf, 238

  Hawaiian Islands, 206

  Hebrides, lighthouses of the, 112, 313

  Heligoland lighthouse, 133, 218;
    use of the rocket system, 59;
    the electric installation, 224-26

  Hellespont, Sigeum lighthouse, 2

  Henlopen Cape, light, 199

  Hennebique system, 260

  Henry, Cape, lighthouse, 20, 199-200

  Héve, Cape, lighthouse, 218, 219

  _Hinemoa_, New Zealand Government steamer, 235, 236, 238

  Hoheweg lighthouse, 138

  Hole-in-the-Wall, Vancouver, 174

  Holland coastline, 48

  Holmes, Professor, fog-horns, 60-62, 64, 66, 218

  Holophotal revolving apparatus, 33

  Hong-Kong, 264

  “Hoo-doo,” 91

  Horaine, plateau of, 153-56

  Horn, Cape, 268

  Hornum light, the electric installation, 226-28

  Howe, Cape, 230, 232

  _Huddart Parker_, liner, wreck, 236

  Hudson Bay coastline, 268

  Hugo, Victor, “The Toilers of the Sea,” 269

  Hunting Island tower, South Carolina, 19-20

  Huron, Lake, 211

  Hynish harbour, 107

  “Hyperradiant,” the, 37, 41;
    the quicksilver trough, 42-43


  “Ice-breakers,” 201

  “Ice-stoves,” 200-201, 210

  Inchcape. _See_ Bell Rock

  Ingrey, Charles, scheme for Ailsa Crag, 64, 66

  Invercargill, 237

  Iona, 100

  Ireland, Congested Districts Board beacons, 282-83

  Irish lights, Commissioners of, 7;
    the Fastnet, 123, 127

  Iron, use in construction, 19-20

  Islay, 298


  Jamaica coastline, lighting, 283

  Japan, coastline, lighthouses, 9-10, 257-58

  Java, 257

  Jersey coastline, 243

  Jument of Ushant, 156, 160


  Karachi, unattended light, 281

  Kavanagh, James, the Fastnet, 125, 128

  “Kingdom of Heaven,” 92


  Labrador coastline, 169, 268

  Lagerholmen lighthouse, 278

  Lampaul, Bay of, 157

  Land’s End coastline, 247

  Lard-oil as fuel, 46, 47

  Leasowe lighthouse, 16;
    fire at, 309

  Lenses, preparation, 39, 40

  Lewes, Delaware, 144

  Lewis, Isle of, 113

  Lewis, Winslow, invention of, 34, 35

  “Light-boats,” 294

  Lighthouse Board, U.S.A., 178-79

  Lighthouse dues, origin, 4, 7;
    levy of, 7, 239

  Lighthouse Literature Mission, 306

  Lighthouses, construction of, 174;
    wooden towers, 198;
    electric, of the world, 218-28;
    unattended, 267-83;
    floating, 284-300

  Lighting: candles, 33;
    Fresnel system, 28-33;
    holophotal revolving apparatus, 33;
    hyperradiants, 33-41;
    sperm-oil, 46;
    colza-oil, 46-47;
    lard-oil, 46, 47;
    petroleum, 47-48, 296-98;
    paraffin, 47-48;
    oil-gas, 48-49, 296;
    various gases, 49-50;
    electric lighting, 50-51, 148, 295-96;
    acetylene system, 69-71, 238, 291

  Light-keepers, life of the, 301-17

  Lights: wood or coal in open braziers, 28;
    tallow candles, 28;
    indentification of, 32;
    classification of, 37, 44-45;
    “divergence,” 39;
    focal point, 39;
    white and coloured, 45-46;
    candle-power, 51, 53;
    subsidiary, 53-55;
    duration of flash in revolving, 55-56

  Lightships: the Stevenson unattended, 70;
    maintenance of, 240-41;
    description, 241-42;
    the Minquiers light, 243-44;
    average crew for, 244-45;
    incidents, 244-55;
    illuminating apparatus, 255-57

  “Light valve,” the Dalén, 275-78

  Lipson’s Reef, 55

  Little Brewster Island lighthouse, 196-197

  Lizard Head, 72, 82, 94

  Lizard lighthouse, 94, 218

  Lloyd’s, signalling-station at the Fastnet, 131

  Longfellow, lines to Minot’s Ledge light, 176

  Longships light, 82, 92, 311

  Longstones lighthouse, 95, 314

  Louis XIV. and the Eddystone, 75

  Lundy Island, 92

  _Lupata_, sailing-ship, wreck, 183

  _Lusitania_, French emigrant steamer, wreck, 164

  _Ly-ce-moon_, steamer, wreck, 233


  Mackinac, Strait of, 211

  Macquarie, tower, 231

  Magellan, Straits of, 268;
    unattended lighthouses, 274-75

  Malacca Straits lighthouse, 257;
    One Fathom Bank, 259-64

  Malay Peninsula, 257

  _Malcolm Baxter Junior_, schooner, collision with the lighthouse, 308

  Man, Isle of, Chicken Rock light, 94

  Manacles, wrecks on the, 7

  Manilla, 310

  Manora breakwater, the Wigham light, 281

  Manora Point light, Karachi, 39-41

  Maria Van Diemen, Cape, lighthouse, 237, 238

  Marine and Fisheries, Department of, Canada, 171

  Marine Department, New Zealand, 233

  Matthews, Sir Thomas, 26;
    light designed by, 278-79, 299

  May, Isle of, lighthouse, 7, 218-23

  _Megantic_, White Star liner, 313

  Meldrum, Sir John, the North Foreland lighthouse, 81

  Mendocino, Cape, lighthouse, 204-5

  Ménier, Henri, 171

  Mercury float, the, 42, 43, 56

  Meriten (De), dynamos, 221, 223

  Mersey lightship, 240

  Mew Island lighthouse, 38, 41

  Mexico, Gulf of, coastline, 201

  Michigan City Harbour light, 315-16

  Michigan Lake, lighting of, 208, 211, 214, 215, 217

  Minches, the, 112, 113

  _Minnehaha_, wreck of the, 82, 83

  Minot’s Ledge light, 11, 74, 204;
    Captain Swift’s tower, 176-78;
    General Barnard’s structure, 178-82

  Minquiers lightship, 243-44

  _Mohegan_ wreck, 7

  Moko Hinou, 238

  Monach Island light, 113

  “Monolithic” method of construction, 16-19

  Montagu Island lighthouse, 30-31

  Monterey Bay, 315

  Morocco, Cape Spartel light, 207

  Moye system of lighting, 69

  Muckle Flugga, 109-112

  Mull, Isle of, 102, 115

  Mull of Kintyre, 108

  Murray, Hon. A., 260


  Nantucket Shoals lightship, 250

  Navesink lighthouse, 51, 218

  Needles light, the, 94

  New Jersey coastline, 218

  New London, Connecticut, Race Rock lighthouse, 203-4

  New South Wales, lighthouses of, 230, 231, 232-33

  New York Harbour: lighting, 218, 295;
    lightships, 251

  New Zealand: system of lighting, 33;
    lighthouses of, 229-30, 233-35;
    the lighthouse-keepers, 235;
    unattended lighthouses, 268

  Newfoundland coastline, 162, 169

  Newhaven, 303

  “No. 87” lightship, 251

  Norah Head lighthouse, 232

  Norderney lightship, 242, 249

  Nore lightship, 240, 242, 245

  _Norge_ liner, wreck, 299

  Norman Cape light, 169

  North Cape, New Zealand, lighthouse, 237, 238

  North Foreland light, 81

  North German Lloyd Atlantic liners, 132, 137

  North Island, New Zealand, coastline, 233

  North Ronaldshay lighthouse, 33

  North Unst lighthouse, 9, 109, 110-12

  Northern lighthouses, Commissioners of, 8-10, 37, 63, 64, 94, 96,
          100-02, 105, 109, 114, 219

  North-West lightship (Mersey), 240

  Nova Scotia: Sable Island lighthouse, 166;
    floating lighthouses, 285, 290

  Nuremberg, tests carried out at, 225-26


  Oil-gas, compressed, use of, 48, 296

  One Fathom Bank lighthouse, 259-64

  “One-tenth flash,” 294

  Ontario Lake, 217

  Oregon coastline, 13, 195

  Orkneys coastline, 108, 109

  Otter Rock lightship, 9, 297-99

  Ouessant, Ile d’. _See_ Ushant

  “Outer Automatic,” Halifax Harbour, 290

  Outer Diamond Shoal lightship, 147

  Outer Minot light, 177, 178


  Panama Canal, unattended lighthouses, 277

  “Panels,” system of dividing the light by, 31-32

  Paraffin, use of, 47

  Paris Exhibition of 1867, 61

  _Paris_, wreck of the, 7

  Parry sound, 216

  Patents granted for upkeep of beacons, 5-6

  Pei Yu-Shan lighthouse, 39

  Pencarrow Head lighthouse, 234

  Pentland Firth, 108

  Pentland Skerries light, 109

  Petroleum gas, use of, 47, 48, 279, 296-98

  _Phare_, the term, 3

  _Phares, Service des_, 19, 148, 219

  _Pharos_, constructional vessel, 110

  Pharos, the, Dover, 3;
    of Alexandria, 2-3

  Philippines coastline, 206

  Phœnicians, beacons erected by the, 3

  Pilgrim Fathers, the, and lighthouses, 6

  Pilotage, Board of, Sweden, experiments with acetylene, 292, 293-94

  Pino Point lighthouse, 315

  Pladda, Island of, 64

  Planier lighthouse, 219

  Platte Fougère, land-controlled station of, 269-74, 283

  Pleasanton, Stephen, 197-98

  Plenty, Bay of, 236

  Plymouth Harbour, 72

  Plymouth Hoe, 80

  Poe, General O. M., Spectacle Reef lighthouse, 211-14

  Portland Canal, 173

  Portland, Duke of, lighthouse on the Isle of Man, 7

  Portland stone, used for building Eddystone, 76

  Port of Dublin Corporation, 121

  Potomac, ice-shores of the, 200-201

  Potron, Charles Eugène, generosity of, 157, 159-60

  Prince Rupert, port of, 173, 284

  Pulsometer Engineering Company, Reading, 66

  Punta Gorda light-station, 311

  Puysegur Point, 237


  Queenstown harbour floating light, 297


  Race, Cape, lighthouse, 39, 43;
    the lens, 40-41;
    clockwork mechanism, 43;
    fog-signalling apparatus, 67;
    dangers of, 162-64;
    the first beacon, 164-65;
    the new beacon, 165

  Race Rock lighthouse, 203-4

  Ralph the Rover, 96

  Rame Head, 72

  Rathlin light, 313

  Rattray Briggs lighthouse, 9

  Ray, Cape, 164

  Red Rock lighthouse, 210, 216

  Red Sea lighthouses, 311

  Rennie, John, the Bell Rock light, 97

  Reyes Point, 205

  Reynaud, Léonce, tower on the Heaux de Bréhat, 149-53

  Rhins of Islay, 113

  Ribière, 8

  Rock Island, 124

  Rock of Ages lighthouse, 210, 214-15, 216

  Rockall, the, 299-300

  Rockets, use of, 58-59

  Rose of Mull, the, 113

  Rothersand lighthouse, 11, 218;
    the first attempt, 132-36;
    work of the Society Harkort, 136-43

  Round Island lighthouse, 39

  Royale, Isle, 214

  Rudyerd, John, the Eddystone lighthouse, 74, 75, 92-93

  Russell Channel, the, 269-70

  Russian lighthouse authorities, 18

  Rutingen lightship, 242, 249


  Sable Island, 162;
    description, 165-66;
    lighthouses and chief station, 166-67;
    the west end light, 167-68;
    the east end light, 168

  St. Agnes light, 81

  St. Catherine’s Downs, 223

  St. Catherine’s lighthouse, 55, 94, 218;
    the electric installation, 223-24

  St. Clair, Lake, 208

  St. David’s Head, 92

  St. John’s, Newfoundland, 164

  St. Kilda, 300

  St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 163;
    dangers, 171

  St. Lawrence River:
    fog-signalling apparatus, 66-68;
    entrance, 162;
    the ice, 172;
    lighting of the, 172-73

  St. Malo Harbour, 243

  St. Mary’s, 85

  St. Peter Port lighthouse, 269-70

  Sambro Island lighthouse, 162

  Samoan Islands, American, controlled by the Lighthouse Board, 206

  San Francisco: bay, 63;
    coastline, 205

  Sand, lighthouses built on, 132-47

  Sandbanks, signposts of the, 240-56

  Sandy Hook lighthouse, 199, 295

  Sarnia, 216

  _Salara_, the, wreck, 232-33

  Sault Ste. Marie, 216

  Scammon’s Harbour, 212

  _Schiller_, German packet, wreck of, 86

  Schukert, 225

  Scilly Island, 81, 82, 247

  Scotland: lighting, 50;
    sea-rock lights of, 96;
    the coastline, 108

  _Scotsman_, Dominion liner, 171

  Scott, C. W., and the Fastnet, 123-24, 129

  Scott, Sir Walter, _quoted_, 100, 101

  “Screw-pile lighthouses,” 19, 83, 200-203, 261-62

  Sea-rock lighthouses, construction, 20 _et seq._

  Serrin-Berjot lamps, 221-23

  Seven Hunters. _See_ Flannen Islands

  Seven Stones lightship, 242, 248-49

  Seven Wonders of the world, 2

  Shark-catching, 311-12

  Sherman, General, 211

  Shetlands coastline, 108-109

  Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 82

  Sigeum lighthouse, on the Hellespont, 2

  Singapore, 257

  Siren, the, developments, 59-60, 159

  Skerries light, 94

  Skerryvore lighthouse, 11, 59, 100-107, 113, 311

  Slave-running, 312

  Slight, Mr., the modern siren, 62

  Smalls, The, 92-93

  Smeaton, John, the Eddystone lighthouse, 8, 75-78, 80

  _Smeaton_, the, 97-99

  Smith, Thomas, 9, 219

  Solent, the, 94

  Sound, aberration of, 68

  South Carolina, lighthouses of, 19-20

  South Foreland lighthouse: lighting, 38, 95;
    electricity adopted, 218-19;
    keepers of the, 314

  South Island, N.Z., coastline, 237

  South Solitary Island lighthouse, 230, 231

  South Stock light, 94

  Southey, ballad of the Bell Rock, 96

  Spain, early beacons, 3

  Spartel Cape lighthouse, 207, 300

  Spectacle Reef lighthouse, 74, 210-14, 215-16

  Sperm-oil, as luminant, 46

  “Spider-web braces,” 201

  Spurn Point lighthouse, 38-39

  Standard Oil Co., 282

  Stannard’s Rock lighthouse, 214, 216

  Start Point, 94

  Stephens Island, 233

  Stevenson, Alan: “Skerryvore,” 9, 100-107;
    improvements in lighting, 32-33;
    table of distances by, 51-52

  Stevenson, Charles, 9

  Stevenson, David, “North Unst,” 9

  Stevenson, David and Charles: the acetylene gun, 68-71;
    the unattended light, 269;
    the Platte Fougère fog-signal, 270-71;
    the Otter Rock light, 297;
    scheme for Rockall, 300

  Stevenson, David and Thomas: works carried out by, 15, 53;
    the Chicken Rock light, 94;
    building of the Dhu-Heartach, 114-20

  Stevenson, family of engineers: preeminence of, 8-10;
    systems of lighting, 36-38;
    adoption of electricity, 219-22;
    work in Japan, 258;
    characteristics, 305

  Stevenson, George, and the Fastnet, 122

  Stevenson, Robert, and the Bell Rock lighthouse, 9, 97-100;
    Skerryvore, 101

  Stevenson, Robert Louis, “A Family of Engineers,” 8-9

  Stevenson, Thomas, 9, 222

  Stewart Island, 237

  Stornoway lighthouse, lighting, 53-54

  Strain, Samuel H., 306

  Subsidiary lights, 53-55

  Suez, 312

  Sugar-Loaf Point lighthouse, 232

  Sule Skerry lighthouse, 9, 39

  Sumatra, 257

  “Sun-valve,” the Dalén, 275-78

  Superior, Lake, lighting of, 214, 216, 217

  Sweden: floating lighthouses, 291;
    unattended lighthouses, 277-82

  Swift, Captain W. H., the Minot’s Ledge light, 176-78, 182

  Sydney lighthouse. _See_ Macquarie Tower


  _Tararua_, steamship, wreck of the, 236, 237

  Tay, Firth of, 96

  Terawhiti, Cape, 238

  Thames lightships, 240-41

  Thomas, O. P., 260

  Three Kings Rock, 236

  Tierra del Fuego, 268

  Tillamook Head, 183

  Tillamook Rock lighthouse, 13-15, 183-95, 204;
    the keepers, 307-8

  Tiri-Tiri Island lighthouse, 236-38

  Torrain Rocks, 113

  Tory Island lighthouse, 39

  Trade, Board of:
    collection of light dues, 7-8;
    and the siren, 61;
    Mr. Ingrey’s scheme, 64;
    adoption of electricity, 219

  Trewavas, John R., death of, 14-15

  Triangle Island, British Columbia, light, 174

  Trinity House Brethren: purchase of patents, 6;
    maintenance of English lights, 7, 26;
    adoption of the Daboll trumpet, 60;
    and the Eddystone, 77;
    and the Wolf Rock, 88-89;
    and the Whiteside light, 93;
    and the Fastnet, 122;
    adoption of electricity, 218, 223;
    the light on the Seven Stones, 248

  Trinity House Museum: Smeaton’s clock, 76-77;
    Bishop Rock fog-bell, 85-86

  _Triumph_, steamship, wreck, 236

  Tyndall, Professor, 59

  Tyree, island of, 100, 102, 105, 107


  United States Corps of Engineers, 63, 198

  United States Lighthouse Board, 13 36, 195;
    coastline lighting, 20, 196-207;
    methods of lighting, 46-47;
    inauguration, 198;
    extent of control 206-7;
    lighting of the Great Lakes, 208-17;
    lightship service, 255;
    adoption of the Aga light, 294-95

  United States Typographical Engineers, 176

  Unst, island of, 112

  Ushant, 148, 156, 157

  Ushant Island, 158


  Vancouver, 173;
    coastline, 284

  Vancouver Island, 174

  Victoria, 173

  _Victoria_, steamer, wreck, 303-4


  Waipapapa Point lighthouse, 236, 237

  Walker, James, 8;
    Bishop Rock light, 84-5

  Wanganui, N.Z., 233

  Water-gas, 48

  Wellington, N.Z., 233-4

  Weser River estuary, 132

  West Indies lighthouses, 309

  White ant, ravages of the, 264-66

  White Shoal lighthouse, 215, 216

  Whiteside light, 92, 93

  Whistles on lighthouses, 58

  Wigham light, 279-280, 282, 296-97

  Willson, Mr. Thomas: the acetylene automatic light, 285-89, 291, 294

  _Winchelsea_, wreck of the, 72, 74

  Windward Point, Cuba, 308

  Winstanley, Henry: the Eddystone lighthouse, 73

  Wireless installation: on the Fastnet, 131;
    station, Sable Island, 167;
    Belle Ile, Southern Point, 170;
    the Eider lightship, 249

  Wirral, 16, 309

  Wolf Rock lighthouse, 14;
    blowing holes, 63, 87-92;
    relief, 311

  Women as lighthouse-keepers, 314-15

  Wrath, Cape, 112

  Wreckers of the Wolf Rock, 88;
    Chinese, 258-59


BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.

Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.

Ditto marks in the Index have been replaced by the actual text.

Empty, featureless areas along the side(s) of some illustrations have
been removed by Transcriber. This allowed those illustrations to be
shown larger and with greater detail.

Page 233: “Ly-ce-moon” likely is a misprint for “Ly-ee-moon”.




(http://mormontextsproject.org), with thanks to Trevor
Nysetvold for proofreading.








DEFENSE OF THE FAITH

AND THE SAINTS


BY

B. H. ROBERTS

AUTHOR OF

"The Gospel"

"Outlines of Ecclesiastical History"

"New Witness for God"

"Mormon Doctrine of Deity"

Etc., Etc.

VOLUME II.


Salt Lake City

1912



GENERAL FOREWORD

No word of Preface is necessary to this Volume, except to say that
in presenting it to his readers, the author feels that that he is
fulfilling a promise made to them when Volume I of the series was
issued.

A word of explanation will be found as an introduction to each
subdivision of the book, which excludes the necessity of making any
reference to such subdivisions in this General Forward.

THE AUTHOR.

Salt Lake City, January, 1912.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

GENERAL FOREWORD


Part I.

ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

Schroeder-Roberts' Debate.

Foreword.

The Appearing of Moroni.

The Book of Mormon.

Description of the Nephite Record.

THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

By Theodore Schroeder.

I.

Solomon Spaulding and his first manuscript.

Spaulding's rewritten manuscript.

Erroneous theories examined.

II.

How about Sidney Rigdon?

Rigdon's prior religious dishonesty.

Rigdon had opportunity to steal the manuscript.

Rigdon's only denial analyzed.

Rigdon and Lambdin in 1815.

Rigdon exhibits Spaulding's manuscript.

Rigdon foreknows the coming and contents of the Book of Mormon.

III.

From Rigdon to Smith via P. P. Pratt.

Rigdon visits Smith before Mormonism.

The conversion of Parley P. Pratt.

Rigdon's miraculous conversion.

The plagiarism clinched.

IV.

For the love of gold, not God.

Concluding comment.

THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.

By Brigham H. Roberts.

I.

Justifications for replying to Mr. Schroeder.

Preliminary considerations.

Various classes of witnesses.

Conflicting theories of origin.

Mr. Schroeder's statement of his case.

The facts of the Spaulding manuscript.

The task of the present writer.

The enemies of the Prophet.

"Dr." Philastus Hurlburt.

Rev. Adamson Bently, et al.

II.

The "second" Spaulding manuscript.

The failure of Howe's book.

The Conneaut witnesses.

E. D. Howe discredited as a witness.

The Davidson statement.

Alleged statement of Mrs. Davidson, formerly the wife of Solomon
Spaulding.

The Haven-Davidson interview.

Mrs. Ellen E. Dickinson's repudiation of the Davidson statement.

Reverend John A. Clark and the Davidson statement.

Mutilation of the Haven-Davidson interview.

Mr. Schroeder and the Davidson statement.

Why Mr. Schroeder discredits the Spaulding witnesses.

III.

The connection of Sidney Rigdon with the Spaulding manuscript.

Of Rigdon's alleged "religious dishonesty."

Rigdon's opportunity to steal Spaulding's manuscript.

Did Rigdon exhibit the Spaulding manuscript.

Did Rigdon foreknown the coming and contents of the Book of Mormon?

Alexander Campbell and the Book of Mormon in 1831.
      {Morning}                                                  553-555
      {Evening}                                                  556-557
      General                                                    558-574


                                BOOK FIVE
  METRICAL PSALMS                                                575-600


                                 BOOK SIX
  RESPONSES, CHANTS, DOXOLOGIES, AND AMENS
      {Responses}                                                601-609
      {The Lord’s Prayer}                                            610
      {Offertories}                                              611-612
      {Benedictions}                                             613-614
      {Doxologies}                                               615-618
      {Amens}                                                    619-623


                                                                    PAGE
  PRINCIPAL WORKS CONSULTED                                          395


                                 INDEXES
  (1) Index of Scripture Texts                                       400
  (2) Topical Index of the Metrical Psalms                           402
  (3) Composers and Sources of Tunes                                 402
  (4) Authors, Translators and Sources                               407
  (5) Alphabetical Index of Tunes                                    412
  (6) Original First Lines of Translations                           417
  (7) Index of First Lines                                           419




                                PREFACE


The aim of this book is to serve as a companion to the _Mennonite
Hymnary_. It seeks to explain, as far as possible, the origin of the
words and music of every hymn in the _Hymnary_.

The great lyrics of the church, contributed by every age since the days
of the apostles, are a precious heritage, and a source of inspiration
and power. This work is intended to foster an understanding of and love
for our hymns, new and old, and to stimulate the time-honored and
blessed practice of congregational singing in the church today.

The _Handbook_ may be found useful as an aid (1) in the private study of
hymns or their use in family devotions; (2) in selecting suitable hymns
for the many and varied services of public worship; (3) in preparing
special music services or hymn sings where such occasions are planned to
improve the singing in the church; (4) for study groups in hymnology in
churches and schools. The historical development of hymnology may be
followed in the brief “Introduction to Our Hymns and Tunes.”

The author has endeavored to make the work as comprehensive as possible
without overburdening the reader with too many details. Many hymns have
interesting stories connected with their origin and use while others,
equally valuable, were just written, without drama or incident, the poet
scarcely knowing how or why, except that the Inner Voice spoke. The
apocryphal tales which have been circulated concerning some hymns have
been studiously avoided. The aim has been to include only such material
as seems to bear genuine marks of authenticity. The bibliography of
“Principal Works Consulted,” found elsewhere in the book, indicates the
main sources.

The original versions of translated hymns are not always readily
available and for that reason they are reproduced in the _Handbook_.
Translated hymns are usually selections from a much larger number of
stanzas and it is often instructive to be able to study the whole
structure of the original work.

_Acknowledgements._ I wish to acknowledge valuable help received from
the following and to express hereby my gratitude to them: to Dr. Robert
McCutchan, author of _Our Hymnody_, who generously responded to my
request for information on a dozen or more hymns on which I had no data;
to Dr. Henry Wilder Foote, of Harvard University, author of _Three
Centuries of American Hymnody_, for biographical material on several
hymn writers, and the use of books from his private library; to Dr.
Reginald McAll, Executive Secretary of the Hymn Society of America for
helpful material; to Dr. Ruth Messenger, Archivist for the Hymn Society
of America, who furnished nearly all the Latin originals, and the
Italian original of Savonarola’s hymn, and information concerning these
hymns; to Dr. Armin Heussler, author of a forth-coming handbook to the
_Evangelical hymnal_, for material on several of the chorales; to Wm.
Runyan of the Hope Publishing Company, and to Dr. John Trowbridge of the
Bible Institute of Los Angeles, for information concerning several of
the gospel songs; to Dr. Cornelius Krahn who made the rich hymnic
treasures of the Mennonite Historical Library at Bethel College
available to me; to the late Rev. C. E. Krehbiel who loaned me material
from his private library for this work but did not live to see its
completion; to B. Bargen for help in preparing the manuscript for
publication; to Mrs. Beatrice Buller for reading the manuscripts and
proofs of the German chorales; to my wife, Charity Steiner Hostetler,
who read all the manuscripts and proofs and whose constant interest and
assistance were indispensable; and to others, too numerous to mention,
who in any way facilitated the completion of the work.

The book, written during spare moments of a busy pastorate, is sent
forth with the prayer that, in spite of errors and imperfections, it may
inspire all who use it to sing with greater devotion the praises of Him
who loved us and redeemed us.

                                                        Lester Hostetler

  The Parsonage
  Bethel College Mennonite Church
  North Newton, Kansas
  January 20, 1949




                           EXPLANATORY NOTES


In the interest of brevity and to avoid repetition, certain recurring
words are abbreviated:

_Hymnary_ is used for _Mennonite Hymnary_.

_c._ (_circa_) means approximate date.

_Tr._ is prefixed to the names of all translators.

_Anon._ (anonymous) means without any name acknowledged, as that of
author or composer.

The word “Number” has been omitted: thus Hymn 22 means Hymn No. 22.

_Cf._ means compare. (Latin: confer).

The original texts of German hymns found throughout the _Handbook_,
especially in the section of Chorales, Book IV, are the versions used in
one or more of the following works: _Gesangbuch mit Noten_, (Berne,
Ind., 1890); _Gesangbuch der Mennoniten_, (Canadian, 1942); _The
Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal_, (Concordia Pub. House, 1942);
_Gesangbuch zum gottesdienstlichen und häuslichen Gebrauch in
Evangelischen Mennoniten-Gemeinden_, (Konferenz der süddeutschen
Mennoniten zu Ludwigshafen a. Rh. 1910); and Knapp, _Evangelischer
Liederschatz_. Many variations occur in the texts as found in these
versions, the explanation of which would require a much greater
knowledge of German hymnody than the author possesses. An effort has
been made to bring the spelling into conformity with the modern German
practice of omitting the “h” where it was formerly used with the “th”;
the use of “ss” instead of “sz”; and printing the initial letter of the
pronouns referring to Deity, in lower case rather than with capitals.




                 AN INTRODUCTION TO OUR HYMNS AND TUNES


                 With Illustrations From the _Hymnary_

  1. Definition of a Hymn.
  2. The Beginnings of Christian Song.
  3. Hymns of the Eastern Church: Greek and Syriac.
  4. Hymns of the Western Church: Latin.
  5. Hymns of the Bohemian Brethren.
  6. Hymns of the Reformation: The German Chorales.
  7. Hymns of the Reformation: The Metrical Psalms.
  8. Psalm Versions.
  9. English Hymnody.
  10. American Hymns.
  11. The Gospel Songs.
  12. Women Hymn Writers.
  13. Mennonite Hymnody.
  14. Antecedents of the _Mennonite Hymnary_.
  15. The Translation of Hymns.
  16. Church Unity in the Hymn Book.
  17. Hymn Meters.
  18. Hymn Tunes.
  19. John Wesley’s Rules for Singing.


                        1. Definition of a Hymn.

St. Augustine, 354-430, gave a definition of a hymn, which has been
widely accepted:

  A hymn is the praise of God by singing. A hymn is a song embodying the
  praise of God. If there is merely praise but not praise of God it is
  not a hymn. If there be praise, and praise of God, but not sung, it is
  not a hymn. For it to be a hymn, it is needful, therefore, for it to
  have three things—praise, praise of God, and these sung.

A recent definition, accepted by the Hymn Society of America, is that of
the late Carl F. Price:

  A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally
  conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the
  worshiper’s attitude toward God, or God’s purposes, in human life.

L. F. Benson, America’s foremost hymnologist, defines a hymn in these
simple words:

  The Christian hymn ... is a form of words appropriate to be sung or
  chanted in public devotions.

A hymn is to be sung _by a congregation_. Its message must be simple,
not subtle. It must read well and sing well. In modern usage, the hymn
is not limited to the praise of God but includes other moods of worship
such as resignation and consecration.


                  2. The Beginnings of Christian Song.

Hymn singing has always been associated with Christian worship. Jesus
and the Twelve sang a hymn, presumably a portion of the _Hallel_ (Ps.
115-118), after the Supper was ended. Paul and Silas sang hymns, “songs
of the night,” during the midnight hours of their imprisonment in
Philippi. The great Apostle recognized the value of song when he
exhorted the churches thus:

  Be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
  and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the
  Lord. Eph. 5:18, 19.

  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and
  admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
  singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Col. 3:16.

  I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding
  also. I Cor. 14:15.

The Jewish converts who at first composed the church had a rich heritage
of song in the Book of Psalms. This was their hymnbook, used in the
Temple worship and in the home and probably also in the synagogue
services. The use of the Psalms, carried over from the Jewish service,
forms to this day an important element in Christian worship.

Besides the Psalms, the early church sang the nativity lyrics that adorn
the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. It also made extensive use
of _Hallelujah_ as a part of the people’s praise, adding, in the course
of time, the _Gloria Patri_, the _Sanctus_, the _Te Deum_, and other
canticles.

The nativity hymns in Luke, five in all, are extensively used in Roman
Catholic and Anglican services.

  _Ave Maria_ (Hail Mary). 1:28-29, 42-45. The salutation of Gabriel and
  of Elizabeth.

  _Magnificat._ “My soul doth magnify the Lord....” 1:46-55. Hymn of the
  Virgin Mary.

  _Benedictus._ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel....” 1:68-79. Song of
  Zacharias.

  _Nunc Dimittis._ “Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.”
  2:29-32. Song of Simeon.

  _Gloria in excelsis._ “Glory to God in the highest....” 2:14. Song of
  the Angels. Used as a part of the Roman mass and often found in
  Protestant hymns, e.g., “Angels we have heard on high” 82.


              Beginnings of Christian Song in the Hymnary

  _Psalms._ Book Five. 575-600.
  _Gloria Patri_ 606-7.
  _Ter Sanctus_ (_Trisagion_) “Holy, holy, holy” 601-2.
  _Te Deum._ “Holy God we praise Thy name” 519. A metrical translation
          of an ancient version.


           3. Hymns of the Eastern Church: Greek and Syriac.

The ancient Eastern Church developed a rich hymnody, rising steadily in
the fourth century until it reached its culmination in the eighth and
ninth centuries. Since it employed the Greek and Syriac languages, its
hymnic treasures remained almost completely hidden and unknown to the
English speaking churches for many centuries. It is only in recent
years, through the efforts of scholars like John Mason Neale and Edward
Caswall that some of the Eastern hymns have been translated and made
available for modern use. Eastern hymns are characterized by an
objective, dignified, contemplation of God. Except when confessing sin
and unworthiness, they contain nothing of the subjective feelings of the
worshipper such as is found in many modern hymns. Though there is very
little in the _Hymnary_ from the Eastern Church, our collection is
enriched by the inclusion of a small number of hymns from this source.


                       Greek Hymns in the Hymnary

    Clement of Alexandria, 170-220, “Shepherd of tender youth” (398)
    Candle Lighting Hymn, “O gladsome light” (34)
    Synesius, c. 375-430, “Lord Jesus, think on me” (196)
    St. Germanus, 634-734, “A great and mighty wonder” (526)
    St. John of Damascus, 8th century, “The day of resurrection” (115)
            “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain” (113)
    St. Stephen the Sabaite, 725-94, “Art thou weary, heavy-laden” (143)
    Candle Lighting Hymn, “Darkening night, the land doth” (32)


                 4. Hymns of the Western Church: Latin.

Two great names are associated with the music of the Western Church:
Ambrose, c. 340-97, known as the “Father of Hymnody in the Western
Church;” and Gregory the Great, 540-604, the missionary-minded pope, and
reformer of church music.

Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, not only composed hymns and music but
stimulated others to do the same. Under his leadership there developed a
large body of church music based upon four scales, which came to be
known as Ambrosian Chant. Although widely known as a scholar,
theologian, and preacher, Ambrose’s most lasting influence was upon the
music of the church. None of his hymns are found in our collection.

Gregory the Great, two centuries later, carried forward the work of
Ambrose. He added four more scales or modes to the Ambrosian system,
thus giving to the repertory of church music more definiteness and
variety. The music that developed during the papacy of Gregory came to
be known as Gregorian Chant, or plainsong, or plainchant. It is “plain”
because unadorned, unharmonized and unmeasured. Its rhythm is the free
rhythm of speech, the beats falling irregularly. The Gregorian Chant
remained the music of the church for a thousand years and forms the
basis of all Roman Catholic music today. Some of these chants were
adapted by Luther for congregational singing, and set to words in the
vernacular of the people. A few of the tunes, usually in a form scarcely
recognizable from the original, are used today in Protestant hymnals, as
for instance, the tune “Hamburg.” Some of the music in the Amish church
services is traceable to the Gregorian Chant.

The singing in the medieval church was liturgical in character and
confined to the clergy and trained choirs. This was its weakness. The
laity was not expected to sing, neither were they able to do so.
Congregational singing, so important in our worship today, had for
centuries been unknown in the Roman Catholic Church. Reform was
inevitable and it came in due time.

While only remnants of the music survive, many hymns from the Western
Church have been translated from the Latin and a few choice ones have
found their way into the _Hymnary_.


                       Latin Hymns in the Hymnary

    Prudentius, 348-c. 413, “Bethlehem, of noblest cities” (88)
    Gregory the Great, 540-604, “Father, we praise Thee” (24)
    Anonymous, 6th or 7th century, “Christ is made the sure” (277)
            “Joy dawned again on Easterday” (415)
    Theodulph of Orleans, 9th century, “All glory, laud, and honor”
          (100)
    Bernard of Clairvaux, 1091-1153, “Jesus the very thought” (155)
            “O sacred Head, now wounded” (539)
    Bernard of Cluny, 12th century, “Jerusalem, the golden” (262-3)
    Anonymous, 12th century, “O come, O come, Emmanuel” (67)
    Savonarola, 1452-98 (Italian), “Jesus, Refuge of the weary” (536)
    Anonymous, 17th-18th centuries, “O come, all ye faithful” (80)
            “The year is gone beyond recall” (382)


                   5. Hymns of the Bohemian Brethren.

The followers of John Hus who came to be known as the Bohemian Brethren,
and later as the Moravians, were the first Protestant group to introduce
congregational singing into their worship. They also published the first
Protestant hymnbooks, one in 1501 and another in 1505, containing 89 and
400 hymns, respectively, in their native Bohemian tongue. Their efforts
to introduce congregational singing were sternly opposed by the Roman
hierarchy. The Council of Constance condemned Hus to be burned at the
stake and warned his successor, Jacob of Misi, to cease the singing of
hymns in the churches. It decreed:

  If laymen are forbidden to preach and interpret the Scriptures, much
  more are they forbidden to sing publicly in the churches.

As a result of their persecution, the Brethren in 1508 sent out
messengers to search for true Christian people into whose communion they
might apply for admission—one to Russia, one to Greece, one to Bulgaria,
and one to Palestine and Egypt. All returned unsuccessful. No such
Christians had been found. They therefore remained in their own country,
giving themselves assiduously to the translation and printing of the
Bible.

In 1522 the Brethren sent two messengers to Luther to greet him and ask
his advice. Luther became interested in them and welcomed their
fellowship. He was impressed with the hymnbook the Brethren had
published, and later used some of the hymns in his own work.

Two centuries later, the Brethren, known now as the Moravians, settled
on Count Zinzendorf’s estates in Saxony, spreading rapidly from thence
into other countries in Europe and to the United States. One of
England’s foremost hymn writers and hymnologists, James Montgomery, was
an adherent to their faith.


          Bohemian Brethren and Moravian Hymns in the Hymnary

    Michael Weisse, 1480-1534, “Christ, the Lord, is ris’n again” (544)
            Tunes: “Mit Freuden Zart” (512), “Ravenshaw” (292)
    von Zinzendorf, Nikolaus L., 1700-60, “Jesus, still lead on” (574)
    von Zinzendorf, Christian R., 1724-62, “Man of sorrows” (537)
    Henriette Luise von Hayn, 1724-82, “I am Jesus’ little lamb” (430)
    James Montgomery, 1771-1854, “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” (65)
            “Angels from the realms of glory” (81)
            “Go to dark Gethsemane” (107) and many others


           6. Hymns of the Reformation: the German Chorales.

The movement toward congregational singing, inaugurated by the Bohemian
Brethren, was soon to be merged into the greater Reformation movement.
Luther’s influence on the worship and music of the church was
revolutionary. For a thousand years the laymen had had no part in church
song. Congregational singing was unknown. Ambrosian music had at first
been introduced for congregational use but it became more and more
liturgical, thrusting the laity into the background. The Gregorian Chant
which followed was never intended for use except by the priests and
trained choirs. The followers of Hus pioneered in congregational
singing; but it was Luther and his followers who brought it into full
fruition.

Luther was a born music lover and a musician of adequate training.
Moreover he possessed a remarkable gift for writing hymns in clear
thought to bring the Word of God home to the hearts of the common
people. He and his followers put songs on the lips of the German people
and they sang themselves into the Reformation. So effective were these
songs that his enemies in the Roman church declared that “Luther’s songs
have damned more souls than all his books and speeches.”

_Chorales._ The word “chorale” (“choral” in German) refers to the hymn
tunes of Lutheran Protestantism, though in common usage the term
includes the words associated with the tunes. The melodies had much to
do with the popularity of the songs. They came from various sources.
Many of them were original compositions by Luther and others; some were
borrowed from the hymn books of the Bohemian Brethren; a considerable
number were adaptations of plainsongs used in the Catholic Church; still
others were adopted from beloved folksongs. Luther was an eclectic in
his choice of music. He used any tune from any source that suited his
purpose. Many thousands of chorales came into existence in Germany
during his time and the two centuries that followed. The hundreds still
in use represent the best in church music today. They are characterized
by a plain melody, a strong harmony, and a stately rhythm; all of which
adapts them well for effective congregational singing.

The chorales at first did not have the regular rhythms that they later
took on. The steady progression of even notes, invariable in Bach’s day,
had come only gradually into use. Some of the recent hymnbooks, in the
interest of greater variety of rhythm, are returning to the original
“rhythmic chorales.”

Though _unison_ singing has been widely practiced and is advocated today
by some good authorities in church music, Luther encouraged part
singing. In his first Preface to the _Geystliches Gesangbücklin_, 1525,
he wrote:

  These songs have been set in four parts, for no other reason than
  because I wished to provide our young people (who both will and ought
  to be instructed in music and other sciences) with something whereby
  they might rid themselves of amorous and carnal songs, and in their
  stead learn something wholesome, and so apply themselves to what is
  good with pleasure, as becometh the young.

The period of the German chorales may be said to have begun with Luther,
1483-1546, and ended two centuries later with J. S. Bach, 1685-1750.
Bach brought the chorale tunes to their highest perfection, using many
of them in his larger choral works. He composed about 30 original
chorale melodies, wrote reharmonizations for approximately 400, and
composed many chorale preludes for the organ which are in wide use
today.

The German hymns and chorale tunes, used constantly in the home and
school, as well as in the church, have been of great importance in our
Mennonite worship in the past. They constitute the main body of material
in all our German collections of hymns. In an effort to preserve and
emphasize this rich heritage, there was incorporated into the _Hymnary_,
a special section, Book III, made up exclusively of chorales.


                     German Chorales in the Hymnary

  16th Century
    Martin Luther, 1483-1546, “A mighty fortress is our God” (549)
            “From heaven above to earth I come” (527)
            “Out of the depths I cry to Thee” (531-2)
    Nicolaus Selnecker, 1532-92, “Now cheer our hearts” (557)
    Philipp Nicolai, 1556-1608, “Wake, awake, for night is flying” (522)
            “How brightly shines the Morning Star” (529)
  17th Century
  (_1_)—_Period of The Thirty Years War—1618-48_
    Johann Heerman, 1585-1647, “Ah, dearest Jesus” (534)
    Josua Stegman, 1588-1632, “Abide with us, our Savior” (559)
    Matthaus von Löwenstern, 1594-1648, “Lord of our life” (278)
    Georg Weissel, 1590-1635, “Lift up your heads” (523)
    Heinrich Albert, 1604-51, “God who madest earth” (573)
    Ernst Homburg, 1605-81, “Christ, the life of all the living” (535)
    Michael Schirmer, 1606-73, “O Holy Spirit, enter in” (546)
    Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76, “O sacred Head, now wounded” (539) and
          others
    Gerhard Tersteegen, 1697-1769, “God reveals His presence” (506)
            “O power of love, all else transcending” (517)
  (_2_)—_Later 17th Century_
    Johann Franck, 1618-77, “Deck thyself, my soul,” (552)
    Tobias Clausnitzer, 1619-84, “Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier” (553a)
    Georg Neumark, 1621-81, “He who would be in God” (571)
    Johann Scheffler, 1624-77, “I am the Lord, O hear my voice” (565)
    Joachim Neander, 1650-80, “Heaven and earth, the sea” (510)
  _18th Century_
    Johann Mentzer, 1658-1734, “O that I had a thousand voices” (509)
    Erdmann Neumeister, 1671-1756, “Sinners Jesus will receive” (466)
    Benjamin Schmolck, 1672-1737, “My Jesus, as Thou wilt” (250)
    Philipp F. Hiller, 1699-1769, “O Son of God, we wait for” (524)
            “What mercy and divine compassion” (562)
    Christian F. Gellert, 1715-69, “How great, almighty is Thy” (516)
    Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750. The life of the great musician
          marks the close of the German Chorale period and for that
          reason his name is placed here. None of Bach’s original
          chorale melodies are found in the _Hymnary_ but use is made of
          a number of his harmonizations. See 539, 545, 556, 557, 564,
          566.


           7. Hymns of the Reformation: The Metrical Psalms.

While the German people, under the leadership of Luther, were singing
chorales set to original religious poems, a large section of
Protestantism, under the influence of John Calvin, confined itself to
the singing of Psalms. To the French reformer, now preaching at Geneva,
hymns were “man-made,” whereas the psalms were the inspired word of God
and the only proper vehicle for the praise of God. Calvin, unlike
Luther, was not a musician, and at first permitted only unison singing,
unaccompanied. Part singing and instrumental accompaniment seemed to
savor of the frivolous and worldly, an opinion which Calvin, however,
was soon to modify. For two hundred years the Calvinistic churches on
the Continent and in Britain were influenced in their worship song by
the strict views of Calvin, limiting themselves to the metrical psalms
and scriptural paraphrases. The German people in the meantime produced a
rich treasury of original religious lyrics, contributed by some of their
best poets.


            Psalter Tunes and Metrical Psalms in the Hymnary

  _Genevan Psalter_ Tunes, 1551.
            O Seigneur (19)
            Old 134th (128, 132, 616)
            Rendez à Dieu (306)
            Old 124th (354)
            Old 100th (594)
  _Scottish Psalter_, 1650.
            Book Five (575 to 600) with a few exceptions
  _New Version_, 1696, Tate and Brady.
            “Through all the changing scenes of life” (583)
            “As pants the hart for cooling streams” (586)
            “O come, loud anthems let us sing” (18)
            “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” (73-4)


                           8. Psalm Versions.

The use of the psalms in singing, first on the Continent, then in
England and Scotland, and later in America, brought forth many metrical
versions of the psalter, the principal ones being the following:

a. _The Genevan Psalter_, begun 1539, published complete in 1562. It was
made at the request of John Calvin by Clément Marot, court poet of
France, and Theodore Beza, a French scholar. It became the psalm book
for the Reformation churches on the continent, and is spoken of as the
most famous book of praise the Christian Church ever produced. It was
issued in at least one thousand editions and translated into a number of
tongues. Some of the original tunes are still in use, e.g., “Old
Hundredth.”

b. _The Anglo-Genevan Psalter_, Geneva, 1556. This was used by John
Knox, the Scottish reformer, and his followers who fled the persecutions
of “Bloody Mary,” and formed a congregation at Geneva. The book
incorporated some of the Sternhold and Hopkins versions which were in
use in England, and added others.

c. _The Old Version_, Sternhold and Hopkins, completed in 1562. Used in
England for 134 years. It is entitled, _The Whole Booke of Psalmes_, but
came to be known as the “Old Version.”

d. _The Bay Psalm Book_, Boston, 1640. This was the first book printed
in English-speaking America. It was made to obtain greater literalness
to the Hebrew original than was found in the versions then in use. The
book reigned supreme among the English churches in New England for over
a century. Seventy editions of it were printed in America, the last in
1773. Eighteen editions appeared in England, and twenty-two in Scotland.
There were no tunes given it until 1698, then only 13, with the air in
the bass.

e. _The Scottish Psalter_, completed 1650. Special mention is made of
this version of the Psalms because it is the source of nearly all the
selections of metrical psalms which constitute Book Five of the
_Hymnary_. The number of versions and editions of psalms which appeared
on the Continent and in England were numerous and confusing, each
claiming its own special merits. Finally, in the interests of better
literary diction and greater unity in singing in the Scottish
Presbyterian churches, the General Assembly authorized a new version.
The result, after many years’ work, was the famous _Scottish Psalter_ of
1650 which remains the standard work in Scotland today.

There is a certain “dignified crudeness” in some of the literary
expressions but the psalms have long been learned in this version and
have become an important part of the religious training and experience
of millions of English speaking people, especially in Scotland.

The Scottish Psalter first appeared with words only. There were no notes
and no suggestions for melodies. The succeeding one hundred years were a
time of confusion. The tunes used were few in number, such as the
leaders had learned from various sources, and passed on to succeeding
generations by rote. The time came when better singing and better tunes
were demanded and gradually the psalter appeared with tunes. Early tune
versions put the melody invariably in the tenor. The latest edition,
printed in 1929, by the Oxford Press, contains the best Psalm tunes
which had gradually come into use, many of them arranged with
“Faux-bourdon” (wherein the congregation sings one or more verses to the
melody while the choir supplies the harmony), and “Descant” (a second
melody over that of the tune).

f. _The New Version_, Tate and Brady, London, 1696. This version
gradually supplanted the _Old Version_ of Sternhold and Hopkins, and
held its place in the worship of the church for 150 years. It was
adopted, in 1789, by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States and bound with the prayer book of that Communion.

The above versions are only a few of the large number of psalters that
were published by the Calvinistic churches on the Continent, in Great
Britain, and in America. The metrical psalms were designed for the
singing church. They were intended to restore song to the people in
their worship, serving in this respect a similar purpose to the chorales
in Germany.

Some of the psalm books were published without music, some with the
melody only, and others in four-part harmony. The statement is
frequently made that Calvinistic Protestantism approved only unison
singing. The appearance of numerous books, complete with four voice
parts, points to the contrary. It is true that Calvin at first
encouraged unison singing only, regarding harmony more in the nature of
amusement than the worship of God; but upon observing the effectiveness
of singing in Germany, he soon changed his views and became more liberal
in this respect.


                          9. English Hymnody.

The youthful, courageous Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, an ardent dissenter,
pioneered the movement which resulted in a flood of hymns and hymnbooks
in the English churches. Watts was not satisfied with the psalm singing
of his time, which by now had become formal and lifeless. Parts of the
psalter, he pointed out, were obviously not written in the spirit of the
Gospel. “By keeping too close to David,” he wrote in one of his
Prefaces, “the vail of Moses is thrown over our hearts.” Watts removed
that “vail,” Christianizing the psalms and composing during his lifetime
more than 600 original hymns, expressing in the language of the time,
the thoughts of the worshippers. Through his influence, his age, the
18th century, became the first age of hymn singing in England.

John and Charles Wesley, following Watts, made enormous use of hymn
singing in their evangelistic work, giving the movement for
congregational singing a powerful impetus. Charles is said to have
composed over 6,000 hymns.

From the Wesleys onward through the 19th century, the hymn writers in
England became numerous. The restrictive shackles of psalm singing had
been broken and the creative urge to worship in new forms resulted in a
vast number of original religious lyrics and the publication of hundreds
of hymnbooks. The development can be summarized here only in outline
form.


                     English Hymnody in the Hymnary

  Early—17th Century
    Henry Wotton, 1568-1639, “How happy is he” (208)
    George Herbert, 1593-1633, “Teach me, my God and King” (226)
    John Milton, 1608-74, “Let us with a gladsome mind” (64)
            “How lovely are Thy dwellings fair” (592)
    Thomas Ken, 1637-1711, “Awake, my soul, and with the sun” (25)
            “All praise to Thee, my God, this night” (33)
            “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow” (618)
    Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, “The spacious firmament on high” (50)
            “How are Thy servants blest” (338)
  18th Century
  _1. Two Independents_:
    Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, “Father of English Hymnody”
            “When I survey the wondrous cross” (105-6)
            “Joy to the world! the Lord is come” (70)
            “God is the refuge of His saints” (257)
            and many others
    Philip Doddridge, 1702-51, “How gentle God’s commands” (56)
            (and 128, 167, 218, 383, 465)
  _2. The Wesleys and their Associates_:
    John Wesley, 1703-91, translations (170, 226, 246, 508, 558)
    Charles Wesley, 1707-88, “Bard of Methodism”
            “Come, Thou long-expected Jesus” (69)
            “Jesus, Lover of my soul” (158-9)
            “Love divine, all loves excelling” (178-9)
            and many others
    William Williams, 1717-91, “Sweet Singer of Wales”
            “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah” (160)
    John Cennick, 1718-55, “Lo, He comes, with clouds” (130)
            “Jesus, my all, to heav’n is gone” (468)
    Thomas Olivers, 1725-99, “The God of Abraham praise” (14)
    Edward Perronet, 1726-92, “All hail the power of Jesus” (3, 4, 5)
  _3. A Calvinistic Antagonist of Wesley_
    Augustus Toplady, 1740-78, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me” (148)
  _4. The Olney Hymnists:_
    John Newton, 1725-1807, “Glorious things of thee” (274)
            “Safely through another week” (284)
            “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound” (463)
    William Cowper, 1731-1800, “God moves in a mysterious way” (60)
            “O for a closer walk with God” (197)
            “There is a fountain filled with blood” (492)
  _5. Others—18th Century:_
    Anne Steele, 1716-78, “Father, whate’er of earthly bliss” (251)
    Joseph Grigg, c. 1720-68, “Behold a Stranger at the door” (141)
            “Jesus, and shall it ever be” (192)
    Robert Robinson, 1735-90, “Mighty God, while angels bless” (46)
            “Come, Thou fount of every blessing” (189)
    John Fawcett, 1740-1817, “Blest be the tie that binds” (41)
            “Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing” (45)
  Modern English—19th Century
  _1. Earliest_:
    Thomas Kelly, 1769-1854, “Look, ye saints, the sight” (119)
            “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices” (123)
            “On the mountain top appearing” (336)
    James Montgomery, 1771-1854, “Prayer is the soul’s sincere” (184)
            “Angels, from the realms of glory” (81)
            “In the hour of trial” (195) and many others
    Robert Grant, 1779-1838, “O worship the King” (7)
            “Savior, when, in dust to Thee” (145)
    Reginald Heber, 1783-1826, “Holy, holy, holy” (1)
            “Bread of the world in mercy broken” (304)
            “From Greenland’s icy mountains” (333)
    Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871, “Just as I am, without one plea” (458)
            “O holy Savior, Friend unseen” (233)
            “My God and Father, while I stray” (245)
    Henry Milman, 1791-1868, “Ride on, ride on in majesty” (101)
    John Bowring, 1792-1872, “In the Cross of Christ I glory” (110)
            “Watchman, tell us of the night” (66)
            “God is love; His mercy brightens” (55)
    Henry F. Lyte, 1793-1847, “Abide with me” (40)
  _2. The Oxford Group_:
    John Keble, 1792-1866, “New every morning is the love” (22)
            “Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear” (30)
    Matthew Bridges, 1800-94, “Crown Him with many crowns” (118)
    John Henry Newman, 1801-90, “Lead, kindly light” (162-3)
    Richard Trench, 1807-86, “Lord, what a change within” (183)
    Frederick Faber, 1814-63, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” (58)
            “Faith of our fathers” (154)
    Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, 1823-95, “There is a green hill” (104)
  (_Translators of Latin and Greek Hymns_)
    John Chandler, 1806-76, “Christ is our Cornerstone” (9)
            “What star is this” (87)
    Edward Caswall, 1814-78, “Bethlehem, of noblest cities” (88)
            “Jesus, the very thought of Thee” (155)
    John M. Neale, 1818-66, “O come, O come Emmanuel” (67)
            “All glory, laud, and honor” (100)
  _3. Translators of German Hymns_:
    Catherine Winkworth, 1829-78, “Wake, awake for night” (522)
            and 24 others
    Frances E. Cox, 1812-97, “Sing praise to God” (512)
            “Jesus lives” (543)
    Jane L. Borthwick, 1813-97, “Be still, my soul” (54)
            “My Jesus, as Thou wilt” (250)
            “Jesus, still lead on” (574)
    Sarah Borthwick Findlater, 1823-1907, “O happy home” (358)
  _4. Other Hymnists—19th Century_:
    Christopher Wordsworth, 1807-85, “Gracious Spirit,” (174)
            “O day of rest and gladness” (285)
    Horatius Bonar, 1808-89, “I heard the voice of Jesus say” (142)
            “I lay my sins on Jesus” (444)
            “When the weary, seeking rest” (203) and others
    Alfred Tennyson, 1809-92, “Strong Son of God” (149)
            “Sunset and evening star” (265)
            “Ring out, wild bells” (379)
    Henry Alford, 1810-71, “We walk by faith, and not by sight” (152)
            “Come, ye thankful people, come” (377)
    W. W. How, 1823-97, “O Jesus, Thou art standing” (144)
            “For all the saints who from their labor rest” (317)
            “O Word of God Incarnate” (289) and others
    Godfrey Thring, 1823-1903, “From the Eastern mountains” (89)
            “Thou to whom the sick and dying” (370)
    Adelaide Proctor, 1825-64, “My God, I thank Thee” (177)
            “I do not ask, O Lord” (471)
    Edward H. Bickersteth, 1825-1906, “Peace, perfect peace” (256)
    John Ellerton, 1826-93, “Savior, again to Thy dear name” (43)
            “Now the laborer’s task is o’er” (315)
            “Throned upon the awful tree” (109) and others
    S. Baring-Gould, 1834-1924, “Now the day is over” (29)
            “Onward, Christian soldiers” (225)
    Edwin Hatch, 1835-89, “Breathe on me, breath of God” (135)
    Frances R. Havergal, 1836-79, “Take my life, and let it be” (215)
            “Lord, speak to me, that I may speak” (296)
            “Thou art coming, O my Savior” (126) and others
    Samuel Stone, 1839-1900, “The Church’s one foundation” (273)
    George Matheson, 1842-1906, “O love that wilt not let me go” (175)
  Recent English Hymns
    Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936, “Father in heav’n” (401)
    Stopford A. Brooke, 1832-1916, “Let the whole creation cry” (49)
    John Oxenham, 1852-1941, “In Christ there is no East” (320)
            “Peace in our time, O Lord” (357)
    Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936, “Remember all God’s children” (436)
    Richard Roberts, 1874—, “For them whose ways” (166)
    Laurence Housman, 1865—, “Father Eternal” (354)


                          10. American Hymns.

The English speaking colonists who settled in America during the 17th
century continued the psalm singing traditions of their forebears in
England. The practice prevailed in their churches for two hundred years.
The first book printed by them was the _Bay Psalm Book_, in 1640, at
Cambridge, Massachusetts. It contained no original hymns. The singing of
psalms, and later of hymns borrowed from England made up nearly the
entire repertory of church music until the middle of the 19th century.

On the other hand, the German speaking colonists, including the
Mennonites, had brought with them the hymn books of the Lutheran
tradition and continued the use of the German chorales in their worship.
The two streams of hymnody, English psalms and German chorales, went
their independent courses for two centuries, scarcely influencing each
other.

In the meantime there was very little original hymnody produced in
America, with the exception of the work of the Wesleys during their
brief experiment in Georgia, and the composition of certain hymns and
tunes by the German people of Pennsylvania, which have remained, until
recently, in manuscript form. Timothy Dwight’s hymn on the church, “I
love Thy Kingdom, Lord” (275) is probably the earliest American hymn
still in use.

After the middle of the 19th century the number of hymn writers became
large and their works came into increasing use, some choice examples
finding their way into English hymnbooks. America’s original
contribution to Christian hymnody has not been only the Gospel Songs
represented by the writings of Fanny Crosby, but the more permanent
works of Whittier, George W. Doane, Hosmer, Samuel Longfellow,
Washington Gladden, S. F. Smith, and many others. Our musical
contributions have been less conspicuous, but the tunes of Mason are
coming into their own again and many of them will doubtless survive for
a long time, as will also those of Bradbury, Hastings, and others.

The tendency today in American hymnbooks is to unite the best in English
and German traditions. The _Hymnary_ illustrates this trend. It makes
large use of the English hymns while at the same time preserving a
considerable body of the German chorales. In keeping with this trend,
the recent hymnbooks of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and other
churches of English origin, incorporate some of the German chorale tunes
and in some cases the translations of the words. The hymn books of our
time have become the channels through which flow the rich contributions
to the stream of Christian hymnody from Christian people of all times
and places.


                     American Hymns in the Hymnary

  Early American
    Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817, “I love Thy kingdom, Lord” (275)
    Thomas Hastings, 1784-1872, “Hail to the brightness” (332)
    Henry Ware, Jr., 1794-1843, “Happy the home when God” (361)
    Wm. B. Tappan, 1794-1849, “’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” (103)
    Francis Scott Key, 1779-1843, “Lord, with glowing heart” (511)
    George W. Doane, 1799-1859, “Softly now the light of day” (36)
  19th Century
    Leonard Bacon, 1802-81, “O God, beneath Thy guiding hand” (367)
    John G. Whittier, 1807-92, “Dear Lord and Father” (181)
    Ray Palmer, 1808-87, “My faith looks up to Thee” (150)
    S. F. Smith, 1808-95, “The morning light is breaking” (324)
    Oliver W. Holmes, 1809-94, “Lord of all being, throned afar” (53)
    E. H. Sears, 1810-76, “It came upon the midnight clear” (75)
    W. H. Burleigh, 1812-71, “Lead us, O Father, in the paths” (164)
    Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-96, “Still, still with Thee” (23)
    Sylvanus Phelps, 1816-95, “Savior, Thy dying love” (220)
    Arthur C. Coxe, 1818-96, “O where are kings and empires” (276)
    Elizabeth Payson Prentiss, 1818-78, “More love to Thee” (472)
    Edward Hopper, 1818-88, “Jesus, Savior, pilot me” (161)
    George Duffield, Jr., 1818-88, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” (193)
    Samuel Longfellow, 1819-92, “Holy Spirit, Truth divine” (136)
    James Russell Lowell, 1819-91, “Once to every man” (346)
    Anna Warner, 1820-1915, “We would see Jesus” (201)
    John H. Hopkins, 1820-91, “We three kings of Orient are” (90)
    Eliza Scudder, 1821-96, “Thou Grace Divine, encircling all” (57)
    Samuel Johnson, 1822-82, “Father, in Thy mysterious” (188)
    Jeremiah E. Rankin, 1828-1904, “God be with you” (365)
    Joseph H. Gilmore, 1834-1918, “He leadeth me” (478)
    Phillips Brooks, 1835-93, “O little town of Bethlehem” (84)
  Recent American Hymns
    Washington Gladden, 1836-1918, “O Master, let me walk” (223)
    Frederick L. Hosmer, 1840-1929, “Not always on the mount” (98)
    Mary Lathbury, 1841-1913, “Day is dying in the west” (31)
            “Break Thou the bread of Life” (288)
    Frank Mason North, 1850-1936, “Where cross the crowded” (222)
    M. Woolsey Stryker, 1851-1929, “Almighty Lord, with one” (390)
    Henry van Dyke, 1852-1933, “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee” (10)
    Louis F. Benson, 1855-1930, “O sing a song of Bethlehem” (92)
    Maltbie D. Babcock, 1858-1901, “This is my Father’s world” (48)
    Katherine Lee Bates, 1859-1929, “O beautiful for spacious” (343)
    Milton S. Littlefield, 1864-1934, “O Son of man, thou” (373)
    Jay T. Stocking, 1870-1936, “O Master Workman” (93)
    Wm. M. Vories, 1880—, “Let there be light, Lord God” (353)
    Harry Webb Farrington, 1880-1931, “I know not how that” (99)
    W. Russel Bowie, 1882—, “Lord, through changing days” (402)
    Howard Arnold Walter, 1884-1918, “I would be true” (207)
    Earl Marlatt, 1892—, “‘Are ye able,’ said the Master” (392)


                           11. Gospel Songs.

During the latter part of the 19th century there came into use, both in
the United States and in England, a type of religious song known as the
Gospel Song. Less dignified than the chorales or the English hymns,
these songs made a popular appeal and were widely used in prayer
meetings and revivals.

The words of the typical Gospel Song are usually simple and easily
remembered and concern themselves largely with the individual’s
salvation. The personal pronouns “I” and “my” predominate. The tunes are
rhythmic and catchy and always have a refrain added. Their harmonies are
largely built on the simple tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords. The
masses of the people readily learned to sing these tunes and experienced
a thrill in singing them which the use of the more stately and solid
hymns failed to effect.

The great bulk of these songs were produced in America during the latter
half of the 19th century and were found extremely useful in large mass
meetings. The evangelistic work of Moody and Sankey during the 1870’s,
1880’s, and 1890’s brought the Gospel Songs into special prominence and
the Salvation Army has made them known in nearly every country in the
world. Collections of Gospel Songs sold by the millions of copies and
every denomination was affected, to a greater or lesser extent, by this
type of singing.

Since the standard of music and words in the Gospel Songs is
considerably below that which prevails in our best hymnals as well as in
secular music and literature taught in the public schools, churches
should seriously consider the ultimate effect of their too frequent use.
It is a fallacy to assert that the people will respond to nothing
better. Gospel Songs have a legitimate place, particularly in special
services and revivals, but they leave much to be desired in the total
work and worship of the church. Neither the music nor the words possess
the strength and dignity entirely adequate for the worshipful praise of
the Eternal.

The principal names associated with Gospel Songs are the following:

_Authors._ Fanny J. Crosby, Philip P. Bliss, Robert Lowry, Katherine
Hankey, E. A. Hoffman, and many others. Most of the words, though not
all, were written by Americans during the latter part of the nineteenth
century. Miss Crosby was by far the most prolific of them all and many
of her works are found in all modern hymnals of denominations that use
this type of music. In Germany, Ernst Gebhardt became the leader of the
gospel song movement, composing words and music, publishing numerous
song books, and serving as song leader in great revival meetings.

_Music._ William B. Bradbury, Robert Lowry, W. H. Doane, Philip Philips,
James McGranahan, George C. Stebbins, P. P. Bliss, D. W. Towner, Wm. J.
Kirkpatrick, and others.

_Song Leaders._ P. P. Bliss, Ira Sankey, James McGranahan, George C.
Stebbins, Charles Alexander, Homer Rodeheaver.

It should be noted that there is no absolute line of demarcation between
hymns and some of the Gospel Songs. Some of the numbers in the Gospel
Songs section of the _Hymnary_ might well be classified as hymns, e.g.,
Nos. 441, 444, 447, 458, 463, 468, 470, 471, 472, and 492. Either words
or music meet the generally accepted standards of a hymn.


                        12. Women Hymn Writers.

There have been no outstanding women composers of church tunes but some
of our finest lyrics have been contributed by women, as the following
list from the _Hymnary_ will show:

  _German_
    Katharina von Schlegel, b. 1697, “Be still, my soul” (54)
    Henriette Luise von Hayn, 1724-82, “Weil ich Jesu” (430)
  _English_
    Anne Steele, 1716-78, “Father, whate’er of earthly bliss” (251)
    Marianne Nunn, 1778-1847, “One is kind above all others” (447)
    Harriet Auber, 1773-1862, “Our blest Redeemer” (138)
    Dorothy Ann Thrupp, 1779-1847, “Saviour, like a shepherd” (395)
    Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871, “Just as I am, without one plea” (458)
    Margaret Mackay, 1802-87, “Asleep in Jesus” (314)
    Sarah Flower Adams, 1805-48, “Nearer my God, to Thee” (202)
    Jemima Luke, 1813-1906, “I think when I read that sweet” (427)
    Anne Brontë, 1820-49, “Believe not those who say” (210)
    Cecil Frances Alexander, 1823-95, “There is a green hill” (104)
    Adelaide Proctor, 1825-64, “My God, I thank Thee” (177)
    Elizabeth Clephane, 1830-69, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” (112)
    Anna L. Coghill, 1836-1907, “Work, for the night is coming” (221)
    Frances R. Havergal, 1836-79, “Take my life and let it be” (215)
    Dorothy Blomfield, 1858-1932, “O perfect love, all human” (312)
    Jessie Adams, 1863—, “I feel the winds of God today” (391)
  (_Translators_)
    Frances Cox, 1812-97, “Sing praise to God” (512)
    Jane L. Borthwick, 1813-97, “Be still my soul” (54)
    Sarah Borthwick Findlater, 1823-1907, “O happy home” (358)
    Catherine Winkworth, 1829-78. Numerous hymns. Foremost translator of
          German chorales.
  _American_
    Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-96, “Still, still with Thee” (23)
He began to cough. Joyce put his arm around him for support, and tended
him gently.

“You have a lot to do, old man,” he said soon after. “The foolscap
has come, and a great jar of ink, and you can start copying out the
manuscript to-morrow.”

“Ah yes, I can do that,” said Noakes.

“Now go to sleep. I ’ll sit by you, if you like,” said Joyce.

He moved the lamp to a ledge behind Noakes’s head, and sat down near by,
with the budget of newspapers. Noakes composed himself to sleep. At last
he spoke, without turning round.

“Joyce.”

“Yes, old man.”

“Make me a promise.”

“Willingly.”

“Bury that dear lady’s letter with me.”

“Will it make you happy to promise?”

“Yes.”

“Then I promise,” said Joyce, humouring him. “Now I’m not going to talk
to you any more.”

A few minutes later, his breathing told Joyce that he slept. The
newspapers fell from Joyce’s hand, and he put his elbows on his knees
and crouched over the smouldering logs. Noakes spoke truly. There was
little chance of recovery. He would be left alone again soon. It would
be very comfortless. The poor wreck who was dragging out his last days
upon that wretched bed had been an unspeakable solace to him. Without
his womanlike devotion he would have died of fever six months back on
the Arato goldfield. Without the influence of his calm fatalism, he
would have given up heart long ago. Without his steadfast purity of
soul, he would have gone recklessly to the devil. The thought of losing
him was a great pang.

He himself, too, was far from strong. The climate, the hard manual
labour for which he was physically unfit were telling upon him heavily.
He yearned for home, for civilised life, for the lost heritage of
honour. Yvonne’s letter, telling of the little commonplaces of the lost
sweet life of decent living, had revived the ever dormant longing. He
began to dream of her, of that last day he had seen her, of her voice
singing Gounod’s serenade.

It was difficult to picture her as married to his cousin Everard, whom,
in the days of his vanity, he had despised as a prig and now dreaded as
a scornful benefactor. It was a strange mating. And yet she seemed happy
and unchanged.

The wind blustered outside. The cold draught whistled through the room.
Joyce rose to his feet with a shiver, went to a corner for a couple of
sacks, which he threw over the sleeping man, and, after having wistfully
read Yvonne’s letter once more, ascended the ladder to the loft, where
the shapeless mattress of dried grass and sacking awaited him.




CHAPTER XII--HISTOIRE DE REVENANT

Ostend is a magnificent white Kursaal on the Belgian coast. Certain
requisites are attached to it in the way of great hotels and villas
along a tiled _digue_, and innumerable bathing-machines on the sands
below. There is an old town, it is true, somewhere behind it, with
quaint narrow streets, a Place d’Armes dotted round with cafés, and
a thronged market-square; there is also a bustling port and a fishing
population. But the Ostend of practical life begins and ends at the
Kursaal. Were it to perish during a night, the following day would see
the exodus of twenty thousand visitors. The vast glass rotunda can hold
thousands. Within its precincts you can do anything in reason and out of
reason. You can knit all day long like Penelope, or you can go among
the Sirens with or without the precautions of Ulysses. You can consume
anything from a biscuit to a ten-course dinner. You can play dominoes at
centime points or roulette with a forty-franc minimum. You can listen to
music, you can dance, you can go to sleep. You can write letters, send
telegrams, and open a savings-bank account. By moving to one side or the
other of a glass screen you can sit in the warm sunshine or in the keen
sea wind. You can study the fashions of Europe from St. Petersburg to
Dublin, and if you are a woman, you can wear the most sumptuous garments
Providence has deigned to bestow on you. And lastly, if you are looking
for a place where you will be sure to find the very last person in the
world you desire to see, you will meet with every success at the Kursaal
of Ostend.

Such was Mrs. Winstanley’s passing thought one day. She was there with
Sophia and Evan Wilmington. It was always a great pleasure, she used
to say, to have young people about her; and very naturally, since young
people can be particularly useful in strange places to a middle-aged
lady. The brother and sister fetched and carried for her all day long,
which was very nice and suitable, and Mrs. Winstanley was in her
most affable mood. On the day in question, however, she saw, to her
astonishment and annoyance, Canon Chisely and Yvonne making their way
towards her through the crowded lines of tables.

“Good gracious, Everard!” she said as they came up. “How did you find
your way here? I thought you were going to Switzerland.”

“So we are,” replied the Canon. “We have broken our journey. And as for
getting here, we took the boat from Dover and then walked.”

“The frivolity of the place is infecting you already, Canon,” cried
Sophia, with a laugh. “I hope you are going to stay a long time.”

“Oh, not too long,” said Yvonne. “It wouldn’t be fair to the Canon, who
needs some mountain air. This is just a little treat all for me.”

She glanced at him affectionately as she spoke. It was good of him to
tarry for her sake in this Vanity Fair of a place.

“We were going by Calais, as you know,” said the Canon, explanatively
to Mrs. Winstanley. “We only changed our minds a day or two ago--we
thought it would be a little surprise for you.”

“Of course it is--a delightful one--to see dear Yvonne and yourself.
Where are you staying?”

“At the Océan,” said the Canon, “and you must all come and dine with us
this evening.”

“And will you come to the _bal_ here afterward?” asked Sophia. “Evan has
run across some college friends--or won’t you think it proper?”

“I am going to wear the whole suit of motley while I am here,” replied
the Canon gaily.

He kept his word, not being a man of half measures. No check should be
placed on Yvonne’s enjoyment. She had been moping, as far as Yvonne could
mope, during the latter dullness of Fulminster; now she expanded like a
flower to the gaiety around her. The Canon found an aesthetic pleasure
in watching her happiness. Her expressions of thanks too were charmingly
conveyed. Since that unfortunate attempt on his part, over a twelvemonth
back, to instruct her in the responsibilities of her position, she had
never exhibited toward him such spontaneous feeling. He let her smile
upon whom she would, without a twinge of jealousy.

Yvonne enjoyed herself hugely. She danced and jested with the young men;
she chattered in French to her table d’hôte neighbours, delighted to
speak her mother’s tongue again; she staked two-franc pieces on the
public table, and one afternoon came out of the gaming-room into the
great hall where the Canon was sitting with Mrs. Winstanley, and poured
a great mass of silver on to the table--as much as her two small hands
joined could carry.

“I thought gambling was against your principles, Everard,” said Mrs.
Winstanley, after Yvonne had gone again.

“I am sacrificing them for my wife’s happiness, Emmeline,” he replied,
with a touch of irony.

“Yes, it would be a pity to spoil her pleasure. She is such a child.”

“I wish we all had something of her nature,” said the Canon.

Mrs. Winstanley noted the snub. She was treasuring up many resentments
against Yvonne. In her heart she considered herself a long-suffering
woman.

“You seem to enjoy it too, Everard,” said Yvonne to him that evening.
They were sitting near the entrance watching the smartly-dressed people.
“And I am so glad to be alone with you.”

He was pleased, smiled at her, and throwing off his dignity, entered
into the frivolous spirit of the place. Yvonne forgot the restraint she
had always put upon her tongue when talking to him. She chattered about
everything, holding her face near him, so as to be heard through the
hubbub of thousands of voices, the eternal shuffling of passing feet,
and the crash of the orchestra in the far gallery.

“It is a _Revue des Deux Mondes,_” she said, looking rapidly around
her, with bright eyes.

“How?” asked the Canon.

“The _beau_ and the _demi_,” she replied, wickedly. She shook his knee.
“Oh, do look at that woman! what does she think a man can see in her!”

“Powder,” answered the Canon. “She has been using her puff too freely.”

“She has been putting it on with a _muff_,” cried Yvonne.

He laughed. Yvonne had such a triumphant air in delivering herself of
little witticisms.

A magnificently dressed woman, in a great feathered hat and low-dress,
with diamonds gleaming at her neck, passed by. “You are right, I fear,
about the two worlds,” said the Canon.

“Are n’t there crowds of them? I like to look at them because they wear
such beautiful things. And they fit so. And then to rub shoulders with
them makes one feel so delightfully wicked. You know, I knew a girl
once--she went in for that life of her own accord and she was awfully
happy. Really. Is n’t it odd?”

“My dear Yvonne!” said the Canon, somewhat shocked, “I sincerely trust
you did not continue the acquaintance, afterwards.”

“Oh, no,” she replied, sagely. “It would not have done for me at all.
A lone woman can’t be too careful. But I used to hear about her from my
dressmaker.”

Her point of view was not exactly the Canon’s. But further discussion
was stopped by the arrival of the Wilmingtons, who carried off Yvonne
to the dancing-room. The Canon, drawing the line at his own appearance
there, strolled back contentedly to the hotel to finish the evening over
a book.

Two mornings afterwards Yvonne was walking by herself along the _digue_.
They were to leave for Switzerland the next day, and she determined to
make the most of her remaining time. Sophia Wilmington, for whom she
had called, had already gone out. The Canon, who was engaged over his
correspondence, she was to meet later at the Kursaal. It was a lovely
morning. The line of white hotels, with their al fresco breakfast tables
spread temptingly on the terraces, gleamed in the sun. The _digue_ was
bright with summer dresses. The sands below alive with tennis players,
children making sand-castles, and loungers, and bathers, and horses
moving among the bathing-machines. Yvonne tripped along with careless
tread. Her heart was in harmony with the brightness and movement and
the glint of the sun on the sea. Once a man, meeting her smiling glance,
hesitated as if to speak to her, but seeing that the smile was addressed
to the happy world in general, he passed on his way. It was easy to
kill time. She went down the Rue Flammande and looked at the shops. The
jewelry and the models of Paris dresses delighted her. The display
of sweets at Nopenny’s allured her within. When she returned to the
_digue_, it was time to seek the Canon at the Kursaal.

The liveried attendants lifted their hats as she ran up the steps and
passed the barrier. She gave them a smiling “_bonjour_.” Neither the
Canon nor any of the friends being visible on the verandah, she entered
the great hall, where the morning instrumental concert was going on.
She scanned the talking, laughing crowd as she passed through. Many eyes
followed her. For Yvonne, when happy, was sweet to look upon. She was
turning back to retrace her steps, when, suddenly, a man started up from
a group of three who were playing cards and drinking absinthe at a small
table, and placed himself before her.

“_Tiens! c’est Yvonne!_”

She stared at him with dilated eyes and parted lips and uttered a little
gasping cry. Seeing her grow deadly white and thinking she was going to
faint, the man put out his arm. But Yvonne was mistress of herself.

“_Allons d’ici_,” she whispered, turning a terrified glance around.

The man raised his hat to his companions and signed to her to come. He
was a handsome, careless, dissipated-looking fellow, with curly hair and
a twirled black moustache; short and slightly made. He wore a Tyrolese
hat and a very low turned-down collar and a great silk bow outside
his waistcoat. There was a devil-may-care charm in his swagger as
he walked--also an indefinable touch of vulgarity; the type of the
_cabotin_ in easy circumstances.

Yvonne, more dead than alive, followed him through the deserted _salle
des jeux_ on to the quiet bit of verandah, and sank into a chair that he
offered. She looked at him, still white to the lips.

“You?”

“Yes,” he said laughingly, “why not? It is not astonishing.”

“But I thought you dead!” gasped Yvonne, trembling.

“_A la bonne heure!_ And I seem a ghost. Oh, I am solid. Pinch me. But
how did you come to learn? Ah! I remember it was given out in Paris. A
_canard_. It was in the hospital--paralysis, _ma chère_. See, I can only
just move my arm now. _Cétait la verte, cette sacrée verte--_”

“Absinthe?” asked Yvonne, almost mechanically.

He nodded, went through the motions of preparing the drink, and laughed.

“I had a touch lately,” he went on. “That was the second. The third I
shall be _prrrt--flambé!_ They tell me to give it up. Never in life.”

“But if it will kill you?”

“Bah. What do I care? When one lives, one amuses oneself. And I have
well amused myself, eh, Yvonne? For the rest, _je m’en fiche!_”

He went on talking with airy cynicism. To Yvonne it seemed some horrible
dream. The husband she had looked upon as dead was before her, gay,
mocking, just as she had known him of old. And he greeted her after all
these years with the-same lightness as he had bidden her farewell.

“_Et toi, Yvonne?_” said he at length. “_Ça roule toujours?_ You
look as if you were brewing money. Ravishing costume. _Crépon_--not
twenty-five centimes a yard! A hat that looks like the Rue de la Paix!
_Gants de reine et petites bottines de duchesse!_ You must be doing
golden business. But speak, _petite_, since I assure you I am not a
ghost!”

Yvonne forced a faint smile. She tried to answer him, but her heart was
thumping violently and a lump rose in her throat.

“I am doing very well, Amédée,” she said. The dreadfulness of her
position came over her. She felt sick and faint. What was going to
happen? For some moments she did not hear him as he spoke. At last
perception returned.

“And you are pretty,” Amédée Bazouge was saying. “_Mais jolie à
croquer_--prettier than you ever were. And I--I am going down the hill
at the gallop. _Tiens_, Yvonne. Let us celebrate this meeting. Come and
see me safe to the bottom. It won’t be long. I have money. I am always
_bon enfant._ Let us remarry. From to-day. _Ce serait rigolo!_ And I
will love you--_mais énormément!_”

“But I am already married!” cried Yvonne.

“Thinking me dead?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, then slapped his thigh and, rising
from his chair, bent himself double and gave vent to a roar of laughter.
The tears stood in Yvonne’s eyes.

“Oh, but it’s comic. You don’t find it so?”

He leant back against the railings and laughed again in genuine
merriment.

“Why, it’s all the more reason to come back to me. _Ça y met du salé_.
Have you any children?”

Yvonne shook her head.

“_Eh bien!_” he exclaimed, triumphantly, stepping towards her with
outstretched hands. But she shrank from him, outraged and bewildered.

“Never, never!” she cried. “Go away. Have pity on me, for God’s sake!”

Amédée Bazouge shrugged his shoulders carelessly.

“It’s a comedy, not a tragedy, _ma chère_. If you are happy, I am not
going to be a spoilsport. It is not my way. Be tranquil with your good
fat Englishman--I bet he’s an Englishman--In two years--bah! I can amuse
myself always till then--my poor little Yvonne. No wonder I frightened
you.”

The affair seemed to cause him intense amusement. A ray of light
appeared to Yvonne.

“You won’t interfere with me at all, Amédée--not claim anything?”

“Oh, don’t be afraid. _Dès ce moment je vais me reflanquer au sapin!_ I
shall be as dead as dead can be for you. _Suis pas méchant va!_”

“Thank you,” said Yvonne. “You were always kind-hearted, Amédée--oh,
it was a horrible mistake--it can’t be altered. You see that I am
helpless.”

“Why, my child,” said he, seating himself again, “I keep on telling you
it is a farce--like all the rest of life. I only laugh. And now let us
talk a little before I pop into the coffin again. What is the name of
the thrice happy being?”

“Oh, don’t ask me, I beg you,” said Yvonne shivering. “It is all
so painful. Tell me about yourself--your voice--Is it still in good
condition?”

“Never better. I am singing here this afternoon.”

“In the Kursaal?”

“Why, yes. That’s why I am here. Oh, _ca marche--pas encore paralysée,
celle-là_. Come and hear me. _Et ton petit organe à toi?_”

“I am out of practice. I have given up the profession.”

“Ah, it’s a pity. You had such an exquisite little voice. I regretted
it after we parted. Two or three times it nearly brought me back to
you--_foi d’artiste!_”

“I think I must go,” said Yvonne after a little. “I am leaving Ostend
to-morrow and I shall not see you again. You don’t think I am treating
you unkindly, Amédée?”

He laughed in his bantering way and lit a cigarette.

“On the contrary, _cher ange_. It is very good of you to talk to a poor
ghost. And you look so pathetic, like a poor little saint with its harp
out of tune.”

She rose, anxious to leave him and escape into solitude, where she could
think. She still trembled with agitation. In the little cool park, on
the other side of the square below, she could be by herself. She dreaded
meeting the Canon yet awhile.

“Do give up that vile absinthe,” she said, as a parting softness.

“It is the only consoler that remains to me--sad widower.”

“Well, good-bye, Amédée.”

“Ah--not yet. Since you are the wife of somebody else, I am dying to
make love to you.”

He held her by the wrist, laughing at her. But at that moment Yvonne
caught sight of the Canon and Mrs. Winstanley, entering upon the
terrace. She wrenched her arm away.

“There is my husband.”

“_Nom de Dieu!_” cried Bazouge, stifling a guffaw before the austere
decorum of the English churchman. “_Ça?_ Oh, my poor Yvonne!” She shook
hands rapidly with him and turned away. He bowed gracefully, including
the new-comers in his salute. The Canon responded severely. Mrs.
Winstanley stared at him through her tortoise-shell lorgnette.

“We have been looking all over the place for you,” said the Canon,
as they passed through the window into the _salle des jeux_, leaving
Bazouge in the corner of the verandah.

“I’m sorry,” said Yvonne penitently.

“And who was that rakish-looking little Frenchman you were talking to?”

“An old friend--I used to know him,” said Yvonne, struggling with her
agitation. “A friend of my first husband--I had to speak to him--we went
there to be quiet. I could n’t help it, Everard, really I could n’t.”

“My dear child,” said the Canon, kindly, “I was not scolding you--though
he did look rather undesirable.”

“I suppose you had to mix with all kinds of odd Bohemian people in your
professional days?” said Mrs. Winstanley.

“Of course,” faltered Yvonne.

They went through the great hall. At the door they parted with Mrs.
Winstanley, who was waiting for the Wilmingtons. “We will call for you
on our way to the concert this afternoon,” said the Canon.

“Thanks,” said Mrs. Winstanley, and then, suddenly looking at Yvonne--

“Mercy, my dear! How white you are!”

“There’s nothing the matter with me,” said Yvonne, trying to smile.

“It’s past our _déjeuner_ hour,” said the Canon, briskly. “You want some
food.”

“Perhaps I do,” said Yvonne.

She went with the Canon on to the _digue_, and walked along the shady
side, by the hotels, past the gay terraces thronged with lunching
guests. But all the glamour had gone from the place. An hour had changed
it. And that hour seemed a black abyss separating her from happiness.

An hour ago she had looked upon this kind, grave man who walked by
her side as her husband. Now what was he to her? She shrank from the
thought, terrified, and came nearer to him, touching the flying skirt of
his coat as if to take strength from him.

They entered the crowded dining-room, where the _maître d’hôtel_ had
reserved them a table. She struggled bravely through part of the meal,
strove to keep up a conversation. But the strain was too great. Another
five minutes, she felt, would make her hysterical. She rose, with an
excuse to the Canon, and escaped to her room.

There she flung herself down on the bed and buried her face in the cool
pillows. It was a relief to be alone with her fright and dismay. She
strove to think, but her head was in a whirl. The incidents of the late
scene came luridly before her mind, and she shivered with revulsion. A
rough hand had been laid on the butterfly and brushed the dust from its
wings.

The Canon came later to her room, kindly solicitous. Was she ill? Would
she like to see a medical man? Should he sit with her? She clasped his
hand impulsively and kissed it.

“You are too good to me. I am not worth it. I am not ill. It was the
sun, I think. Let me lie down this afternoon by myself and I shall be
better.”

Surprised and touched by her action, he bent down and kissed her.

“My poor little wife.”

He stepped to the window and pulled the curtain to shield her eyes from
the glare, and promising to order some tea to be brought up later, he
went out.

The kiss, the term, and the little act of thoughtfulness comforted her,
gave her a sense of protection. She had been so bruised and frightened.
Now she could think a little. Should she tell Everard? Then she broke
down again and began to cry silently in a great soothing pity for
herself.

“It would only make him unhappy,” she moaned. “Why should I tell him?”

She grew calmer. If Amédée would only keep his promise and leave her
free, there was really nothing to fret about. She reassured herself with
his words. Through all his failings toward her he had ever been “_bon
enfant_.” There was no danger.

Suddenly a thought came that made her spring from her bed in dismay. The
concert. She had forgotten that Amédée was singing there. Everard was
going. He would see the name on the programme, “Amédée Bazouge.” There
could not be two tenors of that name in Europe. Everard must be kept
away at all costs.

She rushed from the room and down the stairs, in terrible anxiety lest
he should have already left the hotel. To her intense relief, she saw
him sitting in one of the cane chairs in the vestibule smoking his
after-lunch cigar. He threw it away as he caught sight of her at the
head of the stairs, breathless, and holding the balusters, and went up
to meet her.

“My poor child,” said he in an anxious tone. “What is the matter?”

“Oh, Everard--I don’t want any more to be left alone. Don’t think me
silly and cowardly. I am afraid of all kinds of things.”

“Of course I ’ll come and sit with you a little,” he replied kindly.

They entered her room together. Yvonne lay down. Her head was splitting
with nervous headache. The Canon tended her in his grave way and
sat down by the window with a book. Yvonne felt very guilty, but yet
comforted by his presence. At the end of an hour, he looked at his watch
and rose from his seat.

“Are you easier now?”

“You are not going to the Kursaal, Everard?”

“I am afraid Emmeline is expecting me.” She signed to him to approach,
and put her arms round his neck.

“Don’t go. Send her an excuse--and take me for a drive. It would do me
good, and I should so love to be alone with you.”

It was the very first time in her life that Yvonne had consciously
cajoled a man. Her face flushed hot with misgivings. It was with a
mixture of her sex’s shame and triumph that she heard him say.

“Whatever you like, dear. It is still your holiday.”




CHAPTER XIII--Dis Aliter Visum

But the best laid schemes of Yvonnes and men often come to nothing.
While she was devising, on her drive along the coast, a plan for
spending a quiet dangerless evening at the hotel, Mrs. Winstanley was
sitting in solitary dignity at the concert, nursing her wrath over
Professor Drummond’s “Natural Law in the Spiritual world,” a book which
she often perused when she wished to accentuate the rigorous attitude of
her mind.

Yvonne had reckoned without Mrs. Winstanley. Otherwise she would have
offered her a seat in the carriage. As it was, Mrs. Winstanley felt
more resentful than ever. Under the impression that the Canon was to
accompany her to the Kursaal, she had graciously dispensed with the
escort of the Wilmingtons, who had gone off to see bicycle races at the
Vélodrome. She was left in the lurch.

To dislike this is human. To wrap oneself up in one’s sore dignity is
more human still, and there was much humanity that lurked, unsuspected
by herself, in Mrs. Winstanley’s bosom. It asserted itself, further,
in certain curiosities. She had seen that morning what had escaped the
Canon’s notice--the stranger’s grasp on Yvonne’s arm and the insolent
admiration on his face. This fact, coupled with Yvonne’s agitation, had
put her upon the track of scandal. The result was, that at the concert
she made interesting discoveries, and, piecing things together in her
mind afterwards, bided her time to make use of them.

It would be for the Canon’s sake, naturally. A woman of Mrs.
Winstanley’s stamp is always the most disinterested of God’s creatures.
She never performed an action of which her conscience did not approve.
But she was such a superior woman that her conscience trembled a little
before her, like most of the other friends whom she patronised. She did
not have to wait long. The Canon called upon her soon after his return
to invite herself and the Wilmingtons to dinner. It was his last
evening at Ostend, and Yvonne was not feeling well enough to spend it,
as usual, at the Kursaal.

“Yvonne is still poorly, Everard?” she asked, with her air of
confidential responsibility.

“A little. She has been gadding about somewhat too much lately, and it
has knocked her up.”

“Has it not occurred to you that her encounter this morning may have had
something to do with it?”

“Of course not,” replied the Canon, sharply. “It would be ridiculous.”

“I have reasons for not thinking so, Everard. The man was singing at the
Kursaal this afternoon. Here is his name on the programme.” She
handed him the slip of paper. He read the name among the artistes. “M.
Bazouge.” He returned it to her.

“Well?”

“Does it not seem odd to you?”

“Not at all. A relation of her first husband’s, I suppose. In fact
Yvonne said as much.”

“I could not help being struck by the name, Everard. It is so peculiar.
I remembered it from the publication of the banns.”

“I compliment you on your memory, Emmeline,” said the Canon.

Mrs. Winstanley drew herself up, offended.

She walked from the window where they were standing to a table, and
fetched from it a newspaper.

“Do you remember the Christian name of Yvonne’s first husband?”

The Canon drew himself up too, and frowned.

“What is the meaning of all this, Emmeline? What are you trying to
insinuate?”

“If I thought you were going to adopt this tone, Everard, I should have
kept my suspicions to myself.”

“I certainly wish that you had,” said he, growing angry. “It is an
insult to Yvonne which I cannot permit. My wife is above suspicion.”

“Like Caesar’s,” said the lady with a curl of the lip. “Do you know that
we are beginning to quarrel, Everard? It is slightly vulgar. I am your
oldest friend, remember, and I am trying to acquit myself of a painful
duty to you.”

“Duty is one of the chief instruments of the devil, if you will excuse
my saying so,” replied the Canon.

“Oh, very well then, Everard,” she said hotly. “You can go on being
a fool as long as you like. I saw your wife struggling in this man’s
embrace, more or less, this morning. Two or three strange coincidences
have been forced upon my notice. For your sake I have been excessively
anxious. My conscience tells me I ought to take you into my confidence,
and I can do no more. You can see the Christian name of this Bazouge
in the Visitors’ List, and adopt what course of action you think fit.
I wash my hands of the whole matter. And I must say that from the very
beginning, two years ago, you have treated me all through with the
greatest want of consideration.”

The Canon did not heed the peroration. He stood with the flimsy sheet
clenched in his hand and regarded her sternly. She shrank a little, for
her soul seemed to be naked.

“You have tried to ferret this out through spite against Yvonne. Whether
the horrible thing you imply is true or not, I shall find it hard to
forgive you.”

Mrs. Winstanley shrugged her shoulders. “In either case, you will come
to your senses, I hope. Meanwhile, considering the present relations, it
might be pleasanter not to meet at dinner to-night.”

“I am sorry to have to agree with you, Emmeline,” said the Canon.

She made him a formal bow and was leaving the room; but his voice
stopped her.

“Your anxiety cannot be very great, or you would wait to learn whether
your suspicions are baseless or not.”

She paused, in a dignified attitude, with her hand on the back of a
chair, while he adjusted his gold pince-nez and ran through the list.

“You are right so far,” he said coldly. “The names are identical.”

They parted at the door. The Canon walked back to his hotel with anger
in his heart. In spite of cumulative evidence, the theory that his
cousin had insinuated was prima facie preposterous. It was important
enough, however, to need some investigation. But the feeling uppermost
in his mind was indignation with Mrs. Winstanley. He was too shrewd a
man not to have perceived long ago her jealousy of Yvonne; but beyond
keeping a watchful eye lest his wife should receive hurt, he had not
condescended to take it into serious consideration. Now, beneath her
impressive manner he clearly divined the desire to inflict on Yvonne
a deadly injury. To have leaped at such a conclusion, to have sought
subsequent proof from the Visitors’ List, argued malicious design. He
could never forgive her.

Still the matter had to be cleared up at once. On his arrival at the
Océan, he went forthwith to Yvonne’s room, and entered on receiving an
acknowledgment of his knock. She was standing in the light of the window
by the toilet table, doing her hair. The rest of the room was in the
shadow of the gathering evening.

“Well,” she said, without turning, “are they coming?”

The grace of her attitude, the intimacy of the scene, the pleasantness
of her greeting, made his task hateful.

“No,” he said, with an asperity directed towards the disinvited guest.
“We shall dine alone to-night.”

But his tone made Yvonne’s heart give a great throb, and she turned to
him quickly.

“Has anything happened?”

“A great deal,” said the Canon.

Where he stood in the dusk of the doorway, the shadow accentuated the
stern lines of his face and deepened the sombreness of his glance. His
brows were bent in perplexities of repugnance. It was horrible to demand
of her such explanations. To Yvonne’s scared fancy, his brows seemed
bent in accusation. That was the pity of it. For a few seconds they
looked at one another, the Canon severely, Yvonne in throbbing suspense.

“What?” she asked at length.

He paused for a moment, then threw his hat and the crumpled Visitors’
List on to the table and plunged into the heart of things--but not
before Yvonne had glanced at the paper with a sudden pang of intuition.

“Emmeline has discovered, Yvonne, that the man--”

He got no further. Yvonne rushed to him with a cry of pain, clung to his
arm, broke into wild words.

“Don’t say any more--don’t--don’t. Spare me--for pity’s sake. I did not
want you to know. I tried to keep it from you, Everard! Don’t look at me
like that?”

Her voice ended in a note of fright. For the Canon’s face had grown
ashen and wore an expression of incredulous horror. He shook her from
him.

“Do you mean that this is true? That you met your first husband this
morning?”

“Yes,” said she, with quivering lips. Question and answer were too
categorical for misunderstanding. For a moment he struggled against the
overwhelming.

“Are you in your right senses, Yvonne? Do you understand what I asked
you? Your first husband is still alive and you saw him to-day?”

“Yes,” said Yvonne again. “Didn’t you know when you came in?”

“I did n’t know,” he repeated almost mechanically.

The blow crushed him for a while. He stood quite rigid, drawing
quick breaths, with his eyes fixed upon her. And she remained still,
half-sitting on the edge of the bed, numb with a vague prescience of
catastrophe, and a dim, uncomprehended intuition of the earthquake and
wreck in the man’s soul. The silence grew appalling. She broke it with a
faltering whisper.

“Will you forgive me?”

The poor little commonplace fell in the midst of devastating
emotions--pathetically incongruous.

“Did you know that this man was alive when you married me?” he asked in
a hard voice.

“No,” cried Yvonne. “How could I have married you? I thought he had been
dead nearly three years.”

“What proofs did you have of his death?”

“A friend sent me a number of the Figaro, with the announcement.”

“Was that all?”

“Yes,” said Yvonne.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he insisted, “that you married a second time,
having no further proofs of your first husband’s death than a mere
newspaper report?”

“It never occurred to me to doubt it,” she replied, opening piteous,
innocent eyes.

The childlike irresponsibility was above his comprehension. Her apparent
insensibility to the most vital concerns of life was another shock to
him. It seemed criminal.

“God forgive you,” he said, “for the wrong you have done me.”

“But I did it unknowingly, Everard,” cried poor Yvonne. “If one has to
get greater proofs, why did you not ask for them, yourself?”

The Canon turned away and paced the room slowly, without replying. At
last he stood still before her.

“Among ordinary honourable people one takes such things for granted,” he
said.

“Forgive me,” she said again, humbly.

But he could find no pity for her in his heart. She had wronged him past
redemption.

“How much truth was there in the newspaper story?” he asked coldly.

She told him rapidly what Amédée Bazouge had said concerning his attack
in the hospital and his subsequent stroke.

“So the man is wilfully killing himself with absinthe?” he said.

“It appears so,” replied Yvonne with a shudder.

“Could you tell me what passed between you otherwise--in general terms?”
 he asked, after a short silence. “You explained your position? Or did
you leave him in ignorance, as you were going to leave me?”

“I told him--of course. It was necessary. And he laughed--I thought to
spare you, Everard.”

“Spare me, Yvonne?”

“Yes,” she said, simply, “I could have borne all the pain and fright
of it alone--why should I have made you unhappy? And _he_ said he would
never interfere with me, and I can trust his word. Why should I have
told you, Everard?”

“Do you actually ask me such a question, honestly?”

“God knows I do,” she replied pitifully.

“And you would have gone on living with me--I not being your husband?”

“But you are my husband,” cried Yvonne, “nothing could ever alter that.”

“But good God! it does alter it,” cried the Canon in a voice of anguish,
breaking the iron bonds he had placed on his passion. “Neither in the
eyes of God nor of man are you my wife. You have no right to bear my
name. After this hour I have no right to enter this room. Every caress
I gave you would be sin. Don’t you understand it, child? Don’t you
understand that this has brought ruin into our lives, the horror of
loneliness and separation?”

“Separation?” said Yvonne.

She rose slowly from her seat on the bed and stared at him aghast.

The twilight in the room deepened; the shadow of a wall opposite the
window fell darker. Their faces and Yvonne’s bare neck and arms gleamed
white in the gloom. They had spoken with many silences; for how long
neither knew.

“Yes,” replied the Canon in his harder tones, recovering himself “It
means all that.”

“I am to go--not to live with you any more?”

“Could you imagine our past relations could continue?”

“I don’t understand,” she began feebly. And then the darkness fell upon
her, and her limbs relaxed. She swayed sideways and would have fallen,
but he caught her in his arms and laid her on the couch.

“Thank you,” she murmured faintly.

She hid her face in her hands and remained, crouched up, quite still, in
a stupor of misery. The Canon stood over her helplessly, unable to find
a word of comfort.

The sight of her prostration did not move him. He had been wounded to
the very depths of his being. His pride, his honour, his dignity were
lacerated in their vitals. He burned with the sense of unpardonable
wrong.

“It is self-evident,” he said at last, “that we must part. Our remaining
together would be a sin against God and an outrage upon Society.”

She rased herself wearily, with one hand on the couch, and shook her
head slowly.

“Such things are beyond me. No one will ever know.”

“There is One who will always know, Yvonne.”

She pondered over the saying, as far as her tired, bewildered brain
allowed. It conveyed very little meaning to her. Theology had not
altered her child-like conception of the benevolence of the Creator.
After a long time she was able to disentangle an idea from the
confusion.

“If it is a sin--don’t you love me enough to sin a little for my sake?”

“Not that sin,” he said.

Yvonne lifted her shoulders helplessly.

“I would commit any sin for your sake,” she said. “It would seem so
easy.”

Curiously assorted as they were, a poetic idealism on the one side and
grateful veneration on the other had hitherto bound them together. Now
they were sundered leagues apart; mutual understanding was hopeless.
Each was bewildered by the other’s moral attitude.

The logical consequences of the discovery, that appeared so luridly
devious to the Canon’s intellect, failed entirely to appeal to Yvonne.
She referred them entirely to his personal inclinations. On the other
hand, the Canon had a false insight into her soul that was a chilling
disillusion.

The beauty of her exquisite purity and innocence had always captivated
in him the finer man. It was a mirage. It was gone. Emptiness remained.
She was simply a graceful, non-moral being--a spiritual anomaly.

Yvonne shivered, and rising, walked unsteadily to the wardrobe, whence
she took a dressing-jacket. Putting it on, she returned to the couch. It
was almost dark. The Canon watched her dim, slight figure as it passed
him, with a strange feeling of remoteness. A hundred trivial instances
of her want of moral sense crowded into his mind to support his
view--her inability to see the wrong-doing of Stephen, her indefinite
notions in religious matters, her mental attitude toward the girl that
had gone astray, of whom she had been talking only the night before, her
expressed intention of hiding this terrible discovery from him. He had
been duped, not by her, but by his own romantic folly.

Yet what would his life be without her--or rather without his illusion?
An icy hand gripped his heart. He turned to the glimmering window and
stared at the blank wall.

Presently a moan struck upon his ear. He wheeled round sharply, and
distinguished her lying with helpless outspread arms on the couch. Mere
humanity brought him to her side.

“I am so tired,” she moaned.

“You must go to bed,” he replied in a gentler voice than hitherto. “We
had better part now. To-morrow, if you are well enough to travel, we
will leave for England.”

“Let me go alone,” she murmured, “and you go on to Switzerland. Why
should your holiday be spoiled?”

“It is my life that is spoiled,” he said ungenerously. “The holiday
matters very little. It is best to return to England as soon as
possible. Between now and to-morrow morning I shall have time to reflect
upon the situation.”

He struck a match and lit the candles and drew down the blind. The
light revealed her to him so wan and exhausted that he was moved with
compunction.

“Don’t think me hard, my child,” he said, bending over her. “It is the
bitterest day of our lives. We must pray to God for strength to bear it.
I shall leave you now. I shall see that you have all you want. Try to
sleep. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” she said miserably.

And so, without touch of hand, they parted.

The hours of the evening wore on, and night came. At last she cried
herself to sleep. It had been a day of tears.

They left Ostend quietly the following morning by the Dover boat. During
the whole journey the Canon treated Yvonne with the deferential courtesy
he could always assume to women, seeing to her comforts, anticipating
her wants, even exchanging now and then casual remarks on passing
objects of interest. But of the subject next his heart he said not a
word. The crossing was smooth. The sea air revived Yvonne’s strength.

His silence half comforted, half frightened her. Had he relented? She
glanced often at his impassive face, in cruel anxiety to pierce to the
thoughts that lay behind. Yet a little hope came to her; for fear of
losing it she dared not speak. To her simple mind it seemed impossible
that merely conscientious scruples could make him cast her off. If he
loved her, his love would triumph. If he persisted in his resolve, he
cared for her no longer. In this case her future was very simple. She
would go back to London and sing.

She seemed to have cried her feeling away during the night--such as he
had left unbruised and untorn. For the quivering flesh is only sensitive
up to a certain point of maceration. He had trodden upon her pitilessly;
but she felt no resentment. In fact, she would have been quite happy if
he had put his arms round her and said, “Let us forget, Yvonne.” By the
end of the journey she had cajoled herself into the idea that he would
do so.

A suite of rooms received them in the quiet West End hotel where the
Canon always stayed. They dined alone, the discreet butler waiting on
them, for the Canon was an honoured guest. When the cloth was removed,
the Canon said in his even voice:--

“Are you sufficiently recovered, Yvonne, to discuss this painful
subject?”

“I am quite ready, Everard.”

“We will make it as short as possible. What I said last night must
remain, whatever be the suffering. I have loved you deeply--like a young
man--in a way perhaps ill befitting my years. The memories, for they are
innocent, will always be there, Yvonne. If I did not seek strength from
Elsewhere, it might wreck my life to part from you.”
A young teacher was telling her pupils the story of the emotional lady
who, to put her lover to the test, bade him pick up the glove which
she had thrown down into the arena between the tiger and the lion. The
lover does her bidding, in order to vindicate his character as a brave
knight. One boy, after hearing the story, at once states his contempt
for the knight's acquiescence, which he declares to be unworthy.

“But,” says the teacher, “you see he really did it to show the lady how
foolish she was.” The answer of the boy sums up what I have been trying
to show: “There was no sense in _his_ being sillier than _she_ was, to
show her _she_ was silly.”

If the boy had stopped there, we might have concluded that he was
lacking in imagination or romance, but his next remark proves what a
balanced and discriminating person he was, for he added: “Now, if _she_
had fallen in, and he had leapt after her to rescue her, that would
have been splendid and of some use.” Given the character of the lady,
we might, as adults, question the last part of the boy's statement, but
this is pure cynicism and fortunately does not enter into the child's
calculations.

In my own personal experience (and I have told this story often in the
German ballad form to girls of ten and twelve in the High Schools in
England) I have never found one girl who sympathised with the lady or
who failed to appreciate the poetic justice meted out to her in the end
by the dignified renunciation of the knight.

Chesterton defines sentimentality as “a tame, cold, or small and
inadequate manner of speaking about certain matters which demand very
large and beautiful expression.”

I would strongly urge upon young teachers to revise, by this
definition, some of the stories they have included in their repertory,
and see whether they would stand the test or not.

IV.--_Stories containing strong sensational episodes._ The danger is
all the greater because many children delight in it, and some crave for
it in the abstract, but fear it in the concrete.[19]

An affectionate aunt, on one occasion, anxious to curry favour with
a four-year-old nephew, was taxing her imagination to find a story
suitable for his tender years. She was greatly startled when he
suddenly said, in a most imperative tone: “Tell me the story of a
_bear_ eating a small boy.” This was so remote from her own choice
of subject that she hesitated at first, but coming to the conclusion
that as the child had chosen the situation he would feel no terror
in the working up of its details, she began a most thrilling and
blood-curdling story, leading up to the final catastrophe. But just as
she had reached the great dramatic moment, the child raised his hands
in terror and said: “Oh! Auntie, don't let the bear _really_ eat the
boy!”

“Don't you know,” said an impatient boy who had been listening to a
mild adventure story considered suitable to his years, “that I don't
take any interest in the story until the decks are dripping with gore?”
Here we have no opportunity of deciding whether or not the actual
description demanded would be more alarming than the listener had
realised.

Here is a poem of James Stephens, showing a child's taste for
sensational things:--

    A man was sitting underneath a tree
    Outside the village, and he asked me
    What name was upon this place, and said he
    Was never here before. He told a
    Lot of stories to me too. His nose was flat.
    I asked him how it happened, and he said,
    The first mate of the  “Mary Ann”  done that,
    With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead,
    And a jolly job too, but he'd have gone a long way to have
      killed him.
    A gold ring in one ear, and the other was bit off by a crocodile,
      bedad,
    That's what he said: He taught me how to chew.
    He was a real nice man. He liked me too.

The taste that is fed by the sensational contents of the newspapers
and the dramatic excitement of street life, and some of the lurid
representations of the Kinematograph, is so much stimulated that the
interest in normal stories is difficult to rouse. I will not here dwell
on the deleterious effects of over dramatic stimulation, which has been
known to lead to crime, since I am keener to prevent the telling of too
many sensational stories than to suggest a cure when the mischief is
done. Kate Douglas Wiggin has said:

“Let us be realistic, by all means, but beware, O Story-teller, of
being too realistic. Avoid the shuddering tale of ‘the wicked boy who
stoned the birds,’ lest some hearer should be inspired to try the
dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill.”

I must emphasise the fact, however, that it is only the excess of
this dramatic element which I deplore. A certain amount of excitement
is necessary; but this question belongs to the positive side of the
subject, and I shall deal with it later on.

V.--_Stories presenting matters quite outside the plane of the child_
(unless they are wrapped in mystery, which is of great educational
value).

The element I wish to eliminate is the one which would make children
world-wise and old before their time.

A small American child who had entertained a guest in her mother's
absence, when questioned as to whether she had shown all the
hospitality the mother would have considered necessary, said: “Oh! yes.
And I talked to her in the kind of ‘dressy’ tone _you_ use on your ‘At
Home’ days.”

On one occasion I was lecturing in the town of Cleveland, and was to
stay in the house of a lady whom I had met only once, in New York, but
with true American hospitality she had begged me to make her house my
home during the whole of my stay in Cleveland. In writing to invite
me, she mentioned the pleasure it would afford her little ten-year-old
daughter to make my acquaintance, and added this somewhat enigmatic
sentence: “Mignon has asked permission to dedicate her _last_ work to
you.” I was alarmed at the word _last_, given the age of the author,
and felt sorry that the literary faculty had developed quite so early,
lest the unfettered and irresponsible years of childhood should have
been sacrificed. I was still more troubled when, upon my arrival,
I learned that the title of the book which was to be dedicated to
me was “The Two Army Girls,” and contained the elaborate history of
a double courtship. But, as the story was read to me, I was soon
disarmed. A more innocent recital I never heard--and it was all the
quainter because of certain little grown-up sentences gathered from the
conversation of elders in unguarded moments, which evidently conveyed
but slight meaning to the youthful authoress. The final scene between
two of the lovers is so characteristic that I cannot refrain from
quoting the actual words. Said John: “I love you, and I wish you to be
my wife.” “That I will,” said Mary, without any hesitation. “That's all
right,” said John. “And now let us _get back to the Golf Links_.”

Oh, that modern writers of fiction would “get back to the Golf Links”
sooner than they do, realising with this little unconscious philosopher
that there are some reactions from love-making which show a healthy and
balanced constitution.

Experience with children ought to teach us to avoid stories which
contain too much _allusion_ to matters of which the hearers are
entirely ignorant; but, judging from the written stories of to-day,
supposed to be for children, it is still a matter of difficulty to
realise that this form of allusion to “foreign” matters, or making a
joke the appreciation of which depends solely on a special and “inside”
knowledge, is always bewildering and fatal to sustained dramatic
interest.

It is a matter of intense regret that so very few people have
sufficiently clear remembrance of their own childhood to help them to
understand the taste and point of view of the _normal_ child. There
is a passage in the “Brownies” (by Mrs. Ewing) which illustrates the
confusion created in the child mind by a facetious allusion in a
dramatic moment which needed a more direct treatment.

When the nursery toys have all gone astray, one little child exclaims
joyfully:

“Why, the old Rocking-Horse's nose has turned up in the oven!”

“It couldn't” remarks a tiresome, facetious doctor, far more anxious
to be funny than to sympathise with the joy of the child; “it was the
purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin marbles.”

Now, for grown-up people this is an excellent joke, but for a child
who has not yet become acquainted with these Grecian masterpieces, the
whole remark is pointless and hampering.[20]

VI.--_Stories which appeal to fear or priggishness._ This is a class of
story to be avoided which scarcely counts to-day and against which the
teacher does not need a warning; but I wish to make a passing allusion
to it, partly to round off my subject and partly to show that we have
made some improvement in choice of subject.

When I study the evolution of the story from the crude recitals
offered to our children within the last hundred years, I feel that,
though our progress in intelligent mental catering may be slow, it
is real and sure. One has only to take some examples from the Chap
Books of the beginning of last century to realise the difference of
appeal. Everything offered then was either an appeal to fear or to
priggishness, and one wonders how it is that our grandparents and their
parents ever recovered from the effects of such stories as were offered
to them. But there is the consoling thought that no lasting impression
was made upon them, such as I believe _may_ be possible by the right
kind of story.

I offer a few examples of the old type of story:

Here is an encouraging address offered by a certain Mr. Janeway to
children about the year 1828:

“Dare you do anything which your parents forbid you, and neglect to
do what they command? Dare you to run up and down on the Lord's Day,
or do you keep in to read your book, and learn what your good parents
command?”

Such an address would have almost tempted children to envy the lot of
orphans, except that the guardians and less close relations might have
been equally, if not more, severe.

From “The Curious Girl,” published about 1809: “Oh! papa, I hope you
will have no reason to be dissatisfied with me, for I love my studies
very much, and I am never so happy at my play as when I have been
assiduous at my lessons all day.”

“Adolphus: How strange it is, papa, you should believe it possible for
me to act so like a child, now that I am twelve years old!”

Here is a specimen taken from a Chap-book about 1825:

Edward refuses hot bread at breakfast. His hostess asks whether he
likes it. “Yes, I am extremely fond of it.” “Why did you refuse it?”
“Because I know that my papa does not approve of my eating it. Am I to
disobey a Father and Mother I love so well, and forget my duty, because
they are a long way off? I would not touch the cake, were I sure nobody
could see me. I myself should know it, and that would be sufficient.”

“Nobly replied!” exclaimed Mrs. C. “Act always thus, and you must be
happy, for although the whole world should refuse the praise that is
due, you must enjoy the approbation of your conscience, which is beyond
anything else.”

Here is a quotation of the same kind from Mrs. Sherwood:

“Tender-souled little creatures, desolated by a sense of sin, if
they did but eat a spoonful of cupboard jam without Mamma's express
permission.... Would a modern Lucy, jealous of her sister Emily's doll,
break out thus easily into tearful apology for her guilt?--‘I know
it is wicked in me to be sorry that Emily is happy, but I feel that
I cannot help it.’ And would a modern mother retort with heartfelt
joy?--'My dear child, I am glad you have confessed. Now I shall tell
you why you feel this wicked sorrow'--proceeding to an account of the
depravity of human nature so unredeemed by comfort for a childish mind
of common intelligence that one can scarcely imagine the interview
ending in anything less tragic than a fit of juvenile hysteria.”

Description of a Good Boy. “A good boy is dutiful to his Father and
Mother, obedient to his master and loving to his playfellows. He is
diligent in learning his book, and takes a pleasure in improving
himself in everything that is worthy of praise. He rises early in
the morning, makes himself clean and decent, and says his prayers.
He loves to hear good advice, is thankful to those who give it and
always follows it. He never swears[21] or calls names or uses ill words
to companions. He is never peevish and fretful, always cheerful and
good-tempered.”

VII.--_Stories of exaggerated and coarse fun._ In the chapter on the
positive side of this subject I shall speak more in detail of the
educational value of robust and virile representation of fun and of
sheer nonsense, but as a representation to these statements, I should
like to strike a note of warning about the element of exaggerated and
coarse fun being encouraged in our school stories, partly because of
the lack of humour in such presentations--a natural product of stifling
imagination--and partly because the train of the abnormal has the same
effect as the too frequent use of the melodramatic.

You have only to read the adventures of Buster Brown, which for years
formed the Sunday reading of millions of children in the United States,
to realise what would be the effect of coarse fun and entire absence
of humour upon the normal child in its everyday experience, an effect
all the greater because of the real skill with which the illustrations
are drawn. It is only fair to state that this series was not originally
prepared or intended for the young, but it is a matter of regret
(shared by most educationists in the States) that they should ever have
been given to children at all.

In an article in _Macmillan's Magazine_, Dec. 1869, Miss Yonge writes:
“A taste for buffoonery is much to be discouraged, an exclusive taste
for extravagance most unwholesome and even perverting. It becomes
destructive of reverence and soon degenerates into coarseness. It
permits nothing poetical or imaginative, nothing sweet or pathetic to
exist, and there is a certain self-satisfaction and superiority in
making game of what others regard with enthusiasm and sentiment which
absolutely bars the way against a higher or softer tone.”

Although these words were written nearly half a century ago, they are
so specially applicable to-day that they seem quite “up-to-date”:
indeed, I think they will hold equally good fifty years hence.

In spite of a strong taste on the part of children for what is ugly
and brutal, I am sure that we ought to eliminate this element as far
as possible from the school stories--especially among poor children.
Not because I think children should be protected from all knowledge
of evil, but because so much of this knowledge comes into their life
outside school that we can well afford to ignore it during school
hours. At the same time, however, as I shall show by example when I
come to the positive side, it would be well to show children by story
illustration the difference between brute ugliness without anything
to redeem it and surface ugliness, which may be only a veil over the
beauty that lies underneath. It might be possible, for instance, to
show children the difference between the real ugliness of a brutal
story of crime and an illustration of it in the sensational papers,
and the apparent ugliness in the priest's face of the “Laocoon” group,
because of the motive of courage and endurance behind the suffering.
Many stories in everyday life could be found to illustrate this.

VIII.--_Stories of infant piety and death-bed scenes._ The stories
for children forty years ago contained much of this element, and the
following examples will illustrate this point:

Notes from poems written by a child between six and eight years of age,
by name Philip Freeman, afterwards Archdeacon of Exeter:

    Poor Robin, thou canst fly no more,
    Thy joys and sorrows all are o'er.
    Through Life's tempestuous storms thou'st trod,
    But now art sunk beneath the sod.
    Here lost and gone poor Robin lies,
    He trembles, lingers, falls and dies.
    He's gone, he's gone, forever lost,
    No more of him they now can boast.
    Poor Robin's dangers all are past,
    He struggled to the very last.
    Perhaps he spent a happy Life,
    Without much struggle and much strife.

            _Published by John Loder, bookseller, Woodbridge, in 1829._

The prolonged gloom of the main theme is somewhat lightened by the
speculative optimism of the last verse.

    Life, transient Life, is but a dream,
    Like Sleep which short doth lengthened seem
    Till dawn of day, when the bird's lay
    Doth charm the soul's first peeping gleam.

    Then farewell to the parting year,
    Another's come to Nature dear.
    In every place, thy brightening face
    Does welcome winter's snowy drear.

    Alas! our time is much mis-spent.
    Then we must haste and now repent.
    We have a book in which to look,
    For we on Wisdom should be bent.

    Should God, the Almighty, King of all,
    Before His judgment-seat now call
    Us to that place of Joy and Grace
    Prepared for us since Adam's fall.

I think there is no doubt that we have made considerable progress in
this matter. Not only do we refrain from telling these highly moral
(_sic_) stories but we have reached the point of parodying them,
in sign of ridicule, as, for instance, in such writing as Belloc's
“Cautionary Tales.” These would be a trifle too grim for a timid child,
but excellent fun for adults.

It should be our study to-day to prove to children that the immediate
importance to them is not to think of dying and going to Heaven, but
of living and--shall we say?--going to College, which is a far better
preparation for a life to come than the morbid dwelling upon the
possibility of an early death.

In an article signed “Muriel Harris,” I think, from a copy of the
_Tribune_, appeared a delightful article on Sunday Books, from which I
quote the following:

“All very good little children died young in the story-books, so that
unusual goodness must have been the source of considerable anxiety to
affectionate parents. I came across a little old book the other day
called ‘Examples for Youth.’ On the yellow fly-leaf was written in
childish, carefully sloping hand: ‘Presented to Mary Palmer Junior, by
her sister, to be read on Sundays,’ and was dated 1828. The accounts
are taken from a work on _Piety Promoted_, and all of them begin with
unusual piety in early youth and end with the death-bed of the little
paragon, and his or her dying words.”

IX.--_Stories containing a mixture of Fairy Tale and Science._ By this
combination you lose what is essential to each, namely, the fantastic
on the one side, and accuracy on the other. The true Fairy Tale should
be unhampered by any compromise of probability even--the scientific
representation should be sufficiently marvellous along its own lines to
need no supernatural aid. Both appeal to the imagination in different
ways.

As an exception to this kind of mixture, I should quote “The Honey Bee,
and Other Stories,” translated from the Danish of Evald by C. G. Moore
Smith. There is a certain robustness in these stories dealing with the
inexorable laws of Nature, though some of them will appear hard to the
child; but they will be of interest to all teachers.

Perhaps the worst element in choice of stories is that which insists
upon the moral detaching itself and explaining the story. In “Alice in
Wonderland” the Duchess says, “‘And the moral of _that_ is: Take care
of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.’ ‘How fond
she is of finding morals in things,’ thought Alice to herself.” (This
gives the point of view of the child.)

The following is a case in point, found in a rare old print in the
British Museum:

“Jane S. came home with her clothes soiled and hands badly torn. ‘Where
have you been?’ asked her mother. ‘I fell down the bank near the mill,’
said Jane, ‘and I should have been drowned if Mr. M. had not seen me
and pulled me out.’ 'Why did you go so near the edge of the brink?‘
'There was a pretty flower there that I wanted, and I only meant to
take one step, but I slipped and fell down.’ Moral: Young people often
take but one step in sinful indulgence (Poor Jane!), but they fall
into soul-destroying sins. There is a sinful pleasure which they wish
to enjoy. They can do it by a single act of sin (the heinous act of
picking a flower!). They do it; but that act leads to another, and they
fall into the Gulf of Perdition, unless God interposes.”

Now, apart from the folly of this story, we must condemn it on moral
grounds. Could we imagine a lower standard of a Deity than that
presented here to the child?

To-day the teacher would commend Jane for a laudable interest in
botany, but might add a word of caution about choosing inclined planes
as a hunting-ground for specimens and a popular, lucid explanation of
the inexorable law of gravity.

Here we have an instance of applying a moral when we have finished our
story, but there are many stories where nothing is left to chance in
this matter, and where there is no means for the child to use ingenuity
or imagination in making out the meaning for himself.

Henry Morley has condemned the use of this method as applied to Fairy
Stories. He says: “Moralising in a Fairy Story is like the snoring of
Bottom in Titania's lap.”

But I think this applies to all stories, and most especially to those
by which we do wish to teach something.

John Burroughs says in his article,[22] “Thou shalt not preach”:

“Didactic fiction can never rank high. Thou shalt not preach or teach;
though shalt pourtray and create, and have ends as universal as
nature.... What Art demands is that the Artist's personal convictions
and notions, his likes and dislikes, do not obtrude themselves at all;
that good and evil stand judged in his work by the logic of events,
as they do in nature, and not by any special pleading on his part. He
does not hold a brief for either side; he exemplifies the working of
the creative energy.... The great artist works _in_ and _through_ and
_from_ moral ideas; his works are indirectly a criticism of life. He
is moral without having a moral. The moment a moral obtrudes itself,
that moment he begins to fall from grace as an artist.... The great
distinction of Art is that it aims to see life steadily and to see it
whole.... It affords the one point of view whence the world appears
harmonious and complete.”

It would seem, then, from this passage, that it is of _moral_
importance to put things dramatically.

In Froebel's “Mother Play” he demonstrates the educational value of
stories, emphasising that their highest use consists in their ability
to enable the child, through _suggestion_, to form a pure and noble
idea of what a man may be or do. The sensitiveness of a child's mind
is offended if the moral is forced upon him, but if he absorbs it
unconsciously, he has received its influence for all time.

To me the idea of pointing out the moral of the story has always seemed
as futile as tying a flower on to a stalk instead of letting the flower
_grow out_ of the stalk, as Nature intended. In the first case, the
flower, showy and bright for the moment, soon fades away. In the second
instance, it develops slowly, coming to perfection in fulness of time
because of the life within.

X.--Lastly, the element to avoid is _that which rouses emotions which
cannot be translated into action_.

Mr. Earl Barnes, to whom all teachers owe a debt of gratitude for the
inspiration of his education views, insists strongly on this point.
The sole effect of such stories is to produce a form of hysteria,
fortunately short-lived, but a waste of force which might be directed
into a better channel.[23] Such stories are so easy to recognise that
it would be useless to make a formal list, but I shall make further
allusion to this in dealing with stories from the lives of the saints.

These, then, are the main elements to avoid in the selection of
material suitable for normal children. Much might be added in the way
of detail, and the special tendency of the day may make it necessary to
avoid one class of story more than another; but this care belongs to
another generation of teachers and parents.


FOOTNOTES:

[18] Such works as “Ministering Children,” “The Wide, Wide World,”
“The Fairchild Family,” are instances of the kind of story I mean, as
containing too much analysis of emotion.

[19] One child's favourite book bore the exciting title of “Birth, Life
and Death of Crazy Jane.”

[20] This does not imply that the child would not appreciate in the
right context the thrilling and romantic story in connection with the
finding of the Elgin marbles.

[21] One is almost inclined to prefer Marjorie Fleming's little
innocent oaths. “But she was more than usual calm. She did not give a
single dam.”

[22] From “Literary Values.”

[23] A story is told of Confucius, that having attended a funeral he
presented his horse to the chief mourner. When asked why he bestowed
this gift, he replied: “I wept with the man, so I feel I ought to _do_
something for him.”




CHAPTER V.

ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN CHOICE OF MATERIAL.


IN “The Choice of Books” Frederic Harrison has said: “The most useful
help to reading is to know what we shall _not_ read, ... what we
shall keep from that small cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of
information which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing
knowledge.”[24]

Now, the same statement applies to our stories, and, having busied
myself, during the last chapter, with “clearing my small spot” by
cutting away a mass of unfruitful growth, I am now going to suggest
what would be the best kind of seed to sow in the patch which I have
“reclaimed from the Jungle.”

Again I repeat that I have no wish to be dogmatic, and that in offering
suggestions as to the stories to be told, I am only catering for a
group of normal school-children. My list of subjects does not pretend
to cover the whole ground of children's needs, and just as I exclude
the abnormal or unusual child from the scope of my warning in subjects
to avoid, so do I also exclude that child from the limitation in choice
of subjects to be sought, because you can offer almost any subject to
the unusual child, especially if you stand in close relation to him and
know his powers of apprehension. In this matter, _age_ has very little
to say: it is a question of the stage of development.

Experience has taught me that for the group of normal children, almost
irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable will contain an
appeal to conditions to which they are accustomed. The reason of this
is obvious: the child, having limited experience, can only be reached
by this experience, until his imagination is awakened and he is enabled
to grasp through this faculty what he has not actually passed through.
Before this awakening has taken place he enters the realm of fiction
(represented in the story) by comparison with his personal experience.
Every story and every point in the story mean more as that experience
widens, and the interest varies, of course, with temperament, quickness
of perception, power of visualising and of concentration.

In “The Marsh King's Daughter,” H. C. Andersen says:

“The Storks have a great many stories which they tell their little
ones, all about the bogs and marshes. They suit them to their age and
capacity. The young ones are quite satisfied with Kribble, Krabble,
or some such nonsense, and find it charming; but the elder ones want
something with more meaning.”

One of the most interesting experiments to be made in connection with
this subject is to tell the same story at intervals of a year or six
months to some individual child.[25] The different incidents in the
story which appeal to it (and you must watch it closely, to be sure the
interest is real, and not artificially stimulated by any suggestion on
your part) will mark its mental development and the gradual awakening
of its imagination. This experiment is a very delicate one, and will
not be infallible, because children are secretive and the appreciation
is often (unconsciously) simulated, or concealed through shyness or
want of articulation. But it is, in spite of this, a deeply interesting
and helpful experiment.

To take a concrete example: let us suppose the story of Andersen's Tin
Soldier told to a child of five or six years. At the first recital, the
point which will interest the child most will be the setting up of the
tin soldiers on the table, because he can understand this by means of
his own experience, in his own nursery: it is an appeal to conditions
to which he is accustomed and for which no exercise of the imagination
is needed, unless we take the effect of memory to be, according to
Queyrat, retrospective imagination.

The next incident that appeals is the unfamiliar behaviour of the toys,
but still in familiar surroundings; that is to say, the _unusual_
activities are carried on in the safe precincts of the nursery--in the
_usual_ atmosphere of the child.

I quote from the text:

“Late in the evening the other soldiers were put in their box, and the
people of the house went to bed. Now was the time for the toys to play;
they amused themselves with paying visits, fighting battles and giving
balls. The tin soldiers rustled about in their box, for they wanted to
join the games, but they could not get the lid off. The nut-crackers
turned somersaults, and the pencil scribbled nonsense on the slate.”

Now, from this point onwards in the story, the events will be quite
outside the personal experience of the child, and there will have
to be a real stretch of imagination to appreciate the thrilling and
blood-curdling adventures of the little tin soldier, namely, the
terrible sailing down the gutter under the bridge, the meeting with
the fierce rat who demands the soldier's passport, the horrible
sensation in the fish's body, etc. Last of all, perhaps, will come
the appreciation of the best qualities of the hero: his modesty, his
dignity, his reticence, his courage and his constancy: he seems to
combine all the qualities of the best soldier with those of the best
civilian, without the more obvious qualities which generally attract
first. As for the love-story, we must not _expect_ any child to see
its tenderness and beauty, though the individual child may intuitively
appreciate these qualities, but it is not what we wish for or work for
at this period of child-life.

This method could be applied to various stories. I have chosen the _Tin
Soldier_ because of its dramatic qualities and because it is marked off
(probably quite unconsciously on the part of Andersen) into periods
which correspond to the child's development.

In Eugene Field's exquisite little poem of “The Dinkey Bird” we find
the objects familiar to the child in _unusual_ places, so that some
imagination is needed to realise that “big red sugar-plums are clinging
to the cliffs beside that sea”; but the introduction of the fantastic
bird and the soothing sound of the Amfalula Tree are new and delightful
sensations, quite out of the child's personal experience.

Another such instance is to be found in Mrs. W. K. Clifford's story of
Master Willie. The abnormal behaviour of familiar objects, such as a
doll, leads from the ordinary routine to the paths of adventure. This
story is to be found in a little book called “Very Short Stories,” a
most interesting collection for teachers and children.

We now come to the second element we should seek in material--namely,
the element of the unusual, which we have already anticipated in the
story of the Tin Soldier.

This element is necessary in response to the demand of the child who
expressed the needs of his fellow-playmates when he said: “I want to go
to the place where the shadows are real.” This is the true definition
of “Faerie” lands, and is the first sign of real mental development
in the child when he is no longer content with the stories of his own
little deeds and experiences, when his ear begins to appreciate sounds
different from the words in his own everyday language, and when he
begins to separate his own personality from the action of the story.

George Goschen says[26]:

“What I want for the young are books and stories which do not simply
deal with our daily life. I like the fancy (even) of little children
to have some larger food than images of their own little lives, and
I confess I am sorry for the children whose imaginations are not
sometimes stimulated by beautiful Fairy Tales which carry them to
worlds different from those in which their future will be passed....
I hold that what removes them more or less from their daily life is
better than what reminds them of it at every step.”

It is because of the great value of leading children to something
beyond the limited circle of their own lives that I deplore the
twaddling boarding-school stories written for girls and the
artificially-prepared Public School stories for boys. Why not give them
the dramatic interest of a larger stage? No account of a cricket match,
or a football triumph, could present a finer appeal to boys and girls
than the description of the Peacestead in the “Heroes of Asgaard”:

“This was the playground of the Æsir, where they practised trials of
skill one with another and held tournaments and sham fights. These last
were always conducted in the gentlest and most honourable manner; for
the strongest law of the Peacestead was, that no angry blow should be
struck, or spiteful word spoken upon the sacred field.”

For my part, I would unhesitatingly give to boys and girls an element
of strong romance in the stories which are told them even before they
are twelve. Miss Sewell says:

“The system that keeps girls in the schoolroom reading simple stories,
without reading Scott and Shakespeare and Spenser, and then hands them
over to the unexplored recesses of the Circulating Library, has been
shown to be the most frivolizing that can be devised.” She sets forward
the result of her experience that a good novel, especially a romantic
one, read at twelve or fourteen, is really a beneficial thing.

At present many of the children from the elementary schools get their
first idea of love (if one can give it such a name) from vulgar
pictures displayed in the shop windows, or jokes on marriage culled
from the lowest type of paper, or the proceedings of a divorce-court.

What an antidote to such representation might be found in the story of

  Hector and Andromache,
  Siegfreid and Brunhild,
  Dido and Æneas,
  Orpheus and Eurydice,
  St. Francis and St. Clare.

One of the strongest elements we should introduce into our stories for
children of all ages is that which calls forth love of beauty. And the
beauty should stand out, not necessarily only in delineation of noble
qualities in our heroes and heroines, but in beauty and strength of
language and form.

In this latter respect the Bible stories are of such inestimable
value--all the greater because a child is familiar with the subject,
and the stories gain fresh significance from the spoken or winged word
as compared with the mere reading. Whether we should keep to the actual
text is a matter of individual experience. Professor R. G. Moulton,
whose interpretations of the Bible Stories are so well known both in
England and the States, does not always confine himself to the actual
text, but draws the dramatic elements together, rejecting what seems to
him to break the narrative, but introducing the actual language where
it is the most effective. Those who have heard him will realise the
success of his method.

There is one Bible story which can be told with scarcely any deviation,
and that is the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. Thus, I
think it wise, if the children are to succeed in partially visualizing
the story, that they should have some idea of the dimensions of the
Golden Image as it would stand out in a vast plain. It might be well
to compare those dimensions with some building with which the child is
familiar. In London the matter is easy, as the height will compare,
roughly speaking, with that of Westminster Abbey. The only change in
the text I should adopt is to avoid the constant enumeration of the
list of rulers and the musical instruments. In doing this, I am aware
that I am sacrificing something of beauty in the rhythm,--on the other
hand, for narrative purpose, the interest is not broken. The first time
the announcement is made, that is, by the Herald, it should be in a
perfectly loud, clear and toneless voice, such as you would naturally
use when shouting through a trumpet to a vast concourse of people
scattered over a wide plain; reserving all the dramatic tone of voice
for the passage where Nebuchadnezzar is making the announcement to the
three men by themselves. I can remember Professor Moulton saying that
all the dramatic interest of the story is summed up in the words “But
if Not....” This suggestion is a very helpful one, for it enables us to
work up gradually to this point, and then, as it were, _unwind_, until
we reach the words of Nebuchadnezzar's dramatic recantation.

In this connection, it is a good plan occasionally during the story
hour to introduce really good poetry which, delivered in a dramatic
manner (far removed, of course, from the melodramatic), might give
children their first love of beautiful form in verse. And I do not
think it necessary to wait for this. Even the normal child of seven
(though there is nothing arbitrary in the suggestion of this age) will
appreciate the effect--if only on the ear--of beautiful lines well
spoken. Mahomet has said, in his teaching advice: “Teach your children
poetry: it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes heroic
virtues hereditary.”

To begin with the youngest children of all, here is a poem which
contains a thread of story, just enough to give a human interest:

MILKING-TIME.

    When the cows come home, the milk is coming,
    Honey's made when the bees are humming.
    Duck, Drake on the rushy lake,
    And the deer live safe in the breezy brake,
    And timid, funny, pert little bunny
    Winks his nose, and sits all sunny.
                                                  _Christina Rossetti._

Now, in comparing this poem with some of the doggerel verse offered
to small children, one is struck with the literary superiority in the
choice of words. Here, in spite of the simplicity of the poem, there
is not the ordinary limited vocabulary, nor the forced rhyme, nor the
application of a moral, by which the artist falls from grace.

Again, in Eugene Field's “Hushaby Lady,” the language of which is most
simple, the child is carried away by the beauty of the sound.

I remember hearing some poetry repeated by the children in one of
the elementary schools in Sheffield which made me feel that they had
realised romantic possibilities which would prevent their lives from
ever becoming quite prosaic again, and I wish that this practice
were more usual. There is little difficulty with the children. I can
remember, in my own experience as a teacher in London, making the
experiment of reading or repeating passages from Milton and Shakespeare
to children from nine to eleven years of age, and the enthusiastic
way they responded by learning those passages by heart. I have taken,
with several sets of children, such passages from Milton as “Echo
Song,” “Sabrina,” “By the rushy fringed Bank,” “Back, shepherds, back,”
from _Comus_, “May Morning,” “Ode to Shakespeare,” “Samson on his
blindness,” etc. I even ventured on several passages from _Paradise
Lost_, and found “Now came still evening on” a particular favourite
with the children.

It seemed even easier to interest them in Shakespeare, and they learned
quite readily and easily many passages from “As You Like It,” “Merchant
of Venice,” “Julius Cæsar”; from “Richard II,” “Henry IV,” and “Henry
V.”

The method I should recommend in the introduction of both poets
occasionally into the Story-hour would be threefold.

First, to choose passages which appeal for beauty of sound or beauty
of mental vision called up by those sounds: such as, “Tell me where is
Fancy bred,” Titania's Lullaby, “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon
this bank.”

Secondly, passages for sheer interest of content, such as the Trial
Scene from “The Merchant of Venice,” or the Forest Scene in “As You
Like It.”

Thirdly, for dramatic and historical interest, such as, “Men at some
time are masters of their fates,” the whole of Mark Antony's speech,
and the scene with Imogen and her foster-brothers in the Forest.

It may not be wholly out of place to add here that the children learned
and repeated these passages themselves, and that I offered them the
same advice as I do to all Story-tellers. I discussed quite openly
with them the method I considered best, trying to make them see that
simplicity of delivery was not only the most beautiful but the most
effective means to use; and, by the end of a few months, when they
had been allowed to experiment and express themselves, they began
to see that mere ranting was not force, and that a sense of reserve
power is infinitely more impressive and inspiring than mere external
presentation.

I encouraged them to criticise each other for the common good, and
sometimes I read a few lines with over-emphasis and too much gesture,
which they were at liberty to point out, so that they might avoid the
same error.

A very good collection of poems for this purpose of narrative is to be
found in:

    Mrs. P. A. Barnett's series of _Song and Story_,
                                          Published by A. and C. Black.

And for older children:

    _The Call of the Homeland_, Anthology.
      Edited by Dr. Scott and Miss Katharine Wallas, Published by
        Blackie and Son.

Also in a collection published (I believe) in Boston by Miss Agnes
Repplier.

    _Golden Numbers_.
                                        (K. D. Wiggin and N. A. Smith).

It will be realised from the scanty number of examples offered in
this section that it is only a side issue, a mere suggestion of an
occasional alternative for the Story-hour, as likely to develop the
imagination.

I think it is well to have a good number of stories illustrating the
importance of common sense and resourcefulness. For this reason I
consider that stories treating of the ultimate success of the youngest
son are very admirable for the purpose, because the youngest child,
who begins by being considered inferior to the elder ones, triumphs in
the end, either from resourcefulness, or from common sense, or from
some high quality, such as kindness to animals, courage in overcoming
difficulties, etc.[27]

Thus we have the story of Cinderella. The cynic might imagine that it
was the diminutive size of her foot that ensured her success: the child
does not realise any advantage in this, but, though the matter need not
be pressed, the story leaves us with the impression that Cinderella had
been patient and industrious, forbearing with her sisters. We know that
she was strictly obedient to her godmother, and in order to be this
she makes her dramatic exit from the ball which is the beginning of
her triumph. There are many who might say that these qualities do not
meet with reward in life and that they end in establishing a habit of
drudgery, but, after all, we must have poetic justice in a Fairy Story,
occasionally, at any rate.

Another such story is “Jesper and the Hares.” Here, however, it is
not at first resourcefulness that helps the hero, but sheer kindness
of heart, which prompts him first to help the ants, and then to
show civility to the old woman, without for a moment expecting any
material benefit from such actions. At the end, he does win by his own
ingenuity and resourcefulness, and if we regret that his _trickery_
has such wonderful results, we must remember that the aim was to win
the princess for herself, and that there was little choice left him. I
consider the end of this story to be one of the most remarkable I have
found in my long years of browsing among Fairy Tales. I should suggest
stopping at the words: “The Tub is full,” as any addition seems to
destroy the subtlety of the story.[28]

Another story of this kind, admirable for children from six years and
upwards, is “What the Old Man does is always Right.” Here, perhaps,
the entire lack of common sense on the part of the hero would serve
rather as a warning than a stimulating example, but the conduct of
the wife in excusing the errors of her foolish husband is a model of
resourcefulness.

In the story of “Hereafter--this”[29] we have just the converse: a
perfectly foolish wife shielded by a most patient and forbearing
husband, whose tolerance and common sense save the situation.

One of the most important elements to seek in our choice of stories is
that which tends to develop, eventually, a fine sense of humour in a
child. I purposely use the word “eventually,” because I realise first
that humour has various stages, and that seldom, if ever, can you
expect an appreciation of fine humour from a normal child, that is,
from an elemental mind. It seems as if the rough-and-tumble element
were almost a necessary stage through which children must pass--a
stage, moreover, which is normal and healthy; but up to now we have
quite unnecessarily extended the period of elephantine fun, and though
we cannot control the manner in which children are catered for along
this line in their homes, we can restrict the folly of appealing too
strongly or too long to this elemental faculty in our schools. Of
course, the temptation is strong, because the appeal is so easy. But
there is a tacit recognition that horse-play and practical jokes are
no longer considered an essential part of a child's education. We note
this in the changed attitude in the schools, taken by more advanced
educationists, towards bullying, fagging, hazing, etc. As a reaction,
then, from more obvious fun, there should be a certain number of
stories which make appeal to a more subtle element, and in the chapter
on the questions put to me by teachers on various occasions, I speak
more in detail about the educational value of a finer humour in our
stories.

At some period there ought to be presented in our stories the
superstitions connected with the primitive history of the race, dealing
with the Fairy (proper), giants, dwarfs, gnomes, nixies, brownies
and other elemental beings. Andrew Lang says: “Without our savage
ancestors we should have had no poetry. Conceive the human race born
into the world in its present advanced condition, weighing, analysing,
examining everything. Such a race would have been destitute of poetry
and flattened by common sense. Barbarians did the _dreaming_ of the
world.”

But it is a question of much debate among educationists what should
be the period of the child's life in which these stories are to be
presented. I myself was formerly of opinion that they belonged to
the very primitive age of the individual, just as they belong to the
primitive age of the race, but experience in telling stories has taught
me to compromise.

Some people maintain that little children, who take things with brutal
logic, ought not to be allowed the Fairy Tale in its more limited
form of the Supernatural; whereas, if presented to older children,
this material can be criticised, catalogued and (alas!) rejected as
worthless, or retained with flippant toleration.

Now, whilst recognising a certain value in this point of view, I am
bound to admit that if we regulate our stories entirely on this basis,
we lose the real value of the Fairy Tale element--it is the one element
which causes little children to _wonder_, simply because no scientific
analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat
heartrending to feel that Jack and the Bean-Stalk and stories of that
ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the
quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and
wonder why Jack was not playing football in the school team instead of
climbing trees in search of imaginary adventures.

A wonderful plea for the telling of early superstitions to children is
to be found in an old Indian Allegory called “The Blazing Mansion.”

     “An old man owned a large, rambling mansion--the pillars
    were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and
    combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there
    was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he
    saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching
    fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But
    inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The
    distracted father said: ‘I will run in and save my children. I will
    seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the
    falling rafters and the blazing beams.’ Then the sad thought came
    to him that the children were romping and ignorant. ‘If I say the
    house is on fire, they will not understand me. If I try to seize
    them, they will romp about and try to escape. Alas! not a moment to
    be lost!’ Suddenly a bright thought flashed across the old man's
    mind. ‘My children are ignorant,’ he said; ‘they love toys and
    glittering playthings. I will promise them playthings of unheard-of
    beauty. Then they will listen.’

    So the old man shouted: ‘Children, come out of the house and see
    these beautiful toys! Chariots with white oxen, all gold and
    tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes. Whoever saw such
    goats as these? Children, children, come quickly, or they will all
    be gone!’

    Forth from the blazing ruin the children came in hot haste. The
    word ‘plaything’ was almost the only word they could understand.

    Then the Father, rejoiced that his offspring was freed from peril,
    procured for them one of the most beautiful chariots ever seen:
    the chariot had a canopy like a pagoda: it had tiny rails and
    balustrades and rows of jingling bells. Milk-white oxen drew the
    chariot. The children were astonished when they were placed inside.”
                                              (_From the “Thabagata.”_)

Perhaps, as a compromise, one might give the gentler superstitions to
very small children, and leave such a blood-curdling story as Bluebeard
to a more robust age.

There is one modern method which has always seemed to me much to be
condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for
fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this
we are tampering with folk-lore and confusing stages of development.

Now, I know that there are individual children that, at a tender
age, might be alarmed at such a story, for instance, as Little Red
Riding-Hood; in which case, it is better to sacrifice the “wonder
stage” and present the story later on.

I live in dread of finding one day a bowdlerized form of “Bluebeard”
(prepared for a junior standard), in which, to produce a satisfactory
finale, all the wives come to life again, and “live happily for ever
after” with Bluebeard and each other!

And from this point it seems an easy transition to the subject of
legends of different kinds. Some of the old country legends in
connection with flowers are very charming for children, and as long as
we do not tread on the sacred ground of the Nature Students, we may
indulge in a moderate use of such stories, of which a few will be found
in the Story Lists.

With regard to the introduction of legends connected with saints into
the school curriculum, my chief plea is the element of the unusual
which they contain, and an appeal to a sense of mysticism and wonder
which is a wise antidote to the prosaic and commercial tendencies of
to-day. Though many of the actions of the saints may be the result of
a morbid strain of self-sacrifice, at least none of them were engaged
in the sole occupation of becoming rich: their ideals were often lofty
and unselfish; their courage high, and their deeds noble. We must be
careful, in the choice of our legends, to show up the virile qualities
rather than to dwell on the elements of horror in details of martyrdom,
or on the too-constantly recurring miracles, lest we should defeat our
own ends. For the children might think lightly of the dangers to which
the saints were exposed if they find them too often preserved at the
last moment from the punishment they were brave enough to undergo. For
one or other of these reasons, I should avoid the detailed history of
St. Juliana, St. Vincent, St. Quintin, St. Eustace, St. Winifred, St.
Theodore, St. James the More, St. Katharine, St. Cuthbert, St. Alphage,
St. Peter of Milan, St. Quirine and Juliet, St. Alban and others.

The danger of telling children stories connected with sudden
conversions is that they are apt to place too much emphasis on the
process, rather than the goal to be reached. We should always insist on
the splendid deeds performed after a real conversion--not the details
of the conversion itself; as, for instance, the beautiful and poetical
work done by St. Christopher when he realised what work he could do
most effectively.

On the other hand, there are many stories of the saints dealing with
actions and motives which would appeal to the imagination and are not
only worthy of imitation, but are not wholly outside the life and
experience even of the child.[30]

Having protested against the elephantine joke and the too-frequent
use of exaggerated fun, I now endeavour to restore the balance by
suggesting the introduction into the school curriculum of a few purely
grotesque stories which serve as an antidote to sentimentality or
utilitarianism. But they must be presented as nonsense, so that the
children may use them for what they are intended, as pure relaxation.
Such a story is that of “The Wolf and the Kids.” I have had serious
objections offered to this story by several educational people, because
of the revenge taken by the goat on the wolf, but I am inclined to
think that if the story is to be taken as anything but sheer nonsense,
it is surely sentimental to extend our sympathy towards a caller who
has devoured six of his hostess' children. With regard to the wolf
being cut open, there is not the slightest need to accentuate the
physical side. Children accept the deed as they accept the cutting
off of a giant's head, because they do not associate it with pain,
especially if the deed is presented half-humorously. The moment in the
story where their sympathy is aroused is the swallowing of the kids,
because the children do realise the possibility of being disposed of
in the mother's absence. (Needless to say, I never point out the moral
of the kids' disobedience to the mother in opening the door.) I have
always noticed a moment of breathlessness even in a grown-up audience
when the wolf swallows the kids, and that the recovery of them “all
safe and sound, all huddled together” is quite as much appreciated by
the adult audience as by the children, and is worth the tremor caused
by the wolf's summary action.

I have not always been able to impress upon the teachers that this
story _must_ be taken lightly. A very earnest young student came to
me once after I had told it, and said in an awestruck voice: “Do you
Correlate?” Having recovered from the effect of this word, which she
carefully explained, I said that as a rule I preferred to keep the
story apart from the other lessons, just an undivided whole, because
it had effects of its own which were best brought about by not being
connected with other lessons.[31] She frowned her disapproval and said:
“I am sorry, because I thought I would take The Goat for my Nature
Study lesson, and then tell your story at the end.” I thought of the
terrible struggle in the child's mind between his conscientious wish to
be accurate and his dramatic enjoyment of the abnormal habits of a goat
who went out with scissors, needle and thread; but I have been most
careful since to repudiate any connection with Nature Study in this and
a few other stories in my répertoire.

One might occasionally introduce one of Edward Lear's “Book of
Nonsense.” For instance:

    There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,
    Who wished he had never been born;
    So he sat in a chair till he died of despair,
    That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.

Now, except in case of very young children, this could not possibly be
taken seriously. The least observant normal boy or girl would recognise
the hollowness of the pessimism that prevents a man from at least an
attempt to rise from his chair.

The following I have chosen as repeated with intense appreciation and
much dramatic vigour by a little boy just five years old:

    There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!
    I perceive a young bird in this bush!”
    When they said, “Is it small?” he replied, “Not at all!
    It is four times as big as the bush!”[32]

One of the most desirable of all elements to introduce into our stories
is that which encourages kinship with animals. With very young children
this is easy, because in those early years when the mind is not clogged
with knowledge, the sympathetic imagination enables them to enter into
the feelings of animals. Andersen has an illustration of this point in
his “Ice Maiden”:

“Children who cannot talk yet can understand the language of fowls and
ducks quite well, and cats and dogs speak to them quite as plainly as
Father and Mother; but that is only when the children are very small,
and then even Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them
that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail.
With some children this period ends later than with others, and of such
we are accustomed to say that they are very backward, and that they
have remained children for a long time. People are in the habit of
saying strange things.”

Felix Adler says: “Perhaps the chief attraction of Fairy Tales is due
to their representing the child as living in brotherly friendship with
nature and all creatures. Trees, flowers, animals, wild and tame, even
the stars are represented as comrades of children. That animals are
only human beings in disguise is an axiom in the Fairy Tales. Animals
are humanised, that is, the kinship between animal and human life
is still keenly felt; and this reminds us of those early animistic
interpretations of nature which subsequently led to doctrines of
metempsychosis.”[33]

I think that beyond question the finest animal stories are to be found
in the Indian Collections, of which I furnish a list in the Appendix.

With regard to the development of the love of nature through the
telling of the stories, we are confronted with a great difficult in the
elementary schools, because so many of the children have never been out
of the towns, have never seen a daisy, a blade of grass and scarcely a
tree, so that in giving, in form of a story, a beautiful description
of scenery, you can make no appeal to the retrospective imagination,
and only the rarely gifted child will be able to make pictures whilst
listening to a style which is beyond his everyday use. Nevertheless,
once in a way, when the children are in a quiet mood, not eager for
action but able to give themselves up to the pure joy of sound, then
it is possible to give them a beautiful piece of writing in praise of
Nature, such as the following, taken from _The Divine Adventure_, by
Fiona Macleod:

“Then he remembered the ancient wisdom of the Gael and came out of the
Forest Chapel and went into the woods. He put his lip to the earth,
and lifted a green leaf to his brow, and held a branch to his ear,
and because he was no longer heavy with the sweet clay of mortality,
though yet of human clan he heard that which we do not hear, and saw
that which we do not see, and knew that which we do not know. All the
green life was his. In that new world, he saw the lives of trees, now
pale green, now of woodsmoke blue, now of amethyst; the gray lives of
stone; breaths of the grass and reed, creatures of the air, delicate
and wild as fawns, or swift and fierce and terrible, tigers, of that
undiscovered wilderness, with birds almost invisible but for their
luminous wings, and opalescent crests.”

The value of this particular passage is the mystery pervading the whole
picture, which forms so beautiful an antidote to the eternal explaining
of things. I think it of the highest importance for children to realise
that the best and most beautiful things cannot be expressed in everyday
language and that they must content themselves with a flash here and
there of the beauty which may come later. One does not enhance the
beauty of the mountain by pulling to pieces some of the earthy clogs:
one does not increase the impression of a vast ocean by analysing the
single drops of water. But at a reverent distance one gets a clear
impression of the whole, and can afford to leave the details in the
shadow.

In presenting such passages (and it must be done very sparingly)
experience has taught me that we should take the children into our
confidence by telling them frankly that nothing exciting is going
to happen, so that they will be free to listen to the mere words. A
very interesting experiment might occasionally be made by asking the
children some weeks afterwards to tell you in their own words what
pictures were made on their minds. This is a very different thing from
allowing the children to reproduce the passage at once, the danger of
which proceeding I speak of later in detail. (See Chapter on Questions.)

We now come to the question as to what proportion of _Dramatic
Excitement_ we should present in the stories for a normal group of
children. Personally, I should like, while the child is very young
(I mean in mind, not in years) to exclude the element of dramatic
excitement, but though this may be possible for the individual child,
it is quite Utopian to hope we can keep the average child free from
what is in the atmosphere. Children crave for excitement, and unless we
give it to them in legitimate form, they will take it in any riotous
form it presents itself, and if from our experience we can control
their mental digestion by a moderate supply of what they demand, we
may save them from devouring too eagerly the raw material they can so
easily find for themselves.

There is a humorous passage bearing on this question in the story of
the small Scotch boy, when he asks leave of his parents to present the
pious little book--a gift to himself from his Aunt--to a little sick
friend, hoping probably that the friend's chastened condition will make
him more lenient towards this mawkish form of literature. The parents
expostulate, pointing out to their son how ungrateful he is, and how
ungracious it would be to part with his Aunt's gift. Then the boy can
contain himself no longer. He bursts out, unconsciously expressing the
normal attitude of children at a certain stage of development: “It's
a _daft_ book ony way; there's naebody gets kilt en't. I like stories
about folk getting their heids cut off, or stabbit through and through,
wi' swords an' spears. An' there's nae wile beasts. I like Stories
about black men gettin' ate up, an' white men killin' lions and tigers
an' bears an'----”

Then, again, we have the passage from George Eliot's “Mill on the
Floss”:

“Oh, dear! I wish they would not fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
hurt you?”

“Hurt me? No,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large
pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at
meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:

“I gave Spooner a black eye--that's what he got for wanting to leather
me. I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”

“Oh! how brave you are, Tom. I think you are like Samson. If there came
a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?”

“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions
only in the shows.”

“No, but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa where it's
very hot, the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book
where I read it.”

“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”

“But if you hadn't got a gun?--we might have gone out, you know, not
thinking, just as we go out fishing, and then a great lion might come
towards us roaring, and we could not get away from him. What should you
do, Tom?”

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: “But the
lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?”

This passage illustrates also the difference between the
highly-developed imagination of the one and the stodgy prosaical
temperament of the other. Tom could enter into the elementary question
of giving his school-fellow a black eye, but could not possibly enter
into the drama of the imaginary arrival of a lion. He was sorely in
need of Fairy Stories.

It is for this element we have to cater, and we cannot shirk our
responsibilities.

William James says: “Living things, moving things or things that
savour of danger or blood, that have a dramatic quality, these are
the things natively interesting to childhood, to the exclusion of
almost everything else, and the teacher of young children (until more
artificial interests have grown up) will keep in touch with his pupils
by constant appeal to such matters as those.”[34]

Of course the savour of danger and blood is only _one_ of the things to
which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point
clearer.

This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how
to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough
constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for
“blugginess” is slaked.

And here I should like to say that, whilst wishing to encourage in
children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine
qualities which have been displayed in times of war, and which have
mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest
moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession
as soldiers. Thus we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sidney and
the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of his
dead friends to receive the blessing of the archbishop after the battle
of Roncevalles[35]; and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to England.
There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in the midst of
the slaughter of his enemies, and says, “I wonder if I am less brave
than others, because I kill men less willingly than they.”

And in the “Njal's Burning” from Andrew Lang's “Book of Romance” we
have the words of the boy Thord when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges
him to go out of the burning house.

“You promised me when I was little, grandmother, that I never should go
from you till I wished it of myself. And I would rather die with you
than live after you.”

Here the moral courage is so splendidly shown; none of these heroes
feared to die in battle or in open single fight, but to face a death by
fire for higher considerations is a point of view worth presenting to
the child.

In spite of all the dramatic excitement roused by the conduct of our
soldiers and sailors,[36] should we not try to offer also in our
stories the romance and excitement of saving as well as _taking_ life?

I would have quite a collection dealing with the thrilling adventures
of the Life-Boat and the Fire Brigade, of which I hope to present
examples in the final Story List.

Finally, we ought to include a certain number of stories dealing with
Death, especially with children who are of an age to realise that it
must come to all, and that this is not a calamity but a perfectly
natural and simple thing. At present the child in the street invariably
connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories
of Death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great
cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and
unselfishness; or of Death coming as a result of treachery, such as
we find in the death of Baldur, of Siegfried, and of others, so that
children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of
stories dealing with death that comes naturally, when our work is done
and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of
a leaf from the tree. In this way we can give children the first idea
that the individual is so much less than the whole.

Quite small children often take Death very naturally. A boy of five
met two of his older companions at the school door. They said sadly
and solemnly: “We have just seen a dead man!” “Well,” said the little
philosopher, “that's all right. We've _all_ got to die when our work's
done.”

In one of the Buddha stories which I reproduce at the end of this book,
the little Hare (who is, I think, a symbol of nervous Individualism)
constantly says: “Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would become
of me?”

As an antidote to the ordinary attitude towards death, I commend an
episode from a German folk-lore story called “Unlucky John,” which is
included in the list of stories recommended at the end of this book.

The following sums up in poetic form some of the material necessary for
the wants of a child:


THE CHILD.

    The little new soul has come to Earth,
      He has taken his staff for the Pilgrim's way.
    His sandals are girt on his tender feet,
      And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may.

    What will you give to him, Fate Divine?
      What for his scrip on the winding road?
    A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath?
      A sword to wield, or is gold his load?

    What will you give him for weal or woe?
      What for the journey through day and night?
    Give or withhold from him power and fame,
      But give to him love of the earth's delight.

    Let him be lover of wind and sun
      And of falling rain; and the friend of trees;
    With a singing heart for the pride of noon,
      And a tender heart for what twilight sees.

    Let him be lover of you and yours--
      The Child and Mary; but also Pan,
    And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills,
      And the god that is hid in his fellow-man.

    Love and a song and the joy of earth,
      These be the gifts for his scrip to keep
    Till, the journey ended, he stands at last
      In the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep.
                                                      _Ethel Clifford._

And so our stories should contain all the essentials for the child's
scrip on the road of life, providing the essentials and holding or
withholding the non-essentials. But, above all, let us fill the scrip
with gifts that the child need never reject, even when he passes
through “the gate of sleep.”


FOOTNOTES:

[24] Chapter I, page 3.

[25] This experiment cannot be made with a group of children, for
obvious reasons.

[26] From an address on the “Cultivation of the Imagination.”

[27] “The House in the Wood” (Grimm) is a good instance of triumph for
the youngest child.

[28] To be found in Andrew Lang's Collection. See list of Stories.

[29] To be found in Jacob's “More English Tales.”

[30] For selection of suitable stories among legends of the Saints, see
Story Lists.

[31] I believe that I am quite in a minority among Educationists in
this matter. Possibly my constantly specialising in the stories may
have formed my opinion.

[32] These words have been set most effectively to music by Miss
Margaret Ruthven Lang. (Boston.)

[33] From “Moral Instruction of Children,” page 66. “The Use of Fairy
Tales.”

[34] From “Talks to Teachers,” page 93.

[35] An excellent account of this is to be found in “The Song of
Roland,” by Arthur Way and Frederic Spender.

[36] This passage was written before the Great War.




CHAPTER VI.

HOW TO OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.


WE are now coming to the most important part of the question of
Story-Telling, to which all the foregoing remarks have been gradually
leading, and that is the Effects of these stories upon the child, apart
from the dramatic joy he experiences in listening to them, which would
in itself be quite enough to justify us in the telling. But, since I
have urged upon teachers the extreme importance of giving so much time
to the manner of telling and of bestowing so much care on the selection
of the material, it is right that they should expect some permanent
results, or else those who are not satisfied with the mere enjoyment of
the children will seek other methods of appeal--and it is to them that
I most specially dedicate this chapter.

I think we are on the threshold of the re-discovery of an old truth,
that the Dramatic Presentation is the quickest and surest, because
it is the only one with which memory plays no tricks. If a thing has
appeared before us in a vital form, nothing can really destroy it; it
is because things are often given in a blurred, faint light that they
gradually fade out of our memory. A very keen scientist was deploring
to me, on one occasion, the fact that stories were told so much in the
schools, to the detriment of science, for which she claimed the same
indestructible element that I recognise in the best-told stories.
Being very much interested in her point of view, I asked her to tell
me, looking back on her school days, what she could remember as
standing out from other less clear information. After thinking some
little time over the matter, she said with some embarrassment, but with
a candour that did her much honour:

“Well, now I come to think of it, it was the story of Cinderella.”

Now, I am not holding any brief for this story in particular. I think
the reason it was remembered was because of the dramatic form in which
it was presented to her, which fired her imagination and kept the
memory alight. I quite realise that a scientific fact might also have
been easily remembered if it was presented in the form of a successful
chemical experiment: but this also has something of the dramatic appeal
and will be remembered on that account.

Sully says: “We cannot understand the fascination of a story for
children save in remembering that for their young minds, quick to
imagine, and unversed in abstract reflection, words are not dead things
but _winged_, as the old Greeks called them.”[37]

The Red Queen (in “Through the Looking-Glass”) was more psychological
than she knew when she made the memorable statement: “When once you've
_said_ a thing that _fixes_ it, and you must take the consequences.”

In Curtin's Introduction to “Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians,” he
says:

“I remember well the feeling roused in my mind at the mention or sight
of the name _Lucifer_ during the early years of my life. It stood for
me as the name of a being stupendous, dreadful in moral deformity,
lurid, hideous and mighty. I remember the surprise which, when I had
grown somewhat older and began to study Latin, I came upon the name in
Virgil where it means _light-bringer_--the herald of the Sun.”

Plato has said: “That the End of Education should be the training by
suitable habits of the Instincts of Virtue in the Child.”

About two thousand years later, Sir Philip Sidney, in his “Defence of
Poesy,” says: “The final end of learning is to draw and lead us to so
high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay
lodgings, can be capable of.”

And yet it is neither the Greek philosopher nor the Elizabethan poet
that makes the every-day application of these principles; but we have
a hint of this application from the Pueblo tribe of Indians, of whom
Lummis tells us the following:

“There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has
to be content with a bare command: Do this. For each he learns a
fairy-tale designed to explain how children first came to know that
it was right to ‘do this,’ and detailing the sad results that befell
those who did otherwise. Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men
who have devoted a great deal of time to learning the myths and stories
of their people and who possess, in addition to a good memory, a vivid
imagination. The mother sends for one of these, and having prepared a
feast for him, she and her little brood, who are curled up near her,
await the Fairy Stories of the dreamer, who after his feast and smoke
entertains the company for hours.”

In modern times, the nurse, who is now receiving such complete
training for her duties with the children, should be ready to
imitate the “dreamer” of the Indian tribe. I rejoice to find that
regular instruction in Story-telling is being given in many of the
institutions where the nurses are trained.

Some years ago there appeared a book by Dion Calthrop called “King
Peter,” which illustrates very fully the effect of story-telling. It
is the account of the education of a young prince which is carried on
at first by means of stories, and later he is taken out into the arena
of Life to be shown what is happening there--the dramatic appeal being
always the means used to awaken his imagination. The fact that only
_one_ story a year is told him prevents our seeing the effect from day
to day, but the time matters little. We only need faith to believe that
the growth, though slow, was very sure.

There is something of the same idea in the “Adventures of Telemachus,”
written by Fénélon for his royal pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy; but
whereas Calthrop trusts to the results of indirect teaching by means of
dramatic stories, Fénélon, on the contrary, makes use of the somewhat
heavy, didactic method, so that one would think the attention of the
young prince must have wandered at times; and I imagine Telemachus was
in the same condition when he was addressed at some length by Mentor,
who, being Minerva (though in disguise), should occasionally have
displayed that sense of humour which must always temper true wisdom:

Take, for instance, the heavy reproof conveyed in the following
passage:

“Death and shipwreck are less dreadful than the pleasures that attack
Virtue.... Youth is full of presumption and arrogance, though nothing
in the world is so frail: it fears nothing, and vainly relies on its
own strength, believing everything with the utmost levity and without
any precaution.”

And on another occasion, when Calypso hospitably provides clothes for
the shipwrecked men, and Telemachus is handling a tunic of the finest
wool and white as snow, with a vest of purple embroidered with gold,
and displaying much pleasure in the magnificence of the clothes, Mentor
addresses him in a severe voice, saying: “Are these, O Telemachus, the
thoughts that ought to occupy the heart of the son of Ulysses? A young
man who loves to dress vainly, as a woman does, is unworthy of wisdom
or glory.”

I remember, as a schoolgirl of thirteen, having to commit to memory
several books of these adventures, so as to become familiar with the
style. Far from being impressed by the wisdom of Mentor, I was simply
bored, and wondered why Telemachus did not escape from him. The only
part in the book that really interested me was Calypso's unrequited
love for Telemachus, but this was always the point where we ceased to
learn by heart, which surprised me greatly, for it was here that the
real human interest seemed to begin.

Of all the effects which I hope for from the telling of stories in the
schools, personally I place first the dramatic joy we bring to the
children and to ourselves. But there are many who would consider this
result as fantastic, if not frivolous, and not to be classed among the
educational values concocted with the introduction of stories into the
school curriculum. I therefore propose to speak of other effects of
story-telling which may seem of more practical value.

The first, which is of a purely negative character, is that through
means of a dramatic story we can counteract some of the sights and
sounds of the streets which appeal to the melodramatic instinct in
children. I am sure that all teachers whose work lies in the crowded
cities must have realised the effect produced on children by what they
see and hear on their way to and from school. If we merely consider
the hoardings, with their realistic representations, quite apart from
the actual dramatic happenings in the street, we at once perceive
that the ordinary school interests pale before such lurid appeals as
these. How can we expect the child who has stood open-mouthed before
a poster representing a woman chloroformed by a burglar, whilst that
hero escapes in safety with her jewels, to display any interest in the
arid monotony of the multiplication-table? The illegitimate excitement
created by the sight of the depraved burglar can only be counteracted
by something equally exciting along the realistic but legitimate side;
and this is where the story of the right kind becomes so valuable, and
why the teacher who is artistic enough to undertake the task can find
the short path to results which theorists seek for so long in vain. It
is not even necessary to have an exceedingly exciting story; sometimes
one which will bring about pure reaction may be just as suitable.

I remember in my personal experience an instance of this kind. I had
been reading with some children of about ten years old the story from
Cymbeline, of Imogen in the forest scene, when the brothers strew
flowers upon her, and sing the funeral dirge,

    “Fear no more the heat of the sun.”

Just as we had all taken on this tender, gentle mood, the door opened
and one of the prefects announced in a loud voice the news of the
relief of Mafeking. The children were on their feet at once, cheering
lustily, and for the moment the joy over the relief of the brave
garrison was the predominant feeling. Then, before the Jingo spirit
had time to assert itself, I took advantage of a momentary reaction and
said: “Now, children, don't you think we can pay England the tribute
of going back to England's greatest poet?” In a few minutes we were
back in the heart of the Forest, and I can still hear the delightful
intonation of those subdued voices repeating:

    Golden lads and girls all must
    Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.

It is interesting to note that the same problem that is exercising
us to-day was a source of difficulty to people in remote times. The
following is taken from an old Chinese document, and has particular
interest for us to-day.

“The Philosopher Mentius (born 371 B.C.) was left fatherless at a very
tender age and brought up by his mother Changsi. The care of this
prudent and attentive mother has been cited as a model for all virtuous
parents. The house she occupied was near that of a butcher: she
observed at the first cry of the animals that were being slaughtered,
the little Mentius ran to be present at the sight, and that, on his
return, he sought to imitate what he had seen. Fearful lest his heart
might become hardened, and accustomed to the sights of blood, she
removed to another house which was in the neighbourhood of a cemetery.
The relations of those who were buried there came often to weep upon
their graves, and make their customary libations. The lad soon took
pleasure in their ceremonies and amused himself by imitating them.
This was a new subject of uneasiness to his mother: she feared her
son might come to consider as a jest what is of all things the most
serious, and that he might acquire a habit of performing with levity,
and as a matter of routine merely, ceremonies which demand the most
exact attention and respect. Again therefore she anxiously changed the
dwelling, and went to live in the city, opposite to a school, where her
son found examples the most worthy of imitation, and began to profit
by them. This anecdote has become incorporated by the Chinese into a
proverb, which they constantly quote: The Mother of Mentius seeks a
neighbourhood.”

Another influence we have to counteract is that of newspaper headings
which catch the eye of children in the streets and appeal so powerfully
to their imagination.

Shakespeare has said:

    Tell me where is Fancy bred,
    Or in the heart, or in the head?
    How begot, how nourished?
      Reply, reply.
    It is engendered in the eyes
    With gazing fed: and Fancy dies
    In the cradle where it lies.
      Let us all ring Fancy's knell.
      I'll begin it--ding, dong, bell.
                                                “_Merchant of Venice._”

If this be true, it is of importance to decide what our children shall
look upon as far as we can control the vision, so that we can form some
idea of the effect upon their imagination.

Having alluded to the dangerous influence of the street, I should
hasten to say that this influence is very far from being altogether
bad. There are possibilities of romance in street life which may have
just the same kind of effect on children as the telling of exciting
stories. I am indebted to Mrs. Arnold Glover (Hon. Sec. of the National
Organisation of Girls' Clubs), one of the most widely informed people
on this subject, for the two following experiences gathered from the
streets which bear indirectly on the subject of story-telling:

Mrs. Glover was visiting a sick woman in a very poor neighbourhood,
and found, sitting on the doorstep of the house, two children, holding
something tightly grasped in their little hands, and gazing with much
expectancy towards the top of the street. She longed to know what they
were doing, but not being one of those unimaginative and tactless
folk who rush headlong into the mysteries of children's doings, she
passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still
in the same silent and expectant posture half-an-hour later that
she said tentatively: “I wonder whether you would tell me what you
are doing here?” After some hesitation, one of them said, in a shy
voice: “We're waitin' for the barrer.” It then transpired that, once a
week, a vegetable-and flower-cart was driven through this particular
street, on its way to a more prosperous neighbourhood, and on a few
red-letter days, a flower, or a sprig, or even a root sometimes fell
out of the back of the cart; and those two little children were waiting
there in hope, with their hands full of soil, ready to plant anything
which might by golden chance fall that way, in their secret garden of
oyster-shells.

This seems to me as charming a fairy-tale as any that our books can
supply.

Another time Mrs. Glover was collecting the pennies for the Holiday
Fund Savings Bank from the children who came weekly to her house. She
noticed on three consecutive Mondays that one little lad deliberately
helped himself to a new envelope from her table. Not wishing to
frighten or startle him, she allowed this to continue for some weeks,
and then one day, having dismissed the other children, she asked him
quite quietly why he was taking the envelopes. At first he was very
sulky, and said: “I need them better than you do.” She quite agreed
this might be, but reminded him that, after all, they belonged to her.
She promised, however, that if he would tell her for what purpose he
wanted the envelopes, she would endeavour to help him in the matter.
Then came the astonishing announcement: “I am building a navy.” After
a little more gradual questioning, Mrs. Glover drew from the boy the
information that the Borough Water Carts passed through the side
street once a week, flushing the gutter; that then the Envelope Ships
were made to sail on the water and pass under the covered ways which
formed bridges for wayfarers and tunnels for the “navy.” Great was the
excitement when the ships passed out of sight and were recognised as
they arrived safely at the other end. Of course the expenses in raw
material were greatly diminished by the illicit acquisition of Mrs.
Glover's property, and in this way she had unconsciously provided the
neighbourhood with a navy and a Commander. Her first instinct, after
becoming acquainted with the whole story, was to present the boy with a
real boat, but on second thought she collected and gave him a number of
old envelopes with names and addresses upon them, which added greatly
to the excitement of the sailing, because they could be more easily
identified as they came out of the other side of the tunnel, and had
their respective reputations as to speed.

Here is indeed food for romance, and I give both instances to prove
that the advantages of street life are to be taken into consideration
as well as the disadvantages; though I think we are bound to admit that
the latter outweigh the former.

One of the immediate results of dramatic stories is the escape from
the commonplace, to which I have already alluded in quoting Mr.
Goschen's words. The desire for this escape is a healthy one, common to
adults and children. When we wish to get away from our own surroundings
and interests, we do for ourselves what I maintain we ought to do for
children; we step into the land of fiction. It has always been a source
of astonishment to me that, in trying to escape from our own every-day
surroundings, we do not step more boldly into the land of pure romance,
which would form a real contrast to our every-day life, but in nine
cases out of ten the fiction which is sought after deals with the
subjects of our ordinary existence--namely, frenzied finance, sordid
poverty, political corruption, fast society, and religious doubts.

There is the same danger in the selection of fiction for children:
namely, a tendency to choose very utilitarian stories, both in form and
substance, so that we do not lift the children out of the commonplace.
I remember once seeing the titles of two little books, the contents of
which were being read or told to small children of the poorer class:
one was called “Tom the Boot-black,” the other, “Dan the News-boy.”
My chief objection to these stories was the fact that neither of
the heroes rejoiced in their work for the work's sake. Had Tom even
invented a new kind of blacking, or if Dan had started a splendid
newspaper, it might have been encouraging for those among the listeners
who were thinking of engaging in similar professions. It is true, both
gentlemen amassed large fortunes, but surely the school age is not to
be limited to such dreams and aspirations as these! One wearies of the
tales of boys who arrive in a town with one cent in their pockets, and
leave it as millionaires, with the added importance of a Mayoralty, not
to speak of a Knighthood. It is true that the romantic prototype of
these boys is Dick Whittington, for whom we unconsciously cherish the
affection which we often bestow on a far-off personage. Perhaps--who
knows?--it is the picturesque adjunct of the cat--lacking to modern
millionaires.[38]

I do not think it Utopian to present to children a fair share of
stories which deal with the importance of things “untouched by hand.”
They too can learn at an early age that “the things which are seen are
temporal, but the things which are unseen are spiritual.” To those who
wish to try the effect of such stories on children, I present for their
encouragement the following lines from Whitcomb Riley:


THE TREASURE OF THE WISE MAN.[39]

    Oh, the night was dark and the night was late,
    When the robbers came to rob him;
    And they picked the lock of his palace-gate,
    The robbers who came to rob him--
    They picked the lock of the palace-gate,
    Seized his jewels and gems of State
    His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,--
    The robbers that came to rob him.

    But loud laughed he in the morning red!--
    For of what had the robbers robbed him?
    Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,
    When the robbers came to rob him,--
    They robbed him not of a golden shred
    Of the childish dreams in his wise old head--
    “And they're welcome to all things else,” he said,
    When the robbers came to rob him.

There is a great deal of this romantic spirit, combined with a
delightful sense of irresponsibility, which I claim above all things
for small children, to be found in our old Nursery Rhymes. I quote from
the following article written by the Rev. R. L. Gales for the _Nation_.

After speaking on the subject of Fairy Stories being eliminated from
the school curriculum, the writer adds:

“This would be lessening the joy of the world and taking from
generations yet unborn the capacity for wonder, the power to take a
large unselfish interest in the spectacle of things, and putting them
forever at the mercy of small private cares.

A Nursery Rhyme is the most sane, the most unselfish thing in the
world. It calls up some delightful image,--a little nut-tree with a
silver walnut and a golden pear; some romantic adventure only for the
child's delight and liberation from the bondage of unseeing dulness: it
brings before the mind the quintessence of some good thing:

'The little dog laughed to see such sport'--there is the soul of
good humour, of sanity, of health in the laughter of that innocently
wicked little dog. It is the laughter of pure frolic without
unkindness. To have laughed with the little dog as a child is the best
preservative against mirthless laughter in later years--the horse
laughter of brutality, the ugly laughter of spite, the acrid laughter
of fanaticism. The world of Nursery Rhymes, the old world of Mrs.
Slipper-Slopper, is the world of natural things, of quick, healthy
motion, of the joy of living.

In Nursery Rhymes the child is entertained with all the pageant of
the world. It walks in Fairy Gardens, and for it the singing birds
pass. All the King's horses and all the King's men pass before it in
their glorious array. Craftsmen of all sorts, bakers, confectioners,
silversmiths, blacksmiths are busy for it with all their arts and
mysteries, as at the court of an Eastern King.”

In insisting on the value of this escape from the commonplace, I cannot
prove the importance of it more clearly than by showing what may happen
to a child who is deprived of his birthright by having none of the
Fairy Tale element presented to him. In “Father and Son,” Mr. Edmund
Gosse says:

“Meanwhile, capable as I was of reading, I found my greatest pleasure
in the pages of books. The range of these was limited, for story-books
of every description were sternly excluded. No fiction of any kind,
religious or secular, was admitted into the house. In this it was to
my Mother, not to my Father, that the prohibition was due. She had a
remarkable, I confess, to me somewhat unaccountable impression that to
‘tell a story,’ that is, to compose fictitious narrative of any kind,
was a sin.... Nor would she read the chivalrous tales in the verse of
Sir Walter Scott, obstinately alleging that they were not true. She
would read nothing but lyrical and subjective poetry.... As a child,
however, she had possessed a passion for making up stories, and so
considerable a skill in it, that she was constantly being begged to
indulge others with its exercise.... ‘When I was a very little child,’
she says, ‘I used to amuse myself and my brothers with inventing
stories such as I had read. Having, as I suppose, naturally a restless
mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of
my life. Unfortunately, my brothers were always fond of encouraging
this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my maid, a still greater
tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it, until Miss Shore (a
Calvinistic governess), finding it out, lectured me severely and told
me it was wicked. From that time forth I considered that to invent
a story of any kind was a sin.... But the longing to invent stories
grew with violence. The simplicity of Truth was not enough for me. I
must needs embroider imagination upon it, and the folly and wickedness
which disgraced my heart are more than I am able to express....’ This
(the Author, her son, adds) is surely a very painful instance of the
repression of an instinct.”

In contrast to the stifling of the imagination, it is good to recall
the story of the great Hermits who, having listened to the discussion
of the Monday sitting at the Académie des Sciences (Institut de France)
as to the best way to teach the young how to shoot in the direction
of mathematical genius, said: “_Cultivez l'imagination, messieurs.
Tout est là. Si vous voulez des mathématiciens, donnez à vos enfants à
lire--des Contes de Fées._”

Another important effect of the story is to develop at an early
age sympathy for children of other countries where conditions are
different from our own. There is a book used in American schools
called “Little Citizens of other Lands,” dealing with the clothes,
the games and occupations of those little citizens. Stories of this
kind are particularly necessary to prevent the development of insular
notions, and are a check on that robust form of Philistinism, only
too prevalent, alas! among grown-ups, which looks askance at new
suggestions and makes the withering remark: “How un-English! How
queer!”--the second comment being, it would seem, a natural corollary
to the first.[40]

I have so constantly to deal with the question of confusion between
Truth and Fiction in the mind of children that it might be useful
to offer here an example of the way they make the distinction for
themselves.

Mrs. Ewing says on this subject:

“If there are young intellects so imperfect as to be incapable of
distinguishing between Fancy and Falsehood, it is most desirable to
develop in them the power to do so, but, as a rule, in childhood,
we appreciate the distinction with a vivacity which as elders our
care-clogged memories fail to recall.”

Mr. P. A. Barnett, in his book on the “Commonsense of Education,” says,
alluding to Fairy Tales:

“Children will _act_ them but not act _upon_ them, and they will
not accept the incidents as part of their effectual belief. They
will imagine, to be sure, grotesque worlds, full of admirable and
interesting personages to whom strange things might have happened.
So much the better; this largeness of imagination is one of the
possessions that distinguish the better nurtured child from others less
fortunate.”

The following passage from Stevenson's essay on _Child Play_[41] will
furnish an instance of children's aptitude for creating their own
dramatic atmosphere:

“When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a device
to enliven the course of a meal. He ate his with sugar, and explained
it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took mine with
milk, and explained it to be a country suffering gradual inundation.
You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still
unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what inventions
were made; how his population lived in cabins on perches and travelled
on stilts, and how mine was always in boats; how the interest grew
furious as the last corner of safe ground was cut off on all sides and
grew smaller every moment; and how, in fine, the food was of altogether
secondary importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we
seasoned it with these dreams. But perhaps the most exciting moments I
ever had over a meal, were in the case of calves' feet jelly. It was
hardly possible not to believe, and you may be quite sure, so far from
trying it, I did all I could to favour the illusion--that some part of
it was hollow, and that sooner or later my spoon would lay open the
secret tabernacle of that golden rock. There, might some Red-Beard
await this hour; there might one find the treasures of the Forty
Thieves. And so I quarried on slowly, with bated breath, savouring
the interest. Believe me, I had little palate left for the jelly; and
though I preferred the taste when I took cream with it, I used often to
go without because the cream dimmed the transparent fractures.”

In his work on Imagination, Ribot says: “The free initiative of
children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to make for
them.”

The passage from Robert Stevenson becomes more clear from a scientific
point of view when taken in connection with one from Karl Groos' book
on the “Psychology of Animal Play”:

“The Child is wholly absorbed in his play, and yet under the ebb and
flow of thought and feeling like still water under wind-swept waves, he
has the knowledge that it is pretence after all. Behind the sham ‘I’
that takes part in the game, stands the unchanged ‘I’ which regards the
sham ‘I’ with quiet superiority.”

Queyrat speaks of play as one of the distinct phases of a child's
imagination; it is “essentially a metamorphosis of reality, a
transformation of places and things.”

Now to return to the point which Mrs. Ewing makes, namely, that we
should develop in normal children the power of distinguishing between
Truth and Falsehood.

I should suggest including two or three stories which would test that
power in children, and if they fail to realise the difference between
romancing and telling lies then it is evident that they need special
attention and help along this line. I give the titles of two stories of
this kind in the collection at the end of the book.[42]

So far we have dealt only with the negative results of stories, but
there are more important effects, and I am persuaded that if we are
careful in our choice of stories, and artistic in our presentation
(so that the truth is framed, so to speak, in the memory), we can
unconsciously correct evil tendencies in children which they only
recognise in themselves when they have already criticised them in
the characters of the story. I have sometimes been misunderstood on
this point, therefore I should like to make it quite clear. I do
_not_ mean that stories should take the place entirely of moral or
direct teaching, but that on many occasions they could supplement
and strengthen moral teaching, because the dramatic appeal to the
imagination is quicker than the moral appeal to the conscience. A child
will often resist the latter lest it should make him uncomfortable
or appeal to his personal sense of responsibility: it is often not in
his power to resist the former, because it has taken possession of him
before he is aware of it.

As a concrete example, I offer three verses from a poem entitled “A
Ballad for a Boy,” written some twelve years ago by W. Cory, an Eton
master. The whole poem is to be found in a book of poems known as
“Ionica” (published by George Allen and Co.).

The poem describes a fight between two ships, the French ship
_Téméraire_ and the English ship _Quebec_. The English ship was
destroyed by fire. Farmer, the captain, was killed, and the officers
taken prisoners:

    “They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead;
    And as the wounded captives passed, each Breton bowed the head.
    Then spoke the French lieutenant, 'Twas the fire that won, not we:
    You never struck your flag to _us_; you'll go to England free.'[43]

    'Twas the sixth day of October, Seventeen-hundred-seventy-nine,
    A year when nations ventured against us to combine,
    _Quebec_ was burned and Farmer slain, by us remembered not;
    But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot.

    And you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mind
    Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind;
    Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest,
    And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest.”

This poem is specially to be commended because it is another example of
the finer qualities which are developed in war.[44]

Now, such a ballad as this, which, being pure narrative, could
easily be introduced into the story-hour, would do as much to foster
“_L'entente cordiale_” as any processions or civic demonstrations,
or lavish international exchange of hospitality. It has also a great
practical application now that we are encouraging visits between
English and foreign children. Let us hope the _entente cordiale_ will
not stop at France. There must be many such instances of magnanimity
and generosity displayed to us by other nations, and it might be
well to collect them and include them among stories for the school
curriculum.

But in all our stories, in order to produce desired effects we must
refrain from holding, as Burroughs says, “a brief for either side,” and
we must leave the decision of the children free in this matter.[45]

In a review of Ladd's _Psychology_ in the “Academy,” we find a passage
which refers as much to the story as to the novel:
Mr. Myre read the letter; and, as he read, his face became more like
the hue of badly-made paste.

He was a long time reading it, Gaston Latour’s sleepy eyes never
leaving him.

He burst into a harsh laugh, and flung the letter into the air:

“A challenge, eh? ... ha-ha! ho-ho-ho!... Tell your cousin, Monsieur
Latour, that the duel is relegated to the limbo of opera-bouffe.
Ho-ho-ho! We do not do these things in England.”

He prepared himself for a flight of oratory.

Gaston Latour nudged the other youth--they bowed solemnly and withdrew.

“Ho-ho! ha-ha-ha!” laughed Quogge Myre.


The following morning Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre’s name
was posted in every club in Paris, and struck from the list of those to
which he had belonged; so it came about that he had to live his day at
cafés.

And it was as he stood at a table, giving authoritative utterance with
loud yawing voice to a group of youths that sat about him, vowing that
he had determined to shake the dust of Paris from off his splay feet
and to start a great renaissance of the English drama, when a handsome
young woman, sister to Gaston Latour, entered the place, walked
straight up to Mr. Myre, and struck him a sounding buffet on the ear
that sent his hat flying from his head.

Quilliam O’Flaherty stooping down in confusion to search for the hat,
she kicked him violently behind.

There was a roar of laughter from the students seated round about, and
they tapped the handles of their knives upon the tables, singing:

“Opera-bouffe, bouffe, bouffe! Opera-bouffe, bouffe, bouffe!
Hey-hey-hey! bouffe-bouffe-bouffe!”

Then the girl flogged Quilliam with a horse-whip, thrice:

Once for France.

Once for womanhood.

And once because she liked it.

The whip whistled.

It was said that he had been seen to strike at her--but she parried the
blow with her left, and countered between his eyes with the butt-end of
the whip--which was loaded.

He fell.

It was homeric.

It was at this stage, so the scandal went, that he scrambled under a
table; but she lugged at his collar to get him out; and as he clung
to the leg of the table she gripped him by the moustache so that she
pulled off one side of it.

But she herself owned this to be as inartistic as it was unintentional,
stamping her foot with annoyance at the mischance. Indeed, she
apologized most handsomely; for, said she, pathetically, when she had
got it she did not know what to do with it.

It was an anticlimax.

She threw down the whip and said he might now go home.

He now went home.


There is little reason to doubt that the horsewhipping by Gaston
Latour’s sister hastened Mr. Myre’s desire to start the great
renaissance of the English drama.

As he stood before the mirror in his rooms at his hotel and shaved
off the remains of his drooping moustache by the candle’s light, and
soothed the aching bumps that were risen upon his face, he sniffed
loudly through a swollen nose--he had very tender places--and decided
to go to Rouen until the hair grew.




CHAPTER LXXXIV

  _Which has to do with Blue Blood and a Jade-handled Cane_


The duel got upon the town.

Rupert Greppel, strutting with hidalgic air, was concerned in bringing
about several affairs. No one was hurt. There was much braying of asses.


The Lord Montagu Askew, dainty, foppish, in the mode, and the
Honourable Rupert Greppel, hidalgic, head in air, stood before a shop
window in the Rue de la Paix and gazed at their splendid reflections;
whilst past them moved on the pavement or whirled by in barouches
the great world of Paris--_hig-lif_ sunning its butterfly wings,
honey-questing, sipping at any dew that the gods left lying abroad.

Montagu Askew held his jade-handled cane mincingly, and he glowed with
a gentleman-like glow, for his dove-coloured little book of poems
tinted all the bookstalls.

More than one woman of high rank this morning had stopped her carriage
to congratulate him on the exquisite lyric wherein the vast firmament
at break of dawn was likened to the grey of a woman’s glove--indeed, it
became the vogue of the drawing-rooms--people sang it.

As a fact, Montagu Askew was acknowledged lord of chamber music.
Indeed, in his slender careful verse was no rude hint of the
full-blooded Rabelaisian love of life; it was innocent of the
suggestion of a large emotion; he played upon the accepted measures and
the well-authenticated rhyme; he startled with no surprises; he sounded
no new note--Montagu never forgot he was a gentleman. Not for him the
uncouthness to fling open loud-clanging gates to a new world. He was
pretty and serenely mannered before everything, disdainful of them that
skipped a foot to the hot jigging blood, or such as showed a strong
disdain; nor was he wanting in contempt for the natural emotions.
When he condescended to so low an act as to seek nature, he walked
through the well-groomed spaces of the world, well-trimmed parks at the
outside, where an elaborate etiquette had made the rules even for the
trees to grow in seemliness with a most gentlemanly existence. For him
were no disturbing peerings into human destiny--he raised no rough
alarms by strenuous aims and vigorous thinking. Pretty, dandified,
he--always. Sinning easily enough, but always like a gentleman. Never
a crudity. As a perfumed fan fluttered by jewelled slender fingers,
blowing cool fragrant airs that kiss the painted cheek of some
frail beauty, he uttered his lines--obscene often, but by the most
gentlemanly of innuendoes. The unmannerly thing was the only sin. The
display of a profound emotion was the depth of ill-breeding. So sang
he, tunefully always, guiltless of all rough accent of originality;
sang of peacocks and green carnations and blue roses, of butterflies
and pools and dragonflies and souls, of ivory and silver, and of
dawn and dusk and dew, and white shoulders sweet, beauties who moved
languidly with rustle of silk--so wafted he to you nothing more vibrant
than whisper of women and scent of perfumed chambers and flowers and
bowers and rose and amarynth and asphodel and daffodil, of moonlight
and music and kiss and gavotte and little tiny things--and always in
the most gentlemanly manner. He milked the unicorn. Always a would-be
suggestion of mysterious deep-hid symbolism that ended where it began,
and at most only the dark hint of well-bred tragedy.

He moved impatiently now, as impatiently as he might, complaining that
the shop-window into which he deigned to cast his reflection was tinted
with amethyst.

“Come, Greppel,” said he--“let us gaze at ourselves in another
window--this is an ageing colour.”


Then came the terrible tragedy of a fire at a charity bazaar; a most
patrician function with much upper clergy in it was smitten with sudden
and awful death. Montagu Askew was in the business. He was one of the
few that came out alive.

In the rush of the distraught ladies, princesses, duchesses, maids, to
the sole outlet of the seething hell, Montagu Askew got caught near the
door--frantic hands of terrified women clutched at him for help--he was
almost within reach of the free air--could see the sunlight a few paces
before him--a frightened girl clung to his arm in the awful crush, then
another--women’s skirts got under foot as they made for the door, and
they went down. He tried to shake himself clear of the two girls, he
was a little slender man.... The heat was hellish.... One of the girls
tripped on her skirt and fell, clinging to him. He beat her down with
the jade-handled cane--fought his way blindly through the rush of women
for the door--stood at last out in the sunlight.

Some coachmen were dashing into the fiery furnace, lifting up and
bringing out fainting women, whose muslin skirts were in flames.

But Monty Askew was frightened.

He smoothed his ruffled dress and went home.


Montagu Askew, entering a café with Rupert Greppel one evening, saluted
Noll Baddlesmere, where he stood amongst a group of students; and a
silence fell upon the place.

Noll nodded:

“That’s a handsome cane, Askew,” said he--“though they tell me the
women have a poor opinion of it.”

Askew’s little gloved hands trembled, and he turned white with
anger--as pale as Montagu Askew allowed himself to turn:

“It has belonged to my forefathers for seven generations,” he
said--“and every man of them backed his acts with his sword.”

Noll laughed; shrugged his shoulders:

“If your acts are hereditary, it is an excuse for you,” he said.


The following morning, Rupert Greppel and a French cousin called upon
Noll; and Rupert stiffly asked if he could refer him to two friends.

“No,” said Noll--Doome was with him--“no--I do not associate with men
who associate with Lord Montagu Askew.”

Rupert Greppel paused, dumbfounded:

“I do not think you understand,” he said. “Lord Montagu Askew
challenges you to fight him.”

“Tell Lord Montagu Askew from me,” said Noll, “that I only brawl with
men. Good-morning.”


The whisperings at the clubs are said to have hit Lord Montagu Askew
harder than a pistol-bullet; but Lord Montagu, from lack of experience,
is not an authority on being hit with pistol-bullets. He never takes
part in ungentlemanly encounters where people are hit. Indeed, he
maintains a wondrous silence, except that he challenged Noll; and the
jade-handled cane has joined the ancestors.




CHAPTER LXXXV

  _Wherein a Man of the World commits the Indiscretion of putting his
    Experiences into Writing_


“Dear Noll,” writes Horace Malahide about this time, “I have a son.
He speaks English as yet with a strong foreign accent--but lack of
experience may have more than something to do with it. If you come,
I’ll let you play with him.

I live in a whirl of tangled emotions in these days.

T’other evening I went home, to my father’s marble halls, to seek
the old gentleman on an affair of hot urgency. It was in the long
hours. I lost some temper--the butler being a sphinx of ducal
know-nothingness--so I rang up the housekeeper. Yes, she knew where a
telegram would find Sir Pompey if I would leave it with her.

I!

Leave it!

Gods! said I, am I utterly disinherit?

Forthwith the heir of this branch of the Malahides demanded the address.

It lay at St. John’s Wood!

I nodded ‘That will do’ to the twain, and dismissed them; and, they
being dismissed, I whistled long.

Naughty old gentleman!...

The next morning Pa did not return. Mid-day passed. Evening stole
on.... The dusk saw me descend at the doors of the address in St.
John’s Wood from mine hansom cab.

I must preach the decencies; thus I, strengthening the intention as I
rang.

‘Sir Pompey Malahide is here,’ said I sternly to the smart maid that
opened the door.

‘Yes, sir,’ said she.

‘I desire to see my father,’ said I, and marched boldly towards the
furious racket that filled the room near at hand--the paternal roar
distinctly discernible, bassoonlike as though he cried small coal.

I flung open the door--burst upon the riot----

On the floor lay the Byronic Bartholomew Doome with three children
rolling over him--three, no less!--another in his arms--Sir Pompey
Malahide, my father, on all fours, pretending to be a she-bear, his
coat-tails over his head, shaking a footstool in his teeth, and
growling like an ass in pain--and seated on the immaculate waistcoat of
the dark mysterious Bartholomew the most beautiful young woman I have
ever seen. The din infernal--and Pa the worst part of the din.

‘What does this mean, Pa?’ cried I.

They gathered themselves up, shamelessly--laughed--ye gods, twittingly,
at _me_! Wholly unabashed, Pa, shaking himself into comfort in his
clothes, slapped me upon the back:

‘Horace, my son----’

‘Don’t be familiar, Sir Pompey,’ said I. ‘You are speaking to the heir
to a baronetcy.’

The baronet laughed vulgarly:

‘Mrs. Bartholomew Doome,’ he said--‘allow me to introduce to you
Horace, my son--at least, my reputed son.’

Bows, chassées, and greetings.

‘Horace--the Misses Doome, Master Horace Doome, and Master Oliver
Doome----’

The old gentleman slapped me upon the back again with mighty hand that
near drove me down amongst the fire-irons.

He dug me in the ribs:

‘The rogue’s been married this seven years,’ cried he; ‘and now he’s
signed the deeds as partner in Malahide and Son, and you’re just in
the nick of time, the fool of a lawyer is upstairs--only--look here,
Horace, you must, like Doome, sign a bond not to touch the business
arrangements--you and he would wreck the counting-house in six
months....’

Doome took an early opportunity to draw me aside and to whisper to me
the grave disappointment it must be to all who respected him if they
should discover the real Don Juan, begged me not to expose him, and
pointed out the serious loss of prestige he must suffer in the eyes of
the British Public; so we sat down together on a sofa and pitied him
for his decencies.

Luddy, luddy! how the homely virtues will persist!

The idol of our youth, the dark, mysteriously wicked man--with feet of
honest clay and a clean simple heart after all! Even prolific, and----

Well, damn romance, say I....

Oh, and more!

Even the gods fall out--drift apart.

Aubrey and the O’Myre go different ways--Aubrey in pain that O’Myre
has now discovered that there is no great work of art without a moral
purpose--Aubrey holding that Aubrey himself is sufficient purpose. He,
Aubrey, avers that he has found himself--nothing matters after that.
He must back to Paris. There the women have secular lips and voices
of brocade and understand being loved. Tiens! He will in future give
his splendid talents to attack the Philistinic brutality of strength
and the barbarity of the over-rated glory in mere outdoor delight
that to-day holds England in poisonous embrace; in all the pride of
effeminacy he withdraws into the palace of his Egoism, where he is
lord--back to Paris--_there_ are mirrors, where he may reflect upon
himself, take himself up by the roots and dwell upon his own image!

I expect he will come back to us occasionally to see what he looks like.

The egregious O’Myre also hath descended on London town--stays,
however, but a little while----

Yet a wondrous thing of a man, the O’Myre--the most consistent surely
of all created things--always wrong. He and _The Times_. He must have
been suckled on half-truths, and nurtured on the Irish Bull; he now
browses on false conclusions. But with what an air! Nevertheless, he
has it all on the most philosophic basis--has for ever been blaming
something for his lack of greatness. It now appears the English drama
is dead. The O’Myre will breathe new life into it.

Meanwhile, he has laid it down, like a minor god with a throaty tenor
voice, that scenery destroys the illusion of the drama--therefore it
comes about to-day that if you would be in the vogue with the ladies
you must go in state not to the play, but to the dress rehearsal--the
bare theatre and the dinginess being alone at back, the low tone
and the cobwebs and the like giving mystery to the spoken word that
requires for enunciation but beautiful lips. God! how the ducks quack!

Thus mews he much monstrous wisdom, sitting like a pale emotional
maggot upon the apple of discord that is called the modern drama.”...


The rest of the letter is a matter of affection and goodwill. A man
is always ridiculous about his first-born--exaggerative, egotistical.
As though he had invented the business. Whereas, like heredity,
immortality, and the latest fashion, it is thrust upon us.




CHAPTER LXXXVI

  _Wherein our Hero, and Another, go Home_


The sunlight that had painted the white face of Paris with a hundred
hues all day had given place to a gentle drizzle as the twilight fell;
and the steady downpour had driven Noll into a restaurant which he was
not in the habit of frequenting; it had kept him there in its bright
rooms until he knew every face and every trick of gesture of the people
who sat about him.

The night was well advanced when he sallied out into the light rain;
turning up his collar, he strode homewards.

He paid small heed to the rain; and as he turned out of the well-washed
street into the courtyard where he had his lodging, and climbed the
stairs to his room, he scarcely noticed that he was wet.

The rustle of women’s petticoats was in his ears, and when he walked
abroad in these days he was aglow with the sense of the warm regard
of women’s eyes, that glanced upon him from the dark shadows of
rakish hats; the walk and movement of women found a rhythmic echo in
his thinking. The warmth of the coming summer was in his blood. His
instincts were jigging to the dancing measure of the season.

As he flung off his wet clothes he was seized with a whim to go to the
tavern of _The Golden Sun_; and he decided to humour the whim.

He lit a candle and flipped through a book until it was close on
midnight. But he was restless--and he arose eagerly when it was time to
go....


As Noll, reaching the bottom step, fumbled at the door that led into
the tavern of _The Golden Sun_, a young woman in black came languidly
down the stairs, and he held the door open for her to pass in.

The light fell on the delicate features of Madelaine. She smiled with
pleasure, seeing him.

They entered and stood together--a song was being sung--and as the last
chords were struck, she slipped her hand within his arm; and he left
it there. She shared the cordial greeting that Noll received from the
faded poets and frequenters of the place. She was very beautiful--but
her face pathetically pale. Noll noticed a dizzy tendency to cling to
his arm, as though she feared to fall. He found a table, and made her
sit down beside him.

“Madelaine,” said he--“you look as if you wanted food.”

She sighed sadly:

“Ah, yes--for years,” she said.

He called for a drink and some biscuits for her; and whilst they were
being brought, he asked her:

“What became of you, Madelaine--after the old widow Snacheur was
killed?”

She sighed sadly:

“I went to work in a millinery shop.” She shrugged her slender
shoulders. “They starved me too,” she said--“just like the widow
Snacheur. So----”

She slipped her hand through his arm, laid her head against his
shoulder, and smiled:

“But do not let us think of these things--it is so warm here.”

The touch of the affectionate hands, the childlike caress of the girl,
the confidence and the clinging of her warm body to him, thrilled him.
She was in all the fresh beauty of her young womanhood; and the simple
black gown, threadbare and worn as it was, only enhanced the beauty of
her skin and pronounced the delicacy of her colour and the richness of
her splendid hair.

The girl increased the restlessness that had possessed the youth all
day. She brought to him the sweet whiteness and the subtle grace of
Betty--filled his senses with the atmosphere of the handsome girl who
had filled all his dreams from boyhood. It brought to him the most
importunate craving of man, the love of woman.

Noll sat brooding for awhile. Yet even in the vigorous lust of life
that held his young years, even as he sat there in the thrill of his
sweetest memories, he vaguely felt the gentle presence of these simple
faded artistic folk about him; and he realized how indelibly the word
Failure was written across them all. The coats were, if anything, more
faded; the shoes more worn; the eyes alone lit up with the wonted glow
of delight in art. A little praise was their rich barmecidal feast.

The greybeards, and the youths, and those between, they were all still
hoping to create the masterpiece--there was not, amongst them all,
energy enough to create more than the delicate measure of a gust of
chamber-music.

A burst of applause followed the recital of a poem.

Noll roused with a start:

“Come, Madelaine,” said he--“this heavy air is making you faint. Come
with me and we’ll have some supper.”

She gathered her skirts with wonted grace of gesture and took his arm;
and they made their way out of the room almost unnoticed.

As the doors closed on them, she turned in the dim ill-lit passage,
drew down his face to her between her two hands, and kissed him.

She clung to him:

“Thou must give me a bed too,” she whispered hoarsely; “I have no bed.”

She was trembling.

“You are tired, Madelaine,” he said.

She nodded:

“I have had no sleep for three nights.”

“What have you been doing?” he asked.

“I walked about the streets,” she answered simply.

“Come,” he said, “we must first sup.”

She gathered up her skirts, and slipped her hand through his arm. They
climbed up to the courtyard, and so into the street, and out into the
night.


Madelaine sat on the side of the bed and undressed.

It was a sadly simple undressing.

She was languid with sleep.

Noll went and looked out of the window, where Paris lay below him,
blinking her thousand eyes....

He roused and went to the bed.

The dark head on the pillow lay very still. The girl was fast asleep.

Noll went back to the window--it was the window from which Horace had
gazed down upon the world the night before Noll and Betty had come to
Paris.

And as Noll so stood, his brows hard knit upon the problems of his
life, the night slowly passed.

The rustle of a woman’s skirt had been in his ears all day--in his
blood. This girl had brought back to him, of a sudden, the fragrance of
his marriage.

And this beautiful winsome girl--what was to be the end?

The very question sobered him.

Suddenly it was as though he had left the din of the noisy thoroughfare
of life and had entered the majestic silence of a mighty cathedral;
and from the great mysterious deeps a whisper came to his ears, each
syllable roundly phrased, clear, unhesitating, a chapter of this
strange book of life that he had so lately read--the book that had
fired his blood and aroused his energy. The breath of these pages
seemed to give him decision and free air, where before he had been
drifting aimlessly, going he knew not whither, caring not overmuch.
This book had braced him--it was a call to battle. He had had enough of
beds of roses and daffodils and idyllic trances. The phrasing of _The
Masterfolk_ came to him now:

“Nature has ordered that certain things shall be; and to him who
disobeys her ordering she is cruelly merciless. She has decreed that
he shall be most dominant, shall breed the fittest race, shall know
the fullest life, shall achieve the highest destiny, who abides
by the woman he loves. And him who is unclean she flings upon the
dunghill--him and his seed for ever. Of the love of man for woman,
Nature has spoken with no uncertain voice; and Nature’s judgment is
final. He that fears to love a woman sets himself against the supreme
law of life; he ends in unnatural vice; he is against the design of
life; celibacy Nature will none of--for celibacy stultifies life and
ends the race. Promiscuous love she condemns utterly and punishes
heavily with loathsome disease and with foul decay; the races of
promiscuous love are become of the scum of the earth, and are dying
out. Against the love of many women also, once and for all, she
has spoken. The peoples of many wives Nature is sweeping into the
waste corners of the world. Nature is her own jury--Nature alone her
own judge. She hath not said the Masterfolk cannot break from her
ordering, but that they shall not. On every breach of her vigorous laws
Nature waits with weaponed hand. At the elbow of every vice stands
foul-breathed disease.

There is no sin in the love of man and woman. The woman has committed
no sin in loving--she has but accepted the overwhelming urging of life.
It is her chiefest glory. Man has committed no sin in loving; his life
has ordered it; and the Masterfolk obey life. It is his chiefest glory.
Who so glum a dullard but smiles to see lovers meeting! But he sins
foully who is guilty of the repudiation--foully against the woman,
criminally against his race, blasphemously against his godhood, and
damnably against his manhood. Such are not of the Masterfolk.

They of the inferior manhood, lacking in the force of character
necessary to the full acceptance of the duties of the Masterfolk in
love, have not the virile force to abide by a woman of the Masterfolk;
and these come out when the lamps are lit and there are shadows in the
land, and skulk about the by-lanes, and commit mean adulteries with
frail women, and have the habit of repudiating debt. Such cannot breed
the Masterfolk. They shall not. For these cower from the strengthening
risks that dog a strenuous life; they would have the delight of
marriage without the courage....”

Noll opened the window.

There came from the street below the hoarse cry of a prostitute.


He went into the room, lit a candle, and sat down at his desk.
Everything in the place whispered of Betty this night.

He wrote a letter:

  “DEAR MADELAINE,

  I am called home.

  I leave my rooms and all in them to your care, knowing that they will
  be in good hands. I leave you also all the money I can spare, to keep
  you in decency and comfort until I return.

  I shall send, early in the day, for the large leather bag which you
  will find labelled and ready by the door.

                                                                  NOLL.”

And when he had sealed this letter he wrote another:

  “DEAR BABETTE,

  I hear that you arrived in Paris with Horace yesterday. By the time
  you get this letter I shall have left my house in the clouds. Last
  night I found Madelaine at _The Golden Sun_. She was without home,
  without means, except the sweating pay of mean industries on which
  no honest woman can live; she was without a bed. But her blood is
  dancing with life--not with a desire to cower in sweating-dens.
  She was drifting. I gave her all these things that I might, last
  night--and she is now asleep here.

  Come to her as soon as you get this, and let her feel that she is not
  alone. She will babble all her news to you--it will be better for her
  than babbling it to me.

  Tell Horace not to go back to the haunts of his youth. The wine is
  not nearly so good as we thought it. The illusion is the sweet thing.
  Don’t break the butterfly.

  Tell him also that both of you have much of my heart.

                                                           Yours,

                                                                   NOLL.

  P.S.--I am tired of myself. I am off to find Betty.”

Noll sealed the letter and wrote a third--to the concierge:

  “MADAME,

  I am called away to England. Mademoiselle Madelaine Le Trouvé has
  been good enough to take charge of the rooms until madame and
  myself return. Pray give the enclosed to your little ones ‘from the
  Englishman who knows how to laugh.’

                                      Agréez, etc.,

                                                    OLIVER BADDLESMERE.”

He stole to where Madelaine slept, and on the chair by her bed he put
her letter and some banknotes.

He collected clothes from about the room, packed them into his large
leather kit-bag, and carried it to where the candle gave light. From
the walls he took down the portraits of Betty and one or two trinkets,
and very carefully wrapped them up. They too went into the bag.

He was near singing more than once. The place was astir with the sound
of Betty’s skirts, the echo of her gaiety, the sound of her light
footstep. The air was sweet with the breath of her uncomplaining
good-nature.

He shut up the bag, tied a label upon it, put on his cloak and hat,
blew out the candle, and softly let himself out of the room.


In the darkness Noll stood upon the bridge at the end of the Boule
Miche, the pleasant highway of youth. But he now knew no indecisions.

He realized that his mere intellect had led him into the veriest
pedantries--had nearly led him into irretrievable blunders. He saw that
man’s highest was rooted in the body, that heaven was no fantastic
dream, but here and now for the winning on this healthy brown earth.
He had been letting it slip by him, whilst he dreamed of pasteboard
nothingnesses.

He realized that the emotion felt was nearer to the centre of life than
all thought. He cast from him the devil of mere intellect, and it went
out of him demurely into the darkness, like some poor thin-souled nun,
who crushes down into barrenness the splendid emotions of the life
within her which are her very godhood, in fantastic hope to win an
eternity of vague bliss, she who by the very act shows her inability
to enjoy bliss--for, heaven and hell and all the eternities shall
yield her no such bliss as the dear human loves may do--the æons of
immortality shall never bring her the delight that she might know in an
hour of a lover’s embrace or the dear touch of a nestling child at her
lean breasts.

As the awakened youth stood there, the black night passed over the edge
of the populous city, and its smoky shadow slowly followed it. The
lights of the lamps paled in the dawn; the stars went out; and out of
the daffodil east the day came up--and there was light in the world.


Before the day was well begun, Noll went home.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the still grey dawn, in dripping drizzle, Gavroche the anarchist
slouched forth from prison-cell to his harsh doom.

He was dejected.

He missed the band, the public eye, the shouts of the comrades.

What, Gavroche! this is thy dramatic moment--thou hast the stage all to
thy sole swaggering self--and though thou roused at daybreak from thy
broodings to lilt a braggart song with all thy best intent to play the
reckless swashbuckler, the florid eager pressman can only report that
thou didst sing “somewhat palsily.”

Tush, man! Is it thus thou goest to thy end? Hath thy desire to be
Ruthless Overman brought only this about--that thou art to become no
better than manure? Where is now thy dream of Ruthless Overman? Nay,
what avails at all now thy Overmanhood, Gavroche? does not thy neck
feel rather with unpleasant shiver of discomfort the overlordship
of the Commonweal? The aristocrat despised it yesterday, and thou
to-day. Hast thou, even thus late, a glimmering that thy vaunted
Ruthless Brutality is to be snipped by the might of this Commonweal,
thy unspeakable windpipe slit at a stroke of the ordered shear that
falls on the bidding of that overwhelming force which is the public
good--the power of that sneered-at race that is to thy silly little
individual hand’s strength as the might of the sea to the spite of some
flab stinging medusa!

Yet, if the insignificance of thy little petty self irk thy conceit
at this moment, what of the scented, gloved, and dandified gentlemen
who write the anarchic words that have led thy conceit to seek some
shabby fame in flinging a bomb amongst innocent people! What of them
whose lyric pens have pointed the way to the Uselessness of the old
and sick and far-too-many and superfluous ones! What of them that go
scot-free--whose philosophies led thee to kill the old miser-woman and
to slay the drunken carter to thine own Egoism’s enrichment? Tsh! thou
wert but a tool after all, thou with all thy strange gabble of Ruthless
Overman, putting to the touch of practice what the gloved gentlemen
were content to prate of--Might being Right and the rest.

Well, thou goest to thy dunghill alone--they to their social triumphs.
And, when all’s said, the aristocratic ideal has brought rich harvests
as well as the shearing of necks to its idolaters--and they have had
their emotional moments in intervals of starving the race and filching
from the poor and from the widow and the fatherless.

Nay, doth not Europe, bereft of protestations, bow, hat in hand, to
the Almanach de Gotha? And the fine gentry therein, weak-knee’d and
inbred and ridiculous, do they not claim divine rights and special
places reserved in church and the tribute of the Formalities all set
and square to their comical little greatnesses? And multitude of
lackeys!... Gods! are they not even Envied!

Verily, Gavroche, thou hast been lacking in the diplomacies. It is that
which has been thy chief offence against thyself. These others bray as
loudly--but the accent is more tuneful.


So, the same dawn, the self-same lamp of day, sees us all going each on
our so different way.




OF THE BLOSSOMING OF THE TREE OF LIFE




CHAPTER LXXXVII

  _Which has to do with the Binding of Books in Half-calf and the
    Whimsies of Calf Love_


When Noll had left his baggage in a quiet hotel by the Strand, and
had refreshed his body with much splashing of himself in water and a
change of clothes, he sallied out into the streets of London in a vague
wonder and surprise as to how to begin the search for Betty, yet firmly
determined to start straightway in his quest--the Baddlesmere jaw set
firm.

The summer afternoon was closing in, and the Strand was gay with
people cheerily making their way homewards from work or amusement. But
homewards Noll did not take his steps; he felt a certain sense of shame
about going to his own people without Betty at his side--and this, too,
not on his own account, but that it seemed disloyal to Betty and likely
to make her future entrance into the family circle an embarrassment to
her--so sudden was the suddenness with which he had stepped into the
realm of his manhood!

The young fellow had been too restless to stay in the dingy mute rooms
of the hotel; he could think it out better in the open--striding to his
thinking. It was in the blood--he smiled at the restless walk of Lord
Wyntwarde up and down that library, of the strange trick that came out
in his mother at times....

Ah, London, thou queen of cities, that filchest for ever the hearts of
them that dare to love thee! Radiant in thy sunshine, fantastic in thy
murk, it is when thou puttest on the habit of thy lilac twilight that
thou showest all thy majesty--thy tiring maids, the handsomest women
of the world, helping thee to thy wondrous mantle of many hues--pale
whitenesses and opal greys, beribboned with purple and ultramarine and
the sooty tinge of dusky shadows, adorned with diamonds of a hundred
flames and wrought through and through with gold and silvery strands,
and thus and so, with smoky art, spinning thyself a mystic robe that it
is full fit only the Queen of all cities shall wear.

And what a splendid stage, thy realm, to strut it in! Thy large drama
knows no curtain, thy magnificence no boundary but man’s narrow sight.
Thy whisper and the song of thee, and thy strange melodies, no strings
of violins nor the resounding hollows of deep orchestral ’cellos
can yield. From the music of thy ways, where goes thy multitudinous
traffic with roll of many wheels, and lurches the gaudy omnibus with
reeking horses twain, and lumbers the thundering dray, and winds in
and out the teeming welter the quick black hansom seeking the hackney
fare, with jigging of horse-bells that sound a catchy measure to the
shuffle of many feet, from out thy swarming hive there comes the breath
of vigorous life and thinkingness and the atmosphere of quick wits
and alert wills that have the habit of decisive action and of dogged
enthusiasms.

And the faces that pass, with lingering glance out of the dusk, the
pale sweet faces of thy beautiful women and the handsome figures of a
vigorous race, how much larger vastnesses are in the communion of these
eyes than in wide empty spaces of unthinking continents!

The mystic dusk turns thy many habitations to a thousand shadowy
palaces, thy very vulgarities to dulcet musicalities. What comedies are
in the making in thy wide hospitable lap to-night! what tragedies! what
heroic strivings! what bemeaning indecencies! what crimes!

Thy very mud holds something of dark mysterious lustre--being that
which is trod out of thy pageant and thy history.

He only loves thee best who, being divorced from thee, comes to
thee again out of the years. He flips thy mantle with no cockney
familiarity, but hears in the hollows of his reverent ears the æolian
whisperings of thy large significance....


The sound of footsteps ceased to rouse the echoes in the empty street,
as Noll came to a halt before Netherby Gomme’s doorway. He hesitated
for a moment; ran up the steps; and rang the bell.

The smoky twilight that held the place was passing into sooty darkness,
turning the staid street of lodging-houses into a way of fairy
habitations, the lemon flames of gas-lamps showing a sweeping curve
of light down its long length to the far rumble of the city’s distant
traffic.

A key coughed in its wards as it shot back the bolts of the lock; and
the door yawned open.

Noll turned at the sound of its unlatching.

The mother of Netherby Gomme stood in the dark hollow of the doorway;
and a grim triumph lurked in her eyes.

Noll saluted her, hat in hand; and she returned his greeting with a
grave smile of surprise.

“Is Netherby at home, Mrs. Gomme?” he asked.

The grim triumph slipped back to her eyes, and came lurking into the
corners of the old mouth again:

“He came home from his honeymoon to-day, Noll,” she said--“will you go
up and see him?”

Noll walked into the house, and the door was shut behind him with
a triumphant slam. He followed the grim old lady into the little
sitting-room, and as he went the memory of the queenly figure of the
little child Betty as she walked into the dingy room and kissed the
jealousy out of this old woman’s heart, came back to him like the
fragrance of her sweetness, so that for a while he could not speak what
he would have said.

“It was only the other day,” she said, “that you were boys together....
To me it is only yesterday that he was a--little one--in my--arms.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “But it is all gone.... This passing of
youth is as strange as death....” And she added after awhile: “I think
he--was glad--to come back.”

Something of the light of triumph came stealing back to the old
tear-stained face.

“And Julia?” he asked.

“I’ve sent her out to get tickets for the theatre,” she said drily.
“They will want amusing badly to-night--and the tuning of the fiddles
would always rouse my Netherby.... But you’d better go up and see him,
Noll--you used to know the way.”


Noll made a pause to take breath at the top of the stairs (how he and
Betty had raced up those steps!). He pushed open the attic door.

In the midst of the smudgy dusk that filled the room, his head in his
hands, elbows on knees, sat the dim figure of Netherby Gomme, sobbing
pitifully.

Noll shut the door softly, and went up to the bowed man:

“Good God, Netherby!” said he--“what’s this?”

He gripped his hand upon the other’s shoulder, affectionately.

Gomme signed him to a seat:

“Sit down, Noll--I’ll be all right in a minute.” He blew his nose.
“No--better still, light the gas. I must stop. Tears will not bring
back one’s dead, nor grief annul the things that are done. Light up! A
man can only cry comfortably in the dark.”

Noll struck a light, turned on the tap of the wrought-iron gas-jet; and
the gas leaped into flame.

The old attic was gone.

In its place was a picturesque medieval room of quaint nooks and
demure corners, with stiff wooden settles of curving line against the
wall, and low bookshelves round the rest of the walls; and above, on a
deep coloured frieze under the low ceiling, was a long space of rigid
trees from the land of Morris, green trees that yielded vasty purple
and golden fruits on close-bunched foliage--and in the blue intervals
between the stilted trees sailed white-sailed many-coloured galleons
and purple triremes--and on the wall beneath the frieze and above
the long curves of the low bookshelves was a yellow space splashed
with huge orange-coloured dogs, with emerald eyes and scarlet mouths,
that leaped along on hind legs to the chasing of each other and an
occasional orange stag amidst mighty flowering plants that seemed
to whirl in autumn tints with cunning running lines half-flower,
half-leaf. And here and there was a knight in armour, and a hawk upon
his wrist, and clothes upon his horse, and about him was always written
_Soe sirre Gallahydde gotte hyme pryckynge to hys pilgrymmynges_; and
when the knight was faded blue the writing was russet green; but when
the knight was russet green the writing about him was faded blue. And
here and there was a lady with hair in plait, and she wove at a loom,
and sang with ruddy lips, and the writing about her was _Chaunted the
Queene ande weaved hyre tale righte Fyttyngelye_; and when the queen
was orange yellow the writing was white, and when the queen was white
the writing was orange yellow. The old bookshelves, with their gay
untidiness of many-coloured books, were gone; and in their place in
more severe order on dark oaken bookshelves of suave design were ranked
books all bound exactly alike in uniform yellow half-calf bindings. The
floor was rich-stained and polished, and in the middle of it lay a rug
of the yellow of saffron.

The old attic was now so rich of hue and yet so stiffly chaste that
Noll almost rubbed his eyes to see if he were awake.

It was indeed a handsome room; and yet----

Some faint whisper of the how and the why these things had chanced
flashed through Noll’s consciousness. Here Julia had put the savings of
her hard-won earnings. A tidy mind frets at the ordered disorder of the
workshop. She was of a precise habit that has a ruthless distaste for
chips. She had secretly consulted the old lady, who had grimly advised
her to “let the man’s room be”; but he who takes to the council of war
a decided intention is irked by opposition, and smiles away the wisdom
of older heads as the mere caution of senility. And indeed there was
something of the poetic intention behind her gentle obstinacy, as there
was behind everything she did; for (and she knew it in her secret heart
to be not wholly without a little of such jealous venom as her gentle
blood could hold) she had been passionately set upon bringing into this
man’s life a fresh influence, a fragrance that she was sure he had
not known--she was aglow with the glamour of the love-mood to be the
all-in-all in the atmosphere of her lover’s day. And as the rich crave
ever to be more rich, so she, queening it in her little parish, was
blind to the simple fact that all the subtle and gracious tenderness of
her gentle womanhood had won her a larger empire over her lover than
any she could hope to win by petty endeavour. The old lady, her wise
old eyes seeing that the other had come to consult the oracle with the
answer rather than the question, had nodded her willingness, after the
first demur, to comply with the younger woman’s whim. And the nod of
surrender once given, she had addressed herself, during their absence
on the honeymoon, to carrying out the young wife’s instructions to the
uttermost detail, even employing no small sum out of her own small
income to the perfecting of it.

And, be it remembered, for her the doing had been no light ordering--it
was a flagellation of her own nakedness with cruel whips; for, as each
change obliterated a footprint of the past, the atmosphere in which the
boy and man had wrought their career swiftly vanished--the very hint of
an early struggle had departed from the place.

Noll felt how the room must have struck Netherby in the face as he
leaped up the stair and flung open the door to be welcomed to its
old genial comradeship after his journey and absence from his beloved
things.

Noll’s eyes came back from his thoughts to rest on the bent shoulders
of the disconsolate man; and Netherby realized that the other had
digested the situation.

He sighed sadly, his head in his hands:

“Poor Julia!” he said--“ she must never know. She has done this during
our absence--as a surprise. And,” he added grimly: “it was!”

Noll smiled:

“But, Netherby, my dear old boy; you must not fret. You are famous,
man----”

“Oh yes--quite. A duchess has asked me to dinner--without my wife.”

Noll put out the light:

“Let us sit in the dusk for awhile, Netherby, as we have sat many a day
and settled the affairs of the state. We have laughed at care here;
and kicked the world about like a football, and striven to dig up the
roots of the Universe--the Why and the Wherefore and the Whence and the
Whither.”

Netherby sighed:

“Ah, Noll, the old room is gone. I have to begin all over again. These
stiff prude seats compel me to order--tell me harshly that I must not
be dreaming overmuch, nor thinking--which is next door to dreaming--but
nag me to be up and doing, boiling pots or eggs or hitting something
or pushing at things. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere. The medieval
rigours warn me to be done with visions and the reading of the visions
of others; and their hard oaken seats rise up and assault me where I
would sit upon them.... But that is nothing. They have left me not even
my books. I am bewildered--bewildered--wholly bewildered.”

He sighed sadly, and went on:

“Ah, Noll, he only knows the whole delight of having possessed a
child who has lost it.... Books are one’s most intimate friends--they
never change--never play us a shabby trick. How they eat into one’s
friendship, each dressed in his individual habit! the very ugliness
of some a reason for seeking to win their confidence; perhaps a
reason for an easy familiarity--we dog-ear them the more--mark them
the more--love them the more. Put them in handsome ranks uniform, and
their individuality is gone--like sisters that are primly arrayed to
the same pattern to simper through a tedious garden-party. We begin to
find faults where was once only affection; and their outward seeming
being now alike, like critics we seek to taste not the delights
within, but carp because this has not Shakespeare’s wit nor that the
thunders and the music of Carlyle. These that were once our closest,
most garrulous, most intimate friends have gone to join the silent
ranks of library editions that no one reads. These stiff and formal
backs, these ornamental edges, these dandified and dyed airs, repel me
from my ancient friendships. The intimacy of years is broken--frozen.
They open no longer eagerly at the old accustomed places, stained
with frequent thumbings, where my own hand cut the dear intimate
leaves--they are deckle-edged and bedamned and horrible which were wont
to be delightfully impertinent. I cannot find my way in the old garden
that I loved--the old dog-ears are smoothed out, gone--my pencillings
erased, their whisperings mute, they nudge my elbow no more. These, my
one-time boon companions snub me; give me but the flabby handshake of
necessity. They open their houses to me mincingly, and yawn affected
utterance. They no longer tickle me in the ribs, touching me on the
sleeve, nor beckon; they do not chuckle familiarly--nor brood with
me upon the roll and march of the great significancies. Their new
clothes are insistent--upon them as upon me. They smell of the oil of
respectability like gagged Sunday-school children. We know each other
no longer--except with formal bow and elaborate etiquette--as when a
royal person enters the room of entertainment and puts good-fellowship
to the rout.”

He made a pause, and, passing his gaunt hand over his brow, he added
sadly:

“I have come home to find myself in a strange land.... Shining-faced
respectability has usurped my chair.... My kingdom has slipped from
me.... The flowers in my garden are dead.”

Noll patted him on the back:

“Tut, tut, man--you have come into a new kingdom.”

He heard Julia’s voice upon the stair; and he saw that the other had
heard it, for he stood up and forced a smile upon his long sad face.

Noll went close to him hurriedly:

“One word, Netherby--quick, before she comes--do you know where Betty
is?” he asked hoarsely.

Netherby smiled a sad smile:

“Ah, Noll, that _you_ should have to ask _me_ that!”


Noll passed Julia at the stair-head and left them together.

As he stepped across the hall he hesitated, turned, and went into the
old lady’s room. She was sitting in the window, looking out; and she
turned at his footfall.

Noll bent down and kissed the old face; and he saw that the harsh light
had gone out of her eyes:

“Won’t you be a little lonely here to-night?” Noll asked her.

“No,” she said--“she has taken seats for all three of us.”




CHAPTER LXXXVIII

  _Wherein it is suspected that, on Occasion, the Trumpet of Fame is not
    Wholly Immaculate of the Hiccup_


Pangbutt’s handsome studio had been cleared for a reception; and the
deliberate old butler, throwing open the great folding-doors, walked
stiffly into the room and glanced an orderly eye round the brilliantly
lighted details in a last complacent survey before the near arrival of
the guests.

He started at a loud peal of the door-bell, and pulled out his watch:

“I hope they are arriving early enough!” said he. “It comes of arsking
these here artists to the house.... They’re always hungry and they’re
always noisy, and they’re always thirsty. Even if I suffered from these
here afflictions I’d have the manners not to show it.” He shrugged his
shoulders. “I call it letting ourselves down. They don’t even know how
to put on their clothes like Christians.”

He straddled stiffly out of the room, grumbling and mumbling.

“Leastwise not like Christians of the Established Church,” he
growled....

He returned after awhile through the great hollow of the handsome
doorway, ushering in four guests.

When they had entered, he said stiffly:

“Mr. Pangbutt, I fear, will not be down for several minutes, gentlemen;
he has only just come in to dress.”

He drew out his watch from his pocket, and glanced at it aggressively.

Robbins laughed gently, and winked to the others:

“We _are_ a trifle early, Dukes, I am afraid,” said he, going up to the
dignified old man--“but if Mr. Rippley _will_ insist on sitting between
the reins on the top of the hansom, the cabby drives hard to escape the
inquisitive attention of the police--a body of men, Dukes, that live
feverishly anxious to catch something and are bored with the greyness
of the popular virtue.”

He tapped the old man on the shirt-front.

The butler bowed stiffly, and withdrew.

Fluffy Reubens strode airily into the middle of the room and surveyed
it:

“I say,” said he--“portrait painting seems to pay, eh?”

Lovegood coughed:

“H’m--n’yes,” he grunted; and added tragically: “When you can paint
portraits.”

“Get out!” said Fluffy, and flung himself into an easy-chair.

Rippley strolled round the room and tested the electric lights; his
hands itching to be at any devilment:

“Oho!” said he--“so the curtain is to go up to-night and discover the
real Anthony Bickersteth--the man of mystery--the writer of _the_
book!... I suppose it ain’t Pangbutt himself!”

Aubrey at the mantelpiece, gazing at himself in the mirror, said simply:

“Bosh!”

“Rather a dramatic situation when you come to think of it, eh?” said
Fluffy Reubens, lolling his full length in the easy-chair.

Rippley, his hands in his trousers pockets, considered the situation
with reflective eye fixed on the carpet:

“And a rippin’ dramatic emotion, eh! To feel one’s self being wrangled
about from one end of the country to the other----”

Aubrey turned languidly from the mirror:

“Ah!” said he, “and then to listen to it all, robed in the delightful
invisible cloak of pseudonymity!”

Rippley laughed drily:

“No, no, Aubrey, old man--that wouldn’t have suited you at all. You
wouldn’t have lasted at it for a fortnight.”

Lovegood smiled:

“We need not get into the quarrelsome stage about it yet,” he said in
his big deep voice: “We shall be tearing him to pieces in magazine
articles to-morrow and flinging him to the dogs of the lower journalism
to snarl at before the year is out.... The failures are always
suspicious of popularity.”

Aubrey turned to the mirror again, and said “Bosh!”

Fluffy Reubens winked at the others:

“I don’t see that this chap Anthony Bickersteth’s work is a snap better
than Caroline Baddlesmere’s; and he’s prigged a lot of her ideas----”

Aubrey turned round to the room, took up a picturesque literary
attitude, elbow on mantel, his cheek leaning on his long fingers,
legs crossed, essaying to realize the portraits of the thirties, and,
rousing from his adoration of himself, he said petulantly:

“My dear fluffsome Robbins, I have repeatedly told you that Caroline
Baddlesmere lacks breadth of view and a man’s humour--to say nothing of
that certain something of subtle atmosphere that is called genius....
You really ought not to give me the trouble of reiterating these simple
truths.... You compel me to feel as blatantly insistent as a bookmaker
on a race-course----”

He was interrupted by the entrance of the old butler, ushering in
Bartholomew Doome and Andrew Blotte--Andrew in very much crushed and
wrinkled evening dress, and looking unutterably shabby, Doome well
groomed.

Bartholomew Doome laughed:

“Yes,” said he, “yes, yes--I heard what Aubrey was saying; but Aubrey
is a poet, not a critic.”

Lovegood laughed a funny deep nasal laugh.

But Rippley had turned to the strange figure of Andrew Blotte. He smote
him on the shoulder with strong genial hand:

“Cheer up, Andrew,” he cried.

Blotte smiled wearily; he roused from his brooding; he was very pale:

“Where’s the bar?” he asked gloomily.

Rippley laughed:

“Vanity Fair has not opened her drinking-saloons yet,” he said. “We’re
all before our welcome.”

Blotte sighed, and said absently:

“I have come to tell Pangbutt I cannot sup with him to-night.” He
smiled a pale sad smile; and, rousing, added moodily: “I came into my
Irish estates last night--took over the keys of my castle in Spain....
Last night I slept under the blue quilt, and filled my belly with the
north wind. And,” he added hoarsely, “to-night I sup with the gods.”

Rippley shook the moody man by the shoulders, and gripping them in his
big kind hands, he said:

“Shut up, Blotte; you’ve got to sup with _us_ to-night--gods are a
large order, even Aubrey is not yet translated.”

Blotte roused; laughed; strode into the middle of the great room. He
turned gloomily:

“No--I go to a mighty banquet, old friend. I go to sup with the gods
to-night.”

“Now, now,” said Fluffy Reubens, sprawling in two chairs. “Chuck it,
Blotte--you make me feel as cold as a dead undertaker.... Lor!” he
yawned, “this is precious slow.” He yawned again: “Paul Pangbutt’s a
confounded long time, ain’t he? Scenting his beard, I suspect!”

Andrew Blotte roused from his mood, and he began to pace up and down
the room as before: “No more Italian waiters for me--with cursèd oily
locks,” he cried--“no more grease-spots on dingy grey tablecloths that
hide their offences under smiling napkins!... To-night I shall be
waited upon by the gods.... Never again the boiled potato; never again
the homely bun, damn them!... This is the night of life--a night for
music and gaiety and minstrelsy.... Hunger shall cease, and pain----”

Rippley went up to him and took him by the shoulder, kindly:

“Stop it, Blotte. Aren’t you well, old man?”

Blotte laughed:

“Well?... Psha! I am like a boy. The new genius arrives to-night. And I
go off--to sup with the gods.... The world has forgotten Andrew Blotte.”

Rippley turned, a twinkle in his eye, to the others:

“I say, boys,” said he--“as it’s to be a unique night, and Blotte
about to be translated, and may be in the papers in the morning----”

Blotte laughed grimly, where he paced:

“Oh, yes,” he growled--“I shall be in the papers to-morrow. Have no
fear of it.”

Rippley slapped him on the shoulder:

“Then,” said he, “we ought to give Pangbutt’s house an air. There
is a lack of the grand manner here. One man-servant is ridiculously
inadequate. At least three of us ought to assist to wait on the guests.
Doome and Fluffy and I and--and you, Blotte--would make a ripping lot
of waiters, and it wouldn’t be half so slow as talking art and rot
to people who don’t know.... Genius shall serve the mob. This night
must never be forgotten. By Macready, yes--Pangbutt used to play at
play-acting! But where are his properties?”

Blotte was striding the room; he laughed:

“Ay, ay--the gala-night of life should be gay and joyous,” cried
he--“all the candles lit, as for a bridal.” He came to a halt, scowled
at the dark hollow of the great doorway, and strode thither.

The old butler was lurking suspiciously outside.

Blotte grabbed him by his coat lapel, and drew him into the light:

“Hireling fellow,” said he, “bring more lights. This place is like a
damned omnibus.”

The old butler held out an expostulant palm in dignified remonstrance:

“Gentlemen, gentlemen--the guests will be arriving in a few minutes----”

Rippley went up to him, and gripping his fingers in the old servant’s
waistcoat, pulled him into the room.

“Don’t talk like an unfrocked bishop, Dukes--it’s most irreligious,”
said he. “Look here”--he slapped the old man’s chest jocosely--“your
master and the amateur aristocracy used to have private theatricals
here. Where are his wigs and make-up things? Where does he keep them?
Quick!”

The old butler promptly began to retire backwards upon a handsome
cabinet:

“Gentlemen, gentlemen; surely I have no need to remind you that Mr.
Pangbutt’s wigs are his private property,” said the shocked, anxious
old man. “I haven’t Mr. Pangbutt’s permission----”

Rippley followed him up, grimly smiling:

“Get out, you old panjandrum!” said he. “You’ve shown the hiding-place,
you naughty old deceiver. Go away!”

He pushed the expostulating old man from the cabinet, and, throwing
open the drawers, proceeded to ransack them.

“Hullo!” he cried--“splendid!”

He struck a match:

“Spirit lamp--everything. Ginger! Here’s a glorious short beard affair
that goes down the middle of the chin and all along the throat.”

He put it on.

“By Clarkson, makes me look like a ducal butler--I’ll be butler.”

He flung off his coat, and his deft fingers began to fix the disguise
on his chin.

The butler touched him upon his shirt-sleeve in dignified despair:

“Gentlemen,” said he--“this is not decent. I repeat--it is not honest.”

“Go hon!” said Rippley, punching the old man in the ribs with his
elbow, and working away at the fixing of his throat-beard. “Look here,
Fluffy,” he called hurriedly--“you and Doome _must_ run this pompous
old dolt downstairs and shoot him into the cellar--and lock him in.
Quick! or the people will be arriving.... I hear carriage-wheels.”

Robbins and Doome seized the shocked old man and hurried his protesting
stiff being out of the room and down the stairs.

Rippley followed them to the top of the stairs, making up his disguise
as he went:

“Look here, boys,” he called down in a hoarse whisper--“if the old
fool will swear not to move away from the hall door until we release
him you needn’t put him in the cellar.... What?... Eh?... He says he
surrenders? That’s all right then. Now back with you--quick! or the
guests will be here--or Pangbutt himself.”

There was a loud ring at the door-bell.

Rippley skipped back to the cabinet: and from the cabinet he ran to
Andrew Blotte:

“Blotte, old boy,” said he, pulling a red wig over the gloomy man’s
head and combing the lank red hair down the sides of his pale
face--“you must look after the cloak-room and change the tickets and
mix the hats.... Ha-ha!” He laughed mock-tragically. “This night must
never be forgotten!”

“It never will,” said Blotte; and laughing grimly he got striding again
in the red wig, as Fluffy Reubens and Doome burst into the room.

“Here, Fluffy,” said Rippley, “quick, man! put on this yellow wig, and
comb it well over your eyes. There isn’t a moment to be lost; Doome,
here’s a black moustache and a greyish wig--this is the way to stick it
on--see? Splendid! Makes you look like a broken-down Italian tenor.”

He searched about in the cabinet and found a stubbly black wig which he
pulled over his own hair, and was at once a son of France:

“Look here, boys, I’m head-waiter, see! And when I bow, you bow: and
when I rub my hands, you rub your hands; and don’t forget the foreign
accent--try to talk English as you used to talk French.... Doome, you
stand at the landing below, and see that old Dukes don’t stir a step
from the door--and bawl up the names from him. And you, Fluffy, play
the general ass. I’ll stick to the door here.... Are we all right
now?... No, Blotte’s not enough disguised. Here, Doome, fasten this
fierce moustache on his lip, whilst I shut up.... O lor! here they
come!”

Rippley had scarcely hurried into his coat when there entered and
halted in the great doorway a hesitating figure in the white satin
dress of a courtier of Charles the First, lace frills at his weak
knees, white stockings, white shoes, and holding a plumed hat in his
hand.

His eyeglass dropped out of his eye, and he stood there stuttering and
aghast.

There was a titter.

“Sharles ze Foorst--risen from ze dead!” announced Rippley.

“I say”--the affected drawl discovered Ffolliott. “Rippley told me it
was a--fancy-dress--affair,” he said plaintively. “And to come early.”

There was a wild shout of laughter.

Ffolliott looked round nervously at the strange faces, and recognising
Aubrey at last, by the mirror, he said peevishly:

“I am exceedingly displeased with Rippley--he--he chose my dress.”

Rippley wiped the tears from his eyes:

“Well--don’t you see we are nearly all in disguise? ... except Aubrey,
who thinks that because he looks like an ass no one will know him.” He
turned to the others: “I say, boys,” he added, chuckling, “things are
beginning to move at last. This _is_ going to be a unique night.”

“Hush!”

They had all turned to Blotte, and a strange silence fell upon the room.

Andrew Blotte stood listening, as to some strange sounds. He roused:

“Ay, I sup with the gods to-night.... And I can hear the guests
arriving--all the clever fellows that have made the world a
delight--and with them come the dear dead companions that worked with
us, and sang with us, and drank with us--in Paris.... I know them--they
talk such damned bad French.”

Rippley went and touched him on the shoulder:

“Blotte, old boy; you’re very queer to-night,” he said. “You make me
feel as blue as a newly-clipped hearse-horse.”

Blotte roused, and moved towards the door; halted; turned to them all:

“I say I sup with the gods to-night--and mix the hats--and set the
table in a roar.... I must hasten away.... I hear them call.... God
bless you, dear boys! we shall meet in sunshine----”

Rippley stepped to the door:

“Quick!” said he in a hushed whisper, “make a line, quick there,
you Fluffy, Doome, Blotte, to my left here at the door. Here comes
Pangbutt.... He blows his nose like the old nobility.... Come along.
Blotte--don’t look like a broken-down anarchist in an advanced stage
of pip. You must affect the smiling, friendly, neapolitan manner,
expectant of a fee.”

As Blotte’s pale face took on a deathly smile, Rippley bowed, and there
stepped into the open doorway the well-groomed figure of their host.

Pangbutt halted, perplexed.

He gazed in vague consternation at the Vandyke travesty in white silks
before him--turned to the solemn countenances of the four waiters:

“May I ask what, in the name of Beelzebub, is happening in this house?”
he asked.

Rippley clasped his hands together unctuously, bowed, smiled a large
Italian smile. He advanced a step, and said with a strong foreign
accent, picking his words with slow deliberation:

“Sir Pangboot--it has arrive to ze domestic bootler that he is
indispose sudden-ment. I am he’s friend that he have ask to take he’s
place, vis my asseestants.... Your house shall have ze much honour in
my hands--we have the habit to attend ze best families----”

There was a loud ringing of the door-bell.

Pangbutt put his hand over his eyes:

“I must be going mad,” he said.

Rippley bowed:

“Sir Pangboot--me and me friends, we speak not very well ze
Engleesh--but we much understand it well--and----”

“Yes, yes.” Pangbutt dismissed them impatiently. “Get to your
business.... Curse it! I wonder what on earth ails Dukes.”

As the four comic-looking foreign waiters left the room, he hesitated,
bewildered. And Rippley, as they passed out, nearly burst a bloodvessel
as the tragic Blotte’s moustache fell off. But Pangbutt had suddenly
remembered that he was host; and advancing into the room he turned to
the others:

“I beg your pardon, I am late I fear.”

He shook hands with Lovegood and Aubrey; and, turning to Ffolliott, a
faint smile flickered over his worried face:

“Ffolliott!... Sorry to be late, but there have been domestic
difficulties--my butler has gone sick.”

The guests were arriving fast.

“Mistair Maupassant Fosse!” bawled Rippley at the door.

The little man glared at the servant, fussed into the room, and tripped
across to his host.

“A nickname they have for me,” he said--“a nickname....”

Rippley watched Blotte solemnly tramp down the stairs, his wig on one
side; heard him announce to a lady, just arrived, that he was going to
sup with the gods; and he was gone.

Groups of guests came swarming up the stairs and passed into the studio.

Rippley, glancing into the studio, saw the white satin dress of
Ffolliott move uneasily amongst the arriving guests; and he heard his
thin, affected drawl as he explained to his host:

“D’you know--I feel such an ass----”

Pangbutt patted him upon the shoulder:

“Never mind,” said he absently--“it can’t be helped. Make the best of
it.”

“Oh, but I assure you--they told me it was to be a fancy-dress affair.”

Rippley bawled at the door:

“Sir Gilders Cinnamon!”

Sir Gilders Persimmon shuffled into the room; and Pangbutt went to meet
the old baronet.

“Lady Persimmon coming to-night, Sir Gilders?” he shouted into his ear;
the old man shook his head.

“Sorry,” bawled Pangbutt into his ear; “Sir Gilders, allow me to
introduce Mr. Fosse, who, I need not tell you, is the well-known
critic. He has written a eulogy of Anthony Bickersteth that is to
appear in a few days--you must win his favour to your poems.”

The old baronet cackled with senile laughter.

Fosse threw up his head. He glowed. He felt that all eyes were upon him.

“Yes,” he said--“my eulogy appears to-morrow.” He forgot to bawl.

Sir Gilders put his hand to his ear: the entrance and stir of the
arriving guests and their announcement and greetings perplexed his weak
hearing:

“Eh?” said he--“borrow? Why borrow?”

“No, Sir Gilders,” cried Fosse, getting very hot--“I did not say
borrow--I said my eulogy appears to-morrow.”

“Why?” asked the old man.

There was a titter....

Ffolliott, thinking he saw someone he knew, went up to Lovegood and
slapped the big man on the back:

“Hullo, old chap!” cried he.

Blank consternation came upon him as Lovegood slowly turned and
solemnly faced him. The weak-knee’d, foolish Ffolliott faltered
nervously:

“Oh, er--er--I thought you were someone else,” he drawled.

Lovegood nodded gloomily.

“I am,” he said sepulchrally.

Ffolliott tittered confusedly:

“Ye-yes--indeed,” he said, twisting his fingers and fidgeting. “D’you
know, I feel such an awful ass----”

Lovegood coughed:

“But that is no excuse for your being in the other ass’s skin!” he
growled.

“Oh, but don’t you see--that’s just it! They told me it was a
fancy-dress affair....”

“Eh?” bawled Sir Gilders Persimmon.

All eyes turned from Ffolliott to the perspiring Fosse. The little man
shifted uneasily under the fire of many amused critical eyes.

“I was saying,” shrilled the minor critic in his thin jerky voice,
“that the man who does not play whist is laying up a sad old age for
himself.”

The old baronet shook his head:

“The man who what?”

Fosse licked his lips sullenly:

“The man who doesn’t play whist,” shrieked Fosse, reddening miserably.

“What about him?” asked Sir Gilders peremptorily.

“Lays up a sad old age for himself,” screamed the miserable little man.

The old gentleman knit his brows:

“A reformed rake?” he asked testily....

But attention was diverted from the fussy little minor critic’s despair
by the murmur of admiration which greeted the entrance into the room
of a beautiful woman to whom Quogge Myre was paying aggressively
marked court as the announcement of her name called the regard of
the assembled guests to her arrival. Myre was ever for stealing the
lime-light. He was a born filcher of honour. But the beauty’s calm
dismissal of him, as she swept towards her host, gave Myre a sudden
hysteric desire to talk loudly and hide his chagrin; and he turned at
the sound of Fosse’s voice, raised in argument, as hyena goes to offal.
Fosse in his despair had turned from Sir Gilders, and launched into the
discussion round about him:

“In the arts,” he was saying, “woman does not, cannot, shine. She only
exists--on sufferance. A woman’s province----”

Myre had strolled towards the voice:

“I am flattered to find,” said he, “that Mr. Fosse has been reading me.
He is right. A woman’s province is to be beautiful; and if she write
at all she may write of the nursery--of the domesticities. A woman
has not the experiences of life--she writes only from intuition. She
cannot experience the emotions of a man--cannot describe all shades of
life--is too careful of her skirts to have been on the heights and in
the gutters----”

Lovegood coughed:

“Never,” said he, with big deliberate voice--“never shall I again
approach a municipal sewer without an ecstatic thrill.”

Quogge Myre took no notice of the shaft:

“A woman,” said he, “cannot be in the thrash and fume of life. She only
peeps out fearfully over the window-blind at the doings of the world.
She has not physical strength----”

Somebody coughed:

“Tra-la-lee!” said he--“opera--bouffe--bouffe--bouffe.”

Myre went suddenly dumb....

Sir Gilders Persimmon had shuffled over to Fosse, who was wetting his
lips, eager to leap into the debate, when Myre’s yawing should give
opportunity, and, button-holing the fussy little man, the deaf old
gentleman asked him:

“You said, sir, that the reformed rake did what?”

“No, Sir Gilders--I said that the man who does not play whist is laying
up a sad old age----”

The old gentleman poked him slyly in the lean ribs:

“Makes the best husband, eh! Indeed, yes--very likely--very likely. But
it’s dangerous doctrine--it’s----”

“No, Sir Gilders,” shrieked the perspiring little man--“I say the man
who does not play _whist_.” He coughed--his voice breaking. “Oh, damn
this old gentleman!” he added, moving irritably away from him....

Quogge Myre turned to Pangbutt:

“Now, Pangbutt, mind you, I don’t say that this Anthony Bickersteth is
a Balzac; but he has the true genius for literature. How can you define
these things? It is there, or it is not there!”

Fosse skipped up to the group:

“What _I_ say--what _I_ say----”

Quogge Myre stared at his little disciple with contempt; a sneer played
about his puffy lip--became too tense for silence:

“This man repeats what I say--what I _used_ to say--like flattery,” he
said.

Lovegood smiled grimly:

“Oh,” said he--“_he_ stays in Paris sometimes now. And there are the
French newspapers.”

Myre shrugged his shoulders:

“I have changed all my ideas on these subjects----”

But the ridiculous figure of Ffolliott strolled nervously up to the
group, and interrupting the critical vapourings of Quogge Myre, he said
with affected drawl:

“D’you know, I feel such an awful ass--and I don’t get used to it.”

Lovegood gazed at him solemnly:

“Young fellow,” said he--“you must not be egotistical--it’s bad for the
morals. Try and forget yourself in that disguise.”

“I can’t,” drawled Ffolliott miserably--“I am quite angry with
Rippley--he told me it was a fancy-dress affair--and----”

Fosse turned his back upon him impatiently:

“I repeat,” said he--“and I have a signed article in _The
Discriminator_ to prove it--a genius has arrived.”

“By Pegasus?” sneered Aubrey, raising ironic eyebrows.

Lovegood laughed:

“No--by omnibus,” said he. “Let us all be winged asses to-night. Fosse
has not secured a government monopoly.”...

From the great doorway:

“Mistair and Mrs. Nezzerbie Gomme!” announced Rippley; and as the pair
were greeted by all near them, Rippley stepped to the head of the great
stairs, and going up to a pompous man as that worthy set foot on the
topmost step, he said to him confidentially:

“I say, mister, would you mind running down the stairs and telling the
fellar with the red hair that I want him?”

Sir Tankerton Wollup swelled slowly:

“Pooh--pooh!” said he, drawing himself up; and he strutted to the door.

“Poof--poof!” said Rippley. “Giddy old thing!”

He glanced over the balustrade down to the next landing, and caught
Doome’s eye:

“Beelzebub!” he growled--“the whole town’s coming to this silly
theatrical affair.... I say, we ought to go and see that Andrew
Blotte’s mixing the hats thoroughly. Hullo! There’s Anthony Baddlesmere
just arrived. Wait, I’ll come down. I want to see him.”

He made his way down through an ascending stream of newly-arrived
guests, with some difficulty, just as Ffolliott, seeing Sir Tankerton
Wollup hesitate at the door, went up to the great man mincingly, and
said affectedly:

“Oh, I say, Sir Tankerton--d’you know, I feel such an awful ass--but
they told me it was a fancy-dress affair.”

Sir Tankerton, staring with bloodshot eyes of ruffled dignity at the
thing before him, sniffed.

“Go away!” he said testily.

Ffolliott went away.

As the pompous millionaire stood irresolute at the doorway, an
absent-minded snuffy little old gentleman shuffled up to his elbow,
followed at a couple of paces by a little faded old lady of withered
prehistoric design, and, touching him on the sleeve inquiringly, said:

“My good man--before you announce our names, will you tell me which is
the host? I have never seen my host before--in fact----”

“Poof--poof!” squealed Sir Tankerton Wollup, and strutted into the room.

“Dear me!” The little old gentleman turned to his little old lady; and
added in a confidential undertone:

“A most extraordinary person--a most extraordinary _house_!... But I
have always heard, my dear, that Bohemia was a strange country.... In
fact, Charlotte, it’s _rather_ thrilling, is it not?”

The little withered lady, all pleased excitement, said: “_Quite_
thrilling, James!”

Pangbutt seeing awkwardness at the door, and missing the loud
announcement of names, went a few paces closer to it to meet his
newly-arrived guests.

The little old gentleman entered the room vaguely, the dandruff of
the philosophic habit upon his coat-collar, and his wig full of
reasons--very markedly a professor. He had the air of cataloguing
ideas. The little old lady, a couple of paces behind him, followed him.

Pangbutt exchanged greetings with him.

Said the professor:

“Good-evening, sir; my sister’s husband’s brother-in-law, Sir Gilders
Persimmon, was good enough to say that you would allow me to meet
Mr. Anthony Bickersteth here.... I am writing a work to disprove
the insanity of genius.... It is a part of my theory that the human
personality cannot be hidden by artifice--that the strong temperament
shows itself in the vigorous growth of the hair--and so on.... I
am, sir, I may have forgotten to say, Professor Curtis.... I am an
inveterate novel-reader.... My wife keeps a diary.... Where are you,
Charlotte? Ah, yes. But, fervently as I admire Mr. Bickersteth’s prose,
I should like to suggest to him that in his next work he might make
more of that unworked mine, the folk-lore of the London coster--or
greengrocer.... I am most anxious that Mr. Bickersteth should be a
virile person whose moustache springs out strongly from under the
nostrils, with a tendency towards ruddiness in the colouring.... But
I fear that on this--what I may call his--er,” he tittered--“his
unveiling, I am too thrilled.”

He kept button-holing Pangbutt:

“Too thrilled to--er--I am thrilled, sir, thrilled, as indeed is
Charlotte--oh, ah, yes--Charlotte!” He searched about behind him for
the little old lady, who moved up to his side. “Oh, ah, yes--there
you are, Charlotte! Allow me to introduce Mr. Pangbutt, our host.
May I ask, sir, if Mr. Anthony Bickersteth has yet arrived? No?...
How fortunate! How very fortunate!... Charlotte, I am becoming quite
excited.”

Pangbutt led them to chairs.

Two richly-dressed ladies of an age that discovers as much as is
concealed by considerable dressing, hesitated at the door; and one,
taking a last amused glance over her shoulder at some incident that
passed upon the stairs below, tittered, and, turning, swept the room
with keen regard through her raised lorgnettes.

“How amusin’! how absolutely amusin’!” she crooned. “I like literary
and artistic people _so_ much.”

“Yes,” said the other, “they are _so_ different to one’s own class....
And actresses _dress_ so well!”

She flung back an elaborate head of jewels, and whispered something to
the lady of the lorgnettes.

The lady of the lorgnettes laughed:

“Really?” said she

“H’m, h’m!--yes. Pills.”

“Mr. Pangbutt’s father?”

“H’m, h’m! Yes. I assure you.”

“Dear me! And he has such a very distinguished manner!”

“And--d’you know?”

She whispered.

“Lady Persimmon? Indeed?”

The lady of the lorgnettes nodded mysteriously. The withered eyes
expressed shocked surprise. She gave a funny little laugh. The
lorgnettes were raised again, and she said, surveying the assembled
guests critically through the glasses:

“I absolutely _adore_ literary people--and artists--and actors--and
those sort of persons. It is so strange to think they have all slept
in attics. And really, it’s quite the _fashion_ to go on the stage
now.... Who’s the fright in the post-office red?... Oh! is it?... Lady
Margaret’s son has gone on the stage.... Gerty, do you know who that
dark creature is? with the Italian-looking person.... Oh, yes; and the
young fellow is getting on wonderfully. You see, they like to have
a gentleman on the stage--besides, he acts in the most gentlemanly
manner--quite unlike a professional actor. And then, of course, his
manager is rather exclusive--he called the company together the other
day, and told them that he did not expect them to recognise him in
the street. It’s so nice for the young fellow to be with such a
_gentleman_.”

“Yes. Our gardener’s son has joined a circus too. Such an amusin’ boy,
he was.”

“It brings it all so home to one, doesn’t it!”

“Doesn’t it, indeed! But I confess I have always been fascinated by the
stage. There’s somethin’ so very romantic about livin’ in green-rooms
and paintin’ your face, and--pretendin’ to be someone else.”

The other whispered in her ear.

The lorgnettes were flicked open again, and glittered upon Sir Gilders
Persimmon.

“Indeed! But he is so very old--and she--but there is such a difference
of social rank between a baronet’s wife and a mere painter--surely!
Still, he _is_ very old. Almost permissible sin, Gerty.”

They both tittered.

“My dear,” said the other, “you are really quite naughty.”

Sir Gilders pounced upon Fosse, whom he had followed round the room,
put up a hand to aid his dull hearing, and said:

“You were speaking of dotage----”

Fosse winced uneasily:

“No, sir,” he shrieked--“I was _not_ talking of dotage. I say that the
man who does not play whist lays up a sad old age for himself.” And,
turning on his heel impatiently, “The devil take the man!” said he, and
walked away.

Ffolliott espying the two newly-arrived ladies across the room, made
his way to them:

“Do you know, Miss Foljambe Pfinch,” he said--“I feel such an ass; they
told me it was a--fancy--dress--affair.”

The lorgnettes were turned upon him:

“It’s that ridiculous Mr. Ffolliott,” said she; and laughed
immoderately.

Ffolliott sighed, and turned away:

“Everybody seems to think I am an ass to-night,” he said wearily. “Oh,
there’s Fosse. I don’t like Fosse--but I’ll talk to _him_. No--he’s
talking to another man. I think I’ll go home. No, I won’t, I’ll sit
down.”

He sat down.

“Every fellow does something idiotic in his life,” he said.

He watched Fosse button-hole Gomme; and he saw Gomme’s lips smile
amusedly as he gazed at the floor, listening to him.

He bent all his attention to hear what passed between the two.

“Now, you know, Mr. Gomme,” said the fussy little man--“in
confidence, all these fellows take themselves too seriously to-day.
Look at Rippley! he’s utterly uncultured--he hasn’t an aitch in his
composition.”

Gomme nodded:

“But there isn’t an aitch in composition,” he said demurely.

“N-no.” Fosse stammered, becoming nervous. “But he can’t even pronounce
the names of the ancients whose gods he models!”

Gomme smiled:

“No--but he can model ’em.”

Fosse was puzzled for an answer:
administration of Aconite, Acetanilide, etc.

ANTIRHEUMATIC.--A medicine that prevents or cures rheumatism, as Sodium
Salicylates, etc.

ANTIPYRETIC.--A medicine which reduces body temperature in fever, as
Quinine Sulphate, Salicylic Acid, etc.

ANTISEPTIC.--A medicine which arrests putrefaction on or in the body, or
hinders septic decomposition by killing the germs that produce it or by
checking their development, as Carbolic Acid, Zinc Sulphocarbolates,
etc.

ANTISPASMODIC.--A medicine which prevents or removes spasmodic
contraction of voluntary or involuntary muscles, as Belladonna,
Valerian, Chloral Hydrate, etc.

ANTITOXIN.--A counter poison or antidote generated within the body to
counteract the toxins of bacteria. Antitoxins are frequently injected
hypodermically in the treatment of certain infectious diseases and also
to immunize against disease, as Tetanus Antitoxin for the treatment of
tetanus or lockjaw, etc.

ANTIVENENE.--A name applied to blood-serum of animals rendered immune
against snake-poison owing to its antidotal properties.

ANTIZYMOTIC.--A medicine preventing fermentation, as Salicylic Acid,
etc.

APERIENT.--A medicine possessing a mild laxative or purgative effect, as
Rochelle Salts, etc.

APHRODISIAC.--A medicine which stimulates sexual appetite, as
Cantharides, Nux Vomica, Phosphorus, Alcohol and general tonics, etc.

AROMATIC.--A medicine characterized by a fragrant taste or odor, as
Aromatic Spiritus of Ammonia, Ginger and the essential oils, etc.

ASTRINGENT.--A medicine which contracts vessels and arrests discharges,
as Tannic Acid, Ergot, etc.

AUXILIARY.--A medicine that assists the action of another, as Chloral
Hydrate would assist Bromide of Potassium in checking excitability.

BITTER.--A medicine with a bitter taste, stimulating the
gastro-intestinal secretions without materially affecting the general
system, as Qussia Gentian, etc.

BLENNORRHAGIC.--A medicine which increases the secretions of mucus, as
Eucalyptus, Balsam Tulo, etc.

BLISTER.--An agent which, when applied over the skin, produces vesicles
resulting from local inflammatory exudate of serous fluid between the
epidermis and true skin, as applications of Cantharides, etc.

BOLUS.--A large pill or a round mass of food prepared by the mouth for
swallowing.

BOUILON.--A nutritive medium for the culture of micro-organisms prepared
from finely chopped beef or beef extract.

CACHEXIA.--A deprived condition of general nutrition, due to serious
diseases, as Tuberculosis, Scrofula, Syphilis, Cancer, etc.

CALEFACIENT.--A medicine applied externally to produce a sensation of
warmth to the part to which it is applied, as Turpentine, Mustard,
Capsicum, etc.

CALMANT.--A medicine that reduces functional activity, as Bromide of
Potassium, Aconite, etc.

CALMATIVE.--A medicine which has a quieting or a sedative effect, as
Morphine, Cannibus Indica, etc.

CALORIFACIENT OR CALORIFIC.--A heat producing substance which has the
power of developing heat in the body, as Cod Liver and Olive Oil, Fats,
etc.

CARDIAC DEPRESSANT OR SEDATIVE.--A medicine which lessens the force and
frequency of the heart’s action as Aconite, Potassium Nitrate, etc.

CARDIAC STIMULANT.--A medicine that increases the force and frequency of
the heart’s action when in a depressed condition, as Alcohol, Nux
Vomica, Ether, etc.

CARDIAC TONICS.--Are medicines that do not act as quickly as cardiac
stimulants, but they strengthen the heart muscles which regulate
pulsation, as Digitalis, Nux Vomica, etc.

CARMINATIVE.--A medicine that allays pain by causing the expulsion of
gases from the alimentary canal, as Aromatic Spiritus of Ammonia,
Asafetida, Turpentine, etc.

CATALEPTIC.--A medicine causing animals to lose control of their
muscles, as Cannibus Indica, etc.

CATALYTIC.--A medicine supposed to break down, destroy or counteract
morbid agencies existing in the blood, as Calomel, Arcenous Acid, etc.

CATHARTIC.--A medicine which hastens the evacuation of the bowels, as
Aloes, Castor Oil, etc.

CATHARTIC CHOLAGOGUE.--A medicine that stimulates the evacuation of the
intestines and the flow of bile at the same time, as Podophyllin, etc.

CATHARTIC DRASTIC.--A medicine which produces violent action of the
intestines with griping and pain, as Jalap, Arecoline, etc.

CATHARTIC HYDRAGOGUE.--A medicine that causes abundant watery discharges
of feces, as Common Elaterium, etc.

CATHARTIC SALINE.--A medicine which increases intestinal secretions and
prevents re-absorption, and mechanically excites peristaltic action, as
Magnesium Sulphate, etc.

CATHARTIC SIMPLE.--A medicine that is more active then a laxative, but
is accompanied by some griping; it causes active peristalsis and larger
and softer stools than laxatives, as Rhubarb, Aloes, etc.

CAUSTIC.--A medicine or agent used to destroy living tissue, as Caustic
Potash, Silver Nitrate, etc.

CAUTERY.--An agent used to sear or burn living tissue, with a cautery or
a caustic, as a hot iron or Nitric Acid, etc.

CAUTERY ACTUAL.--A metal instrument heated by an electric current or by
flame, used to destroy bone or muscular tissue or for producing
counter-irritation, much preferred to setons in diseases of the bones
especially of their joints, as in Bone Spavin, Ringbone, etc., also
valuable in the treatment of sprained tendons. The methods used are
either puncture or line firing.

CAUTERY POTENTIAL.--A chemical used for destroying or cauterizing flesh,
as Nitric Acid, etc.

CHALYBEATE.--A medicine containing iron, as Tincture Chlorid of Iron.

CONDIMENT.--A medicine used to improve palatability of food, as
Fenugreek, Aniseed, Salt, Pepper, etc.

CONSERVATIVE.--A medicine or substance used for the preservation of
other medicines without loss, as Alcohol, Honey, etc.

CONSTRINGENT.--A medicine which causes contraction of organic tissues,
as Tannin, etc.

CONVULSANT.--A medicine which causes violent and unnatural contractions
of muscles (convulsions) as Nux Vomica or its derivative, etc.

CORDIAL.--A medicine which increases the strength and raises the
vitality when depressed, as Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia, Alcohol, etc.

CORRECTIVE or CORRECTANT.--A substance used to modify or make pleasant
the action of a cathartic or other medicines, as Acacia, Coriander, etc.

CORROSIVE.--A substance that destroys organic tissue either by direct
chemical means or by causing inflammation and suppuration, as Mercuric
Chloride, Nitric Acid, etc.

COUNTER IRRITANT.--A substance or medicine which produces superficial
inflammation artificially in order to exercise a good effect, by
stimulating functional activity of a part, thus promoting repair upon
some adjacent or deep-seated morbid process, as Blistering or Firing,
etc.

CUMULATIVE POISON.--A medicine which finally acts as a poison after
several successive doses have been taken with little or no apparent
effect, as Arsenic, Strychnine, etc.

DEBILITANT.--A medicine which diminishes the energy of organs, as
Bromide of Potassium, Lobelia, etc.

DEFERVESCENT.--A medicine that reduces temperature, as Quinine Sulphate,
Aconite, etc.

DELIRIANT OR DELIRIFACENT.--A medicine which produces delirium, as
Opium, Stramonium, Alcohol, etc.

DEMULCENT.--A mucilaginous or oily, soothing blend to protect irritated
skin or mucous membranes, as Carron Oil, White of an Egg, etc.

DEOBSTRUENT.--A medicine which removes functional obstructions in the
body, as Castor Oil, Magnesium Sulphate, Aloes, etc.

DEODORANT OR DEODORIZER.--A substance to conceal or destroy foul odors,
as Crude Carbolic Acid, Chloride of Lime, etc. Noxious odors may also be
destroyed and absorbed with freshly burnt charcoal or dry earth.

DEPLETORY.--A medicine which diminishes the quantity of liquid in the
body, as Iodide or Nitrate of Potassium, etc.

DEPRESSANT.--A medicine which lessens vital power, as Opium, Aconite,
etc.

DEPRESSO-MOTOR.--A medicine that depresses motor activity, as Sodium or
Potassium Bromide, etc.

DEPURANT.--A medicine for cleaning foul wounds and abscesses, as
Hydrogen Peroxide, etc.

DEPURATORY.--A medicine which purifies the blood, as Sulphur, Iodide
Potassium, etc.

DERMATIC.--A medicine used in diseases of the skin, as Resorcinol, Zinc
Oxide, etc.

DERIVATIVE.--A substance used in drawing away blood or liquid exudates
from diseased parts by creating an extra demand for them in some other
part of the body, as Mustard, Capsicum, Cantharides, etc.

DESICCANT.--A medicine used for drying up sores, as Tannic Acid, Boric
Acid, etc.

DESICCATIVE.--A medicine which dries up secretions, as Zinc Oxide,
Camphor, etc.

DESICCATORY.--A medicine used externally to dry up moisture or fluids
from wounds, as Tannic Acid, Starch, etc.

DESQUAMATION.--A medicine which removes scales from the skin, bones and
mucous membranes, as Potassium Iodide, etc.

DETERGENT.--A substance for purifying and cleansing wounds, ulcers, as
Hydrogen Peroxide, Soap and Water, etc.

DIAPHORETIC.--A medicine which causes an increased amount of
perspiration, as Pilocarpine, Ginger, etc.

DIARRHETIC.--A substance or medicine which causes increased frequency
and lessened consistency of fecal evacuations, as Mandrake.

DIETETIC.--A medicine having nutritious properties, as Olive or Cod
Liver Oil, etc.

DIGESTANT.--A medicine that assists digestion of food, in the mouth,
stomach or intestines, as Pancreatin, Pepsin, etc.

DIGESTIVE.--A medicine which promotes the process of digestion, as
Gentian, Qussia, Nux Vomica, etc.

DILUENT.--A medicine that dilutes the secretions of organs, as Magnesium
Sulphate, Gamboge, Arecoline, etc.

DISCUTIENT.--A substance or medicine having the power of causing an
exudation to disappear, as Iodide of Potassium, Red Iodide of Mercury,
etc.

DISINFECTANT.--A medicine which destroys septic poisons of communicable
diseases; its special function is to kill or hinder the development of
those germs or bacteria which produce diseases, as Carbolic Acid,
Chloride of Lime, Formaldehyde, etc.

DISSOLVENT.--A medicine that promotes solution of tissues of the body,
as Potassium Iodide, etc.

DIURETIC.--A medicine that increases the secretions of the urinary
organs, as Potassium Nitrate, Buchu, Turpentine, Spirits Ether Nit, etc.

DRASTIC.--A medicine having a severe purgative or cathartic effect on
the bowels, as Croton Oil, etc.

EBOLIC.--A medicine causing contraction of the uterus, and thus
producing abortion, as Ergot, etc.

ELECTUARY.--A substance used to lessen irritability or increase the
palatability of medicines, as Sugar, Honey, Molasses, Water, etc.

ELIMINATIVE.--A medicine having power of expelling or casting out,
especially waste products, as Arecoline, Magnesium Sulphate, etc.

EMETIC.--A substance or medicine having the power to induce vomiting, as
Apomorphine, Ipecac, etc.

EMMENAGOGUE.--A medicine which stimulates menstrual flow, as Potassium
Permanganate, etc.

EMOLLIENT.--A substance used externally to soften, sooth and relax parts
to which they are applied as vegetable poultices, oils, etc.

EPISPASTIC.--A medicine producing a blister, as Cantharides, Aqua
Ammonia Fort, etc.

ERRHINE.--A medicine that increases nasal secretions, as Formalin,
Capsicum, etc.

EVACUANT.--A medicine which causes the emptying of an organ, especially
the bowels, as Magnesium Sulphate, Aloes, etc.

EXCITANT.--A medicine that arouses functional activity, as Nux Vomica,
Alcohol, etc.

EXHILARANT.--A medicine which cheers or stimulates the mind, as
Strychnine, Alcohol, etc.

EXPECTORANT.--A medicine that acts upon the pulmonary mucous membranes
to increase or alter its secretions, as Lobelia, Chloride of Ammonia,
etc.

FEBRIFUGE.--A medicine which lessens bodily temperature, as Quinine,
Acetanilid, Aconite, etc.

FUMIGATION.--Is a process of disinfection by exposure to the fumes of a
vaporizing disinfectant, as Formaldehyde.

GALACTAGOGUE.--A medicine or substance which stimulates the secretions
of the mammary glands, thereby increasing the flow of milk, as
Senegaroot, Pilocarpine, etc.

GERMICIDE.--A medicine which destroys germs of any kind whether bacilli,
spirilli or micrococci, as Bichloride Mercury, Carbolic Acid, etc.

HEMATINIC.--A medicine that increases the proportion of hematin or
coloring matter in the blood, as Iron, Arsenic, etc.

HEMOLYTIC.--A medicine which causes the breaking down of the blood
corpuscles, as Mineral Acids.

HEMOSTATIC.--A medicine which stops bleeding, as Tincture Chloride of
Iron, Ergot, etc.

HEPATIC DEPRESSANT OR SEDATIVE.--A medicine that decreases the function
of the liver, as Plumbi Acetate, Morphine, etc.

HEPATIC STIMULANT.--A medicine which increases the functions of the
liver, as Calomel, Podophyllin, etc.

HIDROTIC OR HYDROTIC.--A medicine that stimulates perspiration (sweat),
as Pilocarpine, Spirits Ether Nit., etc.

HYDRAGOGUE.--A medicine which causes full watery evacuations from the
bowels, as Arecoline, Gamboge, etc.

HYPNOTIC.--A medicine which produces sleep, as Chloral Hydrate,
Morphine, Potassium Bromide, etc.

HYPOSTHENIC.--A medicine which causes weakness, debility, as Lobelia.

IDIOSYNCRASY.--A peculiarity of constitution that makes one person or
animal react differently to medicines or other influences from most
persons or animals.

INSECTICIDE.--A substance used to destroy insects, as unrefined carbolic
acid, benzine, etc.

INTOXICANT.--A drug which excites or stupifies, as alcohol, etc.

IRRITANT.--A medicine or agent causing heat, pain and tension due to the
increased flow of blood to the part, as heat, mustard, etc.

LACTAGOGUE.--A medicine which increases the flow of milk, as extract of
malt, jaborandi, etc.

LAXATIVE.--A medicine that loosens the bowels; a mild cathartic or
purgative, as potassium nitrate, sulphur, etc.

LENITIVE.--A substance having the quality to relieve pain or protecting
tissues from the actions of irritants, as fats, oils, etc.

LIQUEFACIENT.--A medicine which promotes the liquefying processes of the
system, as potassium iodide, etc.

LITHAGOGUE.--A medicine which expels calculi (or stones) from the
kidneys or bladder, as benzoic acid, etc.

LITHOLYTIC or LITHONTRIPTIC.--A medicine to dissolve calculi (or stones)
as benzoate of ammonia, carbonate of potassium, etc.

LUBRICANT.--A substance which soothes irritated surfaces of the throat
and their fauces, as honey, olive oil, etc.

MEDICAMENT.--Any medicine used in the treatment of diseases or wounds.

MEDICINE.--Any substance for the cure of disease.

MYDRIATIC.--An agent which dilates or enlarges the pupil of the eye,
whether used internally or externally, as atrophine.

MYOTIC.--Any agent that contracts the pupil of the eye, whether applied
to the eye or taken by the mouth, as eserine, arecoline, etc.

NARCOTIC.--A medicine which produces sleep and relieves pain, but first
cause cerebral excitement, as chloroform, ether, belladonna and alcohol,
etc.

NEPHRITIC.--A medicine used in diseases of the kidneys, as buchu, uva
ursi, etc.

NERVINE.--A medicine that calms nervous excitement or acts favorably in
nervous diseases, as potassium bromide, chloral hydrate, etc.

NUTRIENT.--A medicine which builds up the waste tissues of the system,
as cod liver oil, general tonics, etc.

OBTUNDENT.--Any agent which relieves irritation or reduces sensibility,
as opium, poultices, etc.

ODONTALGIC.--Any substance for the relief of toothache, as oil of
cloves, morphine, etc.

ODORANT.--Any substance with a pronounced odor, as naphthaline,
asafoetida, etc.

OPIATE.--A drug which causes sleep, as chloral hydrate, opium, etc.

OXYTOCIC.--Any agent that produces parturition, as cotton root, ergot,
etc.

PANACEA.--A medicine curing all diseases; a cure all, as some patent
medicines.

PARASITICIDE.--A substance that destroys various animal and vegetable
organisms or parasites which live upon the surface of the body, as
mercurial and sulphur ointment, etc.

PARTURIENT or PARTURIFACIENT.--Any agent assisting in the birth of the
young, as ergot.

PERISTALTIC.--A medicine which increases the movements of the
longitudinal and transverse muscular fibers of the intestines and
assists them in expelling their contents as nux vomica, arecoline, etc.

PLACEBO.--Any medicine or inert substance given for the purpose of
satisfying the patient, rather than for its medical effects, as sugar,
fenugreek, anise, etc.

POISON.--An agent that when introduced into the body either destroys
life or impairs seriously the functions of one or more of its organs, as
potassium cyanide, hydrocyanic acid, etc.

POTENTIAL.--A medicine which possesses restorative effects, but is
delayed in its effects, as potassium iodide, arsenic, etc.

PRESERVATIVE.--A substance which prevents decomposition of another
substance, as acetanilid, boric acid, etc.

PREVENTIVE or PROPHYLACTIC.--A medicine or method that tends to prevent
disease, as quinine for the prevention of malaria, vaccine, hygienics,
etc.

PROTECTIVE.--A substance used for protecting the parts to which it is
applied, as collodion, etc.

PUNGENT.--Any substance producing a sharp, pinching, penetrating effect,
as ammonia.

PURGATIVE.--A medicine causing copious evacuations of the bowels. (See
Cathartics.)

PUSTULANT.--A medicine which irritates and gives rise to the formation
of pustules, as cantharides, croton oil, etc.

RECUPERATIVE.--A medicine which restores health and energy, as extract
of malt, cod liver oil, etc.

REFRIGERANT.--A medicine or agent having cooling properties or the power
of lowering internal or external temperature, as potassium nitrate,
aconite, cold water, etc.

RELAXANT.--A substance which causes relaxation of muscular tissues, as
chloroform, chloral, etc.

REPARATIVE.--A substance used to restore debilitated tissues of the
body, as general tonics, nitrogenous foods, etc.

RESOLVENT.--A substance indicated in the treatment or absorption of
hard, callous tissue, as iodine and its preparations.

RESTORATIVE.--A medicine that aids in restoring the health, as nux
vomica, arsenic, etc.

REVULSANT or REVULSIVE.--An agent which produces irritation and draws
fluids from other parts diseased, as poultices, cantharides, etc.

RUBEFACIENT.--A medicine or agent causing irritation and redness of the
skin, as turpentine, mustard, etc.

SEDATIVE.--A medicine which diminishes functional activity, as potassium
or ammonium bromide, etc.

SEPTIC.--An agent causing poisoning resulting from the absorption of
products of putrefaction, as bacteria.

SIALOGOGUE.--A medicine stimulating the flow of saliva, as pilocarpine,
arecoline, ginger, capsicum, etc.

SOMNIFACIENT or SOPORIFIC.--A medicine which produces drowsiness and
sleep, as morphine, chloral hydrate, potassium, bromide, etc.

SORBEFACIENT.--A medicine used to produce abortion, as ergot.

SPECIFIC.--A medicine or agent which has a distinct curative influence
on an individual disease, as potassium iodide in actinomycosis (Lumpy
Jaw) or oxygen in milk fever, etc.

STIMULANT.--A medicine which quickens or increases functional activity,
as strychnine, ammonium carbonate, alcohol, etc.

STOMACHIC.--A medicine which increases functional activity of the
stomach, as quassia gentian, etc.

STOMATIC.--A medicine used in diseases of the mouth, as boric acid,
potassium chlorate, alum, etc.

SUPERFACIENT.--A medicine causing unconsciousness from which the patient
can be roused, as opium, bromide of potassium, etc.

STYPTIC.--An agent that checks bleeding by causing contraction of the
blood vessels, as tincture chloride of iron, ergot, etc.

SUCCEDANEUM.--A medicine which may be substituted for another possessing
similar properties, as chloral hydrate for potassium bromide, or aloes
for linseed oil, etc.

SUDORIFIC.--A medicine or agent which produces an increased quantity of
perspiration (sweat) as ginger, pilocarpine, Dover’s powders, etc.

SUPPURANT.--A medicine or agent promoting pus formation, as poultices,
cantharides, croton oil, etc.

SYNERGIST.--A medicine which co-operates or assists the action of
another, as chloroform with ether, cantharides with red iodide of
mercury, etc.

TAENICIDE.--A medicine which destroys tape worms, as extract of male
fern.

TAENIFUGE.--A medicine which expels tape worms, as areca nut, pumpkin
seed, oil of turpentine, etc.

TETANIC.--A medicine or agent which increases the irritation of the
spinal cord or muscles producing spasms, as strychnine, etc.

TONIC.--A medicine promoting nutrition and giving strength to the body,
as arsenic, cod liver oil, etc.

TOPIC or TOPICAL.--A substance or agent for external use, applied
locally, as a liniment.

TOXIC.--A condition produced by a poison, as a result of an over-dose of
medicine or the absorption of bacterial products.

TRICOPHYED.--A medicine promoting the growth of hair, as pilocarpine,
cantharides, capsicum, etc.

UTERINE.--A medicine acting upon the uterus, as ergot.

VEHICLE.--A medicine or agent used as a medium or base for the
administration of medicines, as syrups, oils, water, etc.

VERMICIDE.--A medicine which destroys parasitic worms, as turpentine,
iron sulphate, tobacco, creosote, etc.

VERMIFUGE.--A medicine which expels parasitic worms, as arecoline,
aloes, etc.

VESICANT.--A medicine which forms pustules containing white serum, as
cantharides.

VIRUS.--A poison of an infectious disease, especially one found in the
system of an animal suffering from an infectious disease, as hog
cholera, cowpox or rabies virus, etc.

VULNERARY.--Any medicine or compound used in the treatment of wounds, as
ointments, liniments, etc.




ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICINES


The following methods of administering medicines in order of their
rapidity of absorption, beginning with the method by which absorption is
most rapid, and following with those by which absorption is less rapid
and finally least rapid: 1. Intravenous, by injection into veins. 2. By
inhalation (volatile drugs). 3. Subcutaneous, by injection into
subcutaneous tissue. 4. Intratracheal, by injection into the trachea (or
wind pipe). 5. Oral, by the mouth. 6. Rectal, by the rectum. 7.
Inunction, by the skin. 8. Intramammary injections.




WHEN MEDICINES SHOULD BE ADMINISTERED


The curative effects of medicines may be restrained, changed in form or
prevented by untimely administration.

Medicines intended to act on the mucous membrane of the stomach should
only be given when that organ is empty. If distant parts are to be
affected in the most prompt and efficient manner and the medicine is
free from distinct irritating qualities, it should be taken on an empty
stomach; as when digestion is going on, the contents of the stomach are
acid in reaction and if alkalies are given combinations take place and
salts are formed. If alkalies are given before digestion begins,
diffusion of the acid-forming constituents of the blood takes place, and
in this way the acidity of the gastric juice is promoted; likewise acids
given before meals increase the diffusion of the alkaline constituents
of the blood.




METHODS OF ADMINISTERING MEDICINES


Drenching, bit, balling gun, capsule gun, bottle, dose syringe and
hypodermic syringe.

Anaesthetics administered in feed bags or proper inhaler.




TABLES USED IN PRESCRIPTION WRITING


APOTHECARIES OR TROY WEIGHT.

  20 Grains (Granum)                (Gr. or Grs.) = 1 Scruple.
   3 Scruples (Scrupulum)           (Sc.) = 1 Drachm (60 Grs.)
   8 Drachms (Drachma)              (ʒ) = 1 Ounce.
  12 Ounces (Uncia)                 (℥) = 1 Pound (℔)

In prescription writing the pound sign should not be used; always
express large quantities by ounces.


APOTHECARIES’ LIQUID MEASURE.

  60 Minims (Minimum)               (M. or Ms.) = 1 Fluid Drachm.
   8 Fluid Drachms (Fluid Drachma)  (fl. ʒ) = 1 Fluid Ounce.
  16 Fluid Ounces (Fluid Uncia)     (fl. ℥) = 1 Pint.
   2 Pints (Octarius)               (O.) = 1 Quart.
   4 Quarts or 8 Pints = 1 Gallon   (congius--C.)

In prescribing liquids the abbreviation for Quarts (Qts.) is never used.
If a quart is desired it is expressed as two pints (Oij).


APPROPRIATE EQUIVALENTS OF WINE UNITS IN DOMESTIC MEASURES.

  Teaspoon      = ʒi.
  Dessert spoon = ʒii.
  Table spoon   = ℥ss.
  Cup           = ℥iv.
  Tumbler       = ℥viii.




TABLES FOR REGULATING THE DOSES FOR YOUNG ANIMALS


HORSES.

  3 years old and upward, full dose.
  From 1¹⁄₂ years old to 3 years, ¹⁄₂ dose.
  From 9 to 18 months old, ¹⁄₄ dose.
  From 4¹⁄₂ to 9 months old, ¹⁄₈ dose.
  From 1 to 4¹⁄₂ months old, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.


CATTLE.

  2 years old and upward, full dose.
  From 1 to 2 years old, ¹⁄₂ dose.
  From ¹⁄₂ to 1 year, ¹⁄₄ dose.
  From 3 to 6 months, ¹⁄₈ dose.
  From 1 to 3 months, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.


SHEEP.

  2 years old and upward, full dose.
  From 1 to 2 years old, ¹⁄₂ dose.
  From ¹⁄₂ to 1 year, ¹⁄₄ dose.
  From 3 to 6 months, ¹⁄₈ dose.
  From 1 to 3 months, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.


PIGS.

  1¹⁄₂ years and upward, full dose.
  From 9 to 18 months old, ¹⁄₂ dose.
  From 4¹⁄₂ to 9 months, ¹⁄₄ dose.
  From 2¹⁄₂ to 4¹⁄₄ months, ¹⁄₈ dose.
  From 1 to 2¹⁄₂ months, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.


DOGS.

  From ¹⁄₂ to 1 year old, full dose.
  From 3 to 6 months, ¹⁄₂ dose.
  From 1¹⁄₂ to 3 months, ¹⁄₄ dose.
  From 20 to 45 days, ¹⁄₈ dose.
  From 10 to 20 days, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.


THE ART OF PRESCRIBING

The prescription should be as brief and simple as possible. It should be
explicit and clearly written. It may be expressed either in Latin or in
English. The manner in which the medicine is to be used should be
specified. Important instructions as to the rule, systematic regulations
or diet of the patient are sometimes necessary.

Prescriptions usually contain two or more of the following four
representative constituents: (1) The _basis_ or active ingredients. The
practice of conjoining several active medicines has wisely been
abandoned. Occasionally, however, it may be advantageous to give
together two medicines producing their effects in somewhat different
ways. Thus, spasms of the bowels are more often effectually controlled
by the conjunction of a stimulant like ether and an anodyne like opium
than by either given alone. Pain which is not alleviated by either
morphine or atropine is sometimes abated by giving them together. (2)
The _adjuvant_ is introduced in order to increase, moderate or modify
the action of the basis. Frequently its chief object is to insure
solubility and ready absorption. (3) A _corrective_ is occasionally
required to temper the effects of the basis. Thus a small dose of opium
is prescribed with oil or other laxative in cases of diarrhoea; ginger
is generally added to the aloetic mass to prevent its griping. (4) The
_vehicle_ generally consists of some comparatively inert substance,
added to facilitate administration, such as the treacle, linseed meal or
licorice powder used as an excipient for boluses and pills, the
benzoated lard or vaseline used for making ointments, and the water
given in drenches.

Example:

  ℞
    Barb. Aloes                  ℥i.
    Calomel                      ʒi.
    Ginger                       ʒii.
    Molasses                     ℥ss.
  M. et fiat massa, in bolus 1.
    Sig. Give at once.
                                --John Jones.

In the above prescription aloes is the basis; calomel as an adjuvant,
ginger as a corrective, molasses as an excipient.

       *       *       *       *       *

A prescription is composed of several parts, which may be considered as
follows:

  1. Heading.
  2. Names and quantities of drugs.
  3. Directions to compounder.
  4. Directions to attendant.
  5. Signature of writer.

  1. For Gray Tom. July 22, 1916.
    ℞
      { Cupri sulph.,
  2.  { Ferri. sulph. exsic., aa. ℥iss.
      { Pulv. belladonna fol.,
      { Pulv. gentian rad. aa. ℥iii.
  3. M. Ft. Chart No. XII.
  4. Sig.--One powder three or four times daily in syrup.
                                                    --John Jones.




ABBREVIATIONS


PRESCRIPTION WRITING.

Words, phrases and abbreviations commonly used in prescription writing.

  ℞--means take thou.
  M.--Misce, mix.
  Fiat--make.
  Ad.--add, to make.
  Et.--means and.
  Sig.--Signa, label, or write thus.
  Numerus--number.
  O.--Octarius, a pint.
  Ter.--thrice.
  C. or Cong.--Congius, gallon.
  Dies.--diem, day.
  Q. S.--Quantum sufficiat. Sufficient quantity.
  Bene--well.
  q. s. ad.--quantity sufficient to make certain amount.
  Q. h.--quaqua-hora, every hour.
  aa.--ana. Of each.
  S.--Semis, means half.
  S. S.--Semi or Semissis means one-half.
  Cum.--with.
  Stat.--statim, immediately.
  B. I. D.--Bis in die. Twice daily.
  T. I. D., or T. D.--three times daily, Ter in die.
  Q. D.--quarter in die; four times daily.
  P. Æ.--Partes æquales, equal parts.
  Div.--divide.
  Gtt.--Guttæ, drops.
  Grs.--Grains.
  ʒ--Drachma, dram.
  ℥--Uncia, ounce.
  M.--Minims about a drop.
  ℈--Scruple.
  M. ft.--mistura fiat; let a mixture be made.
  Pil.--Pilula; pill.
  Destil.--Destilla; distill.
  Liq.--liquor a solution.
  Pulv.--Pulvis; powder.
  Fl.--fluidus, fluid.
  Bol.--Bolus, large pill.
  Cola--strain.
  Filtra--filter.
  Capsula--cap. A capsule.
  Charta--chart. A paper (medicated).
  Dosis--Dos. A dose.
  Massa--Mass. A pill--mass.
  Unguentum--Ungt. An ointment.
  Syrups--Syr. A syrup.
  Vinum.--Vin. A wine.
  Aqua fontana--Aq. font.--Spring water.
  Aqua destillata--Aq. dest.--Distilled water.




ACIDUM BORICUM--BORACIC ACID--BORIC ACID


DERIVATION.--Made by evaporation and crystallization of a solution
obtained by passing steam issuing from rocks in volcanic regions of
Italy, through water; or by the action of hydrochloric or sulphuric
acids upon borax. Recovered by filtration and recrystallization.

PROPERTIES.--Transparent colorless scales, of a somewhat pearly luster,
six-sided tricline crystals, or a light white, very fine powder,
slightly unctuous to the touch; odorless, having a faintly bitterish
taste, and permanent in air. Soluble in water, alcohol, glycerine, etc.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 drs.; foals and calves, 20 to 30 grs.;
sheep and pigs, 30 to 40 grs.; dogs, 5 to 20 grs.


PREPARATIONS


GLYCERITUM BOROGLYCERINI--GLYCERITE OF BOROGLYCERIN

Composed of boric acid, 310 parts; glycerin to make 1,000; prepared by
heat (303° F.).

ACTIONS.--Boric acid is a non-volatile, non-irritating antiseptic,
deodorant and astringent, it arrests fermentation of minute organisms,
free of irritating effects in solution, when applied to wounds; it
lessens suppuration, and is as effective as carbolic acid; can be used
in any strength from the pure powder or saturated solution to the
mildest form.

USES.--Boric acid is indicated for all purposes for which an antiseptic
is used; it is used in diarrhoea in foals, calves and dogs, combined
with other drugs; it has a slightly astringent action of itself; it is
excreted in the urine, consequently would exert its influence on the
bladder in cystitis, cystic catarrh; 1 part in 800 prevents the
development of anthrax-bacilli; useful in skin diseases, also used in
keratitis and catarrhal and purulent conjunctivitis, six to ten grains
to the ounce, with atropine or cocaine when very painful. Useful in
distemper of dogs where the bowels are affected, as an antiseptic.
Boric acid is preferred to carbolic acid as an antiseptic for dogs. On
account of the paralyzing effect of carbolic acid on the nerves, it
hinders the healing of wounds to a certain extent, while the boracic
acid does not.

Boric acid may be applied pure to wounds and sores or mixed with other
suitable drugs as a dusting powder. Equal parts of boric acid and zinc
oxide make a cheap and effective healing powder; to an itching wound the
addition of an equal quantity of acetanilide increases its value. A
saturated solution (four per cent) is useful as a vaginal and uterine
douche and to flush the bladder in cystitis.




ACIDUM CARBOLICUM CRUDUM--CRUDE CARBOLIC ACID


DERIVATION.--A liquid consisting of several different constituents of
coal tar, particularly creosol and phenol, obtained by fractional
distillation.

PROPERTIES.--A nearly colorless, or reddish-brown liquid of a strong
disagreeable and creosote-like odor, and gradually turning darker on
exposure to the air and light. Soluble in fifteen parts of water.




PHENOL--ACIDUM CARBOLICUM--CARBOLIC ACID


DERIVATION.--Obtained from crude carbolic acid by agitation with caustic
soda, heating to 338° F., and adding hydrochloric acid. Then by
agitation with sodium chloride, digestion with calcium chloride, and
distillation at a temperature between 336° F. and 374° F. and finally by
crystallization.

PROPERTIES.--Phenol in its pure state is a solid at ordinary
temperatures, crystallizing in minute plates or long rhomboidal needles,
white or colorless, of a peculiar odor recalling that of creosote, and
an acrid burning taste. It is likely to be colored pinkish or brown
under the influence of light and air. Soluble in about 19.6 parts of
water, and very soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, glycerin, fixed
and volatile oils.

ACTIONS.--Phenol in large and undiluted doses is an irritant and
narcotic poison; it is used as an antiseptic, parasiticide, antiferment
and sometimes used as a local anaesthetic or anodyne in a 2 to 5 per
cent solution; also as a caustic, but should not be used as a caustic as
a burn from it heals very slowly.

USES.--Internally as a gastric sedative in small doses for vomiting in
dogs; is administered in various contagious and infectious diseases with
the view of preventing or arresting the development of micro-organisms;
it coagulates albumen, is not nearly so active as bichloride of mercury;
1 part to 500 parts of water prevents the growth of anthrax and other
bacilli. Full doses produce gastro-enteritis, and collapse, which may
end fatally; it is a muscular and nerve paralyzer, both internally and
externally, it kills by paralyzing the muscles of respiration and the
heart. It is chiefly eliminated from the system by the kidneys, giving
the urine a brownish color.

IN SURGERY.--A three to five per cent solution is used for washing out
wounds, a two to three per cent for hands, and for itching of the skin,
carbolic acid three or four drachms, glycerine two ounces to one pint of
water. Do not use over large surface on dogs and not at all on cats.

Phenol treatment for Tetanus, which has given very good results and I
would recommend one drachm in three ounces of water, injected
hypodermically in the region of neck and shoulder every two or three
hours until twelve injections were given and less frequently thereafter.

DOSES.--Of the phenol: Horses and cattle, 10 to 40 grs.; sheep and pigs,
5 to 10 grs.; dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 gr., well diluted.

TOXICOLOGY.--Dogs and cats are especially susceptible to the action of
carbolic acid, therefore great care must be exercised when washing,
especially cats, with any preparation containing carbolic acid.
Disinfecting and deodorizing cat’s quarters with any preparation
containing carbolic acid makes them sick.

ANTIDOTE.--Sulphates of soda or magnesia. Atropine sulphate
hypodermically is a very valuable antidote. Alcohol and vinegar have
been used with good results, both internally and externally.




ACIDUM SALICYLICUM--SALICYLIC ACID


An organic acid, existing naturally in combination in various plants,
but largely prepared synthetically from carbolic acid.

DERIVATION.--Made by passing carbonic dioxide through sodium carbolate
at a temperature of 428° F. (220° C.). 2 NaC₆H₅O (sodium carbolate) +
CO₂ = Na₂C₇H₄O₃ (sodium salicylate) + C₆H₆O (phenol). Sodium salicylate
is treated with hydrochloric acid when salicylic acid is precipitated.

PROPERTIES.--Light, fine, white, needle-shaped crystals, odorless,
having a sweetish, afterwards acrid taste; permanent in air. Soluble in
alcohol, ether and hot water; borax increases its solubility.

DOSE.--Horses, 2 to 6 drs.; cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; sheep, 1 to 2 drs.;
pigs, 30 to 40 grs.; dogs, 5 to 20 grs.; should be given well diluted;
large doses are recommended for fevers, but smaller doses more often
repeated in rheumatism.




SODII SALICYLAS--SODIUM SALICYLAS


DERIVATION.--Made by the action of salicylic acid on sodium carbonate.
The solution is filtered and heated to expel carbon dioxide.

PROPERTIES.--A white amorphous or crystalline powder or scales; odorless
and having a sweetish, saline taste. Permanent in air. Soluble in water,
alcohol and glycerine.

DOSE.--Same as for salicylic acid.




PHENYLIS SALICYLAS--PHENYL SALICYLATE (Salol)


DERIVATION.--Made by heating salicylic and carbolic acids with
phosphorous pentachloride.

PROPERTIES.--A white crystalline powder; odorless, or having a faintly
aromatic odor, and almost tasteless. Permanent in air. Insoluble in
water, soluble in ten parts of alcohol and readily soluble in
chloroform.

DOSE.--Same as for salicylic acid.

ACTIONS.--Salicylic acid, sodium salicylate and phenyl salicylate are
powerful antiseptic, anti-rheumatic, diaphoretic, cardiac depressant,
antiferment and antipyretic. Salicylic acid is in addition irritant and
astringent, continued in large doses is apt to derange digestion; best
to be administered on a full stomach.

USES.--For acute rheumatism, influenza, strangles and purpura where
there is much sloughing; also as a surgical wash, salicylic acid one
part, borax one part to thirty or forty parts of water. Salicylic acid
is a more powerful antiseptic than carbolic acid. Salicylic of soda is
freely antiseptic. Salicylic acid is highly recommended in intestinal
flatulence, given in two drachm doses with one ounce of aromatic spirits
of ammonia. In gastric-flatulence give two drachms in capsule, repeat in
half hour if necessary.




ACONITUM--ACONITE--MONKSHOOD


DERIVATION.--Aconite is obtained from the root of aconitum napellus,
which grows in Northwestern North America, Europe and Asia in
mountainous regions, and cultivated in the United States for its
beautiful flowers.

PROPERTIES.--The fresh leaves have a faint narcotic odor, most sensible
when they are rubbed. Their taste is at first bitterish and herbaceous,
afterwards burning and acrid, with a feeling of numbness and tingling on
the inside of the lips, tongue and fauces, which is very durable,
lasting sometimes many hours. When long chewed they inflame the tongue.
The dried leaves have a similar taste, but the acrid impression
commences later. Their sensible properties and medical activity are
impaired by long keeping. They should be of a green color, and free from
mustiness. The root has a feeble earthy odor. Though sweetish at first,
it has afterwards the same effect as the leaves upon the mouth and
fauces. It shrinks much in drying and becomes darker, but does not lose
its acrimony. Those parcels, whether of leaves or roots, should always
be rejected which are destitute of this property. Aconite root is
officially described as being “slenderly conical, 4 to 10 cm. long, 10
to 20 mm. thick at the crown; occasionally split; longitudinally
wrinkled; dark brown and marked with coarse whitish root-scars; fracture
short, horny or mealy; internally whitish or light brown; the cambium
zone irregular and 5 to 7-angled; odor very slight; taste sweetish, soon
becoming acrid and developing a tingling sensation, followed by
numbness.”

Preparations of the leaves are not official in the U. S. P. The root is
five times stronger than the leaves.

CONSTITUENTS.--The alkaloid representing the action of the drug is
aconitine, which is precipitated by ammonia from an aqueous solution of
an alcoholic extract of the root of various species. It is a colorless,
crystalline or amorphous, gray powder, almost insoluble in water, and
soluble in 22 parts of alcohol, in 44 parts of ether and 1 part of
chloroform. Its salts are soluble in water. Aconitine or its solutions,
unless very dilute, are too poisonous to be tasted.

Commercial preparations vary in purity and strength, and since it is
extremely poisonous its internal administration is undesirable.
Pseudo-aconitine, aconitine and other alkaloids in combination with
aconitic acid have been obtained from aconite, but their identity and
chemistry are uncertain.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 3 to 20 grs.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 3 grs.;
dogs, ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₁₁ gr.


PREPARATIONS


FLUIDEXTRACTUM ACONITI--FLUIDEXTRACT OF ACONITE

Made by maceration and percolation with alcohol and water and
evaporation. Assayed so that each 100 c. c. contains 0.4 gm. aconitine.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 5 to 20 m.; sheep and pigs. 2 to 5 m.; dogs,
¹⁄₁₀ to 1 m.


TINCTURA ACONITI--TINCTURE ACONITE

Made by maceration and percolation of aconite, 100; with alcohol and
water to make 1000.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 20 m. to 1 dr.; sheep and pigs, 10 to 20 m.;
dogs, 2 to 10 m.

Fleming’s Tincture (non-official) (79 per cent).

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 8 to 20 m.; dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 2 m.


ACONITINA--ACONITINE

Not used to any extent in veterinary practice; is very unreliable and
varying in strength. Aconitine often contains a considerable proportion
of aconite and benzaconine, and so varies in activity, which is a great
objection to the use of one of the most powerful drugs known.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₃₀ to ¹⁄₅ gr.; dogs, ¹⁄₂₀₀ to ¹⁄₁₀₀ gr.
subcutaneously.

Actions of aconite, its preparations and derivative are anodynes and
sedatives, acting specially on the peripheral endings of the sensory
nerves, on the heart and on respiration. Aconite kills by respiratory
arrest.

Its physiological actions as a cardiac and respiratory sedative renders
it a febrifuge; it is also diaphoretic and diuretic. It is prescribed in
acute febrile conditions, and in the earlier stages of acute local
inflammation. It is used topically to relieve pain.

GENERAL ACTIONS.--Locally applied, in virtue of its action on sensory
nerves, aconite produces first irritation, tingling and twitching and
subsequently numbness and anesthesia. The tincture of aconite is
rapidly absorbed and quickly passed into the tissues, as is shown by
the blood of a poisoned dog five minutes after the drug has been
administered, being transferred into the veins of another dog without
producing the physiological action of the poison.

TOXIC EFFECTS.--One and one-half drachm of the tincture (equal to about
one drachm of aconite root) is given as the minimum fatal dose for the
horse, one-half drachm will occasionally cause very serious symptoms and
where an idiosyncrasy exists as little as fifteen minims will cause
toxic symptoms.

It causes great muscular weakness, dimness of sight; pupil at first may
be dilated or contracted, but as the end approaches remains dilated;
shallow irregular and labored respiration, a slow and small pulse,
becoming rapid and imperceptible near the end. Gulping, frothy saliva,
flatulence, belching, retching, nausea, etc. There is often a peculiar
clicking sound made from the constant attempts at swallowing.

Coldness of surface, clammy sweat, anxious countenance, extreme weakness
of the extremities, lowering of temperature 2 to 3 degrees, abolishment
of sensation, reflexes and motility and finally death from paralysis of
the heart and respiration, with or without convulsions, consciousness
being preserved until near the end, when carbon dioxide narcosis sets
in.

USES.--It antagonizes the fever process, when properly used is a most
valuable drug; it is indicated in all affections, characterized by high
resisting pulse, dry, hot skin and elevated body temperature; is useful
in acute throat affections as laryngitis, pharyngitis and perotiditis,
in small doses often repeated. Indicated in acute inflammation of the
organs of respiration. For pleurisy and perotiditis, at the outset, give
aconite with opium. Aconite is indicated in simple fevers or in
puerperal fever, inflammation of the brain; in acute or inflammatory
rheumatism, in acute local inflammation, as arthritis or inflammation
resulting from bruises, sprains, etc.

In lymphangitis, laminitis and enteritis, if called in first stages of
enteritis give 20 ms. of aconite and repeat with 10 or 15 ms. every hour
and between times gives fluid extract of belladonna 15 to 20 ms. every
hour and externally woolen blankets wrung out of hot water and wrapped
around the body.

In mammitis is also useful in large doses, combined with phytolacca; in
spasmodic colic brought on by drinking cold water, give 30 to 60 ms. of
the tincture of aconite with other colic mixture; in congestion of the
bowels or liver, or in congestion of any part, small repeated doses are
better than large ones. It is also advantageously used in lung
disorders.




AETHER--ETHER--PURE ETHER


A liquid composed of about 96 per cent, by weight, of absolute ether or
ethyl oxide, and about 4 per cent of alcohol containing a little water.

DERIVATION.--Prepared by distillation of alcohol with sulphuric acid.
There are two steps in the production of ether; sulphorvinic acid and
water are formed in the first step. Sulphorvinic acid is then further
acted upon by alcohol. The distillate is freed from water by agitation
with calcium oxide and chloride and subjected to redistillation.

PROPERTIES.--A transparent, colorless, mobile liquid, having a
characteristic odor and a burning and sweetish taste. Ether is highly
volatile and inflammable; its vapor, when mixed with air and ignited,
explodes violently. Miscible in all proportions with alcohol,
chloroform, benzine, benzol, fixed and volatile oils. Ether is a solvent
for fats, oils, alkaloids, resins, gutta percha and guncotton. Upon
evaporation ether should have no residue. Ether vapor is heavier than
air and consequently etherization should never be done above a light or
fire.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 1 to 2 ozs.; sheep and pigs, 2 to 4 drs.;
dogs, 10 ms. to 1 dr.

As an anaesthetic, horses and cattle require from 4 to 16 ozs. Smaller
animals from 4 drs. to 4 ozs. Chloroform is usually prescribed for
large animals and ether for smaller animals. Ether never paralyzes a
healthy heart, while chloroform sometimes does. For anaesthetic purposes
see anesthesia.


PREPARATIONS


SPIRITUS AETHERIS--SPIRIT OF ETHER

Composed of ether, 325 parts, alcohol to make 1000.

DOSE.--Same as ether.


SPIRITUS AETHERIS COMPOSITUS--COMPOUND SPIRIT OF ETHER--HOFFMAN’S
ANODYNE

Composed of ether, 325 parts; alcohol, 650 parts; ethereal oil, 25
parts.

DOSE.--Same as for ether.

ACTIONS.--Ether is anodyne, antispasmodic, diaphoretic, anthelmintic; a
cardiac, respiratory and cerebral stimulant, an anesthetic and a
narcotic poison; one of the best and quickest acting, diffusible,
general stimulants, acting on the heart reflexly from the stomach. It is
a powerful secretory stimulant, acting especially on the secretions of
the stomach, salivary glands and pancreas. On the cerebrum and the motor
and sensory nerves, its actions are similar to that of alcohol, but more
prompt and less protracted; it is eliminated quickly, chiefly by the
lungs.

When inhaled, it first causes irritation of the fauces, a sense of
strangulation and cough, then a stage of excitement in which the visible
mucous membranes are flushed and the respiration and pulse quickened; a
convulsive stage generally follows, with rigid muscles and respiration
stertorous; this subsides and complete insensibility is established, the
muscles being relaxed and the reflexes abolished; in fact all of the
functions of the body are suspended, except respiration and circulation.

If the inhalation be continued these too become paralyzed, death usually
resulting from slow paralysis of respiration (chloroform paralyzes
quickly); the heart pulsating long after breathing has ceased. Atropine
hypodermically is the best antagonist to the toxic effects of ether,
also artificial respiration and injections of brandy.

USES OF ETHER.--When mixed with alcohol, as the spirit, ether mixes
readily with water. It is excellent in indigestion with flatulence; it
checks gastric fermentation, expels the gas and overcomes irregular and
violent gastro-intestinal movements; hence, is also very good in
spasmodic colic. In spasmodic colic, best to combine with cannabis
indica or belladonna. When used as a vermifuge it should be followed by
a purge. Used diluted one to ten to dislodge worms in the rectum. A most
reliable remedy for collapse. Ether and alcohol are indicated in
parturient paresis, ether with aqua ammonia may be used intravenously
when the cow is unable to swallow. Sulphuric ether and alcohol or whisky
are also good in parturient eclampsia of bitches, though aromatic spirit
of ammonia is better; for chills, spirit of nitrous ether; also useful
in convalescence from debilitating disease. Ether is a very good remedy
in Thumps. Ether may be used for local anesthesia, applied as a spray,
from an atomizer, about one ounce, usually being enough for the painless
opening of abscesses or fistulae, but cocaine is better in our patients.
_As an anesthetic_ it should be used in preference to chloroform, for
the smaller and young animals, especially dogs, which are easily killed
by chloroform. Ether is less prompt in action but much safer than
chloroform, as it never paralyzes a healthy heart; it should be inhaled
in as concentrated a form as possible, very little air being allowed, so
it will exert its effects quickly, in the dog; a light or fire of any
kind should not be allowed near, as ether is very inflammable and its
vapor explosive. Always have a bottle of aqua ammonia fort. at hand as a
restorer.




ALCOHOL


Alcohol is derived directly from fruit sugar, and indirectly from
starch. The grains, as wheat, rye, corn; and potatoes, supply starch
most economically. The starch in these substances is converted into
glucose by heating with very dilute sulphuric acid, or by fermentation
with malt. Glucose is further acted upon by yeast containing the Torula
cerevisiae, which converts 15 per cent of glucose into alcohol and
carbonic dioxide. The weak alcohol resulting is subjected to repeated
distillation until sufficiently pure and concentrated. In the natural
fermentation of fruit sugar in grape juice, during the formation of
wine, the amount of alcohol is self-limited to 15, rarely 20 per cent,
since the ferment is killed by a larger amount of alcohol than this.

DERIVATION.--The official alcohol is derived from rectified spirits, by
maceration, first with anhydrous potassium carbonate, then freshly fused
calcium chloride, and finally by distillation.

PROPERTIES.--A liquid composed of about 92.3 per cent, by weight, or
94.9 per cent, by volume, of ethyl alcohol (C₂H₅OH) and about 7.7 per
cent, by weight, of water (U. S. P.). A transparent, colorless, mobile
and volatile liquid, of a characteristic rather agreeable odor and a
burning taste. Specific gravity about .816 at 15.6° C. (60° F.).
Miscible with water in all proportions and without any trace of
cloudiness. Also miscible with ether chloroform. It is readily volatile
at low temperature, and boils at 78° C. (172.4° F.). It is inflammable
and burns with a blue flame.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 1 to 3 oz.; sheep and pigs, 2 to 4 dr.; dogs,
1 to 2 dr. Diluted four to six times its bulk of water.


PREPARATIONS


ALCOHOL ABSOLUTUM--ABSOLUTE ALCOHOL

Ethyl alcohol, containing not more than one per cent, by weight, of
water.

DERIVATION.--Percolation of the purest alcohol through quicklime, out of
contact with the air, and redistillation in vacuo.

PROPERTIES.--Transparent, colorless, mobile and volatile liquid, of a
characteristic rather agreeable odor and a burning taste. Very
hydroscopic. Specific gravity not higher than 0.797 at 15.6° C. (60°
F.).


SPIRITUS FRUMENTI--WHISKY

DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid obtained by the distillation of the
mash of fermented grain (usually of mixtures of corn, wheat and rye) and
at least four years old.

PROPERTIES.--An amber-colored liquid having a distinctive odor and
taste, and a slightly acid reaction. Its specific gravity should not be
more than 0.945, nor less than 0.924, corresponding, approximately, to
an alcoholic strength of 37 to 47.5 per cent, by weight, or 44 to 55 per
cent, by volume. Contains no more than traces of fusel oil. The
alcoholic liquors owe their flavor to bouquet to ethers which are only
developed in course of time. The amylic alcohol, or fusel oil, in whisky
is therefore converted into ethers, which give the characteristic flavor
to whisky.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 oz.; sheep and swine, 1 to 2 oz.; dogs,
1 to 4 dr., diluted three to four times its bulk in water.


SPIRITS VINI GALLICI--BRANDY

DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid obtained by the distillation of the
fermented unmodified juice of fresh grapes, and at least four years old.

PROPERTIES.--A pale amber-colored liquid, having a distinctive odor and
taste and a slightly acid reaction. Its specific gravity should not be
more than 0.941, nor less than 0.925 at 15.6° C. (60° F.),
corresponding, approximately, to an alcoholic strength of 39 to 47 per
cent, by weight, or 46 to 55 per cent, by volume, of absolute alcohol.

DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.


SPIRITUS JUNIPERI COMPOSITUS--COMPOUND SPIRIT OF JUNIPER

DERIVATION.--Oil of juniper, 8; oil of caraway, 1; oil of fennel, 1;
alcohol, 1,400; water to make 2,000.

Compound spirit of juniper is similar to gin in its therapeutic action.
Contains about 15 per cent more alcohol. Gin is made by distillation of
fermented malt and juniper berries. Gin differs from the other alcoholic
preparations therapeutically in being more diuretic.

DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.


RUM (not official)

Rum is made from a fermented solution of molasses by distillation. It
contains, by weight, from 40 to 50 per cent of absolute alcohol. Rum
does not differ physiologically from alcohol. There is no authoritative
Latin name for rum.

DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.


VINUM ALBUM--WHITE WINE

DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid made by fermenting the juice of fresh
grapes, the fruit of Vitis vinifera, free from seeds, stems and skins.

PROPERTIES.--A pale amber or straw-colored liquid, having a pleasant
odor, free from yeastiness and a fruity, agreeable, slightly spirituous
taste, without excessive sweetness or acidity. The Pharmacopoeia (1890)
directs that the wine should contain from 7 to 12 per cent, by weight,
of absolute alcohol. California Hock and Reisling, Ohio Catawba, Sherry,
Muscatel, Madeira or the stronger wines of the Rhine, Mediterranean and
Hungary come within the pharmacopoeial limits. Wines containing more
than 14 per cent of alcohol are usually fortified, i. e., have alcohol
or brandy added to them, and much imported Sherry and Madeira contain 15
to 20 per cent, by weight, of absolute alcohol.

DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.


VINUM RUBRUM--RED WINE

DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid made by fermenting the juice of fresh
colored grapes, the fruit of Vitis vinifera, in presence of their
skins.

PROPERTIES.--A deep red liquid, having a pleasant odor, free from
yeastiness, and a fruity moderately astringent, pleasant and slightly
acidulous taste, without excessive sweetness or acidity. Should contain
not less than 7 nor more than 12 per cent, by weight, of alcohol. Native
Claret, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Hungarian wines may be included within
the pharmacopoeial limits of vinum rubrum. Port (vinum portense) is
fortified with brandy during fermentation, and contains 15 to 25 per
cent, by weight, of absolute alcohol. Port is astringent from tannic
acid in the grapes, skin and stalks, or the astringency may be due to
logwood. Red wines are said to be rough, contain tannic acid and
therefore are astringents. Dry wines are those which contain little
sugar. The wines develop ethers with age and these improve their flavor
and action.

Champagne contains about 10 per cent of absolute alcohol and carbonic
acid gas, which acts as a local sedative upon the stomach. Ale, stout
and beers contain from 4 to 8 per cent of alcohol, together with bitters
and malt extracts.

Cider contains 5 to 9 per cent of absolute alcohol. Imported sherry (B.
P.) contains 15 to 20 per cent of absolute alcohol.

Alcohol is the solvent most commonly employed in pharmacy, dissolving
alkaloids, resins, volatile oils, balsams, oleo-resins, tannin, sugar,
some fats and fixed oils.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 3 to 6 oz.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 3 oz.; dogs,
2 dr. to 1 oz.

ACTIONS.--Alcohol is a cerebral excitant and finally becomes a
depressant and a narcotic poison.

It is anesthetic, antiseptic, antiparasitic, rubefacient (if confined),
mild astringent, coagulate albumen; a local refrigerant by virtue of its
rapid evaporation, unless confined by bandage, oiled silk, etc., when it
is absorbed by the tissues and causes a sensation of warmth.

In medical doses it is a powerful general stimulant; it is very
diffusible, and is partly oxidized by the organism, and partly excreted;
thus alcohol acts as a food.

Small doses relax the blood vessels, stimulate the gastric glands,
promote appetite and digestion; lessen the elimination of waste
products, by preventing rapid tissue waste; causes a feeling of warmth,
and temporarily, though slightly, raises the body temperature. It
stimulates the heart and increases the functional activity of all
organs, especially the kidneys and skin.

Large or too long continued doses derange the appetite and digestion,
congest or inflame the stomach and liver. Eight ounces of alcohol killed
a horse. Alcohol is poisonous and should be used with caution.

USES.--Are numerous, used principally as a stimulant, either in one
large dose, 2 to 3 ounces of alcohol, or better, in small repeated
doses, 1 ounce every 1, 2 or 3 hours, can be conjoined with other
stimulants such as sulphuric ether, aromatic spirits of ammonia,
digitalis, etc.

It is used in anesthetic mixtures, such as alcohol, ether and
chloroform, combined in different proportions; in snake bites it is
administered in very large doses.

In blood poisoning alcohol is a most potent drug, sustaining the heart,
lowering the temperature and acting as a germicide. Alcohol makes an
excellent dressing for wounds; applied locally to threatened bed-sores,
frequently prevents their formation. It is useful in colds at their
outset, or in a chill to restore the balance of the circulation and
prevent or overcome internal congestion by relaxing the blood vessels of
the periphery.

All alcoholic liquors are useful in debilitating diseases, such as
influenza, in two or three ounce doses repeated every three or four
hours. One-half to one drachm of quinine to one ounce of alcohol, for
influenza or febrile diseases in general, excepting brain and spinal
disease; useful in convalescence. In colic alcohol can be used with a
great degree of success; it will act as a carminative antispasmodic and
stimulant, used in collapse and weak heart; in septicaemia and pyaemia
it has notable antiseptic and antipyretic effects. Useful in carbolic
acid poisoning, alcohol, or alcoholic liquors, act as a chemical
antidote besides overcoming the shock produced by the acid. It may also
be used locally for carbolic acid burns.

The effects of alcohol are noticed in ten or fifteen minutes after
administration and will be shown by a better condition of the pulse, the
weak pulse becoming stronger and firmer; the quick pulse slower, the
breathing becomes more natural, eyes brighten up and in fact a general
improvement is shown.

Externally alcohol is used alone as a strengthening application to weak
tendons and muscles; or after a race, is used to rub on the legs,
combined with other drugs as a liniment, as alcohol, soap-liniment and
witch hazel; can be used in surgery as an antiseptic.

To toughen the skin of tender or thin skinned horses who gall or chafe
easily under the collar and saddle, alcohol will be found a most
satisfactory application.




ALOE BARBADENSIS--BARBADOES ALOES


The thickened juice of the leaves of Aloe vera, Linn., Aloe chinensis,
Bak., and probably other species, evaporated to dryness.

HABITAT.--The Barbadoes Island.

PROPERTIES.--In hard masses, orange, brown, opaque, translucent on the
edges; fracture waxy or resinous; odor saffron-like; taste strongly
bitter. Almost entirely soluble in alcohol; most used in veterinary
medicine.

CONSTITUENT.--Aloin; a resin; volatile oil; gallic acid.

DOSE.--Horses, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; cattle, 1 to 2 oz.; sheep, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.;
pigs, 2 to 4 dr.; 20 gr. to 1 dr.




ALOE SOCOTRINA--SOCOTRINE ALOES


The juice that flows from the transversely cut leaves of Aloe Perryi,
Baker, evaporated to dryness.

HABITAT.--Eastern Africa.

PROPERTIES.--In hard masses, occasionally soft in the interior; opaque,
yellowish-brown, orange-brown or dark ruby-red, fracture resinous. When
moistened it emits a fragrant saffron-like odor; taste peculiar,
strongly bitter. Almost entirely soluble in alcohol and four parts of
boiling water. The powdered socotrine aloes is brighter and redder, and
the odor less disagreeable than that of Barbadoes Aloes.

CONSTITUENTS.--About the same as Barbadoes Aloes.

DOSE.--Same as Barbadoes Aloes.




ALOINUM--ALOIN


A neutral principle obtained from several varieties of aloes, chiefly
from Barbadoes and Socotrine Aloes.

DERIVATION.--Obtained by pulverizing and macerating aloes in cold water,
and evaporating the resulting solution in vacuo. Aloin crystallizes out
and is dried between folds of bibulous paper. It is purified by repeated
solution in hot water, filtration, recrystallization, and finally by
solution in hot alcohol and crystallization.

PROPERTIES.--A micro-crystalline powder or minute acicular crystals,
lemon yellow or dark yellow in color, possessing a slight odor of aloes
and intensely bitter taste. Soluble in water and alcohol.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 3 dr.; sheep, 20 to 60 gr.; pigs, 10 to
40 gr.; dogs, 11 to 20 gr.; combined with other purgatives.


PREPARATIONS


TINCTURA ALOES ET MYRRHAE--TINCTURE OF ALOES AND MYRRH

Made by maceration and percolation of purified aloes, 100 parts; myrrh,
100 parts, and liquorice root, with alcohol and water to make 1000.

DOSE.--Dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.

ACTION.--Aloes is a purgative, acting chiefly on the large intestines;
small doses are bitter tonics; it stimulates both peristalsis and
secretion, increases secretion of bile; is also diuretic; applied
externally it is stimulant and desiccant; the Barbadoes is the most
active and uniform in its effects.

Aloes should be kept in lumps in tin cans or other good containers, only
powdered for immediate use; in melting aloes don’t let the temperature
rise above 120 degrees as it impairs the activity by converting the
active aloin into inert resin. Aloes operate in from 12 to 24 hours
after administration; don’t repeat an aloetic purge until 24 hours have
elapsed. It also does not cause catharsis. In about 15 hours, the
patient should be exercised, but returned to the stall as soon as the
desired effect is evident. If it fails to act in 24 hours, linseed oil
may be given. Aloin appears to contain the active principles of aloes,
and is usually as operative, but some manufactures are ineffective.

USES INTERNAL.--In dyspepsia with capricious appetite, irregularity of
the bowels, hide-bound horses, worms; is used in colic, both spasmodic
and flatulent, for overloaded condition of the bowels; to promote
excretion of waste products from the bowels and the blood, and
consequently relieve febrile symptoms; rheumatic attacks, skin
irritation, swollen limbs and inflamed joints; in lymphangitis to
prevent and aid in curing. By attracting the blood to the bowels, it is
useful in congestion or inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, full
doses being necessary; in paralysis, paraplegia or hemiplegia or
reflexed paralysis due to indigestion, give full doses. Aloes should not
be used in irritation or inflammation of the alimentary canal or piles.
It is not advisable to give an aloetic purge when the temperature is
above 102° F. Nor in hemorrhage from the rectum; in high fevers it is
apt to cause superpurgation, also should not be used where there is
great debility or weakness. In influenza the bowels are apt to be
irritable and oil is preferable to aloes. Don’t use during pregnancy;
may cause abortion. For young foals or other animals, the gentler
purgative, such as linseed or castor oil should be used. The medical
value of aloes being large, it is impossible to enumerate all the
diseases in which it is useful. Externally the tincture of aloes and
myrrh is sometimes applied as a stimulant to wounds, and powdered aloes
is mixed with plaster of paris in making splints for dogs to prevent
these animals from biting and tearing them off. Internally aloes should
be combined with ginger, nux vomica and given in capsule or bolus.




ALUMEN--ALUM


DERIVATION.--From alum slate, shale, schist, a native mixture of
aluminum silicate and iron sulphide. This is roasted and exposed to the
air, when the sulphur is oxidized into sulphuric acid and combined in
part with aluminum and iron to form sulphates. The mass is lixiviated
with water, and aluminum and iron sulphates together with sulphuric acid
are recovered in solution. The solution is concentrated and to it is
added potassium chloride. The double sulphate of potassium and aluminum
(alum) is formed, which crystallizes out on cooling, while potassium
sulphate and ferric chloride remain as by-products. Alum is purified by
recrystallization.

PROPERTIES.--Large, colorless, octahedral crystals, sometimes modified
by cubes or crystalline fragments; without odor, but having a sweetish
and strongly astringent taste. On exposure to the air the crystals are
liable to absorb ammonia and acquire a whitish coating. Soluble in nine
parts of water, insoluble in alcohol.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 dr.; sheep and pigs, 20 gr. to 1 dr.;
emetic for dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.


ALUMEN EXSICCATUM--DRIED ALUM

Commonly termed burnt alum, is alum deprived of its water of
crystallization by heat.

PROPERTIES.--A white granular powder, odorless, having a sweetish
astringent taste, soluble in twenty parts of water at 60° F. Is a
powerful astringent and escharotic.


ALUMINI HYDROXIDUM--ALUMINUM HYDROXIDE

DERIVATION.--Made from alum, 100 parts; monohydrate sodium carbonate, 43
parts; water, a sufficient quantity. Mix hot, boiling solutions of alum
and sodium carbonate. Precipitate strained, washed and dried.

PROPERTIES.--A white, light, amorphous powder; odorless and tasteless;
permanent in dry air; insoluble in water or alcohol.

DOSE.--Same as alum.


ALUMINI SULPHAS--ALUMINUM SULPHATE

DERIVATION.--Aluminum hydroxide is dissolved in diluted sulphuric acid,
and the solution is filtered and evaporated to dryness.

PROPERTIES.--A white, crystalline powder, without odor, having a
sweetish and afterwards astringent taste; permanent in the air; soluble
in one part of water; insoluble in alcohol.

DOSE.--Same as alum.

ACTIONS.--Astringent, at first excites flow of saliva, then markedly
decreases it; coagulates pepsin, thus it would derange or entirely
arrest digestion; it also stops peristalsis and produces constipation,
though sometimes it induces diarrhoea by irritation. It arrests
secretions in general and in the circulation contracts the capillaries;
it is in this way it arrests secretions, especially those of mucous
surfaces, and stops capillary hemorrhage. The sulphate of aluminum is
mildly caustic, astringent and antiseptic. Dried alum is caustic and
astringent.

EXTERNALLY.--Dried alum is a caustic, in contact with raw sores, on
account of its affinity for water. Alum has no action on unbroken skin,
but applied to mucous membranes or denuded parts it is antiseptic and
astringent; coagulates albumin of discharges; precipitates or coagulates
albumin of the tissues; squeeze blood out of the vessels; reduces
inflammation and makes the part whiter, brings together and denser. Alum
is a hemostatic, stopping bleeding by compression of the structures
surrounding the vessels and by causing blood to clot.

USES.--In diarrhoea and dysentery, but other astringents are safer and
better, as it may lock the bowels too tight, may be used in weeping
sores or weeping skin diseases; in long standing nail wounds by putting
one-half to one pound into the soaking tub, also in same way for injured
coronets, with raw bulging surfaces that bleed easily, also for sore
mouth, sometimes mix a little boric acid; useful in bleeding piles, and
in mild solution alum one ounce to water one pint for sore throat; also
used internally for bloody urine (haematuria) and for open joints apply
the powdered alum to arrest the flow of joint oil (synovia). For
catarrhal ophthalmia, after the acute stage, an alum lotion five grains
to one ounce of water is very serviceable; for granular lids rub with a
crystal of alum. Alum should never be used too strong over the eye as it
seems to have the power of dissolving the cornea; a solution containing
ten grains of alum to the ounce of water may be used in canker of the
ear of dogs; also for leucorrhoea and prolapsus of the rectum; dried
alum may be used as a caustic whenever a caustic is indicated, but is
not recommended for this purpose. For a powerful drying powder,
especially useful when excessive granulation exists. It causes sloughing
of the dead tissues and is indicated when the use of the knife is
inadmissible.




AMYLIS NITRIS--AMYL NITRITE


A liquid containing about 80 per cent of amyl nitrite, together with
variable quantities of undetermined compounds.

DERIVATION.--Obtained through distillation of nitric and amylic alcohol.
Distillate purified by sodium carbonate.

PROPERTIES.--A clear, yellow or pale yellow liquid, oily, very volatile,
peculiar and very diffusive ethereal odor and a pungent aromatic taste.
Insoluble in water, but soluble in all proportions in alcohol, ether and
chloroform.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.; sheep and pigs, 5 to 15 ms.;
dogs, 2 to 5 ms.; amyl nitrite is very seldom given internally;
hypodermically, one-half this dose. By inhalation, same as given
internally. It should be fresh as it rapidly deteriorates.

ACTIONS.--It stimulates the heart’s action, greatly dilates the
arterioles by paralyzing their muscular coats; causes a sense of
fullness in the brain with vertigo, fall of blood pressure due to
dilation of the arterioles, lowering of temperature; when the vapor is
applied direct to muscular or nerve tissues it suspends or completely
arrests its functional activity; it depresses the nervous system and
unstriped muscular fiber. Overdoses cause death by respiratory failure.

USES.--Epileptic attacks may be warded off by its being inhaled;
spasmodic asthma, used either internally, hypodermically or best by
inhalation; in strychnine poisoning, angina pectoris in tetanus, and as
a heart stimulant. It is useful as an inhalation in bringing about
recovery from deep chloroform and anesthesia.




ANISUM--ANISE


ORIGIN.--The anise plant is a native of Egypt and the Levant, but has
been introduced in various parts of that continent. It is also
cultivated occasionally in the gardens of this country. The fruit is
abundantly produced in Malta and Spain; in Romagna, in Italy, whence it
is largely exported through Leghorn, and in Central and Southern Russia.

DESCRIPTION.--Ovoid, laterally compressed, 4 to 5 m. m. long; carpels
usually cohering and attached to a slender pedicel; grayish or
greenish-gray to grayish brown; each with a flat face and five light
brown filiform ridges and about 16 oil-tubes; odor and taste agreeable
and aromatic. The anise berries are dried and ground, this being the
form in which it is usually used.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 1 to 2 oz.; sheep and pigs, 2 to 3 dr.; dogs,
10 to 30 gr.


OLEUM ANISI--OIL OF ANISE

A volatile oil distilled from the fruit of star anise.

PROPERTIES.--A colorless or pale yellow, thin and strongly refractive
liquid, having the characteristic odor of anise, and a sweetish, mildly
aromatic taste. Specific gravity about 0.975 to 0.985. Soluble in an
equal volume of alcohol.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 20 to 30 m.; sheep and pigs, 5 to 10 m.; dogs
and cats, 1 to 5 m.

ACTIONS.--Anise is an aromatic stimulant, stomachic and carminative. It
is used to relieve indigestion and flatulence, to communicate an
agreeable flavor to many medicines, and to diminish the griping of
purgatives. Oil of anise resembles in action other volatile oils.

USES.--The oil of anise is employed with olive oil or alcohol to kill
fleas or lice on dogs, rubbed over the skin; and one drop of the pure
oil may be placed on the feathers of fowl to cause destruction of lice.
The oil of anise is sometimes prescribed to disguise the odor of drugs,
and is ordered in cough mixtures for its expectorant properties.

The fruit is given all animals (generally powdered) on their
food--frequently with sodium bicarbonate and ginger--to relieve mild
forms of indigestion and flatulence through its stomachic and
carminative effects.




ANTIMONII ET POTASSII TARTARS--ANTIMONY AND POTASSIUM TARTRATE--TARTAR
EMETIC


DERIVATION.--Make a white paste with cream of tartar, antimony trioxide
and water. Set aside 24 hours, boil in water 15 minutes and crystallize.

PROPERTIES.--Colorless, transparent crystals of the rhombic system,
becoming opaque and white on exposure to the air, or a white granular
powder without odor and having a sweet, afterwards disagreeable,
metallic taste. Soluble in water, insoluble in alcohol.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 dr.; sheep, 2 to 5 gr.; pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1
gr.; dogs, ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₂ gr. As an emetic for pigs, 4 to 10 gr.; dogs, 1
to 2 gr.

ACTIONS.--Tartar emetic is a systemic and local emetic, a diaphoretic,
cardiac and arterial sedative and a gastro-intestinal irritant. It is a
powerful waste producer and stimulates the secretions of the stomach,
intestines, salivary glands, liver and pancreas. Large doses cause
nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, while toxic doses are followed by
vomiting (in animals that can vomit), serious blood purging, great
depression of the circulation and respiration weakness, collapse and
death. Tartar emetic is also a vermifuge.

USES.--Tartar emetic is too mild as an emetic in poison cases. In asthma
of dogs it may be used in from ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₂ grain doses to relax spasm
and promote secretion. For horses its most valuable use is to expel the
common round worms from the intestines, for which it is very
efficacious; given in two drachm doses once or twice daily in the feed
for four to six days, or one-half ounce dissolved in water is given on
an empty stomach followed by a full dose of linseed oil.




ANTIPYRINA--ANTIPYRIN


Phenyl-hydrazine is acted upon by aceto-acetic ether, when
phenyl-monomethyl-pyrazolon, ethyl alcohol and water results.

PROPERTIES.--Colorless, odorless, scaly crystals, of a bitterish taste.
Soluble in water, ether and chloroform.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 3 to 4 drs.; sheep and pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.;
dogs, 5 to 20 grs.

ACTIONS.--Powerful antipyretic, anodyne and local anesthetic,
antiseptic, cardiac depressant; it reduces temperature very quickly,
usually within half an hour and the effects continue two or more hours.
It can be administered by the mouth, hypodermically or intertracheally;
as an antiseptic it diminishes oxidation, and promotes heat loss by
dilating the cutaneous vessels, but more probably by depressing the
activity of the calorifacient centers.

USES.--Used in high fever where the temperature must be reduced quickly,
as in sun-stroke, acute rheumatism; in man a solution of antipyrine from
four to ten per cent strength up, is sprayed into the nostrils for
hay-fever. Acetanilide is a better and safer and much cheaper drug for
febrile diseases.




AQUA AMMONIAE FORTIOR--STRONGER AMMONIA WATER


An aqueous solution of ammonia containing twenty-eight per cent, by
weight of the gas.

DERIVATION.--Evolve ammonia gas by heating ammonium chloride with
calcium hydrate and pass it into water.

PROPERTIES.--A colorless, transparent liquid, having an excessively
pungent odor and a caustic alkaline taste.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 drs.; sheep and pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.;
dogs, 5 to 10 m. Should be diluted one drachm to one pint of water.


AQUA AMMONIAE--AMMONIA WATER

An aqueous solution containing ten per cent by weight of ammonia gas.

DERIVATION.--Same as strong ammonia water.

PROPERTIES.--The taste is not so caustic and the odor is less pungent
then the stronger water of ammonia.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 2 drs.;
dogs, 10 to 20 m. Should be diluted one drachm to half pint of water.


SPIRITUS AMMONIAE--SPIRIT OF AMMONIA

An alcoholic solution containing ten per cent., by weight of the ammonia
gas.

DERIVATION.--A solution of caustic ammonia in alcohol.

PROPERTIES.--A colorless liquid, having a strong odor of ammonia. This
preparation of ammonia possesses properties of ammonia and alcohol.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 2 drs.;
dogs, 10 to 20 m. Should be diluted in water.


SPIRITUS AMMONIAE AROMATICUS--AROMATIC SPIRIT OF AMMONIA

DERIVATION.--Ammonium carbonate 3.4%, aqua ammonia 9%, oil of lemon 1%,
oil of lavender flowers 0.1%, oil of nutmeg 0.1%, alcohol 70%, and
distilled water to make 100 parts. Diluted in water.

PROPERTIES.--A nearly colorless liquid when first prepared, but
gradually acquires an amber color. It has a pungent ammoniacal odor and
taste.

ACTIONS.--These four proportions of ammonia are gastric and general
stimulants. They stimulate the cardiac respiratory and spinal systems.
They irritate the nose when inhaled, but reflexly they stimulate the
circulation and respiration, they are good stimulants as they do not
affect the brain. The aromatic spirits of ammonia is also a carminative.
Externally they are rubefacients, and when confined are vesicants.

USES.--Its antacid and stimulant properties recommend ammonia in
indigestion, tympanites, and spasmodic colic, especially in cattle and
sheep. Stimulating the spinals and respiratory systems, it is valuable
in the treatment of influenza, pneumonia, pleurisy and similar
complaints. The fumes of ammonia are occasionally used to arouse animals
from shocks, collapse, or chloroform intoxication, but must be used
cautiously, lest excessive irritation of the respiratory mucous membrane
be produced. It is a promptly acting antidote in poisoning by opium,
aconite, digitalis, and ether narcotic and sedative drugs. It may be
administered much diluted in the usual way, injected subcutaneously and
intravenously, and also applied externally, in the treatment of
snake-bites. On account of its producing bronchial secretion, and
assisting in its expulsion, ammonia is serviceable as a stimulating
expectorant. To develop its more general effects its alcoholic
proportions should be prescribed as spirit of ammonia or the aromatic
spirit of ammonia. Externally used in the form of liniment of ammonia,
with oils, camphor, etc., proves useful as a stimulant in rheumatism,
stiff-joints, muscular strains, sore throat, pleurisy, pneumonia and
influenza, and for preventing the rapid chilling of fomented surfaces.
It relieves the irritation caused by nettles, and by bites and stings of
insects.


LINIMENTUM AMMONIAE--AMMONIA LINIMENT

Is made by mixing ammonia water, 350; cottonseed oil, 570; alcohol, 50;
oleic acid, 30. The above is recognized by the U. S. P. and is
advantageously used on muscular strains and where an external stimulant
is indicated.


LIQUOR AMMONII ACETATIS--SOLUTION OF AMMONIUM ACETATE

An aqueous solution of ammonium acetate containing about seven per cent
of the salt, together with small amounts of acetic acid and carbon
dioxide.

DERIVATION.--Ammonium carbonate is gradually added to cold, dilute
acetic acid until the latter is materialized.

PROPERTIES.--A clear, colorless liquid, mildly saline and acidulous
taste, and an acid reaction.

Incompatible with acids and alkalies.

DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 oz.; sheep and pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.;
dogs, 2 to 6 drs.

ACTIONS.--Diaphoretic, antipyretic, mild stimulant, mild diuretic, mild
expectorant and stomachic.

USES.--Its uses are recommended in febrile and inflammatory attacks,
especially in influenza, distemper, etc., combined with other medicines,
improves the appetite; can be used externally as a refrigerant over
swollen and inflamed tendons.


AMMONII CARBONAS--AMMONIUM CARBONATE

spring. The illumination showed a moldy chamber with water dripping from
the walls in places.

At some distant day the chamber had evidently been occupied by human
beings, for a great fire-place was cut in the rock at one end, and there
were niches in the wall which had doubtless been used for storage. The
floor was smooth, showing the work of human hands.

“Get onto the fire-place!” whispered Jimmie. “Where do you suppose the
smoke goes? There’s no chimney on the mountain.”

“Probably it escapes through some opening in the rock,” Ned answered.

“Do you suppose,” Jimmie asked, “that the smoke vent is large enough for
us to hide in?”

Before the words were out of the boy’s mouth, Ned was making toward the
fireplace. The light was out now, but Jimmie had no difficulty in
following the boy in the darkness.

“Ned!” he called softly in a moment.

“Come on up!” whispered Ned.

“Turn on the light, then,” Jimmie advised.

Ned switched on the electric, but kept it inside the chimney into which
he had climbed. Only a faint radiance reached the opening below.

“Give me your hand,” whispered Ned, “and I’ll give you a lift.”

The sound of voices and footsteps now echoed loudly through the cavern.
Lights were flashing here and there, and when Jimmie at last found
himself inside the chimney, he knew that the very room he had recently
left was being occupied by the outlaws.

The electric light was out again, and the boy groped with his hands in
the darkness. Much to his surprise they failed to locate his chum.

“Ned!” he called softly. “Where are you hiding?”

Jimmie heard a chuckle in the darkness and felt a hand on his shoulder.
Then Ned whispered in his ear:

“I guess I’ve stumbled on one of the hidden cells of the mission!” he
said. “Anyway there’s a hole leading out of this chimney that’s big
enough to keep house in.”

“We’ll be finding a train of cars and an East river ferryboat next,”
Jimmie chuckled. “We always do find something when we go away from camp.
If we don’t find anything else, we find trouble.”

It was thought safe, now, to turn on the electric light. The rays showed
a room perhaps twelve feet in size with furniture and furnishings of the
description of those in the chamber below. Although the apartment seemed
to be somewhere near the center of a lofty finger of rock which lifted
from the eastern slope of the mountain, the air was remarkably fresh and
pure.

“There’s an opening somewhere,” Ned suggested. “A shut-in room like this
would asphyxiate one if there were no ventilation.”

“Then I think we’d better be finding it!” Jimmie advised. “Just listen
to those fellows chewing the rag in the room we recently left!”

The boys remained perfectly silent, then, and listened. There seemed to
be several men in the chamber below, and two were talking in angry
tones. There were plenty of torches below, too, for the red flare and
the stink of them came into the boys’ hiding place by way of the
fire-niche below. This is what the boys heard:

“You can see for yourself, Huga,” a voice which Ned recognized as that
of Toombs, was saying, “that the boy is not here.”

“But I am certain I heard footsteps running in this direction when I
stood in the darkness before you men came in!” Huga answered. “He must
be in this chamber somewhere.”

“Look for yourself!” Toombs advised crossly.

“Isn’t there some hiding place in the walls?” asked Huga.

Ned nudged Jimmie as they heard this, and both moved farther back in the
hiding place. It will be understood how intently they listened for the
next sentence.

“You ought to know that,” Toombs answered; “you are supposed to know all
about this old mission, while I am fresh from Wall street.”

“I have never heard of any secret passage or room in this part of the
excavation,” the half-breed replied.

“Then stop arguing that the boy is here!” roared Toombs.

Huga made no reply, but the boys heard him poking about in the
fireplace. Presently a light flashed into the chimney.

“He’s after us now all right!” whispered Jimmie.

“Keep still, you little dunce!” Ned said.

“If he sticks his head up here, soak him!” advised Jimmie.

“Don’t you think I won’t,” Ned returned.

But Huga did not enter the huge old fireplace at all. When he flashed
his light into the chimney he saw only straight up, and the vertical
passage from the fire-flue was too small for even a small cat to
negotiate.

The chamber into which the boys had found their way was directly at the
back of the flue, and might have been seen by a more careful man. The
boys chuckled as the half-breed turned away.

In a few minutes the sounds of pursuit ceased entirely. Lights no longer
flashed about the room, creating a faint mist in the fireplace below.
Still the boys were not certain that the outlaws had abandoned the hunt.

“Say, Ned,” Jimmie whispered, directly, poking Ned in the ribs, “you
didn’t bring one of those bear steaks with you, did you?”

“Why, Jimmie,” Ned said in pretended amazement, “you’re not getting
hungry, are you? I’m astonished at that!”

“Hungry!” repeated the boy. “I feel as if I could eat my way through
this rock like a mouse eats through cheese! And I could drink a barrel
of water. There never was such a thirst.”

“Well,” Ned suggested, “we’d better wait here a little while, until
things get quieted down, and then make a break for the passage.”

“All right,” Jimmie said with an air of resignation, “I’ll crawl back
here in the corner and try to imagine that I’m in charge of a pie wagon
on Third avenue. Perhaps I can dream a pie or two!”

The boy leaned back in an angle of the chamber and prepared to continue
the discussion regarding the different kinds of pies sold at the old
Williams street corner. As he did so, the support of his back gave way,
his heels flew up in the air, and he tumbled all of a heap into a
passage which seemed to begin at that corner of the room.

Hearing the fall and the exclamation of impatience which came from the
boy’s lips, Ned turned on the electric and saw Jimmie lying on his back
in a tunnel probably a yard in size each way. There were plenty of
indications that the tunnel had been cut through solid rock.

As far as Ned could see; that is, as far as the eye of the electric
carried; there were no breaks in it. Directly a chill breeze blew in
from the opening, and the boy knew that the passage touched the surface
of the mountain not far away.

“Je-rusalem!” shouted Jimmie, “hold up the light and let me see if I’m
all here. That’s the second tumble I’ve got in this consarned old hole
today.”

“If every tumble you get in life brings such results as this,” Ned
declared, “you ought to go around the world looking for tumbles!”

“They hurt, just the same!” Jimmie declared, rubbing the back of his
head. “I got an awful bump on my coco!”

“Well, crowd along!” advised Ned.

“Crowd along?” repeated Jimmie. “What for?”

“Use your nose,” advised Ned.

Jimmie sniffed elaborately and hit Ned a resounding whack on the back.
Then he sat down on the bottom of the passage.

“Say, Ned, look here!” he said. “When we got into this scrape, we didn’t
look for any old Franciscan monks to help us out, did we? Two or three
hundred years ago, when they dug this passage through the rock, they
hadn’t any idea they were digging it for us, had they?”

“This is a mysterious world,” Ned answered. “It seems to be unnecessary
for us to plan any mode of escape. The wise old chap who formed the
Franciscan order in Europe, hundreds of years ago, prepared the way of
escape for us!”

“That’s what he did!” answered Jimmie. “And I wish he had gone a little
farther and prepared a good fat meat pie for us.”

“Jimmie,” Ned chuckled, “some day you’ll get into a corner where you
won’t get anything to eat for a week. I never knew a boy who thought so
much of his stomach as you do!”

“May the day be long delayed!” laughed Jimmie.

“Well, crawl along!” Ned advised, “and I’ll see if I can get this slab
of stone you pushed out back in its place.”

It was by no means a difficult task to replace the stone, as it was thin
and had been nicely fitted into the opening. In a short time the boys,
proceeding mostly on their hands and knees, came to the end of the
tunnel and looked out over a valley tucked in between two great summits.

The snow-line was not far away and the air was cold, notwithstanding the
direct rays of the sun.

There was no one in sight, no moving object anywhere, as the boys paused
at the mouth of the passage and gazed about. Judging from the location
of the sun, they were looking straight west.

“Now,” Ned said after a pause, “if we follow this little valley straight
to the south, we’ll come out somewhere near our camp.”

“Yes,” Jimmie answered, “I have a pious notion that our brownstone front
is carved into the face of a continuation of that ridge on the other
side of the little valley.”

“Perhaps we’ll find the Boy Scout messenger at the camp,” Ned suggested.

“If we do,” Jimmie declared, “I’ll change his face for him!”

“I can’t understand the fellow,” Ned admitted.

“Gee!” cried Jimmie, “He came out into the woods and told Frank and I to
beat it, then went up into the camp and led you into the clutches of
these outlaws. If I had his head in chancery right now, I’d ‘beat it’,
all right! He ought to get a thousand years!”

“I hope the boys are all safe,” said Ned.

Jimmie told his chum of the arrival of Gilroy, and then the two boys
hastened toward the camp.

“The outlaws were discussing the advisability of taking all the boys
into their care,” Ned said, as they hustled along, “so I’m afraid
they’ve been there and taken the lads by surprise.”




                               CHAPTER IX
                        IN QUEST OF INFORMATION


Left at the camp by the departure of Ned and Jimmie, Jack, Frank and
Harry sat for a long time in the warm sunshine in front of the barrier
and discussed the situation. Gilroy had tucked himself into a collection
of blankets at the rear of the cave and was sound asleep.

“What do you think Jimmie had in his mind when he went away alone?”
asked Harry. “He merely had some plan to carry out.”

“Oh, he’s always going off alone,” Jack answered.

“Some day he’ll go away alone and won’t be able to get back!” Frank put
in. “He won’t always be able to get out of his scrapes.”

“Pretty foxy boy, that!” Jack declared.

“What strikes me as being singular,” Frank suggested, “is that Jack’s
father never said a word to him about this land business.”

“Father never talks his business over with any one,” Jack broke in.

“If we had only known about the outlaws being here in the hills,” Harry
suggested, “we might have kept out of sight of them for a long time.
But, you see, they found us first.”

“And they used a nice, crooked little spy to do it with!” Frank
exclaimed. “This little alleged Boy Scout who stole our provisions last
night, and crept into the woods to tell Jimmie and I to beat it, and
then brought a note to Ned to get him away from the camp, must be
playing a leading part for the sneaks.”

“He’s doing all of that!” Jack agreed. “I don’t believe he’s a Boy Scout
at all. He’s just picked up a word or two and a sign.”

“Perhaps we’ll run across him again,” Frank said. “If we do, I’ll find
out whether he’s a Boy Scout or not!”

“Well,” Jack exclaimed, springing to his feet, “are we going to sit here
all day and let Jimmie do all the hunting? We ought to get out in the
mountains and help find Ned.”

“Look here, boys!” Harry cried, “do you see anything to the east there
that looks at all familiar?”

“Do you mean the smoke coming up over the tops of the trees?” asked
Frank. “I noticed that several minutes ago.”

“Well, just keep your eye on it,” Harry advised, “and see if it brings
anything to your mind.”

“Sure it does!” shouted Frank, all excitement now. “There are two
columns of smoke close together, and you ought to know what that means.”

“Indian sign! Boy Scout sign! Means ‘Help is wanted’!” exclaimed Harry.
“We’ve got to go and see what it is.”

“It may be Jimmie,” Jack suggested.

“It’s either Jimmie or that messenger boy,” Frank said. “If it’s Jimmie,
he’s really in trouble, and if it’s the messenger boy, he’s doing it to
get more of us into his clutches.”

“Then we’d better go well armed and ready for any kind of a reception,”
Jack advised. “No knowing what we’ll find.”

“What’ll we do with Gilroy?” asked Frank.

“Aw, let him sleep,” advised Harry.

“Sure, let him sleep,” Jack put in. “He’ll be all right ’till we get
back. No one will molest the camp in daytime.”

“Seems to me that we ought to leave someone here,” Frank said.

“All right, you can stay if you want to!” Jack declared. “Harry and I
are going down there to see what the trouble is about.”

“Aw, come on, Frank!” Harry urged. “There won’t anything happen to
Gilroy! He may have a bad dream, but that’s about all.”

“How far do you suppose that signal is from here?” asked Frank.

“Not more than half a mile,” Harry explained.

“Then I’ll go,” Frank decided. “I don’t like the idea of sitting around
the camp and letting you boys have all the fun. Besides,” he continued,
“if it is the messenger who is making the signals, you’ll need all the
help you can get.”

“Come running, then!” advised Jack, starting down the slope.

As the reader will remember, the signal observed by the boys had been
built by Jimmie in the hope of attracting the attention of Ned, or of
Norman, the boy who had made himself so conspicuous that morning. In
building the fires and creating the columns of dense white smoke by
heaping on green boughs, the boy had not given serious thought to the
effect his action might have on his chums.

In fact, at the time of his leaving camp, he had not fully decided what
course to pursue, and for this reason he had not informed the boys of
his intention to set a signal for the benefit of the mysterious Boy
Scout. Even at the time of making the signal, he had no idea that it
would actually draw his three chums away from the camp.

He might have known what the effect would be, but, though he did stop to
consider for a moment, he did not take in the whole situation. Jimmie
usually acted on impulse, and so the signal lifted to the sky without
any explanation having been made to the Boy Scouts who were certain to
see it.

It will be remembered that when Jimmie descended from the elevation
where the fires had been built he did so in order to hasten in the
direction of a smoke signal which he saw to the north. The result of
this was that he was out of the vicinity of the fires long before the
boys reached that point.

When the three lads came to the finger of granite upon the top of which
the two fires showed, they first made a careful examination of the
thickets close by and then ascended to the top.

“These fires were made to constitute a signal, all right!” Jack
declared, poking at the now dying embers.

“Sure!” answered Frank. “You see, no cooking was done here, and there is
no camp in sight.”

“Besides, the position of the blazes on this high rock shows that the
fires were built so that the columns of smoke might be seen,” suggested
Harry. “It was Indian talk, all right!”

“Well, there’s no one here in need of help so far as I can see!” laughed
Jack, “and so we may as well go back to the camp.”

“That’s the thing to do,” Frank urged. “To tell the truth, I don’t feel
exactly right about leaving Gilroy there alone.”

“Aw, we’ll hear him sleeping before we get within a rod of the cave,”
laughed Jack. “Gilroy is a good old chap, and father thinks a lot of
him, but he doesn’t know much about this kind of a life. I’ll bet that
right now he’s dreaming about grizzly bears, and lions, and crocodiles,
and panthers.”

From their position in the forest, after their departure from the rock,
they could see nothing of the signal from the north which had attracted
Jimmie’s attention, so there seemed nothing for them to do but to return
to camp. Therefore they set out at good speed.

After a short walk, Jack beckoned the boys to his side and suggested
that they take a route to the camp different from that which they had
followed on leaving it.

“You see, boys,” he explained, “that was a signal, all right, and we
haven’t found out the cause of it. So far as we know, it was put up to
get us away from the camp.”

“I’m beginning to think it was,” Frank announced. “Either to get us away
from the camp for the purpose of capturing us, or for the purpose of
raiding our provisions.”

“Well,” Jack went on, “if we duck away to the south and return to the
camp by a new course, anyone watching for us might watch in vain.”

“That’s the idea!” Harry answered.

“Then here we go the south,” Frank suggested, starting away at as swift
a gait as was possible in the thicket.

They had proceeded but a short distance when every tree bole of good
size immediately in front of them seemed to their astonished eyes to
yield a scowling, dirty half-breed. The boys drew their guns.

“No use, lads!” a voice said, speaking in good English. “The men in the
bushes have you covered. Anyway, there’s no harm intended.”

“Why the holdup?” demanded Jack.

The man who had spoken now advanced to Jack and looked him keenly in the
face. Although carrying the general appearance of the gang of
half-breeds at his back, the boys could see by the fellow’s face and
manner that he was different from the others.

“You are Jack Bosworth?” he asked.

“That’s my name,” replied the boy.

“You are here on a mission for your father?”

“I am here on a hunting trip.”

“With business on the side, eh?”

“No business at all,” replied Jack.

“We know better than that!” the stranger answered.

“What do you want of us?” asked Jack.

“We want information now in your possession,” answered the fellow,
looking Jack sharply in the eyes.

“What kind of information?”

“We want to know where certain documents are.”

“You’ll have to ask some one else, then.”

“We are certain that you have the information we require.”

“If I had,” Jack answered, “you never would get it from me.”

“You will gain nothing by being obstinate,” the fellow said. “Remember
that we have Ned Nestor, the alleged juvenile detective, at our camp. He
seems inclined to keep what information he possesses to himself, and,
before proceeding to extreme measures with him, we decided to lay the
case before you. I am afraid Nestor will receive rough treatment at the
hands of my allies unless the information they demand is given them.”

“So that was a lying message you sent Nestor, was it?”

“There’s no use in discussing the matter at length,” the other stated.
“I think I’d better take you boys into camp and let the boss talk with
you. And let me warn you now, before anything more is said, not to
attempt resistance. If you do, there’ll be shooting done, and it won’t
be my men who will get hurt! Now, face about to the north and march away
to camp, like good little boys. We don’t want to hurt you, but we insist
on having our way in the matter of this information. Perhaps Nestor may
be able to convince you that you ought not to be so obstinate.”

“I don’t think Nestor will attempt anything of the kind,” replied Jack,
“and I think that you are a great big bluff!”




                               CHAPTER X
                          GILROY AND THE BEAR


When, at last, Ned and Jimmie, still watching about for hostile forces,
came to the barricaded camp, the fire had burned down and no one was in
sight. Ned regarded the wall of rock with a smile.

“Isn’t that great?” Jimmie asked.

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do much good in case of an attack,” Ned
suggested. “We’d soon get hungry and thirsty and have to surrender.”

“Anyway, it’s an all right thing to shoot from!” Jimmie announced. “If
you’d seen the way we sweat rolling those rocks, you’d think it was all
right, anyway. I wonder where the boys are.”

“I was thinking more about the boys than about the barricade,” Ned
admitted. “Were they all here when you left?”

“All sitting in front of the entrance,” Jimmie replied, “except Gilroy,
and he was asleep on a pile of blankets in the cave.”

“He may be there yet,” suggested Ned. “Suppose we go and see.”

Jimmie made his way through the narrow entrance, found a searchlight,
and turned a round circle of flame on a great heap of blankets in a back
corner. There was no one in the cave at all save only himself.

Before returning to report to Ned, the hungry boy seized a plate of corn
pones and a can of tinned beans from the provision chest.

“Look here, Ned,” he said in a moment, appearing before his chum with
his mouth full of beans, “the appetite of our midnight visitor seems to
be for confidential clerks as well as for bread. Someone has stolen
Gilroy! Anyway, he’s not in the cave!”

“He may have gone away with the boys,” suggested Ned.

“He wasn’t thinking of going away with the boys when I left,” Jimmie
answered. “He was telling how much he liked New York, and how he’d like
to pound his ear for about three days and nights.”

“Anyway,” Ned decided, “we’ll wait here a little while and see if they
don’t return. In the meantime, you can get yourself something to eat.”

“Don’t you call this something to eat?” asked Jimmie.

“One poor little can of beans and one poor little plate of corn pones
won’t make much of an impression on your appetite,” Ned laughed. “What
you need is one of those neat little bear steaks, about as large as a
warming pan. You’ll have plenty of time in which to cook it.”

“And that means that I can cook one for you, too?” asked Jimmie.

“Why, of course you can!” returned Ned.

“I’d like to cook one for the Boy Scout who got us both into such
trouble,” Jimmie declared. “I’d put poison on it!”

“Now, don’t you be too severe on that Boy Scout,” Ned advised.
“According to your own story, he warned you and Frank in the thicket,
and I know very well that he wanted to tell me something, but didn’t
dare do it.”

“Well, here’s another thing,” Jimmie explained. “When I went out to look
for you, I gave the ‘help’ smoke signal from the top of a granite rock
in the pines. In five minutes after the columns of smoke became large
enough to be seen at a distance, the signal was answered from the north,
it seemed to me from the vicinity of the old mission. Now, of course,
you didn’t send out that signal.”

“I rather think not,” smiled Ned.

“Then it was sent up by this crooked messenger boy with the intention of
getting us out to look for you. He believed, of course, that we would
regard the call for help as coming from you and rush away from camp.”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” warned Ned. “There’s something about that
boy I rather like. Besides, he really is a member of the Wolf Patrol,
New York.”

“My own patrol?” exclaimed Jimmie. “I never saw him at the club room. He
told me that he belonged to the Wolf Patrol, but I didn’t believe it. I
think he’s a fake.”

“Time alone will tell,” answered Ned. “I’m going to believe in the boy
until I get some positive proof that he really is crooked.”

Jimmie was about to continue the argument when a succession of shrieks
and calls for help came from the forest on the slope below.

“Now, what’s that?” demanded Jimmie. “That isn’t any of our boys!”

“Help! Help! Help!” cried the voice.

“No,” Ned agreed, “our boys don’t make a racket like that.”

“Say!” Jimmie shouted, springing to his feet. “I bet you the next dollar
I don’t find that that’s the fat clerk, Gilroy!”

“The voice sounds like that of a fat man,” Ned laughed.

“Gilroy’s fat all right!” Jimmie exclaimed. “He’s got one of those pink
baby faces that make you hungry to look at. He makes me think of a roast
of veal, and he’s got a cute little round bald spot on the top of his
head. And he wants to be dignified and speaks his words impressively.
Say, Ned,” the boy continued, “I wouldn’t mind having that fellow get
into some kind of a mixup out here!”

“Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Oh Lord!” cried the voice from the forest.

“That’s Gilroy, all right enough!” Ned declared. “Why don’t you go down
and see what he wants, Jimmie?” he added.

“Aw, he ain’t talking to me!” cried the boy.

“Then I presume I’ll have to go,” Ned said, rising from his seat in
front of the barrier. “Perhaps he’s been stung by a bee.”

“He didn’t get crippled in his shrieker,” Jimmie suggested.

Ned stepped into the cave and secured an automatic revolver to replace
the one taken from him at the old mission, and also passed one to
Jimmie. Then the two hastened into the forest in the direction of the
sounds.

The call for help continued to come, although the voice of the man came
hoarser at every call. When the boys finally came close enough to
distinguish words spoken in low tones, they heard a warning.

“Shoot!” he cried. “There’s a lot of bears under this tree!”

Although convulsed with laughter, the boys moved more cautiously after
this. At last they came to the pine from which the voice proceeded.
There was a rustle in the thicket as they advanced, and they saw a black
object shambling away.

“There’s Gilroy’s flock of bears!” Jimmie shouted.

“And a little bit of a black bear at that,” Ned laughed. “If Gilroy had
made an ugly face at him, he’d have run away!”

The tree into which the fat confidential clerk had climbed was not a
large one. In fact, it was swaying dangerously under his weight. As he
moved his position at sight of the black back of the bear, the slender
upshoot to which he clung gave way and he came clattering down through
the few lower branches.

“Oh my! oh my! oh my!” he shouted. “I never should have come into this
blasted country! I shall be eaten alive!”

Instead of rushing to Gilroy’s assistance, his rescuers, boy-like, sat
down on the mat of pine needles which strewed the ground and roared with
laughter. Gilroy eyed them angrily without attempting to rise to his
feet. His rage only made the scene more amusing.

“Why didn’t you shoot him?” he demanded at length.

“Shoot him?” repeated Jimmie. “That bear is a great deal more frightened
than you are. At the rate of speed he’s now going, he’ll strike the
arctic circle at exactly four-fifteen tomorrow morning!”

“He chased me up the tree,” whined Gilroy. “He nipped at my heels as I
left the ground, and I heard his teeth grinding together in the most
frightful manner. I’ll never get over this!”

“I guess he would have climbed the tree after you in about another
minute,” Jimmie declared, with a sly wink at Ned. “You see, it’s just
this way, Mr. Gilroy,” he went on, “the bears out here are hungry for
fat clerks from Wall street. I’ve heard they make stews of ’em,” he
concluded.

Gilroy now arose to his feet and stood gazing into the thicket in the
direction of the bear’s disappearance. Jimmie’s assertion that bruin
would hit the Arctic circle early the next morning seemed to give him
great comfort. As the distance between the bear and himself increased,
he grew braver and began throwing out his chest.

“What a chance that was for me to kill a bear!” he began, boastfully,
“If I’d only had a gun with me, I might have had a fine rug made out of
his hide! It would have been fine to show my friends.”

“Sure it would!” declared Jimmie. “I’m glad you didn’t remember that you
had a gun in your pocket. The bears out here are pretty sensitive about
being shot at. If you’d blazed away at that cub, and hadn’t shot him
dead in his tracks the first time, he would have eaten you.”

Gilroy put his hand to his pistol pocket and a look of pretended
amazement came over his fat face.

“Upon my word!” he said, “I thought I left my gun in the bunk!”

“After this,” Ned advised, “always keep your gun in sight when you go
into the forest. Suppose there had been no tree to climb, what then?”

“I should have grappled with him, sir!” exclaimed Gilroy. “I certainly
should have grappled with him.”

“You would have had to catch him first,” Jimmie grinned.

“How long since you left the camp?” Ned asked, after Jimmie had
introduced the two.

“Perhaps half an hour ago,” was the answer. “When I went to sleep, the
boys were sitting by the fire, but when I woke there was no one in
sight. I came out to look for them.”

“I understand you came on a mission for Jack Bosworth’s father?” asked
Ned after a pause.

“Yes,” was the reply, “at the request of my employer I came on this most
dangerous mission. I shall be glad to see New York again.”

Ned hesitated a moment and then asked:

“Did Mr. Bosworth ever say anything to you about a set of documents he
wished us to bring to light?”

“He did not,” was the answer.

“His purpose in sending you, then, was to secure, by means of our help,
proof connecting a corporation he is fighting with unlawful acts which
have been or may be committed in this section?”

“That is exactly the idea!” answered Gilroy.

“Come on,” Jimmie shouted, “let’s get back to camp. I begin to feel
hungry already. Perhaps the boys have returned.”

Before Gilroy would move out of the forest he insisted on pinning up
certain rents in his clothing and combing out his mussed up hair with
his fingers. There were also numerous scratches on his face, caused by
contact with the rough branches of the tree, and these he thought
necessary to nurse carefully with his handkerchief.

“Oh my!” laughed Jimmie, as the fat confidential clerk struggled under
difficulties to make himself more presentable. “If you think you’re in a
muss, just look at this beautiful new khaki uniform I put on only a day
or two ago! It’s a peach, ain’t it?”

“It certainly is in a mess,” admitted Gilroy.

“Of course,” grinned Jimmie. “I fell down a chute, and rolled into the
basement of a mountain, and climbed up a smutty chimney, and fell into a
secret passage and had all kinds of sport! Ned and I have had a glorious
morning. You should have been with us.”

The confidential clerk frowned slightly, but made no reply.

When the boys reached the camp, after giving a great deal of mental and
physical assistance to the clerk, they found it just as they had left
it. The boys had not returned.

“Now, what kind of blockheads do you think they are to go away and leave
the camp like this?” Jimmie asked.

The boy did not know, of course, that his own signal, shown from the
granite rock, had led to their departure, and also to their subsequent
encounter with the half-breeds.

“We don’t know why they left,” Ned answered, “but we must suppose that
they had some good reason for doing so.”

“Do I understand,” Gilroy asked, “that something has happened to your
companions?”

“All we know about it is that they’re not here,” replied Jimmie.

“There are altogether too many bears in this forest,” suggested Gilroy.
“The lads may have encountered some of them.”

“That’s a fact!” laughed Jimmie. “Perhaps we’d better go out and see if
we can find a group of pine trees bearing a mess of Boy Scouts.”

“This is a serious matter,” Ned interrupted. “Judging from our own
experiences, the boys may be having a bad time of it.”

“The outlaws are none too good to commit murder!” Jimmie asserted.




                               CHAPTER XI
                         THE DEVIL’S PUNCH BOWL


“See here, boys,” Frank Shaw suggested, as the three boys moved on
through the forest, almost entirely surrounded by repulsive half-breeds,
“this will be a fine story for Dad’s newspaper. ‘Captured by Bold, Bad
Men; or, Why Little Frankie Didn’t Get Home to His Beans’! That would be
a fine title for the story, and I’ll ask Dad to print a picture of three
boys wandering through a jungle surrounded by a bunch of cheap skates
that no decent dog would bark at.”

“Keep still!” whispered Harry. “What’s the use of stirring these people
up? We’re in no shape to scrap with them!”

“And then,” Frank went on, “Dad might take a notion to send an
expedition out here to round up these dirty greasers. If he does, I’m
coming out just on purpose to see them hanged.”

“Cut it out!” advised Jack.

“Of all the rotten, unwashed specimens of humanity I ever came across,”
Frank continued, speaking in a still louder tone, “this escort of ours
takes the bun. They’re imitation bad-men all right.”

“A little of that goes a long way, young man,” the leader of the party
said. “It makes no difference to me what you say, but several of these
men understand the English language and can speak it fluently.”

“I presume so,” returned Frank. “I’ve seen just such a collection as
that in jail in New York. Say, honest, Captain,” he went on, “if a bunch
like this should run up against the strong-arm squad in New York, they’d
get their heads beaten off just because of their ugly mugs.”

“Aw, what’s the use!” demanded Harry.

By this time several of the guards were casting ugly glances at Frank,
who seemed to regard their disfavor with great joy.

“You’d better come on ahead and walk with me, young fellow,” the leader
said, taking Frank roughly by the arm and jerking him to a position in
front. “If you get back there where those ugly ones are, they’ll put a
couple of bullets into your back and swear that you were trying to
escape.”

On his way to the front of the party, Frank passed Jack and paused for a
second only to whisper in his ear:

“Now, these ginks will be watching me every minute, waiting for a chance
to shoot. You may catch them off their guard directly and when you do,
cut and run!”

“So that’s what you did all the talking for?” queried Jack.

“You bet!” answered Frank. “And while you’re running, I’ll do a little
sprinting myself.”

“Here, you!” shouted the leader, almost lifting Frank’s feet from the
ground as he dragged him away.

“What were you whispering to that boy?” demanded one of the others.

“I was telling him,” Frank answered, making an insulting face, “that I
used to have a dog that looked exactly like you.”

The fellow thus insulted sprang for the boy with upraised fist. The
leader blocked his rush by imposing his own burly form, and the two went
down together. The half-breeds sprang forward, too, the intention
evidently being to assist their companion as against the leader.

Frank let out a yell which might have been heard half a mile away, and
the three boys darted down the mountainside, followed by harmless shots
from the guns of the half-breeds.

The incident had taken place on a rocky level flanked by steep slopes on
each side. The place, in fact, was almost like a shelf of rock cut into
a long fifty percent grade.

The ledge was narrow, and as the bunch clung together where the leader
and his opponent still struggled, one of them slipped over the edge of
the declivity and started downward. Naturally he caught hold of the
first object within his reach, and this happened to be the shoe of the
outlaw nearest to him. This man, in turn, caught another, and two more
tried to pull up the falling ones, with the result that in about half a
minute five of the half-breeds were rolling and tumbling heels over head
down the rocky slope.

The boys were not far out of their path, but they managed to elude the
downrushing bodies as they swung by. Notwithstanding the gravity of the
situation, the boys shrieked with laughter as the clumsy fellows went
tumbling down, uttering vicious curses at the boys, at the mountain and
at each other.

“I wish I had a gun now!” shouted Frank.

As he spoke a formidable weapon which seemed to be half revolver and
half sawed-off shotgun, flew out of the hands of one of the involuntary
acrobats and landed against Frank’s side with a great thud.

Frank seized the weapon and backed away. By this time the leader was on
his feet shouting wrathful commands for the boys to return.

“Easy, now,” Frank shouted, moving away to the south. “If any of you
ginks lift a finger until we get into the timber line, I’ll empty this
load of slugs into the thick of you.”

The leader, more daring than the others, sprang down the slope, his
great boots scattering fragments of rock and sending them hurtling down
upon the heads of the half-breeds below. Frank was about to fire when
the man lost his balance and joined the procession of those making for
the bottom a la log.

“Here we go!” shouted Frank.

The boys raced along the slope until they came to a point of timber
which, following a more fertile spot, thrust itself up the ascent. Here
they disappeared, considering themselves reasonably safe in the
seclusion of the forest. Frank examined his gun and found it empty.

“Good thing that dub didn’t know it was empty!” he laughed.

“Don’t stop now to throw bouquets at yourself!” grinned Harry.

“That’s right!” Jack declared. “We want to be getting back to the camp.
Gilroy’ll have a fit if he wakes up and finds us gone.”

“Don’t you ever think those half-breeds will give up the chase here,”
Frank suggested. “Do you know what they’ll do?” he asked, “They’ll
circle around and get between us and the camp! That’s what they’ll do.”

“I sometimes think,” Harry snorted, turning to Jack, “that Frank is
getting so intelligent that he may have the gift of speech conferred
upon him. He certainly has that proposition right.”

“Well, if we can’t go back to camp,” Jack asked, “where can we go?”

“We’ll have to glide into some gentle dell in the bosom of a friendly
hill!” laughed Harry, “and send a scout out to watch those fellows spy
upon the camp.”

“If they’ve got a detachment of half-breeds guarding every squad of Boy
Scouts that have strayed away from the camp today,” Jack laughed, “they
must have an army in here. Ned was coaxed away by a fake note; Jimmie
went to find Ned and got lost himself, and we go out to answer a call
for help and get mixed up with a lot of half-breeds. I guess we’ll have
to take a company of state troops with us next time we go camping.”

“Well, let’s be moving,” urged Frank. “Those fellows’ heads will be just
sore enough when they quit rolling to shoot at anything in sight. They’d
string us up if they caught us now.”

In accordance with this reasoning, the boys turned south in the thicket
then shifted to the east, then whirled back in a northerly direction. At
one time they heard the shouts of the half-breeds on the slope far away
to the south.

“They think we kept right on south,” laughed Jack. “Now,” he went on,
“we’ll walk north a long ways, climb the slope to the snow line, and
come out on the camp from above. How’s that strike you boys?”

“It listens good to me,” Frank answered. “Do you suppose Ned is back
there yet?” he continued.

“It struck me,” Jack replied, “that the half-breeds we encountered were
out looking for Ned or Jimmie.”

“You’ll have to guess again,” Harry put in. “The ginks we encountered
were stationed there to catch any Boy Scout who came in answer to that
signal. That’s some more of the work of that crooked messenger.”

“Well, I hope the bears won’t devour Gilroy while we’re gone,” Frank
suggested. “It’s likely to be night before we get back.”

The boys walked for a long distance, and it was three o’clock by their
watches when they turned up the slope. They would have felt less
comfortable during the latter part of their journey if they had known
that they were passing within a few hundred yards of the headquarters of
the outlaws at the old mission.

After a time they came to what looked like a wrinkle in the face of the
grand old mountain. They proceeded up this with no little caution, not
knowing but enemies might be watching there. It was just such a place as
outlaws lurking for prey or cowering from officers would be apt to seek.
The wrinkle, or gully, led almost to the snow line and finally ended in
a little dip which lay between two summits rising side by side, like
jagged rows of teeth.

“I’m half starved and half frozen!” Harry declared, as he rested for a
time in the depth of what had once been a mountain lake, but which had
been drained by the gully. “If I ever get back in little old New York
again, I’m going to get Dad to make me a gasoline buggy with a snout
nine feet long, and I’m going to push traffic aside on Broadway for the
next thousand years.”

“How often have you said that?” laughed Jack.

“Let’s see,” Frank put in, “this is the twelfth trip we boys have taken,
either in the interests of the Secret Service or on vacations, so this
makes twelve times that Harry has promised never to leave New York again
once he gets back there.”

“That’s all right!” Harry grinned. “You fellows ain’t half so hungry as
I am or you wouldn’t feel so gay over it.”

“Now, how far are we from camp?” asked Jack.

“About two miles on the level,” Frank suggested, “and about four hundred
miles the way the surface of the ground runs.”

After a short rest the boys proceeded south, climbing over jutting
spurs, dipping into depressions, and sliding over stony slopes until
they were almost too tired to take another step.

“We’ll get used to this in a month or two,” Harry said, sitting plump
down on a boulder.

Frank followed the boy’s example, except that he stretched himself at
full length, while Jack pushed on a few steps and stood peering over a
rim of rock which lay directly in their way.

“Look here, boys!” Jack finally called. “You remember the place in
Mexico called the Devil’s Cauldron? Well, this is it!”

“What have you found now?” demanded Frank sleepily.

“Here’s a round hole in the mountain,” Jack answered back, “that you
might hide a city block in. It’s deep and the sides are almost smooth.
Looks like the pit Kipling gets one of his characters in, only there’s
rock instead of sand.”

The boys rose to their feet and looked over the ledge.

“And right there in the bottom,” Harry exclaimed, “is a pool of water so
clear that it looks like a diamond!”

“Running water, too,” added Frank. “Now, where do you think that water
comes from, and where does it go to?”

“Runs through a pass, foolish!” answered Jack.

“But there’s no break in the formation,” Frank insisted.

“Then it runs through a tunnel manufactured by itself!” Jack explained.
“Anyway, it gets out somehow.”

“What a dandy place to catch mountain trout!” shouted Harry.
fourteen hours at a stretch. They must be swift as lightning in their
movements, and possessed of judgment, ability, and nerve.

It was impossible, of course, for Bob to pick out an ideal rear crew
from merely having seen the men in action for a scant few minutes. He
did not try. He simply used his very excellent judgment, reserving
mentally the right to change his mind whenever he felt like it, and
juggle the men around as he chose.

The principal necessity was to start things moving. When he had done so,
Bainbridge returned to camp with the twofold object of giving the cook
his orders, and having a final settlement with Schaeffer. The latter was
not particularly pleasant, but it was important. The man must quit the
crew at once. Bob had made up his mind not to let the fellow spend even
the night where he would have a chance to talk with and perhaps
influence the others. With this determination uppermost, he passed by
the mess tent to the other where the men slept, pulled aside the flap,
and stepped inside.

The place was a mess of blankets and half-dried clothes, but to Bob’s
surprise it was vacant of anything in the nature of a man. Evidently
Schaeffer had recovered and vamoosed. Thoughtfully he sought the cook,
and put the question.

“Came in here an’ got some grub a full hour ago,” that servitor
explained briefly. “When he’d eat it he went off agin.”

“Didn’t he say where he was going?” Bainbridge asked.

The cook shook his head. “Nary word.”

“And you didn’t happen to see what direction he took?”

“Nary a sight,” was the reply. “I was busy inside.”

Bob frowned for a second, and then shrugged his shoulders. After all,
what did it matter where the fellow had gone, so long as he had taken
himself away? It was very natural for him to avoid the man who had so
humiliated him, though it was rather puzzling to have him slip away
without apparently encountering any one.

Bob proceeded to give his orders to the cook, explaining that he would
have to pull up stakes at once and start down the river.

“The boys will be a long way from here by nightfall,” he said, “so
you’ll have to hustle. I’ve saved out a couple of men to help you and
the cookee, who’ll be under your orders till you pitch camp to-night.”

Outside the mess tent he hesitated an instant. Then he entered the other
tent. This time he did not pause by the door, but crossed hastily to the
farther corner, where there was a small space crudely partitioned off
from the main portion. This would be Schaeffer’s sanctum, of course, and
Bob entered it curiously--only to stop with an exclamation of mingled
surprise, anger, and chagrin.

The place was in the utmost disorder. Blankets were rolled up in a ball
and flung into the corner. Articles of wearing apparel were scattered
about, while over everything were sifted scraps of white paper in
seemingly endless quantity. It was these torn scraps that roused Bob’s
indignation. He seemed to know intuitively, without the evidence of the
limp, empty book covers here and there, that the foreman had taken time
to tear into shreds every record and paper connected with the drive
which he possessed. Time books, scalers’ measurements--everything--had
been destroyed practically beyond the possibility of reconstruction.
There would be no accurate way now by which the firm could figure their
profits or costs or labor charges. The very paying of the drive crew
would be a matter of guesswork.

“Jove!” exclaimed Bainbridge through his clenched teeth. “I didn’t know
a man could be so rotten!”

He stared at the wreck for a minute longer, and then turned over with
his foot the square, wooden box which lay upset in the middle of the
mess. Apparently it had served Schaeffer as a receptacle for these same
records. It was quite empty, but underneath lay something which brought
a thoughtful, questioning expression into the searcher’s face, and made
him stoop to pick it up.

“Thirty-eight caliber,” he murmured, staring at the freshly opened
pasteboard box which had contained fifty cartridges. “Hum!”

Presently he let it drop again. He did not move for a space, but stood
staring at the ground with that same odd, thoughtful pucker in his
forehead.

There was nothing surprising in the fact of Schaeffer’s being armed,
Neither was it strange for a man in the riverman’s position to carry off
his ammunition loose instead of in the box. That was not the point. It
was simply the train of thought aroused which struck Bainbridge
unpleasantly. He felt Schaeffer to be capable of almost any villainy
provided it could be accomplished with safety to himself. The
humiliation of that fight, too, had added a powerful incentive to the
one already offered by Crane and the Lumber Trust for the eclipse of Bob
Bainbridge. And a total eclipse would be so easy! Just a single shot
fired from the bushes at a moment when there was no one else about to
see or hear. In this wild country the chances of escaping were infinite.
The man might not even be suspected.

Bob suddenly moved his shoulders impatiently, frowned, and turned away.
A moment later his eyes twinkled mirthfully.

“Another minute and I’d have the undertaker picked out,” he chuckled.
“The scoundrel hasn’t the common courage to do murder. All the same,” he
added, with a decisive squaring of the shoulders, “I’ll put a crimp in
his little game about those records. I’ll have cookee scrape ’em all up,
and ship the whole bunch down to John. That clerk, Wiggins, can put ’em
together, I’ll bet! Patience is his middle name--patience and picture
puzzles. We’ll have the laugh on Pete, after all--hanged if we won’t!”


CHAPTER IX. IN THE SWIFT CURRENT

The clumsy, slow-moving scow loaded with the cook’s outfit and a supply
of bedding followed the drive downstream, and, that night, fastened up
to the bank close to the inlet of Deer Pond, the middle one of three
small bodies of water strung along the length of the Megantic. It was a
full day’s work, much better than Bainbridge had hoped for, and, as he
approached the big drying fire flaming up at one side of the camp made
by Charlie Hanley, the cook, Bob shook his own hand in silent, grinning
self-congratulation. He knew that they were far from being out of the
woods yet, but a good beginning always means a lot, and he had no word
to say against this start-off.

Presently the various driving crews appeared, wet to the skin from the
waist down, and ravenously hungry. The drying racks were swiftly
steaming with the soggy garments, and the men fell to upon their supper
without a second’s delay. There was little conversation--they were too
busy for that; but Bainbridge noticed with satisfaction that a certain
element of good-tempered raillery seemed to prevail. Evidently the crowd
as a whole bore no grudge against the man who had given them such a
tongue-lashing that morning. In fact, if one could judge from their
manner toward their boss, they thought a lot more of him for having done
so.

Next day all hands did even better, and nightfall found them at the
inlet of Loon Lake, with the drive before them. Bob could not understand
it. All day he had been expecting some disagreeable happening of a
nature to retard their progress which could be laid at the door of the
trust. When it did not come he was almost disappointed. It was
impossible to believe that Crane had given up so easily; he was not that
sort. He would explode a bombshell of some sort soon, and the longer he
delayed the more deadly was likely to be the nature of his attack.

However, there was nothing to be gained in discounting the future, nor
time to spare for fretting over the unknown. Bob was far too busy during
the daylight hours even to think of Crane or his satellites. It was a
ticklish job to get the drive across even so small a body of water as
the so-called lake, and it took one entire day and the better part of
another. It was done without mishap, however, and Bainbridge was just
congratulating himself on having got safely over one of the most
disagreeable bits of the entire distance when Jerry Calker approached
him as he stood watching the last few logs bob slowly out of the lake
into the swifter current of the stream.

“Jack wants to know can you spare him a few minutes, sir,” he explained.
“There’s a bit of trouble down below.”

“What kind of trouble?” Bob asked swiftly, turning downstream without an
instant’s delay; and walking by the side of the dynamite man.

Calker scratched his head slowly. “I ain’t quite certain sure, Mr.
Bainbridge,” he drawled, “but I got a idea there’s a fellow with a mill
who’s run out a sortin’ boom that’s goin’ to hang up our drive if we
ain’t mighty keerful.”

“A mill!” exclaimed Bob incredulously. “Why, there isn’t such a thing
within twenty miles--at least, there wasn’t three months ago.”

Calker grinned. “Thought it looked kinda new. I couldn’t rightly say
that it’s finished, but there ain’t no manner of a doubt about the boom.
The jam had started before I come away, an’ I left Jack havin’ it hot
an’ heavy with a red-headed son of a gun who sure looked as if scrap was
his middle name.”

Bainbridge frowned, but asked no further questions. He scarcely spoke,
in fact, during all of the four miles, but it was evident to his
observing companion that he was doing a lot of thinking.

Long before reaching the point of obstruction it became evident that
another jam had formed. The current grew more and more sluggish, and the
progress of the logs downstream became slower and slower, until at
length the entire surface of the water was covered with floating timber.
These in turn crowded upon one another with a rapidity which threatened
to equal that first jam unless something was swiftly done.

Hurrying on, Bob presently caught up with a throng of his own men, who
had apparently just landed from the dangerous, constantly shifting
surface of the river. They looked at him with a frank curiosity, as if
wondering what he meant to do in this emergency. On the faces of a few
were expressions of grim, anticipatory amusement, but Bainbridge heeded
these no more than he had the others. Without pausing even glancing to
right or left, he strode on, and reached the scene of action.

On the same bank, a little way back from the water, stood a small
building, so hastily thrown together that the roof was not yet
completed. One or two men were standing near it, staring interestedly at
the crowd gathered about something at the water’s edge which Bob at once
saw to be one end of a massive, well-constructed log boom. The other
end, out beyond the middle of the river, was supported by some stout
spiles, and the whole affair took up so much of the stream’s width that
Bainbridge’s drive had jammed against it hard and fast.

All this Bob took in without slackening his pace. Reaching the outer
edge of the circle, he pushed through to where Jack Peters, his jam
boss, stood facing a compact group of six or eight strangers, gathered
closely about the end of the boom, Jack was florid with rage, and
choking with impotent fury. The strangers composing the little group
instantly struck Bob as being singularly strong and rugged. They looked
as if they had been picked for their physical efficiency. Each one was
armed with rifle or pistol, while their leader, a competent-looking
person with red hair and whiskers, held in one hand a snub-nosed,
businesslike automatic.

“Well, Jack,” Bainbridge said curtly, as he reached the foreman’s side,
“what’s the trouble?”

Before Peters could reply the red-haired man took a single step forward
and faced Bob.

“I can tell you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” he snapped viciously.
“This river hog o’ yours thinks he kin play the devil with my boom, but
he’s got another guess comin’. I own this land an’ that sawmill. I got a
right to run my booms out in the river same as anybody else. I ain’t
lookin’ for trouble, but the first man as tries any monkey business
wants to look out, that’s all.”

Bainbridge raised his eyebrows, and let his gaze wander leisurely from
the man’s head to his heels with an expression which brought an added
touch of color to the already flushed cheeks.

“Indeed!” he drawled. “Who are you?”

“Who be I?” retorted the other angrily. “Humph! I don’t see that it
makes no difference, but my name’s Joyce--John Joyce. An’ I ain’t the
kind as backs down an’ takes water, believe me!”

A singularly irritating smile curved the corners of Bob’s lips. His
unruffled composure served, as he hoped it might, to increase the rage
of Mr. Joyce.

“Do you realize that you’re obstructing navigation?” he inquired
suavely.

“I don’t admit it,” snapped Joyce. “There’s plenty of room for your
drive to git past if you had a gang that knew their business, instead of
a lot o’ greenhorns.”

“I dare say you could give us all points,” Bainbridge murmured smoothly,
with just the right inflection of sarcasm to sting. It had suddenly
occurred to him that the fellow’s object was to make him lose his
temper, and thus precipitate a clash, during which almost anything might
be accomplished. Not only did he refuse to let go his grip, but he did
his very best to goad Joyce himself into flaming out, and possibly
betraying a few secrets.

“That’s hardly the question, though,” he went on swiftly. “Strikes me
you’ve been rather premature in running out the boom. Your mill isn’t
operating, and I have yet to see a single log coming downstream except
our own.”

“Never you mind that,” retorted Joyce hotly. “Do you think a man’s going
to wait till his timber comes in sight afore makin’ arrangements to take
care of it? You can’t come over me with no soft talk like that. The
boom’s there, an’ there it stays. Half the river’s clear for you to use,
an’ that’s all you gets.”

“Hum! That’s your last word, is it?” inquired Bainbridge quietly. “You
even refuse to let us swing the boom around so we can break our jam?”

“I do!” replied the red-haired individual emphatically. “The first man
that tries to monkey with my property will wish he hadn’t, that’s all I
got to say.”

He raised his automatic significantly, but Bob was not even looking at
him. The young man’s gaze had swept out to the face of the jam, and in
an incredibly short space an accurate picture of its appearance had been
photographed on his brain. Still without giving Joyce the satisfaction
of a glance, he turned away, motioning Peters to accompany him.

“A put-up job, of course,” he said tersely, when they were through the
circle of his own men. “Same gang who bought Schaeffer.”

The jam boss nodded in a troubled way. “I’m afraid they’ve got us bad,
too. It’s goin’ to take one long time pickin’ that jam apart, but I
can’t see anythin’ else to do. I spose I’d better start ’em at it right
away, sir.”

“Not at all,” retorted Bob swiftly. “Do nothing of the kind. Let ’em
stay just where they are, Jerry!”

At the sound of his imperative undertone Calker hustled up. There was a
brief interchange of words between the trio, during which the faces of
both lumberjacks brightened--amazingly. Then all three disappeared into
the bushes a little way upstream, from which they did not emerge for a
considerable time.

When they finally appeared, Bainbridge held by his side a shapeless
package of considerable size. Had not Peters and Calker walked so close
beside him as he bent his way leisurely toward the crowd about the jam,
it would probably have been noticed that this package was made up of a
dozen or more sticks of giant powder fastened securely together, and
depending from a sling of stout manila rope.

The line of rivermen had turned, and were watching his approach with
interested curiosity, but Joyce and his gang could see nothing. Reaching
the men, Bob paused, struck a match, and carefully lighted the end of a
protruding fuse. As it sputtered up he gave a short, sharp word of
command, the line of men opened instantly to let him through, and a
second later he stood not a dozen paces from Joyce, deliberately
swinging the deadly package round and round his head.

For a second there was a breathless hush. Then the red-haired man leaped
forward.

“Stop!” he roared. “You young whelp, if you----”

He broke off with a gurgling sound, and the color left his face. With a
final swing, Bob loosened his hold on the bundle, which curved in a
perfect arc over the rear of the jam, over the jagged crest, and dropped
swiftly out of sight amid the massive timbers upended in confusion along
the face and close to the spot where protruded the freshly driven spiles
which had caused all the trouble.

An instant later the whole throng of men hustled frantically for cover.


CHAPTER X. THE POWER BEHIND IT ALL

In less than sixty seconds--so close had been Bob’s calculations--came a
detonation which shook the earth, making several of the running men
stagger and lose their stride. Up spurted a great mass of water,
carrying with it massive logs leaping like agonized things alive. They
fell back again, followed by a shower of débris mingled with fine spray,
which the wind sifted down on the heads of the ducking, dodging men.

From his place behind a stump Bainbridge rose swiftly, shielding his
face with one crooked arm from the rain of chips and splinters and bits
of bark, and stared eagerly toward the jam. It took but a moment to see
that the spiles had disappeared, and the boom was shattered. Moreover,
the key logs of the jam were so loosened that the whole drive was again
on its way downstream. Bob turned to Peters with a gesture of
satisfaction.

“She’s off, Jack,” he said. “Get a wiggle on, now, and rush her along.
The water’s dropping every minute, and we’ve got a mean stretch to cover
before we strike the Penobscot. I’ll go back and hustle the rear
along----”

He stopped abruptly, and whirled around as a voice, shrill and trembling
with passion, was raised behind him.

“You’ll pay for that, you meddlin’ pup! I’ll teach you to go blowin’ up
folks’ property, an’ mighty near committin’ murder! I’ll show you you
can’t play tricks on John Joyce an’ get away with it. That game might
work with some, but it won’t----”

Things happened so swiftly after that that even the men standing around
were quite unable to understand exactly what was doing, and which of the
two was really the one who started the trouble.

The instant Bob turned he saw that Joyce was either beside himself with
rage, or giving a most astonishingly good imitation of that condition.
His face was purple, with veins standing out on his forehead like cords.
His eyes glared with that combination of rage and hate which a badly
frightened man almost invariably feels for the cause of his mental
disturbance. The automatic was leveled in his hand, and one finger
trembled on the trigger.

For a single instant Bainbridge stood rigid, every muscle suddenly
tensing. Perhaps he read a hint of Joyce’s purpose in the fellow’s eye;
perhaps it was simply intuition which made him guess what was coming. At
all events, suddenly, and without warning, he launched his lithe body
through the air exactly as in the manner of the old forbidden flying
tackle.

His shoulder struck Joyce’s knees, and the wicked, snapping shot of the
revolver rang out at precisely the same moment. There was a yell of
fury, followed by a crash. Then almost oppressive silence.

Bob was on his feet like a cat, fingers gripping the automatic he had
snatched from the owner’s nerveless hand. His jaw was hard, and there
was a glint of more than anger in the eyes he bent upon Joyce’s
supporters hurrying up to the aid of their chief.

“Hands up!” he cried out harshly, “Quick!”

He did not have to speak twice. There was something in his voice,
coupled with an emphatic gesture with the automatic, which made those
six men, big and powerful as they were, obey him with remarkable
unanimity.

“Take their guns, Jack,” continued Bainbridge, in that same commanding
voice.

Peters stepped forward to obey. The first man drew back instinctively,
and started to pull down the hand which held a revolver. Without an
instant’s hesitation Bob fired. The bullet struck the upraised weapon on
its blued-steel barrel, wringing a cry of surprise and pain from the
fellow’s lips as he dropped the gun.

There was no more trouble after that, Peters collected four revolvers
and two Remingtons. Then he glanced questioningly at Bainbridge.

“Throw ’em in the river,” the latter commander curtly. “’Way out in the
middle, where they can’t be recovered.”

The riverman walked a few steps toward the bank; then, pausing, he
glanced back at the straight young figure standing behind him.

“They’re mighty good guns,” he said hesitatingly. “Seems a shame to
throw ’em away like this.”

Bainbridge returned briefly: “I’m simply pulling the stings of this
gang.”

He watched his man fling the weapons, one after another, into the
stream, and then, sending the automatic splashing after the others, he
turned suddenly back to the six humiliated individuals before him.

“Go!” he commanded, with a momentary flare of passion. “Beat it, and
don’t let me set eyes on you again--understand? I won’t be so easy on
you the next time. Here, take that scum with you. He’s only stunned.”

He waited, staring from under lowered lids, until the gang had
disappeared in the bushes, half dragging, half carrying their stunned
leader with them. Then, with a long sigh, he turned slowly and smiled at
Peters.

“All right, Jack,” he said quietly. “I don’t think we’ll have any more
trouble here. Just hustle all you can to make up for this delay.”

Peters grinned, and snapped out some orders to the men which sent them
flying along the bank and even out on the stream over the tumbling logs.
But as they went they cast glances of open, unadulterated admiration at
the young man coolly brushing a bit of mud from one shoulder, and their
comments to each other left no trace of doubt of their thorough approval
of everything he had said and done.

Bob heard some of them, and when the men had gone on he smiled a bit. To
get that drive down successfully he knew he must have the men with him.
He knew also that deliberate planning could not have accomplished that
result half so well as this encounter with the tools of the Lumber
Trust. The whole affair had proved a great piece of luck for him,
thought the young lumberman. His meditation was broken in upon by the
sound of a strange voice.

“I had no idea lumbering was such a strenuous occupation.”

A moment later Bainbridge was looking into a pair of pleasant, friendly
eyes set in the handsome face of a man of about fifty. He was roughly
dressed in well-worn, but finely made fishing clothes, and carried a
good trout rod in one hand. There was, too, about the stranger an air of
forceful capability which attracted the younger man.

“It’s not usually quite so full of incident,” said Bob; “but I don’t
believe you’d ever find it exactly tame.”

The stranger smiled, and made a comprehensive gesture with his hands.
“And this is your idea of incident,” he murmured whimsically. “I should
call it something decidedly stronger.”

He hesitated for an instant, then moved closer to Bob.

“You’re going downstream, aren’t you? Do you mind if I walk along with
you? My camp’s down that way.”

Bainbridge acquiesced readily. There was something very taking about the
stranger, and within ten minutes he found himself chatting as if to an
old friend. His companion turned out to be Wolcott Sears, of Boston, on
a two weeks’ trip in the Maine woods. The name was only vaguely
familiar, but Bob felt sure from his manner that he was a man of
affairs. He was tremendously interested in hearing all about the
peculiar conditions of this particular drive, and before Bainbridge
realized it he had given a brief narrative of his fight with the Lumber
Trust and the events which had grown out of it.

“You interest me extraordinarily, Mr. Bainbridge,” the older man said,
in his crisp, decisive way, when at last they paused at the point
several miles below the scene of the last jam, where Sears had to branch
off to reach his camp. “Things of this sort always do, for it’s only
those one has to struggle for which are really worth while. You’ve
certainly had to fight hard in this case, but you’ve practically won
out, haven’t you? After this last fracas I shouldn’t suppose there’d be
much chance for further interference.”

Bob shrugged his shoulders and smiled a little. “You sadly underestimate
the power of the trust, Mr. Sears. I shan’t be beyond the chance of
interference until the drive is safe in our mill booms at Lancaster, and
even then it wouldn’t surprise me if they’d try to work some dirty
trick.”

Sears frowned indignantly; then his face brightened.

“In spite of everything I think I should bet on you.” he chuckled.
“There’s a certain vigor in your method of dealing with these people
which makes for success. I really believe you’ll win, Mr. Bainbridge,
and I surely hope so. It has been a great pleasure to meet you, and I
trust one to be repeated. I shall be hereabouts for some time yet, and
may run across you before I leave.”

Bob warmly reciprocated his feeling, and, after a hearty handshake,
turned south along the river, while Sears disappeared in the undergrowth
to the westward.

“Fine man,” commented the younger man aloud. “Hope I do run into him
again. Meanwhile, however, the rear isn’t coming along half quick
enough, and I haven’t seen a darn thing all afternoon of the wangan. I
hope nothing’s happened to it and the grub. That would be one awful
blow!”

It was one that was spared him. Within half an hour the clumsy scow hove
in sight. It tied up to the bank a little later, and before dark
preparations for supper were going on merrily.

Bob did not get in till later. Assured that all was well with the cook
and his staff, he went on downstream to see how Peters and his gang were
progressing. On his return he discovered a stranger warming himself by
the drying fire. He looked like an old-time woodsman, and the instant
Bainbridge appeared he was on his feet, extracting an envelope from the
interior of his hat.

“From Mr. Tweedy, sir.”

The young lumberman ripped it open without a premonition of the blow in
store for him. It was natural for Tweedy to write. He would be reporting
his success in the matter of credit, of course, and probably gloating
over the amount of manufactured lumber he had sold in so short a time.
Bainbridge noted that it had been written in the Bangor office the night
before. Then, settling himself by the fire, he proceeded to read:

  Dear Bobby: It’s all up with us, boy. We’re done, and we may as well
  admit it first as last and make what terms we can with the gang. I
  can’t get credit anywhere. Crane’s been ahead of me and spilled the
  beans each time. What’s more, Gastich absolutely refuses to renew that
  note. Says he must have the cash for some stocks he’s carrying, and
  all that; but you know what it means. It’s due in less than a week,
  and I can’t for the life of me see an earthly way of scraping the
  money together. Last of all--and worst of all--I haven’t been able to
  make a single sale of lumber for the simple reason that the trust has
  cut prices below cost and has taken every customer from us. If I cut
  to meet them they go lower. You can see that. They’ve got the stock
  and the resources. Crane’s set out to ruin us at any cost, and he’s
  succeeded. It hurts like sin to say it, boy, but there’s nothing left
  to do but give in and make the best terms we can. Let me hear from you
  at once. Yours ever, John Tweedy.


CHAPTER XI. NO QUITTER

The letter dropped into Bob’s lap, and for a long minute he sat staring
into the yellow, dancing flames. His face was blank, and just a little
white, for the blow had been a heavy one, and totally unexpected. He
could not seem to understand it. It was unbelievable that he and Tweedy,
who had been fair and square in every one of their business dealings,
could be forced to the wall by such a monster of corruption as Elihu
Crane.

There must be some mistake. Tweedy must have been thrown into one of his
unjustifiable panics. That was it, of course.

Bob picked up the letter to read it carefully again.

He perused it to the last word, and then leaned back against the
sapling, his face drawn and somber. It really did not sound like a
mistake. It was all clear and logical, and singularly cohesive. It was
the sort of thing Crane would delight in planning and putting into
execution--the cutting of prices on a competitor. Tweedy had written
that if they attempted to cut under the trust’s present rates, there
would be a further reduction. That was quite true. Bob knew, because he
had had a vast deal of experience with the trust’s method of doing
business. They would ruin him, no matter how great the cost, because he
was dangerous to their continued well-being. With Bainbridge in the
ring, and fighting vigorously against the graft and wholesale theft of
timberlands, those juicy melon cuttings which had been so pleasing to
the stockholders would cease--therefore Bainbridge must go.

Presently Bob’s eyes fell again to the letter, and somehow that single
sentence seemed to stand out as if written in capitals: “It hurts like
sin to say it, boy, but there’s nothing left to do but give in and make
the best terms we can.”

For a second Bob stared, the blood rushing into his face, a crimson
flood. Make terms with Crane? Go on his knees to that scoundrel, who had
long ago parted with the last shred of decency and self-respect? Not
much!

They must have resources enough to meet that note, at least. The trust
could not keep the price of lumber down indefinitely. They must weather
the storm in some way. And when this drive was safe at the mills, ready
to be cut into lumber, they would have the laugh on Elihu Crane.

Oblivious to the men about him, even to the fact that the cook had some
time ago announced supper, Bainbridge began to search his mind for means
of staving off the evil day. Most of the stocks and bonds constituting
his private fortune had been already pledged as collateral for loans to
the firm. He still had a few thousand dollars’ worth of Steel Preferred
which could be sold; and there was Pinecrest, the beautiful and costly
home on the outskirts of Bangor, which had been left him by his father.
It should not be difficult to raise a mortgage of ten thousand, at
least, on the place.

“The note’s for ten thousand, so that’s all straightened out,”
Bainbridge murmured, with a snap of his fingers. “The money from the
stock can go for current expenses. I’ll fix it up this very night.”

He did. Fortunately Tweedy held his power of attorney with the right to
sign checks and execute papers of any sort, so it was possible for him
to put through these deals without his returning to Bangor. That another
note for nearly as much as the first fell due in little more than a
fortnight Bainbridge knew quite well. By that time, however, he fully
intended to have the drive down as far as their mill at Lancaster, fifty
miles or so above Bangor. And it is always possible to raise money on
timber, even in the rough.

Of course, if the trust continued their campaign of cutting prices Bob’s
plans would be materially affected. He could not believe, however, that
they would do such a thing for any great length of time. A dollar meant
as much to them as to any one, and even the pleasure of ruining a
competitor would scarcely compensate for the loss of so much money.

A long letter of instruction and explanation was written to Tweedy that
night, and despatched the first thing in the morning by the trusty hand
of Joe Moose, the Indian. That off his mind, Bob returned to his drive
with renewed vigor, for the necessity for haste was now even greater
than before. It was a question of getting the logs down in double-quick
time or being dragged into the bankruptcy court; and that sort of
notoriety did not appeal in the least to the young man.

It was this feeling of necessity which got Bob up next morning before
the blackness of the night was more than faintly tinged by streaks of
pale gray in the east. He wanted to be off and doing; even necessary
inaction chafed. It seemed an eternity before the men had finished
breakfast, and were ready for the day’s work. As a matter of fact, they
took less time than usual, for something of Bainbridge’s intense
eagerness for speed seemed to have made itself felt.

All morning Bob worked like a Trojan getting the drive out into the
Katahdin River. He did not storm and swear at his men, as many bosses
do. Instead he had a way of jollying them along in a manner which might
sound superficially like fun, but which held more than an undercurrent
of seriousness. He treated them as human beings, not as if they were
slaves from whom every last atom of work was to be extracted. And yet,
when the need arose, he could hand out a rebuke, the caustic sting of
which was enough to make a man’s hair stand on end. The result was that
the crew soon admired him, and when they found how urgent was the need
for haste they fell to with a will, and gave the best that was in them.

Bainbridge was not long in perceiving their attitude, and it gratified
him intensely. He had never actually had charge of a drive before. He
knew the theory, of course, but that is very different from the
practical operation; and the discovery that he could handle a
rough-and-ready crowd like this in a manner so totally different from
that generally practiced by bosses of crews gave him no small
satisfaction.

By dint of constant labor, at which Bob spared neither himself nor his
men, the drive was successfully swung into the slightly larger river by
two o’clock. There was no real respite even then. The stream was almost
as difficult as the Megantic, and constant watchfulness was necessary to
prevent fresh jams at a number of points. Consequently the men snatched
a hurried dinner in relays and hustled back to work again.

It was about three, and Bob had just left the spot where only the most
strenuous personal labor on the part of himself and four river jacks had
kept the drive from jamming. He was hot and sweaty, and generally weary
as he continued his way downstream, and his wrath was naturally instant
when, on suddenly rounding a bend, he came upon Curly Kollock, cool,
calm, and unruffled, sitting comfortably on a rock, enjoying a
cigarette.

As the latter saw Bainbridge, he flushed slightly, and half rose from
the bowlder. Then, with a stubborn twist of his lips, he sank back
again, pulling hard on the cigarette, and doing his best to look
unconcerned.

Bob walked straight up to him, and stopped.

“Well,” he said bitingly, “I’m sorry you’ve lost the use of your feet
and hands. Is it paralysis?”

Kollock’s flush deepened, and he mumbled something inane about taking a
smoke. He found that he had arisen, apparently without volition, and was
standing before the other man, who stared at him a long half minute.

“This is no rest cure,” said Bob at length. “You’re paid for helping the
drive along. I don’t want any loafers in this gang. Understand? Now, get
down to the head of the drive--and do something!”

Kollock’s face was flaming, and his eyes gleamed angrily. “I don’t take
that line of talk from anybody!” he growled, clenching his fists
threateningly. “I’ll----”

“You’ll do what I said, and do it quick!” Bainbridge’s voice was not
raised above a conversational pitch, but there was a ring in it which
seemed to take the fight and bluster out of the big riverman with the
effectiveness of a keen knife thrust into an inflated bladder. For a
second he stood in awkward silence, swallowing hard in his
embarrassment. Then he raised his head again.

“I don’t need your job,” he said, in a poor imitation of devil-may-care
defiance. “I’ll get my time, and----”

Bainbridge cut him short. “You’ll get down to the drive and _work_. Beat
it now--quick!”

Without another protesting word, Kollock turned meekly and obeyed.


CHAPTER XII. THE TEST

Before he had taken a dozen steps, Kollock was furious with himself, and
by the time Bainbridge was out of sight the wrath of the riverman had
risen to a white heat.

From the first he had tried to dislike Bainbridge. Pete Schaeffer had
been his friend, and after he had been whipped Curly made up his mind
that there could be no getting along in a crew bossed by the victor.
Then came that brief but pointed interview with Bob which affected him
so oddly. He had never before had anybody tell him that he was to be
trusted; most bosses had been emphatic in saying the opposite thing. Or,
if they kept silent, they showed in a dozen obvious ways that they
considered him in the same class with his notorious brother.

Then there was the incident of the day before. Curly could not help
admiring the manner in which Bainbridge had handled the crowd that was
trying to hold up the drive. It was exactly the sort of thing he would
like to have done himself, and his heart warmed toward the man with the
courage and ability to act in that fashion. Moreover, Jack Joyce was an
old enemy of his, and the sight of the fellow’s humiliation had inclined
the riverman even more strongly toward the man who had brought it about.

But that was over now, he told himself furiously as he stamped along the
stream, hands clenched and face set in a black scowl. He hated
Bainbridge! The man had no right to jump on him that way. How did he
know what had been the cause of Kollock’s behavior? He had asked no
questions, given Curly no chance to explain even had the latter been
inclined to lower himself to that extent. He had taken it for granted
that the river jack was loafing in spite of the fact that record as a
worker was equal to that of the best.

This was where the sting lay. Kollock was aggrieved and disgruntled
because of what was, to him, a very good reason. There had been a
definite object in his pause by that stone. The night before he had
received a brief note from Bill, in which he was urged to “make use of
any chance you git to do--you know what.”

Curly did know “what” very well. It meant that he was to thwart and
delay the progress of the drive by any means in his power. _Any_ means!
The simplest, of course, was to cause some to happen to Bainbridge
himself. Bill had not hesitated to suggest several ways by which this
happy end could be reached. None of them appealed particularly to Curly.
He was not overscrupulous, but he disliked doing up a man in cold blood
without giving him even a ghost of a show. Still, Bill had done him good
turns more than once when he was out of work; and, last but not least,
there was the financial side of the affair. Curly had never been told
who or what was back of these attacks on the independent lumber company,
but he knew there was plenty of money in it.

All this he had been thinking over as he sat smoking that cigarette. In
the end he decided to have nothing to do with it. Bainbridge had trusted
him and played square. For that reason he would be equally square and
aboveboard, and let this dirty work alone.

That was what he _had_ decided, but now----

He gritted his teeth, glared fiercely around, and came to an abrupt
stop. Every instinct of the riverman was aroused. On his left the river
dropped over short falls into a narrow gorge. It was a spot where things
were likely to happen at any time, and where a man or two should have
been stationed continually. Curly knew, in fact, that there had been men
here all morning. They had been called away for some purpose, leaving
the little falls unguarded. And as he stood there his practiced eyes
told him that he was beholding the very start of a jam.

A log, plunging over the falls, upended. Another was thrust under it. A
third and fourth, coming down together, caught on the obstruction, all
being held by some stones rising midstream. Before the current could
tear them loose several more timbers were forced against the mass which
was piling up so swiftly, bridging to the opposite shore.

To carry out that angry resolve of a minute or two ago, Curly should
have rolled himself another cigarette, and watched the growing damage
with a sardonic smile. He did nothing of the sort. For a flash he had
forgotten his grievance, and was a “river hog,” pure and simple. The
stoppage must be broken before it reached the proportions of a real jam.
There was no one else to do it, and so he leaped to the task without a
second’s pause for thought.

Upstream he ran a few feet, his eyes fixed on the surface of the river
above the falls. Then he saw what he wanted. An instant later, using his
peavey much as a pole vaulter does his pole, he leaped straight out over
the water, landed squarely on a big log, and was carried down to the
falls--and over them.

He took the drop easily, riding the log with that perfect balance which
is second nature to the seasoned riverman. When the timber bumped
against the rapidly forming jam, Curly leaped again, thrusting the log
down as he did so, and landed on the solid barrier. Scrambling lightly
over to the face of this, he thrust deftly with his peavey into the
mass, and began to work desperately to loosen the key log--that first
upended stick of pine which had started the whole trouble, and which
must be started before the rest of the barrier would give.

He got a good hold on it, but the thing defied his efforts to tear it
loose. It was wedged too tightly for even his great strength, and,
though he seemed to feel it move slightly, he strained his muscles to
the utmost in vain to accomplish anything further. Presently he
realized, with a thrill, that the jam was piling up behind him faster
and faster. He ceased his efforts, and clamping the peavey on timber
above the key log, pried it free, and sent it bobbing downstream.
Another followed, and another still. Sweat poured in streams from him,
trickling blindingly into his eyes, but he did not stop to wipe it away.
There was no time. He must go on doing his best till help came, or
else----

A faint jar shook the jam. A second later Curly felt a hand lightly
touch his shoulder. A familiar voice sounded in his ear:

“Good work, son! Where’s that trouble maker? Oh, I see. Let me drop down
to that ledge, where I can get a good hold. That’s the idea. Now grip
her above me. Fine! Ready, now? Yank away!”

It was Bainbridge--swift, agile, incredibly fresh considering what he
had accomplished that day. For a moment or two Curly did not realize
that this was the man he hated. He simply felt an overwhelming
thankfulness that some one had come at last, and obeyed orders
mechanically and without question.

But as his peavey gripped the end of that troublesome log, there
suddenly flamed into Curly’s mind--temptation. Bainbridge stood below
him, perched perilously on the very face of the jam. A little
thrust--the tiniest movement of the riverman’s arm--would send him
plunging into the stream, while another movement would suffice to drop
one of the looser logs upon him. There were no witnesses; the whole
affair would pass as an unfortunate accident. A chance like this, so
easy, so absolutely safe, would never come again.

“Now!” broke in the crisp voice of the lumberman. “Hard over, boy.
Toward me--all you know how!”

Curly’s muscles strained as he threw every ounce of strength into the
pull. The key log creaked and groaned as if agony but was thrust
gradually forward. Curly felt it moving faster and faster, and
instinctively he prepared for that backward leap which would carry him
out of reach of the treacherous avalanche of falling logs.

A second later his peavey was torn from his hands by the sudden collapse
of half the face of the jam. The logs at his side vanished in the
unexpected rush, but that on which he stood remained firm for a precious
moment. Below him he saw Bainbridge whirl like a cat and grasp for
something solid. Instantly he bent over, reaching out both callous,
muscular hands, and as swiftly Bob gripped them. There was a heave, an
upward scramble, another crash as the remainder of the jam disappeared
into the foaming water. But the two men had leaped in time, and a moment
later they were standing together on the bank.

“Thank you--Curly,” Bainbridge said in a level voice. “That was
touch-and-go for a minute.”

That was all, but somehow Curly knew that what he had done was
understood and appreciated. In the stress of the peril which the two had
shared shoulder to shoulder like common brother river hogs, Kollock’s
anger and hate had vanished utterly. He no longer desired revenge. His
attitude of a scant half hour before seemed small and mean and petty. He
had saved the life of the man his brother wanted out of the way, and,
given the opportunity, he would do it as promptly again.


CHAPTER XIII. THE LIMIT

Curly Kollock’s interest and liking for his boss grew stronger day after
day. There was something about Bob Bainbridge which stirred the finer
qualities in his nature, and brought twinges of shame to the young
riverman whenever he thought how near he had come to throwing his lot
with his brother. If Bill ever showed up he resolved to tell him just
what he thought of him, too. But in the meantime, not being much of a
penman, he made no effort to answer the letter. It was sufficient that
he considered himself cut loose from the whole miserable bunch. If they
were expecting aid from him in their plotting they were doomed to
disappointment.

More and more often as they descended the Katahdin River, the boy was
stirred to anger at the constant succession of moves made by that gang
of crooks against the man who fought them practically alone and
singlehanded.

Along the river were several dams placed for the purpose of regulating
the head of water and facilitating the process of driving. They belonged
to the trust, but their owners were bound at all times to allow a normal
head of water when it was called for. Instead of doing this now, they
played all sorts of tricks on Bainbridge. When he particularly needed
plenty of water to float his drive past a shallow or narrow spot, the
gates were arbitrarily shut down, and the drive hung up. Again, at one
point where the middle part of the drive had jammed and the crew were
occupied in picking it instead of using dynamite, the gates which Bob
had personally closed were raised without warning, letting down a flood
of water which struck the jam with terrific force. It gave instantly,
carrying three men with it. Two managed to escape by a miracle, and were
dragged ashore with broken limbs; the other was crushed and drowned.

After that Bainbridge placed guards at the various dams with
instructions to shoot any one who attempted to interfere with them. This
resulted in a terrific outcry on the part of Crane’s underlings, an
appeal to the law, injunctions, and all that sort of thing. To which
Bainbridge paid no attention whatever. He went on his way calmly,
knowing well that they could not stop him in this manner, and willing to
put up with the inconvenience that would follow when it was all over and
he had returned to civilization.

Mr. Wolcott Sears continued his fishing trip along the route the
lumbermen were following, and began frequently to appear in camp for an
evening pipe with Bainbridge. One evening they had a private conference,
which lasted until the small hours, and the Boston capitalist finally
departed, leaving Bainbridge apparently much gratified.

The crew was with Bob to a man. By this time they had gathered an
inkling of the plot against the firm, and of the stakes involved. Men
had strayed into camp telling of the extraordinary reductions made by
the trust in the price of manufactured lumber. Large sales had resulted
to various parties, report said, thus preventing Bainbridge & Tweedy, as
well as several other small independents, from disposing of a single
plank.

The lumberjacks were not slow in putting two and two together. They
remembered rumors current in the big woods for many months of the fight
which had started between the trust and this man who was their boss. It
was a fight to the finish, people said, in which one side or the other
must go under, From all appearances it looked to these earnest,
simple-minded woodsmen as if Bainbridge would be vanquished unless he
could get that drive safely into the mill booms; and to that end they
strained every nerve. They toiled from dawn to dark, staggering into
camp each night so utterly weary that they sometimes fell asleep with
their supper half eaten before them; only to be up before daybreak to do
it all over again.

It was a period of stress and strain, but it ended at last when the
drive was ushered into the Penobscot, to be seized by the strong current
and urged on toward the mills at Lancaster, that goal which had seemed a
little while ago so unattainable, yet which was now so near.

That very afternoon was perpetrated the crowning outrage. Bainbridge was
shot at from the bushes--shot at deliberately with an intent to kill
which was defeated only by the miracle of chance which made him bend
over to tighten a shoe lace at the precise moment of firing.

Wild with fury, the men who were present dashed in pursuit of the
would-be assassins, but to no purpose. They were in the land of
civilization now, where there were motor cars. By the time the crowd of
rivermen had surged up the bank and plunged through the undergrowth, the
rascally tools of the trust were well away, leaving their pursuers to
rage impotently that there was not a gun in the party with which the
tires could be punctured and the car stopped.

The most angry of them all was Curly Kollock. He had double cause for
wrath, having received that morning a letter from the very town of
Lancaster toward which they were striving so hard to push the drive.
Brief it was, and to the point. He had played the traitor, Bill wrote
scathingly. There was only one way by which he could rid himself of the
stigma, and return to the good graces of the gang. He must come at once
to a certain house on the outskirts of the town, prepared to place
himself absolutely in his brother’s hands.

When the younger Kollock read those lines he swore roundly. That even
Bill should dare write in such a manner made him rage. He was no man’s
slave, and there were bounds beyond which even a brother could step. He
was on the point of asking for time off to come to a definite, final
settlement with the crowd when the attempted shooting occurred. At first
this cowardly deed only added to his rage, but swiftly in its wake came
unwonted gravity.

Disagreeable, even serious, as all those other persecutions had been,
not one of them held the weight of this last culminating effort to put
Bob Bainbridge out of the running. That Bill was mixed up in it Curly
had no doubt, and the realization frightened him. He had always looked
up to his older brother with admiration and a little awe, and he could
not bear now to think of him mixed up in anything so contemptible. There
was the danger involved, too, and altogether the youngster felt as if he
must see Bill at once and try to make him cut the gang and get away. His
efforts might have no effect, but there was at least a chance.

That night--or rather early in the morning, while it was still pitch
black--he slipped quietly out of camp without a word to any one. He
reached Lancaster at four in the afternoon, having made most of the
journey in a scow doing about six miles an hour. Going at once to the
address given in the letter, he found that his brother had gone out not
fifteen minutes before.

“Mebbe if you step in an’ wait he’ll be back soon,” suggested the
slatternly woman who kept the house.

Curly was shown to a room on the second floor back, where he recognized
a number of Bill’s belongings scattered about in the usual disorder.
Perhaps it was the sight of them which aroused in the young fellow an
increasing doubt of his ability to do what he came for. Would this man,
who had never been in the habit of taking any one’s advice, listen to
him? He wondered, and then, unable to remain still, arose and paced the
floor anxiously.

Presently he dropped in a chair before a rough deal table, on top of
which was tacked a large sheet of blotting paper. A corner of white
"You don't happen to have lost one of your crew, tryin' to desert by
swimmin', sir?"

"Have you picked him up?  What's his name, does he say?"

"It's Smith, sir."

"That's the man," said Sant.  "I want him badly."

But Smith cried out:

"This is kidnappin', Mr. Sant.  I refuse to go."

"Oh, Smith," said Sant, "I'll take all the chances of it's bein'
anythin' you like.  Throw them a rope."

And the _Triumphants_ towed alongside.

"Up you go," said Benson.

"I won't," said Smith.

"Won't you?" asked Benson.  "We'll see about that.  Hook on there,
Billings."

And the next moment Smith was jammed in a running bowline round his
waist.

"Sway him up," said Benson; and the crew of the _Harvester_ hoisted
the notorious robber with about the only feelings of pleasure they
were likely to know till they reached New York.  And the
_Triumphants_ pushed off as they heard the mate address Mr. Smith in
language which did his reputation and the reputation of the ship most
ample justice.

"There's talk and there's a fore-topsail-yard-ahoy voice for you,"
said Benson.  "Oh, Mr. Smith will be looked after, he will.  Now,
chaps, pull for it, or the admiral will be waitin', and if that
'appens, 'twill be 'Stand from under.'"




THE POLICY OF THE _POTLUCK_.

Concerning the permanent and immutable characteristics of ships, the
unhappy man who has never had his limited range of vision broadened
by a trip in a sailing ship must of necessity know little.  He
probably falls into the fallacy, common even among those who follow
the sea, that a partial or entire clearance of her "crowd" will quite
alter her nature; whereas sailors being sailors--that is, people of
certain fairly definite attributes--any given environment makes them
much the same as those who preceded them.

But entire changes in the _personnel_ of a vessel rarely take place.
The officers change, but the crew remains: the crew goes, but
officers stay.  Or more frequently some few men are favourites of one
or two of the officers, and they mingle with the new crew like yeast,
till the ancient fermentation is visible once more.

Ships (to speak thus of their companies) talk of the same subjects
over a million miles of changing seas: they have a permanent stock of
subjects.  These include all which are perennially of interest to
seafaring men, such as homes _versus_ boarding-houses, but they
include also something more individual, something more intimately
connected with the essence of that particular vessel.  And the one
unending topic of interest on board the _Potluck_ was foreign
politics.

How this came about no one knew, though many theories were set afloat
and sunk again every Sunday afternoon.  Some said that the first
captain of the _Potluck_ was called Palmerstone, and that he
introduced the subject of England _versus_ the world as soon as he
came on board.  Others swore that they had been told by a clerk in
the employ of the firm that there had been a discussion over her very
keel concerning the introduction into her frame of foreign oaks.

"This was the way of it," said Jack Hart, who was the chief upholder
of this particular theory, and the son of a little shipbuilder--"the
lot that built her at Liverpool was the mixedest crowd of forsaken
cranks as ever handled timber.  So the clerk said.  And one had a
hankerin' for teak and another for hoak (with odd leanin's now and
agin for Hafrican and Portugee and French hoak), and another he said
'Cuban Sabicu,' and another's word was 'Hackmatack' and 'chestnut'
hevery time.  So they shoved in bits here and bits there till she was
a reg'lar junk-shop o' samples.  And that's the reason she's a
foreign talking argument ship.  And a mighty good reason too."

The crowd listened in silence.

"If you knew as much about arguin' as you know (_seemin'ly_) about
timbers as no man ever heerd of, your argument might stand," said
Mackenzie, a withered old foc'sle man.  "But it ain't to reason as
the natur' of the woods in a ship should make us talk this way or
that.  If so be a ship was built o' teak, d'ye think we'd talk the
'jildy jow,' you black 'son of a gun' lingo?"

Hart shook his head.

"No ship ain't never built all of teak as I ever heerd of, and so
your eye's out, Mac.  But a man with 'arf an eye could see the
knowledge of her bein' so built might lead right hup to talk about
the stren'ths of the countries as well of the vally of their timbers."

"So they might," said the almost convinced crowd.  "Now Jack Hart 'as
the gift, so to speak, of seein' through things."

"And once started, who'd stop it?" asked Jack triumphantly.  "I
knowed a ship as 'ad fresh crowd after fresh crowd in her, but she
for ever 'ad a black cat aboard.  And they talked 'cat' to make you
sick.  And I knowed another as 'ad from launch to her hultimate
pilin' up in the Bermudas the fashion of calling the skipper the
'Guffin.'  And hevery skipper was the 'Guffin,' new and old, go or
stay.  But when we broke hoff to hargue, why, we was talkin' about
them French jossers and whether Sallis-bury was a-goin' to let 'em
chip into our game and straddle the Nile."

"That's so," said the crowd, and the House was rough.

Meanwhile, the skipper, or "old man" (who henceforward, by the way,
was called the "Guffin"), and his two mates were discussing the
latest aspect of world politics, as they drank whiskey and water.

"What's wrong with Salisbury," said the Guffin, who was as stout as a
barrel and as sturdy, "is, that he ain't got a backbone.  He just
lets 'em blow him about like so much paper.  What he wants is
stiffenin': he's like a sprung spar.  That's what he's like."

The mate, a tough-looking dog with hair like anæmic tussac grass in
patches on his face, shook his head.

"I've a greater opinion of him, captain, than you have.  All his
double shuffle is cunning.  It's getting back so's to lead them
French on.  Mark me, he'll play them yet a fair knock-out."

The Guffin sneered.

"He may have cunnin', Lampert, but he ain't no real tact.  Now,
diplomatic tact, I take it, is not givin' way into the gutter, but
just showin' as you're a nice pleasant-spoken chap as don't mean to
be put on.  It's my good opinion as these foreigners don't yearn to
fight us.  And men like you and me, Lampert, gets to learn the way of
handlin' foreigners.  Who has so much experience with 'em as them in
command of English ships?"

"That's so," said the second mate, who had been listening.  "Now last
v'y'ge in the _Battleaxe_, there was a Dago in my watch as come from
the betwixt and between land where Spain jines France.  And he was
the Dagoest Dago I ever sailed with.  But I knew the breed, and the
first time he opens his garlicky mouth I hauled off and hit him.  And
then I took his knife away and snapped the point off.  And I says to
him, 'Now, you black beggar, every time at muster you'll show me that
knife, and there'll be peace in the land.'  And he done so, and there
was peace."

The captain (or "Guffin") smote his thigh.

"You're right, Simcox, you're right, and if Salisbury was to take a
leaf out of your log-book in respects of handlin' Dagoes, 'twould be
better for all concerned.  But no, not him.  He goes on seein' them
French make a fleet and he lets 'em!  He actually sees 'em with their
fleet sharpenin' on the grindstone and never says from the poop,
'Chuck that overboard, you swine, or I'll come and 'andle you so's
you'll be glad to die.'"

The second mate was much gratified, as was obvious by his standing
first on one foot and then on another.  But Lampert was not so
pleased.

"Why, you talk--you, captain and you, Simcox--as if they had a fleet.
Why, it's my opinion--and experts say 'ditto' to me there--that a
string o' band-boxes with crackers in 'em, and all on a mud-flat,
would do as much harm as the French fleet--unless they blows up when
we takes 'em."

The Guffin shook his head.

"Well, you know, Lampert, as I never 'ad no opinion of their fleet.
But that ain't the question.  Salisbury may have 'is reasons for not
takin' it away, though I fails to see 'em; but the real question is,
why we don't have a man with guts and go in command.  It's my firm
belief as there's many a merchant captain as could work the
diplomatic game to better hadvantage.  Look at the experience we has,
dealing with owners contrary as hell, and with consignees and with
'arbour-masters and pilots.  Where Salisbury is wrong, is in his not
goin' about and freshin' up his mind.  And he works by rule o' thumb
and dead reckoning.  It ain't no wonder we can see where's his eye's
out."

"It ain't," said the compliant Simcox.

"Well," sighed Lampert, "I owns freely as I don't feel that sure I'd
like to run his show."

The Guffin laughed.

"But you ain't 'ad my experience yet, Lampert.  Now, I'd hundertake
to come right down into the harena, and make them French and Germans
sit up like monkeys on a horgan while I played the tune."

"I believe you," said Simcox, rubbing his hard hands.

"Look at the difficulties we 'as to contend with," said the skipper,
with a rapidly thickening utterance and an increasing loss of
aspirates--"look at the vig'lance we 'as to use.  Rocks _and_ shoals
_and_ hother ships.  It's 'igh education to be a master-mariner, and
the Board of Trade knows it--knows it well.  This 'ere crowd's all
English except that one Dutchman, but if so be we'd English and
Dagoes, and Dutchmen and Calashees, I'd 'ave showed you and Salisbury
'ow to 'andle mixed sweets.  Vig'lance, difficulties, bright
look-out, and the rule o' the road.  And look at the chart!  That's
me!"

And very shortly afterwards the triple conversation ceased, for the
captain lay snoring in his cabin.

The _Potluck_ was a barque of eleven hundred tons' register, and was
bound for Adelaide, with a general cargo of all mixed things under
heaven and on earth.  Now she was engaged in running down her
easting, and, as her skipper believed, was somewhere about Lat. 44°
30' S., Long. 50° E., and not far off the Crozets.  The westerly
winds were blowing hard, but had the worst chill of winter off, for
the month was September.  Nevertheless, as old Jones, the skipper,
was on a composite track, with a maximum latitude of 45° S., and was
bound farther south still it might have been to the advantage of all
concerned if he had drunk less, talked little, and minded his own
business instead of arguing foreign politics.

But to each man Fate often gives his chance of proving what he boasts
to be his particular skill in the universe.

When Lampert relieved Simcox at midnight, the weather was thick, and
neither man's temper was of the sweetest, so they had a bit of a
breeze.

"What kind of a relief d'ye call this?' growled Simcox.

"I call it a very good relief," replied Lampert, "and a darned sight
better one than you deserve.  You owe me ten minutes even now."

He looked down the scuttle at the clock.

"Why, you owe me twenty."

Simcox flew out with pretended politeness.

"Oh, make it half an hour!  Don't let's haggle about such a trifle.
What's it matter if I stand here waiting?  Can't I keep the whole
bloomin' watch for you?"

"Go to hell," said Lampert sulkily.

And Simcox went below.

"To be a sailor is to be a natural born fool," said Lampert,
addressing the bitter and unkindly elements at large, "and to be on
board a ship with such a windy gassing crowd, from the old man down
to the cook, is very trying.  It's very trying."

The wind took off a little later, but the weather was still thickish.

"It's like lookin' through a haystack," grunted Lampert, "but there,
bar an island or so there's nothing to speak of in our way.  And if
the skipper will crack on, and it a week since we saw the sun, it's
the owners' look out, not mine."

He spoke with a certain bitterness, as though he would really enjoy
being wrecked, in the trust that the _Potluck_ was not insured, and
that old Jones would get his certificate cancelled, or at least
suspended.

"'Twould give the old ass time to study foreign politics," sneered
Lampert, as it breezed up again.

And five minutes' later, while Lampert was lighting his pipe half-way
down the cabin stairs, he heard a bellow forward which made him drop
thoughts of tobacco.

"Breakers ahead!"

The watch came out on deck and ran aft; and were followed by the
watch below in various articles of attire, not calculated to keep
them very warm.

The _Potluck_ had been running with the wind nearly dead aft.

"Starboard, starboard!" roared Lampert.  "Oh, steady; hold her there!"

The vessel ran off to port at a sharp angle to her wake.

"Up here some," yelled the mate, "and set the spanker!  Stand by
the----  My God!"

And, as old Jones and Simcox came on deck, the _Potluck_ was hard and
fast ashore.  With one simultaneous crack the three topmasts went
over the side, and as the men and officers jumped under the shelter
of the weather rail, Lampert and those of the watch who were with him
came tumbling down from the poop.  They reckoned on a boiling sea
coming after and sweeping them away.  But though the malignity native
to matter had set the _Potluck_ ashore, by good luck she was hard and
fast in the one sheltered cove on the island.  When Lampert by
instinct altered her course to port, as he heard the coast breakers
at the starboard bow, he had run her in between two ledges of rock,
of which the outer or more westerly one acted as a complete
breakwater.

The skipper, who had been lying flat when the others jumped for the
main deck, got up and crawled forward to the break of the poop.  He
was half-paralysed with a mixture of funk and rage.  He addressed
himself and his remarks to the sky, the sea, and the island, but
above all to Lampert.

"You man-drowning, slop-built caricature of a sailorman, what 'ave
you bin and done with my ship?" he bellowed.  "Oh, Lord, I'm a ruined
man; by gosh, I'll murder you!"

He tumbled down on the main deck and made for Lampert, who easily
dodged him.

"Shut up, you old idiot!" said the mate contemptuously.  "Who but me
told you that if you drove her in thick weather, and no sun seen for
a week, you'd pile her up?"

Simcox caught Jones and held him.

"Good lord, sir," said the second greaser, "it's no time to fight."

"No, it ain't," said Jack Hart boldly.

That a foremast hand should dare to shove his oar in, almost cowed
the poor old Guffin.  It was something out of nature.

"It ain't no time for jawbation," insisted Hart, about whom the
others had gathered.  "It's time for thinkin' out the politics of the
situation, and if I'm not mistaken we shall be able to walk ashore by
the morning, and there won't be no ship for any one to command--so
what's the use of jaw?  I say get up stores, eh, Mackenzie?"

"Don't ask me," said old Mac.  "I was thinkin' that mighty soon we'd
be able to settle that question about the buildin' of the _Potluck_."

And as by this time Jones was calming down and was rather inclined to
cry, Lampert came up to the restive crowd.

"You dry up, Hart," he said roughly.  "Until the ship's broken up,
you're on the articles.  Say another word and I'll break your jaw."

"Yes, sir," said Hart respectfully.

Until dawn they loafed about the deck and in the cabin and foc'sle,
discussing whether they were on one of the Crozets or what, and
whether they would stay long there, and if so what, and so on.

And just as the dawn broke over the island they got an awful
surprise.  They saw a man standing on the low cliff on about a level
with the jagged splinters of the fore-topmast where it had gone short
in the cap.

"The bloomin' hisland's in'abited," cried a foremast hand, and every
one rushed forward to interview the gesticulating stranger.

"Wod's the bloke say?" asked the crowd.  "Oh, say it again!"  And the
stranger said it again.

But the crowd shook a unanimous head.

"I believe the silly galoot don't talk English," cried Hart; "'ere,
where's Dutchy?"

They shoved their one "Dutchman" forward, and after some interchange
of utter un-intelligibilities, listened to by every one with bated
breath, Hermann turned round.

"I not versteh, captain.  I denk him ein French."

The Frenchman was joined by two or three more, and then by a dozen.

"Why, they're all French," said the disgusted crowd.  "What's
Frenchmen doin' on any island of ours?"

And until the sea went down, which it did sufficiently to allow them
to get ashore at about ten o'clock, they discussed the question as to
whether the Crozets were English or not.  It was settled by old
Mackenzie.

"All islands as don't belong to any one belongs to us," he said; "it
was arranged so by Disraeli."

They got ashore with some risk, and were greeted by the Frenchman in
the most amiable way.

"Poor beggars!" said the crew; "it must be 'ard on a soft lot of
things like them to be on a des'late hisland.  Ain't it a wonder
Froggies ever goes to sea?  But does they belong 'ere, or was they
piled hup same's hus?"

Hart found himself alongside a Frenchman with a long red Liberty cap
on, and a big pair of ear-rings in his ears.

"Goddam," said the Frenchman.

"That's what we say," cried Hart.  "Here, you chaps, he speaks
English."

"Hurrah!" said the crowd.

"I spike Engelish," nodded the stranger.

"How'd you come 'ere?" asked the eager chorus.

The Frenchman nodded.

"Goddam!" he said, smiling.  "Ship!  Por'smout'--London!  I spick
En'lish."

"Well, then," said Hart desperately, "just dry up with your mixed
hogwash, and spit it all out free as to 'ow you came 'ere, and wot
the name o' this bally rock is, and who's its in'abitants.  Now, give
it lip!"

"Hart's a nateral born speaker, and 'as a clear 'ead," said the
crowd.  "'E puts it in a nutshell, and don't run to waste in words."

But the Frenchman looked puzzled.

"Comb wiz," he said; "spik En'lish besser," and he pointed over the
low rise.

"Steady!" said Hart; "boys, I'm not clear as to whether we hain't
bein' led hinto a hambush.  It hain't nateral for shipwrecked
Englishmen to find Frenchies shipwrecked too!"

"It ain't," said the crew suspiciously.

"And even if it's all right, we bein' strangers might be led into
makin' a treaty without knowin' all there is to know.  I vote waitin'
till the officers comes up."

They squatted down on rocks and on the lumps of tussac grass till the
captain and the two mates came along with the rest of the Frenchmen.
Hart communicated his suspicions to the skipper, who was decidedly
under the influence of alcohol.

"That's all right," said the Guffin thickly.  "_We_ can manage
Frenchmen.  They ain't goin' to make no French Shore question on no
more of our islands.  One Newfoundland's enough for me.  I'll show
you n'gotiations--'gotiashuns is my forte!"  And he led the way over
the hill.  Below them they saw the wreck of a French barquantine.

"Blimy," said the crowd, with a frown, "if they 'aven't got the best
part of our hisland!"


It was not to be endured by any lot of Englishmen under the sun, that
the best part of this rock should be occupied by their natural foes,
and soon there was evidence that in any attempt to turn the Frenchmen
out the British leader would have a united nation at his back.

The Guffin and the two mates argued it, and Lampert was the
Opposition.

"W'y, wot's this you're sayin'?" asked the disgusted skipper; "did I
think to 'ave shipped a Verning 'Arcourt among my lot?  You're a
Little Englander, and nothin' but it, Lampert."

"They was here first," said Lampert obstinately.

"But the hisland is British ground," urged Simcox, "and where our
flag flies no Frenchman can have the best.  We gives 'em liberty to
trade, and they can take what's left.  What for have we always beat
'em if we're to give in now?"

"Continuosity of foreign politics is my motter," said the skipper.
"With continuosity and joodishus firmness, and a polite 'hout o'
this,' you'll see 'em listen to reason, and evacuate.  I shall send
hin my hultimatum this very afternoon.  And you, Simcox, shall be
hambassador."

Simcox looked anxious.

"Well, captain, I was thinking it would be judicious policy to send
in the Dutchman.  It will remind them that Europe is more or less
agin them, and to have a Dutchman here will make 'em think twice
afore they elects for war."

The skipper shook his head.

"No, Simcox, it looks judicious on the surface, but takin' deeper
thought it ain't.  It would aggerawate them, and that ain't policy.
We fights if we must, but don't start it by doin' anythin' unpleasin'
more'n askin' for our rights.  And in n'gotiashuns it ain't policy to
remind 'em deliberate of the time the Prooshians beat 'em.  And
moreover it's accordin' to no tradition I've heard of to send a
furriner as hambassador.  No, Simcox, you shall go.  I'll draw up the
hultimatum at once."

He returned on board the wreck of the _Potluck_, and in company with
a bottle of brandy strove with the situation, while the crowd and
their spokesman, Hart, argued like a House of Commons.

"It ain't any good talkin'," said Jack, "and hevery one knows that
give a Frenchman the chance of hargument he'll talk a government
mule's 'ind leg off.  'Hout of this,' is the on'y hargument a
Frenchman hunderstands."

"But they seems to be a good many more of 'em than us," suggested the
crowd.

"Come to that," said Hart, "it's the on'y just ground we 'as to go
for 'em.  For if they was on'y ekal numbers, it'd be cowardly to
whack 'em, and I for one would be on the side of just goin' down
there and shovin' them out peaceful.  I'm for the hultimatum right
off.  I wonder 'ow the Guffin will put it.  Say, boys, 'ere 'e comes!"

The "old man" staggered up with a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Have you done it, sir?" asked Simcox.  "Let's hear it."

"Yes, read it out," said Lampert, with half a sneer, which the
skipper did not notice.

The crowd gathered round as the captain squatted on a rock.


"On board the British barque _Potluck_, belonging to the British port
Liverpool; owners, McWattie & Co.; Captain Abednego Jones.

"MR. SIMCOX,--Sir----"


"Eh, what?" said the astounded Simcox.

"It's addressed to you, Simcox," said the skipper blandly.

"Why?" asked Simcox.

The skipper shook his head impatiently.

"I thought you'd 'ave knowed, Simcox.  You're the hambassador, and
you've to communicate this to 'em."

"Oh, go on, sir," said the crowd.

The skipper resumed:


"MR. SIMCOX,--Sir, you'll be so good as to be so kind as to
communicate the contents of this 'ere letter to them French of the
wreck we don't know the name of, and tell them to clear.  For there
ain't no reasonable grounds for supposin' this ain't a British
hisland (seeing that mostly all hislands is) and they've by comin'
'ere first got and taken possession of the best bit of it, which
can't be allowed, as it's contrary to law in such case made and
purvided.  So you'll inform 'em it ain't goin' to be put up with, and
they must evacuate immejit and resume the _statues quo_----"


"What's that?" asked Simcox.

"It's Latin, you unutterable ass," said the skipper, with a look of
withering contempt.

"I don't know Latin," said the poor second mate.

"And who expected it of you?" asked the skipper.  "It means that
things are to go on as they was afore they come:


"----resume the _statues quo_, and don't stand no hargument.  You are
to tell 'em it will be considered an unfriendly hact, and that we 'as
cleared for haction in consequence of not believing them such cowards
as to quit.  But quit they must, and no mistake, or we resort without
delay to the arbitrage and general haverage of war.  Given this day
on board the British barque _Potluck_ by me,

"CAPTAIN ABEDNEGO JONES."


"First rate!" said the crew.  "That'll give 'em the jumps."

"And how am I to translate it?" asked the miserable Simcox.

"That's your look-out," said the Guffin, with a hiccup.  "Shall I
keep a dog and bark myself?  Now, 'urry and get it hover.  And let
hevery one 'ave a weapon, 'andspikes and belayin' pins.  Now go,
Simcox!"

"Hart, come along with me," said Simcox.

And as the "old man" was engaged in keeping his balance, he made no
objection.

"I think this is a herror of judgment, sir," said Hart; "my hidea of
a hultimatum was jumpin' on 'em unexpected, and givin' 'em toko afore
they know'd where they was.  My notion of fightin' (and it pays
hevery time) is to haggravate your man till he's ready to 'it, but to
'it 'im fust.  An' if I thinks a cove will 'it me in five minutes, I
lets no time go by in hanticipatin' 'im.  But this will warn 'em."

"But they have no one who really knows English, Hart," groaned
Simcox; "and I don't know the first word of French."

"Never mind, sir," said Hart encouragingly.  "I've 'ad many a row
with a Frenchy, and I never knowed my 'avin' not the least notion of
what 'e meant ever stopped the fight from comin' off.  If so be I see
you get stuck, I'll come in, sir."

And they were met by the French sailor who thought he spoke English.

"I spik En'lish, goddam," said the Frenchman.  "Leaverpool,
Por'smout'; mais le capitaine spik besser."

"Good-mornin'," said Simcox meekly to the French captain, a long
unhappy looking man, who might have been the skipper of a
_chasse-marée_ for all the style he put on.

"Mais, oui----" said the captain.

"This 'ere paper is for you," said Simcox, "and by the powers I hope
you can't read it."

He handed the ultimatum to the Frenchman, who studied it while his
crew came round.

"Je ne peux pas le lire, monsieur," he said at length.

Simcox turned to Hart.

"There, now what the blazes am I to do when he talks that way?"

"Just hexplain it," said Hart, as he helped himself to a chew.  "Say,
'Hout o' this!'"

"It means you've got to go," said Simcox; "you can't be allowed to
stay in the best part of our island."

"Goddam," cried the Frenchman, with his hand in his hair.  "I spik
English, two, tree word: pilote, feesh, shannel, owaryo!"

"Owaryo?" asked Simcox.

"That's his way o' sayin' 'How are you?'" interjected Hart, who was
contemptuously sizing up the French sailors.

"Ah, how are you?" said Simcox.

"Owaryo," replied the French captain, smiling.

"Very well, thanks," said Simcox; "but I'm the ambassador."

"Ma foi, ambassadeur!  You spik Français?"

"And you've just got to get," added Simcox.

"March!" cried Hart.

The Frenchmen "jabbered" a bit among themselves.

"Quoi donc?  Marcher?" asked their skipper.

"We, old son," said Hart; "marshay if you like.  Just pack up and
quit.  We gives you an hour to gather up your dunnage.  Now do you
understand?"

Whether the Frenchmen understood or not it was tolerably obvious they
did not like the tone with which Hart spoke, or the looks of evident
disfavour he cast at them.  The captain turned away.

"Stop!" said Hart, and he went in for a dumb pantomime, in which he
vaguely suggested that over yonder hill was an army of Englishmen.

"And we mean 'avin' our rights," he ended with.  And just then old
Jones appeared in sight.

"Are they jossers goin' to evacuate or not?" he bellowed.  "What's
their captain say to the _statues quo_?  Don't they know the first
thing about diplomatics?  Tell 'em that to prepare for peace we makes
war."

"War it is," said Hart, and he launched himself at a crowd of
Frenchmen, as his mates came tumbling down the hill.

The fight was short, sharp, and pretty decisive, for the _Potluck's_
crowd numbered ten able seamen, one ordinary seaman, and two boys, or
with the captain and the two mates, sixteen in all.  Against this
array there were twenty-one Frenchmen, and though Hart, in his first
onslaught, knocked down two, he was himself stretched out by a third
armed with a broken hand-spike.  And Simcox fled with the infuriated
foreigners at his heels.  The true battle (for this was but an affair
of outposts) joined on the crest of the rise, and in five minutes the
English were in flight for the shelter of the piled-up _Potluck_.
Old Jones was keeled over once, but Lampert and Mackenzie dragged him
away and got him down to the ship.  He swore most terribly.

"'Ere's a pretty kettle o' fish," said he at last; "a pretty lot I
'as to my back to let a few Frenchies lick 'em this way.  What's the
good o' diplomatics if my men 'asn't the guts to support me?  Where's
that Simcox?"

"Here, sir," said the ambassador.

"Who told you to start a row?" demanded the skipper.  "Don't you know
your duty?  You was to give 'em the hultimatum and retire dignified.
Do you call it retirin' dignified to run and beller like a bull-calf?"

Simcox looked sulky and injured.

"How was I to look dignified with six of 'em after me--and two with
knives and one with a meat-chopper?" he asked.  "And as for startin'
a rough house, 'twas Hart as done it."

"Where's Hart?" yelled the Guffin.

"'Ere, 'Art, where are you?" said the crowd.

"I believe he's a prisoner," said Lampert.

"Oh, Lord," said the crowd, "but Jack never 'ad no discretion."

"We must 'ave him liberated," said the skipper firmly.  "No man of
mine must be in the 'ands of them mutilatin' French.  Simcox, you'll
'ave to go to 'em again and open n'gotiashuns!"

"No, sir," said Simcox, "if you'll excuse me, I'll do nothin' of the
sort.  I've had my fill up of bein' ambassador."

"This is mut'ny," said the skipper; "but under the painful national
circumstances I shan't do nothin' but order you to your cabin, where
you'll consider yourself in custody."

Simcox looked greatly relieved, and went without delay.

"Mr. Lampert, you'll be hambassador," said the old man, after a drink
of brandy.

The mate looked the skipper up and down.

"I'll see you further first," he cried.  "'Twas you that started the
row and the trouble, and you can get out of it as you like."

"This is rank mut'ny," said the skipper, "and you could be 'ung for
refusin' duty.  But under the painful nash'nal circumstances you can
retire to your cabin and be your own bloomin' policeman till peace is
restored, when I'll try you and sentence you, you run and scuttle
swine you."

"Oh, that's all right," said the mate contemptuously.

"Now, men," said the skipper thickly, "what I wants is 'earty
support.  Who'll volunteer for to be hambassador?"

The crew looked at each other and shook their heads.  They scuffled
with uneasy feet on the lopsided deck.

"They're standin' upon the 'ill as thick as pea-sticks," said one of
the boys.

"Speak hup," roared the skipper.

The crew shoved old Mac in front.

"We've revolved the notion up and over," said Mac, "and we've come to
the conclusion, sir, there ain't nothin' to be got by sendin'
ignorant men like we on such errands."

The skipper hiccupped angrily.

"Who asted you to think?  But I ain't the man to press unwilling
lubbers into goin' aloft, _I_ can lead the way.  Go into the
fo'castle, you dogs, and consider yourselves under arrest.  Go!"

"Blimy," said the crowd, "but we're all in our own custody, so we
are.  Now what's the old man goin' to do?"

They watched him from the fo'castle as he staggered into his own part
of the ship.

"I'll be my own hambassador," said Jones.  "I'll show 'em 'ow to work
things with dignity; I'll show that ass Lampert what's o'clock.  What
you wants in such cases made and provided is tact, and go, and
innerds.  Innerds is the chief need.  Why fight if palaver'll do?
Where I was wrong was to send a galoot like Simcox.  But what could I
do but work the best with the tools I 'ad?  If I'd gone myself, we'd
'ave made peace afore there was a row."

He came staggering out of the cabin with a case of brandy and laid it
on the after capstan.

"I guess I'll have a boy," said Jones.  "'Ere, you scum, send me
Billy."  And Billy came aft.

"I releases you temp'ry without bail," said the skipper fiercely, "so
puckalow that case and foller me.  No, you wait till I gets a
tablecloth as a signal I'm willin' to 'ave peace."

When he came out with a cloth he went ashore and stumbled up the
hill, followed by the boy Billy, bearing the case of brandy.  He
found the crew of the Frenchmen lining the crest, and heard them talk.

"Say, Johnny French," said old Jones, "if you wants war, prepare for
peace.  Who's the captain?"

"Sapristi!" said the French captain.

Jones nodded.

"Give it up, old son.  It warn't my fault, if relyin' on the
discretion of ambassadors ain't a fault: and maybe you can swaller
the hultimatum with some real good brandy throwed in.  And is your
name Sapristi?"

"Nom de Dieu----" began the Frenchman, but Jones waved his hand with
dignity.

"Call yourself what you like, but 'ave you got anythin' in the way of
a marlinspike or a splice bar as'll open this yer case?"

The foreigners, perceiving that the Englishman was on an errand of
peace, gathered about the case, and soon discovered from the
stencilled inscription that it at any rate pretended to come from
Cognac.

"Goddam," said the little red-capped Frenchman who had first
discovered them.  "Cognac!  I spik English--brandee, Por'smout',
Lon-don!"

Jones made signs that he presented the case to them.

"I ain't above makin' a concession or two," he remarked
confidentially to the French captain; "but if I'd listened to my lot
on board, it would 'ave been blood up to the neck."

The Frenchman shook his head.

"You bet it would 'ave bin," said Jones earnestly, "but what d'ye say
to 'avin' a drink?  Billy, gimme your knife."

And with it he started opening the case, while the Frenchmen's eyes
gleamed in pleasing anticipation.  They had not had a drink for
weeks.  And as they carried the case down to the ship with Jones and
their own captain in the rear, they concluded that the English were
not such bad chaps after all.

"But where's my man 'Art!" asked Jones, when he came to the French
camp.

"'Ere I be," cried Hart, who was lashed hard and fast to a round
rock.  "Lord, captain, but I've 'ad a time.  Can't you cut me adrift,
sir?"

Jones shook his head.

"You interferin' galoot, it serves you right.  And as for that, the
'ole crew's under arrest, where I put 'em for mut'ny, and I don't see
as I should so pick and choose among 'em as to use my hinfluence to
'ave you let go.  At any rate, bide a bit, and I'll see."

For it was obvious that the drinking was going to begin.  The French
captain served the liquor out in a small glass to every one, and
presently some of his melancholy disappeared.  He gave an order to
one of his men who brought two more glasses, one for the English
captain, and one for himself.

"I looks towards you," said Jones.

"À votre santé," cried the Frenchman.  "Monsieur, vous êtes un homme
de coeur quand mêne."

"I don't savvy, but I dessay you means well," said the captain.
"Now, if I'd thought to bring along the signal book we might 'ave 'ad
quite a talk.  But time enough; I dessay afore we're took off I shall
patter your lingo like blazes.  Shall I cut my man loose there?"

He pointed to Hart, and though two of the Frenchmen, who had black
eyes, remonstrated against the deed of mercy, Hart was unlashed and
given a drink.

"Here's to you, old cocklywax," said Hart, with a scrape of his leg.
"I bears no grudge, not me."

And very soon the French and English skippers were talking to each
other at the rate of knots, while Hart sat in a crowd of Frenchmen
and told them all about everything.


It was close on sundown when Jones returned to the _Potluck_.  He had
to be helped up the side by some of the crew.

"Ain't we under arrest?" they asked.  "Does we dare come out?"

Jones hiccupped.

"I releases you on your own recognition," he said.  "So down you come
and 'elp."

When he put his foot on the deck, he mustered all hands aft.

"And you, Lampert, and you, Simcox!"

The two mates came out of their cabins.

"And where's Hart?"

"If you please, sir, he's drunk," said Billy.

"Arrest 'im," said the skipper; "what's 'e mean by it?  Now, look
'ere, you bally lot, what does you think of yourselves?"

The crew appeared uneasy.

"I went all by my lone," said the skipper, hanging on to the poop
ladder, "all by my lone I went, and I brings back peace!  Do you
'ear?  But when I sent you, what use was you?  I released 'Art, who's
repaid me by bein' unable to see an 'ole in a ladder; and I've
concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the French.  Next
time (if so be a German ship comes ashore) I'll go out as my own
hambassador.  No, Simcox, never more!  No, Lampert, never, never
more!  I just speaks to that French crowd, and they are civil and
drink fair.  They recognised they'd met their match.  Their skipper
says, says he, 'Captain Jones, I owns fair and square I'm not your
ekal at diplomatics.'  He adds, moreover, 'Captain Jones, damn me if
I believe your match is to be found.'  And I says, with dignity (with
dignity, Simcox), 'Right you are!'  That's what I says.  And as for
you, you ratty galoots, you'll treat 'em when you meets 'em just the
same as if they wasn't French.  Do you 'ear me?  That's my
hultimatum.  Now you can go.  That'll do the watch."

He turned to the mates.

"I thought better of you two, so I did," he remarked sadly.  "But
there, you 'aven't 'ad my experience, and when I gets 'ome I shall
see as them that is in power at the Furrin Office 'ears 'ow I done
it.  Salisbury ain't my stiffness of backbone, and 'e ain't my tact.
If so be as 'e was to invite them Frenchmen to dinner, it would be
different.  They knows (as the French captain owned to me; fair and
square 'e owned it) they don't 'ave no nat'ral right to hislands and
col'nies.  Make the Frenchmen's 'omes 'appy and they'll stay at 'ome.
Think it hout; you'll see 'ow it could be done.  There now, that'll
do you.  I disarrest you!"

And the "old man" rolled cheerfully for his cabin.

"By my lone I done it!" said the Guffin.




THE CREW OF THE _KAMMA FUNDER_.

The stars of European science, who had been shining in a wonderful
constellation over Quebec, were just about to leave Canada in that
well-known comfortable liner, the _Nipigon_, when a most annoying
thing happened.  The cattle-ship _Abbitibbe_, never famous at any
time for minding her helm, got her steam steering gear jammed as she
was passing the _Nipigon_, and took a wide sheer to port when she
should have altered her course to starboard.  The peaceful
preparations of the passenger boat were broken up, and her crew
received the wild charge of the _Abbitibbe_ with curses, which,
though effectual in heating the atmosphere, were no use as a fender.
The _Nipigon_ was cut down to the water's edge, and the scientific
lights of Europe were much put out.  They hurried ashore in the most
irregular and unscientific manner, and, having sent others for their
baggage, began to make preparations for going to New York, as no
other good passenger boat was leaving the St. Lawrence for a week.

But Nature, possibly out of revenge for the unseemly curiosity
evinced by all men of science, was beforehand with them.
Misfortunes, as was once observed by an intelligent, if pessimistic,
anthropoid ape, never come singly.  It was the twelfth of November,
and a sudden blizzard, bringing all the snow it could carry, broke up
communication with the south.  If the men of science were to keep
their appointments with their universities, it was necessary to sail
from Canada at once.  They shipped themselves under protest upon the
_Nemagosenda_, of 2,900 tons register, which was little better than a
tramp, and was commanded by Captain Joseph Prowse.

"Immortal Jehoshaphat!" said Captain Prowse; "here's a go!  What, we
with passengers?  Oh, get out!"

"You've got to take 'em," said the agent philosophically; "maybe
they'll teach you something, and it'll be a good advertisement."

"Gah'n!" said Prowse; "carryin' scientific jossers won't bring better
freight next season.  I wish you'd get me chock up with cattle.  I
can't stand scientists; my sister married one that was an 'erbalist
in the Old Kent Road--and since he went to chokey I've lost conceit
with science.  However, if it must be--why, send 'em along!"

Captain Prowse was not a popular skipper with sailors.  They said
that he was a "hard nut" and a "sailor-robber," and that his American
experience had made him nearly as deadly as any American captain with
a belaying-pin.  But sailors' experience only works backward: they
are good at reminiscence only, and the _Nemagosenda_ got a crew in
spite of the captain's reputation.  It is possible they would not
have shipped if they had known that men of European light and leading
were to come with them.  Those who follow the sea have a great
respect for knowledge, but they despise men in soft hats and
spectacles.  And it cannot be denied that scientific men are as a
rule too simple and gentle to look as if they could take care of
themselves.  According to Jack, that is the first duty of man, though
137. Placentas shortly adnate to the partition of the ovary and more or
less distinctly stalked. 138 Placentas adnate to the partition of the
ovary throughout their whole length or almost so. 141

138. Flowers unisexual or polygamous, 5-merous. Corolla-lobes
unappendaged. Fruit globose. Shrubs.--Species 20. Madagascar and
neighbouring islands. Some species yield dyes or medicaments; several
are poisonous. =Danais= Comm.

Flowers hermaphrodite. Corolla-lobes usually with a thread-or
club-shaped appendage on the back. Fruit oblong or linear. Trees. 139

139. Anthers concealed within the corolla-tube. Flowers 4-merous.
Corolla urn-shaped. Fruit loculicidal. Leaves opposite.--Species 1.
West Africa. Used medicinally. =Pseudocinchona= A. Chev.

Anthers projecting at least partly beyond the corolla-tube.
Corolla-lobes appendaged. Flowers usually 5-merous. 140

140. Fruit loculicidal. Corolla usually funnel-shaped.--Species 3. West
Africa. =Corynanthe= Welw.

Fruit septicidal. Corolla urn-or bell-shaped. Leaves whorled.--Species
3. West Africa. They yield timber and medicaments. (Under _Corynanthe_
Welw.) =Pausinystalia= Pierre

141. Fruit loculicidal. Calyx-segments subulate, deciduous.
Corolla-lobes erect. Style shortly lobed. Trees. Leaves herbaceous.
Stipules glandular-toothed. Bracts partly petal-like.--Species 8.
Tropics. =Hymenodictyon= Wall.

Fruit septicidal. 142

142. Fruit splitting downwards from the apex. Calyx-segments
lanceolate, leaf-like, deciduous. Corolla violet.--Species 4.
Madagascar. =Schismatoclada= Bak.

Fruit splitting upwards from the base. Calyx-segments persistent.
Corolla pink or yellowish. Stamens of the long-styled flowers inserted
in the middle of the corolla-tube, those of the short-styled at its
mouth. Placentas thick.--Species 3. Cultivated in the tropics. They
yield medicaments (especially quinine). =Cinchona= L.

143. (133.) Ovary 5-celled. Stigmas 5. Stamens 5, inserted a little
above the base of the corolla-tube. Corolla salver-shaped, with a long
tube. Calyx-segments unequal. Flowers in panicles. Herbs.--Species 1.
Southern West Africa (Angola). =Pentacarpaea= Hiern

Ovary 2-celled. Stigmas 1-2. 144

144. Placentas club-shaped, ascending from the base of the ovary-cells,
few-ovuled. Shrubs or undershrubs. Flowers in terminal cymes, 4-merous.
145

Placentas attached to the partition of the ovary. 147

145. Calyx-segments distinctly unequal, one or several of them
considerably enlarged. Corolla tubular or funnel-shaped. Stamens
inserted in the corolla-tube. Fruit bursting irregularly. Stipules
lacerated.--Species 15. Tropics. (Under _Carphalea_ Juss.)
=Dirichletia= Klotzsch

Calyx-segments equal. 146

146. Calyx inversely umbrella-shaped, membranous at the base of the
segments. Corolla salver-shaped. Stamens inserted at the throat of
the corolla. Fruit opening loculicidally. Leaves linear.--Species 1.
Madagascar. =Carphalea= Juss.

Calyx not inversely umbrella-shaped, with 4 lobes alternating with
small teeth. Corolla tubular. Stamens inserted in the corolla-tube.
Leaves ovate.--Species 1. Island of Socotra. =Placopoda= Balf.

147. Calyx-segments distinctly unequal, usually one of them much
enlarged. 148

Calyx-segments equal or nearly so. 151

148. Corolla glabrous at the throat. Style 2-lobed. Fruit loculicidal,
with a persistent and a deciduous valve. Herbs. Flowers in
cymes.--Species 10. Central Africa. =Virecta= Afzel.

Corolla hairy at the throat. Style 2-cleft. 149

149. Flowers in spikes. Fruit with septicidal and loculicidal
dehiscence. Undershrubs.--Species 12. Tropics. =Otomeria= Benth.

Flowers in fascicles, cymes, or panicles. Fruit with loculicidal
dehiscence. 150

150. Corolla red or violet. Stamens inserted in the upper part of the
corolla-tube. Herbs or undershrubs. Stipules divided into awl-shaped or
bristle-like segments.--Species 35. Tropical and South Africa. Some are
used as ornamental plants. (_Neurocarpaea_ R. Br.) =Pentas= Benth.

Corolla yellow or white. Stamens inserted at the throat of the corolla.
Shrubs or trees. (See 128.) =Mussaenda= L.

151. Stamens inserted in the lower part of the corolla-tube. Anthers
converging above or cohering into a tube, opening at the top. Corolla
rotate. Style simple, with a capitate stigma. Fruit opening with a
lid or irregularly. Herbs. Stipules undivided. Flowers in spike-or
umbel-like cymes.--Species 2. Central Africa. =Argostema= Wall.

Stamens inserted in the upper part of the corolla-tube or at its mouth.
Anthers neither converging nor cohering, opening lengthwise. 152

152. Flowers in racemes, 5-merous. Calyx-segments linear. Corolla
white, funnel-shaped; tube rather short. Anthers included. Placentas
spindle-shaped. Style 2-cleft. Creeping herbs.--Species 1. East Africa.
=Dolichometra= K. Schum.

Flowers solitary or in sometimes capitate or scorpioid cymes, often
collected in false racemes or panicles. 153

153. Flowers in one-sided cymose inflorescences, 5-merous. Stamens
inserted in the corolla-tube, included. Placentas filiform.
Style-branches spatulate. Fruit narrow, compressed, few-seeded, with
septicidal and loculicidal dehiscence. Climbing herbs. Stipules
lanceolate.--Species 1. Central Africa. =Hekistocarpa= Hook. fil.

Flowers in head-like or lax, not one-sided cymes, or solitary. 154

[Illustration: CAPRIFOLIACEAE.

_FLOW. PL. AFR._

_Pl. 145._

J. Fleischmann del.

Viburnum rugosum Pers.

_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Flower. _C_ Lower part of the flower cut
lengthwise. _D_ Fruit. _E_ Cross-section of fruit.]

[Illustration: VALERIANACEAE.

_FLOW. PL. AFR._

_Pl. 146._

J. Fleischmann del.

Valeriana capensis Vahl

_A_ Aboveground part of the plant. _B_ Flower. _C_ Anther. _D_ Flower
cut lengthwise (without the anthers). _E_ Stigma. _F_ Fruit. _G_ Seed
cut lengthwise.]

154. Flowers 5-merous. Corolla shortly funnel-shaped. Anthers included.
Style 2-cleft. Fruit opening loculicidally at the apex. Herbs. Stipules
entire or toothed. Flowers in lax cymes.--Species 1. Tropical and
South-east Africa. (Under _Oldenlandia_ Plum.) =Pentodon= Hochst.

Flowers 4-merous, very rarely 5-merous, but then solitary or in pairs
or style simple. 155

155. Fruit opening by a lid, few-seeded. Flowers 4-merous. Corolla
rotate. Placentas globose, with 3-4 ovules. Undershrubs. Flowers in
terminal fascicles.--Species 1. Northern East Africa (Somaliland).
=Mitratheca= K. Schum.

Fruit opening lengthwise or remaining closed.--Species 120. Some of
them yield vegetables, dyes, or medicaments. (Including _Hedyotis_ L.
and _Pentanopsis_ Rendle). =Oldenlandia= Plum.


FAMILY 220. CAPRIFOLIACEAE

Leaves opposite. Flowers hermaphrodite. Sepals 5, united below. Petals
5, united below. Stamens 5, inserted on the corolla. Ovary inferior.
Ovules axile, pendulous. Fruit a berry or a drupe. Seeds with a
straight embryo and fleshy albumen.--Genera 4, species 15. North and
East Africa. (Plate 145.)

1. Ovary 1-celled when fully developed. Ovule 1. Style very short,
3-parted. Anthers turned inwards. Flowers in corymbs, regular, at least
the inner ones. Fruit a drupe with a 1-seeded stone. Shrubs or trees.
Leaves entire, toothed, or lobed.--Species 4. North Africa. They yield
timber and medicaments or serve as ornamental plants, so especially the
guelder-rose (_V. Opulus_ L.) and the laurustinus (_V. tinus_ L.); the
latter has poisonous fruits. (Plate 145.) [Tribe VIBURNEAE.] =Viburnum=
L.

Ovary 2-5-celled. Ovules 2 or more. Fruit a drupe with 3-5 stones or a
several-seeded berry. 2

2. Ovary with 1 ovule in each cell. Style very short, 3-5-parted.
Anthers turned outwards. Corolla rotate. Flowers regular, in panicles
or corymbs. Fruit a drupe. Leaves pinnately dissected.--Species 4.
North and East Africa; one species (_S. nigra_ L.) only naturalized.
The latter yields wood, pith, oil, edible fruits, and medicaments;
another species is poisonous. “Elder.” [Tribe SAMBUCEAE.] =Sambucus= L.

Ovary with 2 or more ovules in each cell. Style long. Anthers turned
inwards. Flowers more or less irregular. Fruit a berry. Leaves entire,
toothed, or lobed. Shrubs. [Tribe LONICEREAE.] 3

3. Ovary 2-3-celled.--Species 6. North-west Africa. Some are used as
ornamental or medicinal plants. “Honeysuckle.” =Lonicera= L.

Ovary 5-celled. Fruit many-seeded.--Species 1. Naturalized in the
Azores. An ornamental plant. =Leycesteria= Wall.


FAMILY 221. VALERIANACEAE

Herbs or undershrubs. Leaves opposite or all radical, without stipules.
Inflorescence cymose. Calyx not distinctly developed at the time
of flowering. Petals 5, united below. Stamens 1-3, attached to the
corolla-tube. Anthers turned inwards. Ovary inferior, with 3 cells,
two of which are empty and sometimes rudimentary. Ovule 1, pendulous,
inverted. Style simple; stigma entire or 3-parted. Seed exalbuminous;
embryo straight.--Genera 4, species 35. (Plate 146.)

1. Stamen 1. Corolla spurred. Calyx-limb developing into a feathery
pappus crowning the fruit. Fruit 1-celled.--Species 5. North Africa.
Used as ornamental plants. =Centranthus= DC.

Stamens 2-3. Corolla not spurred, but sometimes gibbous. 2

2. Stamens 2, more rarely 3, two of which are united. Corolla 2-lipped;
tube long, with a minute gibbosity near the base. Calyx-limb toothed.
Branches of the inflorescence thickened.--Species 4. North-west Africa.
=Fedia= Moench

Stamens 3, free. Corolla not 2-lipped. 3

3. Calyx-limb rolled inwards at the time of flowering, developing
afterwards into a pappus of feathery bristles. Fruit 1-celled.
Corolla-tube usually gibbous. Perennial herbs or undershrubs. Leaves
divided.--Species 5. North-west, East, and South Africa. Used as
medicinal or ornamental plants. (Plate 146.) =Valeriana= L.

Calyx-limb entire or toothed. Corolla-tube without a distinct
gibbosity. Annual herbs.--Species 20. North and South Africa and
northern East Africa. Some species, especially _V. olitoria_ Poll., are
used as salad. “Cornsalad.” =Valerianella= Haller


FAMILY 222. DIPSACACEAE

Herbs or undershrubs. Leaves opposite, without stipules. Flowers in
heads; each flower with an epicalyx embracing the ovary. Petals 4-5,
united below. Stamens 2-4. Anthers turned inwards. Ovary inferior,
1-celled. Ovule 1, pendulous, inverted. Style simple; stigma entire
or 2-parted. Fruit enclosed by the epicalyx, dry, indehiscent. Seed
albuminous; embryo straight.--Genera 7, species 50. (Plate 147.)

1. Involucral bracts in many rows, imbricate, usually stiff and smaller
than the scales of the receptacle. Calyx-teeth numerous. Corolla-lobes
4. Stigma entire.--Species 15. (Plate 147.) =Cephalaria= Schrad.

Involucral bracts in 1-3 rows. 2

2. Involucral bracts united. Epicalyx with 8 pits near the apex.
Calyx-teeth 5. Stigma entire.--Species 2. North-west Africa. (Under
_Scabiosa_ L.) =Pycnocomon= Hoffmsg. & Link

Involucral bracts free. 3

[Illustration: DIPSACACEAE.

_FLOW. PL. AFR._

_Pl. 147._

J. Fleischmann del.

Cephalaria rigida (Spreng.) Schrad.

_A_ Flowering blanch. _B_ Flower with epicalyx and bract. _C_ Lower
part of the flower cut lengthwise.]

[Illustration: CUCURBITACEAE.

_FLOW. PL. AFR._

_Pl. 148._

J. Fleischmann del.

Momordica Charantia L.

_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Male flower cut lengthwise. _C_ Sepal.
_D_ Anther. _E_ Female flower cut lengthwise. _F_ Staminode. _G_
Cross-section of ovary. _H_ Fruit. _I_ Seed. (_H_ from Curtis’
Botanical Magazine, plate 2455.)]


3. Scales of the receptacle stiff and pointed. Calyx-teeth usually 4.
Stem prickly or bristly.--Species 5. North and East Africa. Several
species are used in the manufacture of cloth and in medicine. “Teasel.”
=Dipsacus= L.

Scales of the receptacle herbaceous or replaced by hairs. Stem glabrous
or hairy, rarely bristly. 4

4. Scales of the receptacle nearly as large as the flowers. Epicalyx
with 8 longitudinal furrows. Calyx-teeth 5. Stigma entire.--Species
2. North-west Africa and Cameroons. They yield dyes and medicaments.
(Under _Scabiosa_ L.) =Succisa= Coult.

Scales of the receptacle much smaller than the flowers or replaced by
hairs. 5

5. Calyx-teeth 4-6. Stigma 2-parted. Epicalyx with 8 longitudinal
furrows or ribs and a saucer-shaped limb. Receptacle scaly.--Species
18. Some of them are used as ornamental or medicinal plants. =Scabiosa=
L.

Calyx-teeth 8-24. 6

6. Calyx-teeth 8. Epicalyx without distinct furrows or ribs, and with a
narrow, toothed limb. Receptacle hairy.--Species 2. North-west Africa.
Used as ornamental or medicinal plants. (Under _Scabiosa_ L.) =Knautia=
Coult.

Calyx-teeth 12-24. Epicalyx with 8 longitudinal furrows and a
saucer-shaped limb.--Species 6. North Africa and Abyssinia. (Under
_Scabiosa_ L.) =Pterocephalus= Vaill.


ORDER CAMPANULATAE


SUBORDER CUCURBITINEAE


FAMILY 223. CUCURBITACEAE

Nearly always prostrate or climbing and tendril-bearing plants. Leaves
broad, usually with pedate nervation. Flowers unisexual or polygamous,
regular or nearly so, 5-merous. Calyx of united sepals. Stamens 4-5,
four of them united in pairs, rarely all united or all free. Anthers
usually opening outwards. Ovary inferior. Ovules inverted. Style
undivided or cleft. Fruit berry-like, but sometimes dehiscent, more
rarely dry and indehiscent. Seeds with a leathery or woody testa and a
straight embryo, without albumen.--Genera 42, species 270. (Plate 148.)

1. Filaments all united into a column. [Tribe SICYOIDEAE.] 2

Filaments free or united at the base or in pairs. 5

2. Anthers 2-3, horizontal, straight or slightly curved. Staminal
column very short. Male flowers in panicles, yellowish. Tendrils
2-cleft.--Species 1. East Africa. (Under _Gerrardanthus_ Harv.)
=Cyclantheropsis= Harms

Anthers 3-5, erect and much curved or twisted. 3

3. Flowers usually dioecious, the female with staminodes. Ovules
numerous, horizontal. Herbs. Tendrils simple or 2-cleft. Female
flowers solitary.--Species 30. Central and South Africa. Some species
have edible fruits or serve as ornamental or medicinal plants.
(_Cephalandra_ Schrad.) =Coccinia= Wight & Arn.

Flowers monoecious, the female without staminodes. Ovule 1, pendulous.
Tendrils 3-5-cleft. Male flowers in racemes or panicles. 4

4. Female flowers solitary or in pairs. Anthers free. Fruit large,
fleshy. Shrubs. Flowers whitish.--Species 1 (_S. edule_ Swartz).
Cultivated and sometimes naturalized in North Africa, the island of
St. Thomas, and the Mascarenes. The stem yields fibres, the roots and
fruits are edible and contain starch. =Sechium= P. Browne

Female flowers crowded in heads. Fruit small, with a leathery rind.
Herbs. Flowers greenish.--Species 1. Central Africa; also cultivated in
the Mascarene Islands. Yields starch and medicaments. =Sicyos= L.

5. Stamens 5, one of them sterile; filaments free; anthers more
or less cohering, 2-celled. Petals unequal, undivided. Ovary
incompletely 3-celled; ovules few in each cell, pendulous. Styles 3;
stigmas 2-lobed. Fruit 3-valved at the apex. Seeds winged. Shrubs.
Tendrils 2-cleft. Flowers dioecious, the male in racemes, the female
solitary.--Species 4. Central and South Africa. Used medicinally.
(Including _Atheranthera_ Mast.) [Tribe FEVILLEAE.] =Gerrardanthus=
Harv.

Stamens 4-5, united in pairs, hence apparently only 2-3, rarely stamens
5, free and all fertile. 6

6. Anther-cells straight or slightly curved, rarely shortly inflexed at
the base or apex. [Tribe MELOTHRIEAE.] 7

Anther-cells much curved or twisted, U-or S-shaped. [Tribe
CUCURBITEAE.] 19

7. Anther-cells (pollen-sacs) 4. Flowers large, rose-coloured, the male
without a rudimentary pistil. Calyx-segments toothed. Petals ciliate.
Ovary oblong, 3-5-celled. Ovules numerous. Style 1. Fruit very large.
Leaves compound. Tendrils 2-cleft.--Species 2. Tropics. They yield
edible oily seeds and medicaments. (Including _Ampelosicyos_ Thouars).
[Subtribe TELFAIRIINAE.] =Telfairia= Hook.

Anther-cells 2, rarely (_Melothria_) 4, but then flowers small, white
or yellow, the male with a rudimentary pistil, fruit small, and leaves
simple. 8

8. Disc at the base of the style distinctly developed. [Subtribe
MELOTHRIINAE.] 9

Disc at the base of the style indistinct or wanting. [Subtribe
ANGURIINAE.] 10

9. Calyx with a cylindrical tube and long, awl-shaped segments. Anthers
sessile, attached by the back. Male flowers solitary or 2-3 together,
female solitary.--Species 3. Central Africa. =Oreosyce= Hook. fil.

Calyx with a campanulate tube and short segments. Anthers attached
by the base.--Species 30. Tropical and South Africa. They yield
vegetables and medicaments, or serve as ornamental plants. (Including
_Mukia_ Arn., _Pilogyne_ Schrad., and _Zehneria_ Endl.) =Melothria= L.

10. Stamens inserted at the throat of the calyx. 11

Stamens inserted in the calyx-tube. Climbing or prostrate herbs. 12

11. Stem erect, woody, tree-like. Leaves more or less deeply divided.
Flowers monoecious, the male in panicles, without a pistil. Stigma 1,
3-lobed.--Species 1. Island of Socotra. =Dendrosicyos= Balf. fil.

Stem prostrate or climbing, herbaceous. Stigmas 3.--Species 30. Central
and South Africa, one species also cultivated in North Africa and the
Mascarene Islands. Some species yield edible fruits and medicaments, or
serve as ornamental plants. (Plate 148.) =Momordica= L.

12. Anther-cells inflexed at the apex. Connective broad. Flowers
small, yellow, monoecious, the male with a rudimentary pistil. Stigmas
3.--Species 2. West Africa. They yield edible fruits, oily seeds, and
medicaments. (Including _Cladosicyos_ Hook., under _Zehneria_ Endl.)
=Cucumeropsis= Naud.

Anther-cells straight, slightly curved, or inflexed at the base. 13

13. Calyx-tube long, cylindrical. Flowers dioecious, the male
in panicles, the female in racemes. Ovules numerous. Stigmas 2,
2-cleft.--Species 1. Madagascar. =Trochomeriopsis= Cogn.

Calyx-tube short, campanulate. Flowers nearly always monoecious. 14

14. Male flowers solitary or in fascicles or heads. Stamens with a
lengthened or broadened connective. 15

Male flowers in racemes. 16

15. Stigma 1, lobed. Ovules few in each ovary-cell. Staminodes of the
female flowers minute or wanting. Flowers small, yellowish-green.
Fruit opening by a lid.--Species 20. Tropical and South Africa.
=Corallocarpus= Welw.

Stigmas 3-5. Ovules numerous. Staminodes hair-like or
strap-shaped.--Species 30. Some of them (especially the cucumber, _C.
sativus_ L., and the melon, _C. Melo_ L.) yield edible fruits, oily
seeds, and medicaments, or serve as ornamental plants. =Cucumis= L.

16. Leaf-stalk with a small, fringed, stipule-like leaf at the base.
Calyx-segments awl-shaped. Male flowers without a rudimentary pistil,
female without staminodes. Connective not prolonged. Ovules 2-3 in each
cell.--Species 2. Central and South-west Africa. (_Ctenolepis_ Hook.)
=Blastania= Kotschy & Peyr.

Leaf-stalk without a stipule-like leaf at its base. 17

17. Stem short. Flowers appearing before the leaves, the male with a
rudimentary pistil, the female with linear staminodes. Calyx-segments
narrow. Connective narrow, not prolonged. Stigmas 3. Ovules numerous.
Leaves lobed.--Species 1. South Africa. =Pisosperma= Sond. & Harv.

Stem long. Flowers appearing with the leaves. 18

18. Staminodes in the female flowers thread-like, curved. Connective
not prolonged at the apex. Male flowers without a rudimentary
pistil. Stigmas 1-2. Ovules numerous. Calyx-segments broad. Fruit
bottle-shaped. Seeds globose. Leaves toothed or lobed.--Species 3.
South Africa to Ngamiland. =Toxanthera= Hook.

Staminodes in the female flowers small or wanting. Connective prolonged
at the apex, very rarely not prolonged, but then fruit oblong, without
a beak, and leaves deeply divided. Ovules usually few.--Species 15.
Central and South Africa. Some are used as ornamental or medicinal
plants. (Including _Coniandra_ Schrad. and _Rhynchocarpa_ Schrad.)
=Kedrostis= Medik.

19. (6.) Ovules solitary in each ovary-cell, erect. Style surrounded at
the base by a disc. Staminodes present in the female flowers. Anthers
cohering. Petals undivided.--Species 1. West Africa and Canary Islands.
(Including _Trianosperma_ Mart.) [Subtribe ABOBRINAE.] =Cayaponia=
Manso.

Ovules 2 or more in each ovary-cell or upon each placenta, horizontal,
rarely ovary 1-celled with 2 ovules, one erect, the other pendulous. 20

20. Petals slit at the edge, free or nearly so. Calyx-tube long. Stem
climbing. Leaves cleft or compound. Tendrils 2-3-cleft. Male flowers in
racemes. [Subtribe TRICHOSANTHINAE.] 21

Petals not slit. 22

21. Stamens combined into 3, projecting beyond the calyx-tube.
Male flowers with a rudimentary pistil. Fruit snake-shaped. Leaves
3-7-lobed. Tendrils 3-cleft. Flowers white.--Species 1. Cultivated
and naturalized in Madagascar and the neighbouring islands. Used as
a vegetable or as an ornamental or medicinal plant. “Snake-gourd.”
=Trichosanthes= L.

Stamens 5, free, seated in the calyx-tube. Male flowers without a
rudimentary pistil. Fruit pear-shaped. Leaves ternately compound.
Tendrils 2-cleft.--Species 1. Madagascar. =Delognaea= Cogn.

22. Corolla distinctly campanulate, lobed or cleft. Ovules numerous.
Flowers large or medium-sized, the male without a rudimentary pistil.
Leaves entire, toothed, or lobed. [Subtribe CUCURBITINAE.] 23

Corolla more or less rotate. [Subtribe CUCUMERINAE.] 26

23. Calyx-segments pinnately dissected. Female flowers without
staminodes. Style long, inserted on the disc. Stigmas 3, 3-5-lobed.
Fruit dry. Tendrils simple.--Species 4. Tropics. (_Raphidiocystis_
Hook.) =Rhaphidiocystis= Hook.

Calyx-segments undivided. Female flowers provided with staminodes. 24

24. Flowers monoecious. Style short and thick. Stigmas 3-5, 2-lobed.
Tendrils 2-or more-cleft.--Species 4. Cultivated and sometimes
naturalized. They yield edible fruits, oil, and medicaments, and serve
as ornamental plants. “Pumpkin.” =Cucurbita= L.

Flowers dioecious. Style long. Stigma 1, 3-lobed or 3-partite. Tendrils
simple or 2-cleft. 25

25. Anthers cohering. Staminodes of the female flowers from subulate to
oblong. Fruit small. (See 3.) =Coccinia= Wight & Arn.

Anthers free. Staminodes of the female flowers conical or globose.
Fruit rather large.--Species 6. Central Africa. (Including
_Staphylosyce_ Hook.) =Physedra= Hook.

26. (22.) Calyx-tube of the male flowers long, cylinder-or
funnel-shaped. 27

Calyx-tube of the male flowers short, top-or bell-shaped. 32

27. Anthers connate. Female flowers without Staminodes. Flowers large,
white or yellow. 28

Anthers free or loosely cohering. Female flowers provided with
staminodes. 29

28. Flowers monoecious. Anthers folded lengthwise. Ovary oblong.
Leaf-stalk without glands at the apex.--Species 20. Tropical and South
Africa. (_Peponia_ Naud.) =Peponium= Naud.

Flowers dioecious. Anthers twisted transversely. Ovary
globose.--Species 9. Tropics. Used medicinally. =Adenopus= Benth.

29. Flowers small or medium-sized, yellow or red. Anthers cohering.
Rudimentary pistil of the male flowers conical. Stigma 1, 3-lobed.
Seeds flattened. Root tuberous.--Species 15. Tropical and South Africa.
Some species have edible roots also used in medicine. (Including
_Heterosicyos_ Welw.) =Trochomeria= Hook.

Flowers large. Rudimentary pistil of the male flowers gland-like or
wanting. Stigmas 3. Climbing herbs. 30

30. Flowers monoecious, white, solitary. Style very short. Stigmas
2-lobed. Fruit with a woody rind. Seeds flattened. Leaves undivided;
stalk with 2 glands at the apex. Tendrils 2-cleft.--Species 1 (_L.
vulgaris_ Ser., bottle-gourd). Tropics; also cultivated and naturalized
in extratropical countries. It yields edible fruits, also used for
making bottles and other utensils, and serves as an ornamental and
medicinal plant. =Lagenaria= Ser.

Flowers dioecious. Tendrils simple. 31

31. Male flowers in racemes. Leaves undivided.--Species 5. West Africa.
=Cogniauxia= Baill.

Male flowers solitary or in clusters. Corolla yellow. Stamens with a
broad connective. Staminodes bearded at the base. Stigmas heart-shaped.
Fruit fleshy. Seeds nearly globose. Leaves lobed; stalk without
glands.--Species 4. Central Africa. (_Euryandra_ Hook.) =Eureiandra=
Hook.

32. (26.) Anthers connate. Flowers dioecious, the male in clusters and
without a rudimentary pistil, the female without staminodes. Leaves
undivided. 33

Anthers free or loosely cohering; in the latter case flowers
monoecious. 34

33. Stem herbaceous, without tendrils. Leaves linear. Anthers with a
scale at the base.--Species 1. Abyssinia. =Eulenburgia= Pax

Stem woody, climbing, bearing tendrils. Leaves broad.--Species 3. West
Africa. They yield oily seeds. =Dimorphochlamys= Hook.

34. Anthers cohering; cells horse-shoe-shaped. Flowers monoecious, the
male in umbels and with a rudimentary pistil, the female solitary and
without staminodes. Stigma subcapitate. Herbs. Leaves lobed, with a
stipule-like leaf at the base. Tendrils simple. Flowers white. Fruit
small.--Species 1. West Africa. (Under _Bryonia_ L.) =Dactyliandra=
Hook. fil.

Anthers free, at least when fully developed. 35

35. Stamens inserted at the throat of the calyx. 36

Stamens inserted in the tube of the calyx. 39

36. Calyx without scales at the base. Flowers dioecious, yellow or
green, the male solitary or in clusters, the female solitary, with
5 staminodes. Ovary globose. Placentas and stigmas 5. Fruits large.
Leafless, nearly erect, spiny shrubs.--Species 1. German South-west
Africa and Angola. Yields edible fruits and seeds and medicaments.
=Acanthosicyos= Welw.

Calyx with 2-3 scales at the base. Ovary bottle-shaped. Placentas and
stigmas 1-3. Climbing or prostrate herbs. 37

37. Ovules 2. Stigma 1, capitate. Flowers large, yellow,
monoecious, the male 2-3 together at the base of the leaf-blade,
without a rudimentary pistil, the female solitary or in pairs,
without staminodes. Fruits small. Leaves slightly lobed. Tendrils
simple.--Species 3. Central Africa. (_Raphanocarpus_ Hook.)
=Rhaphanocarpus= Hook.

Ovules 3 or more. Stigmas 3. 38

38. Ovules few. Fruit constricted between the seeds.--Species 1. East
Africa. (_Raphanistrocarpus_ Baill.) =Rhaphanistrocarpus= Baill.

Ovules numerous. (See 11.) =Momordica= L.

39. Male flowers in racemes. 40

Male flowers solitary or in clusters, yellow. 43

40. Female flowers in racemes or clusters, small. Ovules few. Male
flowers without a rudimentary pistil. Fruit more or less globular.
Tendrils simple.--Species 4. North Africa. Poisonous and used
medicinally. =Bryonia= L.

Female flowers solitary. Ovules numerous. 41

41. Flowers dioecious large, white, the male without a rudimentary
pistil. Stigma 1, 3-lobed. Fruit large, globose. Leafstalk with two
glands at the apex. Tendrils 2-cleft, rarely simple.--Species 1.
Tropical and South Africa. =Sphaerosicyos= Hook.

Flowers monoecious. Stigmas 3, 2-lobed. Leaf-stalk without glands. 42

42. Tendrils cleft. Leaves lobed. Fruit dry, opening by a lid.--Species
7. Tropical and South Africa; one species also cultivated in North
Africa. They are used as vegetables and medicinal plants; some have
edible, others poisonous fruits; the fibres of the fruit are employed
for making sponges, hats, and various utensils; the seeds are oily.
=Luffa= L.

Tendrils absent. Leaves undivided. Flowers yellow, the male without
a rudimentary pistil. Fruit fleshy, ejecting the seeds when
ripe.--Species 1. North Africa. A poisonous and medicinal plant.
“Squirting cucumber.” =Ecballium= A. Rich.

43. Male flowers without a rudimentary pistil. Ovules few.
Stem climbing. Tendrils two-cleft. Flowers in clusters, small,
yellowish-green, monoecious. Fruit small, globular.--Species 1.
Tropics. Used as an ornamental and medicinal plant. =Bryonopsis= Arn.

Male flowers with a rudimentary pistil. Ovules numerous. 44

44. Connective of the stamens with a 2-cleft appendage at the apex.
Tendrils simple, rarely wanting. (See 15.) =Cucumis= L.

Connective of the stamens not prolonged at the apex. Tendrils
2-3-cleft. Stem prostrate. Leaves lobed or divided. Flowers large,
monoecious. 45

45. Calyx-segments leaf-like, serrate, recurved. Flowers
solitary.--Species 1 (_B. hispida_ Cogn.). Cultivated in various
regions. The fruits are eaten and used in medicine. =Benincasa= Savi.

Calyx-segments awl-shaped, entire.--Species 4. They yield edible fruits
(chiefly from _C. vulgaris_ Neck., water-melon), edible oily seeds, and
medicaments; some are poisonous. (_Colocynthis_ L.) =Citrullus= Neck.


SUBORDER CAMPANULINEAE


FAMILY 224. CAMPANULACEAE

Leaves entire toothed or lobed, without stipules. Petals usually
united below. Stamens as many as the petals. Anthers turned inwards.
Ovary inferior or half-inferior, rarely (_Lightfootia_) superior,
2-10-celled, rarely (_Merciera_) 1-celled. Ovules inverted, numerous
and axile, rarely few and apical or basal. Style simple. Fruit a
capsule, rarely a nut or (_Canarina_) a berry. Seeds with fleshy
albumen; embryo straight.--Genera 26, species 400. (Including
_LOBELIACEAE_ and _SPHENOCLEACEAE_.) (Plate 149.)

1. Anthers connate. Flowers more or less irregular, solitary or in
racemes or panicles. [Subfamily =LOBELIOIDEAE=.] 2

Anthers free, rarely (_Jasione_) cohering at the base, but then flowers
regular and in heads. 7

2. Petals free. Flowers nearly regular, small, greenish-yellow, in
many-flowered terminal and lateral racemes.--Species 2. Madagascar.
=Dialypetalum= Benth.

Petals united below. 3

3. Corolla-tube slit down to the base or nearly so, at least on one
side. Stamens free from the corolla or nearly so. 4

Corolla-tube not or but shortly slit. 6

4. Fruit linear. All anthers hairy at the apex.--Species 1. South
Africa. (Under _Lobelia_ L.) =Grammatotheca= Presl

Fruit roundish. 5

5. Anthers and stigmas ripe at the same time. All anthers hairy at the
apex. Odd sepal in front.--Species 12. South and East Africa and Comoro
Islands. Some are used as ornamental plants. (Including _Dobrowskya_
Presl and _Parastranthus_ Don, under _Lobelia_ L.) =Monopsis= Salisb.

Anthers ripe before the stigmas. Odd sepal usually behind.--Species
120. Southern and tropical Africa, Madeira, and Azores. Some are
poisonous or are used as ornamental or medicinal plants. (Including
_Isolobus_ A. DC. and _Metzleria_ Presl) =Lobelia= L.

6. Filaments adnate to the corolla on one side to beyond the middle.
Corolla white.--Species 1. Naturalized in the Island of Réunion. A
poisonous and medicinal plant. =Isotoma= Lindl.

Filaments free from the corolla or shortly adnate to it. Corolla
blue or white.--Species 10. South and North-west Africa. (Including
_Enchysia_ Presl) =Laurentia= Neck.

7. (1.) Flowers distinctly irregular. Ovary 2-celled. Fruit opening
loculicidally and septicidally.--Species 30. South and Central Africa.
Several species have edible tubers. [Subfamily =CYPHIOIDEAE=.] =Cyphia=
Berg

Flowers regular or nearly so. [Subfamily =CAMPANULOIDEAE=.] 8

8. Corolla imbricate in the bud. Style very short, without collecting
hairs. Ovary 2-celled; placentas thick, suspended from the top of the
partition. Fruit opening by a lid. Flowers in spikes, small, greenish
or yellowish.--Species 1. Tropics and Egypt. [Tribe SPHENOCLEEAE.]
=Sphenoclea= Gaertn.

Corolla valvate in the bud. Style with hairs or viscid glands for
collecting the pollen. [Tribe CAMPANULEAE.] 9

9. Carpels 5, as many as the sepals or stamens, and alternating with
them. 10

Carpels as many as the sepals or stamens, but opposite to them, or
fewer. 11

10. Corolla rotate or broadly campanulate, deeply cleft, yellow or
red. Filaments broadened at the base. Fruit opening laterally by many
transverse slits. Large herbs or undershrubs. Leaves elliptical.
Flowers large, in panicles.--Species 2. Madeira. Used as ornamental
plants. =Musschia= Dumort.

Corolla tubular or narrowly campanulate. Filaments not broadened. Fruit
opening loculicidally by 5 apical valves. Seeds few. Small herbs.
Leaves linear. Flowers small, solitary or in clusters.--Species 4.
South Africa. =Microcodon= A. DC.

11. Filaments adnate to the corolla halfway or higher up. Fruit opening
by an apical lid. 12

Filaments free from the corolla or nearly so. 13

12. Ovules 2 in each ovary-cell, suspended from the top of the cell.
Flowers blue, in raceme-or panicle-like cymose inflorescences. Leaves
linear. Herbs or undershrubs. =Siphocodon= Turcz.

Ovules many in each cell, attached to the inner angle. Flowers red, in
heads. Leaves ovate. Shrubs.--Species 1. South Africa. =Rhigiophyllum=
Hochst.

13. Anthers cohering at the base. Petals free or nearly so. Ovary
2-celled. Fruit opening loculicidally at the top. Flowers in heads
surrounded by an involucre.--Species 4. North Africa. =Jasione= L.

Anthers free. 14

14. Ovules 4, basal. Ovary 1-celled, sometimes incompletely 2-celled.
Corolla tubular-funnel-shaped. Fruit dry, indehiscent, 1-, rarely
2-4-seeded. Undershrubs. Flowers solitary, axillary.--Species 4. South
Africa. =Merciera= A. DC.

Ovules axile, usually numerous. Ovary 2-10-celled. 15

15. Fruit a roundish berry. Flowers solitary, terminal, large, nearly
always 6-merous. Corolla bell-shaped, yellow or red. Filaments
broadened at the base. Leaves opposite, the lower whorled.--Species 3.
East Africa and Canary Islands. They yield edible roots and fruits and
serve as ornamental plants. =Canarina= L.

Fruit a capsule, rarely a nut. Flowers usually 5-merous. 16

16. Fruit narrow, opening by an apical lid and sometimes also by
lateral slits, more rarely remaining closed. Ovary 2-celled. 17

Fruit opening by apical valves or by lateral valves, slits, or pores. 18

17. Flowers in terminal heads. Corolla tubular. Ovary ovoid.--Species
1. South Africa. (_Leptocodon_ Sond.) =Treichelia= Vatke

Flowers terminal and solitary, or in lateral glomerules. Ovary
oblong.--Species 15. South Africa. Some are used as ornamental plants.
=Roëlla= L.

18. Fruit opening by lateral, but sometimes nearly apical valves,
slits, or pores. 19

Fruit opening loculicidally at the apex, usually broad. 22

19. Fruit narrow, opening by pores or slits. 20

Fruit broad, opening by valves. 21

20. Fruit opening by long slits. Ovary 2-celled. Corolla funnel-shaped
or narrowly bell-shaped.--Species 20. South Africa. =Prismatocarpus=
L’Hér.

Fruit opening by short slits or pores. Ovary 3-celled. Corolla
wheel-shaped or broadly bell-shaped.--Species 4. North Africa.
They serve as ornamental plants; the root is edible. “Venus’s
looking-glass.” =Specularia= Heist.

21. Corolla tubular. Ovary 2-3-celled. Style projecting far beyond the
corolla. Flowers in panicles.--Species 1. North-west Africa. Used as an
ornamental plant; the root is edible. =Trachelium= L.

Corolla bell-or funnel-shaped. Ovary 3-5-celled. Style not or slightly
projecting beyond the corolla.--Species 25. North Africa and northern
Central Africa. Several species are used as vegetables or as medicinal
or ornamental plants. =Campanula= L.

22. Stigma-lobes 2-10, narrow. 23

Stigma-lobes 2-3, broad, sometimes very small. 24

23. Petals free or nearly so, narrow.--Species 50. Southern and
tropical Africa. (Plate 149.) =Lightfootia= L’Hér.

Petals obviously united below, or broad.--Species 80. Some of them
serve as ornamental plants. (Including _Cervicina_ Del.) =Wahlenbergia=
Schrad.

24. Petals free or nearly so, narrow, blue. Herbs.--Species 6. Central
and South-west Africa. =Cephalostigma= A. DC.

Petals obviously united below. 25

25. Corolla bell-shaped, deeply cleft, yellow. Style equalling the
corolla. Fruit opening at the top and laterally. Seeds numerous. Stem
woody. Species 1. Mascarene Islands. (Under _Wahlenbergia_ Schrad.)
=Heterochaenia= A. DC.

Corolla narrowly funnel-shaped, shortly lobed. Style much exceeding
the corolla. Fruit opening at the top only. Seeds about ten. Stem
herbaceous.--Species 1. Morocco. (Under _Trachelium_ L.) =Feeria= Buser


FAMILY 225. GOODENIACEAE

Shrubs or trees. Juice not milky. Leaves alternate, undivided, without
stipules. Flowers in axillary cymes, irregular, hermaphrodite. Calyx
truncate or 5-toothed. Corolla 5-lobed, slit open behind, with folded
aestivation. Stamens 5, alternating with the corolla-lobes, free from
the corolla. Anthers free, turned inwards. Ovary inferior, 2-celled.
Ovules solitary in each cell, erect. Style simple. Stigma capitate,
surrounded by a fringed cup. Fruit a drupe. Seeds with fleshy albumen;
embryo straight.

Genus 1, species 2. Tropical and South Africa. They yield wood for
carpenters’ work, pith used in the manufacture of paper, vegetables,
and medicaments. =Scaevola= L.


FAMILY 226. COMPOSITAE

Leaves simple and exstipulate, but sometimes dissected or provided
with stipule-like auricles. Flowers seated upon a dilated or elevated
receptacle and arranged in sometimes spike-like or one-flowered
heads which are surrounded by an involucre. Heads either containing
only hermaphrodite flowers, several of which are sometimes sterile
(male), or consisting of hermaphrodite or male central (disc-) flowers
and female or neuter marginal (ray-) flowers, more rarely heads
unisexual or reduced to a single flower. Calyx-limb (pappus) formed
of sometimes connate scales or hairs, fully developed only in fruit,
or wanting. Corolla of united petals, in the hermaphrodite and male
flowers 3-5-lobed with valvate aestivation, regular (tube-, funnel-,
or bell-shaped) or 2-lipped or 1-lipped (strap-shaped), in the female
flowers sometimes wanting. Stamens as many as the corolla-lobes and
alternate with them, inserted in the corolla-tube. Anthers connate,
rarely free, opening inwards by

[Illustration: CAMPANULACEAE.

_FLOW. PL. AFR._

_Pl. 149._

J. Fleischmann del.

Lightfootia subulata L’Hér.

_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Flower cut lengthwise. _C_ Fruit. _D_ Seed.]

[Illustration: COMPOSITAE.

_FLOW. PL. AFR._

_Pl. 150._

J. Fleischmann del.

Vernonia Baumii O. Hoffm.

_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Flower. _C_ Flower cut lengthwise and
pappus-bristle. _D_ Anther from front and back.] two longitudinal
slits. Ovary inferior, 1-celled. Ovule 1, erect, inverted. Style of
the fertile hermaphrodite flowers cleft into two branches, which bear
stigmatic papillae on the inner face or the margins, and hairs on
the outer face, on both sides, or at the top; style of the sterile
flowers usually entire. Fruit indehiscent, mostly dry. Seed solitary,
with a thin coat usually adnate to the pericarp, exalbuminous.
Embryo straight; radicle short, inferior.--Genera 327, species 4200.
(Including _AMBROSIACEAE_.) (Plate 150.)

1. Corolla of all flowers strap-shaped (ligulate). Juice milky. [Tribe
CICHORIEAE.] 2

Corolla of the hermaphrodite and male flowers not strap-shaped. Juice
not milky. 31

2. Scales on the receptacle enclosing the fruits. Thistle-like
herbs.--Species 3. North Africa and northern East Africa. Used as
vegetables and in medicine. [Subtribe SCOLYMINAE.] =Scolymus= L.

Scales on the receptacle not enclosing the fruits or wanting. Not
thistle-like plants. 3

3. Pappus of all or of the inner fruits consisting of feathery bristles
which are sometimes broadened at the base or surrounded by simple
bristles or by a small crown. [Subtribe LEONTODONTINAE.] 4

Pappus consisting of simple, smooth or rough, in some cases shortly
ciliate bristles, or of such bristles and scales, or only of scales
sometimes ending in a not feathery, in some cases shortly ciliate awn,
or of scales united into a small crown, or wanting altogether. 10

4. Pappus-bristles, at least on the inner fruits, with interwoven
pinnae. Receptacle without scales. 5

Pappus-bristles with not interwoven pinnae, in 1 or 2 rows. Flowers
yellow. 7

5. Pappus-bristles and involucral bracts in one row. Flower-heads
terminal, solitary, large or rather large. Leaves linear.--Species 3.
North Africa; one of the species also naturalized in St. Helena. Used
as vegetables or in medicine. “Salsify.” (Including _Geropogon_ L.)
=Tragopogon= L.

Pappus-bristles and involucral bracts in several rows. 6

6. Fruits obliquely truncate at the top; hence pappus lateral.
Flower-heads terminal, solitary; flowers yellow. Leaves
radical.--Species 1. North-west Africa (Algeria) =Tourneuxia= Coss.

Fruits straight at the top.--Species 7. North and Central Africa; one
species only cultivated. They yield edible roots, food for silkworms,
and medicaments. (Including _Podospermum_ DC.) =Scorzonera= L.

7. Receptacle with scales between the flowers. Involucral bracts
in several rows.--Species 6. North Africa; two of the species also
naturalized in South Africa, St. Helena, and the Mascarenes. Used in
medicine. (Including _Seriola_ L.) =Hypochoeris= L.

Receptacle without scales. 8

8. Involucral bracts in one row. Fruits with a hollow beak.
Pappus-bristles in two rows. Flower-heads solitary.--Species 2.
North Africa and Cape Verde Islands; naturalized in South Africa.
=Urospermum= Scop.

Involucral bracts in several rows. 9

9. Leaves all radical. Stem simple or scantily branched. Pappus